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European DRM News
burgburgburg writes "Two new fronts opening in the battles over digital rights management. First: news.com is reporting how French authorities are investigating EMI France and music retailer Fnac over anticopying technology included on CDs that allegedly renders them unplayable on some systems. The investigation began after the Bureau of Competition's antifraud unit (DDCCRF) received complaints from a consumer group known as UFC-Que Choisir. Second: BusinessWeek reports that the EC is investigating Microsoft to make sure that they don't illegally dominate the field of digital rights management. Regulators have told Microsoft and its partner Time Warner that they are looking into their plan to acquire the company ContentGuard, which makes DRM software because of concerns that it will create or strengthen Microsoft dominance of the field."
Article 2 is interesting....Here's a quote -
"Regulators put Microsoft and partner Time Warner on notice that it intends to investigate their plans to jointly acquire Bethesda (Md.)-based ContentGuard, which makes digital-rights-management (DRM) software to prevent music and movie piracy.
Call me crazy, but wouldn't each content company want their own DRM software? I mean, if you've got one lock, and a whole hell of a lot of people trying to open it, once it is open, you're screwed. Furthermore, content companies wouldn't want to pay a MS tax on each piece of content that is protected with MS-DRM. They'd be better off with their own DRM scheme......A monopoly in the DRM arena seems stupid at best - but am I wrong?
-thewldisntenuff
My MythTV HowTo
They will threaten to investigate, and the companies will pony up with protection money.. then all will be back to normal in the pursuit in the reduction of the citizens freedoms..
Its the way of the government...
---- Booth was a patriot ----
If they ever perfect DRM people will just make an analog copy and take the one time (small) quality hit. I'm not even going to talk about bit-for-bit copys that the real pirates use. It's really just a way to lock in the consumer.
wanted: one clever sig,apply within
...and if corporations would sell things for their real value people wouldn't feel compelled to steal because we would have pretty much everything we could ever want...
Any CD that's copy protected shouldn't be called a CD. Simple enough...
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
this wouldn't be around for very long. I doubt that's how it will work out, though. :-(
..."Contraband" by Velvet Revolver, a band newly formed by ex-members of Guns N' Roses and the former frontman of the Stone Temple Pilots, became a best seller in June despite heavy copy protection and a warning on the packaging.
(above excerpt from the USA today article.)
http://request-header.info
And that's what I like about the "old world" and I'm glad to be back here - even if some other things go terribly wrong - still better than fully-openly-industry-funded-government
Although, might not be that much better...
How about this?
Set the copyright system back to the default 14+14 years. If the record companies decide to use DRM on their stuff, make it illegal for them to apply for the 2nd 14 years. That way people can make backups of their stuff unhindered by sh*tty copy protection, and they get to make a little more money.
-=OR=-
Let them keep their Life+70 terms and DRM. In turn file sharing must be legalized and royalty-free sampling and public performance made legal for everyone who buys a CD.
Why yes I am paranoid! Thanks for asking!
If you think that European governments are any less influenced by corporations than the American government you are mistaken. They're just funded by different corporations. Also, Europe's monopoly laws are slightly different, so you will have companies prosecuted in the United States that are doing perfectly legal things in Europe, and vice verca. This doesn't mean that one is less influenced by industries. It just means that they're different environments for companies.
I submitted this story last night, and it didn't get posted.
It would need to be a massively coordinated effort to get a huge band's copy protected CD boycotted. You'd need mass targeted media, such as MTV or P. Diddy, to lead the charge. I figured it would be bad for them to lead the fight, and I doubt most people would care.
- We will never see audiophiles agreeing to replace their multi-thousand dollar speakers.
- There's no such thing as a digital speaker. They are, by their very nature, an analog device. An analog waveform causes the cone to move. Therefore, at the point where the signal enters the speaker's voice coil, it must, by necessity, be an analog signal. It takes a dollar's worth of hardware to adapt an 8 ohm impedance speaker signal into a line level input.
If you can change the laws of physics to make a digital speaker possible, you -still- haven't solved the problem. Buy a good microphone, put it in front of a good (hypothetical) digital speaker. Record. What? You've made microphones illegal somehow? Well, I guess the recording industry won't be making any more recordings, either....The only way it would be possible to remove the analog hole would be to remove the human being from the mix---hardwire it into your brain somehow. I know I won't be the first to sign up if they try that.... Maybe it's just me....
(Mutters something about always mounting a scratch monkey.)
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Stand up to industry bigwigs?
In case you've forgotten, we have the EUCD over here just as you have the DMCA overe there - the effective privatisation of copyright law (Corps now write their own rules - trying to circumvent those rules brings in the law).
Our governments are just as 0wnz0red by media corporations as America's, I'm afraid.
Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce
Quit rationalizing theft and just accept the fact that in a free-market system the price of something is set by the level of demand for that thing.
I think that was in relation to supply if I'm not mistaken...
What is the fair value when the supply is for all practical purpose instantaneous and infintely repeatable?
Copy-protected audio CDs are much more present in Europe mostly because it is made of small, insulated markets where people are culturally much less litigious, and where the legal system often does not offer the possibility of class-action lawsuits.
Imagine launching a copy-protected CD on the US market and ending up with a 1 or 2 million people demanding damages.
This just shows how judicially insecure media companies feel on that subject.