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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
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
hacker-resistant : hacker-proof :: water-resistant : water-proof
=)
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
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...
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.
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
All it takes is one.