Slashdot Mirror
Sun Spearheads Open DRM
Steve from Hexus writes "If DRM is the future of controlling our media files, then perhaps the open source community can at the very least ensure that the dominant delivery system is an open standard. Hexus.net reports that Sun is spearheading a new open DRM project, which their lab workers and the open source community can contribute to. More information on project DReaM can be found at the Open Media Commons website." Tough call - DRM is coming (Or is already here), one way or another, and is better to work on creating something done right, or to object to it on moral grounds?
Object of course, why would you want to help contribute to tools of corporate control!
You'd have to be an idiot to want to help in this. It would be like being asked to build a prison that is going to be used to lock you in. Even more than that, Sun are asking you to help them make this prison better, and for free. Normally people will do objectionable things for enough money (sadly), but hopefully no-one is stupid enough to do this for free.
Why would you want to help them build shackles for you!
"Open DRM" at first sounds like a contradiction, yet, the modern approach in cryptographic systems is to design systems so that security depends on secret key material, not secret algorithms. It's a rule of nature that any piece of hardware that falls in the hands of the enemy will give up its secrets, and algorithm secrecy didn't stop Jon from cracking DVD encryption.
In an open DRM system, anybody could create their own DRM "universe" by generating their own set of keys to initialize the system -- this opens the possibility of using DRM to do different things than today's systems, such as protecting privacy: Sun is quite interested in providing storage records for medical records and such, and some kind of DRM would help with HIPPA compliance. (But when I look at the privacy policy I get from my Doc, there are so many people that can see my records that she could save money and just leave them on the curb.)
It's hard to picture media companies getting behind Sun, but other companies that want to build their own systems for protecting information might get on board -- Sun hopes that this will help them sell storage systems.
I don't wish to take easy potshots at slashdot but why do you ape the language of big news corporations in your story:
If DRM is the future of controlling our media files
There is no 'our' media.
DRM is coming
Look, all of this is a nonsense. Really the world is splitting into two directions; those who believe passionately in freedom and control over their own lives and those who haven't quite woken up to the value of, or understood what that means.
There is nothing else. DRM is haxx0r bait to be circumvented and stamped on. It's there to protect the traditional structures, the big corporations primarily. Some smaller outlets may find a use for it occasionally, but it's not there for them. There is so much good media out there with no DRM and those outlets manage to survive and thrive so I think that reveals quite a lot.
Forced DRM is not compatible with any concept of normal use or freedom or control over one's own systems and files as far as I can ascertain.
As far as Sun goes, to be honest it's preferable in the sense that an open standard is probably better than a closed one, but all said it's working under the erroneous presumption that some sort of wooly, cowering compliance and affection for DRM is about to take over the world, which it won't.
As with software, if you disagree with the terms and conditions music is sold under, then don't buy it and support what matches your philosophies.
I must respectfully disagree with this statement. To refuse to buy the DRMed material and refuse to listen to or watch it is to agree with the concept that the people who put the restrictions of the use had the moral authority to do so. You are agreeing that culture can and should be denied to people now and in the future for arbitrary reasons.
If you disagree with DRM and its implication that media and culture can actually be owned, then by all means beg, borrow, copy, and steal the material on the encoded media.
Remember these guys stole the public domain by paying off the politicians to indefinitely extend the copyright lengths. They therefore have no claim to any material that can be placed on digital media. Anything they say can not be trusted.
Copyright is basically a pricing issue. After an agreed period of time, the material goes out of copyright and into public domain. Preventing material from entering public domain is the real theft. These people are the real thieves. And in a civilized society, thieves don't get to decide what the property laws are going to be.
These guys plan to use DRM to deny forever any material entering the public domain. We have a duty to future generations to remove the DRM from any material encoded on any digital format, regardless of how old or new it is or who believes that they 'own' it.
These guys don't control the information age; we control the information age. Because we created it. If we don't want DRM, DRM won't exist.