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Microsoft's Janus DRM Software Officially Unveiled
hype7 writes "News.com.com is reporting the official unveiling of Microsoft's new DRM system, internally dubbed 'Janus'. Interestingly enough, a wide variety of companies including AOL, Dell, Disney, Napster and Freescale, a subsidiary of Motorola, have all signed on to the technology. Whilst some content providers and producers are keen, it remains to be seen what consumers will think - 'the new digital rights management tools include features that would protect content that is streamed around a home network, or even block data pathways potentially deemed 'unsafe,' such as the traditional analog outputs on a high-definition TV set. That's a feature that has been sought by movie studios in advance of the move to digital television.' I love the quotes from the MS rep - 'This release of technology really enables all kinds of new scenarios that are emerging now,' said Jason Reindorp, a group manager in Microsoft's Windows digital media unit. 'We're taking quite a holistic view.' It's good to see Microsoft taking a holistic view of preventing the consumer doing what they want with their paid for content, and protecting us from unsafe data pathways."
from the faces-inclined-in-many-directions dept.
Janus looks in two directions, not many; thus the pejorative usage indicating that the abusee is "two-faced". And quite appropriate; the face MS Janus presents to the music
commercialisation industry is of security and protection, while one of restriction and control gazes down on the unwashed masses.
Notably, Janus is the god of gates and doors but not windows; what can this mean for Microsoft's next operating system release? Certainly it will be more opaque than current offerings. Perhaps we also have a clue as to the MS Doors Startup Sound - "Waiting for the Sun"? But Microsoft's wait is over. Perhaps it's really "The End"?
Such opportunity for dismal wordplay!
Yours Sincerely, Michael.
We are getting closer and closer to the day when NOTHING will work on any electronic device without a conglomerate corporation's device allowing it to go through. We are allowing for a bad precedent to be set here.
Notice the names that are interested: AOL, Dell, Disney. Interesting that these companies not only offer what we traditionally thought they did but they are now also offering TV and music related content along with many other items they shouldn't have been allowed to control.
So here it comes... Dell is going to slowly get into DRM. You are going to see it as a benefit. You can now download a large catalogue of music easily and legally to your computer and portable MP3 playing devices. Woo! Just wait till you want to copy your old collections of CDs to your Dell computer with DRM'd BIOS and OS and then onto your portable. Can you do that? Nope. That's illegal! You aren't proving that you own that CD. What if it was burned and didn't come from the manufacturer. Ok, so let's try the old analog inputs. It's an MP3 afterall and we don't care much about quality...
Error: We notice you are trying to use inputs which are attempting to allow something to pass through our DRM system. We are now blocking access to the ports via hardware.
If you think that by running Linux you are somehow going to escape this you're wrong. The possibilities that computer HARDWARE will only work with DRM enabled BIOS's is coming. Nevermind the fact that if you want to be connected to the rest of the world you will have to have a DRM'd computer with a DRM'd BIOS in order to do so.
"Welcome to hell boys!"
Also read Rory Blyth trying to buy an eBook. The stuff sounds made up except that I ad exact same experience with buying an eBook off Amazon for my Dell Axim, which ran Microsoft Reader. The book was DRMed and that was the last eBook I bought off Amazon, and wrote them roughly what Rory described in the complaint message.
HDTV tuners and sets are already in the market, and they know nothing about this Janus technology. If a broadcaster were to use this technology to "protect" its content, these older devices won't know how to make heads or tails of the restrictions, and therefore are going to have to be considered "untrusted" and not allowed to have the content.
That's just not going to fly in the marketplace. HDTV early adopters will just ignore the content that their units can't play back, and broadcasters aren't going to want to limit their potential audience by ruling out everybody but those who have bought certain models of HDTV hardware.
This platform will need a killer app, and I doubt Hollywood can come up with one...
If any human can create it, any human can break it.
DRM for the most part (I think) just doesn't work, being militaristic about media just sours the public opinion.
Error 407 - No creative sig found
Microsoft is betting that the steady release of new content protection technology will help its audio and video formats become standard ways of distributing digital music and films, in turn, keeping people purchasing and using the Windows operating system and associated products.
Things you think are in the Constitution, but are not.
It's also of course one of the founding principles of capitalism - to harness an individuals greed (or, more politely, desire for improved returns). The thing is that here we have a conflict of greed. One the one hand, we have the **AA and their cohorts trying to control the distribution and use of their material, on the other we have the consumers trying to maximise how they can use the material that they feel they own (irrespective of licencing agreements) because they've paid for it.
There was an article in New Scientist a while back about how even a very young child can appreciate fair play - if the child repeatedly gets given back only 4 sweets when they hand over 5 to the researcher, they quickly feel hard-done-by. Even lower primates have the same sense of 'fair play'. When we purchase a DVD or CD, we expect to be able to use it however we want, make coasters out of DVD's if that's what floats our boat. We resist limits on what we can do with something when we consider it 'ours' by right of payment. This is obviously a very basic and primitive response, but by that very nature will be very hard to eradicate...
The upshot of all this of course will be that the OSS scene will become more and more 'free' in the sense that arbitrary limits on what you can do with data (DVD, CD, whatever) are far less likely than in the controlled (mainly MS, but others too) closed-source environments.
Thank [insert random deity] for Linux and GNU, a tradition that has brought us to the point where we at least *have* a choice on what to do. Consider the alternative - without the rallying cry of the GPL and Linux, we'd be choosing between a fragmented unix market (and only Irix can really do justice to multimedia, IMHO), Apple or Windows. 99% of people would be using Windows and bemoaning that they had no real alternative. I guess we dodged that one, at least presupposing that there will be ways around the DRM imposed on the unfortunate windows users. We do have a far larger pool of talent to pull ideas from than the manufacturers though, so there is yet hope.
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
Are line feeds not part of the 'full text'?
Why are companies always trying to push this shit on to the consumer? People need to learn if you don't like DRM then don't buy products that use them. This includes MP3 players, online music stores, DVDs, CDs, and Tvs. Other then DVDs I have been religious about boycotting anything that uses DRM. If more people did this then consumers will have more rights in the end. Just using their new formats only encourages companies to abuse their consumers more and more.
...your compiler is calling.
Breakfast served all day!
Ok, not yet. But, as with anything DRM, give it a couple months after getting out of this concept phase.
I will say I'm rather surprised at the laundry list of those onboard, including AOL, Dell, and Napster.
At the risk of sounding lame, I'm in favor of anything that brings me music and movies in the medium of my choice - instead of having to wait for mail, drive to store, whathaveyou. If it means a lame DRM implementation, so it goes. It won't remain unhacked for long - if for no other reason that Microsoft is behind it, and people would love to show it vulnerable.
Never trust a .0 version from Microsoft. I'm ok with software DRM- but hardware based DRM scares the willies out of me. What happens if they burn it to a regular ROM and not a flash ROM? Am I supposed to throw out my new 802.11b stereo when the new "updates" come out?
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Codes were meant to be broken.
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
I'm going to offer the movie studios the ultimate in DRM.
For a large fee, I'll cut the optic nerves in all of their customers, thereby preventing any unauthorized duplication or descriptions thereof.
Linux - Because Mommy taught me to Share.
If you agree with any of this, feel free to repost it in the future.
Song of the piracy apologist:
(1) I don't personally believe in copying CDs illegally-- but I think we should avoid using unkind words like "piracy" to describe those that do -- instead, we should describe it as an "infringement", much like a parking infringement.
(2) I don't believe in the record companies emotively abusing the word "theft," but I do believe in emotively abusing words like "information," "sharing," and "Copyright Enforcement Militia."
(3) I believe that piracy is driven by "overpriced CDs" even though CDs have dropped in price over the years.
(4) I believe that piracy is driven by overly long copyright duration, even though most pirated works are recent releases.
(5) I believe that illegitimately downloading music is giving the author "free advertising". I don't buy any of the music I download, of course--but lots of other people probably do.
(6) I believe that ripping off the artists is wrong. The record companies always rip off the artists. Artists support P2P, except the ones that don't (like Metallica), and they don't agree with me, hence they're greedy or their opinion doesn't count or something.
(7) I believe that selling CDs is not a business model, but giving away things for free on the internet is.
(8) I believe that artists should be compensated for their work -- preferably by someone else. I mean, they can sell concert tickets (which someone else can buy) or sell t-shirts (to someone else) or something. As long as someone else subsidises my free ride, I'm coooooool with it.
(9) I believe in capitalism but only support music business models which involve giving away the fruits of ones labor for free.
(10) I believe that copying someone elses music, and redistributing it to my 1,000,000 "best friends" on the internet is sharing. Music is made for sharing. It's my right.
(11) I believe that record companies cracking down on piracy is "greed", but a mob demanding free entertainment is not.
(12) I believe that it's not really "piracy" unless you charge money for it, because, receiving money is wrong, but taking a free ride is fine.
(13) I believe that disallowing copying and redistributing music over Napster is the same as humming my favourite song in public. Because when I hum my favourite song in public, everyone likes it so much that they run home, get out their tape recorders and once they've got a recording of it, they aren't interested in hearing the original any more.
(14) I believe that when illegal behaviour destroys a business, it's "free enterprise at work".
(15) I believe piracy is simply "free advertising." Even though that's what radio is, but with the legal permission of the copyright holder. Basically, what I really want is to be able to choose the songs I want, listen to them whenever I want, but I don't want to have to pay for it. Essentially, I want the whole thing for free with no strings attached.
What I find amusing is that the pirates seem unable or unwilling to distinguish between creative activity and brainless copying.
Since a lot of the people here are GPL/OSS advocates: the "OSS way" applied to this domain is to learn how to play an instrument. Or how to sing or whatever. Then get together with a bunch of other people who can also play music, and make some noise.
One of the unfortunate things that has happened to the OSS movement is that a lot of the loudmouth advocates for it don't understand what it's really about. They view it primarily as a means to get free stuff, and then they turn their eyes from the free stuff to the non-free stuff and think to themselves "maybe I'm entitled to get that one for free too". The noble ideals of grass roots participation in the creative process, and/or supporting it in a principled way (namely, boosting the "free foo" movement by preferring free foo to nonfree foo), or for that matter, any other form o
Apple DRM is fair and good and enables access to wonderful online content.
Microsoft DRM is evil and repressive and will smother your ability to use your computer.
Anyone violating these rules will be moderated accordingly.
Many such must exist in screenland.
Dog is my co-pilot.
I think it is ironic that M$ is working on a technology to help with "unsafe data pathways." How will a M$ product keep its content off of M$ products? The DRM that does not allow content. Sounds like a good way to keep it safe.
This was previously discussed on Slashdot a month ago.
What happens to a DVD player that can output a standard VGA signal? Will we see the encryption of every type of signal, to prevent going to buy a simple hardware MPEG encoder? Maybe I'm just not getting it, but what is preventing people fom simply using legacy output methods to encode their stuff?
Maybe the linefeeds are part of the DRM beta test. If Slashdot doesn't qualify as an "unsafe data channel", I don't know what does.
One god, one market, one truth, one consumer.
Did anybody else immediately think "now why did they name it something so close to 'anus'?"...
"Murphy was an optimist" - O'Toole's commentary on Murphy's Law
I'm constantly labelled a "MS Troll" by you morons for saying things like I'm going to say now.
Just a few days ago you were all creaming your pants over Apple's "warm and fuzzy" version of DRM. You were falling all over yourselves to be the first to proclaim how fair it is that you can listen to your songs on up to X computers, and burn up to Y CDs (or no CDs at all if the file is so flagged - but noone mentioned that yet).
DRM is an inevitability. Quit bitching about your "right" to do what you want with the content (code for "get it free off kazaa"), look at it the other way. Don't pay for content with which you cannot do what you want.
Ie; I can't watch Star Wars XIV though my VCR - I won't buy Star Wars XIV, etc.
I mean, I can't drink at Chuck E Cheeses, so I don't go there anymore. I don't write letters and throw a fit about it.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
but his DVD tool and that other tool he just released were mostly written by other anonymous contributors.
not that he didnt have any part in it, but most the work was not done by him
I can't help but think a lot of the people bitching are just people who don't like the fact that piracy and such are threatened by DRM.
Forgive me, but I'm not going to run around crying "The end of computing! The end of computing!" There's this thing called a free market, and if people don't like not being able to do certain things, they'll just not purchase the product and move onto something else. It's in the best interests of these companies to please customers. The DRM is just to prevent illegal casual copying. If you're not doing anything wrong, what's the problem? And if you don't like not being able to make a backup of something, don't buy the product, or go to a competitor who lets you, or bitch publically, or whatever.
It's not the "end of computing" where we'll need the permission of "conglomerates" to use anything. Lay off the post-apocalyptic RPGs.
It's like a movie: teams of retroriggers with dusty snapcases and old computers descend upon sleek new media and crack it open with forbidden circuitboards from the 1990s.
No, the *end* of everything is when the old stuff is forbidden -- when the government decides to take Jack Valenti's advice (he hasn't given it yet, but he will -- before he retires) and ban all computer equipment made before 2004. Then the only people left are the retroriggers.
The Analog Hole will never die. If content is to be displayed to humans, it's going to have to go get to light waves and sound waves somehow, and content can always be captured by kinescopes and acustic couplers. Sure, there's going to be some quality loss by resorting to those technologies, but there's no way to defeat them from making a copy, and those copies can then be encoded into digital format. There's always going to be a point of demarcation where the digitally encrypted stream must become a plaintext analog signal in order for the monitor or speakers to function, and anything that copies the signals at that point will have a pretty good looking copy as well. Unless the digital demarc point is installed after our eyes and ears on the way to the brain, I just don't see how this is going to work...
Over-the-air HDTV is a done deal; it's unencrypted with the broadcast flag to "control" copying. No one is suggesting using Janus for over-the-air HDTV broadcasts.
The application for Janus is mentioned in the article: playing rented music on portable players.
* If you expect companies to follow the copyright of the GPL, you should support the RIAA going after infringers of its copyright. If not, you're a hypocrite.
* There is absolutely nothing wrong with a company being upset that its product is being pirated freely over online networks. A recent Slashdot poll showed that the majority of Slashotters are unemployed or are students ("academics"), which explains a lot. Try getting a real job sometime and see what it feels like when your work is everywhere, and you start worrying that your days are numbered. Does John Carmack want you to "sample" his new game via the "free advertising" happening on eMule?
* VA Linux-owned Slashdot thinks its niche opinion represents the majority of the world. This is a result of people visiting every day and buying into the groupthink. Nobody outside of Slashdot knows or cares about "Linux," "RIAA", "M$," or anything else Slashdotters think is such a huge issue in today's society. Go to a mall or coffee shop sometime and see what people actually talk
about.
* Speaking of VA Linux--it's a Linux company...that owns a "tech news" site...that posts news stories negative toward competitors like Microsoft. If a Windows company or even Microsoft itself owned a "tech news" site and posted anti-Linux articles all the time, everyone would be up in arms. But with VA Linux, it's a-okay.
* Slashbots think people don't like the music coming out these days, which is the cause of the piracy. Never mind that if people didn't like the music they wouldn't be pirating it, most Slashbots--again, this goes back to the niche opinion thing--don't realize that most people these days love the music coming out and want to hear all of it. Probing around, you discover that Slashdot is made up of nerds and fogies who listen to things like The Who and Blind Guardian and techno--not what mainstream society enjoys.
* Any company ending in "AA" is evil. Especially if it doesn't want you distributing its works without paying for it. Somehow, this mindset is supposed to make sense.
* The inevitable result of all this is a world in which nothing can be profitable because people simply pirate free copies. Is that really what Slashbots want? OSS and free-ness in general reminds me of the hippie era of the 60s--idealistic socialism that only exists because of the surrounding capitalism around it that provides the environment for it to exist. We all know what happened to that idea.
* Slashdot editors are abusive. We all remember The Post. It's amusing the editors never mention the issue. The worst editor is michael, who will mod you down, insult you for your post count, and post unprofessional color commentary along with the article. This is the same bizarre person who cybersquatted Censorware for years--even as Slashdot posted articles negative toward cybersquatting! Michael played it off like he was some sort of stalking victim, which made it all the more bizarre.
* The moderation system is broken. If you mod someone as "Overrated," you can't be metamodded. People abuse this all the time to gang up and knock you down into oblivion.
* If "Linux" just refers to the kernel and not the operating system, how can "FreeBSD" refer to the operating system (userland tools, standard libraries, etc.) and not just the kernel? Face it, "GNU/Linux" looks and sounds ridiculous.
* Slashdot is all about spinning truth for its agenda and posting outright falsehoods. In this article, for instance, Roblimo claims that Baystar spokesman Bob McGraith "admitted" that their "only viable asset is the potential proceeds of lawsuits against Linux users and vendors." And yet, in the very next sentence, his real words are given: "We're looking for the best return we can, and we think the focus should be on IP licensing (and enforcement)." Ignoring the outright lie RobLimo posted about what was said, Bob McGraith describes what every standard IP company does-
Janus was also the Russian mafia crime boss in the James Bond movie Goldeneye who **** SPOIILER ALERT *** turned out to be 006.
I rather like the term "unsafe data pathways" - what a wonderful euphemism!
I think I'll go play some morally questionable auditory material over an unsafe data pathway right now.
If you can hear it or see it then it's gone from digital to analog. You can always point a camcorder at a TV screen inefficient and clumsy yes but it works. And if your are able to hear it through your stereo or computer or headphones the digital signal has become analog. All you have to do is tap into those wires which is easy enough and press record. Once again it's inefficient but anyone can do it.
Besides give it a week or two and a workaround will be available. Anyone want to donate so we can buy the cracker of Fairplay and DeCSS (JON?) a new Dell with Janus on it?
What makes the difference is speaking with your money. So once this stuff gets out.. start talking to your family and friends. Educate them on fair use and what these limits may mean. Ask them to get information from the people they are buying things from. Imagine a Dell sales person spending an extra 30 minutes explaining the concept to someone who is expecting certain rights. This rapidly becomes uneconomical for Dell to support. Ultimately it becomes your time and effort vs theirs.
Personally, I check every CD I want to buy by asking the clerk if it has 'protection' on it. If they cannot answer I ask to see the manager and so on. As a consumer you have a right to information and to know. If they cannot tell you, ask follow up and an answer. If they choose not to, let them know you will be filing a complaint with the Better Business Bureau in your area. Let them know that you will be filing a complaint with the exact companies that sell them the CDs to state that the distributor is not informing customers appropriately. Be the person who disturbs the ant-hill.
Change happens when it becomes unprofitable to do something (and someone can't blame a hacker or a pirate).
(1st sig) If this were a snappy sig, you'd be reading it right now. (2nd sig) I'm a karma whore. >Insert FUD here
Is this a threat, Bill?
such horrible DRM, what should we do now. I know, lets attack the itunes music store! it eeeevil.
Now i ask you this, what would you rather have?
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
If you are worried about not getting your share of music, entertainment, etc, then you need to see all of the alternatives out there. There are plenty of bands not caught up in this madness who are quite good. There is theater, printed books, playing sports, painting, traveling... When you come right down to it, they are really making the easier forms of entertainment (listening to music, watching TV) harder and less competitive to more fulfilling forms of entertainment (playing sports, nature walks, getting out ...). As the cost analysis is shifted for more people, I bet they experience slower sales.
I know they slowed my purchases already.
InnerWeb
Freud might say that Intelligent Design is religion's ID.
Yeah, it's a bad thing Microsoft is trying to prevent self-righteous little high school boys thinking they're entitled to getting everything for free off the internet just because daddy pays for cable modem.
I for one feel much safer knowing Microsoft is protecting me from media.
"or even block data pathways potentially deemed 'unsafe,' such as the traditional analog outputs on a high-definition TV set"
I assume that refers to the very dangerously analog visual display. Ohhh and be sure to make sure such dangerously analog outputs as speakers are disabled as well.
I think there is an extra J in that name.
GOOD!
And the next
"They said I probly shouldn't fly with just one eye," "I am Bender. Please insert girder."
It "enables" us to pay for things in a format that, at present, they dare not sell to us because we're a bunch of dirty thieves. If they sold us a movie over the internet NOW we might think that we should be allowed to watch it a second time for FREE.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
This is just playing into the artificial-scarcity crowd. What side are you on? How does one pay for information that can be copied for free? Information wants to be free.
-I am an elective eunuch.
You can't blame the providers unless you blame the general population's lack of ethics.
It's sad that DRM is even necessary, which it obviously is, because the masses have spoken and said that they aren't willing to respect the content producer's rights, it's turned into a battle of rights. Is it more important to protect your right to make a backup of content or the content provider's right to get paid for creating the content?
Honestly, the content providers have a lot more to lose in all of this, and will probably always need more protection of their rights as it becomes so easy to steal content. The content providers deserve the protection from how ubiquitous copyright violation has become in our culture.
Has it been hacked? has any version been hacked since wma 5? if so, let me know.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
That goes for iTunes Music Store, too. It's amazing how many suckers were surprised at Apple tightening the noose last week.
sulli
RTFJ.
I'm not playin' along, personally, at least as far as music is concerned. Other media... well, there are a lot of variables. But with tunes at least, between used CDs and legally free stuff freaky artists make available online and indies who aren't bothering with this DRM stuff, and new pay-per content through outfits like bitpass who offer unrestricted files, I certainly don't need any of this junk. About twenty times, thinking of some song I have a fondness for, I've thought, what the hell, I'll just hit the iTunes store, shell out a buck... and every time I hit that paragraph about the "Plus Generous Personal Use Rights" - and I just have to say no. I define my personal use rights... and they say, among other things, that I don't have to repurchase songs when they need to move to their sixth new computer home. Just say no, they'll get the point eventually.
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
You're forgetting one simple word, apathy. Consumers as a whole will take what they are given, not what they need or want (I'm talking on a particular market, the US market, it is different in other places). Slap Microsoft's sticker on it and say it's secure, and an awful lot of people will flock to it. If that fails, well, every new cheap Dell PC you buy will be "more secure for the web" or some other gibberish like that. People not in the know WILL scoop that up and will prove market demand, irregardless of the fact that Dell will be selling only DRM enabled systems. Once one distributor gets some money in from it, everyone will be doing it. The question is, who's going to give the option of enabling and disabling said features? I think you can disable the features in the new Phoenix BIOSes but I could be mistaken. Wonder if the likes of Dell, HP, Gateway, or IBM will do the same? I can definately see a time when the cheap consumer PC will be fully locked down with DRM while the hobbiest or professional that needs to get something done will have to buy relatively high-end parts to get anything done. Then again, there is always MRBIOS (if they're still around). Anyways, enough ranting. I've got to get some work done today. :)
CliffH
sigs are like a box of chocolates, they all suck remove the underscores to email me
Oh whenever i read another story about the libery crushing plans of DRM i recall the humorous humorous 'slashdot DRM Helmet'
/. will be used as a prior art reference:)
It plugs that 'analog hole' by analyzing everything you hear and blocking it out if you dont have a license.
I wonder if some day in the future
I guess it didn't cross your mind that all of Longhorn is going .NET, and content will be DRM-protected if that's what the copyright holder chooses.
This thing IS coming.
His experience sounds almost exactly like what happens when you use crappy open source apps on linux ... Gosh.... I guess there isn't much of a quality difference between OSS and Microsoft?
Ah, the subject that cost me Karma when I jokingly said "sounds like anus. As in ripped or torn..." Got tagged as a troll; some ppl can't take a joke.
But to my point:
I work in the entertainment industry (not music) and you might find it interesting MS's heavy push to position itself as the troll under the bridge.
The movie industry is struggling (for many reasons that none of us are going to solve because they're not technical) with digital distribution of assets. Microsoft is positioning itself to have at a minimum some part of that industry.
I've never worked outside the IT industry till now, and I can speak with certainty that it is indeed interesting to watch this going on.
See this: MS Digital Cinema
As the predominate software vendor in the world, Microsoft is in the unique and enviable position of defining everyone's digital rights.
Should a "monopoly" be allowed to wield this power? What oversight group is going to ensure that the People's rights are included in DRM?
As the majority market owner, does a technology company have an obligation to open up proprietary software that directly affects a consumers ability to manage / safeguard digital solutions they quiet literally own?
It's one thing with your Quicken database, you can print it out. But it's a completely different thing when you buy a song you have a legal right to copy or backup, but may not be able to because of a third parties technology solution.
There are some areas, IMHO, where some standards body has got to step up.
Best regards...
/me sips his coffee and ponders a new sig...
You bought, paid for, and everyone agrees OWN, your copy (or "'license'", if you must) but you cannot ever use it!
It's also funny to watch posts like mine dive straight into Offtopicland.
Sorry, though, I don't have an opposing argument for you that I can actually defend. Oh, well.
I have an HD set (Sony GWIII), HD cable (Sci Atlanta 3250). The SA3250 will output downconverted versions of HD channels, but they don't look any better than their digital channel versions, and in some cases worse since the 3250 makes some icky choices about letter/pillarboxing 16:9 content.
Why would you even bother blocking downconverts via DRM? They look just "OK", you almost never get access to a 5.1 sound track you can do much with besides listen to (some complicated HTPC setups excluded).
Besides, it seems to be a nod to fairness to allow the next level "below" as an allowed copying medium if they're going to get persnickety with the "best" current medium.
With all of this Digital Rights Management in the U.S. being developed I cannot help but think of how the content producers have acquired the "RIGHT" to add access control to works ??
I just looked over the Copyright laws (www.copyright.gov) and I cannot find any laws that permit the copyright holder to impose their own controls on the actual product. All I could find are laws that allow the Producer the rights to either reproduce, distribute, perform the work publicly or make derivative works.
There is no basis for the ability to control how the works should be viewed, heard, etc. It only covers who has the right of redistribution, etc. In fact copyright laws actually give certain rights of redistribution to the purchasers of copyrighted material, such as fair use.
Also, fair use is only applied if you want to redistribute the work (part of the work) or make a derivative work to the object in question. What you do with the content you purchased in your own home, as long as you do not redistribute or make a derivative work that you plan to distribute, is perfectly legal (or was anyway).
To put technological limits on how I use works that I purchase is beyond the scope of Copyright and is therefore (or should be) outlawed.
Am I way off base with my thinking in this matter ??
What the *#%$ is a "mandated possibility"?
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
Copyrights still expire. When that happens when copyrighted works fall into the public domain?
This seems to be at direct odds with DRM. Is there any consideration of expiration of copyrights for this in the usage restriction laws?
How long is it going to take before people realize that corporations creating "standards" is just their way of ensuring that people continue to buy their proprietary non-"open" products?
Sorry, I'll stick with my impossible-to-control-or-limit mp3 technology, thanks. I don't care if it has to be "licensed", mp3 codecs are downloadable and usable very easily with no technical limitations at all, and that's exactly what I've been doing for quite some time now.
If legal issues arise with the mp3 format I'll just use Ogg Vorbis.
Why waste my time dealing with DRM bullshit like corporate-controlled statistics and tracking, and even worse, waste CPU time encoding the extra data used to for all of that when ripping my CDs to disk?
Also, not being able to play a WMA file on my Mac because they don't make the newer Windows Media Player for older Mac OSes is just stupid. Microsoft's "standards" cut off previous systems and formats, and we all know it. Personally, if they're going to go so far as to use DRM-enabled BIOSes, I'll stick with my 1.5ghz system, regardless of how "fast" computers get. If I'm required to use a DRM-enabled system to get online, well, guess I'll have to resort to these.
Also, my household has numerous computers of varying platforms and OSes. I'm not going to segregate my network by eliminating the current interoperability I experience by using software that isn't crippled or even better, is designed to work with other software by default.
In the end, it's just marketing. MS doesn't care about our "security". It's to protect their profits and their stranglehold upon the IT scene... this is just blatantly obvious, and I'm disappointed that people don't see this.
A few final things to consider: in the end, who does this benefit? Do we really need DRM? Are you willing to make the privacy-related sacrifices neccesary to attain the benefits supposedly only attained through DRM?
Lately, I found the copy protection on especially games gives troubles when playing the game on my computer. When that happens, I download a cracked version that works fine. For the next game that comes along which I want to play, especially from a company which gave me problems before, chances are I'll go for the cracked version immediately.
The region encoding for DVDs doesn't give me any problems now. I have two DVD players, both of which are region free. I have heard, though, that there is a new region encoding which will cause DVDs not to work on my players. But what the hell, I have broadband and it is easy to download them, so I'll do just that.
Music never gave me problems. But now this DRM thingy is coming along. That seems to mean I can't play CDs anymore on my computer, right? Tough. I'll have to stop buying CDs. And if the cracked version works, I know where to get it.
It seems that I am the ideal customer of the entertainment industry. I am willing to buy everything, and I buy a lot. So the question is: what are they gaining by driving me to get stuff illegally?
The name Janus is also the name of the super secure air transport to and from Area 51 for employees.
what is that in reference to, exactly?
Yes, Yes you are. Make sure you buy exactly the same one with the "DRM" update. You will also need to replace your DVD changer, and the 802.11b card (which of course requires a whole new computer). /end sarcasim/
Most DVD players are flashable by putting in an "update disk" (many of which you can download and burn). Why would you think that they would not resign all their equipment that way (it's a lot better for their marketing guys if they can advertise easy software updates!)
Does anybody get it? Intellectual property has virtually no "variable costs". It does not cost Apple diddly for the bandwidth to provide a 4 MB iTunes download. The only costs with IP are the "fixed costs" to develop it in the first place. This is unparalelled in human history! For the first time, information can be deployed for almost nothing. Sadly, all this DRM bullshit will destroy the greatest thing about computing today - that is, perfect and practically free copying. They're trying to apply the old business models of good A costs x amount to produce, therefore Megacorp will sell it for amount x + a dollars. Economically, DRM removes the ability for anyone technically inclined to copy IP without paying the content provider, or to put it another way, it introduces an artifical "variable cost". I can only hope that groups like the EFF can raise enough hell to get Joe Sixpack interested in the loss of what could have been a new paradigm as significant as the Industrial Revolution.
"Janus cracked - AOL, Disney jump ship"
Wait for it.
"The cup... the drop... it's a YES!"
Which of these the governements around the world will choose?
Free market is a neat thing, but when it makes corporation more powerful than the governement, it look like a bad thing.
Why do you americans think the free of free market is the meaning of real liberty?
Why not reconsider what should be sold and what not? The internet and the digital medias now makes the distribution of them an all differant thing.
Do we want the corporations to become richer, or we want the population having a real liberty in their own country?
Cash earned for working make people happy. Accumulation of this cash makes everyone but you, less happy.
There is no more good arguments to support capitalism when we see what is happening now.
Its not paranoia, when you consider that this is the beginning of what corporation can do with the technologies.
solution is simple. don't like the protection? don't buy the content. no one buys it, it will eventually go away.
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
It will be very interesting to see how far microsoft can push their users before they say Enough!
Fortunately for me I do just fine with OpenSource and don't need or use their products.
The real test is going to be with everyday to day users who just want to use their computer. We know DRM, etc is styfling creativity and since universities are now using a lot of OpenSource too, I see it as a race. A race between oppressive and open use. Some people and organizations stand a lot to loose/gain.
The Internet is a great place to try to control society from as it reaches so many people. See how the psychs wants to control each kid by having access to their school computers to ensure they have the "right" attitude. They lobby to replace academic score cards with "proper" attitude. Why go to school if not to learn?
It has already happend with the news media here in the US. It's controlled to keep americans afraid of each other. Just look at our neighboor Canada. They are very friendly and not at all afraid of each other. I dare you to compare the media. People in Europe sees everyday how one sided news are from the US.
The Internet is the current battle ground. DRM is in that very same line of "work". It sounds kind of dooms day like, and indeed I see our freedom is being attacked. I for one will do what I can to oppose DRM and similar technologies with both my mouth and my money.
"Those who would give up essential liberty for temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
I think by "enables" they mean it enables scenarios where RIAA, and eventually MPAA will OK a commercial model. However, I am confused by what they mean by this:
... even block data pathways potentially deemed "unsafe," such as the traditional analog outputs on a high-definition TV set.
Good luck blocking content that I paid for from my own speakers! That's not going to go over very well at all. The more of such stupidity they try to sell the more they will force people to look somewhere else.
I remember reading a knowledgebase article for Windows Media Player describing an early bug that would frequently corrupt the user's license database, rendering all their purchased downloads unplayable. The recommended workaround was to purchase new licenses.
Project Janus, v2.0.. to make clones of big burly guys like Sylvester Stallone, to enforce DRM.. with a big ass gun.
(Judge Dredd)
"Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
I'm not sure I understand what I think you wrote. "god of gates and doors but not windows" and then more!!?? Did I miss something in this response, or did I just run out of coffee too soon?
Or like in The Ten Commandments when Moses **** SPOIILER ALERT *** parts the Red Sea to let the Jews out!
Kinda like at the end of Star Wars when Luke **** SPOIILER ALERT *** blows up the Death Star!
Sorry, but the **** SPOIILER ALERT *** on a movie that's 10 years old cracked me up. Nothing personal.
...But I fear you're not. You'd think businesses and schools would be the last stronghold, but those have been "infected" too. Microsoft makes schools and businesses alike offers they can't refuse. Even if those groups resisted with all their might, there is something bigger at work here.
These aren't some random chunks of bad news suddenly coming together and giving us these nightmares; this stuff has been a long time coming. Getting folks to think that software and music and television all come from magic far-away places floating somewhere above everyday life, that was important. That's why music and television programming are so streamlined, overproduced and bottom-line optimized. Meanwhile, if you buy a computer the way a normal person does, it has Windows on it. Period. Windows has traditionally been a saddle that's comfortable enough that most people don't mind the bundled blinders.
Well before the whole AOL/Time Warner thing, Microsoft, AOL, Compuserve, you name it, they were all about getting computing to work more like "big media", so that similar profits could be reaped and similar big-dollar deals made. At the same time, "big media" were seeing something on the horizon that scared them. Consumers could perfectly recreate media, be it their own or anyone else's material. If they could get their hooks into computing and somehow stop this, they too could sit tight and enjoy the same profit-reaping and deal-making that they were used to.
That so many companies are behind this from day one just shows how badly this is wanted by those at the top of those industries. And when it comes time to try and legally require all this nonsense (notice how both software companies and big media have been getting more aggressive legally? Also no accident), multitudes of deep-pocketed corporations have rather a lot more lobbying and political funding clout than do "business and academia", let alone the odd free-thinking individual who's interested in _doing_ as opposed to consuming.
I don't want to believe it either, but this is one nightmare that only gets worse when we wake up each morning.
...has anyone broken it yet?
Nobody is talking about blocking downrezzed outputs; it's the opposite: full-resolution outputs will be allowed only if they're secure. All unencrypted outputs will be downrezzed.
I don't really have issues with people posting older music, but if we would practice what we preach we could get a lot more attention for "good" artists rather than continuing to post and share mainstream pop releases. And look at the other discussion here recently on "gaming engines" - "machinima" is destined to become more realistic, the day when we have "klans" competing through releases of original movies on usenet and irc is coming... and their move into "popular culture" will surely not be far behind.
Whenever I read about new some new security measure, I wonder if they are talking about security for me or security from me. Am I buying a lock on my front door to keep potential burglers out, or a lock on my door to keep me out? So the answer is no... I'm not interested in paying for an upgrade that prevents me from using the content I purchased. What do they think we are, stupid? Oh right, that...
501 Not Implemented
My imagination...
:)
You buy a book, but you're not allowed to read it in public.
You buy strawberries, but you're only allowed to eat then with yogurt brand xXx.
You buy a MS-paper, but you're only allowed to use an MS-pencil on it.
You have a Windows OS and you are only allowed to run Windows certified applications on it.
And you have to pay to get a certification of course
Privacy is terrorism.
Copyright law (in the U.S.) does not give the copyright holder any say over how their work is used by an individual who legally possesses a copy. Copyright law only gives power to the copyright holder over making and distributing copies, and (where appropriate) publicly performing the work. If you legally buy a copy of a work that is available to any member of the public willing to pay, you can take that copy home and read it, listen to it, watch it, burn it (set it on fire, not burn it to a CD), wallpaper your room with it, wipe your ass with it, or whatever else you see fit. (As long as that use isn't illegal in other senses, e.g. you may not beat someone to death with it.)
The DMCA (and now various DRM schemes) effectively give the copyright holder a right they never had before: the right to dictate how you can use that work in the privacy of your own home. Copyright law doesn't say that Disney can force you to only watch their Aladdin DVD using software that Disney has approved... but the DMCA does. Since the DVD CCA controls its DVD decryption software as a trade secret, and only licenses it to DVD player-manufacturing companies who paid them a fee, AND since (thanks to the DMCA) it is illegal for a customer to reverse-engineer that DVD player in order to find out how the decryption works and write their own software... well, you get the picture.
The solution to this problem is left as an exercise for the reader.
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
America's bargaining power is decreasing with every passing year. The chances of foisting this on the rest of the world are getting slimmer and slimmer.
If America bungs itself up with this 'stuff', its competitive advantage will only decrease.
Sic transit gloria.
These are the companies that are in bed with Microsoft-- which is proof that this is some little inbred experiment that will ultimately fail.
Look at the trouble the big tech companies have had over choosing a standard for HD-DVD, the little division between manufacturers has delayed these devices, even though the technology exists, and the demand is growing.
As long as Microsoft and these companies have competition, there is an open source movement, and the market is driven by consumers-- this will not take off.
The assertion that AOL is truly interested in Janus is severely lacking in scope. AOL is only interested in ensuring that they aren't locked out of a system that might become the preferred commercial method (of content providers) of distributing music and movies online. AOL has no interest in propping up a Microsoft technology that only strengthens Microsoft if there isn't a decent back-end for AOL.
Let's look at the facts. AOL is a partner in MusicNet with Real Networks and EMI, but AOL prefers Apple's iTunes, not only because it is the most popular online music distribution system, but also because it isn't Microsoft.
AOL signed an agreement with Microsoft back in the late 90s that AOL email could be downloaded to Microsoft Outlook. It never materialized.
AOL paid lip-service to instant messaging interoperability but has not made AIM or ICQ directly able to send and receive to MSN Messenger. At the same time, AOL partnered with Apple to ensure that iChat was based upon the AIM client.
AOL is still interested in Netscape although they have no full-time employees working on Mozilla. That was a Time Warner executive decision to cut the development team to "save" monies earmarked for salaries. If Time Warner loses interest and sells AOL back to Steve Case, this will be reversed.
On the Time Warner side of the business, they have no interest in Janus for music purposes since Time Warner sold off Warner Music Group to Edgar Bronfman's group. Perhaps they still have a minority stake (as does all historical sales done by Warner Communications, like the Atari Inc. divestiture of 1984) but that's about it. Bronfman will make any type of decision independently of what AOL or Time Warner proper wishes.
The bottom line is that AOL may be included in the press release, but for the most part, this is round-file material. It is only a survival option if Microsoft gets the upper hand in media.
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
You can still get unencumbered texts from Project Gutenberg and the Baen Sci-Fi library. In fact, the last meatspace book I bought, "Wind Rider's Oath" by David Weber, comes with a CD of unencrypted, free to share with your friends, texts of various Baen Library backlist books.
We're not fucked yet, and keep up the good fight.
Agreed.
I don't agree. Non-DRMed computing equipment will simply be unable to acceess DRM content. If the computer can't access DRM content without permission, authorization or payment, DRM content providers won't care. They already have all that they need: DRM software and the DMCA.
Some content providers (e.g., individuals with web pages, Google Groups/Usenet, perhaps corporate providers such as CNN depending on the market) will continue to be happy to provide non-DRM content. Non-DRM computers will be able to access that content, and some (perhaps many) will be content with that.
The key issue is not merely the "right to read," but instead the "right to read what?" or "the right to read [fill in the blank]" under what terms and conditions.
The typical Slashdot submission (including this one) assumes that everyone has the "right" to read everything on every possible device despite the fact that the content is offered subject to specific terms and conditins, and that one agrees to the terms and conditions before accessing the content.
It appears the attitude is, "Yeah, I know this is subject to agreed terms and conditions, and DRM, and I agreed to same when I downloaded it, but DAMN IT, I WANTED IT. I have a "right" to enter into a contract, and knowingly download DRM content, and then just say, screw you."
Only Women Bleed (Sex, Sharia remix)
they really don't care so much about analog paths, as those will fade into obscurity in the next decade or so. No, they want to protect data pathways, and your current digital/optical sound channel isn't so much a problem. You see, you have an dvd player now, but in two years from now you will buy a new one. Except you will notice that all the new ones have the new JANUS digital outputs. You'll have an option to run your JANUS output in 'BLAH' mode, where it will work with your current amp, or you can turn on 'WOW' mode, which will require a new AMP. Eventually you will buy a new amp. And trust me when I say that this new amp will only work in the new JANUS-WOW mode. At that point, you will no longer own your data paths, and the whole time Microsoft never lifted a finger to force you to move. They will use the classic marketing ploys to lure us into the new tehnology. They will make JANUS-WOW an industry standard. They will offer us features beyond our imagination, and stop making as much content that works on non-WOW hardware siteing that the new content just doesn't work as well on the old platforms. The combination will force the market and we will have little choice. We can keep our neglected hardware or switch to the new. one way or the other, RIAA and MPAA win. you are no longer playing their content on a non-secure box. 10 years isn't a long time to wait for technology like that to catch on. mark my words, this senario will happen.
But all is not lost. We will continue to find holes. We will develop the tools we need to get the information we want access to. They will not beable to stop us, because in the end, if they can read it, we can read it too. you are not owned. fight on brothers!
no more mookie stank, ughm-kay?
also, what will the peope do when they have no were else to look? look at the list of companies that are in on this thing!
" It's good to see Microsoft taking a holistic view of preventing the consumer doing what they want with their paid for content, and protecting us from unsafe data pathways." WTF!!! It sounds like I'll be paying for less and less content. Reading the classics from the library or going to live performances is sounding more appealing all the time. Why do I think they are loading the gun to shoot themselves in the foot?
"Innovation and invention are what happen when someone makes a conscious effort to ignore accepted limits." -- Homesteader --
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
'This release of technology really enables all kinds of new scenarios that are emerging now,'
We need to remember that Microsoft is selling DRM to content producers, not to endusers. So for the RIAA and MPAA, yes, new scenarios are emerging for them to control what the endusers do. Unfortunately it means that endusers have less control over what they purchase.
I know this won't be a popular argument on Slashdot, but I can think of one scenario where DRM is potentially enabling.
Take, for example, the fact that you can't download The Lion King on the Internet right now (I mean from Disney, not BitTorrent). I'd guess that this is because Disney can't afford to put such valuable IP on the Internet without being able to control its distribution...yeah, yeah, information wants to be free and whatever, but can you REALLY blame Disney for not liberating something that DESERVEDLY makes them money?
The only way we're going to see experimentation with content distribution is with DRM like this. It's better to boycott Disney's draconian DRM and have them loosen it than to not have any DRM and content distribution at all.
And to those of you who will say "but Apple got music distributors to accept DRM that doesn't include analog out screening!": in my opinion, this may be a slightly different beast. Today's music industry is pop hit obsessed -- the business model is based on short-term success. With movies, it's a little different. Even though rentals occur most frequently soon after a movie's release, I'd think the tail stretches out much farther.
Most people I know (myself included) claim to use digital copying to retain backups (albeit lossy) or media stored on CDs & DVDs. I couldn't count the number of CDs or DVDs that simply can't be listened to due to scratches from lending to friends or kids playing with.
Now, if there was a service where I could return my damaged disk to be replaced with a new (undamaged) disk, our 'backup' arguement would go out the window. I would still be copying media to my PC because it's so much easier to select all CDs by my favourite artist or load up a playlist than playing track one by one and changing disks in between. Not to mention transferring media between different PCs in different rooms of the house.
Well you see, as society came to rely more and more on industrial technology - a skilled and mobile workforce became essential. This was a disaster to the plantation system that relied on just the opposite to uphold slavery.
At first the southern states tried to react to it by imposing harsher and harsher laws, to where you couldn't even legally teach a black person how to read, and slavery was made to last forever and for every generation. Then they tried to micro-regulate the industrial northern states, who eventually completely got fed up and went gung-ho anti slavery. Then they tried to react to it by fencing themselves off from the northern states and forming a seperate country, at that point all hell broke loose.
Well now we are in the information age which demands the uninhibited flow of open information. Is it a disaster for those who rely on the copyright monopoly system. At first they tried to extend copyrights to forever, and impose insane punishments. Then they tried to microregulate everybody with the DMCA. Now they are trying to fence themselves off from the rest of the world by using DRM.
Brace for impact, all hell is almost certainly about to break loose.
They are selling us movies over the internet now: click me
WeRelate.org - wiki-based genealogy
"Janus" is really a Swing-compatible version of Microsoft's "anus" class. Janus is a producer class for all other kinds of Microsoft content.
Sorry. Too much Java lately.
u missed the point of his post. Take a soldering iron, some cable, and solder to the speaker wires (all 5.1 if you like), and record the channels. mix it together, and you have your mp3 back again.
...am completely happy with all of my anolog content. thank you.
After all, weren't they, for the longest time, advocating the end-user security benefits of Palladium, when in fact, they were referring to the security of those wanting to restrict and otherwise impede the fair use of their intellectual property?
Anarchy isn't fashionable anymore. Didn't you get the memo? Move the fuck on.
We'll find ways to communicate freely, ladies and gents.
:P
Slashdot wants me to think that DRM-protected MP3s downloaded from an official website is somehow going to prevent people from communicating freely unless we form Internet guilds.
I mean, really...do people think about their own viewpoints before expressing them? I just don't see what the big deal is about this, but then again, I don't often share the majority hivemind viewpoint.
The fact that someone here modded the parent as a troll is the case and point--it makes the term "slashbot" a little more appropriate. Only a jackass would mod down what someone obviously spent a good hour drafting as a troll--it's unspeakable (not to mention that it emphasizes the parent's comments about the mod system being broken). Is everyone a slashbot? No, of course not--far from it. Do a lot of the stories posted on slashdot perpetuate slashbots and grow new ones? Absolutely.
G-Force music visualization
Considering you can get "The Lion King" from BitTorrent and many other ways, why wouldn't Disney sell it? How does this technology actually propose to prevent people from getting access to the digital content? I don't believe that this will really keep people from making a conversion program/process any mroe than CSS did for DVD, so why would Disney start releasing films under it?
-no broken link
Wow. So they are. Five bucks for one movie for one day is a bit steep, particularly compared to rental. I guess the future is here today! Of course, Windows Media Player is Microsoft's testing ground for DRM, so it's no surprise it's happened already.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Way wrong. The Titanic was compartmentalized, however the long gash in the hull flooded too many compartments.
I wonder how much of the rest of their web site is pure BS?
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
To achieve total replacment of current non-DRM hardware they will just give DRM hardware for free or ridiculous price and get the reward from content.
Subscribe to foomusic.com and get our free "mp3" player to enjoy our services...
Same with TV, movies...
Give the fucking DRM hardware for free
Léa Gris
To see what the Wizard will look like!
No rentals, purchases, pay-per-views, etc., I just don't play the game any more. I've "opted out," as it were.
JUST RELEASED, AND ALREADY HACKED!!!! Ok, not yet. But, as with anything DRM, give it a couple months after getting out of this concept phase.
Here's a better way of looking at this. This hasn't been fully released yet, and it has already been "hacked", in the sense that the NSA already has gotten their plants and bugs inside Microsoft* to steal and relay to them all of the plans for how this system will be used and implemented as well as all the keys that make it work.
(Clarification: That's the neat thing about "trusted computing" from their perspective-- it would mean every system in the world would be "trustable", but that trust would have a single point of failure: Microsoft's guarded private cryptographic keys for Janus/Palladium. So all you have to get a copy of those keys and you can do anything you want...)
* Further clarification: I base my belief in the existence on said plants on the simple observation that if the NSA doesn't have plants inside Microsoft, then they're completely incompetent.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Having worked in the military world, I can say that there was a program called Janus. Since everything is an acronym in the military and the most common acronyms starting in "J" stand for Joint something or other, Janus will forever mean Joint Anus.
My friend works at Microsoft and he said there were constant rants and raves about how their DRM code was "just shit". That name stuck so thats how they got "JAnus".
'We're taking quite a holistic view.'
We want your whole bank account.
---------
All Your Music Are Belong To Us.
---------
Definitions:
"WordNet Dictionary (r) 2.0"
holistic
adj : emphasizing the organic or functional relation between parts
and the whole ant: atomistic
"Microsoft Dictionary (r) 6.0"
holistic
adj : pwning all your stuff
That sounds steep to me as well, although I think the price is comparable to pay-per-view movies on cable, to which getting a movie online is more quite similar.
I'd rather be lucky than good.
We're talking very basic electronics here. Yes the components and circuit designs have to be quality but it isn't insurmountable. Granted Joe Sixpack isn't going to be any good with a soldering iron. Those of us that are won't put up with this. If all you can buy is a fubared D/A converter then build some out of ladders of resistors and op-amps. I'm sure several of us can chip in with even better ideas.
For the average person, it's not currently a big deal, but try talking to some librarians or educators. It's a big deal to them. Read the CETUS Fair Use Pamphlet for the perspective of universities on fair use.
However, in the future, the loss of fair use rights will be a big deal to the average person. The right of first sale is one of such right that people are going to miss when they can no longer sell their old books, music, and movies and when stores that can legally sell used versions exist. It's worth remembering that consumers have already shown their dislike of digital formats that remove some of their fair use rights--remember how consumers rejected of the DivX movie disk format in favor of DVDs.
It makes me wonder if the whole system of copyright is rather broken, to be frank. But I don't know of a better way, so I can't really criticize too much.
Law professor Jessica Litman offers some interesting alternatives to the current economic and legal copyright system in her book Digital Copyright.
The courts have already decided that it is legal to copy music off the airwaves. Assuming these "new" Janus devices will have a headphone jack (kind of hard to go jogging and listen to music without it), just plug one of those FM broadcast things like an iRock into the headphone jack.
At that point, all you need do is record to your tape deck or computer the captured broadcast signal. I may take a little longer and the quality may not be exactly the same (but then again, neither are MP3s), but that's a small price to pay.
Now some may argue (incorrectly) that you don't have the right to broadcast the music without a license, but the FCC says you can on low power devices. So you have the FCC saying you can broadcast and the courts saying you can record the broadcast. Case closed.
The Big Lie. Something so preposterous that it leaves your opponents speechless.
I wonder if Microsoft licensed the name Janus from Janus Capital Group (you know the Janus investment funds people).
It might say a lot as to how sincere Microsoft is about abusing other people's rights.
I mean, I'm sure Janus wouldn't want anybody to get confused that Janus Capital Group and Microsoft Janus. Like all of those people confusted between Microsoft Windows and Lindows (other than the judge, there were how many?)!
Submitted for your aproval. A studio that takes stories that are in the public domain and animates them.
Then after that studio releases this movie and makes a healthy profit and against the public good, they pay to lock these movies out of ever moving into the public domain. The "IP" value is to high to allow this.
A movie studio afriad to let the public view a movie because it's IP value is so great.....only in the DMCA zone
vi +
While I understand the problem, and I see that some technology to make it hard to get the material for free is needed before big studios will embrace digital distribution, DRM technology is not a good way to do it. The problem with DRM is that it ends up requiring that EVERY layer of the software, from the gui where you click a play button, all the way down to the firmware burned into the chips, be secret, or it will get broken through. And *that* means that it will be illegal to spread technical knowlege about *anything* that could be related to playing that movie. It would be like the CSS fisaco, but worse. In order to be allowed to view that movie, not only will you have to have an approved playback software tool, but you'll have to have an approved OS to put it on, as well as an approved firmware suite in all of the hardware involved. And every level of that is going to be locked up behind DMCA walls. It will put a legal barrier up preventing ever using open source systems to look at any sort of media.
Songs, Movies, Television - all of it is going to be distributed on computer in the future, and if it uses the current crop of DRM technology, then it will be a world where nothing open-source is allowed to participate, because open-source tools are not legally compatable with the way DRM works, and DRM invades ALL levels of the technology, from hardware up to end-user-tool - so the option to just give in and use a closed app for the media, but still use open-source for everything else, won't really be an option either.
The media cartels love it because it means nobody else can learn the technology but them, which keeps new competition from cropping up. and Microsoft loves it because it will become another thing they can lie about claiming open source is incapable of (as opposed to the truth that it's being legally dissallowed from) doing. - and the evidence will make it look like they're right to the average non-techie person.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
if they want to screw me out of my right to use the product for my own personal enjoyment (read not let others private and distribute all over the net), that is my business. I refuse to buy any product that limits my ability to play a piece of media where i want and when i want. all things considered, Apple's iTunes strikes a good balance. That just convinces me not to buy any microsoft junk that doesn't allow me to use the media at my own liesure.
Notice the internet has created a whole new realm of word contractions that are now standard in our language.
/. there for I use Linux.)
e-mail, e-comerce.....
It figures M$ comes up with..... J-anus.....
Taking us all down the Sh**er....
As I deal with the latest in a looooong line of worms and viruses I really appreciate the innovative and secure windows software here on our companies servers....
Thanks Bill.
(PS. I
JAnus's Not User-Sympathetic
To-do List: Receive telemarketing call during a tornado warning. Check.
+447743552957
So what?
Given the $100K cost of designing an ASIC, it probably would be easy to get a pool of donations large enough to outsource the design and manufacturing of a functionally/electrically compatable chip to India and with a little cautios soldering, substitute an open block box for the closed one.
There is no right to feel safe thru security vaudeville at the expense of everyone's freedom, privacy and tax money.
Then how do they propose we listen to the audio?
I guess they can block analog video output.. once they ban all 'unprotected' D/A converters.
Man these people suck. Seems in the next 5 years i wont be a 'media' consumer anylonger. I refuse to have to fight just to watch/listen/run/play what i have a legal right to since i PAID for the damned thing.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Is it cracked yet?
Well, perhaps if people can get it into the right hands early?
Say, +Fravia, or others in the +HCU or anyone else who has time to spare and a few good debugging tools?
It is. The right to make copies is not actually fundamental to copyright law, except for the historical accident that the point of making a reproduction was an obvious point in the distribution process to compensate the distributor and/or author of the work. Reproductions were also a tangible piece of evidence that a publisher's rights had been violated. That made sense in an era when unauthorized copies were difficult to make and easy to count, but computers change have changed that--copies are now easy to make and difficult to count.
If the right to make copies isn't the essence of copyright, what right do authors have that should and can be protected in the digital age? How about giving publishers the right to commercial exploitation of a work? That's really what the average person thinks that authors deserve to have. This right would focus on what's important to publishers, while preserving the public's right to fair use, which has continually been attacked because any digital alternation or even viewing of content is interpreted as a copy because temporary copies are made in computer memory during any such act.
So this DRM stuff has to be touchy. If the DRM'd item thinks it might not be legally running, then it won't. It would be relatively easy to play small tricks on DRM'd items legally running in a computing environment, and then everybody who is having trouble (lots and lots of people) can swamp the sellers with tech support calls and request media replacements. This type of huge backlash could cause DRM to be fiscally more trouble than it's worth. That might stall it for a while anyways. Just a thought -- a foolish thought in the vein of stemming this technology, but a thought worth expressing none-the-less.
Okay, I give.
Whats the J stand for?
Janus was hacked in less than 40 seconds in public implementation because of a buffer overflow that hackers found. Microsoft != Security so what makes you think they are going to do any better with DRM.
Sooner or later they will require you to listen to it through headphones where the signal is transmitted digitally and the headphones decrypt it internally. Sure, you can still head the signal off right before the speaker, but it makes it much harder.
And then after that, they just need to make versions where the digital signal goes all the way into your skull and hooks up directly into the brain. It will be much harder to head that off at the pass, but I'm sure it will still be possible.
In any case audio is the simple case. It's video I'm worried about because you can't just point a camera at the screen and record what it sees, expecting to get decent quality.
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
If we're going to have DRM, we might as well standardize it. From what it looks like, it seems as though DRM is going to play a huge role in the future of the internet.
All we need is some sort of STANDARD DRM container for all formats. Look at the mess apple's DRM has caused because so few portable MP3 players support it.
DRM may be evil. But it's also a necessary evil, and we need a standardized DRM format to allow content-providers to be able to set their own terms. Janus looks like the closest thing to that... as much as I like apple, the iTunes DRM is too closed.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
Isn't the same name used in Tom Clancy's NetForce Mini TV Series for the "Evil" Corporation who attempted to control the world by using the backdoor built-in their Web browser?
Isn't that sounds too familiar ?
you have an absolutist opinion that's just as extreme as anything you rail against. the government passes laws about EVERYTHING all the time. Pick a subject, there's laws and regulations.
.000001% of the people who will be modding hardware, except for the occassional feel good TV news spot "bust" they will make on "dangerous computer hardware hacker terrorists who put e-vile circumvention chips in their machines so they can steal million$$$$ and hack the net and...." crap. THAT'S what will happen if the fatcats want it to happen.
There's NOTHING stopping mandatory DRM schemes of various types in hardware within politics. And who knows what they might think proper. How about no way any more anonymous surfing? they could mandate that if they wanted to, with your normal serious fines and jail ties associated with it to "stop child molestation and to catch crooks and terrorists and hackers" and whatnot. make you have a signed cookie thing follow you, connected to a real name. there's any number of schemes they could come up with. I had this same conversation just a few years ago with people when I told them that pretty soon tracking chips would become mandatory in all goods traded, they told me it would never happen, tinfoil hat. Well? Sure looks like it'll all be here soon, doesn't it? Isn't RFID now the hottest thing since burgers in a bag with industry now, and with government? See? Stuff happens.
This is the US, enough "campaign contributions" above board exchanges hands, and the usual hookers and whatnot behind the scenes, you get "laws passed". the one rule on that is, "no rules"on what they can pass. Then your entire market becomes your "choice" of this hardware which conforms to the new standards or that hardware which conforms, or used. In fact, you ALREADY have hardware which must conform, the US regulates the heck out ofhardware now, has certain standards for manufactured goods of all types, espeically electronics. Look at refrigeration, heck, look at the it now takes two flushes to work johns they mandated to "save water". You can NOT buy a new john made like the older ones now, stroke of the pen, law of the land deal. Like, where's my "free market choice" to buy one? It don't exist except used now, at least inside the borders, and if ya get caught selling or smuggling, yep, fines, jail time, whatever they think is cool.. Just like they passed mandatory auto emissions, which morphed from what used to be an automobile about anyone with a box of tools could work on now takes a trained specialist in a particular car maker, subset a particular system and there is NO choice there to get just a clean simple new car without all the crap on it, even if it ran clean with a nice tuneup, like they used to do anyway. The problem with cars and smog is using petroleum based fuels, they are dirty, but I don't see a choice for me at the pumps if I want to run a new simple car designed to run on something that runs clean out of the box, like ethanol for instance. No cars sold new without every piece of crap computerised system they can think of now on them. No "free market choice" there except used, and even then you with your older used hardware ride you still got to follow a lot of "laws" that weren't even in existence when your older machine was built. If they did it with cars, why not with computers, or TVs, or digital recorders? Nothing stopping them, and they are always aware that attrition will get rid of the old hardware eventually, and it don't take too long.
The siamese twins Government and BigBrandBusiness does this all the time, and believe me, big giant business doesn't allow laws to be passed they aren't in favor of, even if they cry big sobbing crocodile tears over them in public. If the bigboys want uber nasty DRM in everything, it'll happen, and you'll be stuck with used or smuggled in questionable quality hardware, or really learn to solder some teeny tiny stuff, and that's about it. And government won't care about the
I am not saying it WILL happen, just that it easily COULD happen, they do it everyday to something. What are we at now inside the US, 5 MILLION laws, maybe more? Think they are gonna just STOP making new ones???
If DRM is implemented at the hardware level, your fucked. Imagine a custom DRM encyription/decryption CPU working with low level bus data. Sure, you may be able to fight software with software. But if DRM is at the hardware level...may the best of luck be with you. May it be with us all.
Life is not for the lazy.
Sorry, but the **** SPOIILER ALERT *** on a movie that's 10 years old cracked me up.
The rule is 95 years.
This is the whole point of an effective antitrust system (which we certainly do not have) versus what comes close to laissez-faire economics. If there were another platform with an even remotely significant percentage of the user base, no customer in their right mind would swallow Janus; they would gravitate toward the inevitable alternative. In this real world, however, there is not going to be any other alternative that runs on Windows -- Microsoft can make sure of that. Sadly, in a monopolistic world, our rights diminish every day. *This* is the reason why we need open standards and, apparently, open source.
because the masses have spoken and said that they aren't willing to respect the content producer's rights
More like the masses have spoken and said that they aren't willing to respect the federal government's conception of the content producer's rights. Remember that fair-skinned residents of U.S. states with names ending in Carolina once held a "right" to own other people.
Maybe I'll eventually become a dinosaur, but fuck that shit, and fuck those assholes. They won't get a penny of my money for their crippled systems.
.01% of late adoptors. For now I think I'll funnel all of my entertainment dollars to quality independent companies outside of the RIAA and MPAA unbrella.
If worse comes to worse and this crap becomes ubiquitous, I'll be looking to the hackers to crack the codes and free the media, and if that is somehow not feasable, then I'm either going the way of the dinosaur, or finding friends who did pay and watch their stuff.
If I ever did eventually buy into this scheme in order to prevent my own obsolescence, you can be damn sure I'll be part of that
If you were right, I would acquiesce, but it's hard to solder an optical cable. If the DSP doesn't send a signal to to the RCA outs, you can't solder anything... You/He may be talking about taking the signal at the output device, but they aren't worried about that. As I said in the original post, they don't care about analog. They want to control digital.
Do you realize that DRM is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous communist plot we have ever had to face?
Shop as usual. And avoid panic buying.
Remember feudalism? When a few people owned all the land and everybody paid rent to be on it? That's the future of digital content. Next step in the evolution of the web: some sort of permit required to originate content, like a building permit in the real world. It will probably be introduced under the banner of national security, with attached and approval structure. The system has to be set up so that a few people can control it and pretend that it couldn't exist without them. After a while everybody will believe it couldn't exist otherwise.
Unless they manage to come up with a content delivery system that bypasses the need for ears and eyeballs, the analog path will always exist.
My company manufactures speakers for the Australian market. They are assembled in Australia, but all the parts come from China.
Trust me, our Chinese friends will happily continue to make devices with analogue inputs and outputs as long as we continue to order them.
What's more, the Chinese don't give a shit about American patent and copyright issues. Where do you think those region free DVD players come from? Do you think they're approved by the DVD consortium? But can you get one? Of course you can!
And this situation will remain. Even when DVDii (I like that :-) becomes available, the market will demmand features we all love, like being able to copy things, and the consumer will simply choose the device which meets their needs; of course, as the device they need will be a 'grey-import,' it will be much cheaper than the alternative, just as region free DVD players are cheaper now.
Plus the fact that many, many people will interpret any restriction on our digital freedoms as a challenge, new firmware and hacks will be available to 'unlock' your devices so quickly that it will appear within 24 hours as the top response for the google search term 'unlock my tv.'
How exactly did Apple's DRM cause "a mess" if "so few" players support it? Wouldn't that very fact render their DRM irrelevant? Apple has produced another "whole widget" with the iTunes Music Store and iPod which works flawlessly. How is this a mess?
I would assert that you preceive the situation to be a mess because a vocal minority snivels about "overpriced" Apple hardware, and that it isn't fair that the iTMS won't work with their $74.00 Lucky Best MP3 player.
Yes, Microsoft is famous for letting "content-providers" and developers pretty much write their own ticket. No strings attached there. No sir. Not that Apple should be trusted completely either (Newton).
"The more corrupt the state, the more it legislates." - Tacitus
Then all the Mac zealots would say how great the Apple DRM is.
" 'This release of technology really enables all kinds of new scenarios that are emerging now,'
Under what circumstance does this enable anything by the consumer?"
Because without some sort of DRM, the movie studios will refuse to sell you anything at all.
Fair use is no big deal, really. For myself I just use and buy whatever works well and easy to do.
Why in the rat's ass do I have to shell out tons of money and struggle with technological crap like DRM just to do something simple like reading a book? Granted, ebook is very handy when you want to bring that War & Peace together with the complete Lord of the Rings, but if being able to do that means that I have to do lots of work and PAYING for it instead of getting paid, I'll just buy and use an old-fashioned-works-well book instead. Cumbersome but less stressful. Besides I'll look more like an intellectual and less of a geek.
Remember the DIVX fiasco few years back (this is DIVX as in DRM-heavy version of DVD, not the file format). Many people here are scared shitless of DIVX at that time and the same thing happened to slashdot then. Now DIVX is a museum piece of what's not to do(tm). Simply put, any DRM that's restrictive and uncompromising will not survive. Ever.
The typical scenario is this:
Joe: I want them new DVD shit.
Seller: Ah, this new DVD player is a good choice. It's much improved from the older DVD. But to play this you also need this TV and this amp and this speaker because it's a new thing from Microsoft.
Joe: Oh, can I use my old ones? I got them for $100,000. Top end shit.
Seller: Sorry but no. (long sales pitch follows).
Joe: Bye.
I agree that copyright is needed for the artist's protection, but since the one ripping off the artists are the studios themselves, the copyright law as we know it is biased more toward the studios.
DRM is not created for the artists. It's for the studios in a Frankensteinian twist of the copyright law. Apple's DRM succeeded mostly because it fits fair use in most people's mind, and the price is right at $1. At that price you can throw Janus or Anus or whatever and I won't care. If they want to twist DVDs this way, they better make it $1 a pop as well. I won't pay $30 for something that I can't use the way I like it. So is Joe.
On a lighter note, China practically ignores world standard and create their own. If ever this DRM stuff get a little out of hand, we can always use Chinese stuff. They have their own DVD-like format, and I'll bet it's free of any DRM whatsoever.
Unkle Leo?
Arbitrary sig
"But the new digital rights management tools also include features that would protect content that is streamed around a home network, or even block data pathways potentially deemed "unsafe," such as the traditional analog outputs and cathode ray tube on a high-definition TV set. That's a feature that has been sought by movie studios in advance of the move to digital television."
I think the above might work as advertised. Anything less than that is a total farce, but we all know it already.
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
Janus? Microsoft is going to clone itself and take over the world. Where's Dredd when you need him?
And they will probably get what they deserve!!
Laws are horrible moral guides, moral guides make even worse laws.
But if they put it in ROM instead of Flash- they sell more units. For low-end low-cost chinese crap- that's the marketing strategy (as opposed to the higher-end units that yes, you can indeed flash new software for).
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Truly excited. I just spent my evening catching up on installing barely-tested patches for remote vulnerabilities (Sasser, to be exact).
I'm really happy to know that Microsoft has made this investment to protect the entertainment industry. It's s good investment in the long term.
Some many people focus on the short-term, crying about the never-ending stream of onesy-twosy patches for vulnerabilities that mostly seem to be discovered by outside companies.
Now I can be assured that the music I listen to has been protected from copying so what I paid for cannot be enjoyed by anyone else for free. or music I would be listening to if my life wasn't dedicated to testing, installing and rebooting
and rebooting
and rebooting
Well, it sucks that you might not be able to get nice pure digital copies of stuff, but whatever. As long as I can *see* the movie, *hear* the music or *read* the book, some device somewhere can do the same thing. Worst case, if you want a copy, just get a decent mic and speaker setup in a soundproof box. Play the sound off one device, record it on another. Same with movies. Set up a digital video camera pointed at your HDTV... Unless they put some kind of DRM in your eyes and ears, they can't stop you.
How come most of you guys complain that once you buy the cd, you own the content (rather than the license to use it) and should be able to do whatever you want. And on the other hand, I buy a cd with GPL software on it, and now I don't own the software but instead have a license to use it which doesn't allow me to do whatever I want? (for example distributing binaries without source)
Any offers for 3 weeks and 5 days?
Congratulations hamara Bill-Ji
I assume it was named Janus by an analogy to the analog hole and the closing thereof, assuring the existance of entirely safe canals of encrypted data, literally impossible to bypass. The obvious Freudian connotations are so sick that in my opinion such a name should be illegal, but IANAL. On the second thought, it is a pretty good name for a poor-ass attempt to screw the consumers over... As a sidenote I might add that I read some ancient Romans manuscript once, which said that Janus had something to do with an orifice and two cheeks or something... In any event, this name is hardly banal by any stretch of imagination and is in fact very Interesting, at least as Interesting as the actual crypto behing Janus. Going back on topic, I think Janus will be a strong weapon in the content providers harassment arsenal if only massively deployed, but I wonder how said Janus cryptography algorithms will resist future cryptanalysis, though. Only the time will tell ass. I mean, time will tell us. *sigh*
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
Here's another unsafe data pathway for you: air. Seriously, I wouldn't be worried about the analog audio inputs disappearing, for two reasons.
First, if digital becomes universally or mostly DRMed, there will be a steady demand for analog technology. The same people who were selling us tape recorders, VCRs, CD-Rs, CD-RWs, will be selling all the technology we need for manipulating sound.
Second, there's this air thing. When everything else fails, park a decent microphone in front of your digital Bose speakers, and off you go. Remember, it's enough to make just one decent non-DRMed copy. Video is sligtly trickier, but any video stream will have to become unscrambled just before hitting the screen, and that's when you can get it.
Bottom line is, we are dealing with the kind of media that is designed to interface with humans. The only real way to protect the respective rights is to "fix" our very brains.
Follow the money.
Look at the history of Microsoft doublespeak. It's no secret that Microsoft has been the single largest beneficiary of software "piracy" in history. This kind of doublespeak is core to Microsoft's business.
Now consider this, Microsoft Corporation has distanced itself from media investments. If they were so sure they were going to secure digital media, wouldn't they be buying movie studios and record labels? They could afford to buy some of the biggest in cash.
Certainly that strategy has some problems though, not the least of them is anti-trust. Well, now imagine you were in that situation. You can't join them, so what should you do? Beat them.
How to beat them? Easy, same ol' doublespeak game. Say you're going to fight "piracy," but actually enable the hell out of it by simple incompetence. You guarantee all your media partners that you've got the unbeatable secret solution just like you did with all your softwre partners before. Of course they believe you because they're greedy.
So you roll it out and presto, there's holes in it and suddenly these huge media collections you've given the public access to are owned. The public cheers again and your competitors in media, ie Sony, Time Warner etc take a hard, hard hit.
It's the same ol' game. And nobody is going to complain because why should they?
Janus seems too mild for a Microsoft product.
I suggest "Microsoft Cthulhu".
relax. computing will not end, nor will good ol' piracy. There will always be hackers (bless them) who will take it upon themselves to prevent total control by the conglomerates.
there will always be a segment of society that will not pay for their bullshit, no matter what. M$ knows this. At a certain point fighting piracy is subject to the law of diminishing returns.
My guess is that janus is the new sucker format that M$ is using to get money out of dell, aol, etc. it will be cracked in no time. rule # 1: observable = copyable. soon this will mean non lossy copying through observation. rule # 2 any security can be broken.
M$ likes money. they will ony go so far in pissing off the consumer. if they cripple windows too much, then more people will either switch to another os, or get the pirated version of windows that can handle more "scenarios". this is a very real threat to windows. if the legit version is percieved as more limited than the pirated, then even the most average consumer will come to the conclusion that it is for suckers only.
as for drm pc's and boises, these can be flashed. the pc world is not goin anywhere near hell. thats what apple and macs are for. if a user wants to have their every move controlled, and pay way more than they should the answer is simple; buy a mac.
if you want to see piracy, just look at the game console world. here the company gets a huge head start. they get to use their own encryption, bois, etc. and to date every console that has ever come out has been hacked, cracked,, chipped, and copied.
M$ is talking out of their ass when they say they can get drm to work. how can they when they cant even prevent xbox from being hacked? but that wont stop them from taking billions in development fees from the media conglomerates. Yes M$ is very predatory, treating other big companies like imbeciles.
in the end, the content providers strategy of trying to gain controll, then fix prices will be their undoing. these concepts may have worked on people in the distant past, but with each new generation getting used to free, i dont see it holding out much longer.
and if you still think that people will be forced into this, then ill give you one last example to calm your fears. when was the last time you, or anyone else here logged into napster after they became not free? an image of a dried out ball of tumbleweed rolling across the new digital dustbowl that is napster, itunes, and any other pay site.
and to those that say pirating is stealing, allow me to present my rebuttal. (homer unzips, bends over...). software, media will alwas be free, because you can conjure it out of thin air. no its not magic, its technology. I have my copy, the wrecka stow still has their copy. unlike the wrecka stow copy, which is collecting dust, mine is being put to good use conjuring up new scenarios of use. now i suppose some people will try and argue the abstract concept of me robbing the record moguls of potential income--one less ivory backscratcher and all that. but if you look at the fact that I realize the prices are fixed, and that I never had any intention of giving them any money at all (that would only encourage them), i dont see the existence of any potential revenue. i'll even grant that the record label can charge what ever they want for their copy, as long as they dont presume that users are obliged to buy their copy. in the spirit of freedom, a buyer is also allowed to set their price(zero in this case). this is what is known as a free market, and it happens all the time in free countries.
lastly, what was M$ thinking with the name janus? i have never heard of a more ridiculous case of delusions of grandeur. note to microsoft: Quod licet Jovi, nod licet bovi.
Good luck blocking content that I paid for from my own speakers! That's not going to go over very well at all. The more of such stupidity they try to sell the more they will force people to look somewhere else.
Wow. That's some change in direction! Currently Windows (with it's "secure audio path") disables the digital-output of my soundcard whenever I play DVDs or if I ever were to play DRMed WMA-files.
And now they are going to block the analog output as well? I guess we'll be paying for a service which littaraly ain't worth jack shit.
No, really. I know they won't block both, but this is quite a different move.
Will the digital output be tagged with some DRM-bits, since they are making this total change of course?
Not Buzzword 2.0 compliant. Please speak english.
So Disney did first reap the public domain of ideas, made money of it, and now they have made sure there will never again be a public domain, which others (rightfully) can exploit.
And you are trying to convince me that they deserve their income and the right to reap it foreever? Fuck sake. Fuck that.
I woulnd't touch a Disney-product, if it were given to me as a present. They're immoral, hypochrit asshats and that's it, end of story.
I don't even pirate Disney-products, if anyone thought about that counterattack. They simply disgust me too much.
Not Buzzword 2.0 compliant. Please speak english.
For goodness sake, don't give them ideas...
Their are a lot of artists that don't see anything wrong with DRM in fact they believe that they have some absolute right to control what some one does/does not do with their song once they buy it. They see more control as a good thing, they see people being sued for sharing files on p2p networks as a good thing, they see making reverse engineering illegal as a good thing. These people are not even signed to major labels or making big money they are small time musicians/artists who see the world in terms of "How does this immediately benefit me". Not all small artists are like this but their definitely is a sizable group of them out their. They are like the file sharers they despise, greedy, shortsighted and blind to the consequences of their own actions. They don't seem to understand that if they get signed/employed by some one that they will not own the rights to 'their' work. They seem to have a 'if I made it then its mine mentality' that resides outside of the real world of the content creation industry.
The real problem with DRM as I have always seen it is what it costs us in terms of personal freedom, you can not have privacy on your computer and have an anyway effective DRM system. To be effective any DRM system has to have some third party (probably Microsoft) with the ability to check your files and verify if you own them or not. That third party has to be able to look at whats on your hard drive, it has to ensure that you can only run protected content only under certain circumstances. This puts a lot of power in the hands of that third party couple that with the ability to redefine at will the terms under-which people buy content (that license agreement you click yes to when upgrading to the new version of itunes) and you put a lot of power in the hands of that third party and the content owner.
Now the third party (in this case Microsoft) prioritizes the big content owners, they are the ones that make the rules, the third party merely collects a tariff for those who choose to travel its roads. The big content owners work together for their own interests, they are effectively a cartel and they do not have the little guys interests at heart at all. They control the distribution and the promotion mediums.
DRM is about control and as always the people with the biggest piles of money are the ones in control. You would think that this would be easy to explain to someone working in pizzahut trying to scrounge up enough money to make another release, you would think that they would at least empathize with the fact that in the main stream music business the only person who wins is the record company, not the artist and not the consumer. They always think that they will be different and that they won't be fooled into signing a bad contract.
DRM systems will always be flawed for a number of reasons. 1)Once the rights of a file has been cracked once and it has been moved to an unencumbered format then the cat is out of the bag and its going to be mirrored and download all over the place. 2) If your DRM hardware systems are in place (widely accepted) they are going to be their for quite some time. It takes people a long time to upgrade software/hardware and the rate at which you can get them to do this is limited. No system is perfect and so DRM will always be a race between the crackers and the manufacturers the speed limit on this race is the rate at which people are willing to fork over new cash for new systems that offer a limited upgrade in functionality.
The real problem lies with short sighted content producers who to my mind are just as much of a problem as the person who downloads everything and pays for nothing but can these people really be blamed for being insecure about what they own and wanting to make a buck doing something they love ?
These people need to see a solid alternative to the mainstream music industry that offer them a chance to organize performances, tours, promotions and sell their wares all in a way that does not screw the consumer. The internet has t
_________________________________________________
Not that I normally hang out in the red light district in Amsterdam, but I happened to be there two weeks ago and accidentially went into a porn book store (was looking for the public library which I think is nearby). Anyway, this particular store specialized in corporal punishment (spanking) magazines, most of which involved girls in school uniforms. They had titles like "Janus #67", after the publisher's name (Society of Janus). More info is on their web site.
Do you suppose this is where MS got their name?
It is impossible for anyone to say anything about what such a technology would or would not make this and that available to consumers.
The thing is that most people work to make money. The more money the better. Most people won't invest money in something if it is unlikely to return a dividend. If DRM will increase the likelihood of getting your money back, more money will be invested and more items, services or whatever will be available for the consumer to buy (not for free). We can't see into the future so we can't exactly tell what these "items" or "services" are. It is up to inventors of the future to come up with these things.
Besides, just because somthing is available for a fee IT DOES NOT NECESSARILY MEAN THAT YOU MUST PURCHASE IT! I don't understand this shit, people are yelling about they aren't allowed to rip and copy their Samantha Fox (or whatever) CD:s over the internet. But what so? You don't have to buy the music under those circumstances. You ALWAYS HAVE THE OPTION NOT TO BUY!
When was the last time a copyright actually did expire in the US?
Alright. Just when you thought it couldn't get worse it did. So now even the hardware we use is gradually coming under the DRM brigade. Let's look at things this way: What is it that the RIAA etc are so desperately trying to defend? The copyright to their precious(ssss!) content-the likes of Britney Spears and others of their ilk, from being stolen by dirty, MP3 swapping, CD burning thieves (namely us). More than once, people have called for a boycott of all the precious content, and sock it to them. I see an alternative here: underground music and movies. We have the technology and the tools. If they're gonna protect their content from us, hell, we'll create our own. I've heard people complain about awful amateur music and stuff, but you can bet on it, the masses are going to produce their own stars, if not now then someday. I cannot say when, but the future is definitely going to see music, art and cinema for the people and BY the people. The RIAA can keep their DRMfied formats, and stick it in $INTERESTING_PLACE Look at the Grateful Dead. They encouraged people to copy their songs, and it didn't hurt them in any way-people still went in droves to attend their concerts.(That they were a very talented band also helps :) )
We just need some mainstream musicians to support the cause,(unlikely as it may seem), or else, some previously unknown singer should hit the big time, to start the trend.
This could be a step towards *TRUE* online democracy-where all sorts of content is by and for the people.
"..One hosts to look them up, one DNS to find them, and in the darkness BIND them."
But you're missing the point that analog will alwasy exist until the day the human brain can take a direct digital input. At some point that digital data HAS to be converted into an analogue format for humans to appreciate it and at that point its vulnerable and there is NOTHING they can do to prevent that.
> You ALWAYS HAVE THE OPTION NOT TO BUY!
Yeah, but then you don't get to listen to/view it. Plus, if lots of people don buy things, instead of assuming the restrictions are stopping people buying, the industry will (on present form) claim the resulting drop in sales is due to piracy.
Okay, maybe I'm being a bit cynical here, but...
one more time... they don't care about you recording an analog signal. The issue here isn't defeating someone with a wire splitter and electrical tape. What scares the media companies is the fact that your grandmother has the tools to get, play, give away digital conent of the highest quality without any effort what so ever. On one hand you have a digital file that can be reproduced an infinite about of time with little to no effort, by people with little to no technical skill. The only way to stop people from trading those files is to appeal to thier since of morals. And as we proving in this very thread, the general public doesn't sway much to moral agenda propaganda. If you have to make a digital recording of an analog source, there is no way that the general public will want to consume it like the digital files of today. it kind of boils down to a quality vs. effort equation.
So your right... they will never stop someone from trying to record the sound coming from their speakers (or what ever analog source), but once that recording is made, there is no way that it will be trafficed like the near perfect digital reproductions we have today. Take the proliferation of online movies vs. music. I can go to 50 home and 49 of them will have mp3. 1 or 2 of them will have divx.
oh, and just in case you try to say that your digital reproduction will be as good as the original content... only until they change the way the content plays through your ananlog systems... are you REALLY going to hook up (+) and (-) wires to each of your 5+1 speakers and put all that thourgh a mixer, and down that to a digital format? okay, fine... but what about when 9.3 is the standard? and if you and 10 other people are going to the trouble of doing this, what are the chances that you could be found by authorites and made to stop?
Q: What is the difference between NGSCB and DRM?
A: First, digital rights management refers to a category of software and/or hardware systems that enforce policies that mediate access to digital content or services on machines in the control of entities other than the content publisher or service provider. Once the user of a machine accepts a set of policies, DRM systems are designed to enforce those policies even if the machine owner (or malicious software running on the user's machine) subsequently tries to subvert them.
NGSCB is not DRM. The NGSCB architecture encompasses significant enhancements to the overall PC ecosystem, adding a layer of security that does not exist today. Thus, DRM applications can be developed on systems that are built under the NGSCB architecture. The operating system and hardware changes introduced by NGSCB offer a way to isolate applications (to avoid snooping and modification by other software) and store secrets for them while ensuring that only software trusted by the person granting access to the content or service has access to the enabling secrets. A DRM system can take advantage of this environment to help ensure that content is obtained and used only in accordance with a mutually understood set of rules.
While NGSCB technology enables DRM-style policy enforcement, it also can ensure that user policies are rigorously enforced on a user's machines. In addition, nexus-aware software can provide a mechanism to ensure that user interactions in unsafe environments (such as the Internet) can be safeguarded by software that the user trusts to protect his or her interests and wishes.
The powerful security primitives of NGSCB offer benefits for DRM providers but, as important, they provide benefits for individual users and for service providers. NGSCB technology can ensure that a virus or other malevolent software (even embedded in the operating system) cannot observe or record the encrypted content, whether the content contains a user's personal data, a company's business records or other forms of digital content.
Note that the NGSCB technologies described in this FAQ are also distinctly separate from Microsoft Windows Rights Management Services (RMS), a new security technology that Microsoft announced in February 2003. RMS works with applications to help safeguard sensitive information such as business documents, e-mail messages and line-of-business applications by providing persistent protection that stays with information no matter where it goes. While some elements of RMS are derived from foundation technology Microsoft developed for use with digital media, RMS should not be confused with DRM technologies as they are described in this paper.
Q: Will I still be able to play MP3s on my PC with NGSCB?
A: You will. NGSCB will not interfere with the operation of any program that runs on current PCs. The nexus and nexus computing agents are designed never to impose themselves on processes that do not request their services; nexus-related features must be explicitly requested by a program. So the MP3 player a user has today should by design still work on a next-generation PC tomorrow.
Q: Isn't DRM just for the benefit of big studios and major labels that want to control access to content, restrict its usefulness and get bigger fees? If it is successful, will NGSCB give them unreasonable control over users?
A: Unfortunately, people tend to view rights management systems as being limited to functioning as copy-protection systems for commercial, mass-market movies or music. While such systems can offer a valuable way to facilitate digital content distribution, there are much broader applications for rights management, particularly in the enterprise.
First, it is important to note that the technical mechanisms underlying rights management as em
Like any big software project there is plenty of room for the developers to add intentional defects that, even with some sort of version control system, are pretty untraceable or might appear to be honest mistakes when/if eventually discovered.
On an issue this big I have a hard time believing there won't be some developers that side with free use and supply backdoors and/or easily exploitable sections of code. Yes they'll be code reviews and the like, but imho bad coding and corporate sabotage will ultimately succeed.
And that's why I'd like to suggest that all the terrible code written at MS over the years causing daily reboots, exploit after exploit, horrid app usability are really things to be cheered and the sneaky coders lauded. Way to go guys.. Keep gumming up the works. You're all heroes in my eyes.
This is the exact same spin put on flash memory. New cameras have to use Smart Media, SD, Picture memory, instead of Compact Flash. Compact Flash is so slow....
Yeah right. I have a 5 in one card reader in my PC. I downloaded my 256 Meg CF card in about 10 minutes. My wife's sister has a camera that uses SD. I downloaded her 128 Meg camera card in 35 minutes. The cards were both from SanDisk. I need to give up CF for what reason?
I'm happy with my MP3 player. I know the new ones are so much better because they can play MP3's and WMA or AAC files. Big deal. I'll stick with what works. Maybe I'll need new JANUS equipment for some JANUS content, but it'll reside next to the Laserdisk player. I only have it because I have some content that can be played only on that format player. My buying decisions will be based on value as always. DRM at this time is high consumer cost for less.. It lacks value for the consumer. This is what is realy slowing the DTV in the market. A 20 inch analog TV with a tuner and a VCR in it can be bought for under $150. You can't buy a 20 inch DTV with a built in tuner (DTV not NTSC) at any price. Only the expensive sets (home theatre) begin to touch over the air DTV reception. There is no value DTV. Somehow I expect JANUS to get slow adoption due to cost and DRM. Other things on the market simply work. As an example; DVD's, insert disk, push play, not enter CC number, subscriber number, answer how many days and number of viws would you like.... JANUS seems to be an online version of the famus Circuit City DVD. You buy special hardware and buy time and/or views limited content that won't work in your neighbors player. I don't have much use for the high priced hardware to play the restricted content. There is plenty of other stuff out there.
The truth shall set you free!
completely agree, but you have to understand that you are in the minority. such a small minority, that the big content companies don't care about you. you'll stick with your mp3 player until it blows up, then you'll buy a different one just like it on ebay. but as I've said over and over at this point... they don't care about you. You (one who is beyond the temptaion of new technology) are such a small market segment that you litterally just don't matter.
with that I close.
Let me drop in a reference here to Baen's Webscriptions and the Baen Free Library. "Works fine, lasts long time, fails safe, drains to the bilge." Still no DRM, or at least, none as of the last time I purchased anything there.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
You're kidding right? There is a mandated possibility that everyone will be adopting digital technology.
Yeah right! When color TV came out, it was expensive. Black and white still worked. After prices came down after about a decade we finaly got one. VCR's were expensive. Blank tapes were $25 for a T120. Blank tapes are now about a buck each and recorders sell for under $100. CD players were expensive in the 700-1200 dollar range. After about 5 years I got one for under $100. CD writers were expensive. I now have several CD burners. Blanks are about 5/$100. DVD's were expensive with players near $1000 each. I got one last year for under $100. DTV is very expensive and tuners are included on only the high end sets. Maybe in 5-10 years when the prices come down, (and the broadcast flag & DRM squabbles settle) I'll probably get one, but only if the content is avaliable for it at a fair price. If content is priced like today's pre-recorded music CD's and includes severe DRM then I see no reason to buy the hardware to play it.
The truth shall set you free!
Just like making mod-chips for your console is perfectly legal, huh?
And if all those "you're a pirate which only want to freeload"-trolls could shut up for a second, I would enjoy being able to play MP3s, VCDs, SVCDs and homemade DVDs in my PlayStation2.
But I'll need a modchip to enable that functionality. And those are illegal.
And as far as pirating goes, if you need to know, I do only posess lawfully, bought PlayStation games. In fact I find that they have a lot more entertiainment value pr. buck than any CD or DVD i have ever bought. I think these games are worth the money they cost, so I buy them.
Not Buzzword 2.0 compliant. Please speak english.
As the millions of pirate DVDs and Video CDs in the far east and the number of low quality MP3s around demonstrate , most people don't give a rats arse about high quality. As long as its more or less watchable and/or listenable then they're happy. Hence it would be quite feasable for a pirate to rip a digital recoding to analogue then re-record in unprotected digital and distribute.
This is something the media companies (and you it seems) simply fail to understand.
This system allows for tons more of restrictions, and I for once, do not believe these were developed for the sheer fun of it. They will be used.
However you got a point. They will be phased in, just like DVDs have DRM at a light enough treshold not to piss people off. When people have gotten accustomed to that, they will push a little further and so on.
Voila. Perpetual copyright per se, even if there was to be a public domain sanctioned by law.
Not Buzzword 2.0 compliant. Please speak english.
Agree. This will be my last point. My mom nor my kid sister would know where to get a pirated DVD. Hell, the only way I know how to get pirated content is from P2P clients. So what I'm saying, and what you are failing to understand is... even though you claim "millions of pirate DVDs", economicly you don't matter. you were never going to buy a legal DVD in the first place. The only thing this technology was designed to do is keep honest people honest. theifs will always be theifs. Right? MGM isn't looking to Japan for it's 4th quarter earnings boost. Yet DVDs still sell there. WHY? HOW? What is going on? In a market where pirated DVDs are available on the street cornor, how are they still selling legit copies there? The answer is simple. Not everybody is angry at their dad like you are. Not everyone feels the need to steal, just because they can. the only reason mp3s are so popular is because the gray line between right and wrong is so wide. poeple don't think of something so easy to get as wrong. but a great percentage of people who will download an illegal mp3 without a thought, would be far more hasitant to buy a pirated DVD from someone on the street.
Now. I'm done talking about this issue. You are irrelevant in economic terms, and many others i'm sure. You may continue your self lothing now.
Anyone think that this name was made up by some engineers in the spirit of sosumi?
I agree with what you're trying to say. But I disagree that making future digital products extremely difficult to copy will decrease the rampant internet trading of digital files at all. The groups will continue to provide the digital data, and it's just as easy to copy once it's out there.
Why are there only 19 people folding@home for slashdot?
Actually I think China is going to be the next big economic threat for the US, and don't see this happening any time soon. They don't have oil either, so we'll have to come up with a different excuse to bomb them.
It's going to be a very long time time before they plug these holes and make DRM-only speakers, and there are a lot of smart people out there to keep up with this 'technology'. Your last paragraph is right on.
Why are there only 19 people folding@home for slashdot?
True, but I suspect that you consider pointing a video camera at your screen to be unacceptably low rez. They can't make duplication impossible, but they want to make it not worth the effort.
I think that in spending $100M animating it, they've added some value to the IP. And that's the part they want to protect. You can still perform Hamlet; you just can't do Disney's Lion King version of it.
They key, in my mind, is to not empower these companies anymore.
To make this practical, artists, both recording and the movie making variety, need to take a stand for open media and distribution schemes. Ultimately, they need to go independent and put the art ahead of the money making.
Parallel to that, the consumers of said art need to boycott the large companies who want to promlugate these monopolistic practices via this technological lock-in.
If both of these things happen, the money will flow where it should have been going anyway - into the pocket of the artist, instead of the hands of the corporate owners.
If we don't do something - we will be losing more than most people realize.
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
'... Janus is the god of gates and doors....'
What? Gates has his own god? I thought he has a delusion that he is a god.
I want my own god. Who is the god for Cowards?
"It's better to boycott Disney's draconian DRM and have them loosen it than to not have any DRM and content distribution at all."
I disagree. I don't "need content" enough to support Digital Restriction Management and the subsequent crippling of technology which I should have a right to use however I see fit. Despite what the marketing tells you, large corporations have a vested interest in reducing your freedom of choice in regards to what you can do with technology. In this example the marketing is we'll have more freedom choice due to more availability of "content" (as dictated solely by the corporations), the reality is we'll have less freedom of choice in how we use the technology to not only experience but also to produce new "content" of our very own. This kind of thinking eventually impoverishes us all for the benefit of very few. End of story.
In other words fuck them, their "content", and the subsequent shackles they want to put on the common man - I don't want it or need it.
Ah, but they took the old grimm stoires, and added and embleished on them, they may even has based some artwork or themes on old woodcut illustrations...all in the public domain. Tit for tat, at some point, these Disney works should be available at some point in the public domain for other to work with. At some point, I should be able to make "The further adventures of Steamboat Willie" just as well as I can make "The further adventurs of the Country Mouse and the City Mouse". One work is currently in the public domain, and the other one SHOULD be. Lets face it, from a business investment standpoint, if anyone at Disney cared, when they Made Cidnerella, no matter how many millions of dollars it cost. they KNEW or SHOULD HAVE KNOWN that that work would enter the public domain in 75 years (or was it 50), and they could do whatever they want for that xx years to promote it and make money from it. After that, public domain. You can buy "Bob's DVD of Steamboat Willy" for $1 a DVD, or you can have the box with the Disney name on it, that says "Steamboat Willy" and own an offical version for $5.00. Yes the Disney version is worth more to the collector, even if ANYONE could use the public domain material. My complaint, is DISNEY feels their IP is of such value it is OK to be hypocritical and still take material from the public domain, make millions off of it, and fight so that they never have to give something back. In 2010, or whenever it is that Steamboat Willy will roll into the public domain, Disney will fight again to push that boarder back. There is other material out there, books, audio recording and such, that I do not have access to, because their mainstream value is low enouch, the peple who hold the rights on them don't even feel it is work looking at the material. It is NOT public domain because Disney wanted to keep Steamboat Willy another 10 years! Let's face it, current Disney animated film efforts suck. Disney is raking in profits off of their old movies. They can't "optimize Shareholder value" buy creating decent new content, they have to rape PUBLIC DOMAIN the the public good, to "optimize Shareholer value'.
vi +
We need to start systematically speaking about digital *restrictions* management.
just because you are on slashdot, IT DOES NOT NECESSARILY MEAN THAT you should talk corporate-induced crap, yet, you do it anyhow.
Pretty much everyone on /. dislikes Janus and the power Microsoft gains and wield. Why don't we band together and educate everyone who's willing to listen how MS takes away their right. Even to those who argue that it doesn't apply, what will happen when MS forces the DRM on other things that they enjoy? We can make a difference Proof: DIVX. No, no, not DIVX as in MPG4, but DIVX as in DVD-wannabe pushed by Circuit City to compete with open DVD. Remember the uproar from the early adopters and home theater enthusiasts? Result: It got killed... it was very much stillborn, if I can exaggerate a little.
Let's kill Janus before MS infects us with right-eating disease and before MS imposes complicated schemes to take over the world at our expense.
Put "Anti-Janus" banners on your personal web pages. Mention Janus and its evil scheme in discussions. With enough awareness, we can fight even Microsoft. BTW, can anyone design "Anti-Janus" banners?
Maybe this is what they want
What?
"Deservedly"???
I've got one word for you, pal...Tezuka.
What Disney deserves for "The Lion King" is imprisonment for gross violations of copyright, not to mention morality!
The only people who deserve to make money off of what became one of the most egregious examples of wholesale thievery of someone else's IP in the form of Disney's "The Lion King" are the people who created the original concept.
This from the company that is probably the most vocal proponent of greater IP restrictions! It would only be karma if Disney properties are pirated until Disney can't make a single dime off of any of them!
Disney makes me ill. Sick to my stomach ill. They can rot for all I care...
Nah, China is too useful as Capitalism's slave labor factory backwater.
Started this morning, more than 1,000,000 units of the Janus-Digital-Speakers goes "Bloopy" when they are infected by the Bloopy.A ~ Bloopy.M virus. These virus created an interesting phenomena when all infected speakers start to sound "Bloopy" or "Bloops!" at the same time. It is believed that the sound can be heard as far as 10 miles aways from some areas, for example Redmond, Wash.
These virus exploit a security hole in the Janus software where only "trusted audio/video" and "untrusted unrecognized whatever-it-is data" will be allow to pass thru the "secured datapath". Microsoft released a second patch and urged all users to download and patched their digital speakers. The first version of the patch was unsuccessful because some copies of Janus recognized the patch as something similar to "an unlicensed copy of The Microsoft Sound.wav", and hence blocking the patch transfer via the "secured datapath".
Wow... what a wonderful whole new world!!!
If there were another platform with an even remotely significant percentage of the user base, no customer in their right mind would swallow Janus; they would gravitate toward the inevitable alternative.
Unfortunately, it's not that simple. It's not MS that's pushing for this, it's the media companies. They would outright refuse to release content for your imaginary alternative solution, unless it too guaranteed that anything and everything is locked down, tight.
*This* is the reason why we need open standards and, apparently, open source.
Sorry, open source won't help this situation a bit, I'm afraid...
Request copies of everything. All applications you can get your hands on. Make sure all your friends do the same. And their friends. Etc.