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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.
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?
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)
They keep making that typo. They mean Combat Privacy.
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.
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"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
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"
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 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.
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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"?
...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.
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.