The Choice Between DRM and Security

gormanly writes "Victor Yodaiken has an article up on Groklaw in which he discusses how DRM may decrease security and reliability. He raises several questions that the developers of DRM technologies ought to answer - because not all computers are merely personal entertainment systems for 'content' consumers." From the article: "Sony BMG put DRM software onto CDs that broke the basic system security and made the entire system slower and less reliable. Imagine that your children put such a CD on your computer and opened an avenue for hackers to make copies of your business memos and personal email ... We are entering the era of ubiquitous and safety critical computing, but the developers of DRM technologies seem to believe that computers are nothing more than personal entertainment systems for consumers. This belief is convenient, because creating DRM mechanisms that respect security, safety, and reliability concerns is going to be an expensive and complex engineering task."

Comments

Once something is digital, it flows free

[digitaldc]

Here are some issues:

1. One goal of DRM developers is to prevent "digitization".

That first point sums it up. How do you stop something in its raw digital format from being copied?
You can't, David Bowie is correct in his assumption about music flowing freely like electricity or water.

Maybe one possible scenario is that a digital tax will be added to all machines that can play digitized music/games/etc. in order to make up for the lost revenue.
Another idea is to package the music/software/game with something that is above and beyond what you would normally get from just a plain disc. Add something to the packaging that makes people want to buy the product and not just download it. You could add writing, pictures or objects that people could enjoy that can't be easily reproduced with a copy program.

Re:Once something is digital, it flows free

[mccdyl001]

that a digital tax will be added to all machines that can play digitized music/games/etc. in order to make up for the lost revenue
And how the hell do you quantify this lost revenue?? Company A: "hmmm, we signed up this crap music act, processed the shit out of their performance and spent a gazillion dollars marketing it trying to make out gullible target market, i mean valuable consumers, go out and buy it. But nobody is buying it because they're all pirating it. So please can you give us a gazillion dollars to make up for the money that we surely would have made if piracy hadn't occured." And that sort of system wont be abused, right?? Let people get it for free off the net, and make the bands get there money back from loyal fans via concerts and live gigs, and memberships to their fan clubs or whatever. The good musicians have nothing to fear from a system like this. And the new start ups would owe record companies so much for "starting them up" that they have nothing to lose either.

Re:The Rights of Artists Vs the Rights of Listener

[VitaminB52]

Do I have the right to buy DRMed music as a gift for somebody else?

When I buy DRMed music by downloading it to my own PC, then (some implementations of) DRM will bind the downloaded music to a licencing key on my machine. So if the bought and downloaded music is intended as a birthday gift for someone else, how will he/she be able to play it on his/her PC? Or how will I be able to play it on my laptop, if I downloaded it on my desktop?

While DRM is intended to increase music sales, the implementation of DRM technologies that binds a DRMed tracks to a license key on the downloading PC will prevent this track from playing on other (peoples) machines. So buying DRMed music as a gift for someone else won't be an option if DRM prevents playback on other PC - which isn't very good for music sales.

Rootkits and security holes are just one kinf of pain that comes with DRM. The inability to playback bought tracks on the OS of your choice (say Linux), or a different PC than the one used for the download, is another pain.

Unrealistic expectations

[stuffduff]

Let's take a look at rights management. When recordings were made on wax cylinders, there was little or no concern for what rights could and could not be protected. Granted you had to speak or sing in a stage voice to make any kind of decent impression on the wax, and that brought about a somewhat unique situation in that while everyone who used the technology could both make recordings and play back with the same device, it was practically useless for either copying or mass production.

Next came 78's. These were cast in a mold and made of the miracle plastic bakelite. Since the recording machinery was expensive and complex, as was the disk manufacturing process, the door was opened to both rights management and mass production. Improvements in technology lead to the 45 and the 33 &1/3 LP & EP albums.

While the technologies which used mechanical force were dominating the marketplace, a competing technology, based on magnetic recording also existed. Magnetic recording was less expensive, and much harder to mass-produce, but it was capable of making copies fairly easily. The new difficulty was that a small portion of the magnetic image was erased every time it was played.

Finally the digital technology emerged as the primary vehicle for copyrighted audio materials. At first it was not a problem, because individual users were unable to afford the technology to duplicate and/or create recordings which were theoretically perfect copies. But today it's hard to get a computer that can't accomplish this feat. So the audio industry turned to the promise of DRM. Unfortunately, though it will take many more incidents like Sony's debacle, we will reach a level of understanding where we realize that as long as the technology is in the hands of everyone that can duplicate these forms of media, that they will be copied.

The only way that we will see any form of successful rights management will be for the audio industry to develop a technology which is as popular and as acceptable as the LP. It may take the form of a holographic crystal or some other 'futuristic' media. But as long as the ability to manipulate the bits is available to end users, DRM will continue to fail. IMHO it is an unrealistic expectation on the part of the audio industry to believe that there will ever be a digital solution to a digital problem. In the meantime I believe that any damage to computers and infrastructure brought on by companies who cannot accept the fact that DRM will never work should be punished to the full extent of the law.