Slashdot Mirror
DRM Advocate Violates DRM
Alsee writes "A year and a day after arguing DRM was good for business, acceptable to consumers, and necessary in today's world, JupiterMedia VP and Research Director Michael Gartenberg comes face to face with DRM reality, downloads a circumvention tool, violates DRM, and blogs about his MS Reader DRM issues being solved ... permanently. Perhaps now he would be interested in the EFF Action Center where Americans can quickly and easily ask your Representative to co-sponsor the Digital Media Consumers' Rights Act."
... such an irony. Its like advocating for death penalty and finds yourself in a electric chair with the executioner asking you "Medium Rare or Well done?"
In US, you can easily buy enough major firearms to wipe out your neighbourhood but a few little fireworks are banned.
I'm not surprised.
Haaapy Friiiday.
As rare as can be... just a touch on both sides please.
Most important piece of it is in the final (and shortest) section.
Still, needs to be done.
To quote Mike from his original blog last year:
"Our research shows clearly that DRM is only an issue to consumers when it's technology they keep bumping into."
That remains true. His problem now w/ the MS DRM is that he's bumping into it. If the DRM was improved so that it would get out of his way, he would still have no issue with it.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
1. force drm down our throats
2. circumvent drm to do it
3. ????????
4. profit!!!
Note that he still feels DRM is a necessary evil, just so long as there's a way to circumvent it...
I'll turn into a supernova and burn up everything. Well I'll turn into a black little hole and you'll turn into string.
So, the one who said it was good now sees it through the same light as the rest of us.
Show this to your friends and family that don't know what a real hacker is
this probably is not the only guy doing this. It is just like celebrities that tell you to not do drugs, right after they finish clearing the bong. I really wouldn't be surprised if Bionic Bill himself has violated DRM at some point in time.
-- Yes, I work for the government, and yes I am watching you.
You can be for DRM, but against shitty implementations thereof?
No wait, that would involve too much thought and judgement. Black and white is so much easier.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Oh ho ho... we've gone from praising DRM to circumventing it, haven't we? This is exactly the problem with DRM, when the DRM is so bad it restricts the legitimate use of the media it's protecting. I like how he praises DRM but says it's a "necessary evil" and is willing to circumvent it when it inhibits him.
Sorry Mike, you can't have your DRM and circumvent it when it's in the way too y'know.
unable to resolve function slashdot.sig(), aborting...
This is why believing in any cause strongly is dangerous- hypocrisy. It sounds like he has the rights to the content but because of whatever technical glitch he can't access it now and unsurprisingly techinical support is not helpful. So this brings me to the question of ethics. Is it ethical of him to circumvent the protection for his covenience? I think so. That being said, I think the real threat is when applications like the one utilized to convert the documents to unprotected PDFs are no longer LEGAL to produce or distribute. That's what I think, any feedback is welcome.
It takes all types in this world. I sincerely mean it... This is just my perspective.
To the agencies and get him arrested for violation of the DMCA?
Finally, a GOOD use for the DMCA... putting people behind bars that support the DMCA.
Mod me flamebait, if you want... but DON'T mod this funny! I'm being serious...
-=Lothsahn=-
Re-read the comments he made: From the first article, last sentence "DRM is a necessary technology that need not burden consumers, tech vendors or content providers."
From the second one, last sentence. "Good case study for firms on HOW NOT TO IMPLEMENT DRM solutions."
He didn't make a 180 degree turn on the issue. He was critical of this particular implementation of DRM (and the general cluelessness of Microsoft tech support when it came to his esoteric issue).
It's a small step for him in a better direction, perhaps, but he hasn't changed his position from reading those remarks.
"What do you think?" "I think 'What, do you think?!'"
The blog entry (TFBE?) highlights a huge problem with DRM schemes. You legitimately obtain a copy of a protected work. Years later, something breaks or becomes obsolute. Now you're screwed, because you can't use the protected work that you paid for. You have two choices: buy another copy, or break the DRM. But the latter makes you criminal under the DMCA.
This madness has to stop!
If God had meant for man to see the sunrise, He would have scheduled it later in the day.
Advocating and promoting the use of DRM - $1,000,000
Blogging about your own circumvention of it - $10
Getting caught in the act, and ridiculed by the millions that view Slashdot - Priceless.
-Imidazole
Hilarious Office Prank!
Did he just break the DMCA, in a very public way? Or is this not the case.
It sure looks like the did the sort of thing that folks do, that can get them in huge trouble -- he attempted to circumvent a technological device there to protect Copyright.
Is he really so dumb as to blog about it?
http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/when_to_
And now, to blast away his last "DRM is good" thoughts :
Microsoft should sue him for his illegal activities.
You know something is bad when even the advocates hate it
I do see the irony here, but he's not really contradicting himself. His point in the original article was that simply because some implementations of DRM are poorly done and make it unecessarily hard for the user does not mean that *all* DRM is bad. He gives the example of iTunes music store as a relatively acceptable form of DRM. So his current gripe is that microsoft's DRM technology falls into the first category - poorly done DRM that prevents legitimate use.
We may disagree with his analysis ( I do ) but he is not being inconsistent.
He still supports DRM, but only "good" implementations of it.
What he does not get is that DRM *has* to be intrusive to work. DRM is based on having someone other than the owner of the machine control the data on that machine. If you want to move that data to another machine, you have to request permission and it had to be hard to get pewrmission, otherwise people will take advantage of you and copy the data more times than allowed.
DRM is all about control. Control does not work unless you show them who is the boss early on.
An interesting side effect of this is what it is teaching Americans. It is teaching them that they only way they can do what they want in society on a day to day basis is to break the law.
Contemptable laws generate contempt for ALL laws.
Or as Macalypse the Yonger put it...
"Imposition of order = Escalation of Disorder".
"Trademarks are the heraldry of the new feudalism."
He's rather realizing the error of his ways. Later he'll realize how evil DRM actually is.
this is just crap FUD about the DMCA. The DMCA does nothing of the sort.. it makes illegal the distribution of tools for circumventing copyright protection mechanisms... it does *not* criminalize the violation of copyright, as that is ALREADY ILLEGAL. I can't believe this is modded 'insightful'... more like -1 misleading.
As far as I read this, he read content that he legally owned. He did use a different piece of software than the "correct" s/w, but that required him to own a copy of the correct software. He did not redistribute it.
Is this really a violation?
It's certainly a poor advertisement for MicroSoft. Apparently security isn't their only weakness. ;-)
.. paranoid crackpot leftover from the days of Amiga.
I'm surprised this wasn't modded funny just for that one statement.
Mod me flamebait, if you want... but DON'T mod this funny! I'm being serious...
Usually that ends up being a +5 funny...
I am not in anyway affiliated with Max Cannon
Oh ho ho ho, it's about time he got a taste of his own medicine. Now he knows what it's like to be on the recieving end of DRM that restricts the legitimate use of media, media that customers paid for.
Notice how fast it the DRM was defeated as well. From TFA, it took Michael only a few minutes to convert the DRM-ed eBooks over to PDF. Compared to the tech support nightmare that he went through, it's obvious why DRM is and always will be, a doomed technology.
DRM does nothing except hinder the legit and paid-for use of media by honest customers, and mildly thwarts those who are determined to break it. Hopefully (but don't count on it), this will be a wake-up call to anyone seeking to implement a DRM system. When one of DRM's great apologists breaks out the "illegal" tools, you know there's a problem.
unable to resolve function slashdot.sig(), aborting...
Yep, just another example of a "technical" person being stumbled by DRM.
...and these crazy companies actually think my mom is going to be able to figure this out? Sheesh, right. Remember, 95% of the people out there have no clue what DRM is or even what it means. They just want to take that cool video over to their friends house and watch it. DRM prevents that. And that's why DRM will ultimately fail in the long run.
And don't give me the "implemented wrongly" line. DRM's purpose is to prevent playback on unauthorized devices. In other words, restricting playback to a small set of devices that the purchaser owns. That is, absolutely, opposite of what people generally do with their media. People share. They take it to friends houses. They play it in churches. They show it at Elks club meetings. *ALL* of those things are eliminated with DRM.
Yout just wait...once the general public can not do what I describe above, there will be a minor revolt.
Apple's DRM, in the iTunes Music Store, is hardly there at all. It's "nudge nudge wink wink" DRM, it's "honor system" DRM. They should call it "digital rights hinting". Apple's old "Rip, Mix, Burn" ads pretty much tell you how to remove DRM from their files, if you're not prepared to use any of the widely-available HYMN variants. Just... change the order a little. Yeh, you take a one-time hit in the audio quality... but if you care about audio quality why aren't you buying and ripping CDs instead of lossy-compressed files anyway?
DRM is acceptable when it's just strong enough to remind you that this isn't freely redistributable content, but not strong enough to actually prevent you from breaking it when you need to.
That's what Microsoft doesn't get. That's what Michael Gartenberg doesn't get. Strong DRM will inevitably screw you over. If Apple used strong DRM in iTunes I'd have been really pissed when I ran out of authorizations due to a bad disk that forced me to reinstall my OS a couple of times... because even though Apple was willing to reset all my computers AGAIN, it took a while, and having all my music burned onto audio CDs meant it wasn't actually held hostage by the DRM...
That's why Apple's DRM works. Because it doesn't. If it did, it wouldn't.
Good DRM = Good. Don't try to go around it, that's bad.
Bad DRM = Bad. It's good to circumvent it if you need to.
Um, so who gets to decide what's good and what's bad?
In the words of Homer, "Ummn, I don't know, the Coast Guard?"
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
QUOTE: "Good case study for firms on HOW NOT TO IMPLEMENT DRM solutions."
His complaint was with Microsoft's brain-dead implementation of DRM. His opinion that DRM is a requirement for future business remains unchanged.
https://tips.fbi.gov/
Let him get the taste...
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
the market chose to buy microsoft, look what happened.
No, you're wrong. We're in a war here, don't you get it?
You're either with us, or with the DRM terrorists!
My question is: how in the world does Amber LIT survive? Sure, they plead with users on their website to only use the conversion tool on content that they have legally purchased, but according to DMCA et al, users don't have the right to convert content to other formats. And creating tools to circumvent DRM is explicitly criminal according to the DMCA. So how long before Amber gets a cease-and-desist? And then what will our friend Mr. Gartenberg do?
YAZBS (Yet Another Zonk Blogging Story)
There is another kind of evil which we must fear most, and that is the indifference of good men. -- Boondock Saints
One of the bigger gripes i have with DRM is that it lets the seller decide what you can do with your own product. Often the seller is mostly interested in money. When the customer becomes the sellers biggest enemy you know something is wrong.
DRM is a tool to create a physical market out of a purely abstract one. DRM lets the companies make media you bought be impossible (in theory) to copy and only be at one place at a time. It can place all kinds of fictional physical boundaries up.
I think using DRM is living in denial. People have X money to spend and the battle isn't between the media companies and the pirates, its between the clothes companies, the mobile operators, insurance, utilities and so on. Even the most succelsful DRM in the world isnt going to put more money in the pockets of the media companies, people just dont have them or rather put htem on something else. Their valuation of the product is way below the industrys.
Thats why DRM is such a drag. It wont solve anything. All it does is making media technology a big PITA.
HTTP/1.1 400
I'll never understand content companies. When it comes to dealing with pirated content, it's not enough that the legitimate product costs more. It also needs to be less reliable and have fewer features. What kind of moronic CEO's are these? It's like they do everything in their power to encourage people to spurn legitimate content and turn to pirated content. Where do these idiots come from?
Good case study for firms on HOW NOT TO IMPLEMENT DRM solutions. Wrong. Which generates more revenue: selling people the same content over and over again each time they buy a new computer, or giving it to them once and letting them migrate to any other machine for the rest of their life? He is obviously forgetting the main purpose of DRM: to make consumers pay for the same content over and over again! I'd say Microsoft's DRM is optimally designed to acheive Microsoft's goals: derive continuing revenue from something you used to pay for only once.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
I sincerely hope that someone, somewhere, takes him to court over this. It would publically shed light on how ridiculous the DMCA really is, and we'd have a better chance at fighting it. Or we'd at least have a precedent set that allows us to crack things we legally own.
He is right up there with the anti-handgun advocates who own guns for their own protection -- he wants everybody else to follow rules that he feels he is personaly above. I say we contact the appropriate copyright protection organisation and have him audited, since he has already publicly admitted to breaking the law (DMCA)!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Is it some kind of "windows-only" replacement for PDF?
Wow, after reading the sited Digital Media Consumers' Rights Act, I am quite impressed with will happen with CD media being sold. If it doesn't conform to the redbook standard, then it doesn't get the Compact Disc logo, or with the logo it must contain a warning to consumers. I can see two things happening if this were to pass, people buy less of these non-redbook cds and they mostly disappear from the market. This all depends on how well the public is informed, and how important money is to these companies [distributors/labels]
DRM needs to become commonplace so that companies can see it doesn't work. Once cracks and cracking tools become widespread enough that one Joe Average can say to another "oh you just need to download this program and it will work ok" it will become apparent that DRM in any usable form is able to be circumvented.
Once DRM becomes nearly useless, the incentive to include it with products declines, and we begin to see more and more DRM-free software. Even though we can see it's useless, the computer world needs to make these mistakes so it can learn from them and hopefully, not repeat them.
You can't, because the publisher can't be bothered to release it (although 'they say' the former will get a re-release late this year, maybe, possibly). The latter has never been released on DVD, and it doesn't look like this will change any time soon.
Under 'normal' copyright of 14 years (hell, just double it and round up to 30), these items woulbe be able to go into the public domain where they'd see a new life, but instead they rot to hell in some studio's vault.
Yeah, right.
Please, for the love of the cause, quit asking people to use a form to send their Congressperson spam. They don't read it and it sends a poor message about the kinds of people who care about the issue.
Instead, type out a personal letter, put it in the envelope, stamp it, and send it. The time investment is considerably larger and I can assure you that it doesn't go unnoticed.
I've had the opprotunity to work in the offices of several legislators, and phone calls (those were with a state legislator) & e-mails were replied to in bulk with generic standard responses, such as the "We are considering measure _____, and appreciate your input" that you may have recieved if you sent in an e-mail. Letters, on the other hand, get read. Especially if they're well written.
So take the time to clearly articulate your reasoning and use the good old-fashioned snail mail. You'll get a lot more done.
Who's he to say that this is a "Good case study for firms on HOW NOT TO IMPLEMENT DRM solutions."?
.lit files. Is there a governing body that overseas any potential abuse by corporations by use of DRM?
This is what Microsoft intended when they put DRM on his
You can't say that DRM is a great solution and continue to say so after you had to (illegally if you don't believe in the fair use act which seems to be getting stomped nowadays) free up what you paid for with a hack.
Companies will shove DRM down your throats so that you will have not be able to use what you paid for on a competitors product. It's just good business nowadays
"Tread softly because you tread on my dreams"
You can both discuss common life experiences together -- like hypocrisy!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
First Post!
GNAA
This is quite sad. The entire Slashdot crowd is being very unfair, here. He didn't change what he was saying - he said one thing and then did another. That's totally different. He castigated the community about how things should be, but when faced with harsh reality, he broke the law and tried to convince you that the law is not at fault - someone else made him do it. It's not that the law didn't protect him as a consumer of content, it's that the producer of content did a poor job - so now, he had to break the law - but they still shouldn't fix the law.
Get ready for office!
Education is the silver bullet.
..or i'll be able to "stole" it from you...
He should have said "Good case study for firms on HOW CUSTOMERS DO NOT LIKE DRM IMPLEMENTED." Because that is what he means. However, the point of DRM is not that customers should like it. At best, customers don't notice it. At worst, customers hate it. For firms, at best they get a lot more money from customers. At worse, however, (and firms don't seem to realise this) DRM will cause customers not to do business with the firm anymore. Personally, that's how far I have gone. A couple of years ago I bought about fifty CDs a year. Now, I don't buy anything anymore, simply because I like to play my CDs in my computer, and with DRM on the CDs, I fear I will not be able to use the CDs as I want. And I am not interested in easy circumvention methods: I am NOT going to place an audio CD in my PC which I cannot play without hassle. I mean, if I really want new music, I have heard you can get it from something called a pee-toupee program without all these problems. I really should look into that.
Thank you. Your response summed up most of what I was about to say.
I think that there is a definition of reasonable DRM. That definition would be DRM that allowed only legal acts, while disallowing illegal ones.
If there was some way in which your computer could determine this 100% accurately, I have no doubt many would have no problem with DRM.
Unfortunately (for the copyright holders), there is a huge amount that is legal (fair use), so there is no way to implement a DRM system that follows this resonable definition.
After all it is legal to make backup copies for personal use. Any reasonable DRM would allow backup copies to any machine or device that was legal.
Yep. He's still an asshole.
Heh. True dat.
"What do you think?" "I think 'What, do you think?!'"
I'm a fan of a lot of the products Microsoft produces, and I was even a Microsoft MVP (Most Valued Professional) for several years.
I was also employed as a Windows Media DRM expert for several years.
I have to say, Microsoft's eBook DRM is probably the worst DRM I have ever encountered. I frequently buy eBooks, but now I have books I can't use. There is no way to de-activate an old piece of hardware from their hardware list, so after 5 equipment changes (and as geeks we update our PCs and PDAs reguarly) you're screwed.
They promise another activation every 180 days or something on their. But that's a total lie. A complete falsehood. It says you can mail support and ask for more activations, but you just get denied every time.
The reason their technical support knows nothing about the DRM is because the whole MS LIT/MS Reader project appears to be abandonware. The reader app hasn't had any non-critical updates in years.
MICROSOFT! PLEASE! We just want to read the books we bought! *sob*
I've had some bad experience with Adobe's DRM too - it won't let you re-flow DRM'd books so I can't read them on my PDA. I have to remote desktop into my PC from my Pocket PC to read them in bed.. and that's just a total scroll-fest then.
Don't make me have to go back to using tree-based books...
It's like losing your keys and then getting into your house through the window. Of course, there are a ton of "this guy's a hypocrite" comments, but he didn't actually do anything hypocritical. Now, if he had defended the DMCA, and then pulled this stunt, that would be another story. He was simply circumventing the lock on data he had a right to access. I don't see how bypassing a lock door makes you a hypocrite for saying lock on doors are necessary.
Vote for Pedro
" To the agencies and get him arrested for violation of the DMCA?
Finally, a GOOD use for the DMCA... putting people behind bars that support the DMCA. "
I don't see anywhere in either article where the guy says he supports the DMCA. Saying DRM is a necessary evil does not mean you support the DMCA.
Vote for Pedro
What's good for the goose is good for the gander.
He violated the circumvention clause of the DMCA. He should eat his own dog food.
I feel the same way about RIAA industry-people's kids. I personally know one such individual who rode the napster wave, rode the audiogalaxy wave, and currently uses limewire.
Send 'em to jail! Than maybe they (such as the author of the blog), or their parents (of the RIAA people kids) will change their tune!
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
This is a quite old story (06/21) and he took time to write a follow-up on his blog :
My Last word on DRM... today
Here's my last word on drm. I repeat, I'm not against the concept and most consumers aren't either unless they bump into it while trying to use content they purchased in a legitimate way. I am against the way msft has supported folks using their Reader software and being locked out of my content. Some of you also suggest I may have violated the dmca when I posted my solution. I don't know. Honestly. It seems to me the program does nothing to the files, they are quite protected and must be run on an activated computer that reads them. The DRM is not stripped out at all. That's more akin to ouputting my iTunes files to a CD or a cassette tape. But maybe not. So for now, I'm deleting the files and the program and will inquire of folks who know more about the legal aspects.
No comment...
"Apple's DRM gets out of your way (at least, I haven't butted up against it, and I use the iTunes Music Store frequently, and own an iPod.)"
If you owned any other mp3 player, Apple's DRM would get in your way. Apple uses their DRM to raise the barrier to entry for competing products, a monopoly tactic.
Vote for Pedro
Of course, if it ever was uncrackable, they wouldn't be able to sell version x+1.
Not if the DRM vendors rent the patent licenses and trade secret know-how to publishers rather than sell them. Then the vendor would be able to sell version x+1 when the publisher's contract expires.
It is extremely important that we continue to build a hardware infrastructure capable of enforcing rigid DRM. This enables me to do things like, for example, prepare a confidential document, send it to someone, and have it NOT be copyable.
But the availability of the technology is a separate issue from the use of the technology - something bittorrent whoring slashdot users should understand easily, but apparently seem to have a brain-freeze when applying the concept to DRM.
Just as we don't accept the argument that bittorrent is illegal merely because it can be used for illegal activity, or is in fact mostly used for illegal activity, we should not also label DRM bad just because it can be used for bad purposes.
DRM doesn't stop you from copying your music. Music distributors putting DRM on the music is what stops you.
Wither the technology is at fault or the people who use the technology inappropriately are at fault. We can't have it one way when we like the technology and the other way when we don't.
paintball
"This enables me to do things like, for example, prepare a confidential document, send it to someone, and have it NOT be copyable."
What you describe is fundamentally impossible to do.
You can wrap it with ten tons of DRM Snake oil, but if the recipient can read it, it can be copied. Accessing = copying.
Well my idea of DRM (stuff that "D"isturbs my "R"esplendent "M"ind) is that whatever impinges upon my senses is mine to play with as I will. OR KILL ME. Then again what Orthodox Thelemic Odinist Subgenius would argue otherwise ?
Witness blackbirds in England who have taken to include the sounds of car alarms in their calls... (After all this could be another bird trying to muscle in on their territory).
The attempted enforcement of DRM on all current "Bit Manipulating" technology sums up how shallow, unimaginative, uninteresting and shite our 21st century culture currently is. Working "uncrakabull" DRM (which will never occur, trust me) is the ultiate masturbatory fantasy of the utterly untalented who only seek to catch and control the output of the inspired (who will do what they do regardless of reward) In the long term all it will mean is that large parts of DRMd culture will be forgotten. And quite frankly it's for the best.
Any good artist will do what they've always done... i.e. make a living by performing their art live or doing custom work for willing patrons.
Watching the retard "media crowd" arguing over who owns the "rights" (sic) to pimp the inspired work of artisits reminds me of nothng more than flies arguing over who owns the right to the dung of an elephant.
In't booze grate ????
Sky subscribers are morons. They pay to be advertised at !
This enables me to do things like, for example, prepare a confidential document, send it to someone, and have it NOT be copyable.
Why would you want to do that? If you don't trust the person on the receiving end not to copy the document... well, you're screwed, because if it's that important and they can see it, they can copy it.
Every other form of information hiding is different from DRM because you are worried about an unintended third party viewing your message. Even then it is extremely difficult to do right, and impossible to guarantee. With DRM, it is the intended recipient who you are worried about. You're trying to simultaneously give them access to the message, yet not allow them to share it with anyone else. This goes way beyond mere encryption in terms of impossibility.
The enemies of Democracy are
If people _feel_ that they need something they will get it by hook or by crook. Someone felt they needed to be able to play console games on their computer so they came up with an emulator. Someone felt they needed a copy of a dvd on their computer so they wrote some software to break the cheesy drm.
Let's face it, DRM as the profiteers imagine it is impossible.
Meanwhile they spend time and $ developing it, thereby increasing the cost of their products to consumers. Consumers do not benefit from DRM, the profiteers do. Of course they will tell you different..."We're doing this so that we dont get [ripped off] and can offer you lower priced goods." Anyone who believes that is as naive as can be. They are going to charge as much as they possibly can in every situation, DRM or no.
Does anyone really think that if a perfect implementation of DRM existed that DVD prices (or any others) would go down?
Speak with your wallet (by not using it). Speak with "theirs" (actually "ours" anyway)- by taking it - if you have to. Either way, money is the only language spoken by our corporate overlords.
Now we can see why Jobs wants Apple in bed with Intel.
See, now, that's not a bug, that's a feature, if you're in the hardware market.
I've got to force feed you a pile of nonsense so that I can declare defeat, and sell you some more stuff, and declare victory.
See sine wave.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
Try:
Note that he still feels DRM is a necessary for you and me evil, just so long as there's a way for him to circumvent it...
Advocates of DRM imagine themselves in the position of power, never as the victim. They think they are special. The idiot obviously does not realize what a fool he just made of himself, choosing to blame the "implementation" without realizing what other people warned him of was true. Making people buy media again and again and restricting knowledge to "special people" is what DRM is about.
Someone else here seems to think along the same lines. They tell us things like, "This enables me to do things like, for example, prepare a confidential document, send it to someone, and have it NOT be copyable." They would probably be OK with being able to shoot the recipient if that would keep their precious dirty secret.
You can't have it both ways. If you share an idea, a song or clever phrase, it's not yours anymore. Other people are going to be able to enjoy it and that's what publication is all about. Don't publish your secrets and they will stay secrets. Don't try to treat publications as secrets.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
Wow, your experience reminds me of the trip I took to Redmond in 2000. They were showing us how cool the Pocket PC was, only, they couldn't get the email server or clients set up right to work with it. "Wow, this isn't supposed to be rocket science, AND we're all rocket scientists... and it still doesn't work..."
It was a real Kodak moment.
Though I have to say, I was really impressed by the way Microsoft listened to us and really improved the Pocket PC on the next generation. Not enough for me... Palms have proven way more reliable long-term... but they listened a lot better than Palm has.
Anyway, back to the point...
You can buy non-DRMed eBooks, you know. I've only bought ONE DRMed eBook, the other 700 or so have all been unencrypted. And the unencrypted ones are actually cheaper... that just boggles my mind. You mean I get to read it ANYWHERE, print it, cut-and-paste, and I save money as well? Such a deal!
For a reader, I find Mobipocket is pretty good, and it works on both Pocket PC and Palm. And if you do buy encrypted books from Fictionwise they're quite happy to reset your authorizations for you.
Just as we don't accept the argument that bittorrent is illegal merely because it can be used for illegal activity, or is in fact mostly used for illegal activity, we should not also label DRM bad just because it can be used for bad purposes.
You're missing the point. DRM isn't bad because bad people try to use it to do bad things. DRM is bad because it doesn't work.
It never will work.
It's absolutely impossible to make it work.
It's a wasted effort.
It's a bad idea.
It's a dumb idea.
It ignores fundamental facts about reality.
That's the problem. That's why DRM is bad.
It is extremely important that we continue to build a hardware infrastructure capable of enforcing rigid DRM. This enables me to do things like, for example, prepare a confidential document, send it to someone, and have it NOT be copyable.
What you suggest is IMPOSSIBLE. Hardware or no hardware. Imagine a system so locked down that what you suggest would work. So the guy whips out a digital camera, takes pictures of the screen, combines those pictures into a document, runs it through an OCR, and voila, he has his copy. Okay, it's not an exact copy, but it's a copy nevertheless.
If you can see it, hear it, watch it... then you can copy it. You cannot separate the act of experiencing content from the ability to copy the content. All recording devices are designed specifically to convert content you experience into content that you can copy. That's the whole point of "recording".
The world doesn't need DRM, the world needs a really good trust mechanism. That is, if you don't want somebody to copy a document, then you have to trust that they won't do it. If you find out that they did in fact copy it, then you can revoke that trust and thus they won't be able to get your content anymore (at least, not from you).
And I mean really, if you don't trust somebody to not copy a document, why in the hell would you give them that document? That's just idiocy, don't you think?
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Isn't your .sig a little unfair to Tom Cruise? I mean honestly, one of those things isn't exactly his fault. Lots of current research shows that blithering idiocy is a hereditary characteristic.
Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
Am I the only person that finds the latest blog entry by this person quite interesting in light of this story?
so... why the HELL was Dimitry held in jail?
The LoC's exemptions to 1201(a)(1) cover circumvention acts, not circumvention devices. Dmitry was held for the latter.
Locks on doors are necessary to protect the home owner. DRM in electronic content is there to protect the owner of the content (not you). As it is right now, you don't own that content you buy; using your analogy, you breaking the drm is like a criminal breaking into a house.
it will become possible once they start embedding drm into your optic nerve...
You can wrap it with ten tons of DRM Snake oil, but if the recipient can read it, it can be copied. Accessing = copying.
For instance, if I am a commie spy, and you send me a DRM'd double-super-secret document that becomes visible on my screen, such that it can be seen and read, well, I can utilize some archaic technology to circumvent the DRM, in fact, this is a classic commie spy technique: I can write it down on paper or take a picture of the screen with a camera.
This public service announcement was just to drive home the point about how unbelievably stupid the thought of using DRM for protecting secret documents is. If the destination isn't trusted, you can't send them information. It simply doesn't matter how you diddle with it.
Jeff
Ah yes the good ole "well the rules apply to everyone but me" viewpoint that everyone who has extreme views seems to like.
.lit files and convert them to unprotected .PDF files"
Quote from the June 22nd blog
"I may have violated the dmca when I posted my solution. I don't know."
"The DRM is not stripped out at all."
And let me quote from his original post on June 21:
"I was able to take all my MSFT
Converting protected DRM files to unprotected PDF files certainly IS stripping the copy protection. And YES, circumventing copy protection IS against the DMCA!!
And since we have decisions like in austrailia that merely posting links to material means you are in violation, and since he admitted that he posted links. Time for a lawsuit I think.
I mostly agree with you, but actually there's more to DRM than just making people pay for content sveeral times. The intention is also to lock people into proprietary file formats.
For example, music download services that use Microsoft DRM lock customers into mp3 players that support the WMA format. At present, most player makers (with the major exception of Apple) do include WMA, but that's mostly because it doesn't cost them anything. If the format takes off, MS will start charging for it.
Similarly, iTunes customers who want a portable music player are locked into the iPod for as long as the DRM remains in place. The only reason they're not really locked in (and not coincidentally, also why Apple is beating MS in the mjusic market) is that it's fairly easy to remove the DRM: There's a deliberate loophole (burn to standard Redbook-compliant CD), and people like DVD Jon have made user-friendly cracking programs (iOpener, hymn, etc.).
...with something similar.
situation: several books bought from peanut press. Those are encrypted with your credit card number. A few years after i cancelled that credit card, i bought a new palm, re-installed all my stuff, and had to re-enable those books... with that credit card number, which i couldn't remember anymore.
So I mailed them. Told them what happened. They sent me the credit card number to the email adress i used when ordering the books. case solved.
By now, you can get new unlock codes for books you already own through their Website after logging in.
Thats how it should be.
Nope wrong. Getting into your house through the window IF YOU OWN the house is ok by the law. Why? Cause its your property/house. You can do wtf you like to it. You can break the window, you can hammer holes in the drywall. You can burn it down if you want.
.pdf" files. Obviously he's trying to skate around the issue so he wont get sued. And he removed the links to the tool as well.
DRM took off partly because the DMCA passed, and shelters all the companies who do DRM, so its illigal to bypass it (and all other forms of copy protection). Despite fair use.
He said previously that consumers are ok with DRM. He's a consumer. He's not ok with it. Thats hypocritical.
The typical "well the rules/law apply to everyone but me, but if I get bothered by it, it can't possibly apply to me" attitude.
Also, he made some blithering excuses about how he "wasn't sure" if doing what he did striped out copy protection and violated the DRM. Yet in his post about using the tool the day before he said it made "unprotected
And your quote "He was simply circumventing the lock on data he had a right to access." is not correct. He has no right according to DMCA. Your rights of accessing data are strictly defined by the people you purchase it from. In this case microsoft. There is no "fair use" when it comes to DRM and DMCA.
Ideally companies (record and book) would like to charge you for every device you put stuff on, and every copy, and sometimes every time you access it. Buy one copy for your car, one for your mp3 player, one for your home stereo, one for your computer, etc. Thats the point of DRM, to restrict YOUR access to YOUR stuff that YOU purchased.
And he IS a hypocrit since he bypassed the DRM that he advocated.
I think its important that Mr. Gartenberg, after exhausting reasonable methods to restore access to his content, then immediately reached for a (presumably) illegal DMCA-breaking tool to gain access. By his own advocacy these tools will not be available if his viewpoint prevails.
In his follow-up blog entries he completely avoids this point.
-- Gary Goldberg KA3ZYW 301/249-6501 AIM:OgGreeb Digital Marketing Inc., Bowie, MD
And it looks like the bill sponsor is the Representative from Slashdot, Boucher. Seriously, I love this guy (and I'm kinda sad that he represents Virginia instead of my state). Take a look at the list of legislation he's been involved in.
Reading down the list, he's opposed the RIAA, the DMCA, argued for fair use, argued for privacy laws, argued against the broadcast flag, argued against additional RIAA laws (and urged that the RIAA simply lower prices to provide a more appealing product), in favor of allowing features for Linux, worked on weakening the DMCA, pushed an anti-spam law (though admittedly not the most stringent of the proposals), pushed for the Do Not Call List, opposed DoJ anti-P2P propaganda attempts, and been a proponent of pro-VoIP laws. His arguments are quite tech-savvy -- if the man does not understand technology himself, he has some pretty sharp advisors. Many of these stances have been those that oppose major lobbyist groups (direct marketing, RIAA, MPAA, etc).
Stick about a hundred more like him in Congress and throw Orrin Hatch to the wolves and I'd have a damn lot of respect for the legislative branch.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
http://www.apple.com/itunes/burn.html
I see the real issue here being support. He bought a product and had a problem. One expects support, he called got a run around and wasted much time. This is the real problem with companies now adays, not DRM. And also the real reason you should avoid Microsoft.
This is exactly right. DRM (suppossedly) is about giving the manufacturer the right to control the data. If you give the manufacturer that right, you give up your own right to bitch about what they do with it, even if they use that control to make your life inconvenient. What you don't have the ethical space to do is legislate that the company has control ... and then break the law whenever the company's control inconveniences you.
If I advocated that all citizens should be law-abiding in all cases, but then I myself violated whichever laws happened to be inconvenient because I judged them as "terrible implementation", what would you say about my ethics?
If he'd bitched about the implementation and then taken his business elsewhere, okay. But he bitched and then solved his problem by violating the very system he advocates as "essential"!
I stole this sig from someone cleverer than me.
Unquestionably. Restrictive covenants are quite common and are probably applied to every modern, newly constructed subdivision. The developer will sell you a house and lot but the deed would clearly stipulate that this lot will forever be subject to the rules of the homeowners' association, will never be subdivided and specify that no shed can be placed on the rearmost 15 feet of your lot set aside for the utility easement. I know of one subdivision going up where all house plans must be approved by the HOA and there is a minimum $/sq ft required to build. If you buy the land the deed clearly states that you must begin construction within x months or you must forfeit the lot. You have a choice: buy the lot and accept the restrictions written into the deed or don't buy the lot.
The same concept could easily be applied to software: rather than selling the right to use the software you should be considered to be purchasing a copy of the software to use as you see fit so long as you abide by the agreements entered into upon purchase. In many ways this would help protect the software producers more than the license-to-use model does.
If the g'vt kept the data on you that google does you'd better believe you'd be calling it "doing evil"
OH SHIT, HARRY POTTER NEEDS DRM.
http://content.ytmnd.com//94000/94316/image.jpg
Yes, he did. Have a look:
He used a software circumvention tool to gain access to locked media files for which he does not hold the copyright. We have his confession. This is an open and shut case. Why has he not been pursued by law enforcement? Further, he linked to the program that allowed him to do this. Linking to circumvention devices was ruled illegal in Universal v. Reimerdes. The decision was upheld on appeal. In short, I believe that's two felony counts under the DMCA. He has since removed the link and destroyed the evidence of his crime:
I'm not entirely certain of the seriousness of this crime, but, given his actions, he is a serious threat to our 'Intellectual Property' based society. He should be dealt with swiftly, yet this happened almost a month ago. He is still out there roaming the internet! What good are laws if they aren't enforced? As upright citizens of this great nation, we should DEMAND justice. This criminal is loose out there somewhere and needs to be imprisoned before he hurts any other intellectual property holders. Please! Won't someone think of the intellectual property holders!?
I think we should popularize a more appropriate definition of the technology, such as:
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
It is do as I say NOT do as I do. That is Plain as day. Open your eyes. After all, I sure they don't have armed security (note the sarcasm). And I'm sure you do. Cough cough ... Feinstein (CCW for a .38 last I heard).Reality sucks doesn't it.
Who will guard the guards?
You don't get it. This is NOT about the DRM. Go ahead, build any DRM system you like. Use any and all the DRM you like. All fine.
The problem here is the broken DMCA which says that INNOCENT NONINFRINGING people face PRISON. This guy violated DMCA (a)(1)(A) in circumventing the DRM. He broke the law. The software he used violated the DMCA 1201 (b)(1)(A,B, and C), and the people who supplied that software can go to prison for five years.
The solution is the DMCRA which merely says that INNOCENT and NONINFRINGING people shall not go to prison.
That is why I included the link to the DMCRA when I submitted this story. That is why I included the link to the EFF page to request your representative co-sponsor the DMCRA.
I ask you, do you support the DMCRA and keeping innocent noninfringing people out of prison? Will you ask your Represenative to co-sponsor the DMCRA? Or are you going to try to argue that innocent noninfringing people should be imprisoned?
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Fun sidenote:
The page was stealth-changed. He no longer neither names nor links to the program in question.
Considering DMCA braindeadness, that is a wise move. What's sad is that there is no commentary on how the law is utterly stupid in this regard.
DRM is all about "to eat your cake and keep it too".
Children learn pretty fast that this doesn't work, while the media industry tries hard to work around it, keeping their data while distributing it.
I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.
So why would my representative here in the Netherlands care about what Americans tells her? And what would it help if she sponsors some American legislation?
Isn't it?
rgds
He probably doesn't want to say "CLit" in public.
Circumventing a lock you have the legal right to access is illegal under the DMCA. It eliminates all such rights to your own property.
Paraphrased more clearly (hopefully):
If it is digital it is exactly quantified. It is then inherently possible to make "perfect" copies.
Any other measures taken can be "un-taken".
The next step, given:
1. All the analogue-to-digital converting going on - images/sound/anything else? These convey information and ideas (once spam filtered anyway...)
2. Worldwide communication previously unmatched in history.
Are we then at the beginning of a digitally conveyed Worldwide Renaissance?
Digital divide not withstanding. Although if a we can label certain events as "World Wars" surely it's about time we had a World Renaissance.
[Insert Deity of choice here] knows, implementations of true art and moments of creative brilliance is few and far between. They need more sharing.
This enables me to do things like, for example, prepare a confidential document, send it to someone, and have it NOT be copyable.
I can see this being useful to certain people for certain purposes:
To: All Managers
From: J. Bigboss
NO-FORWARD NO-SAVE DELETE-AFTER: 2 hours
Our fincances are under investigation. Start up the shredders. I don't want them to find out I been cooking the books.
Besides, presumably someone has a master key, to prevent drug dealers, terrorists, and other criminals hiding their tracks. Imagine how much this could be abused...
No it's not like that, since it's NOT YOUR LOCK you lost the keys for. And you didn't even lose the keys, they just didn't work. And the locksmith won't fix it, you had to find a thief with a slim-jim to open it. And you should never, ever, bypass someone elses lock, even if it's for your own home... unless... it's not a good lock... but LOCKS ARE GOOD! And bypassing them is BAD... unless I did it because it was a bad lock.
Not true. The difference is that he owns his house. You do not own content anymore, if it is protected with DRM (in the US). It is illegal to use anything to break any sort of protection mechanism, regardless of how easy it is (see: DeCSS). He admits on his blog to breaking the law.
That's why the DMCA is such a horrible law. It takes away all that makes sense. It's not illegal to break into your own house, but it is illegal to remove copy protection on files you've licensed or DVDs you have purchased whose contents you licensed.
It's a new world. And it sucks.
---- It puts the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again. It does this whenever it's told.
What happens when your camera can't take pictures of anything with a special DRM mark on it, and your paper won't let you write DRM-protected material on it?
Think it's daft? Go out, buy a reasonably decent new scanner or photocopier and try to copy a US or EU banknote.
Another fun side note:
The Slashdot story was stealth-changed as well. I didn't even notice it till just now.
When I submitted the story it included his link to the tool page. The text is unchanged, but the linkage I had on the words "circumvention tool" is gone.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Probably not too likely that spies will have off the shelf cameras and scanners though, is it?
Sorry James, M is on holiday today, here's the K-Mart shop gold card, go buy some stuff you need.
Not Free SF Reader
An asshole that can seriously state such racist comment surely was not up to scratch to hold a job.
Maybe they were just looking ofr an excuse, any excuse, to get rid of yu, and you gave it to them by "suggesting improvements".
IANAL but write like a drunk one.