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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.
Does this mean we have to use it? All my old MP3s will work just fine.
Ogg.
"Hu, ho, ho-ah-oh-oh-oh. Hu, ho ho-ah-oh-oh-oh. Mario Paint! Whoaaa!"
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.
Why not just illegally trade the "old format" mp3s then? Or am I missing the totally obvious?
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.
Auto-reply to ACs: "Truly, you have a dizzying intellect."
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.
Repeal the DMCA!
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.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
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.
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!
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.
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?
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.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
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.
Make me a friend and I'll mod you up
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.
"The worst tyrannies were the ones where a governance required its own logic on every embedded node." - Vernor Vinge
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.
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.
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
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.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
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$$.
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
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.
Trying to make bits not copyable is like trying to make water not wet.
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.
Trolls dont like to be Flamebait, because they burn so well. Protect our Troll heritage!
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.
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.
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.
--
make install -not war
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.
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
Work Safe Porn
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.
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.
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)
Look, this thing is totally safe! Built it myself, you know. You just press that button like this and then turn that lev
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.