Slashdot Mirror
3G phones: Send Anywhere, But Not Anything
glengyron writes "The Sydney Morning Herald is reporting the success of an Australian company in developing Digital Rights Management for the next generation of mobile phones. Imagine if you could only forward email once, or not at all: these are the kind of restrictions being built into the next generaion of mobile phones. Read the article here. ODRL? Orwellian Digital Rights Language."
I don't have to imagine it -- I've used Lotus Notes. They've had that feature at least 2 versions ~6 years. It's an important feature in the corporate world. get over it.
Sorry for shouting, but its Digital restrictions management. ODRL is Orwellian Digital Restrictions Language. Please. If we don't get the name right, who will?
I agree. But they could also be abused and, honestly, do _WE_ really need them?
This is one scenario where laws and DRM are not needed. If you send a snapshot to a friend and ask them not to forward it to anyone and they do it anyway...that's not a bloody friend and you would be wise to avoid sending them anything sensitive again.
In a perfect world, I'd be thrilled to agree. But in the world I live in, large bodies of people whose job it is to make money have a nasty habit of adopting an "embrace and extend" attitude towards technologies that could potentially benefit most of us. Maybe I'm overly cynical or paranoid or maybe I just read
I hope I didn't come off sarcastic because I don't mean to be. You make a great argument for the legitimacy of this technology and I agree with it. I just worry about the potential vectors for abuse by those who don't have the best interests of their customers in mind.
--K.
Sig: Bad people happen. Try to avoid being one of them.
Not only with timely manner, but also with an affordable price. That's the most important part for the music industry to learn.
--
Error 500: Internal sig error
TALKING. All the rest is mental masturbation. Give me a Wireless phone that doesn't drop connections is all I ask. The companies should fix their backbones before they release pointless WOW factors that only 'sort of work' as billed.
The important distinction between what is legal and what is possible... As a musician, I can undertand the appeal of a DRM language that would allow me to specify, for instance, that a recording can be forwarded arbitrarily, but only listened to once at each site.
As an engineer, I understand that methods for enforcing this kind of contract are either overly intrusive or ineffective. Suggestions are welcome, except from the "we-listen-and-decide-how-much-it's-worth" crowd, since this crowd seems to decide - conveniently enough - that a recording is worth listening to only if it's free (the whole "I-wouldn't-buy-the-album-anyways" argument).
I am intentionally playing devil's advocate here. Please offer me reassurance that the honor system can work in cyberspace, as it does at (for instance) traffic lights...