DRM Technology To Be Added To MP3 Format

Bob Zer Fish writes "Cnet News.com has a leading story saying that the venerable MP3 music format is getting a makeover aimed at blocking unauthorized copying. Thomson and Fraunhofer, the companies that license and own the patents behind the MP3 digital music technology, are in the midst of creating a new digital rights management add-on. Of course, there are current standards, but most are incompatible." An anonymous reader points to this brief mention as well.

Comments

So What?

[Tassleman]

Does this mean we have to use it? All my old MP3s will work just fine.

Re:So What?

[michaelepley]

They will work just fine until the mp3 format license requires the DRM add-ons and players start refusing to play music encoded without the DRM support.

Re:So What?

[Espectr0]

Fast forward 5 years, wait until your cpu chip refuses to play non-DRM mp3 and you WILL care

Re:So What?

[jeffkjo1]

My VCR and DVD player both play things that are un-macrovisioned. I highly doubt that a company would build an mp3 compatible device with such a large limitation to only play encrypted music. What about those that encode their own music... as in music they made.

Several government organizations (supreme court!) use mp3 as one of the means with which they provide transcriptions.

Re:So What?

[timeOday]

How funny it would be if all the "where's OGG Vorbis support!?" people turned out to be 100% justified!

But I doubt it. This is just going to be an obscure extension, like the encryption built into the .zip spec. There's no reason to adopt mp3+DRM. Other codecs already compress better, the only advantage of mp3 is that it's unrestricted and ubiquitous, and mp3+DRM is neither.

Re:So What?

[H4x0r Jim Duggan]

I think a concerted push towards Ogg is what we need. Free Software, Free Society.

Re:So What?

[Cornelius the Great]

Just wait until the RIAA tries to slap Ogg with a DMCA because it believes that the codec is circumventing copy protection by not utilizing any DRM-like technology to prevent unauthorized copying

I don't agree with it; it's just that I wouldn't put it past lawyers to do that.

Re:So What?

[mkro]

Let us hope Longhorn will let you install them, then ;)

Re:So What?

[trezor]

• WTF? Do you know how a CPU works? Have you ever programmed in assembly language?

Well, I do, even at a basic cicuitry level, and yes, I have dony my assembly work. Not sure this goes for the parent poster, and he probably has a tinfoilhat somewhere, but he's idea is not all that messed up as it could seem.

His point being valid, he might just miss a valid source of paranoia. While the CPU only does what it's told, it's no guarantee that upcoming (Microsoft) OSes will grant access to sound- and video-hardware (with possible Fritz-chips in store) to none-authorized/signed/whatever applications.

And no, not everyone uses OpenSource-OSes. Not yet anyway, but things like this might change actually that.

Re:So What?

[Zangief]

Let MS hope that I will install Longhorn :D

One word...

[UnassumingLocalGuy]

Ogg.

Re:One word...

[the_mad_poster]

Yes, yes. Yap yap. Ogg ogg. Zippity doo da and the yellow-motherfucking-brick road.

In case you haven't noticed, mp3 has made a successful push into the consumer market through concerted marketing efforts. Now, all the geeks can scream OGG! until they're blue in the face - hell, it's the first thing I thought of when I read this (followed closely by "why do I give a shit, I have plenty of mp3 encoding tools that will work just fine") - but nobody is listening.

Not enough people in the mainstream consumer market are going to adopt Ogg because nobody will support it and they don't know to ask for it. Unfortunately, unless you're preaching to them, you're preaching to the choir.

As usual, the ignorant consuming masses will continue to get raped on new technologies because they don't know any better and it's in various industries' best interests to keep them ignorant.

Yippee freakin' ki-yay for capitalism at its shit-eating modern-American finest.

The government really ought to just lock up the whole population for whatever reason happens to be most convenient, liquidate all their assets, and then turn them (the assets, not the populace) over to the various industry leaders. It's really the only thing that'll make them truly happy.

Try again, and fail again.

[Fiona Winger]

Yet again, this will be a waste of valuable resources. We all know that any attempt at protection of unauthorized copying will fail. With today's standards of source codes being leaded and what not, someone from inside the company will surely provide a work around, but most likely, that won't be needed. Another genius will find some simple solution that works around the protection.

Re:Try again, and fail again.

[ratsnapple tea]

On the contrary, DRM is amazingly successful at what it intends to do: make unauthorized copying annoying enough so that most people would rather pay 99 cents for a song or whatever it is.

DRM's just supposed to keep honest people honest. Nobody expects it to pose much of a barrier to people who are hellbent on getting a free lunch.

Of course, if the implementation is too restrictive, or incredibly obnoxious (like how you have to sit through 10 minutes of commercials at the beginning of the Lost In Translation DVD), then it'll fail in the marketplace. That still doesn't mean all DRM is a wasted effort.

yours

Re:Try again, and fail again.

[Fiona Winger]

While as of now, the DRM success is true, you know as well as I do that in the future, DRM will be lauged at. Someone will make it so the "average joe" has a perfectly easy time of getting around the DRM, or the "average joe" may become computer savy enough to figure out how to get around it himself.

Re:Try again, and fail again.

[ratsnapple tea]

That's what I used to think too, but I dunno... If it's iTunes you're thinking of, the "average Joe" already has a perfectly easy alternative to the music store--he can just go on Kazaa and download whatever he wants. Or on the rare occasion that Apple's DRM actually gets in the way of something you want to do, you can always just burn the track to CD and rerip. But in that case you've already bought the track, so it wouldn't matter.

So it's pretty easy to defeat the DRM, and yet iTunes is wildly popular. I think this is generalizable beyond iTMS.

Re:Try again, and fail again.

[MikeCapone]

DRM might eventually get easy to get around for the "average joe" on computers (some kind of popular deDRMizer software), but I'm not sure that the average joe's mp3 player/DVD player/whatever will be as easy to crack.

Ummmm....

[iLL_L0gic]

Why not just illegally trade the "old format" mp3s then? Or am I missing the totally obvious?

Re:Ummmm....

[bored1]

I assume eventualy companies will stop supporting the old format

What? Why?

[Liselle]

We have AAC/MP4, to name one, which is already superior to mp3 in quality, and ready-made for a DRM candy-coating. The only advantage mp3 really has at this point is penetration, and I'll wager that those days are numbered.

Useless

[Tuxinatorium]

It won't stop anyone from using the old mp3 format, much less from distributing old mp3s. And then any music that can be played can be ripped to standard mp3 with simple tools. This will have absolutely ZERO effect on piracy.

The point being?

[eth00]

What is the big deal about this? Sure if you use the new codec its going to be protected but what is to stop somebody from using cd-ripping software from today without it or just using a different codec? Its a good idea but there does not seem to be any point about it other then service like itunes can distribute smaller files but still have the DRM on it. Another good idea but it seems to be rather pointless and useless.

Too bad, the cat's out of the bag already

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Cnet News.com has a leading story saying that the venerable MP3 music format is getting a makeover aimed at blocking unauthorized copying.

And I have a shiny sixpence in my pocket that says people will avoid the new "improved" version like the plague and stick to the older, user-friendly, non-RIAA-bullshit-encumbered version of the standard.

Re:Too bad, the cat's out of the bag already

[kakos]

I have a shinier sixpence in my pocket that says most people that use MP3s won't know the difference and will use it out of ignorance.

For every anti-DRM nerd out there, there are 50 (or more!) common people that just want to listen to music.

Re:Too bad, the cat's out of the bag already

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

For every anti-DRM nerd out there, there are 50 (or more!) common people that just want to listen to music.

Yep, I agree, people are mindless drones who'll buy players, then will buy music, then will play music and not think twice about it.

Then one day, they'll change their player and the new one won't play the 3 year old music files they had bought, because the "standard" has changed, and since the previous standard was not open, they'll have to buy their music *again*. And that is when the drones wisen up and begin to hate the music industry and stick to older, more "illegal", but open file formats.

Re:Too bad, the cat's out of the bag already

[Erick the Red]

For every anti-DRM nerd out there, there are 50 (or more!) common people that just want to listen to music

But the common people are the ones that use Kazaa and will totally miss the new mp3s because they won't be traded over p2p.

Hrmm..

[Metallic Matty]

Just one more reason I love ogg.

Besides, someone will just find a way around this, there always is, nothing ever works long against these ingenius pirates.

not ogg again!!

[AmigaAvenger]

I can hear all the geeks screaming how ogg is the best thing on the planet. only problem is hardware support is almost nonexistent... Yeah, there are a couple of devices, but by and large most devices support one or maybe two formats. mp3 and wma. mp3 is here to stay!

Re:not ogg again!!

[Fiona Winger]

Did we not say that about tape cassettes, or VHS's? Sooner or later, I think there will be a transition to OGG, or some other format, and MP3 will become a thing of the past.

Re:not ogg again!!

[Cid Highwind]

...and you think those existing devices are going to support this new lobotomized mp3 format? Not a chance. MP3+DRM will require a whole new crop of music players that are built to deal with licenses and encryption.

If you're going to rip your music to an incompatible format with little to no hardware support, you might as well pick ogg vorbis.

Finally...

[ryanvm]

Good - perhaps this is what we've been needing to finally kill off MP3. Thomson and Fraunhofer are morons if they think this will help market share. The *only* compelling feature of MP3 over WMA or whatever is that you don't have to dick around with licenses for your MP3 playing hardware.

Long live Ogg Vorbis.

What incentive?

[re-Verse]

I mean really... why would anyone, except those making a profit off of selling music, adopt this? I guess I can see someone shifting to a new format - lets say a lossless format came out with the same filesize of mp3, but with DRM, maybe people would tolerate it. But this.... this makes no sense? Its just plain old mp3 all over again! Its like saying Hey buy this new TV - its the exact same in every other way from your old TV except it punches you in the face every time you change channels to avoid commercials"

Am i missing something here, or am I just stupid?

Extension?

[Rexz]

I really hope this changed format has a new file extension. If it doesn't then it will make searching for even legitimate MP3s using peer-to-peer software a nightmare. OGG is looking more attractive all the time.

Re:Extension?

[Junta]

Exactly why companies would be very interested in having something that 'makes sense' to call .mp3. They want the market to be confused in the hopes that DRM becomes more ubiquitous, as it has failed to thus far. People are not crazy about .aac and .wma precisely because the names are closesly tied to the DRM concept in people's minds. True, neither require DRM, but that feature weighs so heavily on the mind of the consumer, the (.wma/.aac)==DRM perception is pretty well entrenched. .mp3==good/free beer is very entrenched and thus people wouldn't have the same issue with DRM-enabled mp3, and the best DRM (in the minds of the RIAA, etc) is where the user doesn't know his file is afflicted until it is too late. If someone wants to retrieve a file, that person has thus far been frequently willing to go a little out of the way to get the 'safe' mp3 format version rather than risk .wma/.aac files even if they are easier to get. If user ends up with crippled mp3 and is a common person, I would give >90% probablity they won't bother to do anything about it so long as they have already went through the trouble and can hear it themselves. Sharing with his buddies is a nice plus, but he won't give a rat's ass if it involves a sufficient amount of work when he has already gone through enough to get what he has for himself.

Don't forget the power of the patents

[Qzukk]

While they have been very willing to let anyone decode mp3s (charging royalties only for the encoders), there is nothing to keep them from announcing tomorrow that no more mp3 players can be made or released without this new DRM technology.

And that they want a nickel for every download of a player.

Re:What? Why?

[Fiona Winger]

Well, actually, if you examine and MP3 and compare it to an AAC/MP4, you'll see that the MP3 picks up more of the static, higher frequency sounds. While this sounds bad, these are actually the sounds you hear on snare drums and high pitched singing and guitar solos. To me, it looks like AAC/MP4 will be past over until something new and big comes out. MP4's just won't cut it.

You're all missing the point

[sahonen]

This will not destroy compatibility with existing MP3s, nor will it stop piracy from people ripping. They are just making a DRM-enabled MP3 format for online music stores to sell so that Fraunhofer can start getting the royalties it was trying to get in the first place when it started charging for the MP3 format. Microsoft is getting loads of cash for licensing WMA, and Apple is getting wads of greenies for licensing AAC, Fraunhofer is just trying to get in the game. There will still be MP3s without DRM, just like there are AAC and WMA files without DRM.

This could really suck

[c]

Seems like it might end up doing to the MP3 format what record company DRM is doing to the CD... Creating a format where you don't know if you'll be able to play it until you hit "play".

And if they can enforce DRM in authoring tools through nasty patent licensing, well, you can maybe kiss MP3 goodbye as a useful format.

That sucks. The CD in my truck doesn't do OGG...

c.

Why does everyone automatically yell OGG?

[RalphBNumbers]

You do all realize there's nothing stoping anyone who feels like it from putting a DRM wrapper arround an ogg file, right?

Just because some people sell music in a DRMed/encrypted version of some open format like MP3 or AAC doesn't automatically make that format evil.

Re:Why does everyone automatically yell OGG?

[Aneurysm9]

True, but vorbis is also dedicated to the public domain without patent encumbrances which would allow the extension of the format and forced acceptance of that extension on pain of license revocation. Xiph.org can do whatever they want with vorbis, but there's nothing they can do to prevent me from sticking with the version of libvorbis I currently have and improving it.

Re:Why does everyone automatically yell OGG?

[LordLucless]

Yeah, but unlike MP3, OGG is not patented, and thus it's not possible for a single company to control the format.

If some stupid media player company decides to make their player play only DRMed OGG files, nothing stops someone else from writing a player that doesn't from open specs. In the MP3 world, they could be sued into oblivion for doing so.

Re:Why does everyone automatically yell OGG?

[Anonymous Coward]

But nobody can force device vendors to include DRM if they want to use ogg.

It looks like future licensees of the (patented!) MP3 format may be required to include DRM, which would mean that no new devices with non-DRM MP3 could be produced or sold.

More insidious

[nuntius]

Is when MS Media Player (or even Windows) automatically "upgrades" your MP3's for you. Unless you had good backups, all your MP3's are now DRM enabled.

Re:More insidious

[Aneurysm9]

No, it's modded insightful because it offers *insight* into the dangers posed by technology when our own software can be used against us. The same could be said of Apple or Real or WinAMP any of the other closed-source media player providers. If we don't know what our software is doing there's nothing preventing it from appropriating our own content from us. To extend the GP's fear, what happens when I play an MP3 of my own music and a media player wants to add DRM to it? Who gets the right to tell me where and how I can use my own creation?

Re:More insidious

[timeOday]

Why is this tripe moderated insightful? Because it bashes MS and has some absurd theory in it?

Or is it because Microsoft explicitly reserves the right to pull this kind of crap?

Re:More insidious

[phrasebook]

Who gets the right to tell me where and how I can use my own creation?

In reality it will probably be you who gets that right, under Tools -> Options...

But if not then I see your point :)

Re:More insidious

[Aneurysm9]

Right, there likely will be an option to turn it off. You and I are smart enough to know to look for such an option. Then again, you and I are also smart enough to look for other options, such as vorbis, xmms, etc.

Re:More insidious

[iq in binary]

Wrong, the parent posts a good question because the answer is not only quite potent but quite obvious: they do . And we have made that way ourselves, people. The problem is many of you don't know that.

The reason they get to decide is because of the DMCA, an act passed by our representatives in government. People that we elected. Is this situation a problem? Yes. Who's fault is it? Ours .

The good thing is we can rectify this problem by being more responsible with our voting than we have been in the past. Look at Bush, only in the office in the first place because people felt picking the lesser of 2 evils (Gore would have been a nightmare)was prudent. Yet they had more than 2 choices. It's time to start looking at the ballot carefully folks.

All would-be presidents promise to fix problems. Noone has made it to office on the premise of changing things, just on the premise of fixing broken things. Half the time, what they promise to fix isn't broken and the change stands to make the candidate's current employer benefit greatly. The promise of fixing things is their trick, it makes you think of his intentions as opposed to his motivation. Although determing motivation is hard, there is a way to vote responsibly even not knowing this information.

Next time you go to the ballot, try thinking about things like a natural human being. Think about their negatives. All the advertising is meant to focus your mind on things the are a benefit to them when you see or hear their name (even accusationally slanderous ads, everyone knows who funded those ads--the opposing team). If everyone thought about the problems Bush would cause as opposed to the "good" things he'd do, he would have never been elected. Same thing could be said about Gore too, but if everyone had taken my advice 5 years ago they would have never been elected to candidacy either.

Re:More insidious

[scottme]

I took my portable to work one day, and in order to charge the battery, I plugged it in as a USB drive and played my mp3s with Windows XP's Media Player.

Why? Why? FFS, WHY? And why act so surprised? You should know what WMP is like - if you didn't, you do now. Plus, there are well-known and superior alternatives to WMP, so it cannot have been anything other than pure indolence that caused you to choose to allow WMP to screw up your files.

Re:More insidious

[parksie]

But they won't say it like that. It will most likely be "Would you like your music files protected against unauthorised access?" with an explanation about how you paid to get them (micropayments/napster/yadda yadda) and other people are dirty freeloaders.

They seem to be quite good at brainwashing the average user...

Why add DRM to MP3?

[mczak]

Seriously, what's the point? MP3 as a codec is outdated. All new codecs (be it aac, ogg, or even, god forbids, wma9) are a BIG step above mp3 in the quality / compression ratio department.
The only reason why everybody uses MP3 is exactly because of that, everybody uses it! But adding a DRM layer will make it incompatible to all existing (hardware/software) players, so why wouldn't you use a better codec for some shiny new drm scheme?

One word

[Pan T. Hose]

Does this mean we have to use it? All my old MP3s will work just fine.

One word: patents. They can start enforcing them whenever they want. (See www.mp3licensing.com.) Remember Unisys patent on LZW compression? All my old GIFs was working just fine too, which didn't mean I could keep using them. Fortunately, now with zlib, PNG and Ogg Vorbis, this is not an issue this time.

Support?

[phorm]

Caldwell said he expected to see devices and services supporting the protected MP3 format by the end of 2004

But, will the new devices support the old format (and if not, why would those with massive Mp3 collections buy them), and will the new format work on old devices (again, why would those with old devices use this format).

It seems really that they're shooting themselves in the foot, but I'll be glad when that means my next deck for the car should support OGG.

Just plain dumb....

[cyberworm]

or at least what this would seem like to me. I've not chimed in too much about DRM on /. (if I ever have) but this gets my ire up. At exactly what point is music and music sharing going to stop being one of those "marijuana" type of subjects, where everyone knows it's illegal, and judging from a good majority of people I've met on the internet, everyone does it.
It's been said many times before but I'll say it again. The record industries failings are their fault. They've invested themselves in trendy "novelty" music, and are blaming their problems on digital file traders. It's been shown that time and time again any DRM can be gotten around (line out anybody?) This dragon needs to quit chasing it's tail. The problem isn't in the formats. It's in the medium. If I wanted to bootleg a CD for profit (which is really where the copyright issues fall IMO) I could simply copy the physical CD and start pressing out copies all night long.

"Fixing" the MP3 format would be like buying all your blank tapes pre-recorded from the record companies directly.
I'm not well educated enough about this, and I'm sure it probably shows, but I don't want a hassle if I get a new hard drive. I shouldn't have to ask for permission to listen to something I've paid for if some component fries out on me. This to me would be the equivalent of calling KitchenAid if my mixer fails on me, and after getting it repaired I need to check for permission to plug it in, even though I own it.

I'm tired of being restricted because of what I might do, instead of for what I've done. There are plenty of other "secure" formats out there (I use that term loosly)... Why get another one?

Mod me down if this seems too rambling and incoherent. I'm celebrating having mad vacation money. :D

Added value? Screw that, DRM!

[newdamage]

Now I just may be some naive college student with an econ minor under his belt, but last time I checked my professors were telling me that things increased in worth when they went through those nice little "added value" cycles. Apparently someone RIAA seems to be pumping out the FUD in mass quantities that says rather than make something people find so useful they want to literally throw their money at you, you should just cripple your product so it can only be used in limited ways and just frustrate the hell out of people. ...but that's just me.

Read carefully, boys and girls

[buss_error]

"Cnet News.com has a leading story saying that the venerable MP3 music format is getting a makeover aimed at blocking unauthorized copying.

Note that it says "unauthorized" copying. Not illegal copying, UNAUTHORIZED copying. Want to listen to it on RIO? Pay a fee. Computer? Pay a fee. Transfer to CD? Pay a fee.

Again, the simple solution to broken music is to NOT BUY IT. The people in RIAA are real smart. As soon as no one buys their crapware, they'll quit trying to shove it up our a$$.

Re:Read carefully, boys and girls

[NSash]

As soon as no one buys their crapware, they'll quit trying to shove it up our a$$.

No, they'll blame pirates.

Re:Read carefully, boys and girls

[Ogerman]

Exactly! Don't buy RIAA music. Download your sh** online

What you describe is only half-right in terms of solving the problem of a corrupt entertainment industry. The correct solution is this: Don't buy RIAA music but support independent / local / non-RIAA artists. That's right -- don't even share RIAA crap. Doing so only makes it more popular - and thus keeps people buying CD's and merchandise, watching MTV, and going to RIAA-artist concerts. And. incidentally, Hollywood is another good boycott target. Don't want DRM-laden HD-DVD's and HDTV components? Stop buying today's DVDs and going to every movie that hits the theaters! Cancel your ridiculous cable/satellite premium package! These people can do evil things only because YOU enable them with your dollars.

Look to software as an example. The answer to Microsoft's monopoly is not warez sites; it's Open Source. And it's working.

When alternatives exist to fight corruption, the legal one should be chosen first--not necessarily because the law is just, but because it's the easiest path. Unjust laws can be changed far more easily after monopolists have lost the reins.

Re:OGG

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Quick! Everybody that's still using mp3 switch to Ogg !

And how much do you want to bet no player will ever support ogg? If it's the only open music format left, you can bet music player manufacturers will avoid it like the plague, because if they don't, they might attract the wrath of the music industry on them. And it's not a bunch of OSS enthusiasts who'll change anything. Not player manufacturer will go openly against the RIAA maffia ever. Period.

Exactly why...

[Junta]

RIAA would love this... MP3 is deeply entrenched, if they feel they can pull something off where at first glance on an online file, users won't know if it is DRM-enabled or not and confusion reigns, they will acheive greater market penetration for DRM-enabled files. Once user goes through effort to get mp3 only to end up with a DRM-crippled MP3, the industry expects the user will be too lazy/apathetic to 'rectify' the situation so long as user can listen to music him/herself. If a user has a DRM-enabled MP3, the prospect of getting a traditional MP3 no longer means user gets to listen, plus share, it means the user would have to go through the trouble of getting the MP3 *just* so he can share what he already has. For most common users, selfishness/apathy reigns high enough it might just work...

I think

[Talez]

You're smoking crack.

Ogg won't be popular until the developers get off their asses and put a big link on their front page that says "Install Ogg for Windows!".

At the moment they just give out the codec and say "you do what you want with it". Doing something useful with it? Well... ummmm... here's a bunch of third parties that can maybe do something useful with it.

If Xiph want Ogg to be popular they're going to have to break down and make actual usable technology with instant gratification for Win32 users. They don't want to have to know that a DirectShow fiter is what lets you play Oggs in Windows Media Player. They want to double click an installer and have their OS Ogg enabled.

I'll even point this out to you using references avaialable on the plain old intarweb. See Divx. Theres a "New To Divx" section! Fancy that! There used to be a direct "download Divx whatever version" link but it seems the webmaster woke up stupid this month. Then you download a file and you double click on it once it's finished and it gives you Divx! You can double click on a Divx AVI file and it opens in WMP and plays with all the Divxy goodness.

Xiph needs that for Ogg. They don't need a third party to fill the gaps. They don't need a billion programs nobody cares about with Ogg support. They need a standard installer package with instant fucking gratification and until Xiph get that through their heads people will either switch to WMA or download iTunes and switch to AAC.

Copying protections

[Scott.Simpson]

Trying to make bits not copyable is like trying to make water not wet.

Re:Copying protections

[tehdaemon]

That is easy, just freeze it solid. Not much good for drinking though, and i suspect that is your point.

Patent infringement

[tepples]

since Lame doesn't use the Fraunhofer codec

This could be a lead-up to Fraunhofer cease-and-desisting the lead developers of LAME for patent infringement. The MP3 patents apply to the general processes of analyzing audio that result in an MP3 bitstream rather than to some specific encoder implementation.

Stupid scenario

[AvengerXP]

Copyrighting music is just plain stupid

"Hey man, put your jack in here to listen to my iPod this tune is great"

"Sorry dude, i don't own the rights to that song, maybe another time".

"Are you sure, here i'll put it on my portable speakers"

"NOOO I DONT HAVE THE RIGHTS AND NEITHER DO THESE PEOPLE ARGH MY MORAL CONSCIENCE"

(falls on floor in convulsions)

Can you imagine that? Come on. If you like Open Source so much, i believe you might want the same to music. I agree with protecting your hard work but it's getting out of hand.

Let's not forget MP3Pro

[cgenman]

Fraunhofer was flagrantly unable to get MP3Pro out as a format of choice for illegal music distribution, but still makes a few dollars on streams from sites like Live 365. Now, eyeing the legal distro market, it would make sense to pander to where the money is (or was, by the time they get there) and sell to these other sites.

Yes, Microsoft could decide to upgrade your MP3 collection to DRMP3... but it could decide to jack everyone to WMA tomorrow anyway. And let's be frank, the more piracy there is in the world the more people they will sell their "secure" formats to.

The people here seem to be seeing a tempest in a teapot. Fraunhofer was unable to change the role of "their" format before... why should we expect any more now?

Some predictions

[Anonymous Coward]

Some predictions:

(1) The P2P community will reject the use of the ".MP3" suffix on the new DRM-crippled files. ".MP3" will continue to mean the full-featured format, and something else will be adopted (by informal consensus) to label the crippled files. Expect a new generation of P2P clients that will do this suffix-renaming automatically.

(2) The owners of the MP3 format will want to (eventually) start forbidding the playback of non-crippled MP3 files. (Without this, there's no way that the DRM-crippled version will catch on.) This will result in:

(a) a huge demand for black-market "original" MP3 software (codecs, players, etc.), and,

(b) Microsoft will fight hard to make sure that MediaPlayer doesn't end up rendered useless by new MP3 licensing that forbids playback of non-crippled MP3 files. This fight could get very nasty.

Who the hell modded this as "informative" ?

[brunes69]

If you write your own song, record it, and distribute it, then you owe a royalty to the songwriter('s publisher) whose song you subconsciously copied

WTF? Is this supposed to mean that no one can create anything new anymore, because it has "all been done before" ?

I know a large number of independant musicians and artists who would now like to beat your ass.

Maybe if you would get your ears out of the Top 40 drivel, you'd realize there's still a lot of original content being created daily.

Not a big deal....

[Eric Damron]

MP3 does have that little propritary problem doesn't it.

I find that ogg files suit me just fine thank you. I have ripped all of my CDs to ogg format and put them on my server so that I can listen to them from any room in my house with a computer. And since I'm a geek that means most of them!

Who cares?

[syberanarchy]

Sorry, mp3. It's been nice knowing you! I like the smaller space req. of mp3 files, but if it comes down between that and being able to listen to DRM-free music, I'll just play AAC. If AAC goes this route (as a format standard, not talking about itunes, which I STILL won't use because of DRM) then I'll just use some other format.

That, or download the inevitible cracked player off of suprnova that removes the DRM tags.

There is no way these people can win. But if they want to keep trying, let them - the more they spend on futile copy protection, the less money to sue us with ;)

Re:I think

[bigberk]

Ogg won't be popular until the developers get off their asses and put a big link on their front page that says "Install Ogg for Windows!".

Winamp is a heluva bigger web site and is the media player of choice for anyone who knows anything about music. Winamp has supported ogg for quite some time now (in the full download). Most Winamp users can play ogg right now

roadblock is an offramp

[Doc Ruby]

Any incompatibility this DRM upgrade introduces to MP3 is an opportunity to switch to a better codec. Unencumbered by DRM, patents, religious wars, brand stigma, merely adequate compression ratios and audio quality. If the alternate codecs/ players community is ready for the opportunity, this will be the best thing to happen to music playing since, well, MP3.

Radio

[tepples]

Yes, but if you're a defendant, how will you afford to prove that you have never, even once, heard a particular song on the radio in all the years you have been alive? Unlike with computer programs, where it's easy to avoid reading somebody else's source code, it's almost impossible in the United States to avoid hearing songs on the radio.

Re:Your comment + your sig

[soybean]

The big problem with this, and a big reason that acronyms are so widley used, is that this more verbose version is not proper or even meaningful english. "digital rights management-enabled" does not mean the same thing as drm-emabled. Even "digital-rights-management-enabled" is subtlely different. "drm" is a (defacto) noun, whereas "digital rights management" is not. Granted, it's a _thing_, but not a noun.
To properly un deacronym this para, you'd need to totally rewrite it, using weird phrases.

Needs a selling point

[KalvinB]

For developers it's not having to pay thousands in licensing costs. That's an easy sell. There's no reason for a developer to say "no" to Ogg. I have a plug and play DSound 8 class that plays Ogg. It's available at IcarusIndie.com

But, until MP3 becomes annoying Joe User isn't going to care. There's really no way that companies are going to make it cost effective for the user to choose a more open format.

What companies fail to realize (or think the DMCA protects them) is that if you can see or listen to it, you can rip it to any format you want. And unless you're silly and start flaunting your rips for the whole world to see, there's nothing they can do about it. Who's to say that sound blasting from your stereo is comming from an "unauthorized" rip?

I say let them do their thing. The sooner they get going DRMing everything to death the sooner they go out of business under the weight of their own stupidity.

They should just stick to frying the big fish and not worry about how many fish are in the sea. If Joe User can rip a CD, oh well.

Ben

It's a good time to switch...

[demon_2k]

Maybe now people will which to an alternative format like Ogg.

No, copyrighting music is NOT stupid

[Sycraft-fu]

At least, not as copyright law was orignally written and not as the constitution intends it to be.

The part of the constitution that allows copyright and patent laws to be created is Article I, Section 8, Paragraph 8 which reads: "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;"

Now as orignally written and enforced, they did just that. You'd make a creative work and get a copyright for 14 years, which you could extend once. During that time nobody could go and copy the work without your permission. This allowed you to profit from it. Remember, the U.S. is a highly capatalistic country so profit motive is important. Then, after your copyright expired, your work became the property of the people.

28 years was a good long time to profit, I mean that's over a quarter of even a long life. However it ensured that your work would fall into the public domain in a reaonable amount of time. You couldn't horde control over it forever, just for awhile. The idea being, of course, that it would encourage people to create, since there was an ecenomic incentive.

Also, your control wasn't absolute. You just got to control who was allowed to make copies. You couldn't control everything. People could resell copies they had legitimately purchased. Copies of portions could be made for education. People (or libraries) could loan a copy to a friend, then take it back later, and so on. This is what is collectively refered to as Fair Use.

There was not a problem with this system. It gave profit motive, which is important in a capatalism, for creative works and saw to it that society reaped the benefit.

The problem is with how copyright laws have changed. First there is the problem of extension. It is getting to the point of stupid how long a copyright lasts. Right now it's the lifetime of the author plus 50 years. Are you kidding me? How the hell does the +50 years have to do with profit motive for the author, not to mention that it flies in the face of the "limited times" clause.

Then there is this concept that you don't actually own the rights to do anything with the copy you buy. You can't use it in ways the author doesn't like, you can't trade it, sell it, etc. Well the law hasn't actually changed to say that, they just passed a new law, that says those things can be forced on you technologically and there's jack you can do about it. This of course clearly flies in the face of the "To promote the progress of" clause.

THAT'S the problem. Copyright is a good, and necessary, idea for a capatalistic country. It might intrest you to know that copyright is the reason the GPL can exist and be legally enforcable. With no copyright, the GPL would be worthless.

What's bad is that copyright is being twisted to add levels of control that are not intended or allowed by the constitution.

I Say Fork It

[loftis]

And I do mean the obvious double entendre. Let's just keep using the old non-DRM format. It that means no MS, then OK.

If anyone needs a copy of non-DRM-forced Media Player or iTunes or VLC, I have .exe or .gzip files I will mail us.

I do not believe that a company can legally force you to modify your information if you decide not to use their software. So what if I can't use Longhorn.

Besides, in the time it will take to actually release it, someone will crack the DRM (can you say CSS).

Why won't the RIAA spend its money giving us value instead of crappy music. I buy music I want to listen to. I just like to manage my music in MP3 format. blah blah blah

Worst fucking name my arse

[Pan T. Hose]

Not enough people in the mainstream consumer market are going to adopt Ogg because nobody will support it and they don't know to ask for it.

That, and because Ogg Vorbis is the worst fucking name of all time.

As opposed to MP3, which is the best fucking name of all time? The name of the format is Vorbis. It is much easier to pronounce than MP3 and for anyone being even remotely literate, it sounds instantly familiar. I am sick of those trolls in every story about Vorbis, Ogg, Theora, Tarkin, or anything made by the Xiphophorus Helleri Foundation in general.

When does the patent expire?

[waferhead]

GIF is in the public domain now...
When thou MP3?

Being a lazy ass, and not about to look it up.

My point, I guess, is basically a quote from a Great Russian, General Zukoff IIRC(sp?) and I will badly paraphrase it I'm sure, as the beer is good:
(Trying to provide attribution, please excuse)

"The enemy of better is good enough."

The current format works well.

Everyone and their dog has MP3s, and the dog probably has a device that can play them.

Anything that kills compatibility and the ability to move files, or god forbid, SHARE files, will sell like dog shit on a bun.

Re:When does the patent expire?

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless they put an "industry alliance" to "help the consumers" together, so that all the members of the alliance produce DRM-only materials. It's quite possible, and I'd bet it'll happen.

Re:Can DRM actually work?

[cavac]

They'd have to modify all development tools and backup software as well.

I mean, it would be simple to do something like this:

#!/usr/bin/perl
open($orig, "mymp3.mp3");
open($copy, ">", "piratecopy.mp3");
$copy = ;
close $orig;
close $copy;

And whatabout even the most simplistic backup tools?

tar xv

would normally read a directory from streamer tape. How can they even MAKE tar distiungish between illegal copied mp3's and ones that you lost during a harddisk failure?

Anyway, IMHO the greatest threat to RIAA (and similar organisations) is probably not the file-sharing per-se but the ability of artists getting noticed (and therefore money) without having contracts with the Fuhrers in MusicCity Headquarters.

Remember: the greatest threat to any monopoly is that your worst enemy finds good and cheap distribution and advertising channels! Even well-known artists start releasing some of their songs for free. To quote SCO: "Giving away something for free is against the law because it hinders us to make profit!"

(Maybe they should sell products that are worth our money instead of pestering us with technology that won't make it anyway)

In other news...

[serutan]

Owners of Everything Decide to Indenture the Rest of Us for Life

Ungrateful sods and copyright pirates to be imprisoned, executed. "You're lucky to have those jobs we provide you with," says spokesperson for owners of everything.

Ha ha ha!

[preposterity]

These guys must be smoking something...

The thing about illegal MP3 distribution is that the vast majority of the material originates from MP3 "groups".

And guess what: the people in these groups are smart enough to use LAME rather than some DRM-restricted garbage.

I wish these companies luck. They are going to need it, given the fact that most users can barely get their MP3 player working, let alone set it up to rip music.

Coming up next...

[trezor]

Ok. I'm no oracle, but this is what i see. In this order:

1. Secured files:
   These files are secured for you.
2. Secured & authorized files:
   In the name of your security, the secure files must be authorized before playback.
3. Authorized files:
   Security is implied, yet for a while. Un-authorized music is considered suspicious and mostly illegal.
4. Authorized musicians:
   Poeple allowed to release music. Everything none-authorized is pirate-music, very much like pirate-radio. The RIAA has full control.
5. Authorized client:
   People showing this system little respect are simply banned from using it, and thus has no access to audio medias. "No music for you!", the ironhand to keep control.

That might be a bit extreme, but I find the current climate so extreme I wouldn't believe this was possible 7-8 years ago. So who's to tell what's next?

So please tell me I have a tinfoil hat on my head, I just didn't notice, because I'd like this not to be true.

An MP3 with DRM is just...

[nightwing2000]

An MP3 with DRM is just another incompatible file format. If my current MP3 players and my current DVD/CD/MP3 player stero system won't play it, it ain't MP3.

Mark Twain: "If you call a dog's tail a leg also, how many legs does a dog have?"
"5?"
"No, 4. Just calling a tail a leg doesn't make it one."