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Microsoft Preps 'Janus' Music Copy-Prevention Scheme
An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft is expected to unveil copy-protection software this summer that will for the first time give portable digital music players access to rented tunes from all-you-can-eat subscription services -- a development that some industry executives believe will shake up the online music business." Janus is the Roman god of doorways, gates, passages, preventing people from copying music, etc.
Happy Trails!
Erick
http://www.busyweather.com/
Pay for time limited, rental media? Has Circuit City's DIVX fiasco taught them nothing?
If there were a demand for such an item I can see them working on it but the media companies try these silly schemes that have no consumer interest. Naturally they'll end up somehow blaming P2P for this system's inevitable failure.
Trolling is a art,
Didn't we already learn that people don't want subscriptions, they want the actual media to keep for posterity?
"Nobody owns the fucking words man." - James Dean
So to start with, you'll have to get a different player that supports this "secure clock". Then you have these issues:
Music service executives said they were still in negotiations with record labels over how to treat the new technology. Allowing people to bring thousands of songs at a time to portable players may wind up costing more than the $10 a month that most subscription services charge today, the executives said.
Well that's certainly going to help - keep up the level of confusuin with different rate plans based on what you might want to do.
Nevertheless, some music services are eager to drive more consumers to subscription plans, since per-song download stores have tiny or even nonexistent profit margins.
Because what always excites the consumer is helping a company make more money.
I would think artists would not be too fond of subscription services - they must get quite a bit less (if anything?) from such services. As someone who wants to help out an artist why would I want to support a subscription services? Seems like just another refined means of ripping off people who make the music.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
"Making bits uncopyable is like making water un-wet." -- Bruce S.
This is not the sig line you are looking for... -- Old Jedi Sig Line Trick
Yeah, right.
I remember those things from the 80s - never stopped C64 game sharing.
The owls are not what they seem
I can't see much good, when you can already buy tunes with iTunes and Napster and the like, for just $.99 per song. Can the price of a rented tune be that much less?
On a side note, unless they find a way to copy-protect sound waves, they will never be able to defeat copy protections. You can always play the song and record it in real time on an analog source.
My gut reaction is this won't fly, because who's gonna be willing to keep forking out money in perpetuity in order to have useable access to their music and/or player? But then again, isn't this similar to the Tivo business model?
#DeleteChrome
A two-faced god that claims to stand between the primitive and civilization, but is in fact just a product of the primitive superstition of a decrepit culture.
Perfect.
"It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
"Janus head is a popular phrase for deception, that is, when action does not match speech."
..or perhaps a very appropriate one?
So says Wikipedia
I read the article this morning, and sent to some friends. I have multiple problems with it.
..."
1) I don't want to "rent" my music. I want to buy.
2) I don't want my music in crappy WMA format.
3) The tinfoil hat wearer in me sees this as a way for the music/software industries to indoctrinate the next generation of consumers with the idea that you don't "own" anything.
As the sidebar in the article says "If fans of iPod-like devices can be convinced to drop the idea of owning song files, they could shift to paying a subscription fee for ongoing access
Pass.
www.robot-invasion.com smart-assed political news, humor, and commentary
Before MP3s were Satan, I had a stereo system (hi-fi for us old folks) that could easily "rip" CDs, records, or tapes to cheap portable media (blank tapes). It didn't seem to be an issue then...
I would actually be very interested in an all-you-can-eat music subscription, provided it gave me files in the MP3 format. I have an MP3 player in my house, office, car, and person, but I don't have a Janus player anywhere!
Stop spending all your money trying to stop me from sharing stuff, just sell me stuff I want.
:wq
I can see no reason to buy a player that restricts my ability to play music. Sorry, I'm still all a flutter with the news yesterday about downloads.
Stay tuned for new sig...
Unless they've already developed a new, proprietary headphone, a high quality 1/8" to RCA cord already circumvents this. Or -hello- get it from the CD. This 'prevention' will only matter if they can actually get exclusive content that people want, and anything that can be listened to can be copied.
File this under "Too little; too late". If this was here 10 years ago it would have ruled the market, even 2 years ago before iPod/iTunes made legitimate music buying easy* it would have had a chance. Now it's just another unwanted product; at best a footnote in a future history book.
* I'm thinking specifically of when the iTunes Music Store came to Windows. To head off the 'no ogg/Linux support, so no business from me!' posts, that most assuredly applies to this new product as well and is pointless in a comparison.
R: That voice. Where have I heard that voice before? B: In about 365 other episodes. But I don't know who it is either.
Given that the system relies on a "secure clock" - it must be some kind of chip set with a time and then sealed with a battery. Otherwise, how can it continue to keep time independant of that player loosing battery power or knowledge of time?
So then - what happens when the power for this embedded secure-clock runs out? Your player needs to go in for repair, as I doubt the "secure clock" is user-servicable.
Or, perahps the chip just counts up as long as it has power. So if you only use it now and then you might be able to keep the song-embers alive for years as you slow time to the device.
I guess it won't matter since the system will be cracked before it becomes an issue, but it's kind of like buying a car with a pre-wired explosive charge under the hood set to go off in severeal years. "Not to worry!" the salesman says, "You'll have a different car in seven years anyway!".
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Janus, the two faced god. They claim to help the users and then stab them in the back for the sake of the corporations.
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
I would never get a subscription to view TV.. err... Ok i would never get a subscription to listen to satellite radio.. ummmmm
...its all around them.... i doubt they will balk about this..
.. but the general public is used to not being able to own anything anymore, to them its just one more monthly fee to 'get stuff'......
well id never get a subscription to drive my errr ummm car.... or live in my apartment..
The general public is used to subscriptions
*we* may refuse
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Steve Jobs knew this from the outset. Accorting to a Fortune article, he went to the labels and said "Look, we have some really smart people who know this drm stuff down cold, and you can't stop it. What makes it worse, is that once you have the key you can unlock every door". He used this as the justification for an uncomplicated scheme.
Getting hacked would therefore come as no big surprise to Apple/Jobs. But when you add it up:
Unlimited burns + no expiration + multiple devices + multiple computers = Not worth the trouble.
The iTunes model is so open, there is little reason to hack it. Of those who would want to, you then have a subset of those with the skills to do so, and you end up with an insignificant number.
The new MS model, with an expiration date, screams for a hack. But then again, there are a lot of time limited software demos, and I don't suppose that anyone tries to hack those...
Don't kid yourself -- MS thinks just like Steve Jobs, they just aren't going on CNN to tell you that it's not air-tight.
It's all a little cover to get the RIAA to feel better about adopting Internet business models.
Whether or not people want to rent music is a different question (maybe, given a nice "radio" streaming interface, they will).
Step 4) Record song from Sound Card's 'Line In' using a high-quality program like Goldwave.
Yes, and this is where it goes 'wrong': recording a song non-digitally (analoge) isn't really good for the song's quality.
In need of reliable and affordable server monitoring?
recording a song non-digitally (analoge) isn't really good for the song's quality.
True enough, but it didn't stop generations of people copying vinyl LPs onto tape. The quality doesn't have to be "perfect", just "good enough" for Joe Schmo. It's only those intent on piracy who will be peturbed about the degradation in quality.
"She's furniture with a pulse"
"To us, Janus finally provides the platform on which we can build a new type of experience for the consumer," said Zack Zalon, president of Virgin Digital, the British conglomerate's new online-music division. "We believe this is it. This is what consumers are going to want. We want to be big participant in changing consumers' attitude towards what music really is."
This is why online music purchasing is in such a sad state: it's because of people like this guy. He and others believe they can tell consumers (not "customers," not even "people," but "consumers") that the DRM widget du jour really is what they want when they look to buy music online. Screw what their customers actually ask for, and never mind that positive shopping experiences and word-of-mouth advertising are every bit as important as the profit made on any one purchase; it's obviously far better to license some new technology almost guaranteed to be broken within three months, shove it down the throats of unwilling customers, and pass on the costs.
Guess what, pal. We don't want a "new type of experience," or people "changing attitudes towards what music really is" (whatever that even means). Just offer us unencumbered MP3s at a buck a song, and watch people flock to your service. Is that so hard to understand?
the coolest club on
How old is going to be the first script-kiddy to hack Janus?
A. 14-16
B. 16-18
C. 18-20
D. CowboyNeal
Neither is encoding a song into mp3 format, or transmitting it over FM radio. The thing is, most people don't care, if they can get it for free. The small percentage of people who do care will either pay the subscription fee, or find a way around the DRM on the digital side.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
...a record company exec: "Pay per play is comming. Get used to it." That was 1996. And the MP3 played on...
Right. Because taking discrete samples of an analog wave and interpolating that data to approximate the missing data is always as good as the raw analog data. I'm not saying analog is flat-out superior, but I think it's a mistake to make the blanket statement that digital is better too.
This is exactly what everyone predicted what would happen when VHS was unveiled and coupled with cheap recording devices and rental stores. The ultimate problem is that copying a song analog with no automation at all is a *pain in the ass*. The thing that scares the record companies about CDs and P2P is that Getting songs from the media is extremely fast, popping in a cd and clicking 'go' in your favorite ripper results in a perfectly packaged CD in a few minutes, no errors, no degrading of quality. After that, hundreds of songs or even hundreds of albums can be copied to friends/strangers at once, with the click of a button. Even if there are ways around this, as long as they are cumbersome it will be worth it for the majority to not evade it.
...people have to actually WANT to use these services. You can't just release something and expect people to use it and make it the next standard.
Most won't use this.. and I'd be surprised at those who do. Who in their right mind wants to be restricted like this?
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
I read this headline and immedidly knew the'd be about 50 posts in the first 100 prophecizing (sp) this being hacked in like 2 weeks flat. Sure enough... /. met my expectations.
But Jobs has a grasp of the whole DRM thing that Gates doesn't seem to be close to realizing.
If we had some DRM which REALLY freaking worked. I mean, actually was something that actually protected the rights of the digital media AND more importantly didn't annoy the end user/listener, then it wouldn't be hacked.
Jobs went as far as they felt they could go given existing practices and ended up with a good system, that doesn't annoy users, and that does make it non-trivial to pirate. Yes, you can do it, but it takes a few steps, and a little bit of knowledge. People are intrensically lazy, so aren't just going to do it the majority of the time.
(Also, do you have any Idea how many people out there *can't* figure out how to write a cd?)
Any whokoewho.. Just like parent piped, iTunes got it exactly right. It's a level of protection, and it makes you feel good about following it. BIG difference to the M$ approach.
M$: "Where do you want to go today...as long it's where we tell you."
The're trying to play some demigod rear guard by dictating how people live their lives on the computer. I see this Januas getting stompped faster then DeCSS.
-=fshalor
You raise an interesting point. DRM is always going to be hackable, so let's look at the incentives.
"Unlimited burns + no expiration + multiple devices + multiple computers = Not worth the trouble"
As you say, not much incentive to hack if you can do what you want with the downloads. Notice that this supports the theory that hacking DRM has nothing to do with "stealing" music; the real motivation is to defeat the crippling restrictions on usage.
Microsoft + expiration date + music drm = another hacker victory
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
This site looks awesome, but...
Its a russian website, leveraging questionable copyright principles, with no legal presence in north america.
I'm sorry to say that I would never trust them with my credit card, and I'd be worried about any time of persistent connection between my computer and their website. I hope I'm wrong and its a legitimate attempt at a new online business model, but I've seen enough SPAM and ebay and paypal scams to be very nervous about this proposition.
John Maynard Keynes: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?"
All it takes is one.
Just another work-around that ignores the underlying problem! The reason why these stores have nonexistent profit margins is because the Music Labels are taking 99% - 100% of the song price. And, as we all know, it's not because most of it is going to the artist.
The issues of song pricing and profit margin on a pay-per-download scheme is never going to be resolved in a way that benefits consumer and provider (i.e. music download service) until the greedy middleman of the RIAA is taken out of the picture.
Even if you agree with the "plight" of the music industry and the fact that they do make upfront expenditures on artists and need to reclaim those funds plus return on investment (hey this is still America, no one is investing money with no expectation of something in return) - there comes a point when enough is enough. Just because they took a chance and invested $2M in Britney Spears to start her career hardly justifies taking in 75% of her music profits until the end of time. (note: figures are made up, but you get the picture, I'm just too lazy to find the real numbers)
Even the problem of recovering upfront investments (much of which is lost on artists who do not take off) would be moot if the music industry would stop the practice of paying these fledgling artists millions upfront and just provide them the tools to get their careers started, laying the burden of success on the would-be artists, and then if they fail the company is out a couple dozen thousand instead of half a million.
Forcing end-users into subscription service plans creates waste and bloated pricing (just look at the cable industry's package plans) and is a finger-in-the-dyke solution, when really the problem is miles upstream.
-- I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. It's not my fault that life sucks so much. --
And equally relevant, what happens 150 years from now when the copyright expires?
-- Pot is safer than Beer
iPod owners don't rent their music. Once you purchase a song from the iTMS you own that track and can listen to it forever on up to three PC's and an unlimited number of iPods. If Microsoft is looking to the success of iTunes and the iTMS as justification for their DRM rental scheme they are going to be sorely dissapointed with the ultimate results. Most users want to own their music, not rent it. iTunes and the iTMS is ownership with restictions which is a very different model then rental.
If you go to the time and trouble of picking out a file and spending the bandwith downloading it, it does take on a feeling somewhat like a physical object. I suppose you could be saying "download random songs from this category", and then it would feel less like something owned and more like a service. But every act of interaction with a digtal object makes it more "real" since it took real time to reach that form (like a photograph you've spent an hour modifying in Photoshop. That feels very real indeed!). So perhaps the degree to wich the users are made to feel the music is less "real" might be the key to success. But no-one has really figured it out yet.
I should have been more specific about saying "rentals for music" since obviosuly people quite like movie rentals - I'm a Netflix subscriber myself! Music has a different use pattern though that I don't think works well with rentals.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I've been eagerly anticipating this for a while. Think about this - $10 a month for access to approximately all music ever recorded, as much as you want, wherever you want. Download every new release as it comes out - why not, it's free!
:-)
The rent vs. buy stuff seems like BS to me. It's like saying that HBO is worthless because you don't get access forever. Or people won't be willing to watch movies in a theater, because they don't actually end up owning anything. How many of you who are scoffing at this idea are Netflix subscribers?
I'll bet that the majority of CDs are listed to for a short time, and then filed away. So why clutter up your life with CDs that you won't listen to? And of course buying and renting music are not mutually exclusive, just as you can (gasp) rent DVDs and also buy them. Subscribing to a rental service doesn't prohibit you from also buying anything you want to listen to long-term.
OK Slashdotters, bring it on
But the point about digital copying is that only one person has to crack it. After that it's just a question of distribution. Look at the warez scene - the big problem is finding distribution channels and staying one step ahead of the law (am I quoting the Dukes of Hazzard there?). Cracking the software in the first place is a relatively small piece of the puzzle. That's why the real battleground is not DRM, but P2P.
Well, here's the deal. You can make up any playlist you want, and listen to it anywhere. This is practically the celestial jukebox in the sky. And it doesn't have a thing to do with running/ not running on Linux; the existing services answer that question well enough.
Honestly, I just don't get it. Microsoft is working on a new plan will let MS Windows users who buy a supported MP3 player have anytime/ anywhere access to all the music in their library. Want to listen to the new Britney Spears album, but don't want to spend the $10? Load it up on your WinPod, give it a listen & chuck it. If you commute by train 40 minutes a day, you could listen to 45 new albums each month for $10! This is a phenomenal value.
Ya, DRM sucks. SO what? DOn't think there's DRM on your beloved ShoutCast stations-- get a clue. 'course, they can all be circumvented in one way or another.
Shoutcast I'm sure is really cool, there's probably lots of good stuff. But my friend has Rhapsody, and while at his CPU, it's as close to the old Napster experience you can find. Listen to any song you want. In any order. $10/month. If I could put it on my iPod, I'd pay it in a minute.
And I still don't get the reaction. It isn't for everyone, but to see an announcement like this be universally derided is a sad reflection on the Slashdot community- it represents group-think at it's worse. MS comes out with an unambiguous improvement on an existing product, and 95% of the comments talk about how much this sucks. If Apple or MP3.com or Google or TiVo announced this service, the comments here would gloat about how MS will never be able to match it.
If there's ever been a better example of Slashdot groupthink (particularly of the anti-MS type), I'd like to see it (links please).
The idea of this is a move towards universal music ownership. Now most of you say you won't rent music, you want to buy it. But, if there were a way where you could pay $10 a month, and you could listen to any song ever made on your PC, car stereo, iPod, home stereo, DVD Player etc, would that be a compelling service to have? That's the step this is trying to move towards as a number of new devices are trying to adopt this as a standard. As far as DRM's go iTunes DRM pretty much has the same rules as the Microsoft DRM. It's just that they've made the user experience nicer, and transfer of content to their 1 player (iPod) very seamless. As far as the true DRM restrictions go, it's the same thing. As far as hacking. These people aren't totally retarded. Yes you can use a line-out, or sound card capture to copy this content. But if you're willing to do that odds are you would have skipped the trouble and just gotten the damn thing off Kazaa or a friend's CD. DRM isn't supposed to make things hack proof. What it's supposed to be is a deterrent for the normal user (if you're on slashdot odds are you aren't the typical user). Somewhere there's a magical pricepoint and featureset where the majority of the population feels its' in their better interest to just pay and accept the rules, than jump through hoops to get it for free. (Why do people buy books instead of getting them from the library). Microsoft and Apple aren't developing technology for those of you who spend 4 hours a day tweaking your self-built, self-modifying Linux system, they're developing systems for the person out there who picks their computers because they like the color of the mouse.
This is so friggin backwards.
Write a fake CD drive that captures data and writes it back to the hard disk in wav format instead of burning it to a CD.
It would be a *lot* faster.
Using actual DRM means that you don't need to get validation every time you use the product, only when you download it. Being time-limited means that the media will likely expire before your hardware. And the content is delivered electronically.
In short, this is almost nothing like divx.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
An all-you-can-eat subscription plan for $10/month is perfect for the mass-marketed bland tripe that passes for most major record label product. Only music meant to be listened to a few times and then discarded by kids with unsophisticated tastes would be a rental bargain. The music you want to keep for a lifetime gets bought.
I purchase a lot of ITMS music tracks, and yes I play them on my iPod. But I also play them on my Squeezebox, my linux PCs, my PowerBook and my Empeg car stereo by immediately burning CDs after purchase, re-encoding to MP3 and filing the CD-R for my permanent library. Rentals don't fit into that picture at all.
-- Gary Goldberg KA3ZYW 301/249-6501 AIM:OgGreeb Digital Marketing Inc., Bowie, MD