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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."
Perhaps these new DRM actions overstep the bounds of consumer rights so far that it ensures copyrights will always be in place? What I mean is that the focus and question seems to not be, "What are the artist's musician's rights?" so much as "What rights do we even have as consumers?"
Have I angered the mod gods with my slightly offtopic (and idealistic) Bowie quote?
My work here is dung.
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.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Probably not. You probably just reminded them of the babe.
Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
Since when have software developers accepted any responsibility whatsoever for their own software, let alone the effect it has on peripheral applications or the OS at large? Ever read all the disclaimers in the typical EULA? What makes anyone think that DRM software is going to be any different?
DRM is a nice keyword to be used to describe something in both a negative and positive light.
The media industry is about to die the same way the blacksmithing and wagonsmithing (?) industries died with the advent of the car.
They're desperately trying to hold on and to make themselves work in the new order, but it's just not happening. The cat's out of the bag. The genie's out of the bottle, etc.
Some companies are very openly embracing the new reality and adjusting their business models-- Apple, for example. They use DRM as a watch word to make the others feel safe and secure as Apple slowly digests their dying corpus. But Apple *IS* digesting them.
DRM is the media industry's last rally before the old dinosaurs die and the young, swift mammals take over. It sounds bad, but will never be anything but a minor annoyance.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
It is not going to be a "complicated" engineering task.
It is an "impossible" engineering task.
Repeat after me.
There is no such thing as DRM.
There is no such thing as DRM!
There has never been a functional DRM system, and there never will be, because it is impossible to create one. You can cripple your products, annoy or even imprison your customers, and shut out OS/FS competitors from compatibility, but you cannot "manage" your "digital restrictions." Not in this universe.
It's a jail. Things only need to escape once. Once they escape they're on the internet in open formats and the game is over.
Tired of Political Trolls? Opt Out!
DRM is what the industry is using to avoid the real issue at hand. The real issue is that movie and music industry have become too greedy and see the consumer as a revenue source and not a customer. They have come to expect a certain amount of money without adapting to a changing marketplace. People expect movies and music to be of high quality and freely transferable to other devices like iPods. The industry won't except that because their business model has worked for decades without problems. With the growing digital media revolution, they have found it difficult to adapt, so out of fear and ignorance they have chosen draconian DRM measures to safeguard their empire instead of pleasing the paying consumer. While it may work in the short term, it is destined to fail in the long wrong because the consumer's dollar has the final say... I hope.
http://religiousfreaks.com/Now, this DRM business seems to be just a sign that not only will music copyrights stand but we are also going to lose some of our rights as to what happens when we attempt to merely listen to a purchased recording.
I disagree... especially with crusaders like the Bearded RMS rallying troops against the encroaching evil DRM-Empire.
If the various virus scanner companies can resist getting into bed with the guys foisting this DRM stuff on us, and make their virus scanning utilities detect this crap _like_any_other_virus_or_malware_, then it wouldn't be much of an issue.
I know, I know - if the DRM wasn't there to begin with it wouldn't be an issue. But like virii and malware, it is probably here to stay. Just give me reliable tools to crush this stuff.
Steve
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
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."
And how likely is it that they'll ever be forced to answer these questions? Considering the deep pockets of both the music and video industries and how much pull they have via their lobbyists, it's likely they'll never be pressed to answer these types of important questions. Without some more high profile issues like those witnessed with the Sony fiasco, the average consumer will probably never be the wiser as to the depths of contempt these companies have for their customers. To them, every single person is a potential thief.
If big boobed women work at Hooters do one legged women work at IHOP?
PC owners need to take control of their PC to secure the machine. If content owners can control what content buyers do with their data, then perhaps PC owners should exert similar control. Perhaps not every application on a PC should have the right to send any bit of data over a network. Preventing keyboard loggers, file snoopers, IM buddy list readers, etc. is effectively a type of DRM -- "sorry MalWare.exe, but only one copy of that SSN is allowed". As with P2P applications, DRM is just a tool that can be used for "evil" or "good". Perhaps PC owners can use that tool to secure their data and their machines.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
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.
The main problem with DRM is that in current legislation with DMCA and related laws, DRM has the highest priority in computing. Basicly every computer task has to comply with DRM, or it is a "circumvention device". Security, Audition, Reliability... everything has to take second seat behind DRM. And only if something bad happens due to this priorising (like in the case of the Sony Rootkit), this rule gets questioned for that particular event.
The most convincing argument the article brought was, what would happen if the 'analog hole' gets plugged, and every analog recording device has to comply with DRM. Imagine the bad boys robbing a store just taking a portable video player first and start playing a movie in front of the surveillance camera: According to the potential law the camera has to stop recording, otherwise it would record an illicit copy of the movie! But if surveillance cameras are taken out of the law, who hinders the bad boys to buy one and take it to the cinema to record the movie?
DRM is not orthogonal to other computer tasks. It gets in the way of everything. It has to audit every piece of information moved. And it is not able to take in account the importance of the movement or the effects it has if it stops the movement of information. It can't decide from the context if it should shut down the task or let it run. It's all or nothing. If it encounters a trigger, it will shut down the task anyway, may the data stream be generated by the underage son trying to rip a CD or by the brake sensors telling the brake to stop the car immediately.
In the end, it's not about DRM software, system security, greed or anything else. It boils down to this: am I free to do what I want? To listen to the music I want when I want, to watch the TV programs I want to watch, to download the internet content/software I want to have on my machine. To quote the phrase, "freedom isn't free," nor is it profitable.
If "consumers" (and that word should become an epithet) are allowed to have true choice, free access to everything, they will choose the things they want. If the companies providing those things charge a minimal fee for the privilege, they will make money. The conflict arises because "consumers" want something for nothing and producers want more money than is reasonable for their products, beyond the mere expense of producing them.
It's all going to come to a head eventually. Things can either be free or they can be metered, like electricity and water. And don't forget, the power company can cut you off at any time. Of course, if you're smart, you can generate you're own electricity. In the end it's a battle of wits between producers and consumers; I think it's safe to say the consumers hold the ultimate edge, for if they don't consume, producers will not have the resources to produce.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
I can't believe this. I never thought I'd see the day. Someone using the fact that Micros~1 writes a terribly insecure operating system to argue that DRM and IP is a bad idea.
I'm not saying that enforcing IP rights on media files via proprietary software is a good idea.
The fact that Windows' terrible security model makes it a trivial task for user-space programs to comprimise the security of a computer, doesn't mean DRM-enforcing techniques are a TERRIBLE IDEA.
What a HORRIBLE, AWFUL scar on the front page of Slashdot. Shame on Slashdot (again)
Let's assume that safeguarding intellectual property is, in fact, impossible. Can we still come up with a system that rewards people for their efforts? I believe we can. Basically, an artist, programmer, or filmaker would give their product to a government agency (much like a national library) and that product would be available free to any citizen for the asking, except for the cost of manuals, etc. The artist would be paid a bountya ccording to how many people take delivery on their product, so he gets compensation. The revenue would come from the tax stream, again like libraries. Now before you start railing against creeping socialism, think this system through. Everyone would have the most productive, up-to-date software, older versions wouldn't need to be supported. Also, basically everybody indulges in one form of entertainment or another, so drawing from the tax base isn't unreasonable.
I installed Nokia's software for backing up the phone numbers in my 6800 phone to my hard drive via USB. The program also allows you to download games and ringtones into your phone. Imagine my disgust when I saw that the program wanted to load every time I started my machine. There was really no way to completely exit it. It also insisted on putting an icon in my system tray that couldn't be removed.
ATTENTION NOKIA: YOUR PROGRAM IS FOR MY FREAKING PHONE YOU SELF-OBSESSED MORONS!!! Why the hell should it take up valuable resources and screen real estate ALL the time? Sheesh.
Insert witty sig here.
The babe with the power.
Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
As a customer (please - if you think of yourself as a giant sucking mouth consumer, this is what happens) you are king. Don't want DRM music? Don't buy it. There are places where you can buy music without DRM (and some of these places give the option of downloading in lossless formats).
When that executive of a recording industry association in Europe (I forget which one) said that 'being able to listen to the music you bought off us on a Mac or Linux is a privilege and not a right' he was entirely wrong. No, his association companies receiving my money is a privilege and not a right, and a privilege I can revoke at any time.
If you don't like DRM, be a customer not a consumer - revoke the offending company's privileges and buy your music elsewhere. Musical ability is extremely common in the human population, and the internet has made it easier than ever for people to distribute their work. What the record companies put out is in the main the cult of the personality.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
I'm not a fan of DRM.
/two cents
But to address some of your points:
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?
iTunes, and I would guess other music downloading services, offer gift certificates that you can give instead of the actual music itself. Or, you can always download the music and make an audio CD to give.
Or how will I be able to play it on my laptop, if I downloaded it on my desktop?
Once again, iTunes, and I would assume other services might do the same, allow you to play a downloaded song on up to 5 different computers, as long as iTunes (or whatever software) is registered to you.
The inability to playback bought tracks on the OS of your choice (say Linux)...is another pain.
Amen to that.
Slackware
I don't think it's impossible to create DRM that won't undermine your system; DRM acheived with encryption can effectively limit the reading of a file to one computer or to that computer and a handful of devices. The DRM would enable the computer to read the file, not prevent it from doing anything. It would "work" (in the sense of preventing unauthorized listening) on any computer, music player or toaster, but only "work" (in the sense of allowing authorized listening) on suppported systems.
The real problem with, say, the Sony/Sunncomm DRM is that it's trying to prevent you from copying files that are written in an open format. Doing this means removing functionality from a system. Therefore the DRM must damage your system, but fortunately can only work on specific systems.
The type of DRM I described in the first paragraph is what the record companies really want. And if there must be a DRM system, I'd really it rather be one that wasn't going to try to harm my computer.
I guess the problem is that as long as the model persists in which albums are sold in physical form in stores and have to play on a variety of "consumer electronic" devices without hassle they will always have to be protected by the harmful type of DRM if they are to be protected. And yet this type of DRM is also doomed to failure (anything released on a CD that can be read in anything resembling a CD player will be on the Internet within a few days of its release, regardless of the DRM attached to it). It appears that DRM that degrades a CD's quality has been rejected, and we seem to be in the process of loudly rejecting DRM that tries to modify users' computers. I don't know if there are any more steps beyond creating a new encrypted music format and protecting the secret better than they did with DVDs.
Perhaps the next generation of Disc technology whether it be blu ray or HD DVD will be the new battleground for DRM. The threat is that there are many people out there with more money than sense. They will buy it up because they are to lazy to care about the implications of rewarding companies that force DRM down your throat. Its the obligation of those in the know. Namely /. readers to inform others so that they can make a better decision.
http://www.stockmarketgarden.com/
If your qouting what I think you're quoting it's much worse.
Most people don't even know what a ROOTKIT is, so why should they care about it?"
-- Thomas Hesse, president of Sony BMG's global digital business division
The only way DRM will increase music sales is by more or less guaranteeing the producer of the music 100% license enforcement on all computers that will play the music. This makes for a better environment to sell music in, but a worse one to buy it in. So I predict that if the DRM is very hard to crack, people will do a few things:
1. Download illegal copies that have been cracked. We're already starting to see this.
2. Buy fewer CDs if they don't work "correctly," i.e. you can't transfer them to an iPod or rip them to a hard drive or they damage your computer like the Sony discs.
3. Listen to music that has fewer restrictions on it, like online radio.
Either way, the studios shoot themselves in the foot. The fact of the matter is that fewer people will illegally procure music if the legal stuff is reasonably priced than if the penalties and restrictions keep going up. It's called the black market and it always gets a mention in the economics textbooks, which I suggest the **AAs read. And you can't simply arrest everybody that breaks the law by copying music because if you do, they will simply vote the laws down in one way or the other. The best way to make a buck is to make the customer want to buy your goods, not to threaten them into doing so.
Just "gittin-r-done," day after day.
This is all about selling back catalogs in a format change. Record execs thought that moving to the digital age would mean buying Dark Side of the Moon in a 4th format.
The music industry thrived on the big format changes from LP to tape, and from tape to CD. Now, CD can easily become the new format without having to go back and buy it.
Their solution? Make the conversion cost you money. It's just the latest degradation of fair use.
Bury me in mashed potatoes.
The power of voodoo
Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
You imply that as you replace your computers the available 'authorizations' are reduced, but you can 'deauthorize' a computer at any time. So old replaced computers aren't counted against you.
This is only a problem if you want to have access on more than 5 computers simultaneously. It could happen, but a lot less likely- I have 6 computers that get regular use, but only 3 that I listen to music with.
Oh- I'm not for DRM, just saying that the iTunes implementation isn't that restrictive (and its easily broken anyway).
yes, but if they see revenue dropping (or even think that they aren't making as much as they should), they'll start crying "PIRATES!!!!11!" and demand new legislation to allowing them to use broomsticks in means other than originally intended and stop t3h eb1l p1r4at35.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
Unless you have a pretty impressive lab in your garage, capable of stripping an IC layer by layer and e-beaming the results to detect stored charges, you don't have access to the hardware. Next!
They'll have to discount it heavily, or have some pretty compelling content (which is nowhere to be seen) before I buy.
Hate to break the news, but it's in all of the next generation of CPUs. Either get used to the idea of a "rootkit in hardware" or quit retiring those old boxes to the guest room, because from now on the old kit is the only kit you can trust.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Music, itself, is going to become like running water or electricity...' - Maybe David Bowie is so cool, that for him the water in the tap and the electricity in the wiring is free, but the rest of us have to pay for it to use it.
You can't handle the truth.
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.
"Can there be a Klein bottle that is an efficient and effective beer pitcher?"
There has never been a functional DRM system, and there never will be, because it is impossible to create one.
I agree with your position but I disagree with your reasoning. The failure of DRM is in that you have to give the consumer both the lock and the key. If you don't give them the key then they can't use it...ever!
Plug the analog hole. Make circumvention illegal. Etc. Etc. All it is is restraining how the user can use the key. There's no way, in this case, to have your cake and eat it too.
This game was lost before it ever started and it's a game that can never be technologically won. Only politics can make it winable, and that only creates a black market and an underground so you never really win.
Once you have a digital copy of something, there's no scarcity on copies; once you have an idea, there's no scarcity on spreading it. DRM is like any IP protection (copyrights, patents, trade marks, service marks): it's an artificial restraint on non-scarce resources.
:wq
"the developers of DRM technologies seem to believe that computers are nothing more than personal entertainment systems for consumers"
Worse than that, they seem to have this impression that it's okay to modify my computer to work how they think it should. This isn't even just DRM, I'm getting incredibly fed up with programs which automatically install themselves on the desktop/quick launch bar (the Quicktime player, as an easy example, which I almost solely want to launch by double clicking on a file), and/or auto-run at startup (Creative used to be terrible for this - install soundcard drivers, and suddenly it plays an intro movie on the desktop at login, and you have an application launcher stuck to the top of your screen).
</rant>
I have to disagree here. It's not your music, it's (in effect) his. There's no law by which you can demand that he allow you to listen to that music on any arbitrary device; you have to negotiate that privilege with him, and pay the price he demands. If he sells you a disk with the understanding that you are not to play it on a Mac (or to cover it with cheese sauce) and you choose to do so anyway, you're breaking your end of the agreement.
Most publishers don't (or can't) do that. They might say it's not supported on Mac or Linux and leave it up to you to try to figure out how to do it, but they don't make you agree not to play it on a Mac. Or if they do, at least their lawyers make them be up-front about it.
I agree with you that if you don't like their product you shouldn't have to give them any money. I disagree that this is how it is. In the U.S., compulsory license laws (whereby a tax is added onto the cost of blank media and paid to the music publishers to cover the cost of copying you might do) force you to give money to the music publishers even if you don't like their product, or are incapable of using it. (Deaf people pay this compulsory license tax on CD-R media and audio tapes used for data storage only.)
The model we are moving toward (and can't get there fast enough, if you ask me) is for a world where in order to play an MPAA movie or listen to an RIAA CD, you will need a special-purpose hardware device (think: E-book reader or DVD player) which specifically serves the needs of a specific publisher.
Unfortunately, their efforts, if successful, will result in no 'open' or 'general purpose' devices able to read the media (which, many argue for many reasons can never happen), no general purpose communication platforms (kkss the Internet bye-bye) and ultimately the death of media companies in the market place due to competition from other media companies (each with their own proprietary media and devices) and publishers who do not attempt to restrict access using DRM.
The threat here is that their efforts will result in a 'music tax' anyway. Think about this: If you publish (and own the copyrights to) a song, and choose to give it away (for reasons that make sense to you) and I choose to 'buy' (er. download for free) it for reasons that make sense to me, I still have to pay the compulsory music tax, that tax gets paid to the RIAA -affiliated publishers (who I'm trying to boycott), and you don't see a penny of it.
The thing about things we don't know is we often don't know we don't know them.
1. People can gather, record, produce, and distribute their music anywhere in the world from a single computer.
2. Everyone inherently seems to feel that music has been overpriced and overmanaged for a long time.
3. People don't mind paying to download.
4. p2p downloaders statistically (RIAA numbers!)are the biggest customers of pay per download.
5. Inevitability of open formats which are cross-platform for distributing all sorts of music and video type files.
With business cycles there tends to be shifts in certain industries. For example sometimes an industry will be in a shift of Centralization (Big Labels for distribution of millions of CD's/Vinyl/Tapes), future market conditions can cause this shift to head in the other direction (Indie Labels, Web Distribution) which is Decentralization. The music industry is decentralizating and with more and more artists forming their own labels the Big Labels become useless empty shells with only their intellectual property left to earn them money. The death of the CD will be the death of the Big Labels for this will remove the last reason for their existence.
Windows is like decaf - it tastes like the real thing, but it won't get you through the day.
IMHO, this article, while well written doesn't really paint an accurate picture of the way DRM will likely be implemented on the PC, and how that will affect security. But before I go any further, let me state for the record, I am apposed to the concept of DRM in every way, and everytime I think about how bad the issue can get, I feel sick in my stomach.
/. over the last few years, and I feel I have a fair idea of what the industry envisages happening. Let's look at Microsoft's software activation technology, which is there primarily to prevent piracy of their intellectual property, I believe it's consequences are similar to what we can expect from DRM, a pain in the ass, but the majority of people accept it, and more importantly, it works pretty well, without creating security problems.
About the only good line in the article is "DRM technology is sometimes described as security technology when it is really licensing technology -- something very different.". This is of course marketing at work, people rename things to make them less ugly sounding, just like Microsoft's "Genuine Advantage Validation Tool" could far more easily have been called something along the lines of "Windows Anti-Piracy Validator", however the latter just has such bad implications, even though that is exactly what it is. So the author demonstrates in the second sentence of the article exactly what it is he is trying to say, but then proceeds to use IMO very bad examples of what he means.
I have been diligently reading all DRM mentioned articles on
What I personally hate about software activation is that Microsoft made a far more secure way of protecting their software from casual piracy, but did not take the time to make it easier for their customers to keep track of their paid for software. Our company often has the task of fixing computers, which occasionally involves reloading Windows and or Office, and if the client doesn't know where their Office Product key happens to be (Windows key is normally stuck on the box), we end up "legally" having to tell the client we are unable to reload Microsoft Office onto their machine until such time as we have a valid CD-KEY. What I would like from Microsoft Activation is something similar to the way the WoW (the US release is the same or similar I would think) authorisation key system works. When one buys a copy of the game, they get an authorisation key with it, they then logon to their respective regional website, and create a new account, during the account creation they are required to input their authorisation key, once the account creation is complete they will NEVER require the authorisation key ever again. If their house burnt down, they could copy their friends WoW CD, use it to install the game on their new PC, and carry on playing. Obviously, Microsoft Activation has to work a little differently, seeing as we don't have to pay a monthly subscription to use it (yet). But it should work the same, the customer should to create an "account" with Microsoft, once done they can authorise copies of Office or Windows or whatever onto it, if the computer needs to be reloaded, they will always have access to their paid for software.
Right, now onto DRM, to get back to the attached article's point about security, I believe that when and if Microsoft's codename "Palladium" technology is released, if done right, will not negatively impact the integrity of the host computer's security, all that Palladium will do is prevent other programs of that computer from accessing the memory of that program, which is why DRM advocates like the idea of Palladium, it should be practically impossible for hackers to reverse engineer software which utilizes Palladium, as they have no way of seeing the memory of that active program. Assuming Palladium works as intended, everything is protected with the help of encryption, so it is still *possible* for the hacker to work out the private key, but unlikely, and the only other wa
> You can't use DRM for security, because the whole system is designed around the premise that you are the threat.
Bingo. You've gone straight to the heart of the issue.
For security today, on most desktop machines, that premise matches reality. Most desktop machines are compromised Windows boxen. Most are run by people who will download and install hostile software. The problem of DRM is a lot like the problem of keeping transactions secure on a compromised box, and not just because both are impossible.
Traditionally, security and crypto people have designed with the idea that two trustable endpoints communicate over an unsafe channel. In the military, that made sense. It's a seductive model because it matches our hard-wired belief that our own cave is a safe place and that dangers come from the outside. SSL was a good solution for that kind of environment. But today the people studying online payment security are coming around to the idea that the client PC has to be considered hostile.
Right now I'm looking at a problem in payment software distribution and it looks like the device's DRM capabilities may actually help.
You do.
Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
Well, herein lies the rub.
DRM is not designed to increase music sales. And it never was. It is designed to let the copyright holder control how and where you access the content. Increasing or maintaining sales levels is secondary in their mind. It's all about control. They had it, and they're not giving it up without a fight.
The big media producers are scared right now. They are scared out of their wits, because things are changing, and the old comfortable system is getting obsolete. So they design half-assed measures to maintain their control of the content, which only servers to infuriate legitimate customers because they are being treated as criminals.
I can only laugh when I am forced to watch an anti-copying commercial at the start of my DVD disk (which I payed for), and think that the people that just fetch a torrent of the movie are not subjugated to this.
So its all about control. They have no idea how to increase the sales, or if they do, they are so afraid of taking the plunge into a new media paradigm that any effort made by them is destined to fail. So they crack their buggywhips, and shout "legislate!"
Do what?
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Remind them of the babe.
Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
An important correction: you can currently download the music and make an audio CD to give. You don't know that will be true in the future, and if the RIAA gets their way, it probably won't be.
No obvious path? Do you not know a single person that is in a local band? My friends would be ecstatic if you just listend to their music. Not all artists sold out to the RIAA, and they seem to be able to make money.. Granted, this money is not as much as they'd be making as a pop band, but that's never stopped the _good_ musicians. It's odd now anyway, the shitty ones get payed top dollar (I'm sorry if I offend any early teens reading).
But I do agree with your first statement, I just hope the RIAA's main source of income does not become court settlements.
They call me the wookie man, I guess that's what I am
Or, you can always download the music and make an audio CD to give.
;).
I don't know about you, but most people would consider a BURNED CD somewhat of a cheap gift, regardless of if you paid for the tracks or not
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain