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BBC on DRM and Trusted Computing
distantbody writes "This BBC article by Bill Thompson is balanced and concise on the issues of DRM and 'Trusted Computing,' and offers some insights as to why such systems are the wrong path to follow for consumers and businesses alike. From the the article: 'We need to ensure that trusted computing remains under the control of the users and is not used to take away the freedoms we enjoy today ... the flexibility of copyright law is something that should be embraced and not taken away.'"
rms on the subject if someone hasn't read that yet.
Quote "The efforts going into DRM would be much better spent building efficient distribution services, finding business models that are based on trusting your customers, and offering high quality downloads at fair prices. What we want is not so much a trusted computing platform as a trusted customer platform." "The record companies and the film industry need to recognise that most of us, most of the time, will pay a reasonable amount for good quality material" Customer will pay if it is good quality. However, there should be away they make illegal sharing out of the way.
Free Posting on thousands and hundreds cities in World Cities Community
They are right about DRM, by limiting the amount of time a user can view the file, they are just increasing demand for a cracked one.
If you had downloaded something, and it had DRM on it limiting the number of times you could view it or how long it could be viewed - it would just be a hassle, and would cause most people to either go looking or just wait for a unlocked version of it.
Business Voyeur
Okay, so I've asked this before... I'll ask again... (refer to my previous post... )
I had hoped for definitive answers to these questions, but if you'll re-read some of the responses to my post, while thoughtful, they were divergent and inconsistent among themselves. Again I am concerned what the "trusted computing" platform truly means... mostly because it appears to me it is mostly negative for the linux community.
A scenario played out last summer for me with... a local Mom and Pop grocery store kept EVERYTHING on their Windows XP PC, and one day it went toes-up. They were understandably distraught -- all of their business spreadsheets and wedding pictures (over 1G) were on the hard drive and they couldn't get to them. They were prepping the machine to be sent in to be re-imaged. I asked them if they knew that meant they were likely to lose their data. She was almost in tears. I went home, got my Knoppix CD, and with their permission, played... and, recovered ALL of their data and burned it redundantly to CD's.
So I ask, if theirs were a "trusted computing" machine, and I had tried to do the same thing for them with my Knoppix CD, would I have been able to? I'd hate to think this is one (of many) of the things we lose in this "better" world. Help!
(I honestly can't believe the computing world will stand for this, but maybe it's like boiling frogs in water... by the time we realize what's happening it's too late?)
I think hardware based security is something that is needed by government and other organizations that handle sensitive information. That way we wouldn't be hearing about databases being cracked and having millions of people's information leaked. Thats the good part.
The bad part is what it means should trusted computing enter consumer electronics. With DRM it would be like having someone from the MPAA in my living room, and thats something I dont want to happen. While this technology sure has potential, it does need leash to keep it under control. I paid for the machine, so it should do what I want it to do.
Physics is like sex. Sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it
After all, if you have a laptop that will only run programs that have been digitally signed then it will be a lot harder for virus writers to get their malicious code to run.
This is bullshit. You don't special hardware to make an OS that will run signed apps only.
Trusted computing is primarily about digital rights management.
...the BBC is publicly funded and so doesn't need to make a profit. They don't care if people go and download their stuff (in fact, they're soon going to be offering their archives online) because they don't have advertising revenue to lose and have already made their money from everyone in the UK with a TV who pays £120/year to them. I'm sure that a commercial company that actually had to turn a profit would be singing a different tune.
I know they have their faults, but when they need to come through, they really come through, especially on matters of public interest.
I for one welcome our new BBC Overlords, in hopes that they will be a big ally in our struggle to further media distribution on the net.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
BBC on DRM and Trusted Computing
Bill Thompson is the Beebs geeky, slashdotty type technology editor. His articles are not representitive of BBC corporate policy, as the headline seems to imply.
The EFF has been following the DRM issue for quite some time now. See also this 2003 conference on DRM at Berkeley.
If anything Europeans need to fight harder against this stuff because often those arguing against it are arrogant Americans whose argument is often "we do it in the US, therefore you must too". The irony often is that they have a harder time pushing it in the US than elsewhere.
I had a recent experience of this type of thing in teh debate over software patents in the EU.
Well yes, you would expect this kind of behaviour from any zealot. A hygeine zealot will consider one shower a day to be a filthy neglect of your hygeine. That's the nature of a zealot so in a strange way, you're right.
The article makes some fair points about the changes in iTunes but doesn't mention the improvements. I can authorise more computers to play my Music Store tracks than I could before (it was only 3, not it's up to 5). I can stream my music over AirPort.
He does make a fair point though that it can be a slippery slope. Perhaps we need to find ways to stop companies inserting "Everything is subject change" clauses in their contracts?
-- Using the preview button since 2005
You scared me for a second. At first, it looked like it said 'fair and balanced'.
The BBC makes quite a lot of money selling it's footage and selling DVD's and the like.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
It is an interesting twist of fate, though, that a significant fraction of the BBC Enterprise's income come from Black and White footage that the BBC Archives destroyed in the 1970s, but was later recovered by enthusiasts, media history fanatics, broadcasters with a sense of history, etc.
Had DRM existed in the 1960s, virtually everything prior to 1970 would have been lost forever. This would have included virtually all the Doctor Who stories, the BBC coverage of the moon landings, and many other recordings now regarded as historic and of extreme interest.
Fans of The Avengers would also have lost out, as many Catherine Gale episodes were recovered from a landfill site, as were the two known surviving episodes from the first season with Dr. Keel.
No, television today would be poorer, had they had DRM back then. The BBC would appear to have learned the hard way, but nonetheless have learned that copyright cuts both ways. It hurts EVERYONE and not just those supposedly targetted.
Orrin Hatch and American broadcasters have never really experienced the devastating losses that can result from a single bad decision. (Well, at least, not in broadcasting. The US has suffered many losses due to bad decisions in other areas of life.) Their refusal to recognise the lessons demonstrated so clearly by others is frightening. Faulty policies, through ignorance, can be excused. But there is no ignorance here. They know perfectly well what others have experienced, and either through arrogance or contempt, do not make any effort to avoid repeating those experiences here in the US.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
I don't think the urgency of this inevitable erosion of consumer and personal human rights has dawned on congress, which will be the only means by which this is stopped.
End user ignornace will result in widespread proliferation of such devices, and how long will it be before installers refuse to work unless your "TPM" is activated?
I think the key passage from the article is:
It will not work because of the fundamental flaw at the heart of the system: in order for the purchaser to view the content it has to be unlocked. Once it is unlocked then someone, somewhere, will figure out a way to make a copy of the unlocked version. And once an unlocked version leaks onto the network it will be uncontrollable.
The other day, when Slashdot did a story on the Wiki L. Lessig was using to create a new version of his book... I read through his section on Trusted Computing and all I could think about is precisely the problem described above. There is no way to allow users to listen to/read/watch content that prevents that user from generating a copy of it. Have any of the trusted computing advocates addessed this issue? Is there some party line from the Lessig camp that explains how such a system could possibly protect digital content?
If there's an argument to be made, I'm ready to hear it. Otherwise... all this talk about the New Age of Copyright just seems kinda silly.
Lets not use the language of the opposition.
By using the words "trusted computing" they are trying to vehicle a certain sub-text, just like when certain people use "tax relief" instead of "tax cuts" or "death tax" instead of "tax on estates of over 1 million dollars".
George Lakoff would have a lot to say about this...
Treehugger? Treehugger... Treehugger!
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
If the device includes a private key known by the manufacturer and not known by the customer, the device is trustable by the manufacturer and not anymore by the customer.
There are no user-friendly feature which requires such a key, and there are no way to take your right away without such a key.
--
Go Debian!
... but also making a valid point.
Unfortunately--at least on /., anyway--the loud opinions of those "freeloaders" usually makes rational discussion of copyrights, intellectual property, and DRM meaningless. You can't get past the "RIAA IS EVIL AND I AM A FREEDOM FIGHTER" mindset. I think we'll start seeing some real progress and some valid compromises made by both sides if we can get past the reactionary attitudes that really only exist to shift blame away from downloaders and onto some faceless corporate entity, because demonization is easier than acknowledgement of one's own guilt.
The truth is that the portrayal of both sides is usually wrong. Most companies aren't big, evil, cigar-smoking Republicans sitting in dark rooms plotting economic takeovers to maintain their monopolies. They're just companies trying to protect their media content because of the explosion of piracy. And pirates aren't freedom fighters riding the wave of a big cultural movement. Most are just freeloaders looking to get stuff without having to pay for it (it's basic human nature).
So far, iTunes has been a big success, so apparently a lot of consumers have no problem with DRM and online legal music-downloading. So to be quite honest, I don't know why people still complain about an "obsolete business model" when record labels have already embraced services like Napster and iTunes. Legal online music is already here, which makes the argument for piracy appear even more self-serving.
i didn't know it was the duty of software writers to enforce the law.
let's look at cars. speeding is prohibited. should cardesigners make it impossible to speed?
you're not allowed to kill. should bullet makers make bullets that don't kill?
then why....
Privacy is terrorism.
Most of the major content producers I have talked to about DRM services want to get their content out there to customers for reasonable prices and fair levels of control, the problem is that these major studios are for the most part middlemen.
The reason they require DRM for their online services is the spaghetti of contracts the entertainment industry has built up for themselves of the past several decades. For example if one studio released an album online unprotected, and the artists who created the content can demonstrate that piracy caused a loss in revinue, the content provider can be held legally liable for that loss.
As long as these studios took reasonable steps to prevent this piracy from occuring, their collective asses are covered, even if the DRM scheme used is cracked down the road.
While an editor he does represent the BBC's public opinion in these matters.
Plus note the BBC will offer most of its content for download for UK residents (those who fund it) from 2006 onwards. For a television network to offer downloads of its perviously run content (who has downloaded Enterprise or Buffy torrents because they missed the show despite such behaviour being illegal?) this is a serious step forward!
Digital rights management is about controlling the data on your machine and deciding who has the rights to run it.
Is there any problem implementing any level of access control lists (hint: file systems), application integrity checks (hint: firewalls), protected system files (hint: user accounts) in software? No.
DRM is designed to resist tampering by you, the consumer. Is it created because today you have total power over your data, you have raw and complete access to them. Trusted computing is going to take it away from you and hand it over to a machine that others trust. It is all about disempowering you.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
If more people would just slow their buying down it would be a short time that the impact would been in the pockets of these corporations. The MPAA and RIAA both need to have some layoffs, lack of money from sales slow down, and to support the boycott, stop what they are calling piracy too, then they would have less money, and no grounds for legal action. The trick is to start now and not later. Using the money, your money aganist you.
Other areas to slow down on:
Computer Hardware.
Computer Software.(proprietary).
It all matters and the money will talk. Its everyone's right, not to buy if they wish not to, use that right if you don't like where the future is going.
Why should the poor buy this ?, they work two or more jobs just to be controled ?. If I could tell them, I would say to them, keep your money !, buying computers and the software for them ?, is no good seeing the future that these corporations have in mind. Pay to own nothing, pay to be locked-in, pay to have no rights over what you buy with your money; does not sound like things the poor should be buying into.
In short: DRM protection laws violate the constitution by both granting legislative/regulatory authority to non-congressional entities, and by denying due process of law to individuals being screwed out of perfectly legal fair use by DRM.
If you want to talk left wing.. let's talk about how DRM turns the US into a communist nation. It undermines personal property rights by placing individual's purchased property in control of centralized ownership, and puts the economy under the command of that same centralized ownership by allowing affirmative regulation of other economic sectors by content cartels.
1. Copyright establishes monopolies which are counter to capitalist tenets of fair competition. With proper scope though it is beneficial. With the current scope, however, it harms society so a wealthy few can become wealthier.
"Allowing anybody to restrict illegal copying of their materials is evil! Never mind that the GPL also limits your usage, yet it's okay, while DRM is just plain evil because it doesn't mean you get to rip people off and not pay them."
2. DRM is not evil because it prevents illegal filesharing, it is evil because, with drm protection laws preventing free market balance of end user rights, it prevents an infinity of perfectly legal fair uses without the required judicial review, and allows copyright holders to write their own copyright law, giving a private entity legislative power against the constitution.
3. I hear this "property rights" argument from copyright extremists like you all the time, but there is an overlap here between copyright law and personal property rights of individuals.
Copyright law was set up so that individual uses could only be taken away from the consumer if the rightsholder found economic incentive to do so.
Anticircumvention law protecting DRM allows copyright holders to rob the public of uses which have no economic impact on them, and without proper judicial review of copyright law to determine if they even have the right to do so.
... see the article at Secure Enterprise.
You are making the assumption, wrongly I might add, that in the US all TV is free. In the US only the UHF/VHF broadcasts are free , and even then they may not be.
This means that in the US if you live in a large metro area you may be able to get the following channels for (Gratis- They aren't really free will explain in a second);
1. FOX
2. ABC
3. NBC
4. CBS
5. UPN
6. WB
7. PAX (Only in some metro areas)
8. PBS
Besides the above stations it is common in large metro areas to have 1 or two independant stations which are typically either religous based or QVC like.
All of the so called free channels , except PBS, earn money by either 1.) Selling and showing Advertisements and/or 2.) Infomertials (1/2 hr -1 hr Adverts designed to mimic a regular TV show). In addaition to the adverts most broadcast shows also have prod placing- This is where a retailer/manufacture has paid the producer of the show to include their product in shots thus increase demand for the product. This is why typically broadcast shows have the characters using MACS even though only a very small percentage of US computer users use or own a MAC. Sears also does this with ABC's HomeMakeover show.
In the US if you do not live in a metro area you may only recieve 1 or 2 channels through VHF/UHF broadcast and in some remote areas no channels at all can be recieved clearly.
Now you have probably noticed that the channel list seems very small compared to what is exported to other countries. Where for example can one watch "South Park" (Comedy Central), "Sex in The City" (HBO/TBS), or "The Sopranos" (HBO). These shows air on either Cable or Satalite TV. In the US if you want to watch more than what you can recieve through UHF/VHF you have to either Pay to get TV through either Cable or Sat (DISH/Direct TV). The fee for cable in most areas is around $50 ($600 USD per year) - $75 per month for extended Cable. Most Cable companies will offer a $15-$20 per month for the local broadcast channels + all the shopping channels + the public access channels (Educational TV for the most part) + a news channel or two. One should note that extended basic does not include HBO annd other "Premium" Channels and those must be purchased on top of the $50 a month fee. The Sat carriers will tend to charge 35 (SBC Basic 60 Channel DISH fee) to 39.99 (Direct TV lowest package) for a number of channels (120). Again these do not include all of the channels and most additional channels cost more money. To make matters worse most Sat and Cable channels still show Adverts and Have infomertials.
Unlike the UK the US carriers can and do raise rates without giving any reason. If they want more money they can just raise rates. They also tend to change programing (Available Channels) at the whim of the management of the carrier company.
surely you're referring to the plastic way the law's been bent to serve to privileged evil elite?
Rich people are mostly immoral thieves.
That was a very clear and concise explanation of what this is all about; bravo!
I remember sigs. Oh, a simpler time!
This is not flamebait by any means...mod this up.
So....why are you here?
I mean, it's a tax imposed as a result of death, is it not? Though the objection to it is that it taxes things that have already been taxed, so maybe "double tax" or "ridiculous tax" would be more appropriate...
Wait, I'm off topic, never mind.
...it's really a sad day for America when we require a goddamn ACT OF CONGRESS to make our DVD players work properly. ~
"So far, iTunes has been a big success, so apparently a lot of consumers have no problem with DRM and online legal music-downloading." http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=19991114
It's a tax that occurs after death, but it is imposed as a result of accruing assets, some of which have not already been taxed, e.g. dividends on stocks and shares, some of which have now been exempted from taxation. In any case double taxation is common, e.g. sales taxes on purchases made with already taxed income. AFAIK the IRS doesn't allow you to discount the sales tax paid on every item purchased against your federal taxes. Also you could argue that things such as hunting licences are a form of tax on hunting, etc.
Some of us simply do not believe copyright law is just, and think that it is draconian and absurd.
Obeying laws, even absurd ones, is generally good, in order to avoid contempt for the law. Unfortunately, in the case of copyright, obeying the law means empowering the lobbyists that keep the law alive and strengthen it.
The best way is to avoid copyrighted works, and when they are not avoided, at least do not pay those who push for the continuation of the copyright regime.
Piracy is name-calling, and the reason copyright infringement is so common is because people do not find the copyright deal reasonable anymore, ever since the digital revolution.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all laws into contempt. -- Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Unfortunately, due to this law and others, law is already in contempt by the vast majority of the public...
It does so by allowing vendors to take back things you have already purchased (like the TiVo and Apple examples) and by making it harder to keep the works you purchase as you change computers every three to five years and find incompatibilities or changes in operating system or application vendors locking you out of your own property.
I have yet to see where any of the entities involved with trusted computing want to password protect everything... they seem to want to give users the option to protect their own data, and allow content providers to protect their files.
I doubt a local Mom and Pop grocery store would want to use these features, so I doubt they will ever be required to. Microsoft does not want to be known as the company that loses everyone's vital business data.
Have you ever checked the prices they charge? Comparing prices for online music with the price of store bought CDs one gets the impression that the manufacture and distribution of CDs has a negative cost.
I would gladly pay for online music if the price was in the same order of magnitude as the cost the distributors have. But when they charge something like $1/song, and I must pay for all the downloading cost, something seems basically unfair.
The "business model" is still obsolete, it's done in the same way John D. Rockefeller used to do business. It's a cartel (or a "trust", as it was called in the late 19th century) that fixes prices and imposes artificial barriers to competition. Things like the broadcast bit and closed binary formats have the same use as the different train gauges the "robber barons" of the 19th century used to push independent railroads out of business.
No, the media cartel uses unethical business methods, and should be broken up. No new legislation is needed, any honest government could get rid of the ??AA using the same laws that were used to break up Standard Oil and AT&T. Meanwhile, what you call "piracy" I call "freedom fighting". Happy Boston Tea Party!
This comment alone from the BBC is worth this year's license fee. (Non-UK readers - the BBC is funded by a compulsory annual license for each household owning a tv ~150USD. You can end up in prison if you own a TV and have no license.)
The sad thing about Trusted Computing is that copyright enforcement is probably the one security problem it does not provide significant leverage for. Copyright is break once run anywhere.
This is not true, because efforts to impose "trusted computing" on all hardware by force of law. Even if an encryption scheme is broken, the media material could have embedded noise in it with a digital signature information and hardware could be mandated not to process any digital media or information unless it's properly signed.
There is no way to allow users to listen to/read/watch content that prevents that user from generating a copy of it
True. However, a trusted computing system can prevent access to the unencrypted digital form. The player software would disable any non-encrypted digital outputs. The OS would not allow an unsigned driver to load. Getting a driver signed would involve signing a legally binding agreement to honor DRM.
Analog I/O's will still be free and unecrypted content could still be brought into the system. However, one could envision a time when those go away too. Analog video might only be available inside the monitor. Analog audio might be available only in the speaker cables.
No, it's an estate tax. Not every person who dies gets it. Only people with over 1$ million.
The birth tax though - because of the deficit every newborn owns 33K$ - is imposed to every person born.
Treehugger? Treehugger... Treehugger!
I just thought I'd throw in my own $0.02 worth with a tale of my own experience.
When my brother and I were kids, there was a program on television which we both enjoyed (this would have been around 1985 or so). There was a two-part episode at the end of the first season and we taped the first part with the idea of recording the second part the next week. Well, the program was pre-empted by various things every week for the next several months (e.g. President Reagan, football, etc.). Finally, the second part was broadcast and of course, we taped it. We still have the tape (the show was cancelled in its second season). Since it does not appear that this program will ever be available on DVD or other home video format, I transferred the recorded video to DVD using my computer with TV tuner card. I made one copy for myself and one for my brother.
This incident represents what I believe will become a major problem with current copyright laws and the use of Digital Restrictions Management and Treacherous Computing. In the future, it may no longer be possible to preserve the past (the future's past) due to the short-sightedness of the content owners. Using the broadcast flag would prevent recording. Even if the recording were allowed, it would prevent me from transferring to an archival media (DVD or it's next generation, whatever that may be). New DVD burners are being made that prevent one from transferring a VHS movie with Macrovision to DVD (HP's old Carly Fiorina trumpeted this at the last CES). Instead, shows could be broadcast and disappear into the ether, never to be seen again. Of course, it could be argued that most shows broadcast today are released to DVD soon after the end of the season, but what if they are not? As an example, Malcolm in the Middle -- season 1 was released on DVD a few years ago, but where is season 2? Although this is a silly example, it illustrates why individuals have archived broadcasts in the past and should be allowed to do so in the future.
Why will I not be able (at least as the law currently stands) to buy a device that will record HDTV to the next-gen DVD format (whether that be Blu-Ray, HD-DVD, or HVD)? This would represent nothing more than the status quo as it now exists with analog TV and VCR's.
Furthermore, a principal of abandonment needs to be established in copyright law (i.e. If the content has not been sold or actively promoted for sale for a length of time, it should enter the public domain).
Trust is a two-way street. In general, I trust those who trust me. How can the public trust the content creation (recycling?) companies after they have abused our trust for so long?
The US is no longer the land of the free, it's the land of the copyright lawyer and the media companies who own senators *cough* Hatch *cough*
Free speech my arse!
#include <sig.h>
"From the the article"
:)
Come on timmy, get some skills man
Is this technology related to the intel platforms only or is it also going to be present on PPC, Alpha, MIPS, etc? ie. is it req'd by law on every computer or is it just required on new x86s/64s?.. I'd much rather stay with ppc anyway, risc chips are way better...
It asks the TPM for the key, and after assuring the TPM that it is the valid requester of the key, the TPM coughs up it up to the application. Now guess where that secret key is residing? In ram in the clear! It has to be in the clear so the application can decrypt the files.
a) It is living in its own memory space, only available to the requesting application. The OS must enforce this to be certified (and the BIOS will verify the OS, and the trusted computing root will verify the BIOS), and it will not let debuggers or any other software access it either.
b) The physical memory may be encrypted to protect against physical listeners (e.g. a shim between the RAM and the motherboard). Basicly, all data to/from RAM would pass through a crypto unit, just like an encrypted container on disk.
You obviously don't know enough about how it will work. I'm sorry to say, but it is a well thought out system which, barring bugs, is damn strong.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
The trouble is, DRM is a (poor) technical fix for a social problem
Maybe law should be _in synnc_ with the society they purpote to structure and serve.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
(DISCLAIMER : I do not know how the TCPA cpu will handle protected file.) I do not know what sort of "encryption" layer will the CPU do, but I doubt this will be something complicated (If it was a slow encryption then imagine the playback time). If this is something which is hackable, then the solution is simple : Keep forever a 3Ghz Pentium somewhere without trusted computing then remove the HD from the trusted computing PC, put it as slave HD in the normal PC, hack all files trough, play back, burn on CD whatever. And for non-protected file you can directly burn them.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
The device will ensure that only the genuine reader will be able to access the content of the book by demodulating the photons emitted by the book printed using a special patented process.
Initial trials have shown the product to work well, but concurrent technology from other publishers and technology giants such as Adobe propose different optical systems, requiring a reader to be fitted with multiple layers of technology, most incompatible with each other.
"The issue", explains Adobe's DRMopt+ Chief Researcher John Begood, "is that each system is influencing the output of the other. This will be a tough one to solve, but at the moment, it's low priority as that choice is in the hands of the user."
Shares in both Microsoft Press and Adobe International hvae increase by respectively 12 and 8 percent following the annoucement.
Crikey! That's a first. He normally spouts the most unbelieavable, ill-informed guff...
The real basic flaw in DRM is that it alienates legitimate users: it's harder for them to listen to their files, harder to play their games or use their software than for those who just get cracked copies.
Buy a song from iTune (btw, the phonetic pronoucination of "tune" in French is slang for "money", just thought I would share that) and it won't play on anything else than Apple software or Apple hardware. It means you get vendor lock-in as each publishing house devise its own rules about what is acceptable and what is not.
People can't buy from anyone else once they start with one a publising house; not because they don't have the illusion of choice, but because it becomes completely impractical to have more than a single, maybe two for those courageous enough, music suppliers.
2 out of 3 times when I buy a game with my hard-earned money, I run into issues when installing or trying to play it because of DRM.
You then have to spend hours in the user forums, publisher's knowledge bases or unofficial websites to find out that the game won't play because the plublisher doesn't like that particular CD-R/W in your machine or something equally studpid.
In the end, I often have to resort to a pirated copy or a crack to get the game to play on my machine. A game that I bought in its original form!
How do you think I feel after spending all that money, all that time, all that frustration trying to do the right thing because I understand that people who work on these products need to make a living?
I feel cheated, alienated, and I'm really not enclined any longer to buy a DRM product just to try it: ended the CD purchases of groups I don't know, ended the games that I might like.
But I won't download them for free either: I just don't play games anymore, and I get and pay my music from people who actually "get it", like http://www.magnatune.com/.
Older PCs will be in demand if this actually passes. Imagine a P3-800 selling for $1000. :P
Then we shall watch encrypted movies like peoples in Matrix. And keep unlocked version in our mind.
At least, until someone figure out how to DRM our thoughts.
You can't make an analog copy of a computer program you are running by filming your screen with a camcorder.
So TC will only fully protect programs and their associated data files (provided part of this data is not displayed on the screen, and it usually is true)
This why MS will be the main winner with TC.
"Perhaps we need to find ways to stop companies inserting "Everything is subject change" clauses in their contracts?"
Considering that a contract is an agreement between two (or more) parties specifying acceptable behaviour, an open-ended clause like that should be illegal since it makes the whole concept of a pre-arranged agreement void.
Blank until
"DRM protection laws violate the constitution by both granting legislative/regulatory authority to non-congressional entities, and by denying due process of law to individuals being screwed out of perfectly legal fair use by DRM"
/., so these laws don't violate the constitution at all (sadly).
Er, no. It isn't anything of the sort, since anyone citing DRM protection laws must work within the terms of the legislation and regulations; they are not free to rework the definitions, as you are on
Any restrictions added by DRM are protected under contractual law, since the willful purchase of DRM protected material implies a contract that was accepted at time of sale, even without an express contract being signed. Accepting a TOS from a supplier sets it in stone.
"[Copyright] undermines personal property rights by placing individual's purchased property in control of centralized ownership..."
Subject to the terms of service or other implied or express agreements made at time of sale. If you don't want to surrender your rights, don't enter into the agreement, it's as simple as that.
"Copyright establishes monopolies which are counter to capitalist tenets of fair competition."
You are assuming that "equivalent" means the same as "identical", which is an extremely narrow definition of "competition" (and not the generally accepted one). Two different punk bands on different labels are equivalent, not identical, but they are still competing for sales. The fact that the music industry is a cartel (NOT a monopoly) engaged in price fixing has very little to do with copyright, and is almost entirely due to the major labels (a) being the only significant source of capital and (b) controlling the promotional channels through payola and preventing true alternatives advertising effectively to the mass market.
"...with drm protection laws preventing free market balance of end user rights, it prevents an infinity of perfectly legal fair uses without the required judicial review..."
There aren't an "infinity of perfectly legal fair uses". Fair use is quite limited and very specifically codified (try reading copyright law sometime), and does not extend to individuals making themselves alternative distribution outlets on a whim (since, reasonably, $1 for a song does not represent a substantial capital investment warranting control of a work). Thus, DRM is not preventing "free market balance" any more than existing copyright law, even if it is inconvenient.
"Copyright law was set up so that individual uses could only be taken away from the consumer if the rightsholder found economic incentive to do so."
Wrong. Again, read the copyright law (unamended, if you like). There is no mention of "the consumer"; copyright is granted automatically and IS NOT CONDITIONAL on economic incentive or any other factor. Copyright is exercised (or not) at the sole discretion of the author of the work or duely appointed representatives. It was created to allow authors time to profit from works, yes, but (as the GPL demonstrates) potential profit is not the ONLY condition determining the application of copyright, the law was NEVER worded the way you suggest.
"Anticircumvention law protecting DRM allows copyright holders to rob the public of uses which have no economic impact on them, and without proper judicial review of copyright law to determine if they even have the right to do so."
iTMS permits sharing over a local network, which actually exceeds fair use provisions. The terms under which a work is distributed is, however, a the subject of a contract (either spelled out in the TOS or implied by the presence of DRM) which the customer is free to accept or reject at time of purchase; if DRM is a condition of the sale, you as a consumer are free to reject the offer or challenge it's validity by launching a civil suit (which I doubt would be successful, since the offer was not accepted under duress). But if you have accepted the terms of the sale, then choose to reneg on your part of the agreement by defeating the DRM rather than using legal means then a penalty applies and that's when judicial review comes in.
That's just the way it is...whether I agree with it is another matter.
Blank until
I guess being knifed to death is okay.
I think it would be treacherous to live in a world of a billion connected devices withOUT secure computing.
..., and lastly DRM.
Trusted Computing simply secures the platform for which services run. These services can be VPN, APN, SingleSign On, Secure Browser/Login,
DRM is merely hardened by Trusted Computing. If the content owner implements a policy to require trusted platform access to a movie, ebook, cartoon, chatroom, etc, then you will need to have it, because the creator requests it. Otherwise, you are free to not watch that movie, or participate in that chatroom or read the ebook.
This secure platform doesn't do anything except remove your right to "choose" to be a thief. So the only people complaining are thieves who want something for free. And they are complaining to the wrong group.
Trusted Computing does not equal DRM.
DRM equals DRM.
Trusted Computing platforms will create the possibility of a slew of new services that have nothing to do with DRM. Portable authentication, epassports, VPN, secure storage, etc. With Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPPA, etc. already on board, your medical records will be more thoroughly protected.
Without trusted computing, if someone were to hack the server at the hospital and change your medical records to prescribe something you were allergic to, this would be more devastating than a physical attack.
Though DRM is a vital use of Trusted Computing, I guess we should not ignore the potential of TC in other aspect like secure storage, remote attestation and process isolation. The major factor which makes people to think it is not worth what it say's it can is because of unavailability of TC enabled solutions. Not many companies are into TC and those companies who are into TC do not have a complete TC enabled solutions. Many of them does not have process isolation feature built in it. This feature must be inbuilt in the operating system. I guess we all have to wait for the M$ longhorn OS to release (provided they do it). What do you guyz say about this !!!!