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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.
It's good to see someone with some amount of clout taking a stand against unreasonable constraint of fair use rights. I just hope that this becomes a catalyst in a chain reaction of rebellion against DRM, which manages access in the same way that a jail manages freedom (my apologies to the /.er who I took this .sig from - cant recall his/her name).
uR iGn0ranc3, Their Power
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.
I'm a writer as well, and a believer in the rights of content owners to be compensated.
I think it's been proven time and again, though, that DRM is a failed concept that actually hinders consumers more than it thwarts pirates.
Rights and compensation for copyright owners is an issue. DRM is not the answer.
Running Windows^H^H^H^H^H^H^H OSX and Linux in the home. (I don't have time for Solitaire any more.)
I demand that Red Hat immediately hand over all their private keys!
Wrong. GPLv3 says that you need to provide all keys needed to make the software functional for its intended purpose, not the keys needed to make a bit-for-bit identical package.
Thus, if your piece of software is supposed to be able to read scrambled data, you cannot hide the decryption key -- but, you are free to sign the packages to prove they are untampered binaries produced by you. In the former case, the program wouldn't work, in the latter, it just will trigger a warning from the OS which says the user is about to install unsigned binaries. No one forces the user to heed the warning, and she can disable it if she wants. No functionality is lost.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
Sounds to me like you should look a distribution method called a "book".
1) Harder to copy than a web-accessible PDF
2) Conveniently sold in stores across the country.
3) Open access by flipping pages.
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
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
since every drm schemed is eventually going to be hacked, and therefore the protection removed, not only for the ubergeeks but for everyone through file sharing systems. Since current drm imply shady business with the OS (Sony rootkit) and rights restriction (copying music between all the devices you own etc), since DRM has been critized to assume the consumers where outlaws. Then why not make a jump. I'd suggest a DRM system based on a simple RDF file indicating what the user has the right to do with the file... this file is attached to the media content. Sure, it'll be extremely easy to crack, so easy it won't even be fun. Ethic media players would read the file and tell you, this is the 10th time you've read this file. I can't read it anymore you need to buy another lease, or buy the song entirely etc.... Maybe I'm just a dreamer... after all how many sharewares, most of whom where not based on restrictions, just on nag screens after a certain period, where registered? Well maybe it's different for music, I don't know... But after all, the current DRM situation is the same with a little more obfuscation that's it... so why not?
\u262D = \u5350
Here's an interview with Richard Stallman discussing Linus's decision to include DRM in the linux kernel.
And here's a post from linus on the kernel mailing list (thread "flame linus to a crisp") talking about DRM in the linux kernel.
So there you go GPLed DRM.
My pics.
...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.
The GPL isn't, actually, a "play nice" style license as such - the entire concept is that it "guarentees freedom," trying to balance the freedoms of both the creator and the user. The Free Software Foundation is about the "right to tinker" (Stallman's words at the GPLv3 release), and that includes the right to tinker with a program's data files.
Stallman is, essentially, an idealist. He wants to save the world - and he seems to honestly believe that allowing DRM to exist would destroy free software. So he's taken a hard-line stance against DRM in the GPLv3.
It's sort of explained in the rational behind Section 3, which I'm just going to quote outright since it's so short:
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
It's true that iTunes DRM is some of the least obnoxious in terms of the practical restrictions it places on the user...
BUT you're still entirely at the mercy of Apple. If they go out of business, or get bought out, or become more evil/greedy, then they can impose new restrictions on the use of their products.
And while iTunes DRM does stop average Joe's from pirating songs, there's software out there to crack it, and it works.
My bicyles
On your last point I agree; the "or later" clause to me means that anyone could choose to distribute so-licensed software under the terms of GPLv2 or GPLv3. But IANAL and there might be some other effect.
I don't think, however, that GPLv2 expresses the FSF's political views in the same was that GPLv3 does. GPLv2 restricts only the ways that derivative works can be distributed (they must be distributed with source). GPLv3 also appears to restrict the function of your derivative works (they cannot be used for DRM). And I think it means that using GPLv3 on your own servers to facilitate DRM is also not allowed (might be wrong on that one though) which would make it an end-user license.
GPLv2 expresses FSF's views on software distribution, while GPLv3 expresses FSF's views on software function. There is a big difference, and it could cause a lot of problems in the Free Software community. I can't say I agree with the changes in GPLv3, as someone that often waffles between preferring BSD-style licenses and GPLv2-style ones.
I'd disagree with this. I have a music server that serves Foobar2000 on my windows PC, Amarok on my Linux HTPC and Music Player Daemon/Icecast so I can listen to my CDs at work. Much as i'd love to buy from itunes occasionally their DRM stops me from just dropping the tunes on my Linux server and using them as I see fit.
The same goes for the audiophile types who spend 30k+ on home music server systems for the same reasons - Apples DRM prohibits them from using their legally bought music as they see fit.
Back to P2P again then...
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.
Here's another writer's view on the issue. The whole essay is worth reading, but his second-to-last paragraph sums it up pretty well:
And Eric Flint and other authors are putting their money where their mouth is: The Baen Free Library offers full, unabridged novels for free download, in multiple formats, with no DRM. Once they've gotten you hooked with that, the Baen Webscription site offers books for sale, for low prices, also in multiple formats and with no DRM.
Baen has also put CDs in the backs of several recent hardcover releases, containing other books from the same author, books from other authors that readers may like to try, plus high-resolution copies of cover artwork (without the book title or other text -- just the art). The CDs not only include no DRM, but they also have a statement printed on the label that *encourages* the sharing of the content with friends and family. Baen does ask that you don't distribute the content to the whole world, but has never sued anyone over it. There was one fan of David Weber's Honor Harrington series who put the full text of all of the Harrington books on his web site. Jim Baen found out about it, but rather than threatening a lawsuit, he simply sent the fan an e-mail and explained how the fan's actions were counterproductive and damaging. The fan promptly took the material off-line.
Baen has also recently started doing something new, too. They're now offering "Advance Reader Copies" of new books. These are unproofed versions of books that are going to be released in coming months. Serious fans buy them both because they don't want to wait for the release and also because there's something cool about reading their favorite authors' work in it's "raw, unpolished" form -- it's basically straight from the author's word processor. The advance copies start out at $15 and decline in steps as the publication date approaches. After release, of course, you can buy the final version for about $4.
Oh, and everything is in multiple formats, with absolutely no DRM.
This is innovation in publishing, and this is the sort of thing that can build a sufficiently large and loyal fanbase so that piracy is simply irrelevant.
According to Jim Baen, the experiment has been extremely successful and profitable. Not only has it increased the sales of their current top authors, it has also allowed them to publish -- and profit from -- lots of their back catalog that would otherwise be impossible to publish.
I know that I, personally, have spent *way* too much money on Baen books over the last two or three years. If there are others like me, and I'm sure there are, it's no wonder Baen is doing well.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
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
Some of the comments are nonsense like applying this to file permissions. So before you flame the decision, read it. Excerpt from the GPL:
As a free software license, this License intrinsically disfavors technical attempts to restrict users' freedom to copy, modify, and share copyrighted works. Each of its provisions shall be interpreted in light of this specific declaration of the licensor's intent. Regardless of any other provision of this License, no permission is given to distribute covered works that illegally invade users' privacy, nor for modes of distribution that deny users that run covered works the full exercise of the legal rights granted by this License.
In other words: This applies only to DRM that attempts to block copying of copyright material. Not Trusted Computing, not file permissions, not anything else.
Ok?
So.. it has come to this
Well, it's not really a change. In spirit, the GPL has always opposed DRM. DRM, like proprietary software, takes away the control and freedom of choice that an end user should enjoy, and gives it to someone else. The GPL has always stood against the effects of proprietary software, on behalf of programmers and expert users. Now, it stands against those effects on behalf of every computer user too. Companies have an ethical choice when it comes to DRM, and I do hope that the actions of the FSF will serve to highlight this.
You're an immobile computer, remember?
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
I quit buying iTunes songs because of their DRM. My car CD player will play a disc full of MP3's just fine. I can fit around 12 hours of music on a CD by burning MP3's to it.
Apple's DRM only lets me make a Redbook-audio format CD, thus reducing my CD capacity by almost 90%. All becaues of ARTIFICIAL limitations. I could technically burn it to redbook first, then rerip back to MP3, but that hassle simply isn't worth it.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
DRM is more than a technical measure these days. It is also a legal measure. You can be charged with a crime for distributing a DRM crack (e.g. Skylarov, DVD Jon), even if the DRM is hopelessly insecure from a technical perspective.
Furthermore, cracking DRM takes time and needlessly wastes resources. Lots of users don't know how to get the cracks. Plus the cracks typically only run on systems with well-documented operating systems. To my knowledge no one has released an iTunes DRM crack that actually runs *on the iPod*. So even if DRM is cracked on desktop computers, it can still render a lot of portable devices nearly useless if the original vendor turns evil.
The way I see it, the worst examples of DRM (I would not include iTunes in that group) constantly harass users, even if they're easily circumvented. Imagine if books had DRM, for example: your hardback books would lock themselves shut unless you plugged them into the phone line for a few seconds to open them. Even if there was an easy hack, you'd still be paying the publishing company to put that crap in the book in the first place.
My point is: DRM places an economic and legal burden on consumers even if it's easy to circumvent.
My bicyles