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DRM Advocate Violates DRM

Posted by Zonk on from the i-don't-like-you-either dept.

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."

29 of 397 comments (clear)

  1. He was right then, and he's right now. by RingDev · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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. Re:He was right then, and he's right now. by RingDev · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The point of DRM is to be in the way when you try to distribute something.

      I think DRMs should be capable of running on anything that is associated as mine, or in my possession. IE: My car sterio, my home entertainment system, my computer, my MP3 Player, my friends PSP that he loaned me, etc. So long as I can (EASILY!) prove to the DRM that I own the content, I should be able to view/play/use whatever the content.

      Infact, I think that in the advent that my content is stolen or damaged, I should be able to goto a distribution point (like the record label's web site) and download another copy of the content completely free, because I have already paid for it.

      That is what DRM's should do in my opinion. They don't yet, but hopefully they will.

      -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
    2. Re:He was right then, and he's right now. by Jarnis · · Score: 3, Insightful

      They are indistingusihable, because the only difference is the intent.

      Are you making a copy to be used on another piece of hardware you own, or for someone else (who pays you for the copy, for the sake of argument, making it definitely illegal)? Show me an automated DRM that can make a distinction between the two, without employing a human spying on your actions?

      Computer programs cannot determine the intent of the user, and neither can the rightsholder without seriously breaching little things like 'right to privacy'. So DRM is a fundamentally flawed concept that will always be designed to restrict fair use and normal legal use - because that's the only way to prevent potential 'evil' uses where your intent is to make illegal copies. The only difference being the intent of the user.

      Hey, even supreme court got the idea (with their P2P ruling) - intent is everything in these things.

    3. Re:He was right then, and he's right now. by localman · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I hate to just appeal to my own authority here, but even a medium level understanding of technology seems to indicate two things:

      1. Real criminals will always be able to get around DRM
      2. Regular people will always bump into it in some innocent situation

      Let me connect the dots from there: DRM sucks. And it always will. That won't necessarily stop it from becoming mainstream and accepted, just like copyright extention and the stagnation of the public domain, but that doesn't make it right or good.

      Cheers.

    4. Re:He was right then, and he's right now. by RedWizzard · · Score: 4, Insightful
      That is what DRM's should do in my opinion. They don't yet, but hopefully they will.
      They won't because it's not in the content owners interests for DRM to work that way. The content owners want you (or your insurance) to pay for a new copy of everything when the old one is stolen or damaged. They want you to buy separate copies for your car stereo, your home entertainment system, your computer, etc. In fact they'd like you to rent all your content. DRM doesn't quite enforce all that (yet), so it doesn't work entirely the way the content owners would like either, but it's closer to their vision than yours, and it's likely to get worse for the consumer, not better.
  2. Just maybe by stratjakt · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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!!!!
    1. Re:Just maybe by aftk2 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You took the words right out of my mouth. Reading the two blog entries, there's nothing inconsistent about them: he rails against Sony's crappy implementation of DRM in the first, and against Microsoft's crappy implementation of DRM in the second. He praises Apple's DRM in the first, and that praise still stands: 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.)

      --
      concrete5: a cms made for marketing, but strong enough for geeks.
    2. Re:Just maybe by Jarnis · · Score: 4, Insightful

      How can you have DRM that doesn't get into your way?

      DRM, by design, takes away your ability to access/modify/distribute data.

      Data is, by definition, there to be accessed/modified/distributed.

      There can only be slightly less braindead DRM, and braindead DRM. DRM will ALWAYS get into your way sooner or later (it's designed to do that) - even when you limit your usage to what fair use allows you to do.

    3. Re:Just maybe by Jarnis · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You don't seem to get it.

      With computers, when you are accessing the data, you are making a copy of it. If nothing else, you are copying it to the framebuffer of your videocard for display.

      Any 'effective' DRM that tries to prevent you from copying the data will affect your legal, fair-use rights to access the data.

      Until all your own hardware talks to each other and phones home to the DRM makers, there is aboslutely no practical way to DRM something to work only on 'your' hardware. The hardware doesn't know who owns it, and if you are asking for access on multiple hardware platforms, you are asking for copies. One copy = unlimited copies. No matter how you obfuscate, limit or mangle things, it boils down to a simple fact; If you have bunch of data on your hard drive or RAM, in order to do *anything* to that data, you are making a copy of it, and any piece of code designed to prevent that is going to prevent legimate uses (or alternatively the DRM is so weak its irrelevant and you can make unlimited copies)

      The whole idea of DRM is so braindead - until they have DRM code running in your brain, it's always circumventable, and to make it hard to circumvent, it will inevitably get into way of legimate uses, as numerous legimate uses *require* making of copies of the data.

    4. Re:Just maybe by Jarnis · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Hey, I understand that.

      Problem is, to prevent unauthorized users from accessing the data, you need to prevent huge number of scenarios where you access the data - many of them quite legal.

      The only difference between 'making a warez copy of the data to be distributed for all mankind' and 'making a backup copy in case the original dies' is *intent*. And no DRM can dechiper that.

      There is no way to 'secure' identification of an 'authorized user' to 'unlock' data. Once an authorized user unlocks it legimately, he can make copies (or if he can't, then DRM is in the way).

      I dunno.. for decades we had this analog rights management system called 'the Copyright Law' that ensured that 'talented individuals' got their 'appropriate compensation'. Content business was huge before the term DRM was even invented, so additional protection seems pointless. Now if your business model cannot survive unlimited digital copying, maybe it's time to rethink the business model? Because you cannot possibly prevent it - once you have a digital copy, and you allow an user to access said digital copy, it's possible to make a perfect digital copy of it. It's so fundamental that any DRM is doomed to fail, and on the way there it will piss off paying customers that just wish to legally access the data they paid for.

  3. Can't have your cake and eat it too... by TheStupidOne · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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...
    1. Re:Can't have your cake and eat it too... by Lothsahn · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Actually, his position hasn't really changed. He supported, and still supports (RTFA) DRM which the consumer is "not constantly bumping into." For this product, this is obviously not the case. He even says in his blog that this is a terrible implementation of DRM.

      --
      -=Lothsahn=-
    2. Re:Can't have your cake and eat it too... by maxpublic · · Score: 4, Insightful

      He even says in his blog that this is a terrible implementation of DRM.

      And that's exactly where he should've stopped. If he were at all consistent he would've exercised his right to free speech on the matter but never have tried to crack the DRM.

      Unfortunately this moron believes that HE gets to be the one who decides whether or not some subset of DRM is 'good', and if it doesn't meet HIS standards then it's okay to crack it. He's essentially said that his own personal beliefs supercede the law and are justification for breaking that law.

      This makes him no different than any other 'pirate' out there, just a little slicker at convincing people that what he's doing is actually okay.

      Max

      --
      My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
  4. Ugh... by Mad_Rain · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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?!'"
    1. Re:Ugh... by bani · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The problem is that virtually ALL DRM is like this.

      It's a small step for him in a better direction, perhaps, but he hasn't changed his position from reading those remarks.

      Yep. He's still an asshole.

  5. How ironic by Flying+Purple+Wombat · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.
    1. Re:How ironic by mellon · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Actually, you may not have the choice of buying another copy. Frequently things go out of print, and there's no reason to assume that this will change in the new age of DRM. The way it will happen will be less likely that they stopped printing it, since "printing" digital media is basically free; rather, what will happen is that the original issuer will go out of business, leaving you in the lurch with not even an avenue of support.

      And if we get really effective DRM, you won't even have the choice of breaking the DRM, because the DRM won't be breakable. The only reason this guy was able to break the DRM was because it was crappy DRM. Which, frankly, is the best kind, because really effective DRM renders the product unrecoverable if the access key is lost.

      I haven't ever broken the DRM on a piece of iTMS music that I've purchased, but one of the things that makes me comfortable in buying iTMS music is that I know the DRM is breakable, so in the event that iTMS goes away, I am not shafted.

    2. Re:How ironic by keraneuology · · Score: 3, Insightful
      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.

      Are you advocating demands that Apple Records provide free music DVDs to everybody who bought Yellow Submarine on 8 Track? If I bought a copy of Ping (book about the duck) and go blind am I entitled to a free copy on tape?

      Now on to my real points.

      1. This clown needs to be prosecuted for DMCA violations. Not only did he circumvent DRM but he told everybody else how to do it. This blatant recommendation of a tool is nothing short of advocating the theft of copyrighted material.

      Unreasonable? Yes, but will the law. It is only through the prosecution of people like this will they start to advocate reasonable positions on DRM. It is the easiest thing in the world to advocate enforcing laws when you aren't subjected to them yourself (which is why Congress and the President have no real incentive to fix social security, for example). If this guy is sued with the same zeal as grandmothers who have 15 year old visitors who installed kazaa on that newfangled box then maybe there would be a louder voice calling for reason.

      2. With regards to backup, so long as there exists a legal right to back up digital works (as there should be) then -no- DRM is acceptable for the very reasons mentioned by the OP. If the companies force DRM onto their product then they should be forced to provide replacement media, for free, on demand in perpetuity. The concept of "you don't own the copy of the song you only license it" is BS: the copyright holders can sell you the song with any restrictions they like, just as I can sell you a 5 acre parcel of land with a deeded restriction that you can never build more than a single house.

      But so long as people like this guy can advocate DRM yet violate it on whim without consequence and as long as people are willing to spend hundreds of millions of dollars for something with which they are not completely satisfied then nothing will change . Ever. There is no motivation for the companies to do so, so they will not.

      --
      If the g'vt kept the data on you that google does you'd better believe you'd be calling it "doing evil"
  6. Re:teh forumla by Rosco+P.+Coltrane · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Actually for once, the AC's feeble joke is spot on: DRM isn't as much about preventing people from cracking it as it is about having solid grounds to sue infringers.

    DRM's more or less open goal is to prevent "casual theft" in the form of playground CD swapping, but it's much easier to sue someone who took deliberate, non-obvious steps to circumvent a protection than sueing someone who just copied something. For infringers, it takes away the "oops I didn't know it was forbidden" excuse.

    --
    "A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
  7. Re:Interesting Piece of Legislation... by gsfprez · · Score: 4, Insightful

    nice to see its bi-partisan names on the bill.

    Goes to show that evil is not a party line problem; its a congressional whore problem, spanning both parties.

    I hope that this passes. Reasonable R's and D's need to get behind this kind of thing, putting the assholes like Hollings and Hatch out to pasture...

    --
    guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
  8. He still does not get it by Black+Art · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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."
  9. Mix, Burn, Rip, why Apple's DRM works... by argent · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  10. So if I read the article right... by Hawthorne01 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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."
  11. Wrong by Locke2005 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.
  12. Re:DRM Needs to happen by Frank+T.+Lofaro+Jr. · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It did way back in the day, with copy "protected" floppies. And then abandoning it, and using more copy "protection" and abandoning it, etc.

    The computer world keeps learning, and then forgetting.

    Perhaps some needs to give free Ritalin to IT industry execs.

    --
    Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
  13. Re:Oh god... by ZephyrXero · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's funny that he still sees it as a "necessary evil"... How many other problems will he need to face before he realizes just how unnecessary it is? DRM makes suits feel better, but rarely stops people from getting around it.

    --
    "A truly wise man realizes he knows nothing."
  14. Very unfair by Viking+Coder · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.
  15. Re:DRM Needs to happen by WhiteWolf666 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Honestly, this is also the IT industries fault.

    The next *BIG* drm scheme will be *secure*

    Faster than Ever! More features than before! Able to deliver virtual reality in a single packet!

    A large part of the blame lies on the bozos (or maybe they are smarter than we think) selling 'uncrackable' (snake-oil) DRM.

    Of course, if it ever was uncrackable, they wouldn't be able to sell version x+1.

    --
    WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
  16. Re:DRM support good. DRM on consumer product bad. by Jarnis · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "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.