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RIAA vs Linux and DVDs
PlayfullyClever writes "The entertainment industry has put itself on the fast-track to destruction, using well-proven tactics as explained in Preventing DVD Playback on Linux Like Prohibition in the 1920's. Are their heavy-handed tactics to lock up and control everything we touch signs of plain old human stubborness?" Or more likely- greed.
TFA states that during Prohibition alcohol consumption fell initially, then rose to heights never before seen. P2P sharing was huge a few years ago. I don't have any data to back this up, but it seems to me that it's taken a pretty big fall. Is there going to be a rise similar to alcohol consumption during Prohibition? On the other hand, I can hardly wait to see Homer the mp3 Baron...
I was at blockbuster the other day and rented the Longest Yard, then took it home. Much to my suprise, the DVD blocked the watching of the movie on my computer. I took the DVD to blockbuster, and told them that I was cancelling my blockbuster pass because I was unable to watch movies on my computer (I have no normal TV as everything is ran through the computer using beyond TV). I figured that should put the most pressure on the MPAA. If blockbuster lobbies against MPAA because their revenue basis is dried up, it should make a good battle where only consumers win... i hope.
Victory is gained, not in knowing your opponents next move, but in preempting them.
The reason why Linux can't play DVDs (legally) is because Linux users want source code so they can modify, fix bugs, etc. There wasn't and still isn't a big enough base of people willing to pay for playing DVDs especially when Windows and Mac users get to play them for free!
Using trusted computing (stay with me for a moment) you could write a very very tiny little program (probably kernel module) that would be distributed as a signed binary, but also available as source (recompiling it wouldn't help, but you could verify what it does) Since the new DVDs (at least blue ray) spits back single use decryption codes, using this software to get one out wouldn't be a big deal, its just that it would need to run under TCPA to get that code. Then that one time key can be used to read and decrypt the DVD. Works fine until you open the door, then the code is invalid and you need a new one.
This would work fine for playing the newer DVDs. Wouldn't keep Stallman and his true believers happy, but at least solves the real issue, which is the inability to play blue ray DVDs under Linux starting next year. There could be plenty of open source software to play DVDs, they'd just need this little binary module. Not ideal, but better than waiting to see if DVD Jon can crack it in a way that can't be fixed by the ability of newer DVDs to "update" the software in the players to invalidate compromised keys.
It is misleading to say "our brilliant government" passed Prohabition. It would be more accurate to say "our brilliant GOVERNMENTS" passed Prohibition, as it required a 2/3rds majority of votes in both the House and Senate, as well as being ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the states. Grave mistake though it was, Prohabition was still an issue whose passage was sufficiently popular to overcome the step hurdles against amending the constitution.
The DMCA, by contrast, has shown no such popular support, and did not go through nearly as rigerous a process or well-debated to be enacted into law. That's a rather fundamental difference, and one that renders his anaology to inexact to be meaningful, if not his overriding point.
Crow T. Trollbot
What is the danager here ?; that dvd media etc cannot be played on non-open systems. If so what ?. There is an assumption here that playing movies (or mp3s) is important. It undoubtedly is to some. Let them pay. Meanwhile those committed to openness as a philosophy will continue to invest their time and efforts in intrinsically open media, e.g, wikipedia. The luxury of the times we live in is that there is a choice. Will there ever be 'open' movies ?; almost certainly not. So !?. The oss community will be reduced to reading and coding and listen. So much the better. I for one can live without "pkg_add -r mplayer" !
When the seagulls follow the trawler, it's because they think sardines will be thrown in to the sea
The RIAA - Hollywood - DRM - Linux Suicide Pact
"The entertainment industry has put itself on the fast-track to destruction, using well-proven tactics as explained in Preventing DVD Playback on Linux Like Prohibition in the 1920's. Are their heavy-handed tactics to lock up and control everything we touch signs of plain old human stubborness? Stupidity? Insanity? A bit of each? How else do you explain their inexplicable actions?"
Or it's just a coincidence.
we will end no whine before its time
It'll just keep linux as a hobby OS or server OS (where it should be, but that's due to people not using it due to bad drivers, which is due to it not being a desktop and worth the time for development, and the cycle repeats), and maintain Microsoft's monopoly over x86 architectures (assuming OS X piracy on commodity hardware doesn't go crazy). Same old same old. and there will always be ways around it (and I doubt the RIAA is going to start suing people for installing software to just play DVDs in linux with such a small user base).
In undeveloped countries, the consumer controls the market. In capitalist America, the market controls you.
I personally think Sony/BMG's recent fiasco could've hurt things more, because as opposed to Linux, Windows is a much more common OS among music listeners. Sony managed to bring the concept of rootkits to the masses perhaps even better than SCO managed to scare off Linux users.
As for this article, it's interesting, but quite a bit "scattered" on different thoughts, covering a whole lot of ground on a mere two pages of text. But sure, MS is clearly facing new needs of adapting themselves to the industry they may not have faced since they started sketching on their business model. It remains to be seen if they'll be able to adapt to the new market, but at least according to their recently leaked internal memos, they realize the need of relying less on their traditional style of software development, marketing and pushing. It remains to be seen if they can put this insight into successful actions though. Part of the plans seemed to involve basing more revenues on online ads and becoming a Google, but unfortunately for them, well, there's this not too unsuccessful Google already there.
So I think there'll be some interesting times ahead, even moreso if the Linux community will one day manage to provide a distribution taking a leap in functionality, user friendliness and style, like for example OS X did in the days.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
What's interesting is that I as a consumer cannot purchase LinDVD from InterVideo. It says so on their site. Secondly, Sigma Designs doesn't market consumer software either. Both InterVideo's and Sigma's "DVD players for Linux" are not actually DVD players for Linux. They are DVD/Video Player Boxes (i.e. set-top style) that can legally play DVD's that happen to run the Linux kernel. I can't buy a copy of LinDVD for my Gentoo installation from either company.
I'm curious what absolute value advantage is attempting to be enforced by the DMCA. Prohibition was an attempt to legislate morality, to remove a cause of crime, and failed to do so. I suppose I can see a similar case in the DMCA, but copyright is not morality, it is purely a legal right granted to content creators. Additionally, how does the DMCA prohibit mutually beneficial exchanges? It prevents you from breaking encryption in order to get at the underlying data in it's raw format. However, those people willing to pay and be approved for licensing of the decryption methods make the products that allow us to use this content. The only thing you are, in theory, denied is the raw data that is used to compile the movie. You are not denied access to view the movie, given an appropriate device to decode and display it, nor are you denied from purchasing the encrypted disk.
The latter quote makes me laugh, though. How many murder cases would it take for judges to see that laws against murder are unfair? The law generally dictates the range of penalties allowed to the courts to decide, and few courts seem willing to judge the validity or constitutionality of laws when dealing with a case. However, I doubt very seriously that the simple number of cases will really influence the penalties handed out.
There is a lot of talk in this article, and a lot of references to Prohibition as a mirror for the current situation. My view on copyright withstanding, this article makes a very poor case of proving why these kinds of laws are doomed to fail.
"Private individuals" that actually create and produce things for a living don't want free access.
Depends on what it is they are creating. If it's music, you do well to give it away. Signed bands make no money off of record sales (unless they are U2 or Madonna). Merchandise sales and concerts are how you make money. So if you are an unsigned band/artist, you do well to give away your music and get exposure for yourself.
When they got into producing content, they slipped us a root kit on a CD.
Time and media shifting is becoming an issue because its becoming possible.
What the **AAs don't want is to give us ownership of the 1,440 minutes a day.
They fuck over the content originators, those artists who make the content, they make their money by screwing them with impossible contracts (its like an offer that the artist dare not refuse,) production costs and distribution costs which the artist has to pay for. They are the last 'Ugly Capitalists' who control the means of production.
Then they fuck us over by selling us the idea of Brittany Spears and claiming to still own the music out of Brittany Spears' mouth.
I've said screw 'em before and I just was a voice in the wilderness. Now I'm producing my own content. All of it. And with the internet and cheap production and post production tools, they can KMFA.
PodSafe forever forward.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Sounds like my bank's response to my business plan.
The truth about Led Zep should never be told on
...and it might make sense for them to create a "legal alternative" that makes it unnecessary for programs like VLC to contain CSS decoders.
Yeah, well, that's not good enough. Chances are any "legal alternative" they come up with would be your standard bloated skinned media player that doesn't follow any UI standards and eats up a ton of resources. Probably binary-only and would only run under certain conditions (i.e. exactly the right library versions & machine architecture).
I use mplayer because:
A) It doesn't have a GUI (I disable it during the compile), and doesn't require a mouse. It has consistent keyboard shortcuts that do everything I need. The keyboard shortcuts work over stdin, so I can launch it from a remote ssh session and have full capabilities.
B) It can be easily remote controlled from either another computer or any other device I set up.
C) It's small and fast
D) It runs on my preferred platform (FreeBSD)
E) By default it just plays the main DVD title and not any annoying menus / trailers / FBI warnings. It ignores the DVD's desire to disable my navigation functions. I highly doubt anything DVD-CCA approved would have this capability.
As far as I'm concerned, I acquired a legal right to use the content however I wish when I purchased the media. If the law disagrees, the law is wrong and needs to be changed. Until then, the media companies can suck it.
IANAL.... Actually, I'm not sure if either violation is applicable....
Isn't the DMCA just to prevent people from selling cable "descrambler boxes" and such... It only prohibits technology, devices, etc whose **main** use/purpose is to circumvent copyright protection. The decrypting of a DVD for playback purposes seems like it would be legal -- this is normal use of DVDs. (all commercial DVD software does this anyway).
However, "ripping" (and decrypting) a DVD to a file is a bit more questionable... This use directly disables the copyright mechanisms (where the main application would seem to be illegal reproduction) and the DMCA would appear to apply.
And wouldn't copying encrypted DVD images to a large harddisk (e.g. for a video server) be considered Fair Use? (Fair Use laws allow copies of copyrighted works to be made for the purpose of increasing computer performance)... For example, the mere fact that when you are viewing a copyrighted webpage, multiple copies exist in the CPU caches, a copy in the main memory, another in the swap-file on the harddisk, a copy in a file on the disk (browser cache), an image exists in the video-card buffers, and potentially pieces exist in the network card buffers... Thus your computer is storing *multiple copies* of a copyrighted work... This is all fine and perfectly legal, since these copies are temporary and whose sole use is to increase system performance -- not related to illegal reproduction.
Also, couldn't one claim their video server as a backup device?
Now if you load up your server and then sell/lend out your DVDs, things quickly start getting questionable...
Disclaimer: I do not own/use any such video server... I'm only trying to point out that some laws actually grant more rights than people realize... (although likely not so with the Patriot Acts).
We are weakening our own freedoms by thinking that the DMCA makes everything illegal.
Interestingly though, if you have Lindows, you can watch dvds in linux without ripping or other changes. They have a legal player you can buy for 30.00. So, how are they getting away with it legally?
I don't think the above is true... it's NOT "perfectly functional" to simply image copy a protected DVD to another DVD, because protected DVDs have keys hidden on them in areas that normal DVD readers don't access. Only settop boxes access these areas where the keys are stored, and must be manufactured to be capable of this only by dint of being licensed to do so.
If normal DVD readers don't access those areas of the DVD, how is a software player like PowerDVD or WinDVD determining the key to decrypt the video for playing?