Slashdot Mirror
Real DRM
Cinematique writes "C|Net is reporting that RealNetworks has released a format-independent Digital Rights Management software called Helix DRM. Real states that MP3, AAC, and even OGG can now be released with a DRM wrapper. And this is groundbreaking how? More importantly, do they expect content producers and consumers alike to really adopt this?"
Actually, I don't know why the parent got modded down.
The poster is actually correct. Real has been ticking off everyone I know for quite some time now (go ahead - try and find the free player on their site - it's hard!). The player rarely works, and when it does, it stutters. Firewalls? Forget about it...
For one of the premire streaming media tools of the past (and the only one for linux back then), they have really gone down hill.
As much as I would love to support them, it is becoming harder and harder. For them to put DRM restrictions on their player, well, that kind of put them over the edge for me...
"That this can support MP3 and MPEG-4 is significant because up until now you haven't seen adoption of these formats by major content providers because they lacked digital rights management,"
It's not significant in the slightest. The reason MP3 and such formats are popular is because they're open. Just because Real are adopting open standards and making them closed doesn't mean that consumers will benefit from it.
However, the PHBs will love it, because it contains both MP3 (popular with consumers, but see above) and DRM (popular with the accounts department).
(I know that MP3 isn't totally open as there are patent issues, but I think my point remains.)
Like car accidents, most hardware problems are due to driver error.
Fake DRM.
There's a reason Apple Computers has yet to enter the DRM market on a serious level, and it's because their CEO knows a bit about programming and realizes that, aside from NP complete-type problems, there's nothing a computer can't solve in a short amount of time with enough hardware thrown at it.
Apple knows that DRM is futile, so they don't waste billions of dollars making some half-assed version of content management. Yet they still continue to profit.
I advise M$ and Real to both "get real" and stop trying to convince the content makers that there actually is DRM code that works.
Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate. Ex-O'Reilly/MIT employee, now a full-time Google employee.
I think the most annoying thing they do is make the link to the free player a tiny, light grey string at the top of the page with the ad for the $40 (or whatever) player takes up the rest of the page. I've had to explain to two very smart people that there _is_, in fact, a free Real player.
And I say that as someone who used their software back in '98, '99 to run a very popular, linux-based streaming audio app. It was great then, and I still appreciate what they made available for free. I understand that they need to make money, but it's possible to make money without being awful about it.
I remember reading about them in "Architects of the Web". They were originally founded as Progressive Networks, and their stated mission was to be good citizens first and then good businessmen. They moved - proudly - into a low-rent neighborhood with the goal of helping to clean it up, and sought to provide useful tools with interesting applications. Then they had an IPO.
According to their website they still donate five percent of their income to charity. Rob Glaser is still their CEO (he founded it in 1994). But the President and Cheif Operating Officer is Larry Jacobson former President and COO of Ticketmaster (see here).
Personally I think that they have a right to develop the technology in the same way that we have a right to avoid it like the plague that it is. I'm curious to see how long it takes before they invoke the DMCA.
Whether they do or not, it seems that things have changed since they had that IPO.
A DRM is supposed to manage copy-rights. Precedent has established that those rights (to copy the stuff) can be owned, but not the content itself.
That's why we have fair use; because when you buy a copy of a book, CD, or video, you own that copy. You can enjoy it as many times as you wish. You can lend it to whomever you wish, as many times as you wish, as long as you don't ask for money in return. You can sell it too, if you delete or destroy any fair-use copies you may have... because you own it.
Is this idea of "content ownership" a DMCA thing?
I'd like to see them explain to us why we should not be allowed to loan out our favorite music CD or play a recorded Simpsons episode during a party.
And how does "content ownership" apply to broadcast media like TV and radio, whose audience doesn't pay and isn't accountable to the broadcaster in any way? I expect these DRM supporters will be trying to plug that hole real soon now.
-Rick
Windows Media was the first DRM format to really catch on. It comes along with Windows and it's the default media format for anything produced by Microsoft software. (Ever try digital ripping through Media Player? Only wma, not even wave output!)
Anyone wonder why, after years of pressure and usually successful MS pushing of their formats, it still loses to good old MP3 by a ridiculously large margin in user preference? Three letters: DRM.
When you download a DRM-enabled wma file, it's far from obvious to the regular user. So when the file expires or the user upgrades his computer and tries to listen to his files burned onto an old CD-R, that'll be his last experience with the format. And voilá, another wma hater.
Not to mention wmv's and their 'features', such as popping up web links embedded into the media file. Irritating, to say the least!
And that's what DRM is all about. Even if Big Media backs it up, and even if it'll be the only way to get 'hot new content' (whatever that is), users will always revert to the best free media alternative when they have a choice.
US Copyright law in effect is a restriction on "consumer" and/or "competitor" unlimited usage rights, on the one hand. At the same time, however, the "fair use" restrictions in the copyright laws are supposed to balance the public (i.e. consumer) interest by allowing usage of part of the copyrighted materials without the copyright owners permission.
The problem with the DMCA and most of the planned DRM implementations is that insuring the availability of "fair use" via reverse engineered technology became a federal offense.
So in effect a content producer can say "you have no rights to any of my digitally protected content which I do not explicitly grant, otherwise I sick the government prosecutors on you...", as opposed to "you only have the right to fair use, and I as a copyright holder have legal recourse if I believe you have gone beyond a reasonable level."
This is one aspect of the DMCA that should cause the US Congress to through the whole thing out and start over -- the DMCA has public attorneys (prosecutors) treating a potential copyright infringement as a crime, rather than a civil matter where the MPAA, RIAA, etc. company laywers have to do the work and charge their own industry for their services.
The state should only step in where the copyright violations extend to "fraud" and other large scale enterprises that most of us would agree have criminal intent.
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...