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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.
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!
Many such must exist in screenland.
Dog is my co-pilot.
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
I'm not a moron like the rest of the Slashbots. I understand that 98+% of the world doesn't give one flying fuck about Fair Use, freedom of choice, or anything.
All they care about is whether or not Survivor goes to season 12 and if the Bachelor/ette decide to get married for real on live TV.
But that's of no issue. Just because THEY don't care and don't understand the issues doesn't mean that I don't. It doesn't mean that I am not happy to educate anyone and everyone no matter how paranoid they believe me to be.
It will never make sense to many but if I can get just a few people to understand perhaps the world will not blow up before our eyes.
Y'know, I used to think that, and that it would never work.
After I don't know how many times I've thought, "That's ridiculous, that would only work if they ([Got Congress to outlaw software that broke DRM]|[Got congress to mandate all A/D converters respect watermarks]|[Got Congress to outlaw general purpose computers]), only to see a member of Congress propose the very same thing a few months later, I'm convinced that it still will never work, but that our lives could sure become screwy as a consequence...
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 ??
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?
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?
Why are companies always trying to push this shit on to the consumer?
/. we are effectively activists. The population as a whole has NO idea what all this means. Ask your average user what mp3 is and you will be told something about stealing music. Nevermind that it is just a compression format.
Because of your next words.
People need to learn
Most people DON'T learn. Here on
Because of the mainstream media "mp3" == "stealing music" to most people.
Tell them that there is a way to prevent this, and they will say "Good!", and they will buy it, because "it stops stealing". Give it a name, such as "DRM" and that gives them an easily identifiable label to look for.
Later, when they want to time-shift a show, or save it for later viewing, THAT is when they will find out. But too late.
- - - - - - - - - - -
I am a programmer. I am paid to produce syntax not grammar. Deal with it.
I can speak from experience here. I work at a small 4 year University. We have Microsoft's open license here. Every full-time employee has the opportunity to get a free copy of anything in the Microsoft catalog for their home use. This deal has our IT head so blinded against anything beside Microsoft that we have started a program for computer security with no classes offered in Linux or Unix. Even modest attempts to get applications like Dreamweaver taught for basic web design courses are met with open hostility bordering on outright hatred. Every attempt I've done to open the administrations eyes to a more inclusive software policy has been shut down. Even when faced with facts (like web browser polls from Netcraft), they maintain their myopic position. I guess its what one should expect when even non-technical people can see (and mention) that our IT head is hopelessly out of his depth.
Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.
I've never ever heard anyone talk about fair use outside of Slashdot, period. For most people it just isn't a big deal.
Making a DRM system that works with fair use but still protects artists is really hard, probably impossible. Apples DRM sort of gets there by being weak and easily exploited, but I'm not sure that's really an answer. It's a solution by being half-arsed.
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.
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!
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.