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GPL 3 to Take Hard Line on DRM
sebFlyte writes "ZDNet is reporting that Eben Moglen, the FSF's lead lawyer and the co-authour of GPL3, has explained that DRM is 'fundamentally incompatible' with the aims of the FSF and will be given short shrift in the latest version of the free software licence, which bans the use of 'digital restrictions' in GPL3 governed software. In his words: 'I recognise that that's a highly aggressive position, but it's not an aggression which we thought up. It's a defence related to an aggression which was launched against the people whose rights are our primary concern... We don't want our software used in a way which batters the head of the user to please somebody else. Our goal is the protection of users' rights, not movies' rights.'" We discussed the new GPL on Monday.
I wonder if Sony's DRM screw-up and evidence that GPL'ed code was in their DRM software played any role in this rather firm approach.
I'm conflicted, to be honest.
As a writer, I'd like to be paid for my work. I'd rather not make it easy for people to redistribute my work without compensating me.
As a consumer, I'd like open access to the things I purchase.
Argh!
Shinma
So it won't be legal for someone to write a media player for someone else's media content that comes with DRM, and release this media player under GPL3? Sure, other licenses can be used for such things, but now such projects cannot benefit from other aspects of GPL3.
This is assuming Linus even likes the new GPL. As far as I can tell, he's not too sympathetic to RMS's values anyway.
I know we all hate DRM but a lot of businesses see this as the future, if the GPL instantly cuts DRM out then the OSS community maybe limiting it's growth in the business world. I understand the GPL is a "play nice" style licence, but when you outright ban use of your software to any coompany using DRM you may well turn a lot of important areas away, so in the end you end up as a small time group instead of people who changed the world.
I like muppets.
Broaden the meaning of this question and there is no doubt - the recent explosion of news events regarding DRM, especially the Sony issue, has hardened the opinions of many of us. Perhaps the use of GPL code did not itself have an effect, but the whole mess certainly did
Using plain ol' text since 1968
The planned anti-DRM changes to the GPL are significant because the entertainment industry regularly uses Linux-powered computers in the production process, notably for special effects and animation. In general, movie studios support DRM technology.
It is a bit ironic that the same companies that don't want you to see their movies for free will use software that can be obtained for free to make their movies.
I guess the entertainment industry motto is: "Why pay for it if you don't have to?"
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Linus may stick with GPL version 2 for the simple reason that he may wish to equip Linux to be able to implement hardware-based DRM. Linus is pragmatic in the straightforward sense: many Linux users will want access to DRMed material... Hence version 2, not version 3.
Stallman is pragmatic in a more esoteric sense: the GPL version 2 has been increadibly successful. He is pitching the GPL version 3 to maximise freedom, and this blow against DRM will do exactly that. True, free software will have less penetration as a result, but the world will be a freer place for the compromise not being taken.
From a moral angle, this clause allows programmers to restrict how the fruit of their skills is to be exploited, which is naturally within their right, as long as copyright is recognised in law.
Wikileaks, no DNS
If there was one hope for an acceptable DRM solution it was the OS community. Atleast there are still many other good licenses out there that don't ban and entire field of software development.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
For those who aren't fond of the changes to the GPL from v.2 to v.3, why not just vet your complaints about v.3 with a structured rebuttal, and then go on developing v.2 software until it's fixed or something better comes along?
Also, there are plenty of "Open-Source" Licences. (MPL, LGPL, BSD, CopyCat, etc.) Is there something the GPL v.3 does that the others (GPL v.2 included) don't do?
-Pope Peter Porker, S.O.W., K.M.K.R., U.G.O.A., F.S.G.S.D.
...you cannot have drm in oss, it just is not possible. if your software can render it, which involves processing the drm (decrypt, etc) then you can remove the drm pretty much just as easily and since the rendering code is there for everyone to see, the is trivial to adjust the app to play to disk.
I'm reading a bit too much along the lines of "ZOMG no 1 will use teh softwares with GPL3" or "there's politics in my software!".
Here's the dish:
You don't like GPL v3? Don't use it. GPL v2 will still exist. In fact, I'm betting Linux (the kernel) won't ever be available under the GPL v3. I would be happy to use the new GPL since I enjoy such a license. If you don't like the new stuff added in, feel free to use GPL v2 software. More licenses == more choices. I don't see the problem here. BSD and GPL currently co-exist just fine. I'm sure BSD, GPL v2, and GPL v3 will do just the same.
Then it's goodbye, Linux.
If your assertion is correct, then GPL3 is worse than DRM: DRM controls your use of particular content; GPL3 controls your use of completely unrelated software. Not being able to watch my DVDs on my Linux box is annoying; not being able to use any DVD player (hard- or soft-ware) because I sometimes & independently use Linux will result in me getting rid of Linux, not my DVD players. On a larger scale, a DRM-xor-GPL3 dilema for movie houses (or anyone remotely using DRM in any form) will get the GPL3 products dumped in a heartbeat - basically suicidal for Linux. Considering how DRM is defined, that some software-control technologies are vital and perfectly reasonable in some industries (mine), far more may get lumped in the "DRM" definition and knock OSS out of most commercial use. Dumb beyond words.
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
Something we have simply by right of being alive is something we will hold cheaply and assume will always be there, like the air we breathe.
Our rights are not God-given or inherent to ourselves. Nor are they granted to us by the benevolence of our rulers. Our rights were taken from our rulers, by force. Among all our ancestors were rebels and traitors, terrorists and pirates, mutineers and heretics and unionists and blackguards and revolutionaries and blasphemers and barbarians, and it is their struggle that we have to thank for the freedom we enjoy today. They fought against kings and barons, against tycoons and industrialists, against priests and popes, and they set themselves and their descendants free.
When you give up a freedom to the state, or to the establishment, or to the company, you aren't giving up something that is yours to give away that you've had all your life and which you got for nothing. You're giving up something bought by the blood of countless rebels over the centuries. You're betraying the sacrifices made by your ancestors.
A right we think is inalienable we will neglect and soon lose. A right we know was won by our ancestors through hardship and struggle we will defend forcefully.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
I absolutely hate DRM and believe that the DMCA should be repealed. I also believe there should be laws stating that no one should be able to place digital locks on material that a user has certain rights to which the locks curtail.
However, I really don't know about this change in the GPL. I thought one of the things the GPL wanted to avoid were the extra clauses about what you could and couldn't use the software for. I seem to remember people who would write "free" software with the license almost identical to the GPL but then add things like "No one in the US Military is allowed to use this software." I was under the impression that people who truly wanted Free and Open Source Software to prevail were against these kinds of restrictions...
We always knew Comcast was corrupt, here's the proof: http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1909890&cid=34545432
RMS started his crusade long before anyone heard of Microsoft when a printer manufacturer wouldn't give him the source code for a printer driver so he could fix the bugs that were preventing it from working on the computer he was using. RMS is about preventing artificial limits on a computers ability to meet the needs of its users.
Over the years the artificial limits have included the unavailability (hoarding in RMS-speak) of source code and patents. Adding DRM is the next logicial addition.
This is a boring sig
GPL <= 2 has a critical flaw at the top, in that you can recompile the code from source, but if you can never actually run that code then having the source is completely moot. So then the counter-attack to GPL is to restrict the hardward to only booting from authorized codes. Then you restrict the system to only run authorized codes; this could come first as a "warning: running unsigned code", then require admin privileges, and then just not run. Signing could be a quick, free, automatic online process that takes just seconds -- the point is to be able to revoke ability to run programs later or to specific users (for instance the authors of troublesome software).
Without this clause in the GPL, a company such as Intel or Dell can fork Linux, publish their code, but through signing only allow their compiles of the code to run on a system. That effectively prevents other people from changing code, so for example if it includes an audio driver that fingerprints its output and checks on the net to see if you have paid for the music then you can't play your mp3s you ripped previously. You can't remove that driver, you're stuck with it. Does that sound like open source to you?
With Intel's new boot system that Apple is using (and is a sure bet to be the future standard) the system can be restricted to only boot from certain signed code. These systems are shipping now. In a few years it will be possible to retro-fit systems (by Congressional fiat for example) to only boot an authorized os that only runs authorized code. People should realize this before criticizing GPL 3.
So under GPL 3 I can't make a kernel with hard-coded program keys/signatures... whoever gets my kernel code has to be able to generate and use their own. That is such an incredibly minor drawback compared to not being able to run any code at all without authorization.
In the PDF 1.6 specification, chapter 1.5 are written rules under which you can use the Adobe copyrighted list of data structures and operators. A part of them:
Is this DRM, or not?
XPDF author writes about this here
http://www.foolabs.com.nyud.net:8090/xpdf/crackin
In a society where all are free to keep slaves, the "mean freedom per capita" is likely to be rather less -- especially amongst the poorest members of that society -- that in a society where slavery is forbidden, even although the "freedom" to keep slaves has been infringed across the board.
The GPL is designed to preserve users' freedoms. Closed-source software and obnoxious DRM are basically electronic forms of enslavement. RMS gets this, and says the Four Freedoms of users are more important than the false freedom of developers to dictate terms for the use of their programs. Exactly the way that my freedom to walk down the streets of Britain and know that nobody is carrying a live firearm that could be used against me is more important than some gun nut's freedom to keep lethal weapons just in case civilisation happens to break down. {If and when that ever happens, I know how to make a gun anyway; but it's unlikely enough that I'm not worried about it.}
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Unfortunate reality is that DRM is a necessity to many companies. When a studio dumps $100,000,000 into a movie, times 100 movies a year, DRM is going to happen whether us end users like it or not. Total elimination of DRM from a movie studio is not an option; switching from Linux to Windows to keep DRM is an option for them.
... aka GPL3.
As Godel noted, there is an unresolvable issue in every system. As you note, the unresolvable issue in Stallman's GPL3 is the "no DRM anywhere ever" vs. "DRM is a fact of life - cope" vs. "no OSS for you" - pushed to its logical limits, Stallman's ideology makes it untenable in the real world. Getting banned from playing in sandbox A because you play in sandbox B discourages people from playing in B
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
Except users will no longer have the freedom to build DRM software using GPL'd code.
What is the difference between the GPL and the modified BSD license, or the MIT license? Some groups claim that the latter two licenses are more free than the GPL. In one sense, they are correct. The GPL puts certain restrictions on redistribution, whereas the other two licenses put virtually no restrictions.
You are correct that RMS has previously argued that there should be no "anti-suchandsuch" political clauses in the GPL. RMS believes that users should be free to do anything with the software. Thus, your view is correct, but not complete!
In fact, RMS has always stated that users should be free to do anything with the software, except restrict other users' freedom to do anything with the software. That was the whole point of the restrictions in the GPLv2.
When you look at it in this light, you realize that forbidding effective DRM is in fact consistent with the philosophical aims of the GPLv2, because DRM is nothing more than a way of restricting a user's freedom to do whatever he wants with the software. However, this draft of GPLv3 makes this explicit, because DRM-protecting laws like the DMCA have become so dangerous to Free Software.
Furthermore, your basic premise is in fact false. This draft of GPLv3 still allows programmers to write software that encodes or decodes DRM-wrapped file formats. However, this draft of GPLv3 legally defines any such software as not "an effective technological protection measure". These words have a specific legal meaning. The DMCA legally forbids a user from circumventing an effective technological protection measure; as such, if a piece of GPLv2 software implements a DRM-wrapper, it would be illegal under the DMCA to modify the software, even though the GPLv2 otherwise grants you that right. With this draft of the GPLv3, by defining the software legally as not "an effective technological protection measure" the DMCA will never be invoked, and the user is free to excersize his freedom by modifying the software.
The preceding comments reflect the author's personal opinion and are public domain, unless explicitly stated otherwise.
This is stupid. This impulsive, reactionary move will do nothing but cripple it's usage in any commercial application. Forget about tivo and the millions of titles that have CD-ROM protection through safedisc or macrovision, but this cuts out any possible commercial media delivery to GPL'd software. No iTunes, no DVDs, HD-DVDs, or any of the new wave of on-demand or streaming media. Great idea FSF, why don't you do an encore of punching yourself in the nuts?
People who think they know everything really piss off those of us that actually do.
Basicly, they are saying in GPL v3 that if you release code under GPL v3, you cannot sue someone else for looking at your code and using either the code or the information to read, write, encode, decode, encrypt, decrypt or otherwise work with the data files your code works with.