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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."
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.
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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.
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?
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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).
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.
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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.
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Because they need to return it because having it checked out stops other people from using it...
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.
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The point here is that there is only a license for 1 person to read it at once -- and it is the library's responsibility to enforce that, otherwise they would be unlawfully distributing the work.
This has been a public service announcement.
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I would think this is a major detraction from my libraries largest source of income, me and late fees.
It is a good thing no one can hook the audio out to a tape recorder. Man, we would be in real trouble then!
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And that's exactly what I thought when I saw this. Due dates are a way of managing scarcity: the library only has so many copies in stock, so they insist that copies only be out for a certain amount of time. The fine they levy for not bringing it back in time is not so much a revenue stream as an incentive for patrons to bring the media back in time.
Digital copies mean that given a single original, one can create any number of identical duplicates. It should herald an end to information scarcity. The problem is that too many businesses, content producers, etc. are totally incapable of crafting a business model based on abundance. In their defense, it may not be possible to do so.
That's the reason for the DRM in this case: rather than buy all the audio books themselves, the libraries pay a small fee, get a number of licenses, and can lease those out for a limited time. It's not so much the library that's using the DRM to check books back, it's that the company making the audiobooks available to them will only let them offer books for a limited time.
Congratulations to the libraries on finding a way to make audiobooks available cheaply to its patrons and eliminating the need to bring the books back, but deep down I'm still fuming. It won't end until someone finds a way to DRM money and jams it down the industry's throat... and actually, that gives me a wicked idea. But how to pull it off...?
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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:
>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.
However, most of the DRM part has NOTHING to do with copyright. Restricting how long you can view or read something has nothing to do with copyright. The copyright holder has no exclusive right for that. The copyright holder can control a few things such as copying and public performance due to being exclusive to them, nothing else. DRM however, add completely new control over things that has nothing to do with copyright.
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?)
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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.
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.
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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.
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