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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!
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!
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Buzz! Wrong, but thanks for playing! It's in the interest of companies to avoid pissing off consumers so much that they bother to remember the company's name. There's a big difference.
All's true that is mistrusted
That's because people don't realize that half the stuff they do with their own technology ("that they paid for") is illegal under current law... they have sat quiet for too long.
Now those abilities will be hard-coded away from them. Congress won't stop it (they haven't yet) and besides they are in the hip-pocket of big business anyway.
When I tell people that the stuff they are doing... making full copies or even mixes of their CD collections and sharing them with friends is technically illegal under current law... they laugh. When I show them the law... check out the DMCA, they are shocked... but they figure no-one can stop them.
Now with the advent of DRM technology... someone can stop them (and perhaps report that they tried). It is kind of late to roll a lot of this stuff back just by voting with your dollars. That time has passed. I am afraid that it will take a LOT of messy court battles to iron this out.
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...
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?
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."
- Every CD/DVD player
- Every TV
- Every audio amplifier
- Every audio cable
- Every pair of headphones
- Every pair of speakers
In short, the average consumer will not be able to afford a system that can play media with restrictions on analog output. The few who are that rich will not be able to prop up the movie/music industry, and if they go down this path, they will utterly collapse under the force of their own greed and stupidity.Meanwhile, the independent studios will grown during the downturn, in part because they will choose to adapt to technology rather than trying to naively strong-arm technology to bend to their will.
In other words, don't worry. This is just a case of corporate Darwinism. Let a few movie companies commit career suicide and everything will just work itself out naturally.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
...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.
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
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!
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.
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
You're naive. When movie companies start producing DRM-encumbered content, the people will follow. VCRs were replaced because the movie companies decided that they perferred the DVD format, and gradually switched to that format, while killing off the VHS tape. The DVD player was expensive when it was first released, but now it's a cheap commodity-- I bought my neighbor a $29 model for Christmas. In a few years (2, 5, 10, 20, who cares?), those same cheap commodities-- which everyone will have-- will be "protected".
If you think that if it takes 20 years it doesn't matter, then you're not just naive, you're a damned idiot.
When mass-produced entertainment becomes protected, the masses will buy protected playback system. Those protected system are, or will be, backed by government law, thanks for big business lobbyists. Then your small studios will be forced into using old technology, and old technology breaks. How long do you think you can keep your current DVD player in good working order? Can you get your tape player repaired? How about your 8-track, or laser-disc player, or TV? The market for "iold technology" will become smaller and smaller, until the independant studios can't produce goods any longer, or there isn't anyone left with working playback systems.
Oh, that'll take 75 years, you may say. We're talking about rights here; who cares what the timeframe is?
You know the story about boiling a frog? You stick a frog in a pot of boiling water, and he jumps out real fast. You stick it in cool water, and it stays there while you turn up the heat. Before the frog knows whats going on, it's dead.
Consumers are the frog.
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 +
They have an interest in forcing you to cryptographically sign it so that they know whom to hold accountable if the page contains illegal material.
I'd rather be lucky than good.
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.
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.'