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DRM Technology To Be Added To MP3 Format

Posted by timothy on from the what-a-dumb-name dept.

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.

38 of 515 comments (clear)

  1. So What? by Tassleman · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

    1. Re:So What? by michaelepley · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    2. Re:So What? by oohgodyeah · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I say it's time to start saving the setup files to the existing MP3 players w/o the DRM crap attached.

      --

      - OohGodYeah!
    3. Re:So What? by jeffkjo1 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    4. Re:So What? by Fiona+Winger · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Its also been rumored that Longhorn will try to incorporate some versions of Windows Media player that will only play DRM MP3's.

    5. Re:So What? by H4x0r+Jim+Duggan · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

      --
      Please help publicise swpat.org - the software patents wiki
    6. Re:So What? by lambent · · Score: 5, Informative

      mp3 in not unrestricted. You have to license it and pay royalties. See here.

  2. One word... by UnassumingLocalGuy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Ogg.

    --
    "Hu, ho, ho-ah-oh-oh-oh. Hu, ho ho-ah-oh-oh-oh. Mario Paint! Whoaaa!"
  3. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 5, Funny

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  4. Try again, and fail again. by Fiona+Winger · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Try again, and fail again. by ratsnapple+tea · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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

  5. Ummmm.... by iLL_L0gic · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

  6. Useless by Tuxinatorium · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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!
  7. What incentive? by re-Verse · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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?

  8. Re:Hi Ogg by Eric_Cartman_South_P · · Score: 5, Funny
    Hi Ogg, nice to meet you, i just broke up with MP3, want to go out?

    OK! But we have to walk to dinner. No car...

  9. Why does everyone automatically yell OGG? by RalphBNumbers · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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
    1. Re:Why does everyone automatically yell OGG? by dtfinch · · Score: 5, Informative

      Already happening.

  10. More insidious by nuntius · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:More insidious by Aneurysm9 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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?

      --
      There was Cowboy Neal at the wheel of a bus to never-ever land.
    2. Re:More insidious by timeOday · · Score: 5, Insightful
      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?
    3. Re:More insidious by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Hi my name is clippy, I see your playing non-DRM MP3s would you like me DRM enable them?

    4. Re:More insidious by phrasebook · · Score: 5, Informative

      Well, Media Player does have the ability to automatically update your WMA/MP3 files with tag info from the internet. So I guess it does already modify your files, if you enable that option (I think it is enabled by default, but you can turn it off during the install).

      And in the Copy Music options, the option to 'Copy protect music' is enabled by default for when ripping CDs.

      So I guess by some extension you might think 'Copy protect MP3s' would get in there in a future version and be on by default.

      But yeah. MS bashing again.

    5. Re:More insidious by orthogonal · · Score: 5, Informative

      Well, Media Player does have the ability to automatically update your WMA/MP3 files with tag info from the internet. So I guess it does already modify your files, if you enable that option (I think it is enabled by default, but you can turn it off during the install).

      It is apparently enabled by default. I take great care to set up my mp3 tags "just so", using the excellent OSS MP3BookHelper.

      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.

      Naturally, Media Player went out and started downloading supplementary information about the tracks being played, including a .jpeg of the album cover. Ok, more than I asked for, and I don't need Microsoft cataloging my music, but not terrible.

      But then, once Media Player discovered that there were MP3s on the drive, it insisted on iterating over the entire 60GB drive, in order to make a "convenient" database of my mp3s. Now, recall, the whole point of using Media Payer had been to recharge the portable's battery via USB. Iterating over the entire drive, of course, ran down the battery faster than the USB current could recharge it.

      Then, to provide further "convenience", Media Player -- without so much as asking -- also rewrote the Mp3 tags I'd worked so hard to get the way I wanted them, adding proprietary Microsoft tags that didn't conform to the ID3 tag specification (the tag names were longer than four bytes, being prefixed with something like "MediaPlayer/"), and, worse (iirc) using its own judgment to rewrite some existing tags.

      It's this sort of attitude on Microsoft's part -- that they are going to "help" me, whether I like it or not -- that more than anything else drives me away from using Microsoft products.

      --
      Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
  11. One word by Pan+T.+Hose · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    --
    Sincerely,
    Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
    "Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
  12. Rio Karma by BlastM · · Score: 5, Informative

    The Rio Karma, a 20GB HDD-based player, supports Ogg Vorbis AND FLAC, and gapless playback of these formats. It retails for around US$230, and is probably the most advanced DAP on the market.

  13. Re:Read carefully, boys and girls by LordK3nn3th · · Score: 5, Funny

    That's why it's called DRM. So they can 'manage' your rights.

    --

    ---
    Never criticize religion on Slashdot. You will be modded down for "Troll" no matter how factual it is.
  14. "Their own music" by tepples · · Score: 5, Informative

    What about those that encode their own music... as in music they made.

    If you record a song to which you do not own the copyright, you have recorded a cover song. If you distribute phonorecords (e.g. in MP3 format) of a cover song to the public, then you owe a royalty to the songwriter('s publisher). 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. Subconscious copying is actionable infringement. Bright Tunes Music v. Harrisongs Music, 420 F. Supp. 177 (SDNY 1976). Or do you know of a foolproof way to write music while preventing oneself from accidentally copying a copyrighted work?

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

    Granted. Works of the United States government enter the public domain upon publication.

    1. Re:"Their own music" by Samrobb · · Score: 5, Interesting
      Or do you know of a foolproof way to write music while preventing oneself from accidentally copying a copyrighted work?

      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
  15. Re:OGG by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    I'll bet you anything! Because there are already a number of music players, such as the Rio Karma that play Ogg Vorbis just fine.

  16. Re:Read carefully, boys and girls by NSash · · Score: 5, Insightful
    As soon as no one buys their crapware, they'll quit trying to shove it up our a$$.

    No, they'll blame pirates.

  17. Re:Read carefully, boys and girls by jnicholson · · Score: 5, Funny
    The people in RIAA are real smart.

    I have yet to see any evidence of this.

    --
    "Do not drill any holes in your cat - it will not like it."
    -- Nick Davies
  18. I don't think it will work by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    " They will work just fine until the mp3 format license requires the DRM add-on"

    Sure. And all those millions and millions of MP3 players out there already will stop working.

    They tried this before with the SuperMP3 or whatever they called it. Sank without a trace. Made the titanic look like a "good idea".

    Sorry, Fraunhaufer, the genie is out of the bottle on MP3. There are "free" implementations, and 10's of millions of licensed players out there already.

    If I'm going to go licensed, might as well use a codec like AAC.

  19. Some predictions by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  20. Re:Read carefully, boys and girls by bigberk · · Score: 5, Interesting
    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$$.

    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.

  21. DRM covers more than just copyright enforcement by tepples · · Score: 5, Informative

    There's no point during which they're copyrighted between fixation and publication which are distinct events though sometimes simultaneous.

    It's true that unpublished works of the US government aren't subject to Title 17, but they're still potentially subject to 18 USC 798 until they're officially published, and some of the Defense FOIA regulations seem to translate "public domain" as "unclassified" rather than "uncopyrighted." I can easily imagine use of digital restrictions management systems to restrict access to works to promote national security rather than "the progress of science and useful arts."

  22. Combinatorics says you'll end up in court by tepples · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  23. In AD 2101... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Captain: What happen?
    Mechanic: Someone set up us the update
    Operator: We get DRM signal
    Captain: What!
    Operator: WMP turn on.

    Captain: It's you!!
    RIAA: How are you gentlemen!!
    RIAA: All your MP3 are belong to us

  24. In other news... by serutan · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.