Slashdot Mirror
Real Networks to Linux - DRM or Die
Baronvaile writes "ArsTechnica is running a story about RealNetworks VP Jeff Ayars at LinuxWorld Boston discussing the future of Linux for the consumer, if it does not support DRM." From the article: "Ayers has a few supporters in this issue from the Linux camp, as Novell, Linspire, and Red Hat spokespeople reportedly said they would be happy to add DRM to their distributions, but with some caveats. Novell, for example, is "currently in discussions with vendors who control proprietary formats" with the goal of supporting these formats in SuSE Linux. One can only surmise exactly which formats that would be, but recent rumblings from Redmond make it likely that Microsoft DRM solutions such as PlaysForSure could be among them."
If they have to make the source available under the GPL, then it's child's play to unhook the DRM, yes?
Paleotechnologist and connoisseur of pretty shiny things.
Ditch DRM or die.
seen waving his hand, saying, "you don't need to see the source code."
As long as I am the one in control of my own computer and what it does (or does not do) instead of a mega corporation, then DRM is fine and dandy.
Digital is, by definition, imperfect. Analog is the way to go.
Yeah.
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Seriously, no one likes your product. You left a bad taste in our mouths with your nagware/adware supported POS software back in the day. Your format and codec suck, and there's really no point in your continued existence. FALL INTO A FIRE AND DIE.
------- "From bored to fanboy in 3.8 asian girls" ----------
Ask not for the future of Linux without DRM, but for the future of DRM without Linux (or other free OSes, for that matter).
If DRM becomes as oppressive as the big media players seem to want it to be, then it will drive people away from platforms requiring it and towards platforms that circumvent it. Moreover, there are enough such people that attempting to legislate such platforms out of existence is unlikely to meet with success, at least not for very long.
History furnishes few examples of big business successfully forcing the people to accept something not in their interests for extended periods. Once the public get wise to something, it will stop.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
I guess it's like a visiting dignitary - if you want so-n-so to visit your country, you have to help provide him/her police protection. In The Future® if you want pop star so-n-so to appear on your computer in audio or video, you'll need DRM to protect the material from getting around without permission.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
But I hope that it doesn't support DRM! With Vista going to DRM, I may be heading to Linux full-time.
On a side note, when was the last time anyone used RealPlayer? I just haven't found a practical use for it since around '99, but it still seems to get on other users machines.
I'm sorry, but when was the last time this joker was relevant? 1996?
110100 1101000 1101000 1100110 0 1101111 1101000 1100011 1
Wouldn't a DRM solution also include a closed source kernel driver? Even if you couldn't remove the DRM from the player, it still has to talk to the audio card. As far as I know all audio boards aren't encrypted, so you could modify the open source audio driver to capture the digital signal.
-Matt
I won't use software that implements it, and I won't watch or listen to media that uses it. It is a direct attack on my freedom, and I don't take kindly to that at all.
If the Linux community had any backbone, he would've been booed off the stage after he finished speaking. If it's DRM or die, I'd rather the latter.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
So, tell me *AA, what benefit does your DRM supposedly have to me, your customer? What would make me decide that your crippleware is actually something I'd want? Go ahead: we're listening.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Seriously, is there any real research that actually shows DRM to improve sales, customer relations, the economy, or anything save corporate egos? Contrast this to the numerous studies you can find via a simple google search that show "piracy", if anything, increases overall sales; those who pirate more, buy more than they would otherwise. Also, take Stardock's recent example in the videogame industry. Galactic Civilizations II is a number one seller, and it has no DRM at all. You don't even need a CD in the computer to play the game. It seems that DRM is largely ineffective or, if effective, violates fair use and pisses people off. I don't know about the other people on slashdot, but basically everyone I know that has ever pirated understand they have to buy good products. Afterall, if you don't then you aren't likely to see similar products in the future, and people understand this. Sure, you get some freeloaders with piracy, but in my (admittedly anecdotal) experience they are rare and research seems to support this. So, is there any real point to DRM? It seems far more harmful than good; it risks making products of today innaccessible in the future; it angers customers; it makes it much harder to transfer your information from an old computer to a new; it usually gets circumvented by crackers sooner or later anyhow; and all implementations seem to give an almost scary amount of control to content providers/makers. It just looks like a bad way to go. I think (and hope) this whole forray into DRM is a temporary insanity.
Ayers said: "Linux would be further relegated to use in servers and business computers, since it would not be providing the multimedia technologies demanded by consumers."
I am a consumer and I am _NOT_ demanding DRM.
DRM is E-fascisme.
And if the major Linux players go ahead and support DRM? Then other Linux distributors will come along with their DRM-less versions and scoop up market sahre, and users will see the movies and listen to the music they want to anyway using pirated versions of stuff. Let's not forget, what a coder creates, another coder can hack. No amount of DRM is going to keep enterprising coders from breaking it and freeing the content. The DRM camp is, as usual, kidding themselves.
And we've had unprotected media around us for years, like FM radio or good old cable TV, and all we need in order to make unauthorized copies of those broadcasts are cassette radios or VCRs. Just because content has gone digital shouldn't mean that we all are going to turn into the dirty, rotten pirates in need of heavy restraints that DRM proponents seem to assume that we are.There will always be freely available content, if you know where to look. Let's not forget: many radio stations stream their audio already, and how hard is it to record that stream? A user will always be able to pick up the content they want given the effort, the RIAA and all its cronies be damned. It doesn't make us criminals, but consumers forced to extraordinary lenghts to get the things we want without having to be beholden big media over and over again.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
Hilariously, their very greed is still the thing that holds them back. Each company jealously cautious about "licensing" its proprietary format, everyone in "talks", the whole PS3 fiasco...
I'm not even worrying about this any more. Hopefully they will continue to try to compete technologically with FOSS, because so far, it's worked out great.
I agree. But I also realize that we are at a crossroads here. I predict that Linux users are going to find that access to popular content is going to get increasingly harder. Sadly many of us will probably have to buy appliances to access this stuff which will take away from the elegance of home made devices. I'm already in that boat with DirecTV. The only PCI card that can play subscription content for PVR use is VERY expensive. Much more than just buying a ready made box. So I've had to circumvent by using a video capture card and LIRC to change the channels. It works, but it's not as pretty as having a DirecTV card in my mPC. Hence the reason my homemade PVR lives in the basement and the DVI cable comes up through the wall into my LCD monitor.
The big problem with buying ready made devices is that you spend so much money in aggregate when you have multiple services. And of course, those devices rarely do what YOU want them to. This will be no different if some Linux distros decide to support DRM. The software will, obviously, not be open source. And it's likely that the software will not do what you want it to. This is going to be a nasty battle and I don't see how Linux can win. Since most people just go out and buy set top boxes, the won't even understand the DRM argument since it won't even be an issue to them. Joe and Jane average aren't typically interested in watching programming from outside of their region, so they'll never notice that their player can't play data from Europe (if they are USians) or vice-versa.
Which leads to the really big question. WHY are the media companies so intent on controlling things by region? What is the possible reason? There is tons of brilliant programming from outside the US that is not available to Americans simply because of artificial restrictions like region codes or sales blocks. For example, I attempted to order the entire Hitchhiker's Guide radio series including the latest "Tertiary, Quandry and Quintessential" phases boradcast on the BBC in 2004/2005. The order was processed, but then I recieved an e-mail from the BBC store informing me that I wasn't allowed to buy that content due to licensing restrictions. Why? Why would licensing be involved at all? Who profits from this (since all artificial restrictions have financial reasons behind them)? How does this put the consumer first? What it really does is point to the fact that these systems are broken and it's getting worse. But only a small segment of the population will be inconvenienced. "...at least, no one worth speaking of", to throw out an Adams quote.
The only way that Linux will gain access to this kind of media in the future will likely be through means that are considered to be "illegal" or "violate copyright laws" or some other language meant to demonize the people who expect more from their media than these corporations want them to. At that point it will be time to just say goodnight to these companies and find something else to do for entertainment. Sadly there are no viable options right now. Reading a book is nice, but it doesn't satisfy the urge for junk entertainment... And that is how the world becomes less pleasnt.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
There is an old saying....
If you want success: grow
If you want spectacular success: grow and use leverage
My point is that I don't see any reason in the world why we shouldn't be trying to use Linux as leverage against people who are trying to impose DRM. Market forces are clearly pushing Linux in spite of them anyhow. What do people who controll content really have to offer us that we somehow can't manage without? The truth is that the future is not about extracting revenue from content, but instead extracting revenue from content related services.
IMHO, just as the plantation system tried to deal with the industrial revolution by fencing off the south and breaking off from the Union, the media system today is trying to deal with the information age by using DRM to fence off all content. Both are doomed stratigies, and the sooner we kill copyright and tools used to impose them, the sooner we will be doing ourselves and the information age a big favor.
To make demands of a community that made its start "fighting the man."
These are the same people who continued to work on a fledgling OS in the early 90's because they believed in it, despite the Microsoft behemoth.
Through the cries of "Linux will never make it" to "Linux will never make it into real business server rooms" to the current "Linux will never make it onto the desktop."
This is a community of people who thrive on problem solving.
DRM is not a solution. It is a problem waiting to be solved.
Linux. Adapt and survive.
He who confuses his religion with his science knows neither.
In spite of the fact that I know I should know better, I find myself continually surprised by these execs just...not...getting it. The companies are hanging onto an obsolete business model. Consumers want our digital rights protected, not the company's.
My hope is that one day they screw up and lock things down so tightly and inconveniently that Joe 'Average' Sixpack sits up and takes notice. The Sony rootkit fiasco was a start. That's who we need to convince, because if we get the mass market aware of and against DRM, the companies will face a tougher challenge in restricting our rights.
They want to close the analog hole. Yes every analog to digital convert will have to have the ability to detect a water mark and then refuse to record the data! No I am not making it up that is what some groups want!
Yes it is sickening. I don't download music or video but I do want the option to use it on my PC in a fair manner!
I also want to have the option of buying AD chips that don't cost a bloody fortune and work.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
The content industry sees DRM as its saviour from the pirates. In fact, it will be their doom. Let's take a look at what DRM will do, and to whom.
For this we'll be looking at four groups of people:
1. The joe average sixpack crowd, who buy some music, copy some more from his friends and generally think DRM is the new acronym for the thingie to plug into your car to make it faster. He's getting some music online, doesn't make heavy use of torrent and is still plugged into Kazaa, but complains he doesn't find much anymore.
2. The people who use suck the net dry, whether they need it or not. It's there, it's free, it's on my HD. They don't know jack about the inner workings of the DeCSS, don't know who broke it, but they use it to rip it, with the neat and foolproof tools provided.
3. The people who know what DRM means to their privacy and who fear, hate and fight it. Not necessarily in that order. Out of principle, not because they want to pirate what's available. But it's a privacy thing.
4. The people with The Clue to actually break DRM.
Group 1 will suddenly notice that their movies don't work anymore, or that they can't play the movie in the player they want. They bought a $3000+ HDTV set and they now got the same crappy rez because some part isn't to the DRM's liking, so they get the low-rez instead of the promised HD quality. They're understandably pissed, sink another 2k into the system to get better resolution and then find out that, again, some things will work while others don't, they suddenly can't borrow movies from their friends anymore. They do buy most of their movies, but they're PISSED because more often than not the DRM locks them out of their (bought) movies, following the creed of "better prohibit too much than allow too much".
Group 2 will notice that they can't play the ripped movies anymore. They won't do anything about it but google the web up and down 'til Group 4 provides them with the tools to rip again. They won't buy a single movie. They're not in for the movie, they're in for the "wanna have".
Group 3 will talk to Group 1 and blame whatever irks them on DRM. Until Group 1 starts listening to it and starts digging up information about DRM. And they get MORE pissed. Group 3 doesn't buy movies either. They're not in for the movies, they're in for the privacy issues.
And finally Group 4 will spend its time tinkering with the DRM, they'll burn a few of the DRM crates 'til they figure out how to break it, release it and then we are right where we are now.
With a few differences.
Group 2-4 don't change their behaviour at all. They didn't buy before, they won't buy after. Group 1, though, is not PISSED at the industry for making it all so "complicated" and they will think and ask twice before ever buying any new equipment. They will no longer be on the spearhead of adaption, they will wait 'til one of their clued friends tells them that it's ok to get one of those babies.
Who loses? Right. The content industry.
Who wins? Nobody.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Or simply to use another distribution.
Don't forget, unlike the Windows "market", the Linux market is a real, working market. That is, consumers have the choice, and therefore the power. You don't want Linux with DRM? Then get another one without DRM. If there's demand for such a Linux distro, there will be supply for it. And if there isn't demand for Linux with DRM, those distros will simply die (or drop DRM).
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Ayers said. "Linux would be further relegated to use in servers and business computers, since it would not be providing the multimedia technologies demanded by consumers."
People want music and movies not some greedy pig's Digital Restrictions Management. The absolute failure of "Plays for Sure" to gain any market share is because the DRM sucks. No one wants dissapearing music and convoluted subscription plans. You can, right now, get movies and music outside of such restrictions and that's where people are going to go.
That's just the beginning.
These are the new winners. Their work is excellent and they are the kind of people I want to spend my money on. Do you think for an instant that I'm going to corrupt my computer with crap that will lock them out? I'm not alone. People are already outraged by DRM'd CDs and the only people less trusted than Sony is Microsoft. When whole collections vanish they will really howl. The winners will sit pretty on their nice media and wonder what all the fuss is about. Their market share is going to go up and up.
I'm keeping my set top box for the old losers but it's going away. You can get them for $40 at the walmart and they do a nice slide show if you feed them a CD of your jpegs. I'll give the MPAA four bucks here and there to watch their little movies. That's all it takes to not feel like I live in a cave. As more content becomes available elsewhere, I'll spend less of my time and money on that set top box. I've already dropped cable TV and don't miss it.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
"After all, what candy-bar maker is going to ship candy bars to a 7-11, when any client can come in and just put one in his pocket? It's impossible to make money in such an environment. It's just... Un-American!"
says Hugh Bluehose, CEO of Safe Candy Bars.
"7-11 had better get their act together. We're working with our friends in Congress, who we've helped to really understand this whole industry, to ensure that Americans are protected from the scourge of illegal dealing in plastic-wrapped, un-protected candy bars. We're committed to putting companies based on criminal candy-bar infringement strategies out of business, and behind bars."
Later, when chatting with Bat Fridwig, technical lead of Microsofts EatsForSure project, we were informed that:
"There is just no market for un-protected candy-bars. It's not possible for any company to make money selling such unsafe candy-bars, long term. Why would anyone buy a candy bar, when they can just go swipe one? I mean, really..."
-- -pjk Perry Kundert perry@kundert.ca http://kundert.2y.net
mplayer doesn't tell me "action not allowed" or that I must go through the menu. I put in the DVD and tell it to play Title 1. That's it.
In Windows, (or on a "real" DVD player), it's watch a few ads, look at the FBI warning, wait for the damn animation to finish, push Play, wait for another damn animation....
Why? You cant easily DRM Linux. Why , well imho its because Linux is community driven not profit driven. While some people make a profit off Linux it is not its end all be all. There is no central company to buy off to put DRM in. Communities design it to be free and open. Any project that decides to become DRM infested will lose community support. Without a community behind it the project is as good as dead. When one distro dies 4 more take its place. It isn't hard to do. Its easy to do with Linux, its called a fork! Using the last available code that wasn't DRM infected. But the biggest fear of the DRM crowd is that Linux is a DRM free alternative. mThey fear more people will find Linux is open, and easier than they thought. I know I did, no trusted computing OS for me! I see this as the biggest fear from people like Real. Will linux have DRM in the future? Maybe. It could be mandated by law, or some other dirty trick. But it all comes down to trust. Do I trust the Linux community or or closed sorce companies not to take away more than is abaslutly necessary? For me , its a no brainer.
I trust Microsoft as far as I could comfortably spit a dead rat
I agree with you, it's stupid, but it's the way it is.
Sorry, Billosaur, I'm not picking on you in particular, but your post was the last one before I decided to say something about it.
Whatever happened to the word "Patrons"? or "Customers"? Did anybody notice that?
People are not consumers. Bacteria are consumers. Mindless consuming machines. The word itself is demeaning.
I think it's high time that business started remembering the slogans: "The Customer is always right", and "Thank you for patronizing us". I think the shift to the demeaning and inhuman word, "Consumer", has a lot to do with the loss of respect for the "Customer" that's been developing in recent years.
Words have power. Use the correct ones.
Linux is open software. I want to be able to play DRM content, as well as non-DRM content. Why should my "more open" platform be more closed to some formats? Let proprietary systems, like Windows and RealNetworks' servers, suffer from less content because they support only DRM content. Support all the formats, make content creation cheap and easy without DRM, and let people choose what we want to produce and consume. The open, easy to share stuff will win. Along the way it might even bring low the high & mighty Hollywood brand franchises and the DRM-mongers who love them.
--
make install -not war
Nah, the rest of us non-Windows lusers will just use the pirated versions of content, since it'll be easier. Fuck the recording companies with a sharp, pointy, broken-glass-studded 12" long motorized 6666 rpm dildo. This will encourage *more* piracy, not less. And artists/bands will still make money by having concerts - if you like a band these days, you'll go to one of their concerts to get the full experience anyway. Free music will just give them more exposure - I downloaded music that I'd never even *heard* before from my college's network in the 90s, and I ended up liking quite a few of those bands, and going to their concerts or buying CDs. I think that the more piracy will also encourage artists to innovate or starve, since they won't be able to make money selling recordings of their music from 25 years ago.
-b.
Real Networks to Linux: DRM or Die!
Linux to Real Network: Oh shut the hell up, retard. Damn it, one of those days, one of those days...
--Chag
DRM won't work and only systems and artists who avoid it will profit and grow. Go visit the links I provided and tell me what content you are still lacking.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Ah, then this is where our expectations differ. I can see DRM becoming so annoying that there is a massive consumer backlash.
Macrovision is mostly irrelevant, because few people try to back up their stuff anyway. OTOH, the average lifespan for a home computer is probably under five years, and I'm guessing most portable MP3 players and the like don't last that long before breaking. In a couple of years, the generation that bought lots of legal downloads recently will want to transfer them to a new toy. If they're told, "Sorry, you can't, your whole music collection is going to die with your iPod," then there are going to be a lot of very upset people around.
Likewise, if people who just spent four-figure sums on big, flashy HDTVs a couple of years ago go and buy new HD-DVD or Blu-Ray discs and then find that they're stuck with upsampled low-res displays because they don't have HDCP, there are going to be a lot of very upset people around.
The difference between this sort of thing and the crude "copy protection" technologies that have gone before is that the new generation of DRM will actively get in the way of things that typical users really want to do. Worse, it will do it only to users who are good customers, buying content from legal sources, while it will do jack to people who rip it - and someone, somewhere will always rip anything that's any good, and that rip will always be playable on systems that don't play ball with media megacorp DRM initiatives.
If this isn't a recipe for a serious consumer backlash, then I don't know what is, and I reckon this one will probably be accompanied by plenty of antitrust suits in the US, deceptive marketing claims in Europe, etc. It's just a matter of how long it takes before DRM stops inconveniencing a fairly small and mostly silent minority (Macrovision) and goes mainstream (HDCP, legal music downloads, etc.).
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Aahh, that is the other side of DRM. It ensures that the media companies can continue to make you re-buy all your content due to forced obsolesence. This is the reason the electronics companies are behind it as well -- to sell more goods. Many people think that CDs and DVDs are good enough, and the gravy train of rebuying media is starting to run out. DRM limits your ability to move the media to a format of your choice, giving you no alternative but to keep rebuying.
DRM isn't about stopping piracy. Piracy is nothing compared to the potential market of forcing the rest of the population that doesn't do pirating (about 85% right now, though that will decline as they push this) to have to pay extra just to play the music or watch the videos they already have. The content industry sees riches in everyone having to buy yet another copy for each different device, and even having to buy replacements for worn out copies (something they tried back when music was on 12 inch vinyl disks by going to a cheap product that would wear out in 10 to 20 plays). Getting the revenues from piracy is about a 15% gain. Getting the revenues from DRM forced re-buys could double or even triple their sales.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Hey there,
I just spent 9 months developing a music store for independant artists. We allow you to burn to cd, copy to flash disk, other hard disks, anything you want apart from giving it to other people. We don't use DRM either, since we're pretty sure that once one copy gets out there, any DRM serves from that point forward to exclusively be a bane to customers, so that not only is the pirate product cheaper, but also technically superior.
Why isn't somone doing a story about http://store.pulserated.com/ instead. Ugh
Thats what we get for not being a mainstream music flogging, drm-whoring conglomorate. Go figure.
Due to various problems with the library's web site it took her a few hours to download the books. Amusingly (for me), the library DRM turned out to be Microsoft's PlayForSure which doesn't play on iPod, for sure. I was able to witness firsthand what DRM does to Jane user: At first she was confused. Then she was annoyed. Then she asked me what was going on. Then she was furious.
Moral of the story: My wife will NEVER accept DRM ever again. She'd rather pick up a good old book at the library than waste any money on **AA's broken products, be it music or video.
I think the **AA industry overestimates its own importance. DRMed entertainment is not a necessity of life. Once time and space shiftable media such as CDs and DVDs disappear, we'll likely cease to consume any **AA media altogether. We've already cancelled our cable subscription due to the poor programming and amazingly annoying ads. There are better things to do.
They are not buying WMAs, so that's not good enough. DVDs don't really sell as well as they could because of DRM. I don't buy them because I know my set top box won't last forever and that will be the end of them. The problems with other, better built systems like IPod come later. We will see if publishers survive the waves of betrayal they are generating. In the mean time, other publishers are going to jump right in and steal their market share.
Will your kids be able to share and enjoy your music? I was able to convert my mom's 45s, had a great time doing it and will be able to share that with my daughter. I'll be able to move and convert those files around as I please. That's what people expect from things they buy and they really won't accept less.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
It should read "Linux to Real Networks - drop DRM or Die." Any bets on who will be around longer?
"I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity but they've always worked for me" - HST
Who needs Real?
-------- In Soviet Russia, "Soviet Russia" sigs hate Slashdot.
Other countries will not enforce some weird Hollywood protectionist legislation (which is really the core of DRM) unless it is forced upon them as part of a trade deal. The hardware with DRM will cost more to manufacture than that without - so it may just end up being a drag on US manufacturers who will be facing competition form cheaper imports without it. How much does Hollywood add to the revenue base for it to merit special protectionist laws that hurt larger portions of the economy - don't most large movies make a loss on paper to avoid tax?