Slashdot Mirror
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.
I say it's time to start saving the setup files to the existing MP3 players w/o the DRM crap attached.
- OohGodYeah!
Why not just illegally trade the "old format" mp3s then? Or am I missing the totally obvious?
Officer, arrest this man. He is obviously a user, and probably a dealer, of a terrorist-grade operating system weapon, capable of running audio playback software software (and undoubtedly encryption software too) not expressly authorized by the ministry of rights (MiniRight).
Yes, I know it sounds like a joke, but so did the DMCA before 1998.
The article mentions that the MPEG community and others are working on open standards. I believe they are talking about using variations of XrML as the standard Rights Expression Language (REL). ContentGuard, a company heavily backed by Microsoft, originally owned the rights to XrML, but has stated that they will not control the actual language. What ContentGuard is saying is that they hold patents which cover any type of implementation of any REL - so that while the actual "standard" might be open (lots of discussion points around this in and of itself), any IMPLEMENTATION of the standard is not open.
So, is a non-open source implementatable standard actually an open standard? I would say not.
"What we have here, is a failure to communicate." - Cool Hand Luke
Its also been rumored that Longhorn will try to incorporate some versions of Windows Media player that will only play DRM MP3's.
Obviously the new format won't affect the legacy, but it might pollute the waters.
History lesson: Anybody here remember .arc ? Probably not - when its owners flexed their tiny muscles, it disappeared in a .zip. Yes, I know it was for different reasons, but the point is that in this digital age, things can adapt in a flash.
Sigs are bad for your health.
Exactly! Don't buy RIAA music. Download your shit online, use filesharing applications with bandwidth-limiting enabled so you are harder to detect. Change the default port numbers. Use obscure file sharing apps. Set up a node on freenet. Complain to your ISP and threaten to leave if they poo-poo P2P use. Teach others how to use file sharing properly. Avoid using file sharing at school, university, or work. Support BitTorrent by leaving your client running well after you're done downloading. Don't leave your filesharing apps unattended 24 hours a day. Keep your host free of viruses. Keep your music collections clean of tainted files or corrupt downloads.
We're slowly killing the big record labels... keep up the good work. I'm not being sarcastic, I really want to see these evil bastards go poor.
Unacompanied Sonata
(To avoid the inevetable off-topic moderation: this is a story about a young musical prodigy who is raised completely separated from any outside influences, so he can create "pure" music.)
"Great men are not always wise: neither do the aged understand judgement." Job 32:9
Is this supposed to mean that no one can create anything new anymore, because it has "all been done before" ?
I once read a Slashdot journal entry that concluded that the chance of copying something copyrighted was so great that the risk of having to spend the funds to defend oneself in court wasn't worth it. The legal standard for copying is "access" (has the defendant heard the plaintiff's work even once?) plus "substantial similarity" (are they similar?); once Their Experts have presented strong evidence that the songs are in fact similar, you'll probably bankrupt yourself before you can get Your Experts to prove that you'd never heard the song.
Oh here it is.