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Libraries Use DRM to Expire Audiobooks
Valleye writes "CNN is reporting that some US libraries are using Microsoft Media DRM to automatically 'return' audiobooks checked out of their catalog. A patron with a valid library card visits a library Web site to borrow a title for, say, three weeks. When the audiobook is due, the patron must renew it or find it automatically "returned" in a virtual sense: The file still sits on the patron's computer, but encryption makes it unplayable beyond the borrowing period."
I would certainly read (or listen) more that way.
"It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists." -Ludwig Wittgenstein
A perfect use for DRM tech. DRM always catches a bad rep. I for one am glad to see that technology still has a place in everyday america.
ReachInternet.com Wireless, Campus Area Networks, Office Networking.
Couldn't someone just use an audio program (cubase, cakewalk etc) to make a loopback recording, effectively making a non-DRM copy? This technology seems effective in expiration dates, but ineffective against piracy. Still.
This sort of technology is clearly nessisary, because someone who's had three weeks with the book already and can check it out from the library again for free whenever they want obviously needs to be inconvienced by having the copy they have stop working.
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
If digital audiobooks can have infinite copies made of them and distributed to the Library's members then is there actually a need to have them checked back in?
My 3D Texturing Skinning work (under construction)
to automatically renew their audiobooks with the library.
I think this is a perfectly valid use for DRM. It allows libraries to offer digital content, without screwing over the copyright holder. It's not like libraries are able to photocopy entire books and lend them out.
There is no way to be able to force people to delete it on their computer except via DRM. People who use this content, AREN'T paying for it (at least in most public libraries), and while it's most likely very easy to break the DRM, the library isn't forced to enforce their DRM, their responsibility (and liability) stop at placing the DRM onto the content. Unlike commercial copyright distributors, they don't need to make it more convoluted with a harder system to stop people from breaking the DRM.
It's unfortunate that a Microsoft DRM is being used (as I assume it can only be played on Microsoft systems), but it's most likely the easiest and most well known DRM to the people that put the DRM on the content (and the library staff can most likely offer trouble-shooting help with it as a result).
The whole reason of returning library books/media is so that others may borrow it.
Surely this is not necessary when borrowing an easily reproducible copy.
Unfortunately, I am not Wil Wheaton
This is actually one of the few types of DRM that I can actually see as being worthwhile. That is, a type of DRM that emulates the current, physical limitations of property in digital space rather than manufacturing artificial restrictions.
This sort of feature makes libraries more accessible, without lmiting the borrowers any more than the previous system. If this is the sort of thing DRM is going to be used for, then good for it. I doubt it though.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
Audiobooks... I can't figure out what the problem is with reading...
Anyway, this would seem to be an appropriate use of DRM technology. Of course I would imagine that with an audiobook the quality of the sounds is not as important as with music so someone really bent on keeping a copy would either burn it to cd if their system could do that and otherwise simply record from the audio output of their pc...
I wouldn't but then again, I would never get an audiobook... I prefer to read.
-if at first you don't succeed, stay the heck away from paragliding.
could one not mess around with clocks and such to make the file think that it is still last tuesday?
Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job. - HHGTTG
What about linux compatability? Mplayer will often play files just fine with the right plugins.. at least on gentoo.
- d
I guess as soon as you can watch Star Wars with this stuff, the DRM will get cracked in a few days.
Pure software methods always get cracked. Even hardware, as Bruce Schneier mentions, gets cracked, routinely. It really is just a question of how much time, and how much resources it takes to break it. The problem with digital stuff is that once you do it, you've cracked it for everyone.
The town of "Fucking" (that really is the name) in Austria had a problem with people stealing the signs. They recently moved to a new system, where the signs are really hard to steal. But as the mayor said -- "it would take all night to steal". Not, "you can't steal it" -- but it will take so long that someone will/may come along and arrest you before you make off with it.
With DRM, the guy gets to take the "sign" home for a few weeks at a time, until he can manage to crack it -- and once he does, you don't have any clue that he's done it.
http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/when_to_
From what I can see, Libraries make a fair bit of income from fees for overdue books. This helps to pay for new books, repairs, etc.
Also books in electronic format tend to cost more than the paperback alternatives for the amount of lending licenses necessary.
So who is going to pay for this? Is there going to be a charge for loaning the books?
http://libwise.com/ have been doing the equivalent things with ebooks for years, using Mobipocket's DRM. Works OK; I've used it for trying out books that I might not care enough for to be happy buying.
... can't the current time in the PC's BIOS just be set to a couple of weeks back to extend that "borrowing period"?
I mean, go explain that to your Mom.
May Peace Prevail On Earth
That doesn't playsforsure with my iPod!
I actually thought about downloading the software and trying it out, but after perusing the available books, it seemed like a majority were just cheesy self-help books and "how to invest your money like a pro" sorts of things. Looking at it again, I apparently missed the more interesting offerings that now appear to be there, like Terry Brooks; however, I suspect that in the short run, the way they'll continue to collect fines is by not offering an enormous selection. I somehow doubt reading physical books is ever going to go completely by the wayside... some of us like the quaint pleasure of spending an afternoon with a dead tree :)
To crack DRM this is a small step for piracy but a giant step for mankind recognising piracy as a useful necessity.
Although, since I can call, or go online to auto renew my non-DRM'd content, I hope they will naturally extend it to this.
Also, I guess with certain material, libraries will have streaming servers.
Do they still have a virtual number of copies that can be loaned at any one time?
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
I ment the Intellectual Property / Copyright one, not the library.
In the internet age where someone wants to claim ownership to various bitflows, it just simply doesn't work. The whole definition of storing and copying bitflows invalidates the entire system of intellectual property because of it's given nature. In this environment IP and Copyright is an outdated system blocking innovation.
Sooner or later the pressure will be too high as the internet gets into more and more areas of our life, it will force the rethinking of the information restricting laws.
This library attempt to introducte DRM is especially a bad case since libraries should be storehouses of information, not restricters of them.
Someone will surely try to point me to the positive sides of IP and Copyright. There are some, but as of today the benefits are far outweighted by the negative effect it creates, even on innovation. Without patent protection, people would still create, or even create much more freely. In the age of internet, it is even concivable that those people would cooperate strengthening innovation. It is the human nature to create, just look at the F/OSS movement.
Before someone brings up the example of drugs, let me try to answer it: those companies researching would still research, but they would also need to compete on manufacturing those drugs the best possible way and no such situation could arise where they try to sell AIDS medicine to poor african countries at the price of 20 times of the manufacturing costs only because of someone's intellectual property.
Let me put it this way: IP stiffles teamwork and derivative works. In today's age that is a huge loss, instead of the whole internet community working on something, only a selected few can, which makes it slow and expensive. Would huge corporations still rake wild profits from selling a drug? No. Would they make a decent profit from manufacturing them? Absolutely.
Let's get back to a world where we stick to physical reality, not imaginary intellectual property.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
It is a good thing no one can hook the audio out to a tape recorder. Man, we would be in real trouble then!
Setting his threshold to 5, Sparky eliminated most of the trolls on /.
It is not a bookstore or cd/video rental shop. Patrons do not pay money each time they take a book out. They may be charged late fees due to scarcity issues, but the main idea is to enable the person to read the content.
The person can come back many times to take the book out again if he needs more time. But there is no point physically going to the library if it is a digital item on his drive.
In other words, even if the liscense required only a fixed number of people being able to view a title at a given time, it STILL would not make sense, because the DRM does not know if there are enough other copies to go around. It might be that nobody else is in fact interested in the file.
Therefore, the idea of a DRM "period" is bogus. At the very least, the user should be able to add another period if there are enough copies left in the stacks. It should not require an Internet line either, and it should be able to run on free software not some attackware that executes on my computer in a manner contrary to my wishes.
I have another point that may be unpopular with big business. It would be much better in my book if the library was able to purchase more items on a sliding scale as things got more popular, but not be bound to micromanage every copy on a user's hard drive.
You see, the point of the library is to ensure that everyone can get access to information, not just people with a lot of disposable income. You don't have to go buy the book or cd/dvd if your library has it. A library is not intended to be a marketing mechanism that makes you want to go buy the title. It is not intended to respond to the marketplace due to its competition with a bookstore/rental shop.
Considering that most people don't check the same book out of their library over and over again, a library normally wouldn't care if the user had a way to keep copies after returning them. The library has no responsibility for making sure that the user does not keep a copy on his drive even after the first time the user has read the copy, because it is there to promote access, not control access (except adult content maybe). If there is a good library nearby, you should never have to go to a store to get what you want.
Therefore, it stands to reason that:
I don't think it's a valid use at all. It's a public library, paid for with public funds, but it distributes midia based on a Microsoft-only DRM plan. Users with Linux (or I expect Apple) who decide not to spend the money on a Microsoft version of the software that will support this DRM approach get less access to material than those who support Microsoft. I think that's an extremely dangerous trend to start with libraries funded with public dollars. Unless the libraries also offer the same media in some form that is available to Linux users, then I would fight this when it rears it's ugly head at my libbrary.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
It would have been a shot in the arm had the libraries went in for something opensource
Chris ,
Php Programmers.
What the hell are you thinking? Library's distribute this for free already, copyright pussies aren't making any money off of it, books should be totally open, no DRM, no auto deletion, information should be free.
And if you think any differently, you're wrong. Go re-evaluate your dumbass opinion.
Many people in this thread have already commented on how this is a perfectly valid use of DRM. I completely agree with that. I actually think that _any_ instance where the copyright holder puts DRM on something is perfectly valid; after all, they _are_ the copyright holder. So far so good.
Other people have commented that this DRM will be cracked. And that, once the protections are removed, the content will be made available in an unrestricted format. This is true. However, that would probably happen even if the library didn't have the materials at all - it's not unheard of that materials are available on the Net before they are even released. Still, many people will get the materials from a library or a store. No real problem here.
The real problem with DRM, the way I see it, is that it hurts interoperability. Now you will probably be able to use these DRM'ed materials if you are running an up-to-date version of Windows (because that's what the creators of the DRM scheme built their software for), but you won't be able to use the materials at all (not even in the "correct" way) on a system that doesn't implement the DRM scheme (which would include Linux, Mac OS X, the BSDs, and all the really alternative OSes). Since the effectiveness of the DRM scheme would be severely hurt if the mechanism/specifications were opened, and one company is unlikely to develop software for every OS and architecture out there, these platforms are only going to be supported once the protection scheme has been reverse-engineered. This can take years. That is, IMO, where the real problem with DRM lies.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Something even easier: just use Audacity http://audacity.sourceforge.net/Audacity and set it to record, when any other app is playing sound. Voila!
I was pleasantly surprised a few weeks ago when I visited Netlibrary and logged in using my city library account to see a collection of downloadable audiobooks! I love learning languages and they had the whole Pimsleur collection available. Wasting no time, I downloaded 3 audiobooks and tried it on WinAmp since I'm not a fan of WiMP (Windows Media Player for the uninitiated). The audiobooks are supposed to play on WinAmp, but they didn't and WinAmp didn't give me any error messages. Debug, Debug, Debug. Figured out that I need to have at least WiMP 9.0 installed. Installed it. No Go. Then tried opening the file in WiMP directly. Ran into Snag 2. License error. Debug, Debug, Debug. Had an epiphany that I hadn't run WiMP as Admin since installing (I usually work as non-admin user). Switched to Admin and ran WiMP on the file. A login window popped up for Netlibrary.com. Logged in - snag 3 - "This audiobook has been checked out on a different computer". Apparently, when I tried running as normal user, WiMP retrieved a license but failed to use it! And there is NO WAY to revert that. Now, I'll have to wait 21 days for the checkout period to expire before I can borrow the book on a 'new computer'!! Ridiculous! O well, let's try a different language - there are a lot of Pimsleur Language programs to learn from!
:-P)
So, tried language 2 with WiMP as Admin. Worked!!! First success! Now let's try WinAmp. Still doesn't work. Maybe Reinstall? Nope! Doesnt' work. I'm still on my Admin account. Screw WinAmp! Let's log in as normal user now.
Logged in to normal account. Got license through the same popup login window. But what is this?! 'License is invalid'!! Arrggghhhhhhh!!! Enough with F#*%ing MS! I'm in no mood to talk to Netlibrary tech support either. Last time I got in touch, I had to debug their javascript and tell them what's wrong and they didn't even fix it later!!
O well! So much for trying the book on my 'Plays For Sure' WMA enabled Creative Muvo!!
Bottomline - JUST DOESN'T WORK FOR ME. (Maybe I should try Phonics?
Pet Peeve - YOU CAN'T RETURN A BOOK FOR 21 DAYS!!! And there is a limit of 10 books checked out. So, if the license scheme gets f***ed up, you are screwed.
What has other ppl's experience been?
- Hooeezit
remember the DIVX system Circuit City tried to implement?1 99.htm
http://hometheater.about.com/library/weekly/aa062
This disc format allowed the consumer to make an intitial movie purchase for as low as $4.49, which allowed one to watch the movie as many times as they wanted within a 48 viewing period. In order to watch the film again after that time, the viewer had to reactivate the viewing period with the DIVX computer. In other words, the player was tied in to the phone line and the consumer had to punch in his credit card number to a main-frame computer in Virginia in order to view his movie.
it's basically DRM with another renting schema that fell through. i thought it was actually pretty neat, but i guess because of the physical disc barrier, it wasn't well received. if they can make home theater pcs download these DRMed movies and give them an expiration of 48hours or 1 week or something, I think that'll be totally awesome!
HD Trailers
Here's something that seems to be a perfectly responsible and non-fascist way of employing it. The basic premise of copyright law, that artists/inventors/etc ought to profit from their work in order to enable them to produce more, is a good one (discussions on corporate corruption of its implimentation some other tmie, please). As we consider the ever evolving methods of digital publishing and information accessability, we must consider this as a way to foster both control over a medium and respect for the authors rights.
As someone who works in the arts, it is somewhat encouraging to know that there are online methods of publishing available that would enable me to profit from my work and make it publicly accessable. This is something that could be employed in the distribution of books, music, and video, and the significance of the ease of distribution, coupled with the genuine legality of this, ought not to be underestimated in its potential to meet the needs of artists, publishers, and society as a whole.
If you borrow a book from a library, you have to return it within, say, three weeks. This is because libraries have limited funds and limited physical space, so they cannot purchase a new book for everyone who wants to borrow it. In other words, the number of copies of each book is finite, and because of this, they cannot simply give books away, but you have to return them after three weeks because others may want to borrow the same title.
This is obvious and well understood. But it does not carry over to electronic media. For audiobooks, libraries can have one copy for everyone who wants to "read" a book, and they do have "unlimited" space for the "books". While for books there is a natural scarcity, this does not exist in the electronic realm. This is great news; it means there is enough capacity for everyone to read all the books they want! It is Knowledge Utopia.
Except no, in the face of no scarcity, they now create scarcity artificially by "pretending" the electronic files are actual tangible books or audio CD's. No Utopia for yoo!
Of course this will all be explained by "copyright enforcement", regardless of the fact that copying the audiobooks is perfectly legal. This is everything that is wrong with copyright. It is the horse-and-carriage of the electronic super-highway. It must die. (And in time, it will)
"Oppression and harassment is a small price to pay to live in the land of the free." -- Montgomery Burns.
Mplayer does play WMA as far as I know, so putting the dll in the right place could do the trick. It is not very userfriendly though.
My wife's sketchblog Blob[p]: Gastrono-me
Where's the world heading? :(
How is this any different from other applications of DRM (assuming they don't conflict with fair use)???
The ENTIRE idea behind DRM is "to offer digital content, without screwing over the copyright holder". Non-digital media have physical limitations that end up protecting the copyright holder. Digital media don't.
I'm not saying DRM has always been used appropriately by copyright holders, but the basic idea behind it is fair.
As a side not, the "people who use this content" are paying for it. They're just doing it as a group effort through taxes.
Go ahead and flame me now.
I think this is a perfectly valid use for DRM.
Ask yourself this question: Who is the most important target audience for audio books? Hint: Who can't read paper books? Who in the 21st century could finally have unlimited access to the entire human knowledge but thanks to moronic ideas like this they don't?
It allows libraries to offer digital content, without screwing over the copyright holder.
Yeah, let's screw over blind people! Great idea.
It's unfortunate that a Microsoft DRM is being used (as I assume it can only be played on Microsoft systems)
But of course! Who needs BLINUX users, right? They can shell out ten grands to make Microsoft Windows accessible after all.
but it's most likely the easiest and most well known DRM to the people that put the DRM on the content (and the library staff can most likely offer trouble-shooting help with it as a result).
Good luck with that.
Karma: Positive (probably because of superiour intellect)
WMA does not by definition exclude linux, just some company has to license WMA to make a player for linux. It will be costly I would guess, but if Microsoft wants to have support for their DRM, they could make this less costly, and have the support of the linux crowd for their DRM behind them (embrace and maybe not assimilate this time?)
My wife's sketchblog Blob[p]: Gastrono-me
Libraries should not go anywhere near MS products, especially its DRM. The Unesco manifest for public libraries contain a number of points including these four:
- well informed public
- sustainable development
- freedom
- democratic values
Here's how they tie in:Well-informed public: Money spend on acquiring, maintaining or merely operating ICT tools is money not spent on actual information resources or patron service. In addition to acquisition, maintenance, operating, and licensing costs (or lack there of) for ICT, the frequency with which these costs occur is as important as the magnitude.
DRM is simply too tied to a specific vendor / platform / product to be anything other than a cost sink. The data is not in the control of the library because the data format and the codecs needed use the DRM'd data are not. To make matters worse, the actual life cycle of the data formats and codecs is out of the hands of the library, so even if they retain the DRM'd data, it still can expire through lack of tools. And you can't make your own tools either, the EUCD/DMCA make that a serious crime even if the DRM is as simple as ROT-13.
Sustainable development: Historically, Microsoft has used new formats and protocols to drive new sales of software which in turn have driven sales of new hardware. Losing control of the data means that libraries then have no say in when or how to replace hardware or software. That causes problems locally, by hitting the library budget. That causes problems globally by hitting the environment with the discarded carcasses of computers, which are full of poisonous, non-biodegradable materials, including heavy metals. These machines are said to take as much resources as the now infamous SUV to produce.
Simply put, given uniform costs over the years (for the sake of argument), a five year replacement cycle is 40% less load/cost than a three year cycle. A six year replacement cycle is 50% cheaper than a three year cycle. In comparison to a two year cycle, which the vendors are trying to achieve, five and six year cycles are 60% and 67% cheaper.
Freedom: What part about not-Free (as in Freedom) don't you understand? Interoperability is the basis for freedom in this context. Without adherence to standards, there can be no interoperability. Therefore, vendors that fail to follow standards also causes similar problems and vendors that *chronically* introduce broken implementations of standards, whether as part of an "embrace, extend, extinguish" strategy or not, should also be avoided. Vendors that force proprietary protocols, formats and codecs should likewise be avoided for similar reasons. Specifically, the vendor in question, Microsoft, seems to have had difficulty following standards, particularly if the problems interfere with competing products. Examples include ODBC, Kerberos, and even TCP/IP and HTTP, to name only a few.
Democratic values: Vendors that chronically engage in illegal and unethical behavior are probably not likely to work towards support of democratic values either through daily operation in society or through the capabilities of their products. So far, MS has proven to be one of the worst in the 20th and 21st centuries.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
Good points! I was thinking some of them while reading the posts here.
I can't believe people here fall for DRM as soon as they can get something for free..
What we need is people thinking on the whole system, not just wether they themselves can get something by giving less for it. When everyone does that, it stops the flow of money.
I have a solid income, yet I vote for those parties here in Norway that favours schools, libraries, human values and strengthening the local community. This will certainly take more money from my pocket, but will benefit more people.
Think people..
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
I accept that this is only enforcing something that is already a moral and legal obligation, and in the processes giving the user something back in the increased convince. However this does not make it an acceptable use of DRM. (as it precisely this sort of back-door approach which will get people to accept mainstream DRM.)
Even if you ignore the issue of publicly funded library's lining the pockets of mega-rich corporations, using Microsoft DRM presumably locks our everyone using none-MS platforms. I should also imaging that this requires an Internet connection to verify the DRM (how else can it know the correct date). The primary purpose of library is to ensure everyone has access to information, this is obviously failing miserably.
Library's historically provided information in a convenient, accessible format, that the majority of people could access with no special equipment. This format was long-lasting, and completely unencumbered with patents and DRM. We should not be willing to trade away any of these in exchange for being to lazy to return items that are due.
If a library wants to distribute digital content then they need to use open formates not protected by patents that are free and easy to implement on any computer. Their primary goal is to ensure easy universal access. It is up to another of our public institutions to police that people are using the material in an appropriate manner.
In contrast to regions with mass transit where most of a commute can be spent reading, most people in the US must commute by driving their own car to and from work. Though most people don't count the time getting to/from their car and parking, I do: All said, door to door, most commute at least half an hour in the morning and half an hour in the afternoon. In larger urban centers, that's easily an hour each way and, in some regions it can be pushing two hours each way.
That's time gone from your life that you're not getting back - even not counting the physiological damage from sitting stationary so much. Audio books are one way of minimizing that loss. Your hands and eyes are free to concentrate on driving while you listen.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
Content providers using DRM technology already find themselves in an escalating arms race against information consumers (their customers!) who wish to freely, indefinitely retain copies of "content" in any form which they encounter. The reality is this: 20 years ago, you could check out a library book and if you really wanted to, you could copy it for 5c/page. There was never any way to stop you from doing this, and there never will be. Now you can copy digital information for free. Put some DRM in the way, and you can get around it if you want to. If you have to, you can screen-capture an e-book and OCR the resulting bitmaps if you really, really want to. This sort of activity is only going to get cheaper and easier.
We now have the technology to share unlimited quantities of information worldwide, virtually instantaneously, with perfect fidelity. This is not going away, at least not without a severe, worldwide crackdown on copyright infringement which is probably not feasible anyway. The cat is out of the bag and there's no way for restrictive technology to keep up.
This is great if you're an information consumer, but the outlook is pretty dismal for the business models still embraced by most of the big content marketing corporations today.
What is revolutionary, I believe, is that humanity is on the verge of developing technologies that can be used to manipulate physical matter with the same flexibility we now use to manipulate bits. I'm not saying we'll have desktop replicators in ten years, but we'll have them eventually. They'll start out probably as simple biological devices and then improve rapidly. So when you can freely download the plans to synthesize some Viagra or THC or the latest antiretroviral drug cocktail to treat some pandemic flu in 2020, this blows the whole business model of the drug companies clean out of the water. No more scarcity, in yet another huge sector of the economy, just like today there are no shortages of free downloadable copies of any major movie/audio/video release.
And how are they going to slap DRM onto the design for a molecule??? And if you can get your hands on a sample of it, you will probably be capable of analyzing and copying it as effortlessly as you can rip a CD.
If we can just solve the interrelated problems of energy scarcity and pollution/global warming before it's too late, things are going to get really, really interesting in the near future.
it's a blue bright blue Saturday hey hey
I though I would never see a good use for DRM but I could actually get behind and support this. The one problem it brings through is your locked into Windows. It wouldn't be such a problem if the companies got togeter and created one standarized DRM scheme that everyone could use, but no, that would be too perfect a world.
This signature was left intentionally blank.
Here we see digital restrictions management being put to good use; I should be able to check out content and use it for a minimum period or until someone else wants it. Why not have a library with 95% of its virtual content checked out at any one time - it's not doing anyone any good on its virtual shelves. That said, it is proprietary DRM; we should all be getting behind open source implementations (weren't Sun working on something) because a world with open source DRM is clearly better than one with a myriad (or worse, monopoly) of proprietary system(s).
Of course ideally more work would have sensible licenses (creative commons et al), in which case DRM is unnecessary.
<rant>For once it's not some fat cat media company screwing the artist and consumer at the same time by maintaining artificially high prices for no purpose but to justify their own existence.</rant>
It appears your angle is not against DRM, but rather against Microsoft DRM. Ie., DReaM Sun's open DRM initiative should be okay from your point of view.
As a sincere, open question I'd like to ask you: do you believe Open Source can (or cannot) coexist or even cooperate with DRMed media?
How about music? Why not that too?
No, it is not reasonable, because the world changes.
Some people write books to make money. Some people write books because
it satisfies them personally. Back when book copying was infeasibly
expensive, both of them had an incentive for continuing to write. Now
that copying has become feasibly cheap, those that write only for the
money have less of an incentive, and that is as should be (cue
Heinlein quote).
Establishing artificial restrictions on copying in order to prop up a
failed incentive is ultimately wasteful.
As a sincere, open question I'd like to ask you: do you believe Open Source can (or cannot) coexist or even cooperate with DRMed media?
My answer is no. DRMed media require trusted players which require a trusted os which requires trusted hardware. Any change to this chain would render it untrusted. Therefore, the whole open development cycle is fundamentally incompatible with protected hardware.
The only possible coexistence is for firmware to have a mode that allows running untrusted software in a sandbox. Since this is a potential entry into the firmware and since it doesn't enable access to DRMed media, the sandbox will become smaller and smaller or vanish in oblivion.
Summary: market acceptance of DRM will kill FOSS (and ultimately all but multi million corp. software development).
What happens to the copy you make on a Walkman cassette, with a simple "3.5mm stereo jack plug to 2 audio plugs" cable available from any electronics store?
And what happens if, as a strict Opensourcetarian (tm) you cannot run Microsoft's media player?
Anyway, we pay for libraries with our council tax. The library aren't losing anything physical if people keep the downloads. Nor are they losing money, since borrowing books is free. I can smell an ulterior motive somewhere, for sure.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Most sound cards are full-duplex and allow the input to be the mixer or "as you hear it". So, they effectively already have a loopback built into them. I've done this before in Windows.
- Set the input to be the mixer or the "as you hear it" function
- Start the Sound Recorder (or other sound editing program)
- Open the audio file in another tool
- Start recording
- Start playing
- Done
Even then, how many of us have multiple computers? Here is a simple and effective DRM disabler:
Line out (PC 1) --> Line in (PC 2)
That's the thing that fervent, DRM supports just don't seem to understand. If you can hear it, you can record it.
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
And to refute some of your points:
In the end, what you have is a copyright holder sacrificing some revenue so an institution may have the priviledge to provide information to the public, i.e. you. It would be rude and unethical to go against the copyright holders wishes.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
This was just a minor blip in Mile's day (to paraphrase); "What? But I absolutely need to read that file. Can't you just send it to me?" (This is over a telecom system. He was phoning from deep space or somewhere to a buddy in mission control.)
"Sorry, Miles. There's just no way. This file will simply not leave this terminal."
"Well. .
"Hm. Okay."
Done and done. He earned a commendation for that one. The security chiefs in sci-fi books aren't very bright, it seems.
-FL
This is all the thin edge of a wedge. Once DRM becomes standard and status-quo - this will start flowing into more things than just returning audio books automatically. The essential point of libraries was to solve the scarcity of books, which never occurs with such digital media.
It would be a good idea to remember what Freedom is - it's the freedom to do anything, but the consequences are yours to face. If the government starts such a pre-crime prevention, it comes close to a facsist utopia - we are not the first to be tempted by such a dream.After all God didn't put a fence around the forbidden fruit, did he ?.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur
I won't bother taking advantage of this new program. I know mine is doing it, but fuck it.
It may not be a popular opinion, but I'd almost rather not have people try to sell anything digitally, if it means constantly putting on this Halloween mask and pretending there are only so many copies of a particular file.
We're all so desperate to take this wonderfully pure binary world we've created, bend it over, and squeeze as much coin out of it as we can that we dress up our content in the clothes of real life objects just so we can hang a price tag off it.
Think about it. We're purposely developing techniques to retard the flow of data so we can slap a SKU on it and sell it. Or in this case, so we can pretend it's a book so only so many people can read it at once. It's absolutely pathetic and reeks of our insatiable greed.
I know, I know. It's an unrealistic ideology. I know our entire culture nowadays revolves around our paychecks and which CEO's genitals are bigger, but it doesn't mean I have to enjoy that big money-cock being shoved up our collective asses.
At least use some lube, for chrissakes.
BytesTemplar.com
How about selling digital media the same way all other goods are sold: buy paying for physical items, work involved, and related services?
I read an interesting paper on the economics of easily-copied items once (don't remember title or author, sorry), that claimed information is a physical limited resource like any other, only the numbers are different. It makes a lot of sense when you think about it.
Example - a CD can be copied instantly and in infinite numbers? Not really: to make a copy, you need to read the CD. That takes time, and makes that CD unavailable to others while you're copying it. Now put it on an FTP site. Free copying for everyone in infinite numbers? Not exactly, that FTP server can't pump out copies faster than bandwidth allows. Any other copies are copies-from-copies, and to each of these, the same restrictions apply as to that single CD you start with.
Same when you're copying some piece of equipment, or reverse engineer an electronic device. While you have the parts of your to-be-modded Xbox spread on the table, that Xbox can't be used to play games on.
With current technology, you know that these limitations seem irrelevant. But they're really just small, not irrelevant. Suppose in a world that doesn't know copyrights, Ms. Britney Spears would treat her next single as a physical item only: records a disk in the studio, and then takes that disk to a recording company, in exchange for say, $250,000. No limitations on what that record company does with it, BUT: that first disk costs $250,000. Period. Now the record company can mass-produce copies. But no matter what, they can't start doing that before they obtain that first disk, which would provide Ms. Spears with $250k income. That first disk would ofcourse become a very valuable physical item, and why not treat it as such? Suppose a technician leaks its contents: with countless copies out there, that first disk becomes worthless. What did that technician do? Destroy $250k worth of property. I'd know what to do if somebody destroyed $250k worth of my property: sue them for the full amount.
Hard to build business models in such a world? No, have people pay for physical items (CD's, DVD's, books, paintings etc). Or have people pay to compensate for your bandwidth costs. For those who don't want to pay: fine, but your server won't provide their download (only authenticated, paying customers). You want to do some software project, but it costs $5000? "Donate here!", and you spend an hour on the project for each $20 that comes in.
What are people paying for in that scenario? For: convenience, physical goods, services. Before you all start yelling: "that wouldn't work, nobody would buy any information anymore!", look around: how is todays world different? People pay when they feel like it, people pay for downloads, people buy CD's, DVD's etc., even while they can get it for free using P2P. Why? To support the artists, for the nice box and printed manual, for the no-fuss, fast, reliable download. In the case of newspapers or magazines, for the filtering, editing, printing and distribution (=services/physical item). In the case of a painting, for the knowledge that it's a unique (or limited number) item, or the work the painter put in. In the case of a new car design, for the work all the engineers, CAD/CAM people and test drivers put in.
Competition between record companies would be about which one succeeds in producing 100,000 copies of the latest Ms. Spears, and distribute them to shops around the world first. Or by having an exlusive contract with Ms. Spears, that another company doesn't have. By offering a different selection of artists in their portfolio than other record companies. Oh wait, that's what r
Mod Parent up (interesting)
I think its a valid question that should be answered by (grand)parent
University libraries in Finland have used similar DRM techniques for several years now. The system works on Adobe's eBooks and there's only a limited number (sometimes only one) of "copies" available of each book. This whole system has of course been initiated by publishers and Adobe, and I think the whole thing is a terrible waste of resources, and I suppose even many of the authors of the books would think the same, if somebody asked them. The system imposes artificial limitations on the data that are based solely on copyright legislation. Of course the system requires a version of Adobe Reader that's only available on Windows and Mac. Can't run it on wine even, since it has several layers of debugger/simulator detection (I once tried to take a screenshot of the program on Win98 just to be able to show to people what it looks like - the Reader hanged the computer completely and it only responded to hard reboot.)
"And so it begins..." - Kosh
Brazilian Authors's Rights Act (Lei 9610/98):
Art. 46, I, d: "it does not constitute copyright infringement the reproduction of literary, artistic or scientific works, for the exclusive use of the visual deficients, whenever the copying, without commercial purposes, is done in Braille or other media that support said people" (translation -- terrible -- mine).
This means libraries can copy audiobooks to the blind user without worrying with infringement.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
One of the most developed races had stations in their society which entitled people to what was necessary to survive.
People who engaged in these professions were given housing, food, and what they needed free by society as a whole. They never got rich, but they received compensation and were guaranteed not to go hungry or be homeless.
I think setting up something like this would in the long run be the solution to this problem.
You want to be a creator, fine, you won't be rich, but you will be provided for by a society which looks up to you.
I think such an approach has balance.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
How about the savings in rent as they reduce shelf space?
End of story, it doesn't work with linux. Suddenly the government is taking part in the marketing of microsoft's products at the expense of another.
Cd's worked on every CD player, tapes worked on every tape player, but thanks to DRM, this does not work on linux (and arguably macos X )
Shame on any of you who think this is "reasonable". A library charges late fees because it is short on resources and can't buy a book for every commer, not because it's supposed to be part of a publisher's marketing arm. And libraries should not be paying publishers a "license".. THEYRE SUPPOSED TO BE EXEMPT FROM COPYRIGHT LAWS!
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
What's the point of having the media converted to digital format, if the resulting file is still as inconvenient as an analog tape?
...is not the DRM itself (which is silly), but the fact that libraries are choosing sides and essentially forcing their clients to use an MS platform to use library material.
We can argue that MS is the leading platform for personal computers, but since most people don't listen to audio books at their computers, this seems a poor choice not only for technology's sake, but for their patrons who overwhelmingly will have iPods.
The only real "winner" I see here is MS who gets to lock in libraries with their technology.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
The market would sort it out if the DMCA were not protecting the DRM.
It IS the drm which is the problem.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
See, everyone here is completely missing the point. Not just a little off, but TOTALLY MISSING. (at least in the first 40 comments, that I read before I clicked reply)
Going to the library and borrowing a book that belongs to the library does not transfer you ownership of that book. This is why they call it BORROW. That doesn't change if it's a book on cassette, or a book on CD, or a book on any other kind of media.
Unless you (collective) can suggest a better alternative than "per unit ownership", which I highly doubt you (collective) will be able to do, that's the way it is going to work. You don't go to a library to permanently take their book. And it's not the scarcity of it that makes it need to be returned. They own one, they can loan one. The library could make a zillion copies on their copier, but they DON'T because they've only paid for the number that are in the library. And what do you pay to get a book from your local library? or a magazine? or a CD? or whatever?
Everywhere I've been the use of the library was free for city residents, and a once a year minimal charge for non-city residents. In fact, where I'm at now, the entire resources of the library are free, including internet access (though they do give you a fifteen minute time limit if there are other people waiting to use the machines). The only thing I've had to pay for there is paper for the copier/printer.
So, who's got a better idea for how to sell a book, a CD, a movie, a whatever, than on a per-unit basis?
"Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
~~~
This defense relies on the fallacy that publishing companies and the structure of this market have to exist as they are now.
I could base this same argument on the fallacy that if you are a buggy whip maker you are entitled to make a living after cars are adopted.
Therefore, I challenge you to think of a system for compensating the buggy whip makers that does not involve limiting the speed of vehicles to 10 mph and limiting their fuel efficiency to 7 mpg.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
I honestly don't care who's DRM scheme it is. I hat eto see this type of lending program fail. With publishers recent push to keep electronic version out of the hands of more than one person, it seems to me that they are backtracking on long established practice. I can always purchase book and when I am done with it, I can give it to a friend or family member and they can read it and so on. Now with Digital books, because of the new scheme, If I purchase one, I am the only person who can ever read it. I cannot lend it to someone or donate it a library (well there are a couple of ebooks donation programs, but they are difficult to use and you never own the book). To see it work from the other way around, a library purchasing the ebook and allowing many people to read it, is wonderful and should be fostered, no matter who's DRM scheme is used. Bickering of what schemes is only goign to play into the hands of publishers. I hate to see people state they will never use it simmply because it has an MS branding. You hurt all of us that way. We need it to work first and get established, then we can bicker over the software.
My local library is a part of a group that uses DRM books. You login to the system, download an application that interrupts a custom XML stream. The XML file then has key and paths for downloading the media files. Then it downloads the file and boom, you have a book (audio or textual) for three weeks of use with an option of burning it to CD.
You say things that offend me and I can deal with it. Can you?
Where I live I think that it is free to borrow books from the library, all you need is a library card which is also free.
:)
I think it sucks that they make it harder for people to have/get/store and take part of litterature. What is the point to make that audiobook expire?
Why shouldnt someone listen to it?
If the guy likes listen to it, I think he should listen it wherever he want, whenever he want and it should not expire...
Listen to an audiobook on a vacation in the sun would be pretty nice.
You don't want to support the extortion scheme now do you?
This is the crux of the DRM problem: YOU DO NOT OWN ANYTHING!!! These libraries will be paying $5k in perpetuity if they want to continue to provide these books.
It's like Napster2, if you decide to stop paying, you lose all of your music. If they raise their fees, you pay. If they change license terms, you pay. If they go out of business, you pay (someone else).
Sounds like someone's going to be getting a raise, because this is pure genius on the part of NetLibrary and OverDrive.
ACHTUNG! Das computermachine ist nicht fuer gefingerpoken und mittengrabben. Ist nicht fuer gewerken bei das dumpkopfen.
"except that the copyright holder has the right to decide in what form something will be distributed and under what terms you can use it."
Does it really? What you're talking about is a EULA, but that has nothing to do with the copyright.
I don't know why no one has ever heard of just playing the audio, capturing it, and re-encoding it in whatever format you wish. Problem solved. This is a pain in the butt though and we would all like to avoid it like the plague, but this could be easily automated on linux, as I have already done a similar thing to Apple's AAC before on Linux, through a script that I wrote that would use the above method to go from AAC(Apple)=>OGG. At the same time because you are going from lossy to lossy you are going to introduce more artifacts, and quality is not going to be as good. But you get the benefits of no DRM. And for an audio book I doubt you'll notice :>)
The amazing thing is this. . .
The system you suggest is already available to anybody who wants to live it. It is in disguise as and integrated into the current mercantile system, but I am a working example. I am a writer/creator who lives by these means. I have found that if you give and shine as brightly and as honestly as you can, if you follow your true path wherever it leads, then you will find that the universe provides. Give and trust, (but don't wishfully think or blind yourself or get lazy), and things will fall into place.
The trick is showing how this works to everybody. You don't have to create books or music. You can create houses and food, or serve coffee or drive a bus. So long as it's what you love to do, so long as you are following your internal compass, and so long as you are fearless and willing to drop everything to help out those people around you who are also following paths of openness and fearlessness, then you are going to be provided for. It's a very powerful and self-sustaining system, and the American Right has a good reason to shrink from it, as it uproots greed and fear, which are the life-blood of the Neo-con empire.
-FL
Most sound cards are full-duplex and allow the input to be the mixer or "as you hear it".
Audio drivers signed by WHQL add audio channels marked as "secure" to the mix after it branches off to the loopback input, so that you'll hear only silence when you play back the recording. Go look up the Secure Audio Path.
Non-DRM, physical system:
DRM, digital system:
Where's the evil? For that matter, how is it substantially different (except for no late fees! And no late fees are good!
Some of you already have those cute little shirts on that say disco sucks, right? That's not all that sucks.-Frank Zappa
I like the service idea, but if someone wants to sell their music as a heavily restrict product then that's their prerogative.
Really? If I hear a song even once on commercial FM radio, then I have heard it "for free", but I am forever barred from writing a song that is similar, even accidentally. Conspiracy theorists claim that the major music publishers push their songs out to radio so that independents are more likely to run into legal problems, given that there exist only a limited number of legally distinct melodies.
The Content Trust is careful, so far, to avoid the subject of libraries, because they want to abolish them and the public isn't ready to swallow that yet.
The Content Trust wants cash on the barrelhead for every "use." They want carte blanche to monitor and revoke. They want artificial price structures by region and use-case. They want to criminalize quoting and excerpts without permission. They want to end re-selling. Think. They want to criminalize lending!
What does a library do? It buys books, records, and movies, and then lends them to people for free! Heaven forfend! How do the poor booksellers, music shops, and video rental stores survive?
It shocks me that so few people have thought this through yet. The Content Trust is pushing the biggest renegotiation with society since the printing press. We have a longstanding deal when it comes to "copyright:" information is already free. At your beloved public library! Buying books, movies, and DVDs is patronage, pure and simple.
Free access to information for everyone, regardless of means is singularly, vastly, vitally important to the way our society functions.
Imagine if, when the phonograph was invented, musicians (which until then were the only way you got to hear music) were for some unusual reason able to lobby powerful people in Washington. What if they said, "Make a law! We must be paid individually for every musical performance made by these Recording Machines, just as if we were there to perform it ourselves." It's stupid, right? Almost as stupid as libraries using DRM to manage "copies."
Unfortunately, those poor little musicians had to suck it up. And now it's time for the Content Trust to suck it up too... screw them. Technology marches along. Sometimes people need to change their "business model." Ask any musician, or for that matter, any bank teller, they'll tell you...
Tired of Political Trolls? Opt Out!
Do you really expect people to send you $X with no guarantee or even necessarily a liklihood that the project (or, in the case of Mrs. Spears, the CD) will ever actually be released?
Yes. See The Street Performer Protocol. To address your fear of what happens if the bounty is never completed, see also Fundable.
the test is not "same amount of money they're making now" - there is no social utility in a particular level of reward per se.
The test is whether a politician proposing a scaleback of copyright as part of his platform would be able to get elected. All major American TV news outlets share a parent company with an MPAA member studio (NBC and MSNBC to Universal, ABC to Disney, CBS to Paramount, CNN and CNN Headline News to Warner Bros., and Fox News to 20th Century Fox), and each movie studio could pressure its TV news channel's editorial staff to bury the name recognition of a candidate who advocates a net reduction of the earnings of copyright owners.
do you imagine these DRM-ed audio books will play on a Mac?
Despite the name, there is Windows Media Player for Mac OS X. I guess it's supposed to be parsed as ((Windows Media) Player) rather than (Windows (Media Player)).
Now that movie that was not LEGAL to own in Japan (example pulled out of nowhere)
Are you talking about decency based restrictions on publication of a movie in a given country, or are you talking about copyright based import bans? In the latter case, Japan is a special case, as it is one of the few countries that does not recognize exhaustion of distribution exclusivity at the first sale of a copy of a motion picture.
You're an idiot. Why on earth should all books be totally open? It's a fracking library with limited resources doing a great job with those limited resources.
We can argue about whether it's a good idea or not, but if I want to write a book and then encrypt it, you can just suck it.
other goods like, for example, a Ferrari, have MUCH higher percentage of their cost covering the development of the IP prior to manufacturing. Moving to the digital world doesn't change that in the slightest.
Yes it does. The processes that go into building a Ferrari automobile are patented, while most works distributed under digital restrictions management are copyrighted. This is important because the scope and duration of exclusive rights under patent and copyright are drastically different. Believing that what's good for the patent goose is good for the copyright gander is a confusion that results from the overuse of the phrase "intellectual property".
The problem is: 2 meters of air are a perfect firewall to prevent it from informing anyone in the case of DRM.
Did you forget wireless transmission? You meant "2 meters of air and a Faraday cage", right?
And why should anyone care about cracking DRM on audio files when he can just use programs that can record audio-streams.
The point is that it may become a crime to sell a digital audio recording device that does not respond to the government-mandated watermarking system. We have to create enough backlash against digital restrictions management so that such a "final solution to the piracy problem" is never legislated into existence.
The manufacturing process to refine and synthesis and transform all those raw materials into a computer has the environmental impact of an SUV. The average desktop computer and 17-inch CRT takes 1.8 tons of water, fossil fuels and chemicals to make. Refinement and manufacturing are resource intensive, especially when high levels of purity are required. For example from the article, "Making a 2-gram memory chip requires 1.3 kilograms (1,300 grams) of fossil fuels and materials." The most effective way to reduce the environmental impact of the manufacture of the unit is to extend the life of the unit.
I realize that suburban utility vehicles (SUVs) are sacred cows, but they are currently the most prominent symbol for waste of resources. The energy used to operate the computer puts it more in the same class as a refrigerator.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
I think it was called IPv6?
I have your Intellectual Property Version 6 right here. It's called Trusted Network Connect.
Hello
The term used makes a lot of difference in the first impression it creates .
Saying that the"book returns " doesnt do any good.Returns to where ? Is somebody in the library dying to get hold of just this copy ?
People who want to share their work are currently free to do so. See stuff like linux and wikipedia for excellent examples. People who produce ideas with the hope of profiting from them are also able to do so, you know like novelists.
No they aren't. At least in music, once you hear a song on the radio, you are forever barred from creating and publishing a similar song yourself, even if the similarity is only accidental. Analysis
It will probably lead to people holding on to their books for the 3 weeks and having them automatically returned. A better system (IMHO) would automatically return the books after 4 weeks, after having charged a week's worth of late fees. That way people would probably try to actually read and return the book, instead of relying on a super safe "wait and see" attitude. Even though the book is out potentially for 4 weeks, it might actually increase book availability...
m
Your clafacation hasn't changed the point.
Look, the creation process is still legally protected with copyright and what not but that doesn't mean IT should survive either. When a system is obviously straining under technology as much as copyright is it suggests there is something broken within it.
Over 600 years ago there was nothing like copyright. There wasn't nearly enough books for it to even occur to people to have. Printing press changed that. Why should we assume that anything like the old style copyright should continue now that the technology has change so much yet again?
Yes, a high quality,professional book does currently requires a great deal of time from a number of people (editors, proof readers, writers,etc.) but there is no reason that has to stay that way for ever. Maybe it will, maybe DRM is the answer. The catch is you can not define the problem as "How will we get the same people to write books in the future?" but instead must define the problem as "Why will people write books in the future?"
I mod everyone down who says "I'll get modded down for this." I hate to disappoint.
There's no fallacy as he's not saying that it has to be that way. The libraries are trying to create an electronic distribution mechanism that publishers are comfortable with.
for my to stab you in the jugular with a ball point pen, but there are laws against that too.
Wow! Such intellect! Such insight! How could ANYONE ever disagree with you?! Btw, if books were totally open, there'd be damn few books available.
Next, libraries make a killing in the used MP3 market!
--
make install -not war
but the truth is the publishers are irrelevant and don't know it yet.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
The "does-it-run-on-Linux" problem is one of at least two problems with this scheme for using DRM on eBooks.
The second problem is that the library is unlikely to buy a print copy of the book if it has licensed the DRMed eBook. The university library here frequently buys access to eBooks only for computer software-related topics (since the material becomes obsolete so fast - a book on say, Perl 5 will be out of date in a couple years when a new version comes out). However, the eBook format is not nearly as handy as a print copy. I can't easily take it back to my apartment to read, since access is tied to a campus IP address. I can't read it outside (without a wireless-enabled laptop). And (perhaps most problematic) the DRM mechanism prevents you from retrieving all the pages of a book (to prevent you from downloading the whole thing). So, it's impossible to just read the book from front to back.
I'm sure if you wanted to go to the trouble you could do a lot of things. You could borrow an audiobook and copy it on loopback without the DRM too, the DRM is not there so much to prevent copying in this case as to ensure it is "returned" in a virtual sense.
- First Sale - it's yours
- Freedom of Information - strongest in Finland / Sweden, weakest in UK/France
- Fair Use - the purpose of copyright is to promote science and the useful arts
- Common Carriage - if you carry goods or traffic, it has to be available to all
The latter is relevant, since computers are used for communication. That's not just VOIP, but also written communication.Digital Restrictions Management technologies threaten to remove all of those above, especially if people just sit back and let monopolies or cartels roll over the market.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
But libraries will already loan you CDs, which it's easy to rip without setting up a loopback. So in this respect, DRM isn't all that different from loaning out physical copies.
The real problem is that WMA (and all DRM technology) is proprietary. Even "good" uses for it mean that you're locked in to a single vendor, in this case Microsoft.
But libraries still have to work within the law, even if the law has been bought and paid for by the copyright industries. And right now, that means they can't just give people unrestricted copies of material on which someone else holds the copyright. (They should, of course, try to negotiate better licenses with the publishers.)
DRM is still bad, of course. The main problem is that it's proprietary: it's impossible to make a DRM system that works with free software or doesn't rely on "attackware". (There are some proposals to use Trusted Computing for Linux DRM, but that simply offloads the attackware into hardware.)
LOL! The truth is publishers are NOT irrelevant. Less important? Yes. But irrelevant? No.
It is now time again for reminding you all of what might happen if this goes too far:
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
wow, these guys are feeling REALLY comfortable with their install base to pull this kind of thing. Or, maybe they're getting coaching from MSFT lawyers on how to be a good MSFT partner in-training for purchase... ;-)
Go http://gplflash.sourceforge.net/ and SVG!
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
I think only because this is the least evil use of DRM any of us have ever seen, is everyone saying it's a good thing. While it is true that I, and most other people, would be willing to tollerate this kind of DRM, it is still nonetheless evil, and here is why.
When you go to the library to do some research, they have publicly available copying machines. You can make your own copy of anything they have there for a small fee. Typically the fee is whatever it costs for paper, ink, and maintaining the copier. That copy is then yours, it never expires, and you can do whatever you need to with it provided that you're not profiting from the work. This is FAIR USE.
If libraries actually needed to control documents, they would've been loading their copiers with dissapearing inks since the invention of the copier!! What has changed between now and then? Nothing! There is not, and never has been an actual need for DRM. It's just some bullshit scheme by the DRM manufacturers that's been cleverly sold to the library system, which will be shoved down the throats of every day users.
DRM is bad, period. Do not ever accept it as fair, because it is not.
At least if you count eComStation 1.2 as a version of the OS/2 client.
The last release of the OS/2 client from IBM (not including informal kernel releases) was Warp 4.52 in July 2002, I think. I could be off by a month.
Given that it'll run OpenOffice and Firefox, it seems too useful to just toss away. Too bad you didn't offer your discs on eBay -- I could use another set...
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
Actually, a good metal sign costs $30-$50 for mass produced ones like "STOP", more for custom ones like the name of your favorite town. Add in standard tourist markup, and anyone who would be thinking of stealing the sign in the first place probably still would rather steal it than buy it.
" If you think about current library practices, nobody makes more money if 100 people borrow a book then if 2 people do."
If a library buys 100 books, the publisher makes more money than if the library muys 20 books. No copyright is violated since copying of the books by the library does not occur. If you buy one copy of an audio book, and copy it 100 times, whether your audio book started as a cd or an mp3 file is irrelevent. You have violated copyright either way, and the publisher only got paid for one copy.
Vote for Pedro
"In the internet age where someone wants to claim ownership to various bitflows, it just simply doesn't work. The whole definition of storing and copying bitflows invalidates the entire system of intellectual property because of it's given nature. In this environment IP and Copyright is an outdated system blocking innovation.
"
In this environment GPL is an outdated system blocking innovation, in your own words.
Vote for Pedro
"Nearly 28 million portable audio players were sold last year, according to In-Stat, a technology research company. With more than 21 million sold, the iPod remains the signature portable player. But it uses the Advanced Audio Coding format with FairPlay, its own digital rights management system and one incompatible with Windows' technology."
Libraries need to use DRM to prevent being sued by publishers. Libraries cannot use software compatible with Apple Fairplay because Apple refuses to license this technology. Therefore, Apple screws it's customers once again with their lock-in practices. Thanks Steve for not letting me check out audio books for my iPod.
What's annoying is the article casts the technolofy as Windows technology, when WMA has nothing that specifically requires Windows use.
Vote for Pedro
"I though I would never see a good use for DRM but I could actually get behind and support this. The one problem it brings through is your locked into Windows. It wouldn't be such a problem if the companies got togeter and created one standarized DRM scheme that everyone could use, but no, that would be too perfect a world."
WMA can be licensed by anyone wanting to provide software for any device, including a Linux box, a Mac, and an iPod. Apple, on the other hand is not so open with licensing Fairplay.
I agree an open DRM standard would be nice, but would be too easy to abuse, since knowing the standard, one could write software to unlock DRMed maerial and transform it into non-DRM material.
Vote for Pedro
I wonder though how the industry will eventually respond now that the DMCA has given them commercial rights to restrict access to digital works.
Which would you rather have? Everybody forced to buy their own copies? Or being able to borrow them at the library?
I think it is only a matter of time before our libraries are targetted by the industry as unfair competition.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Of course, WinAmp can be used to convert pretty much all audio into MP3 format, so, bye-bye DRM.
All you have to do is install Winamp, LAME and MP3 Output Plugin.
Then just play the audio file in WinAmp, with the plugin selected as the output thingy.
As a last line of attack, you can record the content as it's being output to the speakers.
Not if Hollywood can sweet-talk Congress into putting a tax on devices that contain high-resolution analog-to-digital converters that don't obey the watermark. Yes, Congress has the power to do this under the commerce clause as interpreted in Wickard v. Filburn.
The American Association of Publishers has a special section about Ebooks, and an interresting document about their view of how DRM in Ebooks should be here.
Apparently there are currently about a hunderd commercial DRM technics available, none of them good enough.
Ernest J.W. ter Kuile
Computers are very good at enforcing rules. Society, in comparison, struggles to enforce rules. One day some people begin to think, "hey, why don't we use computers to enforce the rules?".
:) Ignoring the usual stuff like "piracy results in exposure which results in sales", there is a more fundamental principle underlying all of this.
There are certainly many useful and postive applications of this idea. DRM is not one of them. Why? Because it is based on a fundamental assumption that is flawed: piracy - AS IT OCCURS IN PRACTICE - is bad.
The facts are simple: this has never, even been shown to be conclusively and undeniably true. Assuming you use my definition of 'undeniably true'
To me, if Alice were to pirate my book, read it and did not enjoy it, I WOULD NOT EXPECT TO BE PAID. Wow, what a concept! I provide somebody with a service ('to entertain her with my dirty romance novel') and she is not satisfied with it, so she doesn't pay!
There's more to it than that. Personally, I don't want to be paid if people don't enjoy my books. It'll just encourage me to write even more terrible dirty romance novels, and the world certainly doesn't need anymore of those.
On the other hand, if Alice did enjoy my book, there's a good chance she has a conscience and a sense of social responsibility, and pay me for the book. I suspect at least 95% of people enjoying my book would fall in to the category. I'm willing to forgo the ENTIRE other 5% of "potential" profit because it's simply not something I want to ATTEMPT to control at the cost of freedom (which is the cost of DRM and all the other kinds of technologies which it implies might be acceptable in the future, because, be realistic now, it won't stop with books once DRM starts to take off.)
This is the essence of the Street Performer Protocol, and is far more ethical than what we have today where a publisher rakes in 80%+ of profits. The only reason this system exists is precisely because of the difficulties in the process of publishing books in the physical world. It's fascinating how technology makes this all so simple, and yet most people are now simply obsessed with trying to impose the same old system onto the new technology, without ever asking the obvious question (keep in mind that at its roots, "copyright" is a social contract between members of society... of course, today, just as with most things, that fact has been blurred by history and corporate greed: copyright has taken on a life of its own and has become a magical thing handed down by god itself):
"Did the existing publishing process work as fairly and ethically as possible?"
Because I don't think it did work as fairly and ethically as possible. How is there any justification for me having to pay for a book that I did not enjoy? It's only partly logical to argue that the money is to cover the cost of me being able to pick up the book and read it (books afterall cost money to produce; also, nobody wants a book I've damaged). But the bulk of the cost simply cannot be attributed to the mere process of reading the book.
People read books to be entertained, or to glean knowledge from the book. If the book does not provide an acceptable experience, why should I pay for the full amount for it? Traditionally, the argument was "well, damnit, it's a physical object whose production involved many people who have to put food on the table, regardless of whether you liked the work they did!".
Yet, this is no longer relevant in the digital world. We no longer have to treat the book as something paired with all the practical problems of producing a book. Instead, we can separate all that stuff out of the process and charge people for the content.
Digital publishing and the street performer protocol addresses these issues precisely. Digital publishing imposes no unnecessarily additional middle-man costs. You contribute only as much as you think the item is worth. You don't pay some magical number based on thin
My local library lends Adobe e-books, with a similar scheme. I was able to read Wicked this way long before the physical copy showed up.
At what point did contracts become something that you are just supposed to know what is in it. We are not talking about criminal law, we are talking civil law. Contracts. This move to allowing the details of a contract to be presented AFTER the company makes the agreement is insane. Just ask around to Joe-Six pack. The vast majority of them believe that they are BUYING the music. If the population understood that they were only RENTING the media, the **AA could say they are RENTING it to you. They don't do that because that is not the offer they are making. They offer to SELL you the media, then after you pay them, they say the you sould have known that BUY really means RENT.
The media companies are clearly commiting fraud, and the U.S. government is using their guns to back it up. So, yes, as long the media companies can make up any terms they want after the fact, and the U.S. government is willing to back that up with guns, DRM just might eat your children.
"Does the library let you checkout a digital version of those CDs?"
Umm...all CDs are digital? Are you confused? Do you understand how CDs work?
Non-standard software needed: Nero 6 Ultra Edition, Exact Audio Copy (with LAME), and sox.
Download the OverDrive audiobook.
In the OverDrive Media Console, select the book and click Transfer/Burn. This will launch Windows Media Player.
In Windows Media Player, choose File > Copy > Copy to Audio CD...
Choose "Nero Fast CD-Burning Plug-in" as the destination disk.
Choose the first part of the audiobook and click "Copy". When prompted, save the file as "Book Title - Part 1.nrg". Repeat this for the rest of the parts. This will take a lot of disk space (almost 1GB per part), but is the only task that needs to be done within the checkout period.
Use Nero ImageDrive to create a virtual CD from the first .nrg file. Use Exact Audio Copy to create a .wav file from the virtual CD. Repeat this for each .nrg file. This will also take a lot of disk space, but you can delete each .nrg file after you have converted it to a .wav file.
Using the MediaMarkers in the OverDrive Media Console, figure out the starting time and length of each "track" you want to split the file up into. For example:
Track MediaMarker Starting Time Length
1 04:24 0:00 4:24
2 09:08 4:24 4:44
3 14:01 9:08 4:53
my apologies, I couldn't figure out how to post tabular data
Use sox to split the large .wav files, like this:
sox disc1.wav "Author - Title - Track 001.wav" trim 0:00 4:24
sox disc1.wav "Author - Title - Track 002.wav" trim 4:24 4:44
sox disc1.wav "Author - Title - Track 003.wav" trim 9:08 4:53
In Exact Audio Copy, create an "Audiobook" profile. I prefer a user-defined encoder with lame.exe as the program, the command-line options "-a -h -V 9 -B %r %s %d", bit rate 64kBit/s, high quality. Save this profile to disk. Leave Exact Audio Copy open.
Drag all your small .wav files onto Exact Audio Copy and let it do its magic, compressing them into mp3 files.
Delete all the non-mp3 files. You're done!
OK, let's assume for a moment that culture, as legally enshrined in copyrights, trademarks and patents, is not valuable in and of itself but should be the sole province of business interests, and creating artificial scarcity can be a valid and ethical business model.
Then, how can it be good business practice to remove the negotiation component from buying and selling? Price negotiation helps to set fair and accurate prices through supply and demand, and if this is artificially removed (as it can be using DRM+EULA) then the quality of culture will no longer be a function of the quality of content, but of the craftiness of the people writing the EULAs, because that is what will truly determine profits. There will be no incentive to provide quality content and so quality will drop to the very minimum. There being no quality content to be had, people will conclude that someone has pissed in the well and stop buying content altogether, and look elsewhere. That will not be good for business (unless there is a monopoly situation to force purchases).
Whenever a EULA is included with every new product you buy, legalism creeps into another area of your life. It used to be that when considering whether to buy a book, you wouldn't have to read a EULA first to see what you would actually get, you could depend on the fact that if you didn't like the book, you could just sell it to someone else. You can't do that with a DRM book anymore. The EULA typically won't let you (and that's just the beginning of what EULAs can do to consumer rights). Whereas you used to be able to reduce the scarcity of a lousy book by reselling it, that sort of two-way market communication is being cut off. The seller's EULA decides whether the consumer can do anything to impact post-sale profits of a book. So, consumers will either be reading long EULAs (not likely), or they will skip over it and accept any terms (likely), so that there will be almost no one enforcing the consumer's side of the bargain. As a result, makers of lousy books will profit just as much as makers of books that consumed substantial resources to produce. The only communication between buyer and seller that will matter then will be the initial marketing that fools people into buy a EULA-controlled book in the first place. Thus, less work will go into producing the content, and more into producing the marketing. People will think of "books" in a totally different and negative light, and some may stop reading altogether.
You may think that this is good for business, but I think it can only benefit the short term while at the same time ensuring failure in the long run. If people have no stake in culture, they will not even desire to own it, and without quality or transferability, they will have no stake in it, no ownership of it at all. What's more, we will be trying to criminalize even more of our formerly normal and desirable economic behavior.
Isn't it a bit ridiculous that for a modicum of DRM they can manage to make this so completely difficult to use for "readers"? Look at my case: MP3 CD player in the car, iPod in my pocket. Library offers books via the Overdrive Media Console, which allows me to either burn to audio CD, listen on the computer, or transfer the files to an MP3 player (not an iPod). Besides that long set of steps above, I can either burn each book to it's 18ish CD's, or listen to it on my computer... Great! Thanks a bunch for nada. On the average I listen to a CD based audiobook in the car every week. I was really looking forward to being able to download them, but I guess until Apple and MS can get down to agreeing on DRM (and the devil wearing mittens) I'm out of luck.