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Digital Rights Managment Year in Review
zjango writes "DRM Watch is a great source for the ongoing monitoring of Digital Rights Management issues and news. They've put out a useful 2003 year in review for DRM across several categories that Slashdot readers will likely find of interest. It is a
look back at the year's significant trends in DRM technology, along with some predictions for 2004 and beyond."
20 years from Sony vs. Universal, fair use is going the way of the dodo.
DRM will increasingly cause problems for normal users. For those who copy the content nothing will change. Normal users will then begin to copy a lot more content.
... er.. corporations realise DRM isn't working to keep there high prices.
A few nasty laws will undoubtably be made when the govern
Digital Rights Managment Year in Review
/. invented its own hacked spelling. Fight the power!
Apparently, someone has patented proper spelling of the word "management", so
RW
How could they possibly discuss online music and DRM in 2003 and not mention Apple and the ITMS? This may be the most significant product in the growth of legal online music yet released. It's far more popular than any of its competitors, and much more friendly to its users, and yet the online music scene is "dominated by Microsoft". I can't decide if they deliberately left it off because they hate Apple or if they're just stupid/uninformed.
I'm all for DRM in '04 maturing into say... half a dozen vendors such as Apple and even Microsoft, all with relatively different filetypes for distribution and end-user benefits
I am worried about Microsoft though *No, not flaming*
Windows Media is a robust system for music and video quality, being a Mac user myself, I use it regularly alongside AAC but the fact Microsoft in the last few months have used the Windows format as basically an excuse to try and monopolize on key aspects of the up and coming DRM race is distressing, Apple were the first company to introduce a fair play DRM, the first to provide a quality end user service, Microsoft for one are pushing vendors into Windows Media Format, making it integral to Longhorn and beyond, this not only encompasses the OS but any app ran on it, for me... I excuse that I'm not the most privvy to reading up more closely on DRM, but I do feel Microsoft are up their old tricks again regarding DRM
Well, it seems like this issue is definitely not going away, despite what many might wish. Naturally, it will be implemented and at first some people will whine about the annoyances, but nobody will actually do anything to stop the widespread adoption of DRM (who could possibly succeed?).
Looks like Sony and Philips will bring the noise with their InterTrust acquisition. What technology was InterTrust developing? How might it be implemented in electronics? Are we going to see some sort of digital signature type of authentication or encryption occuring between devices (e.g., a DVD player and a computer)? Or between a HDTV and a DVD recorder or PVR?
------- "One of the joys of travel is visiting new towns and meeting new people." -- G. KHAN
DRM is impossible. And stop wasting millions on chasing a rainbow that is mathematically, computationally, logically _impossible_ . There will never be a working copy protection system. News about stupid companies failed (or doomed) attempts to do this are just getting sad.
2003 was a terrible year for copy protection for physical media. DVD piracy abounded, thanks to the selection of the weak CSS copy protection scheme, whose primary advantage seems to be low unit cost for the DVD player makers who designed it. Attempts to foment copy protection schemes for audio CDs were mostly laughable.
People break these things because ordinary folks don't want them! I think the music industry should take a hint from their consumers, stop throwing millions of dollars at R&D for Digital "Rights" Management and instead try to work out a sustainable digital media strategy (i.e. ITunes and high-quality downloads etc.). How long (and how much wasted money) before they figure this just isn't going to work out?
The Welkin: Online Music Reviews
I don't like the name DRM, it's misleading. If all it involved was proper management of rights, no problem. However, it's a little one-sided.
I think the name Capability Removal by the Author of Media Products, or CRAMP is much more accurate. Want to CRAMP your PC? I didn't think so.
I'm scared of numbers that can't be written as a fraction. It's an irrational fear.
DRM is Digital Restrictions Management, and we should always refer to it as such, especially when writing OpEd pieces or online articles about it. Perhaps we'll have better luck than the casinos and "gaming".
Oh, Lord, what should I do?
Keep gaming.
What?
It means gambling... keep gambling.
Oh! Righty-O!
Portable versions of Firefox, GIMP, LibreOffice, etc
In the float-up-the-DRM-balloon phase, most average people aren't likely to react. And that's fine. Right now, all it does is enable the use/play of protected content. And, as noted many times in this discussion thread and in the article itself, it's an add-on to the OS. Don't want it? Don't use it. However, we've seen many instances of MS rolling an add-on into a service pack and then requiring that the service pack be installed for any future updates. It's then possible to enable the DRM package to restrict the legitimate use of non-protected content and/or software because the end-user won't have any other choice. MS will be holding all the cards. But I think that this will be their undoing. If an unwitting user was able to use unprotected content both with and without the patch, then can't after MS sends the kill-code to the DRM package, most people will simply say that their computer is broken. They won't know that the DRM software is to blame unless someone tells them. And if a user's computer is "broken" due to some patch that was installed for them by MS, you can bet that those people will start looking for alternatives. Add all of that to the bad publicity MS will get about being "Big Brother", and more and more users will start to think of alternatives to MS software. (Ok, they've already started getting that reputation on their own with the Product Activation snafu, but it certainly doesn't help their situation.) The first likely route an affected customer will go is to buy a Mac, assuming that there's $1500 or more to spend in the family budget. Another option may or may not be Linux. It very much depends on how much it has progressed in terms of instant usability (can the family make the transition with little- to no difficulty?), and whether or not money is an issue. But I bet that Apple might step in at some point and start offering it's own OS to upset owners of "broken" PCs as an alternative. That is, of course, assuming that they even want to release it for the ix86 chipset to begin with. My fingers are crossed.
What's negative about this ? I think this was the best part of last year.
In related news, P2P file sharing seems to have picked up again ...
To see a world in a grain of sand, and then to step back and see the beach where the sand lies
My Palm Tungsten has a SD/MMC slot, MultiMedia cards are becoming unavailable, SD cards are all over the place, and there are *no* open-source drivers for the restricted SD media.
Naturally, I would *welcome* being wrong. does anyone in the community know of a way to use SD media in a Linux or other open-source OS context? I know the SD protocol seems to be available only under NDA and with some sort of fee structure, but it's possible that a driver exists somewhere.
Fortunately, current intellectual property law remedies digital infringement allowing petetioners to cover the costs of litigating the violators, so long as creators secure these protections through the Copyright Office and or the USPTO. Having worked for major media companies, we are able to go after infringers as well as prevent parties from infringing upon our rights. One criticism of this process is that it takes a lot of people to preemptively protect digital content. Most companies using the digital mediums release products to millions of people all over the world and only have 20 lawyers overseeing the rights. Companies are relying on software to keep track of ip rights, still the legal minds making the calls and entering the information, which later is shared with thousands of internal clients, are taxed by the level of responsibilty and the lack of investment companies put into the number of people monitoring the IP assets. Hopefully, companies will create a larger budget in their legal departments and employ enough IP specialists who know how to protect the assets through the regulations and not simply rely on software/digital services to protect them, that is unless, the software can represent their interests in negotiations and court.
Jax
DRM is not "Digital Rights Management"--it does nothing to protect anyone's rights. For one, companies who produce software/music/movies have their rights protected by copyright already. "Digital Restrictions Management" is much more accurate--it does nothing in regard to the rights of the company, but restricts the rights of the user.
Digitally Managing YOUR Rights...
Which "shadow" are they talking about? I'm responsible for a moderatly sized MS-network (about 1500 PCs and a 100-odd servers), and RMS is the next thing on my "to implement" list, because it will save me from clueless management people. We have had such a person kill (file system-)security by taking a file from a managemt-only file share and mailing it to the wrong distribution list. With RMS unauthorized partners will not (easily) be able to read the document.
So, in my eyes that is where DRM might actually be useful and neccessary, I don't see a "shadow".
What's wrong with me?
As soon as people wake up to what DRM really is, they'll stop paying for it. There will be so many hacks out there to kill it (De-CSS/iTunes DRM) that it will become as prevalent and annoying as spam, until people wake up. Then it will go back into the history book filled with bad ideas, such as coal powered automobiles.
What the ...huh? I realize I haven't bowled in a year or two, but how many of them now have chasms that need crossing to enter? Perhaps this is an element of the declining league membership: with Americans in poorer shape, quite a few more are incapable of chasm crossing to even get into the bowling alleys. Perhaps this whole chasm requirement should be rethought.
Say, if I buy something online and request that they not sell my info - they are unable to.
Or if I fly, I can be assued that my information is not given to secret government projects.
Yes, the likelyhood and feasibillity of this 'crazy idea' are small to none, but I have yet to see a application of DRM that is not about content control for the big players. Sure there's the spam prevention that gets tossed around, but I can't see that being available until the $$$-making stuff gets good and locked down.
DRM and anti-fair use legislation will mean the end of independent artists, writers and coders. Welcome to the brave new world.
that's correct right ? better to educate the unwashed masses with the correct terminology than call it something its not
it has nothing to do with "rights" and everything to do with "restrictions", the more you keep calling it the former the more MS/HP etc smile
bit like the "patriot act" , call it a positive name and no one will oppose it
Each time that Slashdot has one of these forums on DRM I get dismayed at how few people write about the possible long-term consequences that DRM will take. By long term I mean twenty years at a minimum. Usually people just assume that in the long term there will be DRM on everything and every exposure to a piece of cultural entertainment will trigger a micropayment upon its view or interaction.
That is probably a fantasy wish of the entertainment-media conglomerate corporations.
I suspect that hard DRM (stuff that works like the media corporations want it to and can't be broken by users) would create a parallel 'pirate' media corporate group that would in the long term be absorbed into the other media corporations. This pirate group would provide media product at sharply reduced rates but delayed by months or years from the product's initial release by the primary media corporations. It would analogue the cheap neighborhood second-run movie theatres that played relatively new movies after they had been showing a few months in the larger first-run theatres. (This is how the movie business worked before the VCR boom in the late 1980's and the DVD boom currently happening).
This idea of people 'stealing' cultural product by not paying the media corporations fantasy prices for product would just go away, like the idea that African-American music was sinful (an idea that until the 1990's was often expressed in working class European-American churches).
An example of media corporations have fantasy prices is the notion that all recorded music product have the same price (such as $18 per CD) regardless of how long the product has been on the market or how saturated the market has become with this individual product. The idea that people are 'stealing' recorded music by the Beatles that is forty years old because they aren't paying $18 for a CD of ten songs is a perfect example. Especially when most of the 'thieves' of the Beatle's recordings have previously purchased the same recordings in 45RPM single vinyl format, 33RPM long-play album vinyl format, cassette format, 8-track format, premium Dolby re-release high-grade vinyl long-play album format, ect...
There are lots of other consequences of longterm DRM that you can think of that excape the rest of us here, please post your ideas.
Thank you,
The way DRM is going is to the hardware level. Its far too easy for people to break software DRM because all it takes is a few debugging tools. The best thing to do is to start getting into hardware hacking early - play around with PICs and stuff (playstation mod chips are PICs) and get to the point where your as comfortable as if you were with a software debugger. DRM is restricted by the 'if you can see it you can copy it' rule and eventually even the best DRM systems finish with an unencrypted data stream or an enable signal. Law is not going to be on our side so if we want our electronics free from artificial restrictions we are gonna have to fight it ourselves and make a mockary of the DRM industry. Screw them all before they start coming out with DRM chips that call the cops or blow-up in the users face if they are tampered with. And stop them before it becomes illigal to own so much as a multimeter without a license.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
In the float-up-the-DRM-balloon phase, most average people aren't likely to react. And that's fine. Right now, all it does is enable the use/play of protected content. And, as noted many times in this discussion thread and in the article itself, it's an add-on to the OS. Don't want it? Don't use it. However, we've seen many instances of MS rolling an add-on into a service pack and then requiring that the service pack be installed for any future updates. It's then possible to enable the DRM package to restrict the legitimate use of non-protected content and/or software because the end-user won't have any other choice. MS will be holding all the cards. I think you're right on up until about here, but sadly I'm a bit more cynical about what the future holds. Too few people are in control of way too much on our planet (and that's another thread :p). I read a very interesting article by John Walker, author of Speak Freely recently, and you might want to give it a read. I can say the man tends to repeat himself.. but the ideas he presents and the overall picture he puts together is quite frightening, showing how the traditional giant producer/many consumers model for information and everything else can, will, and already is being imposed on the internet. A big part of this is DRM, and even moreso trusted computing.
"where words meet intent, lies rhetoric's lament"
"Digital Rights Management" is to "rights" as "Lung Cancer" is to "lung".
DRM is nothing but an attempt to make it inconvient for people to know their own key.
Even Microsoft repeatedly states on its website that even Trusted Computing cannot hope to enforce DRM if the owner of the computer feels like altering the hardware. The best solution is to rip open a chip and read out your key. That gives you total control over your computer.
You can't stop the owner of a machine from opening it up and reading out his key. He owns it and he has absolutely every right to do so.
They are perfectly free to use all the DRM they like so long as I have every right to circumvent that DRM for legal purposes, and for me to help other people circumvent DRM for legal purposes.
nobody will actually do anything to stop the widespread adoption of DRM
Mere informing people about it can have a signifigant effect. I have caught multiple projects based on Trusted Computing that have actually been making signifigant effort to hide that fact that thet are connected to Trusted Computing because most people who know about Trusted Computing are rebelling about it. Intel's attempt to put ID numbers inside every CPU a few years ago was killed by public backlash against it.
A good example of a project hiding it's Trusted Computing connection is Cisco's recently announced Network Admission Control routers. Cisco's press release on them touts it an an anti-virus anti-worm system, and several news sites (including Slashdot) ran stories on Cisco "delaring war on worms" and "blocking viruses at the router". However people generally express outrage when they learn that what these routers actually do is to deny you an internet connection unless you submit to Trusted Computing. The router uses Trusted Computing to verify that you are running specific software such as approved anti-virus scanner and firewall (thus the "anti-virus" claims). If you aren't Trusted Computing-compliant then it can simply refuse to let you connect to the internet at all.
Perhaps you don't think "informing people" counts as doing anything. Well I for one am QUITE interested in working on the hardware/software projects required to liberate a computer from Trusted Computing restrictions, and I'm sure I'm not alone. Working out how to rip open a chip to read out the key and programming the software required to emulate the system (and control/override that system).
I think a great way to get such a project (and perhaps business) started would be to first target the law-enforcement market. No one can possibly object to aiding law-enforcment in recovering encrypted data/evidence from computers seized from criminals and to control/override software on computers seized from criminals. Go ahead, lets see someone try to paint such a project as a bunch of "evil hackers", chuckle.
Once you've figured out how to routinely extract keys from chips, and once you've developed the required software to give the owner control over the system then you can sell such services and software to anyone and everyone. It would be a sort of "upgrade service" giving you full control of your computer.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.