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Interview With The MPEG Committee's Founder
JasonFleischer points out this "interview with Leonardo Chiariglione, digital video pioneer and founder of the MPEG standards committee, is available on the public access section Scientific American's website. In the interview Chiariglione explains the motivations and hopes for his new Digital Media Project -- an attempt to integrate existing technologies to create a transparent, universal, non-proprietary system for digital rights management. Of particular interest to some /.ers may be his old article from Linux Journal that talks about the relationship between Open Source and MPEG standards."
DMP sounds like a nice idea on paper, but will the recording studios ever go for something that will allow people to share files, even if playback is (supposedly) limited to subscribers-only? How long before such playback limitations are cracked just like the DRM for iTunes?
I have yet to see the uncrackable DRM scheme, and no reason to assume one can ever exist. If humans can write it, humans can break it.
Dance like nobody's watching. Sing like you're in the shower. Fuck like you're being filmed.
...but how long will it now take me to download Lord of the Rings from Kazaa?
From the interview;
For example, you could play a specific title until a certain date, or you could buy a subscription allowing you to play anything you want for a given period.
That's what he is working on. I'm sure the RIAA loves the idea of "rental" music.
Apple not only has a more solid model of music ownership with itunes, they will have done it first. Luckily this project is going to show up late to the party when they unveil it two years from now.
Nothing new here. Move on.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
Incidentally, since the MPEG standards are so heavily dependent on software patents: there is a demonstration in about 1 hour in Brussels against the EU implementation of software patents.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
Any "standard" which you need a patent licence for is not a good standard.
Any standards body worth dealing with should insist that patent holders licence the patents such as is necessary to implement the standard with no royalties.
There's a deep irony in that phrase, if you look at it the right way.
(...)many users will continue to steal music(...)
Is it just me, or is it very unsettling that the mastermind behind the revolution that has brought MP3, DVD and digital television into the lives of millions does not know the difference between illegal copying and theft? They are even in very different parts of the justice system (civil vs. criminal law IIRC, IANAL).
Wenn ist das Nunstueck git und Slotermeyer? Ja! Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput.
I thank you and your committee for making authentic porn a reality.
Use ISO 8601 dates [YYYY-MM-DD]
I don't understand why Ogg Vorbis hasn't taken off commercially and replaced MP3.
I find it interesting that the guy says that they don't want to tackle piracy. They want to manage copyright. It would seem to me that both are two sides of the same coin. If you violate copyright, you're pirating, right? As an aside - I have always wondered how to interpret the act of listening itself in this regard. If I listen to a piece of music a couple of times, I am generally capable of replaying it in my mind. Have I then violated someone's copyright?
----- One learns to itch where one can scratch.
Small niggle, Mr. James K. Polk, if that is your real name....
The "point" of a patent is to reward sharing an innovation with a temporary monopoly. Although this has been subverted in such a way that permanent monopolies are granted for lack of innovation, that's not the point...
anytime, anywhere a DRM scheme would be coming, it would be broken. I don't find any possible reason why it can't be, until and unless it communicates each minute to a server to verify if content is not pirated.
Its same with sound as with vision. Whatever you can see, you can get others to see if you have right instruments. Have never heard of a private conference that couldn't be captured on a camera
Granted MPEG is not broadcast / archival quality (correct me if I am wrong), but regardless there will be a lot of material that exists only in MPEG. Long term preservation and access need to be addressed, and are hobbled by kludges like DRM and vendor lock-in.
If you don't have the technology to render the file, then it's as good as gone. Even physical safes, lock boxes and fire boxes only slow down an intruder, and are rated at the estimated number of minutes needed to circumvent. Electronic restrictions yesterday are laughable with today's computing power and today's will be laughable with tomorrow's. Even passively, there is a difference: you have to expend effort (and probably money) to dispose of a heavy safe that you don't feel like opening. Whereas electronic documents can be erased with the active motion of only a few fingers or through neglect by letting the physical medium deteriorate or letting the specs vanish.
Authenticity is not possible either so electronic sources can not be used for authoritative research or testimony. Physical artifacts contain intentional and unitentional combinations of materials and these in turn have specific ratios isotopes which, if lucky, may provide enough data points to evaluate the origin of the artifact. Authenticity would be a much more useful issue to solve rather than pursuing the DRM pipe dream.
Digital copyright management is not the missing piece that we need. I think Leonardo Chiariglione may have (willfully) missed the implications of networked technologies, and that reform of copyright is needed rather than fighting against the very nature of computing. Earlier leaders and governements fought the printing press, but eventually learned to work with it. He's right though, about P2P and Gnutella like services not being monsters, but effort should be spent finding ways to exploit the strengths of these technologies, not fight them. It would be a long, expensive loss.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
Now where did your hear the name Chariglione? Could it have been during the Felten dispute? (He was executive director of the SDMI standards body). This guy's a member of the industry that has sprung up, complete with lobbyists and all, trying to deliver "secure content" (read: snake oil).
If we look at what he wants it's clear that he has already chosen DRM to be the solution, and now we must find some way to make end users "accept" it. He talks a lot about "mapping traditional usage rights to the digital space" but the fact is that he's trying to replace court rulings on fair use with software. I wonder how well software will replace judges and jurors? (Remember, the preciousss "content" should at all times stay "protected") Someone please mandate "open" standards for playback devices!
He's sweet-talking, and politicians will really want to believe his promises - too bad that he's earning money from seeing DRM as the solution rather than the problem.
Any sufficiently advanced libertarian utopia is indistinguishable from government.
Any band, big or small, that goes on tour has it's own CDs, I've even seen buskers in the subway with their own CDs.
Old and young people are compiling playlists from CDs they've bought or been given and playing them on the stereo or via a jukebox on their computer.
Amateur films and short films have been made very easy. No need to book time weeks in advance on equipment costing hundreds or millions. Go see a short film or youth film festival these days.
Home films and photography have taken off. Even retired people are sending around digital images, raw or touched up, of family and friends. I know people pushing 70 that edit and burn their holiday videos to DVD. Try that with 8mm or Super8.
Many musical instruments now have MIDI ports -- and they're being used.
There are more and more Zines on every subject imaginable. 15 years ago these were made with effort, but now there are many tools like Quark, Illustrator, PageMaker, etc.
Plain old books are being written and published like never before.
So, yes, maybe industry has missed the boat like he says, but let's not forget that industry is the result of customer demand not the other way around. If no one is buying buggy whips, then stop selling them, look around and sell what people are buying. The end users are enjoying new kinds of experiences as predicted, but some of the former players in industry have ignored or fought the new opportunities for business. Why should they be subsidized with our effort if they cannot find a profitable business model that suits the times and technology?
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
Now we have Ogg Vorbis and Ogg Theora is coming so who gives a shit about that MPEG thing?
:)
Soon we'll be able to broadcast audio and video freely with a system that is 100% mpeg free thanx to ogg and icecast
The MPEG Committee is all about making money, they don't care about a free digital/media world. I only trust the non profit xiph.org foundation. (and if it's DRM u want then go for this
download and burn linux with one click on windows
He was the guy in charge of SDMI, which never went anywhere. I imagine that under his leadership, this will do the same.
L. Chiariglione
Open source in MPEG
Linux Journal, 2001/03
I wonder what he would say today.
Cheers
KdenLive/PIAVE - non-linear video editing
Although it seems at first glance to be the answer to the 'problem' of people sharing music files, the practice of putting powerful copy-prevention technology on recordings is not a good approach to dealing with the new distribution technology for recorded audio product.
Assuming that the DRM actually works and prevents anyone from making a quick and clear copy of an audio recording, DRM technology encourages the RIAA companies (soon to be one company with the extensive mergers in this industry) to raise the prices on their products. Since one of the primary reasons that people are sharing files is the perception that the product is already overpriced, this will encourage present RIAA consumers to explore alternatives. Since we're talking the ultimate 'soft' product; music; which can be created by anyone, anywhere, at anytime, and be copied and distributed with even more ease, it is likely that a sizable percentage of the present consumers of prerecorded audio will switch to home-grown or non-commercial alternatives to buying RIAA product.
Eventually the non-RIAA music scene will develop into the perceived quality level as the corporate RIAA product, but without the legal risk of imprisonment or asset confiscation that follows unauthorized RIAA product consumption. Considering that the non-RIAA music will be significatly cheaper, it seems unlikely that music consumers who switch from the RIAA will ever switch back to consuming high priced RIAA product.
Therefore the RIAA is dependent of an ever-growing number on young, new consumers. This is not an unreasonable expectation given that the world's population is exploding and 2/3rds of the people on Earth are less than 25 years old.
However it is unclear how the RIAA will attract new artists to their ranks when the standard contract offered to artists does not offer significantly more compensation over the arrangements that will be developed between artists and audience on the non-RIAA sector. (Except for RIAA superstars).
The only long-term solution to making DRM work is the make all non-RIAA recordings illegal. Then they will call on their legal staff and law-enforcement authorities to routinely and aribtrarily select random members of the non-RIAA audience for systematic long-term incarceration and asset-confiscation from their families in order to scare the remaining non-RIAA audience into compliance with their dictates.
Which appears to be only realistic explanation of their current business strategy.
Jeez, these people are weird and sick.
Even if Computer A had full DRM hardware, unless it was able to verify that it was playing out to speakers, not my non-drm Computer B, then the DRM is more or less useless, is it not?
My User Agent: "Where is the pr0n?"