Buzzword du Jour: DRM

mattmcal writes "Though the RSA Conference in San Francisco and Bill Gates' keynote were expected to stir up several headlines on 'security' today, the news coming from 3GSM in Cannes seemed to deliver more tangible results. From Qualcomm's new DRM chipsets to NDS' mobile VideoGuard, several interesting 'DRM (digital rights management)' announcements raise the bar for distribution-shy media companies who may have increasing opportunities for driving content to mobile devices. But Intel's Barrett knows this is only the beginning of a complicated standards problem."

Comments

Apple?

[CelticWhisper]

I have to wonder, though, what impact this would have on more *ahem* sensible companies like Apple. Apple centers its entire marketing strategy on digital media and the freedom to create, edit, and share personal media projects. Where is this going to leave them? They're smaller than Microsoft, but still a force to be reckoned with...it surely can't be so simple as "Microsoft pays off politicians, gets its way, game over." ...Can it?

Re:It's fundamentally silly

[Sven Tuerpe]

DRM simply cannot work without enforcement in the hardware.

Bzzzt. Wrong! DRM serves as an anchor for legal enforcement. You are right in that it certainly won't work without hardware support. However, that's not the point. The whole point is to make you, or anyone who does manufacture devices without DRM support in their hardware, look like a villain -- a "hacker", a thief, a criminal.

An example: German news site Heise reports that the music industry here started to go after people who sell software able to copy music CDs. So this is what does happen:

1. Music industry claims there is copy protection (aka DRM) on some of their CDs,
2. Music industry claims this copy protection is "circumvented" if certain tools are used,
3. Music industry sues those who sell those tools,
4. Music industry assumes new_world == old_world - evil_tools, and claims that there is a working copy protection scheme (aka DRM).
5. Repeat ad infinitum.

It does not matter what works and what doesn't from a technical point of view. What matters is that the legal system accepts claim No. 1, and is sufficiently forgetful to not notice the loop when they return to claim No. 1 for the next iteration.

DRM is only software

[glassesmonkey]

I'm not concerned about software-based DRM because so far it seems to be limited to Windows. What REALLY concerns me is the large number of news items I've seen lately about hardware based on "Trusted Computing".

TCG TPM is the standard settled upon for trusted computing. An interesting EETimes article is about TPM chips going into systems (costs & chipsets, etc). Described as "low-cost silicon safes for a digital key" the article states, "IBM plans to put the current version 1.1b TPM parts in all but its lowest cost notebook computers by the end of the year." As well as the inclusion of these chips in Gb Ethernet, storage, memory, and I/O buses. The TPM v1.2 standard is worth a look over to see what the future holds.

Much of the software that goes into DRM is moving up the chain (especially seeing how effective DeCSS was for DVD decoding) and into silicon. I do not quite see how Trusted Computing is really that different from a full-fledged DRM hardware system. It seems to be an easy step to make those buses and storage devices scanning for 'trusted keys' to be applied to digital finger prints of unauthorized DRM-licensed media moving around on your motherboard.

It's not just the media companies...

[Media Withdrawal]

Yes, media companies will fight to own all distribution of old content. But watch out for the hardware companies. They're already trying to own all distribution of new content. It's slick. Just visit their online store, download the content, and it only runs on your phone/PDA/laptop/whatever. Until it breaks, that is.

As an artist, you'd think I'd just love this scheme. Hah! The problem is, once a company thinks it owns your distribution, it thinks it owns you! When I fell for DRM and the lure of easy money, all of a sudden I was spending months fighting to retain designs and customer relationships that had taken years to refine. All this fussing cut into my productivity, and my fans noticed.

For the record, when I dropped copy protection completely, sales doubled almost immediately.

So don't be fooled by the current battle between the media and hardware companies. They're just fighting for who gets to own the artists and milk their audience. I'm not falling for it again, and I hope you won't, either.