Vista and the Music Industry

BanjoBob writes "Vista locks down all the DRM functionality and actually reduces the quality of playback of some media. This includes both audio and video content. As a company creating music and video products, how can we use Vista to create, distribute, and use legal media? I have read nothing to indicate that Vista has a model to allow 'authorized' use without causing problems. Currently we use Windows 2000 and Linux products. If what we understand is true, Vista and future Microsoft products won't be viable options for us since prior to publication, media must be copied multiple times, edited, moved around, re-edited and often modified into various forms (trailers, etc.) before, during, and after production. This naturally includes backups and recovery. If Vista is intent on prohibiting these uses, then Microsoft is intent on keeping their products out of the realm of content creation and editing. How do others deal with these issues?"

Comments

I think you misunderstand

[dtfinch]

DRM is a just tool for content producers. Unprotected media should be entirely unaffected by it. I'd be surprised if the quality reduction wasn't an opt-in feature that only applies to protected media where the producer chooses to enable it. I haven't used it, but I doubt Vista can or would try to prevent an app from decoding and displaying an unprotected video in full quality.

Don't listen to the FUD

[Sycraft-fu]

Sounds to me like you've gotten caught up in the anti-Vista FUD machine. There's aren't evil DRM gremlins in Vista that are going to try to screw you over and mess with your media. All the DRM stuff is of no consequence if you don't choose to use it. Old apps run fine, I've used Sony Vegas at work and it works as it always does (well, you have to screw around to get it to install since it checks for .NET 1.1). There's no problem importing and messing with un-DRM'd audio and video.

So you can continue to use DRM free tools to your heart's content. The only time you need to start worrying about it is if you want to release content that's protected using the new DRM. Then you'll need to consider what tools you'll need to get for that, what restrictions it'll place on you, etc.

However you needn't worry about an evil gremlin applying DRM to your files while you sleep. Gutmann is just one of the many out there that dislike MS and are spreading FUD related to Vista. It may indeed be true that the DRM'd media files will suck and be low quality, however if you just don't use them then you'll never have to care.

Re:Don't listen to the FUD

[Steppman2]

Another good example of DRM being harmful even if you don't enable it actually occurred today in Windows XP on my sister's computer...Apparently the "copy protect content" checkbox in WMP9/WMP10 is automatically checked on install, she'd been ripping all her CD's DRM'ed without even knowing it. Since then she's lost most of the CD's but she was careful to keep a backup of all the music from her hard drive, unfortunately for her, her hard drive died yesterday and when she reinstalled Windows all her licenses were gone, leaving her with about 30gb of useless data carefully preserved on an external drive. Needless to say she was devastated as much of it was content she couldn't get back, just because you can disable DRM doesn't mean it's not dangerous.

Re:Don't listen to the FUD

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

If a product doesn't support DRM then Vista may not allow it as a valid application (and can in fact remove the ability of applications to run *after* the fact when they are identified as a problem.)

What the hell are you talking about? There is no such revocation system in Vista - the only thing close is the fact that drivers must be signed in the x64 version.

Microsoft could certainly push an upgrade that breaks applications explicitly, but this would be blatantly anticompetitive.

FairUse4WM works fine in Vista, as does nearly every DRM circumvention program that I've tried.

Re:Don't listen to the FUD

[Grym]

No, it's not. The reason is that Guttman and others ALWAYS neglect to mention that unprotected content will NEVER suffer from anything they're talking about. Why is that? Why do they neglect to mention this? It's simply, don't want DRM, don't buy protected content.

You act as if software is going to advertise the fact that it has DRMed content in it AND that DRM will be limited to discrete media like movies and songs. What, in this world obsessed with "intellectual property", would ever make you think this?

Once the platform for content protection is established and accepted, there is EVERY reason to believe that DRM will be extended onto other copyrighted works--things like clipart, splash videos, GUI designs, fonts, PDF documents, and so on. And if ANY of this DRM-encumbered media is being (dis)played while non-DRM media is also being (dis)played, the quality of the non-DRMed content will be degraded as well.

Vista is *NOT* more expensive, nor has it been proven to be less reliable, and most independant tests say that Vista is just as fast (sometimes faster) than XP. Finally, your "fundamentally vulnerable to DDOS attacks" claim is paranoid lunacy with nothing backing it up. Pure FUD. That's all you can come up with?

Actually bothering to read the things you quote never hurts. All of those descriptors were in reference to the HARDWARE that will inevitably be designed around Microsoft's asinine specifications, regardless of whether you actually use/own DRMed content or Windows OS at all.

-Grym

Re:Don't listen to the FUD

[Selanit]

If you take the time to read Gutmann's actual analysis, rather than just the summary on the Inquirer, you'll note that he gives several reasons to object to Vista's DRM requirements even if you never use a single DRM-protected file. For example:

The specs for DRM support in Vista specify that the OS has to encrypt any protected video data sent to the video card. "Ah HA," you say. "I'll just never use any protected video." Fair enough. But consider this: in the future, any new video card you buy will have to be capable of decrypting stuff even if you yourself never send it any encrypted content. That means that the company that makes the video card has to integrate cryptography capabilities into the video card. Which requires space on the video card's circuit board. That same circuit board space could have been, say, another pixel pipeline or two for faster video rendering - oh well. Congratulations, you're getting less bang for the same buck.

Except, of course, it's NOT the same buck; it's more buck. Integrating cryptography into a video card will require expertise (expensive), development (expensive), and testing (expensive). And naturally, some cryptography technologies are covered by patents, so the video card company will have to purchase more patent licenses (expensive). Guess who's going to wind up footing the bill for these new expenses? That's right: you, the end user.

Some of the patent expenses can probably be reduced. nVidia has patents of its own, as does ATI, and SGI for that matter. They can offer to swap patent permissions with companies who hold patents for cryptographic technology. (Assuming that the cryptography companies have any interest in graphics patents.) What's that you say? You're a small company? You don't have a massive portfolio of patents to bargain with? And your budget is limited? Sorry, friend, you're in the wrong line of work. Try McDonald's, I hear they need highly-skilled cash-register operators. (Not that there are very many small upstart video-card companies; breaking into that market is damn hard. Throwing in all this DRM stuff just makes the impossible a teensy bit harder.)

Slower development times, higher hardware costs, decreased competition ... all those affect you even if you never sully your system with a DRM-protected file. And that's just scratching the surface. Open source drivers are going to get harder to write; the DRM spec breaks Microsoft's own unified driver scheme, requiring a completely unique driver for every possible variant of every possible device; massively increases the required system specs; decreases system reliability; and on and on. It doesn't even do a damn bit of good in the long run; all it takes is one bright hacker with a compiler (and possibly a soldering gun) to figure out some way around it. One compromised system means that Hollywood's precious copies of Soccer Dog: the Movie will be smeared all over the net. And meanwhile, the rest of us poor schmucks will be paying more for hardware that does less. Great.

News Flash

[jfclavette]

Media DRM on Vista is optional. If you don't like it, don't use it. No, your mp3s won't degrade. And you can copy them as often as you wish.

If you want to spread FUD, at least don't make up EVERYTHING.

Re:This has got to be...

[ewhac]

There's no DRM in your .wav. There's no DRM in your .mp3. There's no DRM...

You haven't been paying attention.

When you "squirt" a song from a Zune, the recipient is only allowed to play it three times, whether the song is Defective Recorded Media (DRM) or a plain, unencumbered MP3.

Prove that this defect in the Zune will not be "back-ported" to Vista. (Answer: You can't.)

Vista is untrustworthy. Install and use at your own risk.

Schwab

Re:I think he doesn't misunderstand

[misleb]

Wow, talk about FUD. I don't think you mentioned a single fact or reality. It was all hypotheticals like "what if..." "even if only 1%..." and "unprotected media *might* be unaffected..."

Here's an idea. Why don't you do some actual research *before* you respond to the guy worried about Vista's DRM. That way you might actually have something constructive to add.

-matthew

DRM is a red herring, but don't use Vista

[hobbesmaster]

I've used Vista for a while since RTM - I never got stopped by DRM doing anything with media. If you can do it right now in Windows XP, you'll be able to do it in Vista. As it stands, there is no media out there that uses any of the DRM features, and if the blueray/hddvd rollouts are any indication, I don't think we'll see them for a while, if ever. The real problem with Vista right now is that everyone's drivers are complete crap. I took a 30% performance hit on video and audio in Vista compared with XP - Creative and nVidia's Vista drivers are simply horrible (in fact the latter has severe issues with artifacting in games such as Oblivion and Counter Strike:Source. These games work just fine in Windows XP, and my card seems do just fine in Ubuntu using compiz).

This is the fault of Microsoft somewhat - they completely changed the way their drivers work for sound and video, though I can't imagine that nVidia and Creative are blameless. Systems are going to start shipping with Vista in a few weeks and games do not run properly. I'd imagine that other video intensive things like rendering and editing will run into the same problems.

DRM and personal media

[Jfarro]

DRM is a system being used for online media outlets...not just by Vista, but by any online stores selling media. Movie downloads, ITunes, Napster, etc.

Any media you own yourself or have created yourself does not get magical DRM added to it in Vista. If you rip a CD, the default settings for WMP is to not DRM the CD. These settings are easily found and changed.

I guess I may not understand what the authors issue is. The linked article links to yet another Inquirer article from which I could not gather what this authors worries are.

PBS's Cringley Explains It All

[cannuck]

"For one thing, Windows Vista will fail as both a preserver of digital rights and a maintainer of pristine end-to-end DRM'd content. Vista will fail because the job it is attempting to do is too hard, because Microsoft isn't especially good at these huge integration jobs, and because there is a smart hacker community determined to break Vista over and over again, which it will."

"We are poised at the start of a revolution in user-generated content that is actually both useful and valuable. Social networking's ability to create small but measurable markets and new content creation technologies' ability to make cost-effective -- even brilliant -- programming for those new markets will mean more media moguls but smaller and none of those moguls will have a use for DRM OR for Microsoft. So enjoy it while you still can, Bill."

http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2006/pulpit_2 0061229_001403.html