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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?"
As a long time ac hater, I now have one. It works great for these things.
Maybe it is FUD, maybe not. I have not heard or seen conclusive proof either way. The "FUD" in question here is the oft-repeated 'fact' that if you play DRM'd content under Vista over a non-DRM-capable connection, such as VGA, DVI, or SPDIF, then *ALL* content going over that connection will be degraded.
I should add that I switched to Linux in early 2004. I support the right to use DRM like I support the right to commit suicide. If publishers want to cut off their revenue with stupid restrictions then let them.
...It appears that Vista only perform quality reductions for premium ("protected", or DRM-ed) contents played on certain (primarily analog, "unprotected" devices) devices. Users can create their own contents (record sounds, take photographs, record home videos, etc.) without any quality reduction whatsoever.
and the problem is that, to insure that no piracy happens, all content will be assumed to be premium very soon. Even if not, how about "fair use rights"? Those rights where we can take existing "premium" content and perform mods on it to make satire, etc to mock it? Gee, that is "de-facto" prohibited, ain't it?
The point is, it is not under your control at all, anymore. It is under Microsfot's control. And we all trust Microsoft, don't we? After all, they have proven themselves so trustwothry in the past, haven't they?
This is tagged "fud", and yet has still been posted to the front page... It is obviously a troll post. Any reasonable person could easily discover that Vista only implements DRM for DRM protected media, not for every random file you create.
Editors, please... edit?
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
If Windows Vista and its DRM can harm your business, don't use them as your OS. Use MACs, or try Linux. Or go with an old version of Windows - XP or ME if you can't get over the Windows addiction.
All our high end graphics and compositing moved to Macs from Windows a few years ago and 98% of our daily problems went away. Now, when the artists hear about other people's problems with Windows environments, they consider it an odd duck operating system from Mars. Guess what... it is now. Once you get over the relatively small orientation hump on the Mac, you'll wonder why you wasted your time screwing with Windows for so long.
Most of the stuff on
"How do others deal with these issues?"
They use a mac for their production work.
Duh.
p.s.: Dear lameness filter: I know it is like yelling, THAT'S WHY THAT WAS IN ALL CAPS.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
This problem will be especially pronounced for professional content creators because they're going to have a higher than normal probability of needing to (legitimately) work with protected content -- whether it's their own or somebody else's. Again, this is very unlikely to always happen, but it doesn't take that many 'unfortunate coincidences' to turn your average high-strung artist into a paranoid schizophrenic.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
Where the hell are you getting this "it might mess with your unprotected media" crap. If your media is unprotected, you can use whatever media player you want to play it, and Vista won't care one little bit. If there's no DRM on the file, Vista DOES NOT MESS WITH IT. Period. End of story. Unless you have some evidence to the contrary, quit spreading this FUD.
Why do people keep insisting that hardware-enforced DRM (like Vista's) is somehow optional, like Active Desktop or ClearType fonts? IT IS NOT.
Now, I don't expect the OP to read the technical documents behind Vista's "premium content protection" methods and I don't even expect him to read the expert analysis he references on the subject, but for God's sakes, I can't believe he's acting as if he's somehow informed on the matter when he says things like:
This is a complete strawman argument. Nobody knowledgeable on the matter has ever claimed this. I specifically implore anyone to find me where Dr. Gutman ever claimed that DRM would be applied to non-DRM files. This mis-characterization of the opposition is academically dishonest in every sense of the phrase.
This is not true. Not even MICROSOFT is saying that. In fact, here's what they have to say about it: "We have made tremendous investments in Windows Vista to ensure backwards compatibility, but some of the system enhancements, such as User Access Control, changes to the networking stack, and the new graphics model, may require code changes on your part. You should work hard to run as standard user." (emphasis mine)
The fact that the vast majority of hardware you'll be able to buy (regardless of DRM or OS) will be more expensive, less reliable, slower, and fundamentally vulnerable to DDOS attacks is of no concern to you? Well I guess as long as it looks pretty, why should you care, right?
-Grym
Yes yes yes... we all know how Windows is traditionally used for content creation.
I am even sure Linux is used to make more Oscar nominees than Windows. At least a bunch of animations are rendered on Linux server farms.
Online backup with Mozy, sounds like Ozzie, but more!
What the hell is this article even about? The new DRM features in Vista include:
- PVP-UAB (sends video encrypted across the PCIe bus)
- PVP-OPM (HDCP / ICT support)
That's it. Protected User Mode Audio is just an update to the Secure Audio Path that's already in Windows XP. Windows Media DRM isn't new, either - every copy of Windows XP already has it.
I am running Windows Vista right now. The quality of non-DRM content is not "reduced" by Vista. 1080p H.264 videos still play in 1080p. MP3s sound just like they did under XP. I can still record from line in. WMP11 still rips to unprotected MP3s or WMAs. I can still rip DVDs. My XVID/AC3 videos still play. My no-CD patched games still work. FairUse4WM still runs and can still crack WM-DRM.
Vista has meant absolutely NOTHING for me regarding DRM. DRM-encumbered content is still as easy to break as ever under Vista. You can still write, distribute, and use DRM circumvention programs using Vista.
There is very little new as far as DRM goes in Vista. This isn't an XBOX 360.
You criticize the grandparent for expressing skepticism without proof. But the burden of proof should be on the other side. The grandparent could simply have said "what proof do you have that Vista decreases playback quality on unprotected media?"
Today.
Tomorrow you can expect that to stop, and only 'certified' individuals will get software that will work without DRMizing all the content first. This would be to prevent 'joe user' from doing 'unauthorized' things with his ( err, their ) content.
Sort of like how you cant buy freon unless you are government certifed.
Expect dev tools to fall under this same sort of control down the road someday. And before you say 'screw them, ill just use free xyz', when the compiler wont run on the board due to mandated TPM ( for our securty of course ), no you wont.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
but this would be blatantly anticompetitive.
Whew!! For a minute there I thought MS may actually do something like that!
But she's going to keep on using Windows, right?
She's "devastated". Just not enough to actually do anything.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Well, that's a pretty expansive view of DRM, one that covers traditional computer security and encryption. Let me point out the Achilles' heel: you said "If implemented correctly" -- exactly how much work is involved in this correct implementation? How many people need to be trained how to protect information? This is the user population that doesn't understand Word's "Fast Save" feature, yet you are expecting them to understand stuff like user keys? The much more likely scenario is that this DRM will get in the way of what people want to do and they will quickly discover how to create unprotected documents.
You claim that businesses would be idiots not to jump at the opportunity. There must be a lot of idiots out there -- all the press I'm reading says that business isn't exactly jumping at the chance to move to Vista.
One of the great lessons of history is that companies fail when they focus on their own desires instead of those of their customers. MS has done this twice: (1) adding obscenely restrictive multimedia DRM when the very large majority of their customers do not want it; and (2) staying in bed with the hardware manufacturers by failing to control OS-bloat, which forces new computer purchases. It may be that Window's dominant market position is enough to drive this through, for now. Or, it may be that Vista starts a shift to Macintoshes. It's just a matter of time -- no company survives forever by not giving customers what they want.
Don't understand what you're talking about.
Macs don't prohibit a general creation of an audio/video file and degrades the content as part of a file I/O process.
According to the article, Vista does.
iTunes and iPod have nothing to do with file degradation within the OS. Those are just programs/devices.
if you steal from one source, that is plagiarism, if you steal from many, well, that's just research.
Any mid-size and large business will jump at the opportunity. They will be idiots not to.
This needs to be thought through very carefully.
Most large and mid-size businesses know that a significant number of improvements in their data flows come from individuals developing new templates, spreadsheets, and other tools at home, on their own time. This is often done in the expectation of making their jobs easier (and the somewhat more distant hope of advancement or maybe a small bonus, or at least an honorable mention at the annual dinner furkryesache). These practices will be stopped by the kinds of controls parent post is talking about. The humming workerbees of 2005 will be reduced to the drones of 1985; the bottom-up flow of innovation that made the downsizings of the 1990s actually work, and that continue to have a positive impact on bottom lines, will be blocked.
Preventing employees from working with data on their own time will be like draining the swamp that sustains a big part of the company's ecosystem. Putting the DRM techniques into action the way parent talks about them would be like a bunch of fishermen ditching an upstream marsh to control mosquitos without bothering to think through where the fish are getting their sustenance.
As any corporate officer knows, it takes more than a well planned organizational chart to keep a business thriving. The important stuff always begins at an informal level, where undocumented meetings between people in different parts of the company thrash out ideas, separating the kernels from the chaff, and various brews are placed in the dark corners of the cubicles and hard drives to ferment. The good stuff isn't presented to the formal management structure until it has been taste-tested, placed in a sparkling clean mug, and offered up on a fancy coaster with a dainty cocktail napkin on the side. The stuff that doesn't work out is quietly poured down the drain without ever being documented.
Narrowly channelling data flows so that they cannot escape the corporate organizational chart is a sure way to prevent the cross-channel meanderings that bring forth the system wide improvements. There will be no new brews to delight the corporate palate. There will be no place for these to ferment in quiet, and very little grain to put into the informal thrashing parties.
Any business that jumps at the opportunity to channelize its data flows is not going to be able to respond as well as its competitors to changes in its environment and is not going to be able to grow. And in business it is either grow or die.
The DRM techniques parent talks about are an excellent improvement for the silo management structures used by big companies in the 1950s and 1960s. The kind of channelling they provide makes for much stronger silos. But today's business environment favors agility and athletic grace over brute strength, and that means opening up more informal communications networks, not shutting them down.
Yeah, there are new problems to face wrt securing company data, etc. But these are new problems and they are not going to be solved by improving on antiquated techniques. Businesses need to be looking for something better than the 3/4 horsepower rototiller they now have for plowing their acreage. With Vista, Microsoft appears to be offering to replace that fussy machine with the finest titanium digging stick money can buy.
"If publishers want to cut off their revenue with stupid restrictions then let them."
If it were that simple. There is no 'opt' in 'opt-in'. Content providers in many cases own the hardware companies manufacturing media players or work in concert with nominally unrelated industries such as Microsoft, Phoenix and Intel to create 'standards' which leave the consumer little option. Theses oligarchies are backed by now-federal, criminal law resulting from generations of lobby effort preventing work-arounds. Consumers have no choice when purchasing the artistic efforts which represent the vast bulk of contemporary culture, artists have no choice if they want wide distribution, anyone attempting to break the stranglehold risks imprisonment. Car bomber appears a better analogy than suicide, the media/hardware oligarchies will take popular culture with them.
Your "example" problem doesn't actually exist. PVP-OVM doesn't work that way - it downsamples video as part of the VMR9 output path, not by changing the screen resolution or blurring the entire screen.
Let me reiterate: PVP-OVM (video) does not "down-res" your entire display. PUMA (audio) does not "down-res" your display or downsample your audio.
Has anyone who is complaining about Vista's DRM features actually USED the product?
I get so sick of reading this particular lie, time and time again. Consumers have plenty of choice when it comes to artistic works.
Not when it comes to fair use. Technology doesn't distinguish b/t someone who's trying to copy an entire work and someone who's trying to sample part of it for parody/commentary. I recently did the latter, and was a bit put off that the iTunes episode of BSG I had purchased didn't allow me to copy the frakin 30 second INTRO to make a smart-ass comment about it.
Fine. Whatever. I'm now getting that shit off bittorent, not because I fournd iTunes too expensive, but because the DRM was too onerous.
One man's -1 Flamebait is another man's +5 Funny.
So, we have a disagreement over the bolded part of your post. I understand how the DRM stuff is intended to work: the owners of the hi-def patents claim that they will only license them to people who implement the full DRM suite. Content owners enter into agreements with the patent owners that require the patent owners to enforce those restrictions. So, for example, if anybody comes along with, say, a blue-ray player that allows the content to be copied, the owners of the blue-ray patents will sue the manufacturer either for patent infringement or breach of contract. (The content owners have a DMCA circumvention claim as well.)
The point, though, is that the bargain does not need to be made. If Microsoft had effectively said "Go to H*ll. We're not accepting that deal because it's not what our customers want," the content owners would have been forced to back down from their "my way or the highway" position and would have accepted a somewhat less restrictive position. After all, they need platforms so they can sell their HD content.
As far as your second point--if I don't see a purpose for Vista, I don't need to buy it--I couldn't agree more. Unfortunately, I will be forced to buy it at some point as MS will just stop supporting XP and I'll be at risk for the next IE-hack that comes along.