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Consumer Electronics Companies Plan Common DRM Standard
Rinisari writes "'The world's four biggest consumer electronics companies have agreed to start using a common method to protect digital music and video against piracy and illegal copying, they said on Thursday,' begins a Reuters article on Panasonic, Philips, Samsung, and Sony's new alliance to establish interoperability and combat the evergrowing 'threat' to the music industry. The new alliance is to be called the 'Marlin Joint Development Association.'" The BBC's story on this issue is better, with quotes from several people.
Don't worry, the association is named after a fish. This isn't going anywhere.
Sales of newer electronic devices plummet as consumers realize the older DRM free players will play MP3 files, and the newer models offer no advantage.
Will the electronics companies attribute sales loss to piracy too?
Rhymes that keep their secrets will unfold behind the clouds.There upon the rainbow is the answer to a neverending story
With one standard, doesn't that make it easier work for those working around it?
I quote from the article: "(This) promotes interoperability while maximizing efficiency (when creating new products)," they said. It's so nice that they care so much about us poor consumers.
The world's four biggest consumer electronics companies have agreed to start using a common method to protect digital music and video against piracy and illegal copying
So? Companies have conspired touse other methods before: CSS for DVD, Macrovision[0] for VHS & DVD, all sorts of failed software schemes, etc. How will this make things tougher? If anything there will be more avenues of attack on the system. If you can play it, you can copy it.
[0] yeah, I know Macrovision is a company that licenses their scheme but it's widely used across brands.
Trolling is a art,
As much as I hate DRM, this was really a necessary move. With everybody using different DRM technologies, even consumers who wanted to follow the law really had no choice. Having incompatible file formats wasn't a solution. Consolidation like this was a necessary first step for protected digitas music.
I store my recipes online (the way nature intended)
all this means is that there will only be one method of protection to crack
there's nothing that can be done to stop it.
Sure, there will always fringe development or adoption of non-DRM tech, but it's pretty much here to stay now - end of story.
They keep making that typo. They mean Combat Privacy.
Then the crack will be universial. :)
hey, is it me or does it sound like 1998 all over again?
perhaps we can get another person to act as a "leonardo chiariglione" clone to help herd the cats.
good luck!
This is what i would like to do. Play DRMed content on any of the devices i own, without doing "illegal" stuff like re-ripping them and removing DRM. Till then, all these just dosent make any sense.
Users should be able to activate any DRM enabled device they own and play any DRMed content they have bought. This seems to be a good step in that direction.
And the more different devices it's embedded into, the harder it is for them to introduce a fixed, more secure version. I think this should be encouraged!
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
Just a few articles below.
Admit. Then bend over. Spanking time.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
And don't forget, with everyone consolidated on 1 single scheme, all the pirates have to do is figure out 1 hole in it instead of 1 hole for each previous scheme.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
W00t!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Is that you Winona? Funny plea bargin...
That'll save us the time of breaking a bunch of new schemes.
For Christ's sake, how about working on the content instead of the wrapper?
the major advances in civilization are processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur - A.N. White
"Look dear, there's a box with buttons and wires on it that came with our new DVD player."
"What does it say on that card?"
"Attach wires to genitals, then read card. How odd. Well, when in Rome..." *zip* *fwit* *squitch* *squitch*
"Ok, the card says 'Read this Phrase aloud, I will not copy DVD's'"
"I will not copy DVD's. Hey a light came on which says 'LIE'" *BZZOWNT* "Yaaaaarrrrrggghhhhh!!!!"
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Remember a few years ago when all future hard drives were going to have DRM built into them? There was even an alliance of all the big hard drive manufacturers of the time.
The headline should read "Consumer Electronics Companies Promise They Won't Cum In Hollywood's Mouth"
only one scheme to crack
1. develop some new drm, employ it on all your devices. ...
2. some years later, your drm is on nearly every product sold. your standard is entrenched. success!
3. some hacker in (some country outside us jursidiction) cracks your drm with a pocket calculator and releases the crack to the world. hundreds of millions of drm devices are effectively neutered.
4.
5. er, profit?
I do not see Apple?
Seems like a big oversite to me.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
they are smoking a joint the size of a marlin.
Don't fool yourself into thinking that just because all the previous DRM schemes were broken, that any new scheme will suffer the same fate. The crypto necessary to build good DRM exists. It's just that in the past, engineers ignored the advice of crypto experts and developed their own methods. All of which were broken. But I think they are learning from their mistakes.
Of course, this means that there will need to be a single digital-analog-digital iteration to remove the DRM. As someone said, if I can play it, I can record it. I just may not be able to record the original digital data
The fact that you've been forced into believing you need DRM in order to use things you buy legally is so very sad.
We already have laws in place to control copyrights. They work fine.
"Marlin Joint Development Association"? This can be abbreviated a few ways: either as the MJ Development Association or as the M. Joint Development Association.
Both make me think of Marijuana, which is what these people must be smoking if they think a DRM scheme will defeat piracy.
I support the Center for Consumer Freedom
Exactly how old will the kid from the Netherlands be that cracks it? And how many days will it take after the specs doc is released?
I'm betting 15 years, and 47 days. Place your bets!
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Nemo.
(you heard it here first.)
Like OMA DRM? There already is a common DRM standard supported by a lot of mobile product creators.
~Someday, I hope to be an aspiring author.
welcome our new digital restrictions management overlords.
the hardware providers aren't doing anything to the content providers - that's what CONSUMERS are for. That way, when hardware manufacturers and the content providers get together, they can take turns doing to consumers what they want. They might even make some bad porn (although when the consumers figure out what's been done to them and to copyright law it may end up being a snuff film of sorts).
At least they didn't name it something crazy to make a "user friendly" acronym like "DONTSTEAL" or something equally absurd like PATRIOT act.
Slashdot sucks
He said many firms readily admit that their DRM systems are little protection against skilled attackers such as the organised crime gangs that are responsible for most piracy.
I, and most peoiple I know who have acquired pirated material, got it from file sharing apps and IRC. Are these really considered "organised" crime gangs? Probably the first time I've ever been accused of being organised.
Here's an idea... Why don't you just stop DRMing. It's useless. It doesn't work. In order to stop content from being copied you would have to create an encryption/decryption scheme that would be implanted into a person's head.
Once content can be viewed or heard by a person it can be copied. PERIOD. No amount of messing around with encryption/decryption schemes will change this. I want to make a copy of music off of an IPOD, I could easily just plug a recorder into the headset and I've got a non-DRM'd copy. Same thing goes for anything that gets sent to the TV.
It's amazing how much money these companies are wasting on trying to control something that can't be controlled short of genetic engineering.
So Sony finally released a portable music player that plays mp3s recently, and it is selling way better than their previous atrac only crap players. So what is their next move? Put the DRM back on? Nobody is gonna buy these players just like no one bought their atrac players.
I don't see Microsoft or Apple on the membership list, hmm...
I really think DRM is only going to hurt sales of computer hardware and consumer electronics, and I recall those industries being several orders of magnitude greater than the content makers (Hollywood, software makers, etc.). Who is going to buy a CD Burner that they can't use 2/3rds of the time?
Of course, if they jam DRM down our throats... but that's illegal, right? Right? Uh oh....
I'll give dwipal the benefit of the doubt here.
I think he's saying: given that he already bought songs off of iTunes, it would be nice to play them on a Sony media theater wiothout having to re-rip them.
just a bit suspicious that it comes out just after this news?
Now that we have drm in all the major personal tech manufacturers, it's safe for me to say, turn on the factories!
That nl tag working yet? Award winning hair styling at the Hair Trap
The people WILL get what they demand, whether its illegal or not (see the War on Drugs and Prohibition for proof).
The market place has spoken about what they want, and if these companies can't provide it without putting cumbersome, restrictive DRM on it that only benefits the content producers, well...sounds like a ripe opening in the marketplace for someone to come in and give the public EXACTLY what they want at a fair price and then watch the big companies stumble over themselves to compete or litigate.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
is that if the damn media companies where doing their damn jobs and continually releasing new content instead of trying to make a buck off of the same old tired, washed up, one-hit-wonders that they keep trying to pawn off on us. They wouldnt have to worry about piracy. The next Beatles or Elvis will just happen that cannot be forced, Brittaney and the Back Door Boys havent got it in them. Right now there is more music, stories (for movies, books, plays etc) and original content than ever before. This just proves more that its not about piracy but control.
- People want a single authentication mechanism
- WMA and Fairplay DRM are strong and they need to band together to have any impact
- They can't trust or rely on either MS or Apple to get what they want
- As the BBC article points out, it's all about profits.
Unfortunately, for them, I feel that it's probably too little too late. Apple is dominant, and Microsoft has the rest. Perhaps they can get all those other sites (Walmart, Napster, BuyMusic) to switch to their DRM scheme, but so far, the only real formats supported in the industry are 1) unDRMed mp3, 2) m4p (fairplay/harmony), and 3) WMA.These guys are late to the game, and trying, desperately, to keep their ever-shrinking marketshare and margins by playing a game they don't know how to win. I wish them luck, but I forsee Sony adopting WMA or fairplay in a few years.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
However, as citizens, regardless of whether we are in a democracy, a supposed democracy, or some other less fortunate type of rulership, the Western belief is that our inalienable rights include the freedom of speech, which in this digital age may mean copying something for criticism, be it from the government or a corporation. These corporations should not be allowed to get away with this, but they will.
This is 4.
4. Whine and bitch about it, adopt new DRM system, and force consumers to buy another round of gadgets.
There's where the profit comes from in step #5.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Once upon a time I recall something like this happened with DVD's.
So...
Years spent developing new DRM = 1
Billions of dollars spent changing everything = $6
Lines of Perl used to break DRM = ?
Look on the CEOs faces when they find out = Priceless
Why don't they just give it up? Like Window$ bugs, if there is someone to think of a way to patch them, or make DRM for things, there is someone just as, if not smarter to find a way around it.
You'll see...when this fails they will blame a loss of $6 Billion dollars on piracy. Not because it was what they lost, just what they lost trying to combat it with failed DRM. Think about all the losses they have reported, it's not loss of sales, just losses that they get tax breaks on, and help their court cases with the politicians. Spend millions on DRM, then claim it a loss when someone covers the outside edge with a sharpie or holds shift when putting a cd in. Come on you idiots, why don't you just keep you billions and retire, you won't win the battle even if you win in court. Simply put, log in to a P2P client, even if half are illegal downloaders...who do you think will put 4 million people in jail?
Give it up and move on to gardening or something productive.
Yes, but that doesn't matter too much in the long run; trying to make an unbreakable DRM system is an unwinnable battle. The content cartel can still win the war by creating a future in which (flawed) Digital Restriction Mechanisms are a standard part of every consumer electronics device, preventing the nontechnical user from making copies of copyrighted works.
People will be born in this future who will think DRM is normal and OK.
Besides, the real threat we all ought to be concentrating on is "Trusted" Computing, not the DRM flavor of the week.
Starting Score: -1 points
Moderation +1
100% Interesting
with:
"They say there are no guarantees the system will even prevent piracy, nor will it prevent huge black cocks from entering Michael's ass."
Guess Michael and mods missed this one, eh?
BSD is designed. Linux is grown. C++ libs
In places in the world (Russia, Taiwan, China, probably the USA as well) Organized Crime, As in the MOB/Mofia/Yakuza/Triad/Etc... and people that do "piracy for a living" are the ones they are talking about. NOT people like you and me on IRC and Bit Torrent and such. They are talking about those who make actual money through piracy.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
As long as the DRM allows me to use the music every way I'm legally allowed without a single hindrance or annoyance, fantastic.
Of course it won't, meaning that I'll be burdened as a consumer and less likely to *be* a consumer of such annoyances.
Users should be able to activate any DRM enabled device they own and play any DRMed content they have bought. This seems to be a good step in that direction.
Big companies like this do not collaborate to make things easier on consumers. They collaborate to make money. DRM makes money not by preventing piracy (the official line). It makes money by making you buy more than one copy of each movie, song, book, picture, or whatever. If you want something to work across all your devices, don't expect that to happen with DRM. If the media companies wanted that to happen, they would not put DRM on in the first place. If you think your DVDs will play in your HD-3D-DVD-extreme2 player, or that there will be any legal way to copy them to a format that does work in that player a few years down the road, then you are just wrong.
Note, they can also make a small amount of money via advertising through DRM. If your DVD player cannot skip commercials, media companies can make more money putting them on your DVDs.
If you think DRM standards will benefit you, you are probably very mistaken.
"They say there are no guarantees the system will even prevent piracy."
Another winner from the snake oil sales people.
What?
The meager good news if this project succeeds is that prices (for music, movies, etc.) are going to plummet because there's no way I'm buying into this marlin carp, errr... crap without some kind of bribery. I suspect most home users are the same way, even my mother-in-law.
Look at it this way -- garbage ideas like self-destructing 48 hour DVD's sold at $5 each is a marketing disaster. BUT, if they were 50 cents each, even I would have to consider trying them. The trick to making it work is somewhere between 50 cents and 5 dollars.
"Lawyers are for sucks."
- Doug McKenzie
I guess that Apple isn't going along with the plan.
I don't see how this can work, unless the only choice for a playback device is one with DRM. If a non-DRM playback solution exists, there's motivation to rip to a non-DRM format and share.
The only way I see that the DRM Cartel can eliminate the non-DRM elements is through force of law. Expect the Cartel to purchase legislation making it illegal to even think about a non-DRM'd device. They'll surround themselves with a defensive battery of copyrights and patents. Oh, and to dodge the anti-trust laws in the US, expect the DRM Cartel to license the DRM technology to anyone willing to pay the extortion fee and accept the draconian usage license. Just like the SD Card Association.
The problem I see with DRM is that it's impossible to make it work without breaking either existing compatability or fair-use.
l ling copy.
You can't stop the "evil dirty pirates" from copying discs without stopping the home user who just wants to make a backup/archival/play-on-my-laptop-while-I'm-trave
Making a new format that people will have to move to means making it incompatible with older devices.
Making a device that complies with fair-use laws in various countrie is well nigh impossible too. I believe some places that *do* believe in proper fair use mean that you have to allow personal reproduction.
Oh, and Get this media companies. The analogue loop still exists. So long as your device needs to plug into my TV, it can also plug into my computer. So long as it needs to work with my headphones, it will plug into my soundcard. I don't need 20923x19334 pixels of resolution and 1024kbps-megasurround... and the people transferring the files online will be just as happy to view a scaled down version (hell, they're happy with cams).
Your video player needs to be compatible with our TV's. It's not like everyone will rush out to buy a new TV because the existing one doesn't have your DRM-filled digital connector, nor will the new ones take over for many, many years.
Stop restricting how we use our property, and how about focussing all that intelligence and co-operation on something more useful like features that *enhance* our viewing/listening experience.
If DRM is going to happen, then the worst thing could be if it is owned by one company. If an artist wants to make sure that only I can use a song, then I don't want them to also tell me that I have to use ms-based technologies to listen to it.
...was that there are so many to choose from!
Quesitons:
1. Will I be able to play non-drm content that I make (e.g., home movies, home recordings)?
2. Will I have to buy an expensive encoder software package to export video and audio in formats that the drm enabled devices will play?
3. Is there an open non-drm content format within this drm-enabled format?
3.1. So I can play it now
3.2. So I can convert it into a new format in the future.
Having only one standard will make it SO much easier to crack. Wouldn't it be nice if every bank vault had the identical combination?!
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
All copying is illegal? Copying for personal use/time or space shifting is OK? somewhere in the middle?
Except for the original videotape decision, no one, incluing the courts, has really said.
That is the question that needs to be answered before we start screaming about the evils of DRM. What constitutes "illegal copying"?
...One ring to find them,
One ring to bring them all
And in the darkness bind them.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
As long as DRM capable devices have a headphone out, you will be able to rip any music/album, regardless of encryption or not. To prevent this, they might come out with newer computers that automatically check for DRM licenses by listening for watermarks or something. If they do that, all is not lost. If people keep a couple of our top-of-the-line computers around, we'll still be able to rip music from the the headphone jack.
Unless they come out with some sort of encrypted headphones, all attempts at 'combatting piracy' are doomed.
Yes, I know threat is in quotes, but come on. These guys need to face facts. "Piracy" - a propaganda word in itself, meant to inspire fear - obviously wasn't a threat last year, when there was a 2.3% CD sales increase in the US. These companies should get off or our backs. After all, you cannot win in an industry by pissing off or suing your customer base!
I am scientifically inaccurate.
This is why you buy something like a Medion MD 7457 DVD player. I wouldn't buy from Sony, Phillips, Panasonic or Samsung before and gee, this really makes me want one now.
All this crap'll do is increase the market share of the manufacturers that AREN'T foisting "features" their customers didn't ask for and FLAT OUT DON'T WANT.
Locks only keep honest people honest. Strict DRM is only going to make the average user turn away from anything that uses it. If history tells us anything it's that things created by man to protect information/goods from dis-honest men will be defeated. I believe it was Patton who said something to the effect of "anything built by man, can be conqured by man" (not a direct quote). All this will do is annoy the average person and keep the crackers busy for a few more days.
Cliff Claven
K.E.G. Party Chairman
Founding Leader of: Koncerned for Egalitarin Governance
Why do they keep bothering with DRM?? Correct me if I'm wrong, but you can't have unbreakable encryption when it's the USER'S COMPUTER that has to do the decryption.
I knew this sounded familiar! It was called SDMI, and they gave up on it about four years ago. Why do they think it'll work now?
Your mileage may vary, but mine is constant.
When the work enters the public domain in 90 or so years, and there are no more Rights to Digitally Manage, will the DRM allow complete access to the work?
No?
OK, just be sure to include a sticker that says "This product contains DRM that is the digital equivelant of the burning of the Library of Alexandria."
Why can't I moderate something "Wrong" or at least "Grossly Misinformed"?
one standard means crackers only have to crack one thing instead of 4. code-cracking-whack-a-mole. its all so futile.
and look how it turned out:
- there is at least 4 different flash memory standards because every greedy bastard wants to make maximum profits.
- Apple used it's own DRM and so did Sony with magic gate. None of them wanted to pay fees to microsoft. Who can blame them for this?
- Anyone remembers HAVI? That was huge in consumers electronic companies in the late 90s. Same actors - Panasonic, Philips, Sony, etc. That went belly up because no one would agree on the features and it manufacturer wanted their proprietary features to be included in the standard.
- Then there was something similar from Sun and M$. That went bust.
There are probably many more examples of why this will fail. Until multiple companies in China and Taiwan will make cheap devices without DRM consumers will not purchase this crap from the major makers.
If it will possible for Media conglomerates to buy the laws protecting their buisness model, US has much bigger problem than media piracy - it has problem with it's capitalism and democracy because this goes aganst both.
Until recently I had some faith in US democracy but now I am not so sure any more.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I think I'd better re-rip everything, in light of this new, exciting technology to take full advantage of it. I'll re rip it all.....
To vinyl.....
Seriously though, what's to stop me pressing "play" on the new DRM'd piece a crud, using two gold RCAs and plugging it into my mixer, and then pressing "record" on my 8 track, then doing some random FX effect to get past any audio keys, and re-ripping it to a ) 256 kbs vbr AAC b ) Vinyl?
My UID is prime. Is yours?
It's even easier than that, since not only does a pirate have to just beat one scheme, they only have to modify a single device to make perfect copies of a album/movie/whatever that will run on unmodded devices.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Look, finding a better standard (security key) isn't going to make a stupider lock picker.
The entertainment industry has already realized the enevitable, soon people are going to start listening/viewing to what they "what" too, not what's publicized as "popular" or made available only to your home country. After time, more and more people are going to get tired of all the "crap" that's out there called EnterDrainMent. Instead their going to put there money where their mouth is becuase we will want to see more wholesome content.
The way I see it, a lot of middle men who are there just to make a buck off of the next dumb shmo are seeing their days numbered. So they'll use as much collateral as it takes to make sure the legal system keeps that "umbrella" of ignorance over the rest of the loyal public.
"You know, you should just shut up."
-RIAA
Please stop stalking me, bro.
Big companies like this do not collaborate to make things easier on consumers. They collaborate to make money.
Very insightful, and true. Perhapsy that is why so many consumers collaborate to make things easier for themselves and don't worry about if it hurts Big companies. (Bit torrent, for example.)
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
...just eschew DRM entirely.
I'm serious. Please put down your tomatoes, **AA, and listen.
It doesn't matter what form(s) of DRM you use; it will be defeated, and your content will find its way to P2P networks, bootleggers, and so forth. DRM just punishes honest customers.
Yet another DRM standard, even one with multiple backers, is an inferior solution to no DRM at all.
If I can't make a copy to listen to in the car, or play in my MP3 player thats older than the last eight DRM standards but perfectly usable otherwise, Im not interested.
Likewise, if I have to get permission from the publisher to read a book I've already paid for after I upgrade my computer, I wont buy it.
If I cant make unencumbered backup copies, then I havent bought anything. Ive just leased some media until my hard drive crashes, or I get a new computer, or the DRM du jour goes out of style, or the file format becomes obsolete. I refuse to shell out cold hard cash for media effectively printed on disappearing ink.
Almost any imaginable content is available, free and unrestricted, online. While I dont condone piracy myself, I cant understand how you hope to encourage people to pay for their media by offering a vastly inferior product in exchange.
since it's going to be unified, its' going to be easier to crack and hack the mp3 players to play it. I think that in this case the multitude of formats was the strength of DRM, multiple strengths divided to crack protection. Now they're going to unify... I won't be in it though.
---- I am certain of only one thing : I know nothing else.
Be very careful with your current MP3 player. Keep it safe and happy. Keep it clean and dust-free. Don't jar it too much...
Because pretty soon it may very well be the only hardware that plays the mp3's you've been collecting for so long!
um, why can't you? Macrovision worked by including a signal that wasn't obvious to anything but a VCR.. you can throw a signal into analogue that is very slight, (a faint watermark) that still is identifiable..
imagine a DVD players with serial #'s and each transmission includes static blits, repeated every 100th frame, that include the serial # encoded into the video.. if I capture it, and reduce the resolution by 1/4th, you may not get the watermark from a single frame, but process the entire file, and you may well be able to discern the serial # of the player/equipment/person that initially decoded it.
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
"Systems that limit what people can do with the files they download are known as Digital Rights Management systems."
I love the BBC
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Sony: DRM fears cost us the portable digital music market
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
As someone else pointed out on this thread, the problem isn't so much DRM as it is Trusted Computing. As of now, if the DRM is cracked, both the crack and the cracked material will be on the Web shortly. New DRM leads to new cracks which quickly follow.
The "Trusted Computing/Palladium/whatever title we come up with to disguise our intentions" initiative is more threatening. In that case, unless it is cracked as well, which will be harder because of strong crypto and no analog hole, each person that wants to remove the DRM on their copy has to break it themselves, which is not going to happen. They will be unable to download the crack, DMCA will prevent mass distribution of a physical crack, and the de-DRM'd material won't be available (because the OS won't let you). Once each crack has to be done individually, they can DRM to the heart's delight and it will be very hard for their victims^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hconsumers to stop them.
A system with the customers as the enemy is stable if 1) the users can't gang up (TC : check) and 2) they have no alternative to get content. (politician purchase and redemption program : check). DRM is a speed bump. TC is like nuking all of the cars and most of the roads, and making everyone use public transit which only stops at stores.
You can't throw meta-data (DRM) onto an analog recording.
Macrovision and CGMS did just that to video. Try plugging your VCR into a set-top DVD recorder and copying a commercial VHS movie to DVD. The recorder will refuse to do so.
Doing this with digital audio will be harder, since there's no unused portion of the signal in audio like the vertical blanking period in video, which is where MV corrupts the signal. But it's conceivable that some sort of watermark could be inserted, and equipment manufacturers legally blackmailed into refusing to record anything with said watermark. It hasn't happened yet, but once it does, hang on to that old Sound Blaster...
Even without MS and Apple, these guys may still win IF the "content producers" get behind the new format. Ultimately, it WILL be up to the customers to choose if they want it or not, but if all the new discs you want come in this super-cool new format that matches your car stereo, your home stereo, your sony laptop, your playstation, and other hardware, then Microsoft will probably "embrace and extend" it anyways.
Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.
Pirates know how to sail, and attack ships, murder people, loot. The usually have wooden legs, and aye patches.
You are speaking about bootleggers maybe. Illegal distributors. Criminals.
Piracy is a bad term to use, because it is used to call me a criminal when I rip my cds and bring them to my workplace to enjoy them here.
The record companies are calling "pirates" everybody who wants to copy copyrighted works, even when they do it in their own right.
That causes a confusion, because you are referring to some guy who wants to rip off a company, and they refer to regular users that want to just pay once for their media. They want that confusion to happen. I believe that at this point, it would be sane at least to stop using that generic word "pirates" for do many things it doesn't mean.
The same things happens with the term "intellectual property" which is another source of confusion, with regard to copyright and trade secrets, patents.
We need a consumer's union with millions of members. Not only would we have the power to put a stop to this sort of thing through boycots, but it would be an effective way to educate consumers about what they're buying.
Play Command HQ online
Maybe you can, but have fun convincing a jury that you did.
Know that the defence will demand technical details on the watermarking, then show one frame where the watermark is, grab one of the compressed frames, and then show that the watermark is illegable.
I'm sure that if they try to put some kind of MV thing in audio (or its equivalent) some Professional Studio will demand the equivalent of a TBC so they can get pristine audio in the recording studio, and bingo: no more crypto on analogue audio.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
I want to follow the law, and I want to break the protection on iTunes. So where does that put me in your categorization? The only law I'm breaking is the DMCA, and I want it repealed. Copying songs off my iPod onto my work computer is a legitimate legal use of songs I've purchased. Breaking DRM has a legal purpose, but is illegal.
Why outlaw speech when you can outlaw thinking of something to say?
You are speaking about bootleggers maybe.
No, because as everyone knows, Bootleggers are people who make and smuggle alchohol illegally. They have no relation to software piracy...
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
people will invent an audio recorder that mimics a high-res monitor or a speaker. Expect to see "build your own video recorder with spare monitor parts and a little electronics".
So much for DRM. The *AA People are so busy working to solve "the piracy problem", that they fail to see it's not the real problem. The prohibitive prices on their merchandise is the REAL problem.
This is excellent news! Now that there's a standard, we can start writing decrypters and unprotects. I figure it will take about 8 weeks from the day it starts shipping until the DRM standard is broken, and by that time everyone will be shipping players and media 'protected' by the new system, so it will all be over but the laughing.
My solution is much simpler: I don't buy anything with DRM on it. If it's a band I really like and I know I'll enjoy the entire album, I'll buy the CD, always after it's dropped below the exorbitant new-release price. If not, there are plenty of ways to get music that don't involve the risk of the P2P networks. Trade music with your friends. Just like everyone's been doing for the past 20+ years with CDs, cassette tapes, VHS tapes, etc. Is this techincally illegal? Sure, it probably is. But it doesn't strike me as being some "moral wrong" that the music industry would like all of us to believe.
If they want me to buy their digital music, they damn well better give it to me in a lossless format (or at least a lossy format with a bitrate that gives quality at least as high as ~220kbps VBR MP3) with no DRM. Am I aiming too high? Probably, but I'm not willing to budge on this. If they won't sell it to me how I want it, I won't buy it. Hopefully many others feel the same way I do.
With how things are now, if I *do* decide to buy digital music, it'll probably be from AllofMP3.com.
Xfce: Lighter than some, heavier than others. Just right.
DRM can NEVER work. There are lots of reasons for this.
1. Pirates --real one like mafia types, they are organized they have resources. They WILL infiltrade the OEMs and steal code if they have too. They plan on breaking the law and unlike individuals are willing to break as many laws as they have too. No arm of lawers and NDAs will protect your trade secrets from a group willing to kidnap and tourture your engineers untill they talk.
2. No encryption will stand the test of time and be usable today. The economics demand that only so much cpu be put in that CD player period. If they encryption is simple enough to decode in real time with the key, five or ten years and it will be possible at least if a user is willing to wait some hours to decode the media without it on a highend computer system.
3. Unless this is a pay per use type thing that could dynamicly distribute a uniqe key per-media id or something as soon as one cipher/key pair is broken they all are. Because the stuff has to be prebuilt into all the players and nothing can be done when the system is defeated without makeing all players incompatible with new media. It won't work this way any way because we all know how will Divix sold.
4. The analog hole still exists no matter what you do! Sure you might beable to create water marks that survive D -> A conversion and you might be able to build players that will not play something that is water marked but not DRMed but you can't stop people from makeing their own payers. News to the OEMs sure we might not beable to build super HIFI stuff but lots of us do have the skillz to build crude analog recording and play back devices both sound and video from components and house hold items. Unless you are going to ban sale of loose electrical components you will not be able to prevent communities from developing their own little stnadards and do-it-your-self play back and recording stuffs. They can then swap media as they please and since they are a group of "frineds" probably claim fair use even if you catch them with the media. Don't belive it about the do-it-your-selfers makeing and standard just look at all the smaller linux distributions with their own groups of users and package standards etc.
5. If you can't stop people form makeing/buying/selling dope and other drugs your not gonna be able to take away the music either. Remember prohibition it did not work out so good and some might argue that while it really did curb alcohol and domestic abuse, it created new problems that were much worse. This too can only end of a cure is worse then the disease kinda situation. There are lots of smart people in the world and if you motivate enough of them they will always beable to out perform your payroll. There are lots of unscrupled people in the world motivate enough of them and they will mostly out perform law enforcement. The media companies will lose becase people like me who feel besmirched by them already might decide based not on what's legal only one what's cheapest, and if that means passing my dollars to the mob or otherwise its possible people like me might.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
hypothetically, if they can crack it right away-- should they? If its broken right away, it'll be patched right away. Each hole patched makes the system more secure.
Do you let it be out for a few years (and possibly let the consumer market see the suckiness of DRM and possibly reject it) or if consumers do not reject DRM when a crack is published, there will be a few years worth of flawed players and media which can be circumvented.
either way, i dont believe DRM can be completely secure (for the companies)...how can you send information to the enemy (comsumer) and expect to not get (anywhere from some of it to all) it copied. At least untill there's a method of importing media directly into the brain for a users viewing pleasure...then my friend, DRM prettymuch hamper most meaningful of consumer media.
Troll, Troll, go away and flame again some other day
I'm just waiting for the first lawsuit to be filed. DRM infringes horribly on your rights. But then everyone here knows that. What these companies who want DRM installed keep forgetting is that you are guaranteed the right to:
1. Give a copy to your father or mother.
2. Give a copy to your sons and daughters.
3. Give a copy to your brothers and sisters.
4. Give a copy to your best friend.
What we need are stronger laws which prevent and curtail what a company can or can not do when it comes to infringing your rights. After all, it isn't John and Jane Doe who are pirating these people's goods - it is the major cartels. Why then, are the people made to suffer for something some organization is doing?
We aren't dogs. Mongrels who wear collars and go around on leashes. Nor were the copyright laws meant to curtail our ability to disperse copyrighted material. They were only meant to slow down this dispersal and to recognize who had created what. Is it our fault that the internet came along? That it is now almost instantaneous to move a three minute bee-bop song from point A to point B? No. It isn't. Nor can we put the worms back into the can now that we have opened the can and let them out. The internet not only is here but it is expanding still at a phenominal rate. Jumping from desktop computers, to laptops, to PDAs, and now to cell phones. Soon, the whole world will be connected. This is what corporations fear the most. That anyone will be able to know exactly what a corporation is doing anywhere in the world.
The fact that we have begun to grasp just how much power digital devices gives us over analog devices. How quickly digital devices seem to evolve, change, modify, and intrude into our lives. (After all, how many people now have microwave ovens and look at all of the things they can do now. Just a few short years ago you had dials you had to turn - now it is all digital with hundreds of functions.) Scares many people because those people feel they must maintain control over everything. In a horse and buggy era - they could. In a digital era - they can not. The digital era is the distributed era. Power, once held by only a few people in their ivory towers, is beginning to flow into the hands of the ordinary person.
And so they fight. They fight to keep that which they are losing quickly. The problem is though, with a distributed system no one person has the millions of dollars to do the things these corporations are doing because they do have a huge concentration of money. So as always I say - write/email your federal, state, and local government officals and let them know you do not want any kind of Digital Rights Management (DRM) put onto your CDs, DVDs, or anything else. That when these corporations sell you something that that is the end of their rights and the beginning of yours. And you - do not need them to try to lord it over you. You - have the right to do with your property whatever it is that pleases you. You - have the right to make copies. To give copies away to your other family members. That you - do not need big brother watching every single thing that you do. That you - do not recognize these company's cries that you should serve them at their whim. And that you want to have the freedom to exercise these rights when it pleases you and not some corporation.
Someone put a black hole in my pocket and now I'm broke.
Too many joints, not enough development if ya ask me. Well, 'long as it doesn't prevent legal copying, it's fine with me...
I seem to remember Phillips threatening lawsuits for any RIAA bozos bold enough to use the CDDA trademark on a DRM'ed disk. Does this mean Phillips has changed its tune? If Phillips continues to stick to its guns, the answer is simple: Don't buy audio disks without the CDDA trademark.
Even if this legislation were to suddenly be passed, how would you deal with CD's?
As far as I know, aside from an irrelevant number of SACD's and DVD-Audio disks, these are the highest quality digital copies that are common. And they have no DRM.
Since CD players are in every car, consumer device, computer....everything, how exactly could you ban them? And the RIAA can't stop selling them, because the infrastructure is in place and has been for 20 years.
Sure, people switched from LP's to CD's, but primarily because the new format was universally felt to be more convenient and sounded excellent.
So they're stuck with CD's (which is fortunate for consumers). And as long as CD's exist, pure digital quality sound is going to be around and available as close as the neareset CD shop.
There's no way out for the RIAA.
Now, the MPAA is actually in better shape, because they've never given us high-quality video (DVD's aren't). I have a feeling that is going to be an easier job to get us hooked on DRM, since they could conceivably hook us with HD video that has DRM attached.
But audio is a lost cause for greedy middlemen.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
I've allway's found this strange : for some reason the electronics-industry seems to be bothered by what (problems) the music industry experiences.
To me that sound like multiple industries agree with each other to cooporate against the civilian/end-user. I thought that was illegal.
But hey : as long as money can be made off of something, *anything* seems to be legal.
To me, as an end-user, it sounds like electronics & music industry answer *to a common boss* (with too much (combined) power).
...there's so many of them to choose from!
Seriously, you don't think Apple and Microsoft (especially Microsoft!) are going to say "oh, well, a standard! I guess we'd better throw away all our FairPlay and Windows Media code!" and capitulate to whatever Sony et al. wants, do you?
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Good points on the same level as this thread. And also, with the advances in song-recognition type stuff (okay, poorly worded term) the newer sound cards might have to check with big brother first before giving up the signal to the pc. Imagine that not only will your sound card refuse to play any music piped if you don't have a license, it won't even let you do your own rendition if it can tell what song it is.
The apple mini is not powerful enough to decode fullscreen HD movies. It just isn't. I'd love iTunes to sell movies but it isn't happening in the near future. Maybe it'll happen 5 or 6 years from now but I doubt it.
It might be a good idea to erase the phrase "fair use rights" from the collective Slashdot vocabulary. There is, AFAIAA, no such thing in any major jurisdiction. There are fair use exemptions from the copyright law in the US, which means that if you make a copy, then that copy does not infringe copyright under certain circumstances. However, that doesn't give you some automatic legal right to the ability to make such a copy. If you can't circumvent the supplier's DRM then that's your problem; you don't have any rights to be infringed here. (I'm pretty sure there are exceptions to this covered by other rules in many countries, often for national archives and the like.) It's funny how you can describe copyright infringement as "theft" or "piracy" here and get a dozen zealots flaming you, yet when this much more misleading phrase is used, hardly anyone even notices.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
The term piracy has been used to describe the kind of activity we're talking about for decades, possibly centuries. This meaning is listed in every dictionary I own. If you're going to rant about terminology, please have a case first.
YHBT. HAND. :-)
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Reminds me of the Prohibition Era. The Gov't bans something, huge criminal industries are built around it's supply. From Gangster to Cracker, still the same thing.
A wise man changes his mind, a fool never.
I have in front of me a computer (with a DVD-ROM) and a DVD-ROM player (plugged into the TV). I just inserted a Disc into the computer and it said 'Wrong region - change the region to play this disc - 3 changes left'. ARRGGLGLGGLLL!!!!!!!! SO. What do I do? I'm a big anime fan and I buy anime on DVD for the quality and language choices.
What I'm finding here is that it is far better to download the anime as then IT WILL ACTUALLY PLAY on my computer and TV.
This is what i would like to do. Play DRMed content on any of the devices i own, without doing "illegal" stuff
This is what i would like to do. Play stuff I bought on any of the devices i own, and be able to do LEGAL stuff like write my own player software to be able to play a song backwards looking for satanic messages.
And until they come up with a mind-reading AI to read my intentions and which can determine complexities of fair use as well as the US Supreme Court it is physically impossible for any DRM system not to infringe on legal use.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
If anyone needs an example of this, just go to any game forum and read about DRM subjects or start one. What you'll see is some gamers will say DRM needs to exist because of the rampant illegal copying, and the game companies need to protect their profits.
The trend is growing in games, and it won't be different elsewhere.
Sony and Philips own the Intertrust DRM patents. So, with a standard based on these patents, they will make a lot of money.
I think you need to learn a LOT more about Macrovision and video before you claim it "wasn't obvious to anything but a VCR".
Macrovision is nothing like what you describe as a watermark.
Well I've wrestled with reality for thirty five years doctor, and I'm happy to say I finally won out over it.