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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."
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=-
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_
If the DRM was improved so that it would get out of his way, he would still have no issue with it.
Except that the whole *point* of DRM is to be in the way. What would a DRM system that did not get in the way look like?
When I was a kid, we only had one Darth.
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.
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This begs the question. How does this technology know who you are, and how does it know that you're you. How does a computer differenciate between you loaning something to somebody (a DVD) and making a copy for that person (your ideal DRM would provent you not from making the copy, which would get in the way of people looking to back things up, but prevent your friend from playing your DVD).
Perhaps your solution is biometrics. But what if you got into a horrible accident and lost that particular part of your body? Your eyes? Your face was disfigured? You lost your fingerprints, fingers, or even the whole arm?
So what about a unique PGP key? What if you lose or forget it? Do you stop being you? Do you now have no right to any of your stuff because you cannot be identified?
Any way you cut it, DRM will be intrusive to somebody. And if you justify its existence by saying that person isn't likely to be you, then I think that's a very selfish way of looking at things, and completely inappropriate for application to the rest of the world.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
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.
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.
Many (most? all?) DRM advocates also advocate criminal penalties for violating DRM (DMCA, etc).
If he's a believer in the DMCA and similar laws, he should explain whether or not he believes that he should be jailed for his actions, and why. If he's not a DMCA advocate, he should explain how DRM could work without the force of law backing it.
But I can't be bothered to read through a years worth of blog to find out if he discusses that issue.
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...
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.
Actually, I suspect that, for the content producers at least an equally important purpose for DRM is to inhibit people's ability to exercise their fair use rights for the content they supposedly purchased.
How many times as a Disney video been sold to the same family more than once because the kids (being kids) destroyed the first one? Most consumers don't have the knowledge or tools to copy a Macrovision "protected" video or CSS encrypted DVD. Sure, for the technically savvy this is a non issue, whenever I get a movie I can make a copy and lock the original away from my kids but I'd be surprised if anyone else on my block could do the same.
Or with DRM'ed music, You know that there are more than a few people who have bought the same song more than once after they reformatted their hard drive or got a new computer and found they could no longer open the music they previously "purchased"
Both Disney & Apple are well aware that even with no so-called "backyard piracy" (or any other copyright violations) going on that they will lose sales if their media can be easily copied.
One DRM scheme I would actually be OK with is one that doesn't restrict copying but imparts a digital "watermark" in the media that makes it traceable to the original purchaser. This is sorta-kinda how TiVo handles videos that you copy off if your TiVo DVR (using approved methods anyways). If I were an idiot and put my TiVo media files on BitTorrent or something it would be easily traceable back to me.
Of course the main flaw in the TiVo system is there is only one application that is "approved" for burning your TiVo files to DVD and it's as expensive as it is lousy. So the result is that I have to use unapproved of methods for converting the TiVo file to MPEG so I can burn it to DVD using the tool I want to. Honestly I'd love to skip that step because it more than doubles the time involved in putting a show on DVD.