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Are New DRM Technologies Setting Vista Up For Failure?
PetManimal writes "Computerworld has picked apart the way Vista handles DRM in terms of hardware and software restrictions. Trusted Platform Module, Output Protection Management, Protected Video Path and various Windows Media software components are designed to 'protect' copyrighted content against security breaches and unauthorized use. The article notes that many of the DRM technologies were forced upon Vista by the entertainment industry, but that may not garner Microsoft or Hollywood any sympathy with consumers: 'Matt Rosoff, lead analyst at research firm Directions On Microsoft, asserts that this process does not bode well for new content formats such as Blu-ray and HD-DVD, neither of which are likely to survive their association with DRM technology. "I could not be more skeptical about the viability of the DRM included with Vista, from either a technical or a business standpoint," Rosoff stated. "It's so consumer-unfriendly that I think it's bound to fail — and when it fails, it will sink whatever new formats content owners are trying to impose."'"
I originally had no intention of looking at this article. Then I saw the above snippet in the post and felt compelled to find out what a "Directions on Microsoft" is. They have an About Us page, it turns out. Their first entry is:
I knew that Microsoft supported, in one way or another, a lot of organizations around the world but this takes the cake. A professional, corporate stalker? The world must be coming to an end sooner than I thought.
Yet another article that reminds me to get off my butt and convert everything in my house to Ubuntu except for the game machines. We each have two computers (one work, one game) and a few servers. They're all homebuilt. The game machines I'll grudgingly leave as XPsp2 boxes ... but it leaves the annoying thought that they'll force an upgrade to Vista down the road because the new games will require DirectX 10. At that point I may take up knitting.
I'm a bit worried to be honest. Windows people seem to be ready for this rogering from Microsoft and they all have the out look of "oh but the DRM will be cracked within a month and we'll be free to continue doing what we do"...The real question is will it really be cracked (activation never was, well) and secondly do we want it cracked. It looks like a rather good model to me and most of the people who deal with advanced systems like that wouldn't touch Windows anyway - and we can be sure it is out of the realm of script kiddies. I don't see Windows users going back to XP once they've switched to Vista; they've been chopping at the bit to drop the dead weight that is XP (in their eyes) because of the pressure applied by the Linux and Mac camps who even with the Vista release are still infront. So there are two outcomes...Windows users find DRM to much and side grade to Linux or Mac or more likely they will bend over and continue to take it like they did with activation.
I ate your fish.
Why didn't the entertainment empires force this DRM crap on OSX in the same way, they should be small fry compared to Microsoft.
Jonathanjk.com
Oh, I think consumers are perfectly capable of telling apart intentionally crippled software from accidental problems. There are telltale signs when a device goes out of its way to stop working.
Windows users are continuing to test the waters of Linux and to be honest I think this is the best way to convert them...Show new users that over a period of time Linux is a manageable learning curve and has some clear advantages. Every one I know that uses Linux full time after being a long time Windows user did it this way including myself and it takes about one to three years. This process is being helped a long now that Linux isn't playing second fiddle to Windows and is now focusing on catching up to OSX and finding its own identity instead of just being a straight (boring and useless) Windows clone. And with compiz/xorg working on everyday hardware without issue and Vista's upgrade costs at least force a bunch of new to Linux Windows users start testing the waters. If this is kept up the rate of users defecting to Linux and Mac will hopefully turn into a land slide in the next five to ten years and then we will truly see the year of the Linux Desktop.
Note I do hope users go to both Linux and Mac in roughly equal groups as I'd like to see us avoid another monopoly situation like this Microsoft hell we've had to live through.
I ate your fish.
I don't think so. The norm currently is that if you ask me for a copy of the new albulm I just bought I might umm and ahh over it for 10 minutes, but ultimately I have the choice of giving you a copy. I might feel guilty about it, because all that propaganda I've seen on tv tells me it is wrong, but I actually have the option of doing the "wrong" thing. But if you ask me for a copy and I say "can't, its copy protected" you might reply with "can't we crack it?" and then we'll go search the net for 20 minutes, not find anything, call our geeky friend and ask him and he might say "as yet, there is no crack for Microsoft's DRM" and by that point you and I will be looking at my computer like most geeks look at this stuff: proprietary software stops me from doing what I want. And that's it man, the geeks have won then, and Microsoft just don't get that.
How we know is more important than what we know.
With reports of the Zune not being Vista Compatible--it does make you wonder how hard it is going to be for other manufacturers to get up to speed on things.
We Apprentice Developers and Designers
In any case, if you're serious about music on computers, you get your dedicated system set up (mine is XP sp2 with an Aardvark q10 (outta biz a few years ago) and Vegas - remove everything that isn't audio related, and call that an appliance. Don't change it, minus a few plugins (they don't usually mess it all up
If you want to mess with Vista, save up 400 bucks and buy some off the shelf deal with it preinstalled. I saw it in the flesh for the first time today, and thought, 'Wow. I've had all that since Tiger came out.' ha.
XP works great for music, as long as you don't do anything else. OS X is for everything else.
And music. :)
I was talking to some bootleggers on the footpath a few months ago while on holiday. They were very excited about HD-DVD and Blue-Ray. They hope that everyone gets burned at least once trying to play the new media as once people get burned with the legal stuff they tend to be less uppity about buying from the bootleggers.
Australian running a company that does C# / C++ / Java / SQL / Python / Mathematica
Microsoft will push manufacturers to no longer ship machines with XP.
They are forcing upgrades with DirectX10.
The average user is going to end up with Vista, my mum will get Vista with her next lap top.
No matter what microsoft will make money.
And we, the technical consumer are going to get fucked. We will have a drm infested piece of shit os forced down our throats to play games and watch HD movies... I for one will be sitting out the next format war. DVD is good enough, DivX is great and MP3s are great.
I will also be ignoring games that only use directx 10 for as long as possible.
I think all that we need to sink vista is a directx10 patch for winxp. Then I will never even have to see this abomination of an operating system. I mean honestly why would I buy it. Microsoft has clearly said they arent making the OS for me the consumer but for the Media industry. MPAA/RIAA can go fuck themselves for all I care. If they die there will always be music and movies. Albeit most likely shit movies. I wish microsoft would just protect the rights of their consumers for a change.
Vote with your wallet. Dont buy vista AND convince as many people as you can to stay away from it aswell.
Windows Media Center does not provide a user interface to use the composite or S-video capture capabilities of your video card. I can just see Hollywood on the phone to BG begging him close that damn analog hole. Of course, you also can't transfer your home movies either, unless you find different software. I think some people are going to get worn out on the idea that they can't use their computers the way they want to. I am pissed enough at the idea that if lightning strikes your computer, it also blows up the license to use your software in some cases. M$ can't count on me as an early Vista adopter.
Our company did last year, cities of Vienna and Munich did, it should work out very nicely for you too. Our former XP users love KDE.
No need to put yourself through pains when you can improve security, save money and achieve a good deal of vendor independence all at the same time. Why support the Microsoft monopoly by paying ridiculous prices for bug ridden software with DRM restrictions, when you can run Free software on the industry standard (and thus inexpensive) hardware?
Knowing everything I know now, I only regret that we did not migrate to GNU/Linux sooner.
With Microsoft bleeding billion into the Xbox, a billion into the Zune, and with Vista set up for failure...
Oh, please... That poor, poor Microsoft. What I find mildly amusing on Slashdot are all these young and idealistic IT "professionals" pretending to be cynical realists; talking about Linux this and Linux that, and about Microsoft's impeding demise (if not next week, then by Christmas for sure). These are the kind of boys and girls who get their first real job and think that somebody actually gives a rat's ass about their opinions and their wonderful programming skills.
It takes years in the IT field to finally realize that smart ideas and good products don't sell. What sells? Entirely random stuff. Some of it turns out to be not bad, but most of it is crap. Why does it sell? Because people running Microsoft and such know just a bit more about selling stuff than an entire army of twenty-year-old comp sci graduates. Reading all this excited chatter about how badly Windows suck make me feel like I am in a twilight zone. C'mon people, pull your heads out of your asses and try to understand that Windows is not a computer operating system. It IS the computer, as far as the vast majority of PC users understand it.
So current DRM schemes run into some issues with Vista. Big deal. The entertainment industry will comply with Microsoft, because Windows is how people watch their stupid movies and play their stupid MP3s. What about Linux, you ask? Well, most PC users think that linux is a kind of a wild cat with pointy ears.
You know, perhaps none of you were paying attention to the recent windows media player update, that in truth updated WINDOWS itself (drm related, look it up). If you people actually think that because you can crack vista NOW, or you can play your music NOW, that it will always be that way, i can guarantee you microsoft has worked very hard to ensure they can change nearly anything they want about the operating system in the future. As we have seen recently, they are perfectly willing to introduce totally crippling updates without telling you about it in any way, and at that point every one of you who arent so worried right now will already have converted to vista because you werent worried....... how ironic........
Something i forgot, if any of you have noticed how hard apple has tried to enforce OSX being used on their own hardware, its still available damn near everywhere, and heres why: Any software you write and print to an installation disc, can in fact, be taken off said disk, its code removed and altered, and put right back on the disc to install........ the OSX crackers have the right idea, you dont need to crack the OS AFTER its installed, you need to REMOVE the rediculously stupid aspects of the code entirely, before its even put on an installation disc, and hence if you play your cards right, vista wont even understand that it was supposed to be activated, nor will it understand that its not SUPPOSED to unlock that new HDDVD since you dont have a secured system, since you can very easily go the extra mile and literally emulate a TPM (assuming your tpm certificate isnt being verified every time you use it over the net to grab a movie key). On both sides, i think the people who ARENT worried about vista are nearly delusional and arent learning from history (ms can change vista later very easy). at the same time i think the people who assume vista will be cracked easily are also delusional, this is not going to be a simple thing, if you want to get ahead of the cat and mouse game you must literally kill the cat, or tie it up out back while you play out front, far away from the mousetraps :D
I wish I could disagree with you (I'm an anti-DRM Microsoft employee), but I'm not sure that I can.
Based on conversations I've had with "the people that know", content protection features in some of our products go above and beyond what is strictly required by the letter of the law. What I cannot get a straight answer on is if it is because of contractual obligations we have or for some other reason.
It is very frustrating because the people involved (and some of them are lawyers) are not especially helpful or forthcoming when it comes to explaining their decisions. MS is a relatively open company internally - you can candidly ask any employee about what they work on, challenge their judgement, etc. Usuaully you find out they're pretty smart and had good reasons for doing what they did. It's a good system - 90% of the time I can agree with a point of view or a decision I didn't initially agree with, because I replace my (incorrect/incomplete) assumptinos with real data/knowledge from the people that directly attacked the problem. But that hasn't always been the case when trying to understand why certain content-protection behaviors are the way they are. There's a growing undercurrent of employees that are at least as ugly as some slashdot trolls anytime some new person says "i was trying to do thing X with my media and i can't.. why not?". We'll spout off answers like "because MS is the bitch of hollywood, not the company that cares about its customers" and the baiting goes pretty much unanswered/unchallenged.
I've been barking up a lot of trees in my internal anti-DRM crusades and the answers sound a lot like "we're not talking to YOU about this". I wonder if it is just me, but the people I've tlaked to that aren't quite as obnoxious as I am get about the same treatment.
So yeah. Some of it, maybe even most of it, is us trying to cover our asses legally. But not 100% of it. And that non-zero amount really pisses me off.
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
The average consumer does not know that they are losing various rights to DRM when they purchase Vista in the next year. Perhaps some campaign ads are in order but who to run them?
I think Microsoft got bent over by the RIAA and MPAA big time. The music and movie industries distrust Microsoft sooooo much that they demanded draconian DRM before even allowing their property on Vista or the Zune at all. They also distrust Windows "security" so much that Microsoft has to encrypt the whole damned computer as insurance against cracking the payload - movies and music. Microsoft isn't doing that because it's fun. Combined with Microsoft's own software protection schemes, Vista could be the end of tolerence for this nonsense.
Does anybody think Ballmer offered "hey, how would you guys like a slice of every Zune sold?". It was probably more like "what's it going to take to certify the Zune to carry your assets? How 'bout I squirt you some pictures of Franklin?"
Now with RIAA and MPAA holding Microsoft's nuts in their fists, lets put some more pressure on the gullable consumer. Joe Schmoe buys an HD-DVD/Bluray disk and finds out he can't watch it a fourth time unless he buys a license extension. How about re-purchasing a license to your entire music library annually? That's what the RIAA/MPAA want so badly and Vista is their ticket to do that...
...until everyone drop kicks their Vista machines to the curb. DRM isn't Microsoft or Apple's idea (well, not Apple's anyway), it's these RIAA/MPAA chumps who need reasonable control over their assets in a burglar infested environment. For each of those protections, at least Apple shows a way out with a wink. It's not graceful but they offer to burn your puchased music to an unencrypted CD and there has to be a path to get video on a DVD, as bad as that is. Microsoft wouldn't DARE suggest that lest they get their nuts twisted off. They're in deeeeep shit and they know it.
Most of the stuff on
There's also a little utility floating around out there on the Net called Make Me Legal. When you run it, your XP installation is flagged as activated.
This space unintentionally left blank.
It takes years in the IT field to finally realize that smart ideas and good products don't sell. What sells? Entirely random stuff. Some of it turns out to be not bad, but most of it is crap. Why does it sell? Because people running Microsoft and such know just a bit more about selling stuff than an entire army of twenty-year-old comp sci graduates. Reading all this excited chatter about how badly Windows suck make me feel like I am in a twilight zone. C'mon people, pull your heads out of your asses and try to understand that Windows is not a computer operating system. It IS the computer, as far as the vast majority of PC users understand it.
You are correct in that most users know jackshit about the different components of the machine they're using (and that's the way they like it), and that MS would more likely partially compromise its DRM as a concession to their users than lose many of them. However, having Linux on client-side business machines is the next step to widespread acceptance.
But I digress. The point is not to convert the unwashed masses; the point is to get a critical mass of the technically competent users and the enthusiasts to leave Windows (mostly, if not fully) for Linux. Get the vocal crowd, the more savvy crowd, the ones who will get behind a good* product and ignore or pan a bad* one, the ones that will speak to other users with their words and to companies with their wallet, but carefully*. Supremacy is not a necessity; equality is. When companies with quality products see that some of their user base is shifting, they will take more interest in cross-platform programming.
* When I say "good/bad", I really mean "above/below average"; and when I say "carefully", I really mean "with at least a minimal measure of thought".
Actually, it's still not as straightforward as that. All of this overoptimism may make your head spin, but it is indicative of our greatest strength as a community: unlike the agents of most large corporations, who must first answer to the interests of the stockholders, we are fundamentally stubborn; and that is why, as long as we are able to keep each other stubborn enough (stubbornness stresses the psyche, sometimes to the point of exhaustion) without being too stubborn as to be inflexible to the point of putting off others or not accepting new ideas where they make sense, we will succeed (foul play notwithstanding) in having equal opportunity to take advantage of whatever technologies others are able to.
Either that, or I'm a raving lunatic going mad.
Or... are you the one going mad?---this just might be the Twilight Zone for all I know.
Hell, the whole world is going mad! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! >;P
>Even now, Apple is constantly playing catchup with people who are breaking the FairPlay DRM. Any new method of denying consumer rights will follow a similar path.
Do you realise the significance of what you just said? Apple really is "playing" catchup, whereby they only do enough DRM to satisfy the content companies in contract negotiations. You may have noticed that you can use iTunes rip to CD with no DRM quite easily. They are almost taking the piss. Almost.
It still might work out, the plan is to enable all this features over time and make them as ubiquous as possible. Given the comments I earned here on slashdot warning of all this DRM mumbo jumbo in blue ray (basically: nothing changes compared to dvd was the usual tone). I have huge doubts that this stuff is bound to fail. The DRM is enforced ubiquously and with every piece of drm some sugar comes with. (Enable signal encryption on the cable, get better resolutions etc...)
The reason alone that a standalone Blue Ray/HD DVD player can be disabled by a black key list on the disk is enough to stay away from that dreck.
As I said, the ignorance most people have towards all this basically pushes my hopes of those formats being bound to fail down to zero. With Vista this is even worse, due to the fact, that the mechanisms done for the copy protection can be used for other things, root kits, or a copy protection bound to be enforced on software.
Windows media 11 disables your ability to record or watch movies with windows media center... Windows Media Player 11 takes away your rights
Once Vista is out and people will be disappointed they will consider 2 solutions :
A. Going back to XP sp 2.
B. Switching to Linux.
I think Linux is the future, and once software companies will release everything in Linux as well (or only to Linux) Linux will make M$ Lose!
In fact, Vista looks like the best thing that is going to happen to Linux since Linus Torvald's had some free time back then at 1991.
GO OPEN SOURCE!
I don't see why you couldn't rip your DVD under Vista.
Vista "protections" target new, DRM'd content (that not many people will buy and won't be affected).
``People haven't yet seen their collection wither and die when the next "one true format" takes over and Apple/MS brings out new players and new OSes that don't support the old format.''
Fortunately, Microsoft is doing just that, what with the Zune not being PlaysForSure compliant.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.