Slashdot Mirror
Sun's Open Source DRM
DigDuality writes "Wired has an interesting look at Sun's proposed 'Open Source DRM'. From the article: 'Its goal is to promulgate an open-source architecture for digital rights management that would cut across devices, regardless of the manufacturer, and assign rights to individuals rather than gadgets [...] If DReaM works, consumers will be able to access their purchased songs through a number of providers, and using a wide variety of devices." Slashdot took a first look at Sun's DReaM last August.
I always find it strange how Sun's business model seems to constantly be evolving towards developing products that either
a) no one wants, or
b) have already been made.
Just because it's open source doesn't make it "right," or even useful. DRM is all about the content provider being able to dictate what your computer is capable, and incapable of doing; if you really do want your computer use restricted by commercial companies (not even necessarily within your own country), then yeah, maybe this might be a good idea.
If I read the article correctly...
I purchase the -right- to listen to a song.
Once purchased, I can replace it if I lose it.
Once purchased, I can listen to it on any new form of playback that comes along.
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I doubt it will be supported since it undercuts the dream by the media creators that we pay every single time we play a song- and we rebuy it for each new playback device.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
MOD PARENT UP UP UP.
This is so correct. My favorite media player is my modified Xbox because it works. I have no real need to pirate anything, but having your current library of videos available "on demand" is great, the added bonus of my daughter not being able to scratch her $40 a pop and up disney DVDs. DRM may kill this system, which means I will not be getting new content.
-nB
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
When was the last time some consumer/end-user level standard you pushed was adopted en masse?
Java... NO (not on set top boxes that is)
JXTA... NO
SunRay... NO (only a few universities / corps)
Liberty Alliance... NO
OpenLook... NO
JINI... NO
I'll throw in a few non-consumer things, just to be a dick:
SBus, JavaOS/JavaStation, etc.
Sun's history is littered with failured "standards".
Open source support for DRM - con: DRM can only be successful with widespread software support. By supporting DRM, you make it easier for DRM to be successful.
Open source boycott of DRM - con: DRM can probably gain widespread software support even without open-source software support, so a boycott is likely to only have the effect of alienating open-source software to end-users.
If open-source platforms were significantly more popular, then supporting DRM probably wouldn't be a good idea. But because open-source platforms don't have significant mindshare among the general public, it's more difficult to resist, as the only effect resisting will have is negative.
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
Does anybody have a link to a good technical discussion of this thing? This article really is fluff and doesn't get into any details. I would very much like to know how they intend to bar un-authorized people from playing their files. After all, the program is open source (or is it?) so can be easily modified to allow the audio output to be written to an unprotected file somewhere. Obviously they would need to encrypt their files in some way, but then how do they intent to prevent people from getting at the keys?
:/
Totally confusing.
It means they aren't secure.
Open Source Encryption is fine, since only the people with the keys can do anything useful to the data stream, an attacker is still in trouble.
With DRM, the attacker and the valid user can be one and the same. That's a lot harder to protect.
DRM may kill this system, which means I will not be getting new content.
I just thought of what the media people would do if they were in another service industry. Lets take for example, running water. Lets pretend that Sony gets into the water business.
If they were in the running water business, they would probably be in other businesses as well. Like Sony does content, hardware, etc. So you could get a Sony sink and faucet with your Sony water.
The difference is that you would have to use your Sony sink, or Sony licensed sink to drink your Sony water. The Sony water would then have to be protected so that a Panasonic sink would not be able to dispense of the Sony water. How would they do that?
DRM. Yes, they would add a poison to the water, at great expense and danger to the public. The water would kill you in seconds of ingestion without the aid of a Sony sink to remove the poison.
Of course, you could license the rights to drink Sony's poisoned water, but all of the fittings would be nonstandard. You would have to get special tools to work on the sink. Oh, and Sony water would never just go through PVC or copper pipe. The Sony water would need an end to end transport system.