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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
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.
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.
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.
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?
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,
it will never be able to plug the "analog hole".
... you're assuming there that there will a. always be analog recording equipment being sold, or legal to use and b. that the analog data stream will be accessible. VCRs are already on the way out, casettes aren't far behind, and standard NTSC/PAL video interfaces will be the next to go. The FCC has already mandated that ALL television receivers in the United States WILL be digital, which means that the death of the old NTSC standard can't be far behind. When NTSC is no longer broadcast or encoded on DVDs, it will immediately obsolesce all the millions of video cassette recorders out there. The only side benefit I see is that those assholes at Macrovision will become gainfully unemployed. Once all data flow between consumer devices (DVD player, HDTV, etc.) is completely and irrevocably digital the analog hole won't be an issue anymore because it won't be there to need plugging.
Sure it can
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
At that point another device can be substituted for our eyes/ears and capture a (admittedly slightly inferior) copy and encode it back to digital if necessary.
Only once the eyes and ears are bypassed by feeding direct digital information into our cerebral cortex via teeny-tiny wires will there be a hope of eliminating this "hole" - and even then there is the chance that you could have a bridge put in (anybody got some really tiny roach-clips?)
The analog hole also exists inside the system between the decoder and the display/playback but may not be easily attached to - kind of like the point where your digital cable box now hooks to your TV via coax or s-video and RCP plugs. Until the tuner/decoder and the display unit's video driver circuits are so tightly integrated that there is no single point where the video and audio pass close to where a tech can attach those teeny-tiny roach clips to snag the decoded signal, there will be an analog hole.
The real point of all this is that as usual, the publishing industries are making it far more costly to view their wares for their customers - both in money and in time/frustration (at incompatible formats, licensing hoops to jump through etc.) where the "real" pirates who copy wholesale and actually compete for dollars at the cash register don't get hurt. Making a million duplicates of a DVD is easy - and you don't need CSS decoding to do it - you copy that too! Same thing with "encoded" CDs and anything else that has a retail package worth pirating.
The bottom line is that to the consumer, the DRM stuff is sand in the gears of them getting the "quiet enjoyment" out of what they've paid their bucks for. The analog hole just ensures that there will be copies floating around for those who have had enough with trying to cope with the publishers' roadblocks to enjoyment - even for people who purchase the real thing.
The war on DRM has already been fought - 20 years ago when the software purchasing public told the software vendors, who drilled laser holes and used screwy disk formats, to take a hike. The problem is that the current generation of publishers don't remember - or think that technology is going to help - it won't. The consumer will get their way because they vote with their dollars and just as 20 years ago, new companies will step up to the plate with product that will pull those dollars away from those who put roadblocks up.
Been there, done that, paid for the T-shirt
and didn't get it