Copy Protection a Crime Against Humanity

Trevalyx writes "An article over at Wired looks into the relation between copy protection and the reality of a rational amount of 'wiggle room' that is typically provided by the legal system. It's a topic covered often on Slashdot, but it's still a good read. Should be accompanied by a visit to the Electronic Frontier Foundation for your Daily Dose of Defending Digital Freedom." The article does a good job of giving examples of legal leeway that's granted every day.

Comments

Aw C'mon

[windowpain]

This is a bit of a stretch.

Re:Aw C'mon

[Pieroxy]

IMHO, the article itself is a non-issue.

If the DRM / digital world sucks (for copyright or anything else) I believe that the market will have the right response....

Fair use not available? We will not buy!

Re:Aw C'mon

[drwav]

I'm afraid that it doesn't work that way, people are far too ignorant and lazy to care about "fair use" anymore. Just look at the iTunes Music store. Of course, everyone is just so enchanted with the idea of being able to buy music one song at a time for cheap and instant gratification that they are willing to overlook the "minimal" DRM. Well I say that any DRM is too much DRM.

It seems that I am in the minority, however. Everyone insists on racking up insightful mods by saying how Apple couldn't get the "big five" to do it without DRM. Why? CDs don't have DRM (at least, not yet, and not on a large scale, I'm sure this statement is a little bit shaky but I haven't encountered any of these evil CDs yet). Why do the rules change when we are talking about files instead of plastic discs? Because files are easy to copy? CDs are very easy to copy too.

Oh well, I'm sure that everyone will just reply by saying how stupid I am and that they are so much smarter and more insightful that I am. So whatever.

Re:Aw C'mon

[lightspawn]

Fair use not available? We will not buy!

Right. Remember the old digital video format, what was it called, DVD? It had regional lockout and macrovision copy prevention. A huge consumer backlash ensued and nobody bought any DVDs. The studios changed their minds pretty quickly after that one, heh. I guess we really taught them a lesson there.

Re:Aw C'mon

[frohike]

If the DRM / digital world sucks (for copyright or anything else) I believe that the market will have the right response....

The problem I see with this response (and it is quoted quite often on here) is that "the market" is deciding in favor of DRM as we speak. Go down to your local store and look at the selection of DVDs vs VHS. There's this little thing called CSS on DVDs, remember? That's where the fun all started, at least in the recent round of DRM attempts.

Ask your average person about DRM and they won't have a clue what you are talking about, because it has been implemented so seamlessly. Sure, they might get annoyed at the "no fast forward" parts of DVDs (the ones that infuriate me personally...) and they might have to buy a little box if they had an old TV with only coax in, but overall it does what they want and they're happy.

Oh and remember Macrovision? VHS has also had DRM for years and years, it was just much less sophisticated. Still quite difficult to bypass though.

Like boiling lobsters, you just raise the temperature a tiny bit at a time and people don't realize they're being baked.

I think the true travesty (and this article sort of hints at it but doesn't pursue) is that some day, we won't have DVD players. A thousand years in the future, there are going to be worthless chips of plastic and metal dug up and they will have no clue what it all means. They kept copious records back in "the old days" too, and we are able to piece together some of what happened and the culture back then thanks to it. Imagine how much harder the job will be when they have to go decyphering encryption schemes on top of all the other problems.

Hell, forget about 1000 years in the future -- think 50 years in the future! It makes me depressed just thinking about it. Even without DRM in the picture it's going to be depressingly difficult to keep updating all our media. Add a million DRM schemes and it starts looking like an insurmountable problem.

Re:Aw C'mon

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

Valid point.

An example on the other side is PC software in the 1980's. Uncopyable install disks used to be the norm. Market pressure eventually forced a change.

Re:Aw C'mon

[Have Blue]

Only us geeks care about being able to copy DVDs. But remember, consumers *did* reject DivX.

Re:Aw C'mon

[LMariachi]

Like boiling lobsters, you just raise the temperature a tiny bit at a time and people don't realize they're being baked.

That's frogs. A lobster couldn't get out of the slowly heating pot even if it did realize what was happening. A frog could jump out but doesn't. Anyway, lobsters are properly thrown into a rolling boil.

Re:Aw C'mon

[Tim C]

Uncopyable install disks used to be the norm. Market pressure eventually forced a change.

You haven't bought many games recently, have you? I can't remember the last one that didn't use some form of copy prevention technology.

Re:Aw C'mon

[Goldberg's Pants]

Yeah, but said protection ONLY deters the extremely casual copiers. Basically all you need to do is copy the actual files on the disk, and head to innumerable websites, and download the safedisc/securom/cdilla/whatever free executable and you're home free. The executable is effectively "unwrapped" and instead of checking to see if certain areas of the disc are corrupt or whatever, it just plays. Safedisc and Securom are a joke. Vice City was on the net 2 days before it's PC release, it "uses" safedisc. Rise of Nations was out 3 WEEKS before release. It uses Securom I believe.

Only the very lazy or the very uneducated can't copy modern titles.

And yes, when a patch is released you can't upgrade right away, but within a few days (or hours in the case of Championship Manager 4 recently), the crack is out and on the net, and it's business as usual.

Lensloc was a better protection than these...

Re:Aw C'mon

[Goldberg's Pants]

The trouble is, cut off one head, and another grows back. EG: The new "disposable DVD" format. It's DiVX by any other name, and more acceptable because it has more benefits.

As for those that bought DIVX players and are now left with a bunch of expensive coasters, I only have one thing to say, and that is "HA!". That's what you get for supporting a format that has "hardcore consumer fucking" built right in.

The problem is, most consumers are idiots. I'm not saying to troll or flame, they are. They're uneducated, they don't do anything to educate themselves. Basically they're sheep. Whatever Disney, Fox, whoever tells is good sells. Hence the pan'n'scan debacle with DVD. (Though consumers are actually getting a clue there which is enough to make a lot of widescreen fans drop dead of shock.)

The sad fact is, 99% of consumers will ignore all this DRM stuff, buying the party line that it's "only" there to stop illegal activity...

Re:Aw C'mon

[Goldberg's Pants]

Oh and remember Macrovision? VHS has also had DRM for years and years, it was just much less sophisticated. Still quite difficult to bypass though.

Erm... It can be bypassed by simply running the signal through an old Betamax VCR. I know, I've done it, and have the pay per views on tape to prove it:) I did know why it worked, but I forget now, but basically the way Beta did something (signal gain?) was done differently to VHS, ergo the Macrovision signal goes into the Betamax player and it goes "Macrovision? What Macrovision?" and filters it out so you just good old fashioned un-munged signal coming out.

You can also get around it simply using the coaxial route as well. I have many tapes I backed up with Macrovision. Basically run it via coaxial and any flickering is barely noticeable (and I've done this on MANY VCR's).

Re:Aw C'mon

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do the rules change when we are talking about files instead of plastic discs? Because files are easy to copy? CDs are very easy to copy too.

Actually, they're not. Why not? Reexamine your statement literally. CDs are not easy to copy. Only the information stored on them is.

The entire concept of "business" revolves around supply and demand of physical objects. That concept falls flat where digital data is concerned, and that's why all these political issues exist today. Everyone is used to the business model, and is trying to force digital data into the same constraints. Ultimately, they will fail.

In the meantime, that is the primary reason "the rules change". One requires physical material that you cannot simply create on demand, while the other has no such intrinsic cost -- it simply uses what is already there. When Star Trek style replicators come along, then we'll have this same discussion for physical objects, too.

Re:Aw C'mon

[shirai]

I've always thought this would be a pretty close to ideal solution and just assumed that a lot of people would have thought of this; so far, I haven't seen it mentioned.

Why not have a protection flag that will limit the maximum sound quality of a recording. Before you object, think about this for a minute:

You would have all the benfits of being able to search and preview music in Napster, Audio Galaxy, Kazaa, etc. and we could have access to some great new services for searching and finding music we like. Frankly, the thing I miss most from these services is not all the free songs but FINDING NEW SONGS that I like. But honestly, we can't protest that the RIAA wants to protect their interests and I wouldn't want it all to be free. The artists would then stop production.

But with reduced quality music, we can hear and preview music much like we do with radio. Nobody ever makes copies off the radio because FM just isn't good enough. For that matter, a second generation tape with a song I like would always make it into my CD collection.

Think about this. If the RIAA approved such a thing, it could be a serious win for everybody. Wouldn't we love to get all our music for free at top quality? Of course. But somebody has to pay and this is a good, if not great, trade off.

Re:Aw C'mon

[Saeger]

When Star Trek style replicators come along, then we'll have this same discussion for physical objects, too.

The discussion will hardly be the same, for the simple fact that molecular manufacturing will let loose an economy of abundance (that the 'information economy' alone couldn't do) which vastly reduces the incentive to be a greedy "intellectual property" fucker.

Imagine just some of the implications of an anything-box that can rearrange the molecules of your garbage into gourmet food, clothing, razors, inkjet cartridges, a new computer, whatever ... no more starving artist problem; no more wage-slaves; no more dependance on on fossil fuel if you could fab your own solar cells; open source can extend to the physical world with GnuBurgers, and GnuHDTV's, and GnuDiamond, and GnuArtificialImmuneSystem...

(buy desert realestate now! there's tons of molecules to play with under that sun powered property! :)

--

Re:Aw C'mon

[hkmwbz]

But who were the ones using PCs in the 1980s? That's right. The same kind of people who are complaining about restriction of fair use rights today.

The problem is that they are a minority today. The same number of people may well complain, but they will be ignored because the majority of PC users today are clueless and haven't the slightest idea what's going on. The masses will let themselves be manipulated, and the few that try to raise warning flags drown in a sea of ignorance.

So the times are different. You can't compare today, where everyone is ignorant and basically uses whatever is handed to them, to the 1980s, where a PC user was someone who actually knew what he was doing and wasn't going to let himself be stepped on just like that.

Back then, the knowledgeagle geeks were the market. Today, the ignorant sheep are the market.

Re:Aw C'mon

[f0rt0r]

Well, it will almost turn out this way, except for one small detail - the anything box will need to know how to fabricate whatever it is you want to make. So, someone who works for Levis designs a new style of levis jeans and then stores the "formula" for creating the jeans with an "anything box".

Now, some people will be nice and just share the formula, and others will try the "IP" route and force people to pay for it, and take legal and technological steps to artificially restrict the proliferation of the formula. Can you say "RIAA/MPAA Returns" boy and girls? I knew you could.

Re:Aw C'mon

[An Onerous Coward]

Doubtful. The thing is, we already have such an "economy of abundance" when it comes to ones and zeros, but we still see lots of intellectual property owners going to every imaginable extreme to enforce the scarcity that served them so well in times past.

When nano takes off, it will start us on a path towards abundance. But it's going to be a long, winding path. The reason is simple: Few corporations are willing to allow a market to grow if it means giving up their control over it.

Re:Aw C'mon

[Jucius Maximus]

"Ask your average person about DRM and they won't have a clue what you are talking about, because it has been implemented so seamlessly. "

In the USA and Canada I would say that that's true. Most people here have not heard of DVD regions. But there aren't a bunch of adjoining countries who have other region numbers. Thus in the USA, it's quite hard to run into a DVD region problem. Can any europeans or asians comment on this? Is awareness of DVD copy protections greater in areas where different regions are connected by land?

"Oh and remember Macrovision? VHS has also had DRM for years and years, it was just much less sophisticated. Still quite difficult to bypass though."

All you need is one of those little 'video stabilizer' boxes you can get at electronics stores for less than $100 and you're home free.

Also, many DV Capture devices will strip Macrovision. If I wanted to do it, I could copy many Disney VHS tapes to VCD quite easily and Macrovision would not be a problem for my Canopus ADVC-100 converter.

Re:Aw C'mon

[retro128]

If my Athlon can break CSS, I'm pretty sure the whizbang AI computers 1000 years from now will be able to do it too :)

I see your point though, and the problems you speak of will no doubt take place within 50 years. Take for instance the Library of Congress. They are known for archiving copyrighted works. So if they are all DRM'ed and the DMCA makes it illegal to break it, what then? Kiss this chapter in history goodbye.

But not to worry, the said AI computers can combine the works of Ray Bradbury and George Orwell and make a pretty good reconstruction.

Re:Aw C'mon

[leppi]

> > Like boiling lobsters, you just raise the
> > temperature a tiny bit at a time and people
> > don't realize they're being baked.

> That's frogs. A lobster couldn't get out of
> the slowly heating pot even if it did realize
> what was happening. A frog could jump out but
> doesn't.

Not that it matters much, but this is indeed a myth.
Frogs don't tend to sit still for long, and if
they can jump out of a pot of water, they will.

Re:Aw C'mon

[iphayd]

The reason why everyone is overlooking the DRM of the iTunes Music Store is because it is transparent to most people.

That's right- if you are within fair use, you don't have to worry about the DRM in Apple's AACs. Apple's DRM is enough to keep honest people honest, without restricting their rights. This is much like the way ipods cannot copy music to a computer (without 3rd party software).

If you want to be dishonest, it is trivial to get rid of the DRM, but I hope that you get prosecuted to the full extent of the law for it.

As for me, the DRM stays, and I will be quite content listening to my music on 3 computers (I have 2), any number of cds, or any number of iPods.

Re:Aw C'mon

[Alsee]

If the DRM / digital world sucks (for copyright or anything else) I believe that the market will have the right response

DRM is not the problem, and "the market" can't fix it.

So what is the problem? The problem are laws that try to make DRM work. DRM cannot survive in a free market with equivalant non-DRM alternatives. DRM cannot survive when manufacturers are free to make hardware that does not enforce DRM. DRM cannot survive in a society where people are free to discover and communicate methods of defeating DRM. DRM cannot survive when people have the right to modify the things that they own.

In order to make DRM work the DRM lobby must turn to illgeal monopolies and cartels. They require laws to force manufactures to restrict features and to include DRM enforcement. They require laws making it a crime to think, reasearch, learn, and explore methods of defeating DRM. They require laws making it a crime to communicate the idea of how wo defeat DRM. They require laws restricting the use and modification of your own property in the privacy of your own home.

"The market" cannot defeat laws, it can merely suffer and stagnate as it muddles along as best it can within those laws.

And those laws already exist.

The DMCA 1202 (e) (2) states that it will legally enforce the standards set by an industry "consensus standard-setting" body. I can't find it right now, but someplace there is is a law or rule granting that body exemptions from anti-trust violations. Can anyone find a refference for this?

It is illegal to manufacture a digital audio device without Serial Copy Management System. It is illegal to VCS without Macrovision. The DMCA makes it a crime to manufacture a device without including the restrictions set by the standards body in the previous paragraph.

The DMCA makes it a crime to figure out how to circumvent DRM

The DMCA makes it a crime to communicate that knowledge.

Various laws make it a crime to modify your property such as removing Macrovision, the Serial Copy Management System, or any other control, and the DMCA 1202 (2) makes it a crime to so much as flip a bit in protected files.

These laws are here, and their impact is just beginning. That have already killed the entire DAT market. They are impeding the development of digital TV. Even when we finally do get digital TV it may die under these restrictions just like DAT died. We have scientific conferences being moved overseas because of these laws. We have scientists abandoning certain fields of research because of these laws. We have programming projects being moved overseas and American programmers being denied full access because of these laws. Domestically manufactured devices cannot compete in forign markets against non-crippled devices. Fair use is being exterminated. Libraries are threatened as they are increasingly denied the use of more and more content.

The laws are alread here, and they want more and stronger laws. Are we just trying to fight a holding action? Have we already lost?

I say let them use all the DRM they want! Just scrap all the f*ckign laws that enforce DRM! DRM is not the problem. LAWS are the problem.

-

Re:Aw C'mon

[Alsee]

This is a bit of a stretch.

Actually had had an excellent point to make, the problem is that he did not support it as well as he could have. His examples about "may not paint" and "may not copy" were valid, but they lacked impact.

A better example would be the rule against driving throught a red light. That's a good rule. Everyone agrees with it. But what if it were impossible to break that rule? What if you are driving to the hospital? What if you someone is after you with a gun? Or what if the timer on the traffic light burns out and the light never turns green?

The way DRM enforcement works is that your engine would freeze up whenever the light turns red.

That example has impact. It's one thing to have a rule against something, but it is an entirely different thing to make something impossible.

-

Re:Aw C'mon

[danila]

Why would you need "money" in such future? Today you need people doing manual labour for you - the more, the better. That's why you want to get paid for your creative work. In the future you will be able to lead a wealthy life (and have the options of VR and eventually posthuman life) without paying for anything. That means you will not have any economic insentive to ask for payment for your work. And the jeans designer will probably be happy to share his work with the people.

Re:Aw C'mon

[bnenning]

Why not have a protection flag that will limit the maximum sound quality of a recording.

As with any "strong" DRM, in order for this to be effective you have to ban a whole lot of software. For starters, you can't allow any open source encoders because it would be trivial to modify them to ignore the flag.

The only way I see DRM being reasonable is if it is *not* intended to be effective. The iTunes store is an example of this; copying is only made inconvenient, not prohibited.

Everything can be bought

[ATAMAH]

And sold, and bought again. Including legal leeway. Money makes the world go round (c)

I think that...

[Visaris]

The author did a great job of describing why I personally am against DRM and strict copy protection schemes. I could never really put my fears into words before, but I have to say the article(sp) hit it right on the head. He's axactly right :)

Uhhh...

[CptChipJew]

Hitler killing 6 million Jews and 4 million non-Jews is a "crime against humanity".

I would say this is more like withholding culture from the masses.

Re:Uhhh...

[SN74S181]

Or he could have said 'Stalin killing 20 million Russians' but, then, one of the real honest to goodness crimes against humanity is how few people even think about that one without getting all nervous that someone is going to accuse them of being a 'McCarthyite.'

Re:Uhhh...

[jeti]

> Hitler killing 6 million Jews and 4 million non-Jews is a "crime against humanity".

Exactly. Murdering people is a crime against the victims, their friends and their family. Murdering millions is an unimagineable crime.
But what makes it a crime against humanity as well as one against humans is this: The Nazis attempted to wipe out an entire race with all their genes and their unique culture.

A society that restricts the spread of information and ideas hampers cultural progress massively. And making it illegal to transfer our knowledge and works of art to reliable media and new display platforms will deny future generations their cultural heritage.

Our culture, our knowledge, all our achievements will be lost to our children. This is a crime against humanity, too.

Re:Uhhh...

[jedidiah]

The damage has already been done.

The true intent of copyright is to propagate art and literature. Dupes like you have already bought into the ideas that artists have the right to destroy what they create.

Once they let it out of the studio, they do not.

Re:Uhhh...

[nurightshu]

That's fascinating. Let's try a little gedankenexperiment.

I'm a...poet, we'll say, for the sake of our experiment. I write a book of poetry when I'm a lovesick college freshman. Legally, it is my right to release that work and retain total say as to how my work is distributed. I do so, all full of the ardor (and feigned weariness) of youth, and it's a moderately popular success among the "candles and angst" goth set.

Two years later, I go back and reread Love and White Makeup, or whatever I call the book, and realize it's crap. Big, steaming, awful crap. So I tell the publisher, "Hey, let's not do any more printing runs on my book." (We'll assume I was savvy enough not to sign the rights over to Nobody Understands Me House Publishers.)

What you're saying is I have no right to do this? Are you insane? The right to the destiny of my own original work is a tradition extending back at least 50,000 years (the Australian Aborigines respected the work of authors and musicians as being akin to physical property), and still respected in nearly every modern society.

I agree that I could do nothing about the copies of the book that were already in existence when I decided not to make any new copies, but I still have the right to say, "Hey, don't archive this in some electronic format that'll last forever, don't get Shatner to do a 'Book on CD' reading this, and don't make a movie version."

The intent of copyright is to protect the right of a content creator to determine how and when something is copied. Hence the name. Yes, it provides an incentive for other individuals to create their own art, but only because they know that if they create it, they have recourse against those who wish to arrogate to themselves the right to copy the artist's work.

Re:Uhhh...

[Lemmy Caution]

Suppose my cousin liked the book. Suppose, as a matter of fact, that my cousin liked your lame college poems so much that he used one to propose to his fiance.

Suppose 50 years later, they look for a copy of that poem, but they can't find it because you've made it illegal for anyone to produce a copy. At that point, I think your "rights" have made claims to the memories and imaginations of other people that it shouldn't have. Once you've released your "thought children" into the world, I think your rights are not so absolute. At that point, they become enmeshed in the thoughts and lives of other people. While I may defend your right to profit from your own creativity, I'd challenge your right to control every outcome of it.

Re:Uhhh...

[Malcontent]

I don't think you are thinking far enough. In the future all knowledge will be encoded. All books will be transient and will be rented. There is a very real chance that information will not be available to future generations.

Our ability to speak and transmit information to future generations is what separates us from the animals. you may soon lose that.

Re:Uhhh...

[warmcat]

The intent of copyright is to maintain the flow of works into the public domain. The content creators argued that unless there was some period of monopoly on the right to copy, they would all starve and cease to create music, books, etc. So they were granted their temporary monopoly, but works must return to the public domain after that period. So the whole copyright thing is to maintain the flow of works to the public domain, NOT to enrich the temporary owners of the right to copy the works.

(Would people really stop making creative works if there was limited or no monetary reward? I don't think so... look at OSS. Sure some kinds of grotesque works like $1M music videos would become impossible... but... is that actually any loss?)

What has happened in the meanwhile is that the content creators like Disney and the other companies represented by the RIAA and MPAA have fostered the illusion that their precious "intellectual property" is permanently theirs, and anyone who desires free access to it is a pirate and a theif. But the fact is we all are entitled to free access to these works once the copyright monopoly period is up. The only theiving going on is when these evil companies press our representatives to continually extend the copyright monopoly period so the works never reach the public domain.

Re:Uhhh...

[jeti]

I'm replying to my own post because I want to address several similar replies.

First of all, you assume that an author keeps his copyrights. AFAIK this is often not true. In the music industry, the artists usually do sell their copyrights to the labels (correct me if I'm wrong).
Also copyrights are problematic for collaborative efforts. Think of how computer games are created. The artists and programmers are not the ones who can decide about the future of their games.

Now what happens when the publisher goes out of business and the last copyprotected DVD is scratched?
The work is likely to be lost. In many cases no one really knows who owns the copyrights anymore.
You may not care that I wasn't able to get a replacement for my copyprotected floppy of StuntCar Racer. It certainly is not anything remotely on the scale of killing millions of people.

But more and more important information gets published in electronic and copyprotected form. Librarians must be able to preserve it. I want people to be able to make money with their works. But I do also want these works to become PD before they're completely forgotten.

This does also apply to my own works. Authors do want their works to live on.

Re:Uhhh...

[Sven Tuerpe]

That's what it had started with. 70 years ago, in May 1933, books were burning all over Germany. The Nazi regime tried to wipe out "un-German" culture before starting to wipe out "un-Aryan" people.

Just imagine they had had a restrictions management system enabling them to cleanse not only bookstores, public libraries, museums, etc. but also all the private bookshelves with the push of a button.

For more information on Nazi book burnings see http://www.ushmm.org/.

Re:Uhhh...

[BrokenHalo]

What a great post. Actually, it brings to mind a teacher of mine (a very eminent violinist) who many years ago told me he didn't care about anybody copying his recordings. He saw them as "ephemeral children if the imagination" in one sense, but in other ways they have a profound effect on the way a musician develops.

Re:Uhhh...

[Guppy06]

The number one rule in international law, the only one the UN actually enforces, is "Thou shall not kill thy neighbor's people." Killing your own people is fair game. Hitler was stupid for expanding his mass murder into neighboring slavic countries. Stalin just killed other Soviets and got puppet governments in other countries to do the dirty work for him. The UN is just fine with that just as it's fine with the mass murder of Cambodians, Rwandans, Kosovars, etc.

Re:Uhhh...

[poptones]

The content creators argued that unless there was some period of monopoly on the right to copy, they would all starve and cease to create music, books, etc.

Uhhh again. Actually "content creators" (by which one must assume you mean authors and other artists, since publishers create very little) would, provably, go right on creating with or without. The difference is, without some rightful protection - in the past - their works would simply be co-opted by the only people with the means to disseminate those works - the publishers who owned the presses - who would then profit to the exclusion of those who created the works in the first place. This is not only unjust, it also diminishes "the public" because, without the free time to devote to creating these works those "creators" would be forced to more mundane tasks - like seeking shelter and hunting food. This is the process that allows us to evolve beyond hunter-gatherer societies huddling in caves.

And even before "the founders" copyright was to protect the public from those same publishers who would attempt to dictate the very use of their publications; who gets a copy, who doesn't, and who controls their use - just as they are trying to do today.

Disney can claim "what's theirs is theirs" all they like, but there's scant little they can do about me making a parody of "Disney's Snow White" or even sharing my own X-rated version of The Little Mermaid. If I wish to take credit for my work I can publish it to the internet via usenet and p2p apps and my work will be seen by anyone who cares to download it. If I wish to publish my work anonymnously I can do it that way, too, by the very same mechanisms.

the only place the law enters into this is when I try to generate profit for myself by selling those works. Even then, in this specific example they may have a tough case (it likely wouldn't even be a copyright suit, but a trademark suit), but nevertheless "the law" would not even apply to any creative works I published until such time as I (or someone else) tried to profit from their distribution.

Now, how far we allow people to limit one another's ability to profit from sharing "knowledge" (if one is willing to go so far as to call modern media that) is another matter entirely - but if we are to talk about this brave new world where everyone is a publisher and individuals are empowered to share their "message" with the world then we have to draw a clearer distinction between the world of share and the world of sell. Until we do that this argument is just going to go in circles - and once we do that I think the other lines will draw themselves.

Re:Uhhh...

[sward]

Why bother with a book burning when you can just have your license server stop providing the key necessary to unencrypt a particular e-book?

Should Be?

[istartedi]

Should be accompanied by a visit to the Electronic Frontier Foundation for your Daily Dose of Defending Digital Freedom."

Oooohh! It's the leader! All hail the leader. Look! I found a bean shaped like the leader. I'll put it with the others...

Not that I don't agree with at least some of what these groups represent, but sheesh! certainly not all of what they say, and I certainly don't need a "daily dose" of any argument if it is based on logic, morality, fairness, precedent, or other healthy systems we use to judge these matters. To suggest otherwise is to imply that their ideas would fade without heavy reinforcement.

Great truths don't need daily reinforcement. They are either self evident or emerge as truths on their own when we stray from them. You can draw your own conclusions from the fact that most major religions reinforce on a weekly basis.

Re:Should Be?

[rzbx]

"Great truths don't need daily reinforcement."

Unfortunately, the problem becomes when people don't really understand the "Great truths" and instead have a daily reinforcement of things like racism. That is how cults attempt to maintain their power over all the members. If your fed a daily dose of a negative and you don't know any better, then there is a very good change you will believe it. There are a lot of people out there that have very akward beliefs and over time some do get a lot worse. I've met quite a few people over the years that had strange beliefs (cult like beliefs) and you would be surprised how normal they seemed til you got to know them. Religions do the same as the cults except they reinforce positives. Then there is the problem that reinforcement does little to nothing to help free thought or creativity. Not enough people question what they are told to believe. I do agree with your statements. Whether it takes reinforcement for people to realise what is meant by the "Great truths" is a matter of discussion. I believe it depends on a lot of factors.

Re:Should Be?

[DaBj]

Religions do the same as the cults except they reinforce positives.

Ah yes. Witchburnings, persecution, suicidebombings and generally killing those not believing in YOUR god does strike me as a positive reinforcement.
Face it, the only difference between a religion and a cult is the amount of followers and wether or not the size of the hat shows how important you are.

Re:Should Be?

[zcat_NZ]

Face it, the only difference between a religion and a cult is the amount of followers

Religion; A large, popular cult.

Cult; A small, unpopular religion.

Protection or prevention?

[simpleguy]

Excuse me to nitpick but shouldn't that be

Copy PREVENTION rather than Copy PROTECTION?

Re:Protection or prevention?

[monkeyboy87]

I think it depends on which side of the fence you are on? If I am lucky enough to own the content then its copy protection for me against you.

However, if its me converting/ripping your content into my digital media of choice, its copy prevention denying me my god given rights :)

Re:Protection or prevention?

[release7]

I can use condoms to protect myself from STD's and to prevent pregnancy. So the choice of word doesn't matter much to me. But if you're my girlfriend, well, then you're just getting screwed.

I don't think so

[toddhunter]

They will need something catchier than 'DDDDF' for it to take off with the masses.

Re:I don't think so

[Jason1729]

'DDDDF' sounds like a report card.

Jason
ProfQuotes

Re:I don't think so

[UltimateZer0]

Something like the "Formal Rejection of Electronic Enclosure - People Openly Revolting a Nuisance" (F.R.E.E. P.O.R.N.) That would DEFINETLY sell!

---

Wow.

[The_dev0]

That's some really awesome reasoning. Nobody takes some laws seriously, so we should apply that mentality to other laws we object to, and your obligation to obey the laws is relative only to the seriousness of the "crime" committed. I'll let somebody else go on about the issue of moral relativism, but this guy really sounds like he wants to justify his mp3 collection.

Re:Wow.

[pla]

Nobody takes some laws seriously, so we should apply that mentality to other laws we object to, and your obligation to obey the laws is relative only to the seriousness of the "crime" committed.

No. You missed the entire heart of his argument.

Not that no one takes laws seriously; rather, that no one takes them literally. And even when taken literally, most laws include quite a lot of subjectivity both in determining whether or not a violation has occurred, and in an appropriate remedy.

This doesn't involve moral relativism, or "justifying" an MP3 collection, or "but mom, Billy did worse and didn't get punished!". It involves the realities of living in a "fuzzy" world.

To summarize his "real" argument, laws allow us recourse when someone has egregiously violated the standards of social behavior. Not one more weapon to beat each other with, not a way to funnel money into lawyers' pockets, and not a means of forcing others to act in the exact manner we so desire. A "last resort", of sorts, when all other means of peaceably interacting have broken down.


Let me put this into another domain, where the law actually allows for an exception:

Violating the speed limit usually breaks the law. If you do so in an emergency (for example, to get a seriously injured person to medical care), the law allows an exception to the normally rigid rules of driving, and changes to basically "do whatever you can, while still driving in a safe manner".

So you might say, "well, the law includes an exception for emergencies, there you go, just plug in the algorithm and turn the crank-o'-justice".

But what counts as an emergency?

Pregnancy usually counts, even though in the VAST majority of cases, no real rush exists to get to the hospital. A really bad bruise usually would not get you out of a ticket, even though you could suffer a thromboembolism and die. "Emergency" in general involves a subjective call of seriousness.


Just because the materials involved use binary to represent information, doesn't magically make the relevant laws suddenly black-and-white.

DRM

[swat_r2]

Flash forward 50 years in the future

In the past, wars were fought over oil and other precious resources. Today the war is fought over media rights, and the rights to control and supress that same media as decided by the megalomanic corporations. The Rebellion Army is a minor threat, but is enlisting more and more recruits all in the name of digital freedom. The war has been bloody, the war has been long - but the corporations refuses to release it's iron grip..

//snaps out of daydreaming.. fighting for the resistance.. sweeeet

Re:DRM

[comet_11]

Not quite... here's what I see happening in 50 years.

Finally, someone invents what was considered to be impossible, cheap and efficient matter cloning that can finally put an end to the starving masses and bring poverty to its knees. It can clone prescription drugs and cure millions and all this with practically no cost. This is considered to be the pinnacle of human endeavour, surpassing even the Genome project and the invention of the computer. Scientists throughout the world rejoice at the thought of their invention bringing happiness to the lives of the destitute.

Then comes the DRM. "Sorry, you have not been authorised to clone this loaf of bread... request denied!" and suddenly the cycle starts all over again. Over in poverty-stricken parts of Africa and Asia, bootleg food-images become popular along with illegal cloning hardware. The lab where matter cloning was developed is shut down and the scientists in question are given life sentences for "terrorist-like crimes against the USA" under the jurisdiction of PATRIOT 5.

Food industry crackdowns become increasingly popular, with a record 50 people per month sent to the electric chair for the crime of grand larceny (copying a loaf of bread) and mass initiatives are started, appealing to people's conscience so that the multi-million-dollar foodmanufacturers aren't put out on the street. Media-introduced words such as "rapist" to represent someone who copies items they are not allowed to become commonplace. The act of creating food only now happens in secret basements through secret food-sharing networks and even they are subject to increasingly brutal crackdowns.

It IS stealing, after all.

Mod article +5 Insightful

[sn00ker]

Seriously, though, David sums it up pretty well.
DRM is a perfect solution for an imperfect world - A solution that ignores the fact that people are, by our very nature, unlikely to stick exactly to rules. Grey exists because we don't like black and white as the only two choices, and because we're quite capable of defining our own middle ground.

Until we can develop computers that are able to do the kind of fuzzy matching that the human brain does naturally, turning control of creativity over to them is fraught with risk. All it takes is an incorrect statement somewhere in the source, or the confluence of a couple of seemingly benign factors, and suddenly you can't watch that DVD you just bought - But you can't take it back because you broke the seal on the packaging.

The thing the article doesn't go into is the "analogue hole". Human creativity is very good at working around restrictions. We designed ladders to reach high places, and windows because it's nice to be able to see out without letting the weather in.
They can DRM CDs all they want - I've got a DiscMan with optical out, and a soundcard with optical in. Sure, I'll have to do it manually, but I can still make perfect digital copies of whatever CDs I own. Similarly, people will find ways around this "broadcast flag", even if it's just going back to VHS and a capture card. Old hardware's not just going to disappear.

Finally, as much as xxAA would love to, they don't control the legislative process in other countries. Until they do, there's nothing they can do to make companies build DRM-compliant devices for other markets. Some of them will probably deliberately ensure their devices aren't DRM-compliant, if they've got some marketroids with a clue. How do you stop people importing "un-broken" hardware?

Re:Mod article +5 Insightful

[Kethinov]

David sums it up pretty well.

I disagree. I found the article to be pretty shallow. He tells us that we'll never resolve this issue because computers have no room for bending the rules and I find his pessimism quite tiresome. Summing it up well would have been an analysis of the current politics surrounding the DMCA and other copyright laws, then possibly offering a solution to this major disagreement that both sides of the issue could live with.

Crimes Against Humanity

[MisterMook]

Okay, I've seen all the first posts about how crimes against humanity only applying to crazed mad dictators with axes to grind...but really, isn't the current trend of law just prelimenary for more of the same? People dismiss speeding laws as irrelevant almost every day, lives are lost, but how many people seriously consider abdicating their ability to excede those limits every day? Most of us probably don't know anyone who even might be a terrorist, but we'd probably put our foot down if the government decided to screen each and everyone in the country "just in case". The same applies to any law, maybe especially intellectual property laws because they're restricting the loose quality of ideas. Fair use, public domain, censorship...I suppose they're not exactly in league of mass murder. Swing them on a rope enough though, and you've got a dandy oppression.

Not quite

[tchdab1]

I'm sorry, I just don't buy his reasoning that the DRM technology and laws are bad because they don't allow selective misinterpretation of them. He's really arguing that they're OK as long as they're not really enforced.

DRM technology and laws ARE crimes against humanity (sure, there are degrees of crimes against humanity) because they put gross profit opportunity ahead of the benefits to the commons. We're all better off if reasonable profits are protected and ideas are open and shared, than if Disney continues to make Megapoltroons indefiniteley off of Steamboat Willie while everything is locked down.

Good examples my ass.

[HornyBastard77]

Here are the examples in the article:

If your lease stipulates that you can't paint without explicit permission from your landlord, you will nevertheless patch up the scratches made by your yappy little dog on the bottom of the front door. If the high-priced industry analyst's report warns you on every page against duplicating, you'll still hand out at your weekly sales meeting copies of a page with a relevant chart. You'd snicker at the very suggestion of doing otherwise.

The high priced report is high priced because your company is paying for it. So its not a big deal to photocopy it and give it to people in your company. That might go against the letter of the law, but not the spirit. Try passing it out for free to your friend who works for the competition who doesn't subscribe to said report, and see who gets you first, the analyst firm or your boss (assuming they know about it of course).

The painting your house example doesn't even qualify here. File sharing of copyrighted material happening today is akin to someone creating an exact replica of a house thats up for rent and living in it rent free. Doesn't harm the landlord? Yes it does, cos now he/she/it will never get any rent. So logically, its akin to squatting. I live in NYC, and I've seen people try squatting the best they can, but I don't see much leeway given by the law there.

I do not support the RIAA, MPAA or any other Association of Assholes, and no, I don't deny using P2P networks in a manner that would violate the spirit of the law; but lets not get hypocritical here. Its stealing, and we (meaning us folk who do use P2P) need to see it as that. I am frankly surprised to see so many posts that try to portray it as otherwise on Slashdot. I would've thought that programmers and other techies who sell ideas for a living would've respected the rights of others that do the same to protect their livelihood.

Re:Good examples my ass.

[lysium]

I would've thought that programmers and other techies who sell ideas for a living would've respected the rights of others that do the same to protect their livelihood.

Now does this imply that they are all missing the truth that you see so clearly? Or that your own beliefs are the ones in error?

If programmers and IT workers attempted to unionize in order to weild technological mastery over the heads of their employers, then yes, I would agree about "protecting livelihood." But the majority of programmers do not code novels or code movies that they sell to a code publisher or code producer. They, for the most part, toil anonymously (or as a line in the About page) while whatever copyrightable material they produce goes to their employer. And other types of IT workers (admins & support, in this example) do not produce, they maintain. What types are hardware techs and admins doing to "protect their livelihood" in the first place?

----------------

Copy Protection for our Genes

[dsanfte]

The debate over copyright is the debate over the merits of a system of artificial scarcity. It costs virtually nothing to send a song over the Internet compared to shipping it via a physical medium -- CD.

The battles being fought here and now raise very important questions for our society. How much of what we create should be deemed personal property? To many, the very concept of "Intellectual Property" (Intellectual Robbery?) is absurd, due to there being no cost of distribution for an idea. This is summarized in the cliche idiom "information wants to be free".

But, what value does this artificial monopoly on an idea give to us? It obviously costs something in time and money to create ideas and technologies. Has anyone done a scientific study comparing the creativity levels of countries with differing copyright systems? I'd love to see one done, as its results could shed light on the (non-)benefits given by extending copyright terms.

"Copy Protection" is a lovely euphamism that hides the true nature of the technology. That is, robbing the public domain for the benefit of a single entity or person. It's a benefit to the few at the expense of the many. Its effects have already been taken to their logical extremes in many articles and posts (such as the article in question), so I won't go into them here.

Someday, scarcity for physical objects will be reduced to the level that we see for "intellectual property" on the Internet. That is, the cost of producing cars, gadgets, and MP3 players will be next to nothing. Will we battle over patents then just as we battle over copyright now? Will a future MIAA (Manufacturer Industry Association of America) sue dozens of college students for $96B because they "printed out" a copy of a new gadget?

Already, in genomics, the cost of discovering the function of a gene in the human genome confers upon the discoverer a monopoly on its use in drugs and treatments. This allows research firms to plant flags on the genes in our bodies, and charge whatever licensing fees they could imagine for their use. Even if the cost of the retrovirus to be distributed into our bodies to flip this genomic "switch" is virtually nothing, we will end up paying thousands of dollars per treatment, not just to fund the development of new therapies, but to line the pockets of the company's shareholders. In essence, we are turning our own bodies into a natural resource to be raped and pillaged by corporate interests, at the expense of the poor and less-fortunate of the world. We uphold these injustices with patents and law, humanely defending the inhumane capitalism which drives the pharmaseutical industry.

Someday we may see copy protection for gene therapy. What if a company found a way to control the ability of your body to propogate the benefits of a genomic treatment? What if your cells could not reproduce the gene after X cell generations, and you had to go back and pay for another treatment to continue seeing the benefits? Such a situation is not much different from the plight of AIDS sufferers, whose lives depend on a stream of artificially expensive, but lifesaving drugs.

I believe the copyright and copy-protection battles of today merely foreshadow a larger and more fundamental battle to come, one that will see the current government monopolies confered by Patents and Copyright turned on their heads.

The Irony

[BillLeeLee]

Isn't it ironic that this article about 'copyright protection a crime against humanity' is showing up in Wired, which is owned by Microsoft? Hello Palladium.

Re:The Irony

[klang]

Copyright © 1994-2002 Wired Digital, Inc. All rights reserved.

Now THAT's Irony for you! :-)

/klang

The best way...

[C3ntaur]

...IMHO to fight increasingly draconian DRM measures, is to simply continue proving that they WON'T WORK. If the end user is able play back the media in question even once, then it must also be possible to copy it. Granted, it may take a certain level of sophistication to get a *perfect* copy, but it can be done.

OTOH, if a not-so-perfect copy is all that's needed, most anyone can manage that. Witness the bootleg recordings of movies made with camcorders that get distributed all over the net, sometimes even before the official release date. Or the sealed-in-the-discman demo cds that people have managed to copy, sometimes by just cutting the headphone line and attaching it to a line-in jack.

I don't know when it will happen, but someday the media producers have to wake up and realize that DRM only costs them money for imagined protection, and in some cases -- when DRM doesn't allow legitimate playback -- hurts the very markets they are trying to cultivate.

Why it's irrelevant

[poptones]

Just today I was "shopping" for some new music via a handy-dandy point and click web interface. I found a few that looked interesting and set my download manager to the task of fetching them via my meager 56kbps connection. When I wake tomorrow I should have a new "CD" waiting for me in my daily download folder.

Nope, not iTunes. And definitely not some POS p2p spyware app laden with crappy rips. But free nontheless... (say it with me) usenet.

The other day I burned a CD for my cousin to listen to on his way to work. He bought a CD player for his car that plays MP3 discs despite the fact he rarely uses the net and probably doesn't even know how to spell usenet. He's into country but I make it my mission to widen people's horizons - the CD has music from the US, Sweden, Mexico, Russia, the UK, and even Egypt - all brought to him, via me, via USENET.

I'm working on "remastering" a few rock concerts that were sent to me (in a box of CDRs) by way of a friend of a friend in germany. See, the US hardly ever has live concert shows any more - but "rockpalast" is, so far as I know, still running. So, soon as I am happy with the results I'll commit these shows to MPEG2 streams and share'em with the world - most likely on DVD, since uploading even one would take me weeks online. What those broadband equipped friends do with this "data," however, is beyond my control.

I have several CDs worth of live SNL music performances (as well as a few favorite skits) that were ripped from my direcTV tivo. The quality is typical sucky direcTV, but let's face it: that's about as good as you're gonna get nowdays, and it's still (arguably) better than VHS. I also have pretty much every video PJ harvey has made - again, thanks to rips I made from my tivo when M2 was having its "women in rock" week.

All real world examples illustrate just exactly why most of this is irrelevant. I used to be pretty zealous about these legislations, but frankly I jsut don't care any more. Why? Because there's nothing at all stopping your fave garage band from producing their own release and getting exposure via the internet. (In fact, I've downloaded several this way and still have a few of these "underground" releases in my collection because they were actually GOOD.) There's also little (ie pretty much nothing except bandwidth or time) to stop me from ripping my fave music and sharing it with the world - or to prevent me from sharing my collection of SNL skits and music vids - in fact, I've shared Cdds with several friends.

None of these laws matter because they relate only to commerce. Sure, a few folks have put them to the test (and more power to them) by intentionally breaking the law and then taking the case to court. But for the "average user" (or even the "power user") who isn't an activist or a business owner, the laws mean pretty much nothing. They didn't stop the worldwide digital release of the new Matrix, they didn't stop me from recording countless hours of TV via my PC - nor could they.

I don't support these new "corporate legislations," nor do I support most publishers (no magazines, no pay tv, never listen to radio and watch TV only until I get so fed up with commercials I close the damn window on my desktop to bask in the silence.) Yet I'm still (again, arguably) better informed than most people I know because "most people" let Dan Rather spoon feed them their only news each day and probably have never even heard of WIRED or /. My music collection is more diverse than it's ever been in my entire 40 years of life (and I was pretty "out there" even in the 70's). I have hours and hours of various TV shows, movies, and music videos. And even if we woke up tomorrow and all media (including TV) was digital and had these "broadcast flags" and watermarks, you know it would be only a matter of days before workarounds were spread across the world. In the meantime the greater audience wouldhave been alienated and the proverbial other shoe would, no doubt, fall.

DRM

[fred133]

What ever happened to "the letter of the Law vs. the Spirit of the Law"? How hard can you squeeze a yellow light and not draw blood?
It's all based on a personnal observation on the ticket writer. If the "officer" thinks you pushed that yellow light to the point that it bleeds, then you are guilty, no matter how much time or money you spend in court.
You have no way to dispute it,no "instant replay".
In this case, DRM will know that you have already viewed/listened to that data.
Hello Mr. Orwell.
What ever happened to that "American Spirit"?

The reality of it all...

[Visaris]

Is pretty simple. I don't want to buy rights to watch a movie once. Oh, I want to watch it again? Shit... now I have to relicence / rerent my movie. I have to pay more, and it's more of a hassle. So many of you say that if people don't like it, they won't buy it. You all know that's bullshit. I don't like windows all that much. I mean, it's ok, but guess what? I had to buy a copy for school. Is that terrible? No, not really... Is being forced to rent a movie for each vewing all that bad? No... but I still don't want to have to...

And it goes along the lines of renting cabin. I set off to rent a cabin the other day. Everyone kept asking me how many people were staying there. I said "The cabin says it sleeps 6. I want to rent the cabin. How much?" And come to find out I have to pay based on how many people sleep there..... It's still just one cabin... I get the whole thing... I still don't get it. Is that 20$ a person for the water bill? The electricity? I don't think so. It's for their pockets.

In the future we'll live in a world where we will pay each time we watch a movie or listen to a song. We'll pay for each pasanger we give a ride to in the car we rented for the weekend. We'll pay based on the number of people staying in the cabin regaurdless of the fact that we rent the whole thing. It goes on and on. Hell, some of that happens now.

It's all about people making money for free. Does it cost the recording company ANYTHING if I watch their movie twice? No. Does it cost the cabin owners more if I have an extra person over? $1.00 in water if they take a shower maybe.. Does it cost the car rental company more if I give a friend a lift? Wear and tear? $1.00 maybe?

It's comming, and nothing we can do will stop it. I'm just going to sit back and enjoy my right to bitch until that's gone too.

The author doesn't allow any leeway, either

[meta-monkey]

The author makes the point that most rules are meant to be bent, but DRM is wrong because it doesn't allow any flexibility. Well, he's wrong. Personally, I'm not in favor of DRM. However, I think in order to have an open debate on the subject, we need to be honest, and avoid ridiculous hyperbole.

Aside from his poor taste in word choice, the author makes the flawed fundamental assumption that all works will employ DRM in the strictest terms. This, I'm quite sure, will not be the case. There will be some recording that come with limitations like "this can only be played once, on a tuesday between 12:14 and 12:18," and that sucks, but that will be the exception rather than the rule. Leeway can be programmed in, too. I use iTunes and the Apple Music store. I can buy a song once, and then copy it to my other authorized computers and my iPod, and burn it on a CD. That's reasonable. However, I can't make a million copies and send them to everybody on the internet. That's reasonable, too. I think that passes the authors "snicker test."

Look, if you don't like the terms of use on the product, you don't have to buy it. Crimes against humanity? So, we have some kind of inalienable right to listen to the latest Britney Spears blather, and DRM infringes upon this right? Since when do you have a right to any piece of information somebody else creates?

Re:The author doesn't allow any leeway, either

[arkhan_jg]

OK, lets look at the apple benign DRM.

How about resale? Can you alter the DRM signature on those files you've paid for to reassign them to someone else, i.e. can there be a second hand market for those tracks?

How about sampling parts of it, or reproducing it for use in teaching or research? Ah, you say, I can burn it to CD, and copy that into MP3, and work from that - substantional artifacts and all, on top of which you need a CD on which you've paid a tax because it's assumed you're using it for illegal copying. Admittedly, that is not a direct result of DRM, but it still an impact on Fair Use.

Now, what happens when the copyright on those apple DRM'd files expires, in 95 years + the lifetime of the author. Will we still be able to read those DRM'd files? will the DRM magically disappear as the files enter the public domain?

Yes, Apple's DRM is below most people's pain point, and I think it's good that the music companies have started to relax the death grip a little. But all DRM still has a serious knock on effect on our fair use rights, our right of resale of a good, and the entry into the public domain after the expiration of copyright (eventually. Assuming disney fails at some point in their quest to make worldwide copyrights continue to extend in length so that no work ever returns to the public domain - but that's another post)

The problem is, CD's are coming up to same restrictions of apple's DRM, not the other way around. And that DRM ignores the 'wiggle room' that is part of our actual rights.

On top of which, there is genuine breach of copyright, often as part of using those fair use rights. For example, it has been judged in court that you can 'time shift' a broadcasted work as part of your fair use rights. Technicially though, you cannot make a library of that work. So if you were to use your Tivo, or record a song off a radio, or use your tape machine to watch a work later, you're fully within your fair use rights to do so. Because DRM and the 'broadcast flag' don't include that wiggle room, you'll be stopped from doing so. "Ahah" you say. "That's a limitiation of the techonology, it can be fixed". well, that's the point. It's an on/off limitation. Even assuiming the DRM is fixed (unlikely) to allow you to record it for legal timeshifting, you'd only be allowed to watch it once, then the DRM would make it delete itself off the Tivo, as that is what a strict intrepretation of the law demands. Only watched it half way through before the phone rang? Tough.

Don't forget, these industries are the same ones that have accused people (and sued some of them) for 'theft' for singing happy birthday round a campfire, playing music on the radio when there are passengers in the taxi cab, and fastforwarding through the adverts.

Common sense and wiggle room are part of how any system of law works. People break several laws every day, technically (in the UK, just parking your car is technically causing an obstruction, and just have a look at some of the really obscure state laws in the US). Certainly, if we applied driving laws with the same strictness they're trying to apply copyright law, then nobody would be able to drive.

Oh, and by the way, your last point 'if you don't like the terms of use of the product, you don't have to buy it' is not a get out clause for corporations. The recording industry has an effective group monopoly on the production of music. That's why they are often called an oligarchy. since they produce all the recorded music, and additionally are trying to control all outlets of digital distribution as well, there simply isn't a market alternative to their works. If I could buy the same artists' music from different providers with different DRM schemes, at different prices, you might have a point. As it is, they are using DRM to not only enforce their existing rights rigidly, they are using it to give themselves extra restrictions they do not have under the law.

Let me give you one example. Imagine when you bought a book,

I against I

[quintessencesluglord]

Wiggle room- the right to endlessly litigate 'cause those gray areas of law have dollar signs written all over them.

Given a choice, I'd prefer strict, principled laws. There should be no ambiguities ("Help me god, I'm hallucinating again") where law is concerned. I would like to know I'm well within my rights to copy a file, and not have to rely on 'wiggle room'.

The problem with DRM is that there is no choice.

I read it as more "de minimis non curat lex"

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

which is lawyerese for "don't sweat the small stuff".

Try to imagine a world in which every detail of every law were perfectly and literally enforced. Imagine going to prison because you didn't file a change of address with the Selective Service when you moved. Imagine getting a ticket every time you switched on your turn signal 199 feet from an intersection instead of 200 feet.

There's an old bit of engineering wisdom that says that systems with loose tolerances tend to be more reliable. A Mickey Mouse watch with some slop in the gears will keep running if a little dust gets in, an expensive precision chronometer may not. Societies seem to work the same way, which is why we have laws full of words like "reasonable" and "prudent".

"justify his mp3 collection" -- OK, good example. Dunno about the author, but my MP3 collection consists entirely of imports from purchased CDs and has never gone anywhere except my iPod. In a world where "fair use" is defined by common sense and/or judges, this works. My interests and the interests of the royalty collectors are satisfied. In a DRM world, some bureaucratic twit of a computer might have prevented me from listening in my car.

Re:I read it as more "de minimis non curat lex"

[The_dev0]

Yes, good point. I do understand this, but then again, Isn't that the point of this whole "fair use" argument? If DRM is brought in and incorporates enough leeway for good 'ol average Joe to burn compilation CD's for his car or transfer .oggs to his portable player, I don't see it having the impact that others fear. I know i'm playing devil's advocate on this one ;o) but I guess (as a musician myself) that a line has to be toed in the sand somewhere, or else any form of media becomes intrinsically worthless. Frankly, I would hate to see any form of rights management, but unfortunately (and I know this'll cost me a bit of karma) it seems that a lot of people do want something for nothing, and when it costs me money from my own pocket to record and release a CD free of DRM (check out my link above, heh) to the public only to have it traded freely, it can only make it harder for struggling musicians. I guess what i'm saying is I don't agree with mp3 trading on the net, but I do believe **AA has no right to fuck with products in order to prevent it. Boy, how hypocritical is that? Well, not too much really, but obviously a trust based system won't work. What we don't have, however, is reasonable alternatives.

Re:I read it as more "de minimis non curat lex"

[Musashi Miyamoto]

Their actions, intended to preserve their monopoly power and dying business model, instead actually hurt the artists by encouraging people to use alternative, illegal sources of distribution.

The recording industry has been "dying" since the start of their price fixing. However, it is important to note that the actual music nor the quality of the music has not been dieing, but only the actual value of the music. (the amount of money the market is willing to pay for the product)

The artifical inflation of price has maintained a high production value and a large number of well-produced and highly-advertised attempts at stardom. If the industry were to make only as much money as their product is now worth, the number and/or the quality of the product as a whole will necessarily decrease.

What would likely happen is that a lot of the "me-too" stars and the already low profit niche music would slough away until only the core of the most profitable music remained. (read: lowest common denominator) This might mean a lower produced Brittany Spears, but no Christina Aguiliera, no Mandy Moore, no Pink, or other me-too stars.

Market Regulation

[Kris_J]

Here's a thought. All the IP laws are a form of market regulation. Businesses are all "regulation is bad". So, why don't we get rid of copyright, trademarks and patents just so big business can have the totally unregulated market they so desire?

Re:Market Regulation

[Arandir]

Big business is not in favor of deregulation. That's a myth perpetrated by the anti-big-business crowd.

Big business want regulations that keep away the competition. Many small businesses and individuals feel the same way. This has been true since the first business that discovered it could use government as a competitive tool.

Guilds, unions, professional licensing, etc., are all supported by the very people who are subject to the regulations. They're all ways of limiting the competition. Big business has the same motives. As long as they can profit from regulations keeping the competition limited they will be in favor of it.

By their nature, all regulations are going to favor the big business with lots of lawyers over the small business with none. Microsoft, IBM and Sun are large enough that they can afford the lawyers to manage patents. Small businesses can't. They can afford huge teams of programmers to reinvent the wheel from scratch and create their own copyrighted wheel. Small business cannot do this as easily so they spend money licensing other peoples' code.

Re:Market Regulation

[Kris_J]

Oh pish, people just want whatever gets them the most money. Advertisers want self regulation so that they can lie, music and movie companies want stricter IP controls so they can release the same crap over and over with no competition, big business wants a high barrier to entry, small business wants no barrier to entry, companies that give out stock options want no regulation on stock options, cigarette companies want their toxic products not to be banned. Everybody wants an uneven playing field with them at the top. I just thought I'd highlight one particular example of hypocrasy.

Why are people against this article?

[rzbx]

I've noticed posts already criticising the article. Shame on them. They all cry about copy protection, then when real good material is presented they throw insults at it. This article is about the ethics of copy protection, not about money. There is too much speak of money when it comes to issues such as these. Too many fail to realize that money should not be the priority. Money can not and should not answer all questions. If you applied this reasoning to everything, then you would be supporting slavery, murder, terrorism, and many other bad things. For example, if I dodged the entire issue of human rights and when straight to money talk, then I could show slavery was necessary. I don't believe in slavery though, and I'm sure most here don't either. Yet, when you speak in terms of money, many evils prevail. There isn't any clear violation of ethics when it comes to copy protection, because when anyone talks about it, it comes down to money almost everytime. Ever take money out of the picture when it comes to issues such as these? You'll be surprised at what you find. In fact, slavery was bad economically no matter how it seemed when spoken in terms of money. This was not evident to those who owned slaves. Equality is more powerful than anyone can imagine. The closer we have come to it, the more prosperous we have become. Copy protection is something those that own IP believe in and those who aren't educated well enough on the subject. Many will disagree with me, but imagine this. Those that said the world was round, the ones that said there was no devil inside the insane, or the ones against slavery were considered crazy themselves at the time. Today we call many of these people attempting to prevent more IP protection and possibly turn it around communists, hippies, or simply people who want everything for free. I guess the world is flat after all.

I'm really wondering when we'll see DRM viruses.

[Gldm]

Here's one I expect to come up. Viruses that hack the DRM bits on common media files. Some turn them on, to annoy people with legit homemade files, some turn them off, to annoy media companies. I'd imagine both will seem funny enough to some hackers to produce several.

DRM for cars

[Animats]

Suppose we had digital rights management for cars. No speeding; the car won't accelerate past the speed limit. No following too closely; radars prevent that. No excessive speed relative to adjacent lanes; the car slows down. No drunk driving; the car won't start.

All this is technically possible today. Drivers of big trucks have had their performance monitored at that level of detail for a few years now.

A decade ago, people would have objected. But today? It could happen. It might be applied first to teenagers, the elderly, and people with lousy driving records. Who could object to that?

It might not be a Government mandate, either. Insurance companies might insist on it.

Re:DRM for cars

[Eminence]

No speeding; the car won't accelerate past the speed limit. No following too closely; radars prevent that. No excessive speed relative to adjacent lanes; the car slows down.

Jeeeez... that would take all the remaining fun out of driving.

um...

[djupedal]

Most 'major' religions require tithing, which may be the real reason behind the weekly meets, not so much the brain rinsing.

Your dis'ing o' daily doses o' er'wise self-evident truths overlooks the fact that not everyone has learned them yet, thus the need for constant comment therein.

What cloaked agenda lurks in the mind of the man with such missive. Pray said agenda be his, and his alone, for if it be not of this world, nor his soul, the learning may be the end.

To sum up the article..

[Coleco]

..it seems to be saying what I believe: that the law should be a means to an end, not and end unto itself. or.. no harm, no foul. Blinding following the rules is why bad things happen.

The Definition (for those interested)

[korielgraculus]

According to the international criminal court, a crime against humanity is defined as one of the following:

(a) Murder
(b) Extermination
(c) Enslavement
(d) Deportation or forcible transfer of population
(e) Imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty in violation of fundamental rules of international law
(f) Torture
(g) Rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilization, or any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity
(h) Persecution against any identifiable group or collectivity on political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious, gender as defined in paragraph 3, or other grounds that are universally recognized as impermissible under international law, in connection with any act referred to in this paragraph or any crime within the jurisdiction of the Court
(i) Enforced disappearance of persons
(j) The crime of apartheid
(k) Other inhumane acts of a similar character intentionally causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health.

None of these really seem to fit the RIAA trying to stop me copying Metallica CDs.

Re:The Definition (for those interested)

[thynk]

Just look at Britney Spears...

Oh, believe me, I do. But what does she have to do with the RIAA - does she sing or something??

Re:Jesus Christ

[jedidiah]

Dictators and Empires come and go. Yet the books remain. Lock the books away inside encrypted silver discs and the collective heritage of 10 millenia of human experience and striving suddenly comes into jeopary.

Your view of history is far too limited.

Society is what it is today because of ancient versions of Napster.

Copy protection rant

[Sloppy]

(No, it's not a "crime against humanity". But...)

If something is copy-protected well enough, then it will never become available to the PD. Imagine modern scholars trying to brute-force the 128-bit-IDEA encryption on Shakespeare's Macbeth. (Assuming they were licensed to use the IDEA patent, of course. ;-) (Have they had enough time, or would we need a few more universe-ages?)

If it doesn't reach PD, then when can the progress happen? It can't be built upon by the population at large, unless -- do you really think it makes sense that I should purchase a license to build upon "Steamboat Willy"? (Whoever thought that up, is dead and he got the 28 years that he expected. His incentive was fulfulled.) And while I know they are probably out there on the MAME-warez sites, I remember there are many C64 games that I don't have today not just because I got bored with them, but because they were inconvenient to take into the future. Would any of that stuff still be around in 2073 when it falls into PD, without the w4r3zd00dz? Funny: I bought Doom from ID and it wasn't copy-protected at all, but I know Romero's beautiful WADs will still be around in 2083, and no help from the w4r3zd00dz will be necessary. Little Johnny will find the files on grandpa's old file server, because grandpa was able to maintain continuous storage and migrate data, even though he never interfered with ID's rightful monopoly. And Grandpa learned from history so that's why there weren't any more Library-of-Alexandria-like incidents.

Wow, think of it: that great level, E1M3, will still be in people's minds a century from now. I really believe that. People will still see it and it will be an almost "real" place. The ideosphere was permanently enlarged. The arts were promoted. I won't kid anyone; I think the w4r3zd00dz might end up being responsible for that, but ID's decision to not use copy-protection is what guaranteed it.

If there are restrictions on access, then the very purpose of copyright has been subverted. It's a trade secret, not a published work. If it's copy-protected, then the progress of the arts and sciences is not being promoted.

And that's ok -- nobody should, of course, be required by society to act so altruisticly, because we are free men and not servants of some dystopian collectivist society, and we live for our own desires. But there are consequences that go with not working with Us. If it's copy-protected, then We should not extend copyright-protection to it. Society offered the creator a deal and the creator declined and decided to market his effort a different way. Fair enough. I think that's probably foolish, but it's his call to make.

But people who claim the privileges (monopoly) and yet reject the associated obligations (ease of data migration, format conversion, etc), are dishonest and not acting in good faith. Those who try to get such Free Lunches should, IMHO, be treated to "special" standards of respect or consideration, that are different than the treatment extended to decent folk. Their kind should not be encouraged. And remember that true Law is not set by those people in Washington, but by We The People. You can subvert my government, but you can't subvert me. Whitewash and social-engineer and bribe and play your games, but the ethical principles from which decisions are made, remain immutable.

And so I choose for the reality to be: copyright exists .. in situations where it is appropriate. The use of copy-protection influences my judgement of that situation. Catch up, Washington.

Re:Talk is cheap

[SnakeStu]

I understand your point and agree that at the trivial level there is no comparison between DRM and torture, genocide, etc.

However, at a less trivial level, DRM technology is essentially oriented toward the inhibition of communication. This is promoted under the auspices of the "benefits" (from the view of corporations) of preventing "theft" of intellectual "property." However, inhibition of communication is a tool that, like many, can be put to nefarious uses well beyond that which would fit nicely into a glossy marketing spin piece or a slick lobbyist presentation. In the long run, the inhibition of communication can readily serve those who would commit and/or foment direct crimes against humanity. Genocide, for example, is much more "effective" if those not immediately affected are left in ignorance.

The "secret" content of a movie you haven't seen yet doesn't hold a candle to the "secret" that an entire ethnic group is buried in mass graves in a remote forest, but the "benefits" of DRM technology will serve both equally. Free speech is critical to bringing such evil to light; however, the deeper DRM technologies are integrated into technology we rely on, the more we will wave goodbye to free speech.

Take a look at the light side of copy protection

[Sigurd_Fafnersbane]

Let us not dwell only with all the negative aspects. Mandating buildt-in copy-prevention in all electronic devices will also have a lot of practical applications.

If for instance you could build a radar-beacon for your car that broad-cast such a copy-protection signal. The A/D converter in the trafic control radar would recognize the copy-protection signal and dutyfully shut down ;-).

When enemy radar is locking on your plane, no problem - you just send them a request to shut down and all the missiles will fall out of the sky.

Go to a televised ball-game and bring a poster with a no-copy watermark. All the TV-cameras would stop working while they panned over your part of the benches.

That the recording industry can suggest to mandate such functionality can only be a proof that they have no technical insight. General purpose computers can by default do signal processing. If you make them in a way so they cannot do signal processing - they are no longer general purpose computers.

In order to sell any kind of content to a customer you have to eventually present it to the customer in a form that can be perceived by her. If something can be picked up by a human being it can also be picked up by a machine. Live with it.

Hmmm...

[BrokenHalo]

Trouble is, if you buy a DVD or perhaps even a CD, sooner or later it's going to end up as a coaster either through nornal wear and tear or as a result of faulty manufacture and degradation. Common sense and decency dictates that you should be able to secure the content in case of this contingency, but the RIAA et al are neither sensible nor decent.

You idiot

[poptones]

Comparing listening to music to knifing someone is fucking absurd. You make the people who insist on calling it "theft" and comparing copyright infringment to stealing cars look like trolling Stephen Hawkings.

Yes, you fucking well can have something for nothing. It happens all the time; I can throw some seed in the garden - ignore them completely - and in a few months still have watermelons. I can walk outside, hold my mouth open to the sky in a rainstorm and drink all the fresh water I care to catch. I breath, and no one charges me for the air. I think, and no one questions my thoughts.

These rights of commerce are not inalienable, and are not moral. When it comes down to you trying to charge me for something as free as air or water just because you, at one time, drank from the same well then it's become time for you to leave the island.

The burning of the Library of Alexandria again

[zakezuke]

This was a tragic lost to the civilized world, and possily lots of Homer's other works were destroyed never to be seen again, not to speak of of the astrometery of Ptolemy and Eratosthenes.

Eratosthenes, who i've always been a personal fan of, is credited with measuring the earth with a stick, or rather, by making measurments of the shadows cast at noon on a stick between Alexandria and Syene. No rockets, no computers, simple geometry established, assuming the earth was a perfect sphere, he determined represented 1/50th of a circle. Using modern mesurements, that's 500 miles * 50 = 25,000 miles (mental reference from scientific american sited verivied on the web) Pretty useful for people like Columbus, oh but wait.. we lost alot of our useful navagation knowlege cause it was burnt. Guess it wasn't christrian enough for Emperor Theodosius of Rome.

[http://www.planetarybiology.com/science_philoso ph y/philosop8.htm used to get the spelling correct]

There are so many other scientists, artists, pholophiers from this era. Hell Galileo wrote his "Dialogue Concerning the Two Principal Systems of the World" was published in about 1632, which chalanged Aristotle's geocentric view, something debated by atleast Aristarchus of Samos circa 230 BC or so. Who else might have published works who's theories can be proven by modern day methods.

[http://bell.lib.umn.edu/map/PTO/WRITE/erat.html ]

Now would you consider this act a crime against humanity. Lost wealth of knowlege leading to the fall of knowlege it self?

---

Now... can we compair private libraries of books and music by users of P2P networks to the Library of Alexandria, a center of civilized thought? Could be, because for the first time in history distance has become obsolete. What survived from this era are not what could be considered the holy grail of wisdom, but literal scraps of information scattered from a varity of sources, not employed researchers or librarians, but something close to our amature collectors.

If it wasn't for this new Eutopia, I wouldn't have been able to find Eratosthenes's experiment, and been able to reproduce it, for the benifit of my nieces and nephews. A simple experiment over 2000 years ago that shows someone good evidence of the fact that they live on a planet.

While some would agrue that music and movies are not a human right. This is true. Got to make a living, we do presently have an industry, stuff costs money. Ok.. great! But DRM threatenes to permit the loss of works. At present i'm willing to pay for a CD... to play for my self and a friend. If I really like it, i'll keep the CD for 5 years, 10 years, and until I am dead. Someone who is curious about me, my life, like at the dawn of the 21st century might be at a loss if no one can obtain the right anymore. While you may think a obscure mixed metaphore like "the way the beach is kissed by the sea, poluted now but in our hearts still clean" {Insane Jane in a tribute to Pete Townshend) is important enough to preserve... but what about the works of Stephen Hawking, Carl Sagan, or Einstein. With DRM... if the companies who published their work digitaly no longer exist, how can we access it.

We no longer need a natural disaster, global war, nor fanatical zeliot oh a quest for our welfare in the afterlife in order to drive this planet into another dark age. All we need are hard core encryption schemes, criminal penalities for circumventing them, and the loss of ability to lock them, a loss by some site on the net shutting down after declairing bankrupsy.

This isn't about depriving copyright holders of their rights to publish their works, nor about our distaste for an established system of enterprise. This is about standing at the edge of a new dark age where we stand to loose countless millenia of history, and a responciblity we have to the human race, and so long as we continue to permit these actions we are as guility as those responcible for the loss of the library of Alexandria.

Moraly it's wrong, their for it must be politicly correct.

Re:The burning of the Library of Alexandria again

[Dazhel]

Well done, finally someone who gets it.

The fundamental problem with DRM and Copy Protection isn't who's going to get paid this week and by whom. The more important question is are our grandchildren and grandchildren's children going to be able to read/listen/examine/critique/archive our creative legacy?

That is the crime against humanity. Comparing the theft of our history with Hitler's mass murder in the early 20th century doesn't make DRM any less of a crime.

Right to profit?

[chthonicdaemon]

I have a large problem with this concept that is behind a lot of our current thinking about why copying is wrong. Whenever I have a conversation with someone about copyright, I get the argument: The guy worked hard to produce X, he deserves to be recompensed. This is a very strange concept. Nobody has a 'right' to profit from anything they do (unless this is stipulated in a contract of some kind, and then it really isn't an inherent right like these people are trying to make out). If I put in a lot of hard work to create the most beautiful music/art/whatever, but nobody buys, I can't say I have a right to profit from these works. Profit is mostly good fortune, definitely not a case of the most deserving case profits most. I think that much of the world's (IMHO broken) views on copyright stem from this one.

Re:Right to profit?

[sward]

Perhaps you could instead say this: if anyone deserves to be recompensed for X, it should be the author/creator of X. Not to say that this person must be recompensed for X, but that this person should be the first in line for any such recompensation.

This guy is no Lessig

[drdale]

'Article' was actually right, but 'exactly' takes an 'e.' Anyway, I was disappointed with the article myself. The real question is whether companies should be allowed to refuse to sell material to consumers who refuse to give up their fair use rights. The point that Lessig hammers home is that they should not. I'm not saying that it doesn't make any difference whether companies try enforce agreements that include the sacrifice of fair use rights by contract or by code, as Lessig would put it---building the enforcement mechanism into code means that enforcement of lousy contracts will be much stricter. But even though this is of some importance, it is still really secondary.

A flaw in the logic of DRM...

[Henry Stern]

DRM will only work if people actually want the content and actively consume it. I can't speak for everyone else, but I'll be damned if I'm going to buy a copy-protected CD (I haven't bought a CD since the first red book-breaking disc came out). However, I'm not going to steal it either. Essentially, the more they protect it, the less I want it.

Put copy protection on your CDs? Fuck you, I don't want anything you sell. Use that Palladium thing to put copy protection on your analyst's report? Fuck you, I won't use your services.

Hell, here goes a big Fuck you to anyone who can't respect that I am a rational person and assumes that I am incapable of following the law (if there even is one).

gotta love slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

where cooking tips get moderated "interesting" and "insightful."

"News for chefs. Stuff that spatters!"

The problem is...

[infolib]

If everyone did like you, the artists would scarcely get paid. It would hurt the musicians pretty badly, and the film makers even worse. In the end your music collection would again grow less diverse, and worse, our entire culture would lose freshness and diversity.

I therefore think your actions are morally wrong, and should (at least partly) be illegal.

Copy Protection and Value

[darkatom]

In the digital age, copy protection has a fundamental flaw in that it promotes a business model that charges money for processes that produce no value. In particular, in the case of music, producing a CD adds little value to the overall process of producing music. In fact, the distribution of CDs only arguably is of less value than electronic distribution today. Yet record companies still want to sell music as if each and every copy has its own intrinsic value, as if it were necessary to defray the cost of producing each copy. This idea harkens back to an era where goods were all tangible, like cars, and the major cost of an item was its cost of production.

Instead, digital media, e.g., software, music, video, are on par with ideas: copying and distributing them increases their value and does not diminish existing copies. With cheap storage and fast networks, the cost of production is nearly 0.

And this is where Weinberger's article resonates for me. I think we are dealing with a tension between the rules and a subconscious desire to "do the right thing". I claim that everyone, deep down, feels that they *should* share with their friends, especially when the cost of production is nil. On the other hand, such sharing is illegal. It's time to come up with a new model for the creation and funding of digital media.

In the meantime, the record companies, to give one example, are still trying to promote a model that acts like producing each and every CD is like pressing a new piece of vinyl: costly and requiring uncommon facilities and machinery.

Today, digital media contains most of its value in the "R&D" or development stage, and production is just a button-push. Of course marketing still adds value, but P2P networks are moving toward making even that segment as irrelevant and off-point and production.

stallmans short story about the right to read ...

[egonh]

alwas interesting to read: http://www.gnu.ai.mit.edu/philosophy/right-to-read .html