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Sony, Intel To Push Content Protection
prostoalex writes "Intel and Sony are trying to please the copyright-alerted content publishers and privacy-aware consumers by supporting and pushing Digital Transmission Content Protection standard. New technology allows the consumer to use the downloaded content, but not distribute it outside of their home. A PDF presentation from an Intel engineer is available on dtcp.com."
New technology allows the consumer to use the downloaded content, but not distribute it outside of their home
So, what happens if I turn up to volume a bit?
All errors in this comment are mine. Corrections are considered a derivative work, and punishable under copyright law.
God this sort of stuff pisses me off -
The analogy that springs to mind is that if you go to the public library, they let you borrow a book, only if you let them chain it to your wrist first.
Information was, is and should be free.
tom-george.comBecause geeks rate higher t
No more intel for me. I'm buying AMD from now. In the worst case, I'm moving to China to buy a Chiniese PC. Runs linux.
is it closed?
;)
heck, play the music loud enough and it does leave your home! buy a bitching video projector and the images leave your home as well
.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
I can't see any way to enforce that.
Of course assuming you are using linux or other open source OS.
so what?
really... who cares?
> New technology allows the consumer to use the downloaded content, but not distribute it outside of their home.
Dang, I used to hand out mp3 cdr's on the street corner. Now I have to resort to sharing on kazaa inside my home.
My business faces ruin. CD sales have dropped through the floor. People aren't buying half as many CDs as they did just a year ago. Revenue is down and costs are up. My store has survived for years, but I now face the prospect of bankruptcy. Every day I ask myself why this is happening.
I bought the store about 12 years ago. It was one of those boutique record stores that sell obscure, independent releases that no-one listens to, not even the people that buy them. I decided that to grow the business I'd need to aim for a different demographic, the family market. My store specialised in family music - stuff that the whole family could listen to. I don't sell sick stuff like Marilyn Manson or cop-killer rap, and I'm proud to have one of the most extensive Christian rock sections that I know of.
The business strategy worked. People flocked to my store, knowing that they (and their children) could safely purchase records without profanity or violent lyrics. Over the years I expanded the business and took on more clean-cut and friendly employees. It took hard work and long hours but I had achieved my dream - owning a profitable business that I had built with my own hands, from the ground up. But now, this dream is turning into a nightmare.
Every day, fewer and fewer customers enter my store to buy fewer and fewer CDs. Why is no one buying CDs? Are people not interested in music? Do people prefer to watch TV, see films, read books? I don't know. But there is one, inescapable truth - Internet piracy is mostly to blame. The statistics speak for themselves - one in three discs world wide is a pirate. On The Internet, you can find and download hundreds of dollars worth of music in just minutes. It has the potential to destroy the music industry, from artists, to record companies to stores like my own. Before you point to the supposed "economic downturn", I'll note that the book store just across from my store is doing great business. Unlike CDs, it's harder to copy books over The Internet.
A week ago, an unpleasant experience with pirates gave me an idea. In my store, I overheard a teenage patron talking to his friend.
"Dude, I'm going to put this CD on the Internet right away."
"Yeah, dude, that's really lete [sic], you'll get lots of respect."
I was fuming. So they were out to destroy the record industry from right under my nose? Fat chance. When they came to the counter to make their purchase, I grabbed the little shit by his shirt. "So...you're going to copy this to your friends over The Internet, punk?" I asked him in my best Clint Eastwood/Dirty Harry voice.
"Uh y-yeh." He mumbled, shocked.
"That's it. What's your name? You're blacklisted. Now take yourself and your little bitch friend out of my store - and don't come back." I barked. Cravenly, they complied and scampered off.
So that's my idea - a national blacklist of pirates. If somebody cannot obey the basic rules of society, then they should be excluded from society. If pirates want to steal from the music industry, then the music industry should exclude them. It's that simple. One strike, and you're out - no reputable record store will allow you to buy another CD. If the pirates can't buy the CDS to begin with, then they won't be able to copy them over The Internet, will they? It's no different to doctors blacklisting drug dealers from buying prescription medicine.
I have just written a letter to the RIAA outlining my proposal. Suing pirates one by one isn't going far enough. Not to mention pirates use the fact that they're being sued to unfairly portray themselves as victims. A national register of pirates would make the problem far easier to deal with. People would be encouraged to give the names of suspected pirates to a hotline, similar to TIPS. Once we know the size of the problem, the police and other law enforcement agencies will be forced to take piracy seriously. They have fought the War on Drugs with skill, so why not the War on Piracy?
This evening, my daughters a
I'm not Seth.
It we never be closed. It's far too wide open.
It is interesting, because when it all comes down to it, the "good guys" are hurt due to restrictions, and the "bad guys" always end up pirating, etc. I am not sure there really is an answer as to how to protect information 100% without it both hurting the consumer and being crackable by a cracker. Of course, the governments can keep passing laws that make reverse engineering illegal, etc, but again, that's just going to scare the average Joe much more than it would scare someone who really wants to crack a DRM transmission. Only time will tell where the DRM issue ends up.
the new 40gig ipod
Food and housing should be free too, but they aren't.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
"Allow" the customer to use digital content at home. You mean the content you payed for? As opposed to not allowing you to listen/watch/use content you've payed for?
They always word these things like they're *granting* new rights instead of taking them away. I don't know whether to be amused at the balls of the PR makers or dismayed at the fact that there are twits who will read a press release like that and think "Oh goody, I've been wanting to do that."
Unbreakable toys can be used to break other toys.
people will keep their old PCs because of that. how are the sales supposed to increase then? will they sneak drm-enabled processors to customers without telling it? maybe with a new eXPerience of an Operating System?
:)
I really hope that some new company (from China, maybe?) will come up with new brands of processors without the DRM stuff. but then probably the US government will make them illegal in the country
-- There are two kind of sysadmins: Paranoids and Losers. (adapted from D. Bach)
-StarMaven
-StarMaven
Use BSD you pansies
Love, your daddy,
Trollburger
Trollburger
Public Drunkard.
The following are actual quotes I've read from audiophiles on the net. Enjoy.
"Pulling harmonics together from a jumbled auditory stream to form a coherent harmonic envelope."
"Image outlines were sharply focused in space with believable palpability."
"There was plenty of bass detail to behold."
"The music flows with gusto and verve. It squeezes instrumental images into incredibly palpable outlines."
"...more muscle and definition, and a heart that is pure gold."
"Most preamps when pushed hard change their sonic signature."
"Harmonic colors were somewhat on the dark side."
"By using the $450 gold plated RCA stereo jumper cables for all line-level connections, and the newly available $1200 gold plated XYZ speaker wires, we were able to achieve a distinct improvement in highs and the deepest rich bass lows I have ever heard. A massive improvement over ordinary old copper."
"These cables deliver big time! The sound is surprsingly smooth and spacious, with particularly sweet upper octaves."
"If you connect a ground to the chassis of your power amplifer and use 4 gauge wire connected to a bucket of salt water with a copper coil in it, your mids and highs will be the sweetest you have ever heard. Works with car audio systems too. Place the bucket in the trunk and reduce speed on corners and when braking, to avoid spillage."
"Special wooden resonator disks made in Asia from a special tree, only found in one area. Placing these under EACH of your components, at strategic locations will remove 'unwanted resonances', and DRAMATIC improval tonal quality. The difference is astounding. These disks of wood sell for around $100 to $400 EACH (depending on size)." (See the top of this web page!)
"somewhat fuzzy portrayal of image outlines."
"Harmonic textures ebbed and flowed with startling dynamic nuances and the sort of liquidity and purity one only comes to associate with world-class audio products."
"Harmonic textures are painted slightly gray in color."
"Spatial detail was painted with a fine brush that readily resolved massed voices and the air around individual instruments."
"Image outlines, however, are more precisely focused within the soundstage and in general the Accordance is capable of sketching out a convincing 3-D acoustic impression."
"It felt like I had crawled into a warm and inviting sonic womb."
"Not content with straight S.E.X. (the single-ended experimenter's kit), the Doctor introduces the "69" tapered pipe loudspeaker. Sounds like a recipe for a mind-blowing sonic orgasm."
"The impression of speed and control was strong."
"Bass lines were fleshed out with excellent definition."
"It is less lush sounding than..."
"...force feeding the listener an earful of detail; more accurately, a barrage of in-your-face zingers that becomes almost an instant irritant."
"Each tube brand seems to have a unique flavor of its own."
"Certain busy passages of music get congested."
"... sounds either euphonic or bright."
"The Equilibre ($8,475) - nominally a 60-watt stereo amp."
"It could well explain the sweet sounds that come from using passive preamps straight into the power amplifiers."
"...with an easy-to-drive impedance magnitude."
"Rendition of harmonic colors was suave and smooth, with a believable sugar coating."
"Exposure of low-level detail, even in complex passages, without leaving anything to the imagination."
"The mids are vivid in spades with wave after wave of honey-coated harmonic bliss."
"The midbass region is "fun"
"the upper mids are a bit more laid back than I would like."
"the low bottom end is not there..."
I guess loads of people will moan about not being able to illegaly copy. But why would it be bad if technology allows the wishes of the copyright owner to be enforcerd.
.pdf, are:
What to me is *much* worse, is when these DRM techniques disable me (honest linux user, strictly using Free software), to do things MS users can. I might *want* to pay for a film/song, but if the technology disables me from vieuwing it, I'll have to become a criminal.
Fortunaltely, the requirements, as stated in the
Content Company Requirements for Digital Tansmission
* Stated Requirement:
"Keep honest people honest"
* Specific Requirements:
[...]
(page 11 of the document).
So I guess we're OK then??? (Hope so).
The encryption in the DRM will ensure that no untrusted application (or OS) will be able to decode the media file. That way they can easily enforce the constraints on the media (until a bug is found in the DRM code)
This has got to be fritz chip revisited... I mean come on... Plus, not to mention all the people who will refuse to buy the new cpu, and refuse to update an "eXPerience OS", and just do what a real man does. Go to Linux! Besides.. I fail to see how possible it is to make a CPU Block digital media... not to mention on how possible it really is to accomplish this without touching a very touchy subject of freedom of speech.
Just me
Stuff like this will be hacked a cracked inside of a few weeks. Stop spending so much money developing DRM technology, it's a total waste. Maybe if you did that, then it would offset some of the money you say you are losing due to infringement.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
This is not an essay or a reasoned discourse so much as a list of aggravations and headaches I've had over the years with COM. I've come to believe that COM not only stinks, but has wasted more programmer time to less good purpose than any other API or technology I can think of. My dislike for this API knows no bounds.
1. COM was not a designed technology. That is, it was never thought out completely beforehand. Microsoft never intended COM to be as prevalent and deeply-embedded in Windows as it is today; it was intended to replace the horrible and unreliable DDE. It was needed to allow Microsoft's new Office suite interoperate more gracefully. Microsoft's developers, being the good dogmatists they are, adopted the then-cutting-edge concept of component software. That is, rather than having many monolithic pieces of software all doing different things, you'd simply write a bunch of objects which would expose interfaces you could plug into your own applications.
But COM was really only thought out as a way to link a few applications together: a spreadsheet (Excel), a word processor (Word), and e-mail (MAPI). It didn't then (and still doesn't) operate very gracefully with database applications, even Microsoft's own Access product.
Over time, Microsoft moved more and more low-level system work into COM objects. It was modern! It was high-tech! It made software more modular! But it also made software dependencies ferociously complex, and horrendously difficult to debug. You can't really flowchart a modern application's information flow if it is a COM application -- you can't tell what the I/O is doing at a given moment because you can't get a good picture of how many programs are holding instances to the COM object.
And then there's the worst and most glaring defect of COM: a bug in a low-level component means that all other programs that depend on that component will be buggy too. And if the component is a vedor-written one, it cannot be fixed except by the vendor.
Finally, because Microsoft kept the DLL (dynamically linked library) format for libraries and just shoehorned COM objects into them, we still have to deal with "DLL hell" -- one system DLL can overwrite another. In COM-land this problem is even worse, since the COM interfaces of two DLLs may look exactly the same, but may have different implementations depending on the DLL installed.
2. The Registry. A modern Windows system has to support literally thousands of discrete COM interfaces in order to function. How are all these interfaces to be tracked and managed, especially in networked environments? Some genius at Microsoft came up with the idea of a central, heirarchical registry of settings.
Now, this in itself isn't a bad idea. Where Microsoft went wrong was in making it the central repository for the entire operating system. Furthermore, they designed it as a binary database rather than plain-text. In practice, this means two things: if the Registry gets corrupted (a fairly common occurrence for a developer) it can keep your machine from even booting up, and it means you can't just use a text-editor to fix it. If you hose the Registry badly enough, a re-install is your only recourse. This is an unconscionable design decision, and in my view the very worst thing about COM.
Contrast this with most Unix systems, where system configuration files are kept separate from application configuration files, and nearly all configuration files are plain-text. Further, a faulty configuration file here or there will not prohibit the system from booting up (it may fail to work correctly, but it will usually boot). (The only exception to this that I can think of is to mess up a lilo.conf or grub.conf file.)
3. Security. Oh, we don't need to bring up the latest Blaster worm to belabor this point. All we have to do is look at the dependencies for any substantial COM program, and try to figure out where any possible buffer-overrun or elevated-privilege situation might come up. It's hopeless. COM is pervasive
If you can put it through speakers, you can copy it. Simple. It's only a matter of time before someone with high quality gear decides to make a copy for everyone. Sure it might slow down the spread of stolen music, but it can't be stopped.
See what I mean?
When will the vendors finally learn it? CDs would still be a stable market if it weren't for CDRWs costing less than a set of coasters nowadays. You won't turn the weel back with copmetition just around the corner.
If Intel should start getting truly pesky to customers with TCPA, this new gadget and anything else, AMD, VIA, Motorola and any other Vendor will rejoyce and push out CPUs and Architecture variants that don't have this crap.
Why don't Corporations just go back to good ol' quality products for a fair price to make money? That used to be a reliable way to do it after all.
Sanely priced CDs with mp3s and oggs and mpeg videos included, along with interessting booklets should do magic to a declining market. But I guess they just want to sell crap for to much money and will use law enforcement to emphasis that and in the end really piss their customers of.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Who is so powerful that Sony needs to please him?
New technology allows the consumer to use the downloaded content, but not distribute it outside of their home.
But "Home is wherever I hang my hat" and I have a lot of hats for sale for very cheap...
Seriously, though, how can they possibly do this on a technological level? Unless (of course) when they say "Home" they mean "Computer, excluding any upgrade ever"
Cheers & God bless
Sam "SammyTheSnake" Penny
I'll wait six months until somebody outside US publishes something to crack this bullshit!
Just like CSS!
When will they learn that any kind of digital copy protection will ALWAYS be cracked in a few monthes? Don't they have TI advisors?
-=-=-=-=
I know life isn't fair, but why can't it ever be un-fair in MY favor!?
Although many think that analog is always in the clear, watermarking technologies can prevent the copying of redigitized signals. A watermark would be a auditorialy invisible signal in the content data that encodes a copy protection code or DRM code. If the DRM system looks for a watermark in the content data (as opposed to a special metadata code) and permits/prohibits playing, copying, saving, etc. then dubbers are defeated. Content creators could even use this technology to prohibit digital recording and retransmission on live performances. Movies and concerts could have a watermark injected into the audio or visual signal that renders redigitized copies incompatible with "DRM-enhanced" machines.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
The PDF was hosed and the CNet article was spartan, so I'm still left wondering about this great big definition issue in the term "home."
This reminds me of the crisis over defining "copy" that underlies all the legal arguments over file sharing. The fact is, these terms have long been de-stabilized. The advent of electronic media that began at the turn of the century created a whole new level of complexity in language that text based laws simply cannot encompass.
Just imagine the use of the term "home" in a filesystem. Where is home? Does that mean in relation to root? Which root? Or is it the user home? Does that include the virtual network or locally? Local meaning active or including backups?
Glazing over these things as if they didn't exist simply because a lot of people don't want to face it is not looking at the reality we live in today.
More competing standards will cause confusion and anxiety in the marketplace, as skittish "rights" holders wait on the sidelines to see which one will emerge victorious. This could only be helpful in the battle against DRM. I encourage more digital restrictions standards :).
CEE5210S The signal SIGHUP was received.
Well, I actually did RTFA (forgive me!) and note with some concern that the standard provides for "device revocation" under some clearly-defined terms, though those terms are unspecified. Can anyone shed some light on what those might be?
The obvious concern here is that the devices will be sold under some sort of license agreement that will permit unspecified others to figuratively fry your hardware if they suspect it's compromised (or are otherwise displeased with you). I imagine that one's recourse as a consumer (remember: we're "consumers" and not "citizens" here!) will be quite limited. Sigh.
A sad moment in my professional career came a couple of days ago during a demonstration of our software for a customer. I designed the security administration module. As we were showing the software, my supervisor was explaining the system to the customer team. When he got to the security/user administration screen, we created a new user. As I intended, the user defaulted to having rights to all fifteen components of the system. My supervisor explained "in the final system, of course, we will default to the new user having no rights. You will turn them on as you need them."
I immediately questioned this approach, as this was the first I'd heard of it. Inside, my heart was breaking, as I already knew where the conversation would lead--yet there was hope again, for a moment...
In the ensuing discussion, all eight other people in the room (four developers and five customers) readily agreed that we ought to default to no permissions for new users. I dropped the point, resigning once again to allowing others to be paranoid for no reason.
What made this moment so sad is that, once again, our culture demonstrated in clear fashion that we fundamentally do not trust each other. We design systems that express this fundamental distrust, and we do so with enthusiasm, without comprehending the consequences of our assumption.
I write now to point out this hidden assumption, to question aloud for the few out there who will see what I'm saying and rethink their approach to trust. I am pleading with you fellow programmers to consider the consequences of developing systems which a priori do not trust the people who use them. The example I gave above is common: the issue arises at least once per day for me, usually more. Rarely is it so obvious.
My hope is twofold--I will never relinquish the angle I personally hold, and the only other programmer I have ever heard of who recognizes this issue at its deeper levels is a programmer we all know and... trust: Richard Stallman.
I was delighted to find that Stallman's impetus for the GPL and the Free Software Foundation revolved around this trust issue. Early in his career, he worked on a system which had no passwords. For a while, this worked fine. Eventually, the userbase grew to the point that it needed to be more secure. He pleaded to keep the system open, but was overruled, partly because one particular user was deleting other people's files from time to time.
I was excited to find this briefly mentioned in an interview with Stallman, since it is the only time I have ever seen this issue addressed on such a bold level as to propose a system _without passwords!_
Most thoughtful readers already have a half-dozen reasons to object, having been burnt by rogue users, disgruntled employees, and the like. However, I plead with such thoughtful readers to put aside such clear and obvious objections, and to consider the following with an open mind:
The longterm consequences of developing system after system after system which intrinsically distrusts the people who operate the system are harrowing as we consider a not-so-distant future of artificial intelligence. At the present time, operating systems -- even Linux -- are built around the concept that they can be rebooted from time to time. Eventually we'll get to the point where our operating systems are so stable we never consider rebooting. In fact, they'll be so stable they survive power outages, intentional sabotage, and anything else we can throw at them. This is only a matter of time because there is such a huge premium in any system which has an unbreakable uptime, or perfect and graceful recovery from downtime.
If we are still distrusting our users when we reach the day that operating systems never reboot, we will have reached a crossroads... and we will inevitably choose the well-worn path at that time, placing people like me on the fringe and blithely building our own destruction, as prophesied already in popular movies like the Matrix:
The first thing ou
Intel and Sony : How can we make more profit ??? Answer : Instead of taking some money from your customer why not triing to steal it all ???
What does it do?
The Microsoft(R) Windows(R) Rights Management (RM) client is required for your computer to run applications that provide functionality based on Windows RM technologies. Installing this client places software on your computer that allows RM-aware applications to work with Windows Rights Management Services (RMS) to provide licenses for publishing and consuming RM-protected information.
Now what interests me is, who is going to be the first software company to embrace this? Probably the next version of Media Player.
The watermarked content mentioned would not be played on a DRM system. It would be played on a typical current generation RIO, PC, DVD player, Etc. The DRM system simply won't be compatible with regular MP3's, expecialy those recorded from content with a watermark. However, everything else would play them no problem.
.net services & certificates instead? Somehow I don't see MS letting control of the DRM run by anybody else. They will be the gatekeeper no exceptions! Having it run on Red Hat and not using Passport and .net server won't be permitted.
Anyway I read the article. It's quite clear this the the Microsoft Media PC. It's no more a general use PC than an X Box is. It's a cable subscription box that plays rental and purchase pre-packaged media for general consumption. It is not a create and share or rip, mix, burn platform. It's a subscriber box and nothing more.
Those who want a subscription to a service like Cable TV or XM radio will need the subscriber box. This is designed to go in the living room. Everything else will still use your general use computer as always.
The real question is will Microsoft kill the Intel version by not supporting it in the OS and push their own Media Player 9 DRM
The truth shall set you free!
I hereby move that we rename the "Global Village" to the "Global Home". Once Mars is colonised, we can rename it to the "Solar System Home" and, with Alpha Centauri in our control, to the "Universal Home". Vive la metaphorution!;)
Is this a sigs-optional kind of place? 'Cause I am totally down with that if you know what I mean.
If I get a consumer product with GPL software in it, do they have to supply the source?
Big Brother Bush is doubleplus ungood.
Obvious Simpsons joke aside, this seems like a pipe dream. The ability to have this kind of control over media no doubt sends the RIAA et al into spasms of joy, but there's a catch. Surely all you need to play downloaded music, either legitimately owned or copied anywhere is an MP3 player and a decent set of speakers? Given the choice of being able to play carefully controlled MP3s through my fridge - or whatever they're going to install this system onto - or just plug in an mp3 player and go, the latter gets my vote any day.
New technology allows the consumer to use the downloaded content, but not distribute it outside of their home.
Because you should have to pay twice if you want to play the music on a portable mp3 player.
And of course, no open source mp3 software, because I could compile it with -DNO_DRM.
Well, Sony, guess what? Having my music conveniently on my PC and on my mp3 portableplayer is what motivates me to buy the music in the first place.
And guess what? I do respect copyright; I won't even burn a CD for close friends, or rip their CDs -- despite the 32 GB of free space on my portable.
And I'll continue to respect your copyright: I just won't buy your cripple-ware.
I can find plenty of great music on old LPs, on real (Phillips-Sony Red Book Standard), from emusic.com, and from independent labels.
Let me repeat: I don't want your cripple-ware. It does me no good since it won't play on the hardware I control (it only plays on hardware I buy and you control). So it will do you no good -- I won't exchange my money for it.
The more new releases you distribute exclusively as cripple-ware, the more alternatives will be produced. And that's what I'll be buying.
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
As I read the article and then read the comments, it dawned on me after a few lines; there was advocation for breaking the law everywhere I looked. Comments such as 'this will be cracked' and 'we will find other ways to steal music.' What kind of immature attitude is being thrust into the open here? Honestly, if the community doesn't want to be portrayed as a bunch of thieves and black hats, then this kind of idiocy has to stop.
You don't want to be called a thief for running Linux? You don't want to be known as some script-kiddie hacker for using OSS? Well here is a good hint...stop advocating cracking and stealing music and software. You paid for it and it is yours to use, but, don't share it with the rest of the world.
Hypocrisy is found here in the more pure form I have ever seen outside of Hollywood.
I'm suprised you didn't also mention it's not a good idea to Start up Sound Recorder. It and Hi-Fi have nothing in common. I used to use it to send grandkid noises to distant relatives. I thought the very Lo-Fi sound was due to a cheap sound card. Then I discovered CDeX has a record button under tools. For a no feature capture device, WOW! It is possible to get stereo Hi-Fi recordings on my hardware! It's good enough to use to transfer my LP's. Sound Recorder wasn't even as good as a cheap tape recorder. As for an equivelant recorder to MS sound recorder, I don't know of any that lo-fi.
The truth shall set you free!
Why would I want to buy crippled hardware when there are alternatives?
I'm going to end up with one Hell of a big home network...
Big Brother Bush is doubleplus ungood.
I'll never use it and continue to create my free alternatives that are DRM free.
if this makes me a criminal then so be it, I'll be an underground criminal but at least I'll be DRM free.
My Freevo does things that no TiVO can (watch your shows on the subway with your laptop... oh wait you cant without ahack that makes making a freevo box look easy) and I'll always be able to create DRM free mp3's no matter what they try.
and I know that I'm not the only one that does not want DRM here nor some damned companie's fingers in what I do in my home.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
"Keeping the honest customer honest." That is their motto, if you look at the slide presentation. True political spin.
1. Never, ever associate the unencrypted data with the encrypted.
2. Keep the encryption and decryption keys secret and change them.
3. Keep the encryption and decryption devices secret.
Even given all that, I'd be codes still get cracked.
So, RIAA and MPAA want to encrypt hundreds of millions if not billions of copies of known data thereby associated encrypted and unencrypted data then distribute them around the whole world, and millions and millions of decryption devices with static decryption keys, then distribute those around the whole world.
Thus completely violating the practices and procedures of those who entire job it is to keep secrets.
Prediction: it won't work.
It's sad, because there is a legitimate use for DRM that Intel is completely missing, and instead just acting like the **AA's bitch. Imagine DRM that was in the hands of the consumer that, for instance, ensured that malicious worms could not be trusted and executed on the machine. Or that the consumer could use to ensure that, say, a malicious government could not crack their documents.
He who would sacrifice a little bit of liberty to suck on the rancid teat of hollywood blockbusters deserves neither.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
When Intel comes out with "ultra-optimized .... [fine print] DRM enabled" systems...
DON'T BUY THEM.
That'll shut them up fairly quick.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
May work now, but drm is going into longhorn, and as has already been covered on slashdot, inquirer, register, and elsewhere, the word on the street for the delay on longhorn is that the motherboard manufacturers, the sound card manufacturers, and the video card manufacturers are having trouble incorporating drm into the hardware.
So not only will you have an operating system with drm in it, but all the associated hardware, from motherboards to sound and video boards, to hard drives, to keyboards, to yes, even headphones, will have drm in it. Everything else has already been discussed. The only thing I haven't heard is on the headphones. But as soon as the headphone jack becomes the leak point (or "hole"), expect the headphone manufacturers to be forced to incorporate drm as well.
And as for methods, look at ibm's implentation of their spy chip on their laptops, being billed as a security chip.
So you'll use linux you say? Dumbass Linus said, "I don't care" or something like that, and was additionaly quoted saying that the drm scheme can be coded into linux. The MPAA/RIAA seized on this, and quoted linus at the next committee hearing on drm.
Last year, I stood up at a commerce committee hearing on digital restrictions management, and got into jack valenti's face as he lied his way through statements, and made outrageous claims, while seated at the head of the commerce committee panel.
What have you, slashdot readers, done to change the course of digital restrictions management?
Well, yes, but the Lost Generation did produce notables like Hemingway and Fitzgerald, so it wasn't all bad.
Middle aged pundit: I can't play this on my dvd player, I think it's broken.
Salesperson: *looks at DVD* oh, that's one of those new DRM protected dvd's.
Middle aged pundit: Drmwhazit?
Salesperson: It's a security measure to keep people from copying the DVD.
Middle aged pundit: Ok, well why won't it play on the player then?
Salesperson: Becuase you have to have a DRM enabled DVD player to run it.
Middle aged pundit: *runs through mind, looks over at shelf, sees an expensive $300 player for the DVD, becomes slightly irritated* Can I get a refund then?
Salesperson: Sorry, it's store policy not to give refunds on CD's or DVD's.
Middle aged pundit: Why?
Salesperson: Because a lot of people copy them and try to return them. If we allowed for refunds we'd go out of buisness.
Middle aged pundit: *now very irritated* But I didn't copy this, hell, it has copy protection on it! I want my money back.
Salesperson: Sorry, can't do it.
Middle aged pundit: Ok then. *runs off to look at the non-drm'd dvd section or out of the store very angry to return and look at the non-drm's dvd section*.
This is how DRM is going to effect most people. The youngin's and technically adept are going to know about it and not even get caught up in that. Plus, with their system it looks like it needs an internet connection which is even more expensive.
Only when it's cheap will it catch on. Remember that folks.
Intel's going to have to put some money investment into a fritz chip. Unless they are getting some profit out of this it ain't gonna happen. The whole idea for the corperations is to gouge people on the media they by and if that fails then the entire scheme will fail.
Candy-Coated Knowledge
Once you have made the decision to turn your product into a string of 1s and 0s, it is out of your control.
Why do they have such a hard time understanding that?
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
Why are the big companies pushing for DRM? After all - consumers DON't want it - and we aren't likely to buy much DRM protected kit. I understand the IP debate - but if you don't have a product that people want - then you can't sell it. This seems like such a no brainer to me.
This is crap, mr genius. Motherboards, hard disks etc then yes, eventually and with some caveats. Line out, no. Until they bolt the headphones to your ears, if you can hear it then you can take an analogue copy.
Even with a closed system, you can hold a mic up to a loudspeaker. A headphone is a cone that vibrates when you apply a voltage, it's not an electronic device.
I notice you don't reference any of your claims.
If you don't understand this, you may be doing more harm than good shouting the odds in public.
Its more like, the information on how to build a house and grow food should be free. And it used to be.
We're headed for the information darkages due to greedy companies, stupid legislators, and an indifferent public.
I swear China is behind this stupidity; they're tryign to make us a 3rd world country.
"What kind of immature attitude is being thrust into the open here?"
I've noticed that people who use the phrase "immature" are usually under 20; adults don't use immature because (a) its flamebait (b) adults recognize the real definition of "immature" really has to do with a lack of experience, not an inherent quality of a human.
I would say that the position you advocate has to do with a purity that comes from a lack of experience in the real-world; that is, you equate the copying of a movie with some moral purity where none exist. Its like going to Hades and then lamenting that there's too much pain and suffering going on.
Back to my point, by using the word "immature", you paint yourself into the same box occupied primarily by 14 year old girls complaining about the antics of 14 year old boys. I'm not sure that's what you intended to do, nonetheless, you did.
And I am a father, so I'm used to helping train the next generation of people; I have a 9 and 13 year old, and so I'm well-versed in their lack of experience, I'm comfortable talking to you much as I would an adult and treating you like an adult while helping you at the same time.
You're welcome!
Yeah, lets see who buys what. I would gladly take Mitsubishi Diamond Scan monitor instead of a Trinitron next time, I already use AMD.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
Fuck off and die.
Regards,
Your customers.
The windows sound recorder records at default 22,000 hz.. which sounds gay.
You see, a few years ago the people here said to the RIAA "Give us an easy, cheap, convienvient way to download the songs we like."
The RIAA responded with "No way! You will only like the songs that we tell you to like and you will only buy them they way we tell you to buy them."
Of course that pissed the users off at the already pissed off RIAA, and we all know what happens when two very pissed off entities meet each other in a dark alley.
All I can say is may the most powerful pissed off entity prevail.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
I would have ended up like one of these dorks if the RIAA didn't put out such crap.
I bought into this until I realized that this high end equipment would only result in crap music coming in clearer.
Uncrackable DRM isn't the point or the goal. The goal is DRM layered with enough hard encryption that it's a major pain in the ass.
It's not a question of how, but when. VHS has no encryption, but Macrovision was applied after development for content protection. CDs were a late 70s/early 80s invention, no encrytption at all, with various macrovision-style protection methods applied later. DVDs were a late 80s, early 90s invention, flawed encryption, with limited DRM via improved macrovision.
It's clear they're learning, and they'll only get better.
strAtEdgE's first law of music piracy:
"For every anti-piracy measure that cripples legitimate use of music, there is a counter measure that enables full, unfettered use of the music that will be discovered."
strAtEdgE's second law of music piracy:
"If music companies don't smarten up and halt poor business practices like selling crippled products to willing customers, more and more people are going to learn to prefer using the counter measures mentioned in the first law."
----- sXe
The assignment for today, class, is to read the private key off any consumer DRM chip. If you don't have an electron microscope you can use one of the high school's microscopes.
Extra credit will be given to anyone who can open the chip and read the key in under ten minutes.
Please remember that it is illegal to publish this number online.
Big Brother Bush is doubleplus ungood.
if they don't nobody will buy the thing because they wouldn't be able to use their tv's, monitors or ANYTHING to look at the said content(they have to make it possible to see/hear the stuff somehow, no?)
Movie studios could upgrade their processes to 3D and require home viewers to put on what are essentially night vision goggles. Yes, I know Nintendo tried this, and yes, I know the Virtual Boy flopped, but near-eye display technology has improved since then.
Will I retire or break 10K?
If the majority of recording pirates are tin-eared listeners happy with what they get from Kazaa (usually 128 kbps MP3 encoded with the crappiest of encoders), the phrase "generation loss" is lossed on them too.
Will I retire or break 10K?
A watermark would be a auditorialy invisible signal in the content data that encodes a copy protection code or DRM code.
If it can't be heard, a good lossy audio encoder will remove it. If it can be heard, audiophiles will female dog about it to no end.
If the DRM system looks for a watermark in the content data (as opposed to a special metadata code) and permits/prohibits playing, copying, saving, etc. then dubbers are defeated.
And watch how mad a father can get when his shiny new camcorder refuses to record baby's first steps just because a copyrighted telecast can be seen in of the corner of the picture.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Poor Man's Photoshop Elements and Poor Man's Office do only cost a dollar once I've burned them onto a CD-R disc.
Will I retire or break 10K?
People like you make me sick. If I buy music, its mine to share with whomever I choose. The only reason that its is "Illegal" is because the very people who are now forcing us to buy crippled systems are the ones who had their lackies down in Washington write the DMCA to make it illegal to begin with.
And, in case you have been living in a cave for the past 2 years, these sons-of-bitches have been calling us thieves and hackers long before we infringed any newly appointed copyright laws.
So let's recap for our friend who wants to buy a computer that won't allow you to compile your own apps, create your own video or audio files, use a scanner, etc. What Intel/Sony wants is to authenticate every file you play. Oh, how convienient. You have a party, you want to play some MP3's, but Sony's new copyprotection scheme requires you to insert the original CD and hop on the Internet before every track is played.
What the media companies want, more than anything else, is to create two classes of electronics, which have nothing to do with the quality of those electronics, 1. systems that create media 2. systems that play (but don't edit, etc) media.
So, here's my big middle finger to Intel. I bought a K6-2+ instead of the P-III because of the Processor ID. I bought an Athlon insted of a P-IV because of monopoly tactics to promote a bad chip design (SSE2). And, for the record, I never buy Sony, not because of some political reason, just because their products suck, and usually die a week after their warranty expires.
So, thanks, flamebait for promoting the myth that file sharing=copyright infringement=theft. People like you are like the dumb saps who belived the insurance industry in the early 90's who went against free universal health care. And any SUV owner who bought their car for safety. You believe whatever the idiot box tells you. Go read Oprah's new book. Fuck off.
No one should be allowed that kind of power over another persons computer, nothing good can come from dictating to someone what they can and can't do with their property.
I for one already use Linux, the next step for me to replace all intel hardware in my computer with other brand names, after all AMD is said to be better anyway.
Buying a house in the foreign country is not the only expense involved in moving. Isn't there a high "service fee" that needs to be paid to governments to expedite processing the family's immigration papers? What about some money to put food in your kids' mouths until you can find an employer willing to hire a documented alien? What about paying the $OFFICIAL_LANGUAGE as a Second Language instructor?
Will I retire or break 10K?
I couldn't view the PDF but it almost sounded like Intel's big invention was basically to only allow transfer among private IPs. Specifically:
The DTCP specification, embodied in home networks, would permit consumers to play downloaded music or movies on any PC or digital device in the home. However, the downloaded material can't be transmitted outside the home or copied
Now what embodies a "home" network as opposed to an "outside" network? Private IPs. Almost all the people I know with broadband and multiple computers are using some kind of NAT. Think how easy it would be to put a chip in a consumer electronic device that sniffed out the IPs of files as they come in or out. Anything with 192.168.x.x is allowed and anything else is denied.
Now, I'm sure the hard core networking guys could use PPTP or something to "extend" their home network around the world but for 99% of the people out there, they already can't figure out how to share files over NAT (try listening to all the complaints about DCC not working in any IRC filesharing channel) so it's doubtful that they would know how to bypass this either.
And because it's the a chip in the electronic device that controls the input/output you couldn't just write a program that would be NAT aware like the modern P2P sharing programs. You'd essentially have to modchip all your devices, which could end up being a lot more trouble than its worth.
So that's my theory on how it'll work.
-JoeShmoe
.
-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
So far as I can tell the author made no attempt to cross-check the claims made or to get a critical opinion of the standard from a third party. Rather he spent his time extolling the future of media pcs (more like a tv, if I wanted a TV I'd buy a stupid TV not a broken excuse for a computer) than discussing the topic at hand.
It may just be me but that felt less like an article and more like a pure press-release unfiltered by journalism in any way. I'm not sure what pisses me off more, companies that make this kind of stuff or the journalists who blindly pass it on as if it was a non-issue.
It's obvious that Microsoft's month for secuirty wasn't enough (after 20 years of feature creep, we only get a month for?).
I've read the TCPA specs and it's not a bad idea in a commercial & some home environments as long as you can turn it off so you can develop code or run someone elses' if you choose to (as opposed to sneak-ware like Gator). I have two computers at work & wouldn't mind if the one running email were "locked down" to keep corporate IS from losing their minds for every MSBlaster/Fizzer/MSwormoftheweek as long as they leave my "programming" box alone (where's the checkbox for USB compliance suite on their audit checklist???).
At home, it would be an advantage to have two copies of Windows installed- one that lets me play & one that I run video editing on & only runs trusted code.
By mixing DRM in, Intel, Microsoft, h-p & others are guaranteeing that
1) there will be strong opposition to the tech in the form of boycotts (see the anti-RFID flak) & cracks
2) the tech will be weakened to serve its new DRM masters by complexity not needed for simple rogue code protection
This is a big part of why it's impossible to get video hardware documentation. They call it "licensing issues", but as long as a video card has MPEG acceleration, it can be used to display content, a capability that "must be" regulated.
I find it interesting that I am licensed to drive a powerful instrument of destruction (1.5 ton car) and need no license to own an instrument of destruction (gun) but very quickly am losing the privilege of running my own computer with my own O.S. whose only capacity for hurting *anyone* is to use unregulated mdeia content! Which I don't do anyway!
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Oh, they once selled us walkmans, we where able to hear out tapes anywhere at any time. We got used to it and we liked it, very much. But, who did you buy music-tapes? Of course, we bought music on vinyl, it had the better quality and taped it. There is nothing criminal with it! We like to hear music anywhere at any time, with any device we are comfortable with! That's all and I belive, we have the RIGHT to do so! That's why people like mp3, they can play it any time and anywhere on any device they like. At least, this is the most important reason for me. I don't mind paying for the things I consume if the price is right and I can live with the fact to not consume things that are to expensive. Anyway, Caviar tastes that bad, I would not even consume it for free! But times have changed, I think. Obviously in these days companies can no longer earn good money, if they sell things that fullfill their customers interessts. A company that can set standards, can earn big money with it. It's not even a matter of quality with this standard. Read carefully, Intel sets this standard together with Sony! Intel provides the technology, Sony the devices ... and of course Sony Music will provide you with their DRM-Music ... not to mention, that other recording companies will follow this standard imidiatly.
For costomers the coices are limited. You'll want to buy CD's or DVD's in your store? Well, they are all for DRM now. So either you don't buy them, or you are _forced_ to use DRM.
What, you don't buy CD's? You are discoverd, you must be a criminal!
Somebody here pointed out, that DRM is also good to prevent the execution of unwanted programs like viruses and worms. Good point, but a short question, what are these unwanted programs? Who will be in the position to decide what programs are allowed?
Whoever that will be, will have total control of what you can do with your computer! You fool, go and read a little about about the FSF and YOUR FREEDOM TO RUN THE PROGRAMS YOU LIKE!
DRM will defnitly restrict our rights to use what I have paid for. I'll only have the right to use the copyrighted material, for what I'll have paid in certain places, i.e. at home?
Sure, we won't even be able to lend our DVD, CD or even digital books to some else! And they will tell us 'Come on, that won't hurt you!'.
Hm, right, it does not hurt us.
Ok, we'll just have to buy more music, to have enough to have a party, cause noone can bring his CD's ... and this is good, because these companies then will have more money to develop a lot more of all these good technologies, that bring us so much advantages!
What else it will restrict? It does not matter, the big companies will learn how to use it to control YOU!
DRM is watching YOU!
George Orwell will turn in his grave!
I can't resist here ... spread his word, spread George Orwells word all over the world.
His words are worth more than millions of dollars, but spread his word for free, regardless of any copyrights!
I would assume, this technology is good for nothing more than sharewhere! You can use it for free with some restrictions (@home) and if you pay the full price, i can use it unrestricded (everywhere) !?
Isn't it that what we want and need? Sure, but it is not what we'll get!
The whole story about copyright arises one big question to me:
When will the time come, where I'll be a criminal when shareing copyrighted material with my friends?
Foo: What? It the time has already come?
Hell I've had a party last month and more than five dozend friends of mine listened to my CD's the whole night long. This where more than 100 songs ... what a 150.000$ each song, wow!
Bar: Ah no, calm down, it's just if you COPY the songs!
Foo: Puh!
Foo: FCUK I have made a video-recording of the whole party and already it to all them, including the people that haven't time to ocme!
Bar: Harhar, a 15m$ Party .. what a decadent excess! You are so crazy!
Ok, now serious again. Some people said, if the vol
Comment removed based on user account deletion
This was probably posted on a computer built by Intel while listening to music recorded by Sony through Sony stereo. :0)
New technology allows the consumer to use the downloaded content, but not distribute it outside of their home.
Let me translate that statement for y'all:
"New technology requires consumers to purchase new proprietary hardware to play back the same content they enjoyed before, but this time with all sorts of annoying restrictions that supposedly won't get in the way, but in reality will."
And, by the way, there is no such thing as a DRM implementation that is Open Source friendly. It's very nature is "security" through obscurity, which thereby requires closed-source, proprietary components.
Just say no to DRMs.
You can forget about viewing this content on Linux. Go to the DTLA website at http://www.dtcp.com. Click on the link titled "DTCP Specification Volume 1 Version 1.29 Draft (Informational Version).". Under the heading "Intellectual Property" is this nice little statement:
Implementation of this specification requires a licence from the Digital Transmission Licensing Administrator.
Unless this license is royalty-free, which I doubt, then this is going to be a problem. There is no information on the site as to what this license entails.
Karma: Frotzed (mostly due to the Frobozz Magic Karma Company)
info-request@dtcp.com
Thank you for your member list. My next computer will NOT contain an Intel processor, it will contain an AMD processor. When I buy other products I will not buy anything from Toshiba, Panasonic, Sony, or Hitachi. I am perfectly willing to pay more to buy from a competitor.
Take a lesson from Digital Audio Tape history and Sony Minidisc. Consumers will simply refuse to buy an intentionally crippled product. I refuse to do business with any company that supports intentionally crippling products as DTCP intends to do.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Office 2003 is already offering this cutely integrated, with a new icon, at least in word and excel, just near the print icon.
And, of course, by the looks of the stuff I've read on the dialog boxes and on the MS site which "explains" what is WRM, this just works with... MS apps.
But they got a plugin for IE which lets you see the WRM docs if you don't got office...
(How's that to break compability with import filters!)
Yeah, and unless I own a Palladium sort of box, there's nothing to stop me from writing my own player that doesn't care about the "watermark" content of the files it is playing.
With my DVD player, and PowerDVD 4, and a GeForce 4 MX440, it has no problemo with playing my DVD's through TV out, unless I try playing to my VCR in which case Macrovision kicks in.
I seem to remember a similar issue to this with my old ATI AIW card... but new drivers fixed that too...
need to "keep honest people honest" (from the slides) huh?
Do you think an honest person would choose to buy your content under the rediculious "licensing" provisions most providers will use if they had any choice in the matter?
What we really *need* is to "keep honest monopolies honest"
^monopolies^governments
etc..
those slides are amateurish in content with no real value other than to promote CE makers buying extra intel cpus to put in their devices to no useful end.
So far, it's quite clear that DRM will be optional - but without it, you can't access the content. Doesn't matter if it's a Dragon processor or an AMD or Intel with DRM set to "off".
It's like wanting a region-free DVD, but they only come in region-crippled versions. And if you want entertainment, you just have to bite the bullet. I'm quite concerned what it'll do for competition though, when companies can DRM-lock their formats to only their application...
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Every system will be cracked. This one is no different. It does not matter how strong the encryption is. It won't be the encryption that matters anyway.
Unlike things like classified documents that government agencies such as the CIA or NSA deal with, where they have very tight controls on who accesses the documents, the media industry has a fundamental problem: they have to let people actually hear and see the content or those people will quit paying for it. That's part of the "analog hole". If you can hear ir or see it, you can record it again. It doesn't matter of the quality of that re-recording is less than perfect, because most people (e.g. everyone but a few perfectionist geeks) already accept slight reduction of quality in the form of lossy compression, and most of them accept even more reduction of quality when dealing with pirated (e.g. free) stuff. This is not about making perfect digital rips. What the digital revolution did is make the Nth generation as good as the 2nd generation. Once the content leaks (1st generation to 2nd generation), it gets re-digitized, and all generations of pirate distribution are now just as good as that 2nd generation, but without the DRM.
Watermarking can help, because the leaked content still has to be presented. But there is sufficient means to do that (e.g. play music through speakers and display video through CRTs, etc), that this is going to be a weak form of protection against the distribution of leaked content. And the distribution itself is going to be easy, because once you have it as a file, it can go anywhere, and during distribution, additional encryption can be added to hide any watermarking that may be visible to copying mechanisms and network sniffers.
This is not a technical problem to be solved. It is really a social, legal, and market problem. It's a people problem.
First of all, as long as some people are "left out", e.g. music and movies won't play on their computer because it isn't running software from Microsoft, then that immediately creates the incentives to make tools, both for cracking and distributing, for those who aren't even considered by the industry to be in their market. And many will justify this under the idea that if the media industry didn't consider them to be "in the market" in the first place (e.g. isn't allowing their DRM to work on BSD, Linux, etc), then there isn't any loss to the industry (e.g. why would they expect me to pay for something I cannot hear or see).
Even the best solution, which would be to stop worrying about copying, and concentrate on the playing process (e.g. make all the content presentation work from sealed hardware which knows what content it is allowed to decrypt via time-controlled certificates), can't prevent the leak. But if the industry stops trying to squeeze everyone so hard, and makes it practical to have and play content, then incentives to steal content will ... never go away, but will ... be much less attractive.
The model I see as best workable is one which not only works without requiring proprietary software on computers and networks, but also takes advantage of P2P networks as well (thus reducing the actual distribution costs to the industry).
A hardware chip would have the means to decrypt the media. It could be part of an internal computer device, such as a sound card, or an external device, such as built in to a video display. It would have an identification key, which would be used to purchase playback certificates. Playback certificates, which would work only on that single device, would have restrictions as to the time frame to allow playback, as well as what content categories and/or producers to allow. You could buy a certificate to allow playing only one song on only one day. Or you could buy a certificate to play that one song forever. Or you could buy a certificate to play any song for one day.
The best way to market this would be to sell certificates for finite periods
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Yet another reason to buy a Mac. As if we needed any more.
They are trying very hard to solve a fundamentally unsolvable problem. Indeed, even the hype (that is, the Intel sales presentation in the PDF linked above) acknowleges that copy protection is directed at the casual user attempting to misuse material.
Trouble is, the stakes are too high for the casual user to ignore the technology, and the DMCA is too heavy a hammer to use to beat down people who have a fair use in mind. Others have already pointed out that every copy protection scheme yet devised has failed, and has alienated legitimate users in the process. Recall that it was major corporate buyers whose frustration led to the discontinuance of the use of laser-burned "key disks" for Lotus 123 back in about 1993. This was the end of an era for copy protection, with only a few high-dollar packages utilizing hardware keys and the like.
I attribute the recent resurgence in "activation" and other coercive techniques to control distribution to the DMCA with its criminalization of cracks. This won't last, because the DMCA is too heavy a hammer; as benign cracks multiply, judges just won't permit serious penalties to be applied.
Others have pointed out the possibility of copying the analog media as it is played or projected. This is the "tragic flow" of DRM as applied to entertainment media. There is simply no way to prevent copying any noninteractive media -- if you can see it, read it, or hear it, then you can record it (duh). The details and quality tradeoffs are all things that can be overcome.
This leaves aside the matter of attacking the key exchange mechanism itself, which is not infalliable. It's just not possible to secure a playback device that is in the custody of a third party. And if a nicely packaged hack comes out for a reasonably popular device, what will Hollywood do? Delist all the affected devices, the vast majority of which are owned by noninfringing users? I think not. And that leaves the door open.
And ultimately, a backlash will come as home users realize that they are putting up with inconvenience and expense because of a system that is doing little to prevent piracy.
Thank you for reminding me not to recommend either Sony or Intel.
Sony must now be 10% better than unrated competition.
Intel must now be 20% better than unrated competition.
(The difference is due to my cumulative assessment of previous actions.)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
No, I'm just tired of Slashdot users laughing at others' geographical misfortune by making "I was born in a town that got broadband before your town did, nyeh nyeh nyeh" comments, or worse, "I was born outside the States and you weren't, nyeh nyeh nyeh" comments.
So if leaving United States soil isn't an option, how can citizens of the United States escape the copyright industry's influence over the U.S. Congress?
Will I retire or break 10K?
A better choice would be to make ALL content freely shareable and implement some other way to reimburse the creator of the content. Some form of micropayment might be workable despite well known problems. Voluntary "honor" systems might work. Some counter scheme for determining how much of some public (or otherwise) fund goes to which creators might work.
The one thing that will not work is attempting to constrain the flow of information/data. Such constrains do more than make sure the creator is paid. They seriously constrain creativity, distribution, access and usefulness of the information/content.
Oh good grief...
This download simply lets you access protected documents created in Office 2003.
Currently, I can't play a lot of my "CD"s in my computer or car stereo, because the music industry is deliberatly breaking standards.
I've avoided the problem by simply looking for the red book logo. I won't buy a CD without the Compact Disk logo. I won't vote for the broken CD's with my dollars. Get the word out. Ya gotta have the logo!
My last trip to Wal-Mart's music section was not great. About 3/4's of the stuff did not have a logo. I found some stuff I would like, but it was way overpriced. ($35.00 Phantom of the Opera set) Some other stuff was cheaper, but was missing the logo. I bought some DVD's for under $6 instead.
The truth shall set you free!