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A Look at Google DRM
pcause writes "The Register is reporting on Google's recent announcement of their own DRM. From the article: 'Google's DRM will make its first appearance as part of a new video downloading service. Page revealed that customers will be able to buy TV shows from CBS, NBA basketball games and a host of other content with Google serving as the delivery broker for the video. This move mimics other technology companies - most notably Apple - which have struck deals with large media houses to send video over the web for a fee.' "
Google Roooooooooooootkit?
Does this make my brain look big?
There are absolutely NO details in there! Of course, that won't stop slashdot from decrying it as evil, broken, and the worst thing to happen since the great cabbage fart crisis of 1996.
If Google can do it then it isn't evil right? But seriously, Google is the egg head capital of the valley. If anyone is capable of making a DRM system that isn't crackable it'll be these guys. So how long till we see it cracked? I say no more than a week. Anyone wan running a pool?
How we know is more important than what we know.
I wonder what search engine I can use to search for a hack............
Yep, I'll just wait for the hack, and when it's done I'll just search for it on good ole Google...
WWJD?
JWRTFM!
I guess to have your own DRM, you have to develop your own player.
More FTFA:How will it work with Microsoft's DRM, Apple's DRM and Real's DRM? Will it extend to music? If so, what will the limitations be on how often you can copy songs or how many devices can store the tunes?
Obviously, it can't; unless, MS and Apple add Google's DRM to their players.
I think it's important to note that no media conglomerate will do business with Google, Apple, etc. unless they are promised a DRM capability. From my friends who work in MS's DRM department, most people are quite opposed to it, but can't open up a revenue stream without the promise of DRM to appease the MPAA. Perhaps with time, they'll come to their senses. But I doubt it: the current system is too heavily tilted in the MPAA's folder.
DRM has always been a joke (of competing definitions). It is like a fence with a "no trespassing" sign. (The RIAA has a "trespassers will be shot" sign). As an owner of property (intellectual or otherwise) you must show a minimum of effort in protecting your asset(s), lest they be considered "free-for-all" or in the public domain. TFA acts like Google is taking it's ball and going home. Either you steal content, and DRM bothers you, or you're worried about the trouble of accessing your rightfully paid for content. Neither of these issues is necessarily tied up in the format the DRM decides to come in.
From TFA:
Google has a long history of keeping its technology mechanisms and intentions private. It won't say a lot about how Page Rank works. It's never provided a policy on how it picks Google News stories. Heck, it won't even let Register reporters visit the company's campus, and one of our staff lives right down the street.
I live above a strip club in San Francisco and they won't let me hang out in the dressing room. What gives?
7h3$3 4r3n'7 7h3 Ðr01Ð$ ¥0 4r3 £00|{1n9 f0r. M0v3 4£0n9. --OB1
If there's one thing that Slashdot has taught me in the past year, it's that Slashdot finds DRM is evil.
If there's one other thing that I know about Slashdot, Slashdot generally bows before Google and their products.
So this is going to be interesting. Will Google be berated for embracing a technology that limits the use of content being paid for? Or will Google be praised as being the only company that would find a good way to implement DRM?
Since we don't know a whole lot at this point, perhaps neither. Depending on exactly how Google distributes the content, and how the DRM differs for the different types (one-view vs. personal copy), this could be a make or break situation. If the DRM is too restrictive, the "good vibe" it gives off towards the technologically inclined will dissapate, creating a cascade of harsh backlash against the company and it's "Do no evil" campaign. It will also show that even a beloved giant such as Google cannot get DRM to be accepted by the general public. This probably wouldn't stop the likes of Sony from continuing their trend of "Do lots of evil", but it would put a kink in the DRM-inclined plans of a good deal of smaller companies. (If there was enough backlash, CBS et al. would probably back out, and Google would drop the video distrobution, as well as its DRM.)
If their DRM is "just right", with regular customers not caring, technically able customers content, and only the most hard-core upset, then we will see a sudden surge and wide-spread use of DRM. Content providing companies will flock to liscense Google's DRM, or at least have their product be distributed through it, and soon everything is locked into one thing or another.
An interesting situation.
I've been burned already buying DRM'd (Digitally RESTRICTED Media) files from itunes and from mlb.com and I'm through with that. I won't do it any more. If media companies insist on tying up content so they can decide what I can and can't do with it, then I will continue to NOT give them my money.
I'm sorry, but I should not have to violate the friggin' DMCA to break the stupid copy protection on DVDs just so I can move the files to my laptop so I can watch them on a plane or in a hotel room. And no law, company, or technology should stand in the way of being able to do that.
Bottom line: There is no acceptable DRM. Period.
-S
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
It seems that Google is going to be using DivX and its DRM to get video into lounge rooms and onto portable devices .DivX has a popular codec ,50 Million DivX certified devices and a MPAA approved DRM .The addition of Geencines movies to Google Video is a clear intention of DivX and Google's relationship as Greencine uses DivX for it's streaming and Burn to Rent and Burn to Buy server .
http://www.greencine.com/divxRelease?content=4
According to Divx representatives, the talks are in a very early stage and details still have to be discussed and determined. However, Divx' role in Google appears not be in direct connection with the search engine's announcement of a commercial video download service. Instead, Divx will help Google to move video content across various device types and ultimately onto the TV screen. Of course, content will only be able to be moved, if it carries a digital rights management platform and if devices are "secure. Susan Wojcicki, Google's vice president of product management said that "Google video's goal is to make the world's video content more accessible" to people. "We want to reach a point when consumers can easily access the content that is important to them from Google whenever they want and enjoy that content on a variety of devices."
http://www.tgdaily.com/2006/01/07/divx_google/
Remember the Broadcast flag, anyone?
The Broadcast Flag is a great example of governmental checks and balances in action. The courts struck it down. What point were you trying to make? That consumers have all the power they need?
I'm currently paying for Yahoo's unlimited streaming audio service. Five bucks a month gets me all I can eat. And at that price it's more than reasonable to me that I'm not buying license to any of what I listen to. Artists get paid a tiny amount every time I listen to a song. Nobody's getting stiffed.
But when I purchase music, as opposed to subscribing to a stream, DRM is a deal breaker. That's why I've never used the iTunes store and never will. I don't have to worry that five years from now I'll have a hard drive crash, or ten years from now I'll lose a password, and all my music purchases will be gone forever. I'm only going to buy music if it's mine for life, and if I can quickly and easily backup my music library whenever I wish.
Video offerings can be another story. Much of what I want to see is stuff I only want to watch once. I'm not interested in paying $30 a month on cable when about the only TV I watch is a weekly NFL game during the autumn. But I'd really like to pay a buck or two to see an NFL game every Sunday. And given that Google's already got the NBA, I bet they'll have the NFL by the start of next season. If I can pay $5 - $10 a month to watch my football, that'll save me tons of money over either getting cable or over going to a bar to watch the game.
As for DRM, in a case like this, why should I care? As long as the price is reasonable, why should I care that I can't share my video, or that I won't be able to watch it months from now? It's not music. Not only would I have no interest in watching a Giants game I already saw last October, you couldn't pay me to watch it again! And if well-designed DRM without a rootkit or something comparably evil gives the NFL and google enough safety to offer a bit of on-demand video at a fair price -- well, I think it's a great deal all around.
I'm generally "Interesting," "Insightful," and even "Funny" here. What the hell happens to me at parties?
Nothing more needs to be said if one's view is that copyrighted works rightfully belong to the copyright holder forever.
But if you believe that copyright is a compromise between society and content producers, then the choice by copyright owners to employ DRM on their works has the additional negative consequence of giving them control over their works beyond the term of the copyright. And that's a problem.
As far as I'm concerned, copyright owners can do whatever they want with their works, as long as they don't violate the purpose of copyright. DRM allows them to violate that purpose, and that's why I'm vehemently against it.
Use 'slashdot stuff' in the subject line in any email you send me if you want to get past the spam filter.
"Please put shackles around my free OS, PLEEEEASE. This freedom is extraordinarily inconvenient...."
With the stock price at about 450, I'm really not surprised by their behavior. Can you imagine how many employees there are at Google that are paper millionaires right now? I'm not exactly sure how the Google stock options work but my understanding is that most stock options cannot be sold immediately - they need to vest over a period of time and then you can sell them later. How many employees are sitting there just *praying* for the stock price to stay high? Management too...
So what do you do to keep the stock price up? Meet expectations, for one. Unfortunately, Google expectations are so high and possibly un-reachable. Everyone expects them to take over the world as if they're magicians, Jesus, or both. They need to keep making money - MORE MONEY with better and BETTER products ALL THE TIME!!! The moment they just perform "exceptionally" or "excellently", the stock price will go down because this is below expectations. So the hype continues.
If they acheive these expectations, then I'll be happy. We'll have some amazing products, and the world may even be a better place for it! But I suspect that their value is based on expectations of a higher future value, as opposed to realistic expectations regarding revenue and future revenue growth. Irrational Exuberance? Perhaps... I think so anyway.
Related article:
s _pack/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/01/07/google_ce
Relevant portions:
====================
Page did manage to announce some new products.
First off, Google revealed an addition to its video search -- payments. Google secured nice wins by signing up CBS and the NBA to its service, along with a number of other content makers. Customers will be able to pay around $1.99 for CBS shows such as CSI and Survivor and download any NBA game 24-hours after it has been played.
This set-up mimics what Apple has done with iTunes and ABC.
Google, however, does have a unique twist on its video service. Any company can put their content up for sale at any price. (Five cents is the minimum charge for a download.) Google takes a few pennies from the sale, and the content makers take most of the cash.
Google has created its own DRM (digital rights management) system for the service but will support rival systems as well, Page said. Not that the world needed another DRM mechanism.
================
As to my own opinion... I wouldn't mind
1) Paying a small amount for content I really want, in a format I can use and archive however I want. The fact that Google's minimum is "five cents" reflects some understanding of some files' (frex MP3s) realworld value to most people.
2) Files being watermarked to prevent widespread "sharing" (since the initial culprit can be pegged).
However, I'm NOT okay with DRM or locked-in formats (ie. requiring a specific player). I want to time/format/medium/player-shift what I paid for however the hell *I* want, not how someone else dictates. And I don't want to discover that when I upgrade my hardware or switch my OS, I can no longer play the files I paid for, because they're locked to an old setup by their DRM, or that now I have to scrounge up some underworld workaround to regain their usefulness.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
The evil part is that you don't have control over what you purchased, they do. Copy protection is one thing, but modern DRM, in general, is taking it a quite a step further.
It's easy to see how the future of DRM will screw you:
Say you buy 100 Blu-Ray movies over the course of a few years. They aren't cheap.
- Then, when you want to watch one, the disc authentication servers are down
- Or your network connection is down
- Or, the company goes out of business or "end of lifes" your movies -now half your collection is unplayable.
- You put in a scratched disc, and the player's broken firmware reports you're a pirate. The server disables your player.
- You've had a flood, fire, and one of your players was stolen. Whoops, that's too many player units for your "consumer discs." All your discs won't play anymore.
- You have no way to protect your investment against disasters - no way to backup the data you paid for. Do no underestimate this! Especially if you have your collection in an area with lots of guests or kids.
- Disney wants to release another "lion king" in Super Remastered Ultra Uncut editions. They disable all their old discs, so you can't show your kid the Lion King when he asks you to unless you go out and buy the new one.
- Sony decides it's costing them too much money to run the DRM authentication servers. They decide to charge all users $15/mo. If you don't you can't play any of your discs.
DVD's DRM is often cited as a DRM that was universally accepted but it doesn't really count because DVD's CSS was so easy to break the discs are pratically unencrypted.
It's worse then "sucks." It's severely punishing the honest consumer at large for the crimes of the few. They spend so much money on developing and enforcing the DRM that it would be cheaper to simple do *nothing.* But you can't make that case, the big corps don't hear it.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
I don't mean to come off as some kind of word nazi here, but considering that you got "insightful" points, I feel like I ought to point out that I don't think that redundant means what you think it means. Redundant means that something is not required because it is a duplication of something else (or in the case of a RAID, it IS required because it duplicates something else). I'm pretty sure that you didn't mean to say that the Constitution is no longer needed because something else guarantees our civil rights.
Perhaps a better choice would be obsolete, which means "No longer in use; gone into disuse; disused or neglected".
But to get back to the topic at hand, I have some first hand experience with GOOG, and to me, the whole "don't be evil" concept was a sham from the start. Google got sued because of age discrimination. That's pretty evil to me. I worked at Google for a few months when they were first starting the Adwords program. Most of the temps were let go, but the ones that they considered to be the best were hired on as regular employees. This was all before the IPO, so if you sense some bitterness on my part, you can probably guess why.
When I was shown the door at Google, the young (and gorgeous, I might add) woman told me (I was 32 at the time) that I didn't really fit in with the Adwords group, which was in her exact words "pretty young". I'd have sued too, but I didn't see any way that I could prove that she acutally said that to me.
I have lots of friends that work there, and trust me, there's no one on the planet more evil than a 25 year old millionaire who didn't really earn it.