CRF Reveals Draft of New DRM Technology

scubacuda writes "PC Advisor and others report that the CRF (Content Reference Forum), a new, cross-industry standards organisation that boasts Universal Music Group, Microsoft, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT) and VeriSign among its members, has unveiled a new specification for a DRM technology. A draft of CRF Baseline Profile 1.0 is available for public review and comment." According to a report on CNET News, the "the [CRF-created] file would set up a process that automatically delivers files in the right format and potentially triggers an automatic payment system that could be changed moment to moment by the content distributor."

Comments

Intelligent File

[Cajun Hell]

The Content Reference Forum is hoping to create a kind of intelligent file that can be distributed through file-sharing networks like Kazaa, Web pages, e-mail or almost anywhere else online.

Instead of containing a song or movie itself, the file would set up a process that automatically delivers files in the right format and potentially triggers an automatic payment system that could be changed moment to moment by the content distributor.

Anyone else get the impression that "intelligent file" is newspeak for "dangerously executable"?

Wow, people are going to download executable code from kazaa and execute it. It ain't hard to guess what the follow-up news stories are going to be like. (Dammit, why haven't I bought stock in the anti-virus companies yet?!)

Re:Intelligent File

[echeslack]

It's not clear to me that it is actually an executable. "the file would set up a process" sort of implies this, but it could just as easily be a file that contains instructions for getting the file. I don't think it has to be dangerous. It seems to me it could be just as benign as regular media files.

Re:Intelligent File

[LiquidCoooled]

You said it wasnt dangerous - currently *NOTHING* on my online activities causes me to miss a meal. Having a full blown micropayments system installed and required could really mess with your day.

I call that pretty dangerous.

Re:Intelligent File

[neoform]

The Content Reference Forum is hoping to create a kind of intelligent file that can be distributed through file-sharing networks like Kazaa, Web pages, e-mail or almost anywhere else online.

can someone explain to me why i'd want to host files for other people's profit? if i'm gonna have to pay for a file, it damnwell better be hosted by someone else, and not by me.

Automatic Payment System?

[nurb432]

Blah. you mean more like 'automatic theft system'( once your machine is cracked ), or 'automatic consumer screw system', or 'automatic removal system' ( for those documents of 'restricted information' )...

If we ever get to that point, i for one wont be using a PC device of any kind...

Re:Automatic Payment System?

[peragrin]

"If we ever get to that point, i for one wont be using a PC device of any kind..."

well by that point in time I will be using macs and linux pc's, So either I will be immune, or just won't be upgradeing any more hardware. It will suck, but I will be free, to do as I live, as I desire.

Cheap music...

[penguinoid]

...file would set up a process that automatically ... triggers an automatic payment system that could be changed moment to moment by the content distributor.

Hey, I'll sell you a music file for only 1 cent.
On second thought, make that $100

Bouncing accounts everywhere....

[BubbaTheBarbarian]

Last time I checked, a file that tries to automatically charge you for opening it was a...

virus?

Ok, let me also say this. The whole thought process around the word automatically is really starting to scare the hell out me. We live in a society where folk have a hard time keeping track of written checks. How the hell do we expect them to keep track of all the automatic deductions being taken from them?

Oh wait, we don't. Just another way to enslave the masses I guess.

No thanks. I will stick files that might sound like crap, but I don't get charged for until I buy the cd (let the flames begin).

ummm

[kommakazi]

is it just me or does this "potentially triggers an automatic payment system that could be changed moment to moment by the content distributor" sound a bit dangerous and easily abusable by the 'content distributor'?

Everybody?

[gid13]

Is it just me, or does this require the participation of ALL digital content providers to work? For example, how will the downloaded file get a working file from iTunes if Apple doesn't want any part of it?

If I'm right, this seems dead before it starts, since the only real shot it has (IMHO) is being able to provide all songs, where some online sales places can't.

Am I wrong?

Scary

[Anonymous Coward]

Its really scary reading all this online. Large monopolies growing larger set to put the law back 200 hundred and more years.

A lot of people who don't read places like slashdot would be equally concerned if they knew what was going on. They need to be educated, its why democracy works, and why it fails when it doesn't occur.

Re:Scary

[ScrewMaster]

Large monopolies growing larger set to put the law back 200 hundred and more years.

Not at all. If copyright were as it was two centuries ago few, if any, Slashdotters would be complaining. The problem isn't that these groups want the law to revert to some earlier incarnation, they want to be allowed to continue mutating copyright into some hybrid form favorable only to themselves. Remember, the RIAA and sister organizations have been "adjusting" copyright law for a very long time: it was largely back-room stuff. They've just gotten a lot more overt about it recently and people are starting to notice.

But this comes back to enlightened Capitalism, or the lack of it. Absolute control does not guarantee an eternal revenue stream, in spite of content holders contrary beliefs. Put this way: even before peer-to-peer raised its (to them) ugly head, music sales were falling off. Well, at least the industry's growth rate was dropping. And that was the period where they had substantially more control of music distribution and production than they have now. Being able to restrict content distribution with an iron-clan DRM system can't force people to buy a product that they do not like and for which they have no use. The music companies and the RIAA figured that, if they could control all the music available for purchase or on the radio, they could sell us anything they want and we would buy it. That approach worked for a while, but eventually the public wised up and demanded more. And when Napster came along ... well, the genie was let out of the bottle for good. True to form, the music companies refused to see the opportunity presented by this technology and focussed instead on maintaining the status-que-ante.

Whatever genre of entertainment floats your boat, the two things the buying public wants are a. variety and b. quality. Variety is probably the more important of the two. In any case, the entertainment industry (the music studios in particular) has been providing us with progressively fewer choices, along with a general degradation in quality. All the DRM in the world won't make me buy crap. Sometimes you just simply have to provide a quality product for a reasonable price ... it's just good business.

The music industry's monomaniacal absorption with peer-to-peer file sharing is interesting. They seem to be operating under the delusion that eliminating or corrupting these primitive networks will assure them of their due. And even if it were actually possible to enforce a global ban on file sharing ... well, there are other means. A fellow at work brought in a removable hard disk with ninety-odd gigabytes of MP3 files on it: needless to say he became quite popular.

The point is that there really isn't any way for the content people to recan this particular can of worms. People with get what they want, which is a large selection of reasonably priced (or, if necessary, free) music and if it means going back to SneakerNet that's exactly what will happen.

Goerge O. Was Right

[tds67]

"the [CRF-created] file would set up a process that automatically delivers files in the right format and potentially triggers an automatic payment system that could be changed moment to moment by the content distributor."

I know it's 2003, but why does it feel like 1984?

it just don't add up?

[jdunlevy]

Can the money they make and/or "save" on this stuff ever possibly justify the expenses that must be going into research/development and other costs (including pissed off consumers) for this stuff?

"Automatic"

[glpierce]

As far as I can imagine, "automatic payment" won't survive in a court. Unless you authorize payment, it's theft - setting up the account isn't authorization enough. The second they charge you, you can bring up a suit saying that you didn't download that song, your 7-year-old did, who isn't old enough to participate in the contract, etc.. I don't see how they expect to prove you payed if the transfer is completely automatic (no digital signiture, no entry of credit card info at time of purchase, no "Click Here to Order," etc.).

Imagine a virus that downloads tens of thousands of songs to your computer. Then imagine the automatic money transfer. Then imagine the lawsuit you'll have if they won't give back the money.

Re:"Automatic"

[Trigun]

Umm, did you see the list of companies in the article? If the laws are currently counter-intuitive to their business model, guess which ones going to change.

It isn't going to be their business model.

Re:Change the law

[Snoopy77]

So we repeal copyright. What is left to 'promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries'?

I love automatic programs that bill me. Honest.

[Weaselmancer]

"the [CRF-created] file would set up a process that automatically delivers files in the right format and potentially triggers an automatic payment system that could be changed moment to moment by the content distributor."

Oh yeah, that sounds like a great idea.

Remember, these are the people you keep reading about that leave their servers open and have lists of credit cards stolen from them. Regularly.

Just imagine DRM and auto billing mixed into that. This will be a nightmare of epic proportions. You heard it here first.

Weaselmancer

DRM by any other name

[thumbtack]

Still smells the same....it stinks...

Copyright eventually expires, DRM doesn't.

Same as it always was

[A nonymous Coward]

Shakespeare didn't have copyright protection, neither did Bach, Mozart, Beethoven.

Interesting that no one since has been deemed better in those particular categories.

A Big Brother Ver. of The Old DivX Standard

[felonious]

I agree with all the previous posts saying how this is just another control mechanism. How in the hell can any human being accept a standard that automatically charges your bank account or credit card? I can see it now...you accidentally click on something and you end up buying it even thought you never agreed to or wanted said product.

So what is your response to this Mega-Corporation virtual theft? You call up their 1-800 number based in some 3rd world country and sit on hold for a day or so. When you finally get someone online they know nothing plus you can't understand a word they say.

God this sounds fucking great!
I can't wait! Where do I sign up?

Seriously these mega-corps can institute this standard or whatever they want to call it and sell it to the masses but we DO have a say so. I hope it goes the way of the 1st incarnation of DivX from Circuit City and burns out oh so quickly.

We as consumers can reject this outright and not buy into it. Money talks and bullshit walks. Money is the only thing these companies understand and that's the genesis of the entire drm/dmca argument although they would like to convince us it's just the ability to innovate.

With groups wanting to tie a drm to hardware and now this I really think the day is coming where we will actually want to stick with yesterday's hardware (today's) and forgo the next gen with all of the mega-media money protections built in.

I will stick with the hardware that I can control and not let it control me.