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Linux and DRM?
xgyro asks: "In light of the recent agreement between MS and Disney, and many calling for 2004 to be the 'Year of the Linux Desktop' does Linux have comparable DRM system to allow for distribution of protected content? Linus Torvalds has already endorsed DRM on the Linux platform. Possibly by coincidence, this company has announced a product that seems to provide for some possibilities. Will other companies follow suite? As a employee of a large content provider, what current options are out there for groups that want to deploy protected content on Linux?"
Linus didn't exactly endorse it, you know. And I think you'll find that DRM systems, by and large, are unwanted and insecure. If you can access the content, then you can strip it of its protections.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Quoth Linus:
That's not exactly a ringing endorsement. If it is, then Linux could be construed to have endorsed browsing Slashdot, child porn, and writing viruses.
Linus did NOT "endorse" DRM on Linux; he merely said he wouldn't disallow it.
Geez, talk about RTFA. Now the posters don't even bother to do it.
Nathan's blog
It is the idea of having full control over your own content on your own machine that is one of the things that makes Linux so attractive compared to the "Cyber-Singapore's" of MS Windows and Mac-OSX.
There is no legitimate need for Digital Restrictions Management.
Your content is already protected. By copyright law.
There is no legitimate need to introduce additional restrictions that prevent me from doing what I want with materials that I have legitimately purchased.
If your Linux box will never play Microsoft DRM media, what will it play? You may offer a DRM scheme for Linux, but what content provider will adopt it, given Microsoft's monopoly on the desktop? Indeed, if DRM becomes widespread, I predict that TiVo is toast.
But I also predict that DRM will go the way of software copy protection and DIVX; Disney certainly won't sell me any DRM movies. Pay Eisner every time I view "Dumbo"? Sure -- I'll just never watch "Dumbo" again. One penny or one million dollars times zero viewings is the same royalty, Mikey. I lived without home video before (pre-1980s), and I can live without it again. Who's the dumbo in this scenario? Those who fail to learn from history (DIVX) are doomed to repeat it.
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
Microsoft is building it into Windows as we speak.
As a employee of a large content provider, what current options are out there for groups that want to deploy protected content on Linux?"
Sell your product at a fair price, one that's low enough that most users will find it more convenient to buy than to pirate (surely your servers can deliver bandwidth faster and more reliably than P2P, right?). Learn from Baen Books -- Baen actually gives away books hat are a few years old, and in a convenient variety of formats. Baen makes money off this when readers buy sequels in hard-copy.
Sell your product in a an open format so that your customers can read it or listen to it with the applications and on the OSes they've become comfortable with. Learn for the Real Player debacle, and note how many people have said that no video is compelling enough to get them to install RealPlayer. Don't get your ass caught in the same vise.
Recognize that DRM or nor, some piracy is inevitable. Don't let this fool you into alienating the vast majority of your honest customers in a vain attempt to prevent piracy by a tiny minority that probably would never but your product anyway. learn from the Intuit debacle; count the number of customers who will never return to Intuit.
Trust and respect your customers, and many will extend that same trust and respect to you: I've gotten nearly 8000 non-DRM'd mp3s from emusic.com, and I won't even share them with friends -- because emusic showed me it trusted me, and I don't want to abuse that trust.
copyright (c) 2004, not-the-Gartner-Group
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
If DRM will ever live, it'll be on hardware level.
The company mentioned in the article really seems to have something. They are cross platform, working the same accros Linux and Windoz. Seems they provide many different options for protecting content. Any thoughts?
For a community that is based on the concept of 'free speech' and open systems, I doubt there will be much interest or support on a Digital Restriction Management system.
Due to the nature of any DRM system, it has to act as a black box which is contrary to the beliefs of the community. We will not want to support it, or, probably, even install it.
Due to the nature of free software, we rely on people to do the right thing just as much as other copyright holders; this will not change although some notable companies have abused this. If your company doesn't want to respect us, we are not interested.
Copyrighted works are protected by law and to the extent permitted by the law only, anything further, like stopping non-restricted copies, starts stepping on our rights and we will not be interested in letting that fly.
Not on my servers.
Not in my country.
From the dictionary--
en*dorse - To give approval of or support to, especially by public statement; sanction: endorse a political candidate. See synonyms at approve.
This did not happen. The quote from the article which you've fictionalized into an "endorsement" goes something like this--
"I also don't necessarily like DRM myself," Torvalds wrote on the "Linux-kernel" mailing list. "But...I'm an 'Oppenheimer,' and I refuse to play politics with Linux, and I think you can use Linux for whatever you want to--which very much includes things I don't necessarily personally approve of."
Please, xgyro, tell us how you extrapolated "use Linux for whatever you want to...[including] things I don't necessarily personally approve of" into "endorsed"?
A Microsoft troll, no doubt, but necessary to refute. Fiction becomes myth becomes fact after time.
Big Daddy, Johnny, Burp, Aunt Zelda, Scott, Slurp, Big Momma
<rant> microsoft has been trying to get customers to convert over to a subscription plan for their software and no one is doing it. why not? because no one wants to pay more, rely on a vendor more and give up ownership... and for what? there are no real benefits.
business people get a hard-on for subscription services that work because they make more money than other types... but the thing they don't realize is that subscription services that succeed do so because consumer want them and are willing to pay for the service. the current state is "let's make everything a service and try to convince consumers to pay for it".
no matter how powerful corporations become they are still at the mercy of consumers' money. assuming the majority of Joe Consumers aren't stupid enough to pay more money for less in exchange for some crap stamp of approval by the bastards who are charging you, DRM will never take off. of course, that won't keep business folks from trying, because all they have to do is wave (people with internet access * media per consumer * viewings per day) in front of a VC and say "if we could just capture 0.01% of that I can forecast 1000000% sustained growth". of course the problem is that the only way for DRM to succeed is for their to be no choice, because no one would choose to pay less for more. </rant>
For Dan Halbert, the road to Tycho began in college--when Lissa Lenz asked to borrow his computer. Hers had broken down, and unless she could borrow another, she would fail her midterm project. There was no one she dared ask, except Dan.
This put Dan in a dilemma. He had to help her--but if he lent her his computer, she might read his books. Aside from the fact that you could go to prison for many years for letting someone else read your books, the very idea shocked him at first. Like everyone, he had been taught since elementary school that sharing books was nasty and wrong--something that only pirates would do.
And there wasn't much chance that the SPA--the Software Protection Authority--would fail to catch him. In his software class, Dan had learned that each book had a copyright monitor that reported when and where it was read, and by whom, to Central Licensing. (They used this information to catch reading pirates, but also to sell personal interest profiles to retailers.) The next time his computer was networked, Central Licensing would find out. He, as computer owner, would receive the harshest punishment--for not taking pains to prevent the crime.
Of course, Lissa did not necessarily intend to read his books. She might want the computer only to write her midterm. But Dan knew she came from a middle-class family and could hardly afford the tuition, let alone her reading fees. Reading his books might be the only way she could graduate. He understood this situation; he himself had had to borrow to pay for all the research papers he read. (10% of those fees went to the researchers who wrote the papers; since Dan aimed for an academic career, he could hope that his own research papers, if frequently referenced, would bring in enough to repay this loan.)
Later on, Dan would learn there was a time when anyone could go to the library and read journal articles, and even books, without having to pay. There were independent scholars who read thousands of pages without government library grants. But in the 1990s, both commercial and nonprofit journal publishers had begun charging fees for access. By 2047, libraries offering free public access to scholarly literature were a dim memory.
There were ways, of course, to get around the SPA and Central Licensing. They were themselves illegal. Dan had had a classmate in software, Frank Martucci, who had obtained an illicit debugging tool, and used it to skip over the copyright monitor code when reading books. But he had told too many friends about it, and one of them turned him in to the SPA for a reward (students deep in debt were easily tempted into betrayal). In 2047, Frank was in prison, not for pirate reading, but for possessing a debugger.
Dan would later learn that there was a time when anyone could have debugging tools. There were even free debugging tools available on CD or downloadable over the net. But ordinary users started using them to bypass copyright monitors, and eventually a judge ruled that this had become their principal use in actual practice. This meant they were illegal; the debuggers' developers were sent to prison.
Programmers still needed debugging tools, of course, but debugger vendors in 2047 distributed numbered copies only, and only to officially licensed and bonded programmers. The debugger Dan used in software class was kept behind a special firewall so that it could be used only for class exercises.
It was also possible to bypass the copyright monitors by installing a modified system kernel. Dan would eventually find out about the free kernels, even entire free operating systems, that had existed around the turn of the century. But not only were they illegal, like d
Well, did he say it had NO PLACE in Linux?... ahemm.. NO! It's a reality for to have some type of encryption that is not just PKI. and for the record.. not a MS fan....
That, and I'm not sure they're not watermarked with a personal identifier :).
~~~
That, and I'm not sure they're not watermarked with a personal identifier :).
;)
I realize that you're joking, but actually I did check, with the help of an IRC acquaintance.
He and I both downloaded the same track from emusic -- at different times, just in case you're wondering, as it was a track I'd had for a while --, and then each ran md5sum on our copies. The md5sums matched. and for the truly tin-foil hatted, I had him give me the start of his md5sum first.
We weren't looking to pirate the tracks, we were just curious, given that emusic in its early incarnation as mp3.com had once boasted of its water-marking technology.
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
Learn for the Real Player debacle, and note how many people have said that no video is compelling enough to get them to install RealPlayer.
Kind of off-topic, but the fact that, at least on the supported platforms, mplayer plays Real streams quite happily and allows nice things like output to a file, means even if Real was a great format, there is no compulsion to install the proprietary player.
Yours Sincerely, Michael.
xgyro: two negatives do not equal an endorsement.
It may makes sense to have an in-built encryption facility that makes life easier for users, but Linus specifically does not come out saying he's for DRM.
Big Daddy, Johnny, Burp, Aunt Zelda, Scott, Slurp, Big Momma
Ok, so maybe the word "endorse" was a little strong... however... I think what Linus is trying to say is there IS A PLACE for some type of encryption/DRM/content protection in the Linux world. In order to build out certain business models based on Linux platform, data/content protection is needed. Or MS will only increase their grasp on the world. Some business models require content protection; Adobe provides a (somewhat) protected document security, what about other files such as business docs/personal info/media documents? How can we protect our content across Linux platforms? I'm not speaking specifically to DRM in movies/music, rather from a broader perspective. Any products out there other than the one mentioned?
~~~
Linux support CSS on DVDs. CSS is an excellent example of why people might choose Linux DRM systems as these systems provide the consumer with their full rights.
"OGG-S OGG-S is an open source development project that aims to create an open Digital Rights Management (DRM) interface for the creation, playback, and management of multimedia files."
does Linux have comparable DRM system to allow for distribution of protected content?
No, Virgina, there is no such thing as protected content. That was only a bedtime story told to CEO's and recording execs to help them sleep at night.
I am not your blowing wind, I am the lightning.
If music/software buisness wants their products to expire like milk. Let them get into the dairy buisness. I dont want my CD to expire. I dont want my computer to tell me, its master what I can or can't do. This is why I am a programmer, this is why I built my computer. If I wanted to be locked out and have no control, I would of bought a compaq and used aol. Some users need their computer to tell them what to do (or not to do) . For everyone else, there's Linux.
As a employee of a large content provider, what current options are out there for groups that want to deploy protected content on Linux?
Um... convince your superiors that they shouldn't treat all of their customers like potential thieves.
In all honesty, it will probably be a waste of money rivalling Circuit City's DIVX. Linux users are not likely to adopt a system that employs "DRM".
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
No!
sulli
RTFJ.
"Your content is already protected. By copyright law."
Oh yeah, THAT'S ironclad protection.
Ask the record companies how much protection that's given them. Better yet, ask Sharman Networks. You'll either get a hearty laugh, or a "No Comment".
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Actually, MSFT has already built it into Media Player 9 in the form of "License Management".
It is sure to spread to the OS level in the Longhorn release.
One of the reasons to use linux is its lack of DRM. I'm sure I'm not alone in this sentiment.
DRM exists, with one fundamental flaw. It is, at least in every form currently explored, fundamentally impossible.
;-) ] you dont just capture the output (VGA capture works well here, since they all output to monitors at some point), you have to decrypt the data. The data exists SOMEHOW.
It relies on encryption of data, and for arguments sake, it doesn't matter how. Now the player must be able to decrypt this media some how. The choices are:
1) Universal key (DeCSS anyone?) As soon as it's exposed somewhere it shouldn't be, its taken, and used on any media you'd like
2) Licensing server: Will issue a license for some period of time, during which you can view in a registered player, Perhaps you can renew, perhaps you cant. Regardless though, the key used to decrypt the media for playing, has to be transmitted somehow. Lets imagine it is encrypted and somehow sent to the playing device. Regardless, said device has to be able to read that key, and if it can do that, so can somebody else. Should the device have a general pub/priv combo for talking to the server, those keys could be comprimised, or again, the real decryption key can be compromised from one of a million already demonstrated means.
3) Hardware solution, locked up device, unaccessible from software. This could work, so long as the hardware is such that it cannot be accessed, but as we have seen time and time again, people are willing to take apart their boxes to see what makes them tick (XBox + Linux, or any modchip solution to any system).
Regardless of what you do, even barring that "somehow" [
And as strong as encryption is, the will for people to piss off the media conglomerates is too strong. End of the day, if the data can be decrypted, then your key is whats in jeopardy. If the key is encrypted somewhere, than it's decrypting key is the target. So on, and so forth.
You can make it difficult, but without (literally) an armed guard sitting there w/ a bucket of popcorn to "help" you watch the movie, there is a weak point.
(and to add to that, humans become a factor, armed guards can be bribed, just like anybody else).
Just my 20 pesos.
-- (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
XP kind of has it already. I downloaded some .wav files off a usenet mp3 group (this is not the place to ask who's stupidest - me for not seeing what they were, or the 'tard who posted 'em). Anyway, wanky media player threw a total eppie and threatedned to sent the boys in blue round.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Does anyone think there will ever be a time when EVERY user could exchange encrypted content? Maintain their own trusted users? Why is there not more encryption built into file sharing services?
He's right, you know.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Yes it has some bloat but seriously it's not as bad as you make out. Its small enough to run invisibly from crontab to record Interet radio broadcasts.
Yours Sincerely, Michael.
Well, you could start by reading a book. DRM is not viable on closed source systems; it won't be viable on open source systems. If you plug DRM software into the kernel, I can still run it inside a virtual machine and snatch out whatever content I want (and put it on a peer-to-peer system). Better yet, I can get content from someone who doesn't try to treat me like a two-year-old.
Want a real system for getting money for your content? Try micropayments, or subscription, but don't bother with DRM. Any engineer (who isn't trying to part a fool from his venture capital) will tell you that, in the long run, "trying to make bits uncopyable is like trying to make water not wet." (Thanks, Bruce)
DRM does not have to be a black box any more than PGP needs to be a black box.
The difference between digital restrictions management for copyrighted works and GnuPG for secret communication is that use of GnuPG comes with the full cooperation of the machine's owner, who can if he wants intercept the cleartext by patching the source code. The stated goal of many DRM system includes preventing such interception.
Of course, you could provide the DRM system as source code and have it attest that it hasn't been trojaned, possibly by providing the copyright owner with a hash of the kernel and app binaries, as seen in TCG's platform. However, this would make DRM'd works incompatible with any modification of the app or of the kernel; is this compatible with OSI's Open Source Definition?
Works alright.
Q.
Insert Signature Here
I still don't see how a compiler that can compile a backdoor into a program and propagate its backdoor compilation code to compilers it compiles would be stopped if I had a DRM system in place--that seems to me to be passing the buck. Who's to say I can trust the DRM program? Why not distribute signed binaries of a compiler I can trust? Why would I want my entire free software operating system to contain a proprietary DRM program (it seems to me if the big media corporations are going to trust DRM, the DRM program would have to be proprietary)?
As for Microsoft Windows Rights Management Server, it seems useless to me without supporting programs--if I type something into a DRM-enabled Microsoft Word and tag my document so that the data within it can never be copied outside the application, I'm led to believe that it's okay to distribute copies of that file to my coworkers because the tagging will prevent the data from being copied outside the document (or perhaps prevent the data from being copied onto the clipboard at all). But what's to stop a coworker who has a copy of that file from using a different program to read the file, then copying the data as normal?
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