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Hollywood's DRM Agenda Moving Forward
risingphoenix writes "The New York Times has a story about the progress Hollywood has made putting Digtal Rights Management in the marketplace. The story focuses on what technology is currently in place; what the next moves, technically and legally, are for the industry and how consumers are being affected by Hollywoods power grab."
So what, Hollywood makes shit anyway. Turn off your TV, stop the flow of bullshit that will only numb your brain and not entertain you. Learn something new, build something, tell someone you love them, evolve from the dumb mass-market consumer that we are.
What time is it/will be over there? Check with my iPhone app!
made me wonder what they're actually offering us in exchange for what's being taken away - that is basically, easy to tape television and easy to copy movies. Is the picture going to get much better on DVDs? Will large, widescreen/wall TVs get cheaper? Will there a be a point where first run movies are released simultaneously in theaters and Best Buy? Or submitted directly to our homes via a set top box for 7 bucks (for each person in the room, of course)? Will Jack Valenti live to be an unholy 300 years old? Just thinking.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: If I can watch it, I can capture it and digitize it. After that I can encode it any way I want.
They cannot escape from this undeniable truth. Real mass piracy will never go away for this reason. This DRM technology only serves to take away consumers fair use and increases corporations control.
Either way, this won't ever become mainstream. People will demand the rights to use their media any way they want to. That means being able to make and burn mp3s for portable players in their car etc. As soon as people figure this out the hardware simply won't sell.
Why else do you think macrovision disabled region free DVD players out sell normal players?
- PS. This is what part of the alphabet would look like if Q and R where eliminated.
It's easy to see what they're trying. They're going to come up with a draconian, unworkable model that everyone hates. Then they back off to something that we (that being the technically savvy users) still find offensive but that the normal schmoe thinks is a good deal.
After the media companies spin it into Hollywood backing off because they're good Americans and want people to have the right to watch TV (just like it says in the Constitution) the average guy is going to say "Hey, this is a reasonable tradeoff to get The Sopranos in high definition goodness! I sure am glad they didn't stick with that first plan. It would have been awful! Sure, I can't record it, but that would be piracy!"
Time and again, the informed people screwed by the ignorant ones. Same story here.
Curmudgeon Gamer: Not happy
Hollywood and the music labels DO have a piracy problem and it IS growing. Napster, CD burners, and the like simply didn't exist a few years ago. Moreover, we're going in circles, this same essential battle has been fought before, over cassette tapes andf DAT (remember that? :) and the VCR. It's just a question of degree.
My question is that if you object to DRM because of the way its is done, what should be done? Please don't say "lower prices" because that's just a rationalization that they're somehow forcing pirates to do it. A boycott is a well-proven means of protext.
If you're against intellectual property in general, just skip this, because the industry is never going to work for free, nor accept your suggestion, nor IMHO should they. Folks who create intangibles are as entitled to compensation as people who build bridges.
In an age when it is orders of magnitude easier to copy, what should the rights holders do to protect their work? Think positive! Frankly, I don't know.
The biggest problem with all these DRM schemes is that the restrictions are pointlessly complex so the consumer can't understand them. The other closely connected problem is not telling the customer about them.
It will be interesting to see whether stopping people from recording pay per view increases viewership or as I expect causes people not to pay the already exhorbitant fees.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
Entertainment could end up being another utility like water or power. Screw that - between income tax and sales tax I'm already losing over half my income a year, if everything we do requires constant usage fees, we end up as a kind of vassal caste for these people.
"If we don't, our future is bleak."
:) I have rented 3 DVDs in two weeks...
They are so full of shit. I am too lazy on a Sunday morning to look for the article but they made tons more money this year than last. I download movies like fucking crazy (mostly DVD rips). But just last week (in a 7 day time span) I went to see three movies (Gangs of NY, LOTR, and Harry Potter 2). Two of those movies were w/another person (Gangs of NY would not be appreciated by my gf
Now. Sure. I have probably 100 DVD rips. But that doesn't mean that they have lost anymore money on me than they would have on anyone else.
If I didn't download them, I wouldn't have watched it at all. No money lost here.
They made a fortune on me in the past two weeks... Get over it Hollywood. When your fucking "stars" quit parading around in their jewels, fancy cars bought for each other, and see through dresses and start showing up to $1 theatres dressed in rags and dragging four children along that you had to pull from the nearest dumpster after they ate for the latest hollywood premiere, don't come crying to me.
Now you've done it, they are going to hunt you down with some new flashy, expensive, and dubiously constitutional surveillance system, and attack you for distributing circumvention devices.
(I wish this was completely joking...)
-PAPPP
Its the slow progression into a world where *all* information is controlled, and every citizen is monitored for what content they consume.
This is just one more small step towards that ultimate goal.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
What i do is that i go to the CD store and pick up the CD, then look like im gonna purchase it until suddenly i realice that its protected and i wont be able to play it on my computer (i of course make sure the staff know this)
Its also worth to note that the cheapest new CD's from that company cost $30 going up too $37,5. and you thought your CD's were expensive.
I admit thats not enaugh, without people actually mailing them in the masses protesting and not buying their products nothing will get better, and there simply aren't enaugh of us who actually care about these things. How many people actually know or care about DRM? 10% maybe and how many of those are willing to make a change?
The sad truth is that DRM wont go away unless we start actively protesting it.
Stupid job ads, weird spam, occasional insight at
That evil box sitting on your TV and "media consolidation" are the keys to making every place as unserved by culture as North West Alaska in 1910. Media consolidation assures the current broadcasters that no on else will be able to provide content. MP3.com will die sooner or later under it's lawsuit loads, and all the others that would do likewise know better than to throw good money after bad. That evil box on your TV will makes sure no one else can create content that your TV will play. An equivalent box in the local movie theater already prescribes what content will apear on the screen and when - without a physical copy ever entering the building. Wanna try to get your movie distributed in a theater like that? Good luck trying to own the satilite, and escaping the FBI if you try. The theater owner can't help you even if they wanted to.
The only solution is to create a peer maintained independent wireless network. All the wires are owned by people who think they can screw you all day long.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
...two of them, so you can record what you want). The Supreme Court settled that issue long ago and there's not a thing these guys can do about that.
Instead, they are actively trying to move people to DVD and "digital" because they think it's a different medium and they can do to digital what they'd loved to have done to the VCR. Don't fall into their trap. You want a DVD machine? Fine, buy it. But also buy at least one VCR while you're at it (I have two that perform very well.) They figure if everyone moves to digital and they are successful in their bids they'll wind up where they wanted to wind up when they sued to have the recording VCR made illegal.
I'm guessing this issue will eventually move back to the Supremos again, and that these guys will lose again--but it's not a sure thing. They've already lost with the VCR, however. Just something to think about.
What really kills me are these ads on TV for new release DVDs that say "own it today!" They want your money, but their idea of own is much different than mine.With DRM, the ads really mean license under their restrictive terms.
Could they be sued for truth in advertising?
Pay per use is untenable in a competitive market. Just look at cell phone minutes which are rapidly moving toward an (almost) unlimited use model.
Why is pay-per-use untenable in a competitive market? People do not like it, so it suppresses demand for the pay-per-use service. In a competitive market where suppliers are trying to meet and create demand, this generates an opportunity to undercut the pay-per-use provider. Suppliers almost always emerge who will take that competitive opportunity.
Pay-per-use does however frequently does make sense in a non-competitive or ologopolistic environment where consumers must purchase the service. This situation existed for some time with hub-and-spoke in the airline industry. The commodity being metered was seat miles purchased at particular times. Here the supplier was able to charge to the hilt for demand that was inelastic (i.e., people have to pay because they have no other option).
Well, does inelastic demand like this exist for entertainment? Likely not. As we have seen with the rise of minor league baseball, web journalism, independent films, cd sales, and even blogs, people can find quick substitutes for the over-charged items.
I don't think regulatory relief will be quick (look at microsoft). We'll have to rely on the hacker community and all of the competitors who are seeking to create demand.
We as consumers are being backed into a corner not of our own making. We're faced with what seems to be the distasteful choice of accepting what we're being force fed or to simply not eat. However, we do not have to accept this false dilemma. We have a third choice. That choice is to purchace goods and services "that strictly meet our needs", not theirs. This is a simple but powerful idea. Marketers always try to tell us what we want because they know best. They "create demand" by manipulating our feelings even though there may be no demand at all. But we can destroy this illusion by asserting our own will and by making the third choice.
May be OT:
From the article
Already, people are finding unfamiliar constraints on how they can consume familiar media: listen to music on your PC, but do not try to copy it to your MP3 player; watch a movie in your home as often as you want for 24 hours -- because after that it will evaporate into the ether; marvel at your plasma-screen TV, but be prepared for your picture quality to be diminished if you do not have the latest model with anti-piracy equipment.
With crap like this I am glad GNU/Linux distros are still considered not ready for the desktop. Mr. Valenti might try to upgrade us (or outlaw us)!
If thou see a fair woman pay court to her, for thus thou wilt obtain love
WTF dude. Not only are you giving them money to use to take away from computers, you're parroting that tired old line that "I wouldn't have bought/seen them anyway" to justify stealing. If you want to stop this, then stop giving them money so they can't implement these things, and also don't copy things illegally since you're just giving them reasons to take away computers.
Nah. Carry on paying for movies to the same extent you would anyway. Carry on copying movies to the same extent you would anyway. They don't stand a chance at actually succeeding in their machinations, but it's amusing to watch.
What's the best they've managed so far?
"Hmmm it's illegal for people to copy these big files that we create and have initial control of, but people copy them anyway! How can we stop them?"
"I know, let's make it illegal for them to copy and distribute the files that let them crack the incription, you know, the ones we don't create and have no control over. There's no way they'll be able to share files like that when it's illegal!"
Now that's entertainment worth paying them for.
Of course these business models can be as irritating, restrictive, and coercive as all get out.
I can't help but notice that the entertainment industry (including sports), is all about getting more and more money for giving you essentially the same thing. Commodities of all other types become cheaper to purchase, higher in quality, and packed with more functionality. The reason the entertainment industry gets away with this outrageous behavior (other than their huge lobbying efforts in congress) is that by definition entertainment is perceived of as a luxury. If manufacturers of the necessities of life treated consumers this way they would be hauled before congress, and made to explain themselves.
Cable companies tend to be local monopolies and act accordingly. Our local cable is structured such that you can get a 10 dollar basic cable rate, but this only gives you the same channels you can get with a rabbit ear antenna, and at not much higher quality, the next "tier" is over 4 times more expensive. Throwing in a load of crap you probably don't want and making the next bump up to HBO and Showtime seem much more sensible (hell it's only 10 dollars more...). Do you know of any other products that go from entry level to more than 4x plus luxury model with no other steps between? Even with the full service, some ad-supported channels are scrambled. I have paid for "The Sci-Fi" channel, but I can't set my VCR to tape it directly, I have to be sure and leave the Sci-Fi channel on, and record it from my cable box (there is some user unfriendly way to program your cable box for a timed recording, so now you have two things to program, and multiple points of failure possible).
Of course the more money the entertainment industry can make, the more money that can be collected in taxes. Thus the government has the same addiction to increasing entertainment revenues, the same way they are now addicted to increasing gambling and lotto revenues, whether their citizenry spending a disproportionate percentage their income on these things is a good thing or not.
Worst of all is the disdain the industry has for its customers. We have all seen the FBI warning at the beginning of a VCR tape, and accordingly fast-forwarded through. Now comes DVD, and you must sit patently sit through this thing every time (which has been timed for slow readers), and if you try to skip forward, I think in some cases it resets the time out clock. Of late I also get to sit through this warning in two other languages as well. Some DVDs even force you sit through commercials for related projects. I bought this DVD, I own it, it shouldn't lock me out of controlling my DVD player. It also shouldn't surreptitiously put software on my computer if I choose to view it there, nor coerce me into installing special software to view. Guess what, that improved DVD viewer they offer you is likely to break your sound drivers, and if it's your mom or dad, being good citizens by following the DVD instructions, well then they are just screwed, since the DVD distributors really don't have any legitimate reason to be mucking around with your computer's settings, and now every thing is horribly broken (I still have trouble explaining to my dad why the play button on the DVD remote won't play the DVD, and he has to "select" play from the entry screen with the select button).
So now we want to give the over the air broadcasters the power to be just as manipulative and coercive as cable and DVD? Ironic that I took my digital rights for granted until everyone suddenly wants to manage them for me.
Letter To Iran
"That's what digital rights management does: it enables business models."
so does slavery.
Unfortunately the entertainment industry's DRM drive is as much about driving out competitors as it is about protecting their ip.
One will expect that the next DRM enabled devices will be made in a way that would allow fewer and fewer companies to create content for them. And if those devices become popular, than independant producers will have to beg one of the big companies to release their movies/music for them.
Not a good prospect.
Because of the situation with DRM, and the custom players some DVDs try to install on your machine, I am much more inclined to download a DIVX rip of a DVD and keep it on my spare hard drive.
If the industry made thier products easier to use, and didn't markup the prices at such an obscene amount, I'd actually buy something. AFAIK, tapes are about 8 bucks around here, CDs are 18. Why am I paying 10 dollars more for something that costs less to manufacture as compared to the tape?
Oh wait, I'm not. =)
So, after looking at this information, why does the recording industry insist on spending so much time and money on a protection scheme that will do little to stop pirates from getting the data, and will make it HARDER for people like me to listen to thier CDs?
"Player software would detect the signature, and _WARN_ if it is not present. "
This will not work.
P2P users know they are pirating movies, its just too easy compared to the legal means to get the movie that way.
The effort cost and delay is P2P is outweight by the effort cost and delay in buying a DVD through the post.
These schemes are called 'fingerprinting' these days.
The alternative for fingerprinting is to individually fingerprint the digital copy when its delivered. So the movie you just bought & downloaded on the internet would say "I was sold as transaction 294747592". That number would point back to you if pirated.
But it doesn't work if you give people a way of detecting the fingerprint.
They will attempt to remove it, but will only know if they are successful if you also give them a tool to detect the fingerprint.
If you keep the tool in the hands of law enforcement, then even if they successfully break the fingerprint, you can just change the fingerprinting method and catch them next time.
The pirate can never really be sure if the copy he's pirating doesn't point to him.