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Fight DRM While There's Still Time
ageor writes "It seems (not only) to me that DRM is about far more than intellectual property. It's also about monopoly and freedom of choice. It's one of those cases where we, the consumers, must decide against accepting the new industry's rules, which care only about control and making money. The whole matter is very well put in DRM, Vista and your rights, where you can follow the subject as deeply as you like through the numerous relevant links."
“Fight DRM,” like “fight breast cancer” or “stamp out racism,” are noble sentiments; such sentiments, I believe, share one thing in common: they suffer from a false sense of sovereignty; and are more autistic than realistic.
In the case of DRM,* the worthiest undertaking may be to climb the corporate ladder; and effect change from the top down.
_____________
* Or in the case of cancer: medical school, etc.
or does "where you can follow the subject as deeply as you like through the numerous relevant links" sound like PR-speak for clicking ads?
Great Intellect...
Don't buy stuff with DRM. I can do it, i did it so far. But i doubt more than 20% of people who yap against DRM will stay away from it.
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
Only when 'Trusted Computing' means the consumer are to select trusted keys instead of the companies, it would be a hit.
The article goes into arguments we've all read, and probably made before. The main point missing from this relatively well organized and civil rant is what to do about it. It's always easier to point out he problems than the answers.
DRM can't be fought, sorry.
There aren't enough people who know or care. Only a few of us geeks, and we don't make up an appreciable fraction of the market.
People will buy what the ads tell them to buy. End of story. We lose. Want to play the downloaded movie you just ordered from Netflix on Linux? Sorry, no dice.
I don't like it either, but it's reality.
How many DRM articles do we have to have on Slashdot? I mean I get it, I hate DRM just as much as the next guy and think it's ridiculous, but it seems like we are getting a new article on Slashdot about DRM everyday. The same type of comments are modded insightful every time to the point where they're no longer insightful.
It's interesting how the issue of DRM is being acknowledged more and more by average consumers. I'm hoping enough people car to boycott products and make a statement. How much longer until DRM is unavoidable?
I agree, people need to avoid buying bad products. For me that means not buying stuff from iTunes (I troll used CD stores instead) and avoiding one of the biggest DRM sneak-attacks going on, HDMI. People are getting snared by the HDMI trojan, because it's such a convenient way to interconnect devices. But as we're starting to see with HDMI implementations on TiVo Series 3 and Vista, HDMI is going to be used to screw everyone.
Note: I disagree that the iPod is defective by design, because it does not require DRM. It still works with the open formats of MP3, AAC and AIFF.
The general population has very little idea about what DRM is or means. Here's an example: The DVD/VCR combo. Albeit anecdotal, several of my acquaintances have bought these products with the naive intention of renting a dvd and recording it to VHS tape, and needless to say, been very disappointed. Or the DVD-burner console, with the same type of intentions. None of them had any idea about copy protection, and certainly their intentions were less than honorable.
But the point is that not being tech savvy, they are clueless as to what the superficial applications of DRM are, let alone the deeper implications. Until more of the general population is made aware of what is at stake, DRM will continue unabated because people buy it. Fortunately, there have been signs that the main stream media are noticing the implications of DRM as evidenced by recent articles in the New York Times.
I really don't see DRM as a threat in the long term. The reason is that I think the market will simply not tolerate DRM. Once people begin to realize that DRM sucks, they will begin to avoid DRM content and hardware, forcing the manufacturers to abandon DRM as well. DRM will extinct itsef.
Fair use is guaranteed by copyright, and I believe that is in the constitution.
Great Intellect...
At least they can't take books from us. You can read them aloud, lend them to friends, and even write your own! Levar Burton is my god.
This isn't about "Freedom". There is no right for anybody to be able to purchase a movie without DRM. Nobody's rights are being violated. All that's happening is that for anti-DRM fanatics, there are fewer and fewer things available for them to buy. So what? That sucks for them, true. But how about my rights to buy a new car with an eight-track player built in? Is my "Freedom" being trampled? No. Discussing movies with secret codes that only let you play them on certain players with the same vocabulary that is used to discuss "freedom of speech" and "freedom of the press" does nothing but belittle real, actual freedoms. Somebody please point to me where Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Constitution our Inalienable Right to Buy DVD's without Digital Rights Management.
I don't respond to AC's.
DRM will fail on its own, because it is anti-consumer, and impossible (cryptographically speaking) to implement securely. We live in a (mostly) free market society. As publishing firms continue to push DRM, new markets will open and will eventually replace the DRM firms, by offering superior products.
In the meantime, fight it, because it is a good thing to fight.
But fight even harder against legislation that enshrines and codifies their right to monopolize above and beyond encrypting their content. The most important tool we have in protecting art and the public domain is our freedom to innovate, create, analyze and discuss. These freedoms are being threatened every day - not just in the United States. Even my own country (Canada) is under attack by the various recording companies and individuals with a stake the game.
The DMCA is bad, but it can get even worse. While the market can currently fend off corporate greed and attacks on fair-use and information exchange, it cannot do so if we allow corrupt legislators to override the individual decisions we all make every day.
Just my $0.02.
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
Someone posted a good list about Vista's DRM against XP's DRM http://msmvps.com/blogs/chrisl/archive/2007/01/25/ 519180.aspx
Probably every single person on Slashdot has received all the "boilerplate" emails that circulate the web eternally it seems. The rocket-powered-impala, the no-headlights-gangsters, the endless new-virus-gonna-format-your-HD warning mails forwarded again and again Aunty Marcia, etc ad nauseum.
But what if WE did the same thing? What if the most articulate amongst us came up with a DRM warning letter, and we forwarded it to all the Joe Sixpacs of our worlds with the a title like "WARNING: DRM THREATENING YOUR PC" and "FORWARD THIS TO ALL YOUR FRIENDS!!" message?
Maybe I'm just idealistically dreaming, maybe I'm being a little rtarded, but how else will Joe Sixpack ever find out otherwise? Broadcast media? Nope. Blogs? Not the ones he's reading. And you know Joe HAS read about the rocket impala.
You can have my SIG when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.
Fair use is guaranteed by copyright, and I believe that is in the constitution.
Fair Use is a matter of Congressional, not Constitutional, law. (All the Constitution says is that it's Congress's ball game) Lessig's recent SCOTUS case (wherein he tried to have the recent copyright extension thrown out) reinforces this.
As for not being able to use linux for various DRM'd tech -- which really is the only legitimate complaint against DRM on its face -- the right answer is probably "what do we need to do in order to work with Netflix?", not "Netflix must never do that, because it doesn't work with Linux!"
(I'm a big fan of personally identified perpetual licensing. I pay the studio X dollars, I give them my name and a current home address, and they set up a server against which I can authenticate anywhere, download the movie as often as I want, and authenticate that it is me watching my movie.)
The Constitution does not grant our rights, it essentially states that any rights which are not stated that we do not have (e.g., the state may punish you for really evil things, but in such cases you retain your right to trial by jury) are retained by default, but that certain rights which are explicitly stated within the Constitution are inalienable and cannot be revoked under any circumstance, ever. Again, it's the besic jist of the Constitution, now how it's worded, read it through completely and you'll get it.
Unfortunately the "state" (read: Federal government) has succeeded in convincing us that it is the reverse. They even go as far as to suggest that suspension of the Constitution may even be a necessity in certain cases (e.g., natural disasters where FEMA is concerned) and due process may be ignored or even bypassed (ref: 16th amendment never being ratified by the strict process demanded by the Constitution), and that executive orders by the president are allowable and may even conflict with or in many cases override the Constitution.
But having said that, the Constitution does not grant us rights in ANY case; it protects our rights and simply limits them in very specific instances.
Take the time to read it sometime, it is well worth your effort. Also refer to peripheral supporting documents written by our Founding Fathers and you will become pissed off at just how far out country has strayed and at how much our apathy and voting for presidents based on party affiliation rather than character and principle has sold our very liberties out. Go read it though, you will appreciate what our Founding Fathers worked for, and will be very disappointed at what has been going on during the last 18 or so presidential administrations.
Know your basic inalienable rights, and use them; especially the right to vote, and the right to bear arms. Your right to bear arms guarantees your right to vote.
Posting anon since stating the truth often gets one modded troll here.
CDs and other dumb (non-transistor) media are already being replaced by Flash. MMS and CompactFlash are being replaced by SecureDigital (SD) and Sony MemoryStick, both of which have DRM built into them. Sony has enforced DRM on some MemoryStick products (Playstation sticks, mostly). But I expect they will draw the noose tight only once we've already let their harmless-seeming trojan horses into our storage collections, when they'll activate DRM too late for us to choose a different medium without DRM.
After all, why else would these Flash devices sacrifice capacity and manufacturing costs for DRM features they don't use to make money?
--
make install -not war
And what happens when said company goes bankrupt? Your music/movie goes poof with no server to authenticate it.
I got my stash of mp3s and dvds already. I'd rather sit back and watch society slowly destroy itself.
It isn't like people really take the hippie goals of OSS and FSF [and the like] to heart anyways. The vast majority of OSS users tend to be commercial shops that use it just because it's cheap, not because it's libre. Worse yet, they use it to support the development of proprietary software/hardware (example: IBM uses it to develop DB2 which is proprietary).
Frankly I think society as a whole is a lost cause. I suggest folk just get a comfy lawn chair and watch the ensuing madness.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Fair use is definitely not in the US Constitution, and I doubt it's in any others. It just gives the Congress the right to issue copyrights, patents, etc, for a "limited time". Unfortunately it does not specify any other limits on this power, nor does it spell out how long a "limited time" should be.
Congress has the power to make all fair use null and void, and to extend patents and copyrights to 3.2 billion centuries from the date of issue. That's legal.
The US economy was built on patent infringement, though. Once we "pirated" enough to get a leg up on the Europeans, we erected intellectual property walls to hold our advantage.
The US is now, intellectual property-wise, in the position of 19th century Europe. High legal barriers protecting old, wealthy, stagnant industries. China is in the position of the US in the 19th century--nominal legal barriers and lax enforcement. And unfortunately for us, the result will likely be the same.
Interesting how Slashdot is constantly puling about Microsft (and DRM), but consistantly ignore Apple... and their DRM.
As usual, I will get modded down for pointing out the hypocracy involved in Slashdot's repetitively ignoring the recipient of their "Most Favored Monopoly Status". Apple has always been the tech industry's most brutal and totalitarian monopoly, and moreso today than at anytime in the past.
Rather interesting how Slashdot's denials of that reality become even more blatent as Microsoft becomes progressively more open. Slashdot used to whine about the instability of Windows... so Windows became incredibly stable. Then they puled about security... so Windows and IE became the most secure products available. The whine about openness, despite the fact that anyone with a compiler can easily write Windows applications.
The problem is that MS now gives them so few things to complain about, the Lunix/Apple comminities are literally yellowing their underwear. There is now zero reason NOT to use Windows... and they are constantly reaching for some kind of complaint to cry otherwise.
The combined effects of Slashdot's hypocracy and crying wolf has brought them to today's complete lack of credibility. Slashdot is well known across these internets for being the most delusional and pedantic tech site in existance.
Slashdot is now, deservedly so, the joke of the internet. Congrats! Destroying any sort of credibility is hard werk: just ask George Dubai Bush!
Considering that the article cites Wikipedia, it's curious how it perpetuates the myth that AAC was "invented and promoted by Apple." While Apple is one of the corporations using it, and it does support FairPlay, it is possible to have completely non-DRM-encumbered AAC files. I've ripped most of my CD collection into AAC format using iTunes with no restrictions placed on how I use those files. The format wasn't invented by Apple either. From Wikipedia: "AAC was developed with the cooperation and contributions of companies including Dolby, Fraunhofer (FhG), AT&T, Sony and Nokia, and was officially declared an international standard by the Moving Pictures Experts Group in April 1997."
Everything you says sounds great and its true. Seriously.
There's just one problem.
Fighting DRM =! Fighting against slavery, ethnic cleansing, racism, sexism, facism, totalitarinism....or any other REALLY important social battle.
Instead DRM covers movies, tv shows, music tracks and sometimes video games.
Whoop tee doo lets get on with fighting that good fight!
Understand NOW why most folks beyond the geek world don't care?
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
Rather I'd rely on the muslix64s of the world, and the pirate bays. Circumvent the DRM thanks to a shoddy implementation and pirate away and these companies will wither. Sure its illegal, but the only people who decide what is legal is the government and they gave you life + 70 years copyright terms to save Mickey fucking Mouse. The fingerprinting is a better idea but it does realistically cost you the resale market, and isn't really addressing on of the bigger causes of piracy which is perceived unfair pricing. Frankly media fingerprinting is probably the most reasonable solution out there, though implementing it is a bitch.
In the longer term, we need a legislative solution that enshrines our fair use rights and actually considers things like format/time/place shifting and prevents anti-customer measures like this to begin with, but thats not going to happen anytime soon.
Reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.
I hate bad DRM as much as the next person. But Apple's DRM is just fine by me. I'm able to listen to what I want on any device I want (I can burn a CD, after all).
Go ahead, don't buy media with bad DRM. But I'll continue buying good DRM media - because I believe in reasonable precautions against piracy - which to me means non-intrusive.
To which you say "blah blah blah, cracked AAC, blah blah" - to which I say "get me the statistics on AAC media piracy vs. non-DRM piracy." Or "blah blah, burned CD not as good as regular CD, blah blah" - to which I say "CD's aren't as good as vinyl, and I don't much care."
Fight DRM While There's Still Time
Time for what? Do they plan to integrate mandatory brain purging in our brains or something? Do the planets align in some DRM-favoring way few days from now?
Exactly wtf is the paranoia about? DRM is broken, so fine. By the time people start feeling the effects of this (the wide public still hasn't), DRM will either adapt to be bearable or die.
I don't get it what's with all the paranoia.
If you don't like DRM, don't buy any DRM-protected content. If artists and their financial backers want to protect their content, it's their legitimate choice.
Well, the specific definition of Fair Use is in legislation, but it has its basis in the Constitution. A Copyright statute without a Fair Use provision would probably run afoul of Constitutional protections on free speech; one of the effects of the copyright monopoly is to constrain others from expressing themselves in manners too similar to the protected work. So it's not entirely inaccurate to claim a Constitutional basis for Fair Use.
DRM is just software to enforce an agreement between producer of content and consumer. The agreement ensures both sides get a fair deal.
You think you should have stuff for free because copying can be done free? Well they guy who created the material has a say too. If they agree then you'll get it for free. If not, you'll have to agree a price.
Think artists are immoral charging for things that can be copied for free? Well creating content takes time, and although time can be given away, it is never free.
Think the IP theft is OK because of greedy record companies? Fine, offer to pay the artists directly. And expenses, marketing, advertising, distribution, packaging etc. And you will have to offer them deals with some security, so *you* take the risk if no-one likes their content.
Got legitimate reasons for copying content eg backup or to change format? You can't ask a painter to do run up a backup at no extra cost, or a cameo version you can admire "on the go". You don't need to do these things and there's no automatic right - they have to be negotiated as part of the deal.
Think people can be trusted to do the right thing and shouldn't need to be forced via DRM? For every person who repects such honour systems, two others don't. It's sad, but those are the breaks, and that's why capitalism works and communism doesn't.
IF you are against DRM, the best way to fight is to create something - music, a book, an article, a music video, or a movie - and then distribute it without DRM.
Put your time and your money where your mouth is. Instead of telling the authors how they MUST DISTRUBUTE WHAT *THEY* CREATE, create something yourself and distribute it in accordance with YOUR principles. Use open formats if you wish.
It is quite easy. Instead of wasting time posting here, create something and show people how nice it is to have something in an open format.
Stop complaining and work and create.
"In the case of DRM, theres one very strong way to fight it - with your wallet."
Good thing I'm teach them a lesson by illegally downloading. Now were's my BT of Vista?
"Use alternatives where possible."
So THAT'S what's on piratebay? Learn something new everyday.
Fighting DRM =! Fighting against slavery, ethnic cleansing, racism, sexism, facism, totalitarinism....or any other REALLY important social battle.
I would argue that the amount to which social change of any sort is possible is directly correlated with how easy it is to distribute progressive and/or revolutionary ideas to sympathetic eyes and ears (to console them) and neutral eyes and ears (to convince them) and even to hostile eyes and ears (to force a response of some sort). Each one of the social battles you mentioned were fought first in the hearts and minds of the constituents of the relevant society (and sometimes, much later, with the blood and bullets of those same constituents) with media campaigns books, movies, etc.. e.g. Common Sense, Uncle Tom's Cabin, the Liberator, Philadelphia, Feminine Mystique, the Killing fields, etc.
DRM is more than merely 'geek-worrisome' because corporations are invested heavily in the social status quo, explicitly or not: If the social status quo changes, that causes social unrest, and social unrest is generally very bad for business. Thus, if distribution of information is locked down into easily controlled channels, then corporations have an easy way to squeeze one viewpoint (advocating change) out of an effective medium of discourse, or promote one that champions the status-quo. Large corporations, by virtue of the system that we live in, already control most of the money needed to distribute widescale; it would be a very poor idea to also give them control of the means!
And whether english teachers particularly like it or not, the current and probably subsequent generations are going to rely heavily upon the audio-visual vocabularies of TV, movies, and videogames to make sense out of the world around them, rather than the eariler generations' reliance upon textual modes and vocabularies. These newer modes of expression, having a high technological and financial overhead, are easier to control if control is allowed. So, yeah, the stakes are quite high.
All the techniques ever used to make men moral have been themselves thoroughly immoral... (Nietzsche)
Those very same people were probably upset about their purchase and will be less likely to buy products from that company in the future. People are going to get pissed off when they can't play their purchased content on their purchased computer.
Exactly.
All the people complaining about DRM should actually DO something - such as create an "open source" recording distribution system or create some music, a book or a movie - and then distributed it without DRM as THEIR CHOICE. Let the market choose between open vs DRM'd content.
Given that many of the complainers seem to think that an author's time is irrelevant why not use their own time to do something.
Likewise they seem to think that an author's agreement (e.g. the authors agreeing only to sell their content in a certain way) is irrlevant, so CREATE something yourself and see how it works voluntarily instead of forcing authors to agree with your politics.
...limiting the illegal distribution of copyrighted material. You can cry all you want about fair use but the truth of the matter is people want to upload music and movies onto P2P networks in violation of copyright law, even the original copyright laws prior to 1976 and the Sonny Bono Copyright Act.
I love how you are modded insightful! Which means... But that in turn...
How can the distribution of information be locked down when any yahoo who wants to can slap up a website and start ranting at will?
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
Now's a good time to oppose this bill:. pdf
/ 18/1166402040431.html
http://www.brookers.co.nz/bills/new_bills/b061021
Particularly obnoxious is Section 226. Breaking a technological protection measure (TPM) even if only to play music you legally bought can land you in prison - unless you're one of the 'qualified' persons such as a librarian.
This blog I picked from a list of Google hits has a fair bit to say about the bill:
http://artemis.utdc.vuw.ac.nz:8000/pebble/2006/12
Blancmange
Way one: Fight it with your wallet. Don't buy DRM laden crap. This one may look after itself. People won't buy products they have to fight with or which annoy them more than delight them. You don't even have to campaign here; it will look after itself. When something comes along that meets consumer needs then the consumers will buy that and abandon any DRM products on the market. Companies understand money. Deprive them of money and they will respond. Anyway, we have recently seen stories telling us that the major companies are becoming disenchanted with DRM. It may collapse under its own weight.
Way two: Write your congress critter. Write a letter on real paper and put a real stamp on it. Get your buddies to do the same. Congress critters understand votes and will bend before the will of the people if they think they are in danger of losing the next election.
Way three: Ignore the mainstream media. There are lots of bands giving their stuff away for free on their web sites. Some of them are awesome. Support groups like the Barenaked Ladies who are campaigning against DRM and stupid copyright laws. If you insist on going to blockbuster movies and buying Britney Spears music, you are supporting the RIAA and MPAA, both of which are evil.
When DRM stops the articles stop
-- To dream a dream is grand, but to live it is divine. -- Leto ][
"DRM will fail on its own, because it is anti-consumer"
And piracy is pro-business?
"...and impossible (cryptographically speaking) to implement securely."
Debatable, but it is an issue of man-in-the middle attacks on the keys.
---
"Slashdot requires you to wait between each successful posting of a comment to allow everyone a fair chance at posting a comment."
And as you can see PRM doesn't work, but that's not stopping Taco.
I'll grant that HDCP is the problem, but it seems HDMI is the preferred vector chosen to distribute HDCP. While also doable over DVI, I don't see many products going into the marketplace with HDCP-encumbered DVI. But avoid that too. Since HDCP has to be licensed, hopefully HDCP infection is labeled. But to be safe I'm sticking with component video for HDTV.
Some musicians, for instance, such as Negativland, don't rely on copyright to protect their income. Their music is available for free. You can buy it if you like - they also sell other merchandise. But suppose DRM was everywhere. How does this affect their freedom to distribute their stuff unencumbered with DRM? It won't. If a company decides to employ DRM then you're free to avoid buying it. It's just another choice.
In related news, Dialog Solutions, Inc., released a report stating that "the market of interpersonal conversations requires stronger Analog Rights Management protections". Dialog Solutions aspires to be the world's leader in producing professional quality dialogs, polylogs, and solitary musings which can be used for both commercial and entertainment purposes.
The demand for their products, however, has been allegedly hurt by the rampant piracy. "What is to stop people from taking the fruits of our hard work and using it in their private conversations?" said Gill Bates, the chief of marketing, "Without any kind of copy protection in place, anyone is free to talk about anything they want with their collegues and friends without paying us a dime. Not only it hurts our bottom line, but it also lowers the overall quality of conversations."
The report goes on to further indicate that without an effective copy protection scheme the culture and society as we know it might come to an abrupt end. "If no one can benefit financially from producing a conversation, then who is going to talk?", it states, "It may seem that the economy is thriving in spite of the conversation piracy, but in fact the pirates are only re-using the intellectual property of others. If the content creators cannot get paid, then the primary source of conversations will dry out."
In order to combat piracy and recover the slipping-away market, Dialog Solutions proposed to implement the system of Analog Rights Management along with the Trusted Thinking Platform. This technology would allow the interlocutor to be absolutely certain that he or she is always using genuine, properly licensed dialog lines, while at the same time ensuring that the content creators are receiving their due payments. To thwart piracy, the Trusted Thinking Platform would have to be implemented somewhere in between the memory region and the speech apparatus, in order to authenticate everything that's coming out a person's mouth and to ascertain that the user has a proper license for the spoken content.
I'm assuming that DRM laws will increasingly require hardware manufacturers to build DRM into all hardware, so that upgrades will lock us into copy protection and proprietary, closed systems.
So will any manufacturers step up to the plate and start producing hardware that complies with the letter of the law but that's easy for the skilled user to circumvent? Say by doing a firmware update to the BIOS or something.
Alternatively, maybe some countries that don't sign onto DRM treaties (think Russia and AllofMP3.com) can become the source for more expensive but freer hardware?
I think it's a mistake to position the fight as "anti-drm". It's confusing the issue. Non-geeks don't really care because they believe any DRM someone cooks up will get cracked.
In addition drm is the least evil thing about trusted computing. If the only thing trusted computing did was provide DRM to music and movies then it wouldn't be quite so dangerous. We need to concentrate on the other aspects of trusted computing.
Also we need to stop saying stuff like "vote with your wallet". Obviously you should do that but the whole problem with illegal monopolies is they sometimes remove the ability to vote with your wallet. If voting with your wallet worked to solve such extremely dangerous problems the microsoft word format would of been opened up long ago. It's time to face facts that the soap box isn't going to work on this one.
The US also lacks a proper party system to solve this problem through political means. Because the US controls the worlds IP laws through the hegemony known as the WTO everyone is going to get screwed. It might be time to start discussing other measures like a world wide effort to attack other sources of the problem (like the WTO) to drive it all out at the roots.
"As someone who makes a living from copyright, I am quite worried by DRM, because I see a significant potential for backlash against copyright holders when the public realises that we are not keeping up our end of the bargain."
Two questions.
Were you holding up your end before DRM?
Was the public holding up their end before DRM?
There's a chicken and egg in there somewhere, and one of these days someone is going to be ballsy enough to admit to it.
Obviously you've never tried to use one of the new Sony Handycam thingys. Its DRM makes it impossible to edit movies you create with your own camera unless you're willing to put up with the DRM enforced degradation.
You can no longer buy a DVD player that plays DiVX files. It seems that the MPAA has decided that any free high quality format means 'piracy'. You could in principle release DRM-enabled stuff that just happens to be tagged with no restrictions, but that could be very, very expensive.
The idea that DRM-equipped devices will permit the unrestricted playback of stuff not marked as restricted is a myth.
Blancmange
On Feb 17, 2009, US broadcasters are scheduled to abandon analog TV.
There will be, I think, an enormous howl as people realize that
they've been had -- particularly in rural areas, where cable is
not available.
[ the Feb 2007 issue of Scientific American has an
article about this transition; unfortunately, I
cannot find in it any reference at all to DRM or HDCP
or the broadcast flag ]
Sometime after that date, "they" will flip the bit
that enables enforcement of the Broadcast Flag.
Again, I think that this will provoke consumer outrage and rebellion.
But I am often disappointed when I expect to be able to distinguish
between US consumers and sheep.
Wait a minute. Didn't I say that on the other side of the record? I'd better check
"If you have DVI or HDMI without HDCP (ICT set or not), you don't get any video output. You must use an analog connection at this point. You can either use VGA or Component."
Great, so I get to switch my monitor to an inferior connection. Good luck if your video card and monitor don't both have VGA.
My Sansa e260 does exactly this with no problem. The indexing doesn't even take long. Now, granted, my player only has 4GB of flash memory (expandable), so this doesn't necessarily apply to the HD-based iPods, but it does seem to suggest the Nanos could do the same. Given that an equivalent iPod nano costs considerably more than the Sansa, I'd guess it would have all least comparable system resources.
More generally, though, I agree that the lack of drag and drop doesn't mean the iPod is defective by design. It doesn't really even have to do with the iPod (beyond the fact that the iPod indexes songs). What is shows is that iTunes is defective by design.
"You call it a new way of thinking; I call it regression to ignorance!" -- Operation Ivy
"All the people complaining about DRM should actually DO something"
r o&search=Search3 A%22drew%20Roberts%22)%20OR%20(collection%3A(ourme dia)%20AND%20%2Fmetadata%2Fauthor%3A(drew%20Robert s))
DONE.
Sayings - Deterred Bahamian Novel - http://www.ourmedia.org/node/262954
Tings - Anuddah Bahamian Novel - http://www.ourmedia.org/node/85937 &
http://www.ourmedia.org/node/111123
drew Roberts's Storefront - Lulu.com - http://www.lulu.com/zotz
Some tings for you from zotz : CafePress.com - http://www.cafepress.com/zotz
Now for some other stuff of mine:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=zotzb
http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=(creator%
http://code.google.com/p/drsoundwall/
http://www.ourmedia.org/user/17145
http://musicians.opensrc.org/DrewRoberts
https://sourceforge.net/projects/zbcw
I am not the only one doing such things either. For instance:
http://ccmixter.org/media/tags/attribution
"so CREATE something yourself and see how it works voluntarily instead of forcing authors to agree with your politics."
Ah, I am not the one running to get copyright laws amended over and over. Retroactively. There was a legal (lopitical?) agreement made with the public, but it wasn't good enough for some. They wanted to change the agreement. Now it is wrong for others to change it back to something more like it was? Or even completely different?
Seems some people are trying to force us into new "agreements." Why should we not fight back?
all the best,
drew
FreeMusicPush If you want to see more Free Music made, listen to Free
Apple never was a monopoly at anytime in the past, and it's debatable that they have one with the ipod now, But I'll not give them a free pass. I suspect that if they were in MS's position, they would be far worse. Still, you'll find plenty of complaints on here about how apple is using their mp3 player market share to keep others out of the online music retail business. There was an article about an anti-trust suit in Norway because of it just a day or two ago.
I think 'incredibly stable' is a huge exaggeration, but I'll give you that 2k and XP are much better.
I stopped and stared in awe at this comment for a solid 30 seconds before I was able to finish reading your post. When you make exaggerations like this, You lose every last inch of credibility you have. If running an OS without some specific 3rd party software, is as bad an idea as anyone in the tech industry will tell you it is in this case, "The most secure product available" is absurd at best.
No single raindrop believes that it is responsible for the storm.
DRM - Any technology used to limit the use of software, music, movies or other digital data.
Digital Rights Management is a protection scheme implemented on order from digital content owners/creators to protect this content from unwanted copying and distribution.
At some point, someone somewhere sometime had the idea for this type of protection for digital content, and said "make it so".
Whether it is the company that creates the content or an ISV offering these protection schemes as products, they are applied to media that is then sold for profit or at the least distributed on media or through the 'tubes' .
This content is in need of protection from unwanted uses.
Users of this content want use as they wish i.e, television, computer, hand-held, what-have-you.
Today, the DRM we have on different kinds of media make them clumsy objects to be used only in specific ways or on specific platforms.
A couple of examples would be a PDF on Adobe Reader or a DVD by approved software or hardware.
This system, and by guilt of association DRM'd content, is by nature flawed as it promotes difficulty in moving information between where it exists and points where it can be useful to someone.
We need a more balanced DRM that can be used on all types of content to protect as well as allow use as the user sees fit.
Mabey a small piece of code in a media file that states whether a given item is genuine or not.
Not restricting use of the media but guaranteeing authenticity that the user has what they paid for.
Something along these lines could go a long way to ease interoperability and promote digital media as something owned and used not the user getting used and pwned.
If you could buy a movie and use it on all of your computers, consoles, and hand-held devices and it would never go away and you could get it again because there was a record of you owning particular rights to that movie in a certain format, wouldn't you be more likely to purchase this type of media?
Crisis is the rule, not the exception.
"No. Because it's out of my control. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg. "
If you're honest? It does. Piracy is a tax on the honest, not the content providers.
"By the way, in case you hadn't noticed, at the apogee of Napster's popularity, CD sales were _also_ similarly good. And when Napster was sued out of existence, CD sales simultaneously fell.
You figure it out."
Correlation doesn't equal causation.
DRM's sole purpose is to maximize revenues by minimizing your rights so that they can sell them back to you.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070115-861
They support FLAC and OGG. Basically don't do DRM. And mount as removable storage instead of requiring bullshit applications. Works with all OS that support removable USB storage.
iAudiophile.net fan site
Cowon's US site
I recommend the iAudio X5L. 35 hour batter life. 30gb storage.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has a couple of email campaigns set up to fight against DRM becoming law. http://action.eff.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ADV _homepage has a list of all their campaigns.
The campaign for fighting against DRM is here http://action.eff.org/site/Advocacy?id=221
The campaign for reforming the DMCA, which makes breaking DRM illegal, is here: http://action.eff.org/site/Advocacy?id=115
Take the time and go send some emails. The MPAA and the RIAA believe their loss of sales is due to piracy not a boycott of their products. Voting with your wallet will not work.
Pervasive DRM will also facilitate the re-writing of history. After all, access to that embarrassing video clip can always be revoked. There is also the problem of evil chips ensuring that the only software that Bill Gates approves of will run on your machine. These and other undesirable outcomes will be all too possible once government and industry shoves it down our throats. Being able to see the latest teen idol is in no way an acceptable tradeoff for these losses.
Every time I meet with a client, I try to bring up a conversation about Windows vs Open Source technologies so I can explain why Windows Vista is the devils operating system. Often times I have to explain very technical things such as DRM to these people, and many of those times they still do not fully understand what is going on.
I think this article is a great read as it explains everything in detail and why it is important for us to fight this DRM madness. Unfortunately I'm not sure what exactly we could do to stop the DRM machine. I mean, consumers will be consumers and they will buy the latest gadgets and software if they see it says "New and Improved" regardless of its actual functionality and possible improvements.
I'm going to link my site to this article, as well as forward it to all of my clients because this is very important to everyone.
Relocating to San Francisco / Palo Alto... Hire me?
Don't buy stuff with DRM. I can do it, i did it so far. But i doubt more than 20% of people who yap against DRM will stay away from it.
So, you don't watch DVDs? That might be good for you, but you are missing out on a diminishing but still significant part of your own culture. Avoiding DRM is hard and becoming harder. Blaming people who don't have real choices is counter productive.
Instead of making the false choice between your freedom and participating in your culture, we need to change the laws that force that choice. The whole point of copyright was to encourage science and the arts so that they would be enjoyed by as many people as possible. Current copyright and patent laws are an abomination and achieve exactly the opposite. Patent law is discouraging innovation and disclosure. Copyright law has kept almost all recorded media out of the public domain and serves only a few large publishers. That needs to change.
It is a little easier, right now, to fight the newer schemes but it's going to get harder. The high definition format wars throws real cold water on purchases. Who wants to buy a $5,000 TV that won't work they way you expect it to? The problem is DRM and it won't go away with the current format war because there can always be a new format and the makers can now remove the keys for the old one. As the price of those TVs drop and the situation starts to look like DVD vrs VCR, it will be harder to convince people not to buy the new junk.
The flip side to not buying DRM'd crap is buying and promoting stuff that respects you. Give away free software and live GNU/Linux CDs. Buy Creative Commons work, give money to the free software foundation and buy Linux games, purchase Star Wreck t-shirts. Sing dance and have fun. Eventually, laws follow popular opinion.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I really hate defeatism attitudes like shown in the parent post.
"Oh, corporations are too powerful don't bother fighting them." , "Oh Microsoft is too powerful, just accept the fact that they will bully the tech industry forever.", "Oh we all know that there were shenanigans played in the last few elections but that's just the way politics is so fuck off and just accept your corrupt overlords"
Maybe the parent poster is satisfied with just rolling over and playing dead but God damn it, I for one may go down but I'll go down swinging!
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
IMO, the more significant problem is software patents, not DRM. In the case of audio, DRM is also extremely vulnerable to the analog hole; people have speculated that there may be ways to plug the analog hole, but in reality nobody's come up with any way to do it that isn't trivial to circumvent. So far, DRM seems to have been a self-limiting problem. For example, when book publishers first started experimenting with selling electronic books, they screwed up in a variety of ways. Two of their screw-ups were high prices and DRM. Guess what? Nobody bought their electronic books, so the publishers had to go back and rethink their approach. The same seems to be happening with DRM'd CDs: some music labels that tried it have decided that it didn't work very well, and are no longer going to do it. There's a whole process of economic feedback that tends to discourage extreme positions. The music labels are unhappy with Apple's DRM because it's too light, and slashdotters are unhappy because it's too heavy. If both sides are equally unhappy, maybe that shows that Apple made a reasonably intelligent decision.
But all of that depends on the logic of the marketplace, which is totally absent when it comes to software patents. Software patents are a government-imposed monopoly. How much good does it do you to have DRM-free audio and video when you can't get the codecs legally? For the vast majority of the population, which already thinks OSS is too hard, what's the response going to be when they're told that they have to download their codecs from an overseas server, because it's illegal for anyone in the U.S. to redistribute them freely? They're simply going to say, "No thanks, I don't want Linux on my desktop if I have to walk over hot coals in order to watch videos on you-tube."
Find free books.
It's about fragility. Do you like the stuff which you buy to be intentionally made breakable? You, your children, and history might not be able to read, hear, or view stuff which breaks easily. You'll have to be extra careful to not get an incompatible player, cables, viewer, and anything else which the protection device might be sensitive to. The player's processor has to be more powerful than otherwise because it has to do decoding rather than just playing the data. If dust, power flux, aging components or slowing motors weaken the data processing then the DRM might be triggered and you can't use your stuff.
A good friend was just telling me a story about DRM that I found kind of funny. He's loaded, and loves electronics. Who doesn't?
This is a list of stuff that he's bought over the last year or so.
- A really nice "Brillian" HDTV ($10000)
- A PS3 ($600)
- A really high-end Sony digital camcorder that records 1080p ($2500?)
- A really, REALLY high-end Sony laptop that can burn Blu-ray movies ($5000)
- A de-interlacer ($3000)
Ok, so he has all this stuff, and he's excited to start recording 1080p content with his camcorder and burning it to Blu-ray disks, and then watching it on his top-of-the-line entertainment system. Every piece of his setup is among the best you can get, and it all supports 1080p. So he records some stuff, finds burns it to disk, and can't get it to play. I talked to him about his setup several times over the course of a couple of weeks... There were so many roadblocks that he ran into, and every single one was because of DRM. It was comical.
The PS3 refused to even play the disks because they appeared to be pirated. This has come up quite a bit in various Blu-ray forums. So he found a workaround for this, but it sucks because you have to use this "special" format that doesn't allow your movies to have menus. Ok, so he burns another disk with the crappy no-menu format, and the PS3 still refuses to play it. Turns out the PS3 can't "authenticate" the TV over HDMI, so it won't output anything in 1080p. So he has to deal with Brillian on the phone to get a firmware update. He finally gets that, and tries again. Still won't play. Now, the PS3 says it can't authenticate the de-interlacer box. So, he still hasn't found a fix for that, but he can finally watch his movies as long as he plugs the PS3 directly into the TV, AND, burns his movies in the special format with no menus.
The net result is that his movies can't have menus, his $3000 de-interlacer is collecting dust, but after two weeks of debugging and tech support calls and firmware upgrades, his $20000 worth of equipment will actually allow him to record and watch movies. Makes you think back to the good old days, when you recorded something onto a VHS tape and stuck it in the VCR.
1. The public does not care about DRM
/. then you already know about DRM. E-mail, advertise on TV, join defective by design, do something other than just read. Tell your friends about it. Get their friends to tell about it.
In Government class, we were told to write about a paper about a controversial topic. We were given a list of subjects to write about and DRM was not on there. If we were to write about something not on the list, we could get special permission. I asked to write about DRM, but the teacher said nobody cared and if I prove him wrong I could write about it. So I gave him proof, but I wasn't allowed to write about it still because it "wasn't worth talking about."
2. People keep referring to MP3's as THE open standard.
What ever happened to OGG Vorbis? Isn't that the real open standard? Have you ever found a DRM'd OGG Vorbis song.
3. Not very many of us are even doing anything about it.
Don't just boycott. Preach about it somewhere other than Slashdot. Chances are, if you read
The principle of DRM doesn't matter because perfect DRM is impossible. It's time people just fucking realized that copyright is a stupid concept to begin with. You can create information, but you can't control it and trying to is simply destructive.
~= scwizard =~
"If change happens from without, it's the result of a great deal of concerted violence (read: legal, governmental or mercantile force)."
Not really. The heads of corporations are people too. They can shamed into doing the right things. You might be amazed at how effective a well organized protest campaign can be.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
How do you propose to 'fight' impending DRM?
its not like consumers have much of a choice here when its being shoved down our throats by ALL sides, including the government.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Vista is getting (rightfully) a lot of bad press because of DRM, but where is OSX in this debate? As far as I can tell, Apple will be/and probably already is, going down the same route as Microsoft. OSX will support HDCP and the protected path from OS to video source, just like Vista. I think we should be a little fair here and burn them both?
I think the problem is when the DRM comes out of the "protected" media and into the hardware / software that can copy it. This is something that is happening more and more, and it really bothers me.
Out of idle curiosity, if the astroturf ban(see Slashdot or Slashdot) had taken place, would this article on Fight DRM have caused Slashdot to have to register as a lobbyist?
Note that this really isn't to pry into Slashdot's finances ... but if they are making over $25K a quarter then I'm sure some RIAA/MPAA lawyer would have had a field day.
When somebody can give me a sound, scalable, generic and implementable economic design for goods that cost money to build the first time but are free to copy from then on, I might start to protest against DRM, because I'd actually have an answer to the question of "If not DRM then what?". Until then I'll continue to argue the case for it, use it despite the inconvenience and who knows, maybe even implement it in future.
If DRM actually stopped criminal piracy, then it would be great. But it doesn't, all it does is frustrate the actual paying customer.Why continue to support companies that use your hard earned money to develop totally useless technologies, that only screw you, the paying customer, not real pirates?
Make a great product, people will buy it, and some will try to steal it.
That's life in business. Don't want to deal with reality, get out of business. And all DRM is, is the Corporate Copyright Elite refusing to deal with reality.
My solution, therefore, is to put the MAFIAA members, and their sycophants, into therapy, so that they can finally admit their problem. We, the people, aren't their sheep for them to rape any longer. Better find a business model that can thrive on selling songs for mere pennies. Cuz at a buck a song with DRM, the only fools you'll find to do that, are AppleFanBoys, who already enjoy getting raped by Jobs way too much.
...is not to be anti what you don't want, but pro what you do.
If you don't want people to adopt Vista, get involved with the Beryl or Compiz projects as one example, in order to give people a free alternative to Aero, which is one of Vista's main selling points.
Another fantastic thing which we could integrate into existing Linux distros is OpenBFS. We could then tell people that Microsoft pulled WinFS because they weren't able to implement it after years of trying, whereas Linux has a db filesystem right now.
If you don't want people to use Vista, simply telling them not to isn't going to work...you need to give them some alternative. If they see that Linux can do everything that Vista can, as well as being free, they'll use it. Freedom in itself can't be sold as the main point, because people won't care if the software doesn't do what they need...but if it does, they'll see freedom as a major bonus.
In truth, the FSF did a lot more to effectively fight DRM back when they still gave a damn about the GNU project, IMHO. Nobody is going to win against DRM by fearmongering and making a lot of noise...we'll win against DRM by giving people a better tangible alternative that they can actually use to perform the tasks they need.
I'm just sayin' it is our system...
Alienated consumers don't read
At stake is the principle of the final sale. A vanishing virtue of our economy, it is an explicit separation of interests and obligations among those executing a transaction. In a less complex time, a purchase was a final sale and you were free to utilize your newly acquired asset as you saw fit. This rendered tremendous values from the engine of unintended consequences. Whole industries would never have come into existence if the transactional principles we increasingly enable today had been in fashion then. The poison that is acting to hobble our economy is the increasing substitution of the license for the sale.
What you don't know makes us rich
We need to re-engineer the transactional relationship given the tremendous leverage systems can give citizens. It also begs the question of what should constitute a transaction, and are we prepared to sacrifice the freedom and sheer economic wealth attributable to a sales finality for the unproductive tangle-foot of transaction by license? This is to invite the very definition of an economic depression.
2 by 2
It should be made a principle of our economy that each license must be the obvious result of an engaged negotiation. That any transaction lacking such a genesis is by definition a final sale. Evidence of the required genesis can be found in the portfolio of licenses an organization has given out. Any number of similar licenses beyond some small number* is evidence of a lack of good faith, a lack of engaged and unique negotiations, which reveals such transactions as final sales.
The principle on which to build our future economic growth is that a license can only
exist as the result of a negotiated transaction, while all others hew to the principle
of the final sale. Irrespective of any words, signage, or protestations otherwise,
a transaction that does not embody evidence of a preceding and unique negotiation
is for all time and purpose a final sale.
A license is a negotiated object by it's very nature.
* serendipity can easily be avoided with a limit of no more than a score, and perhaps as few as a dozen undifferentiated agreements.
Generosity
This begs the question, what kind of transaction is a gift? Is a gift really a transaction? Must a gifted license exhibit an individually unique genesis or is this the proper locus for the shrink-wrap license? perhaps yes..
as seen elsewhere
To help people identify and avoid Digitally Restricted products, many of them are now tagged on Amazon:
Link
i haven't bought a CD in almost 6 or 7 years, i completely stopped listening to commercial/copperate artists (with very few exceptions), the only music i download is alternative/indepedent/copyleft music, and trust me well worth my harddrive space and time, i use mostly opensource/freeware, and i am a strong believer in personal freedom, and opensource/free stuff, i use linux (ubuntu, puppy linux) and windows ocasionally (windows xp) i will not be buying vista, or anything from apple. oh yeah, i dont use p2p but i spread my knowledge (how to get free stuff/live frugal) like a virus.
what are you doing?
. . .music. . .
I did not this word; I said "files."
KFG
Freedom!? Buy whatever you want. Dont buy it. Vote with your dollars. Monopoloy!? There are over 10 varieties and sources of DRM music. Just because you desire the most popular source does not grant you any rights. When you buy music you are paying for priviledge...
When you buy a book, you bought the book, not the words on the pages. When you buy a CD, you bought the CD, not the digital code.
No, only the iTunes Music Store. At best. And not even all of that.
If you use iTunes to just store and organize your MP3s and AACs without ever buying anything, it's not "defective by design." If you use the Podcast feature, it's not "defective by design." If you go to the music store and download a free track, it's not "defective by design." (Sure, the free track has DRM, but you didn't pay for it.)
Comment of the year
"As long there is value in artificial scarcity, DRM and its ilk (yes, copyrights, patents and every other government-sponsored legalistic chokehold on information) will thrive--and necessarily exist."
Hehe. That's funny. That's the first time I've ever heard Britney Spears music called information. And for an icing you all complain that you don't have free and open access to her music.
"If anyone "on the inside" sought to change these policies, they would be rightly seen as acting outside of their shareholder mandate and would be FIRED. (You could argue that such individuals could make convincing arguments that there is MORE shareholder value to be had by being open with information, but *any* initiative that appears as though it might impinge on future profits would quickly die a flaming death.)"
Let me ask you point blank, Deskpoet. Have you ever tried? If not then why the hell are you telling us what's possible and what's impossible.
This looks like the right thread to dive into. Both posters above mean well, and have hit one of the central problems surrounding the whole media empire.
Yes, in decades past, the artist had absolutely no way to reliably reach a national market, so they formed agreements with marketing companies. Slowly, the marketing companies pushed their leverage to the hilt, and popular buzz for the artist became "this is a grind, but the alternative was probably worse".
Now we do indeed have a transformation from real scarcity to artificial scarcity. I know of the Baen Free Library. It probably has served its purpose. I think the grandparent post tried to explain that it takes *longer* for the cycle of benefits to circle around from a loss-leader free-as-in-beer model, than a direct cash transaction.
Someone needs to find a devastating crystal clear replacement economic model that can be proven crisply to doubters. Then Artist Z can say "Look, I do this. My music is DRM free, because I have confidence that the exposure is worth more than the theoretically lost cash, and I made *more* than if I took a recording deal". *That's* when the big empires will begin to get the message.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
"...the technological aspect is that DRM implies that the software, or even worse -- hardware -- should be manufactured not for the highest stability and performance, but rather for the best copyright protection possible.
This is just wrong. The fact that a product implements DRM doesn't mean that DRM somehow becomes the Prime Directive and all other considerations are secondary. Does iTunes have the "best copyright protection possible?" No; there's plenty of known workarounds. (The point is just that - they're workarounds. They take work.) "Best possible" is unnecessary.
Besides, every feature you add compromises stability and performance in some way. It does not follow from this that all features are bad.
This means, that we -- the users -- are supposed to pay more money for a product that is defective (does not allow certain functionality for non-technical reasons)
"Does not allow certain functionality for non-technical reasons" is NOT the definition of "defective." If software has a bug that breaks a feature, that's clearly a defect...but according to the author, that's not defective since software bugs are "technical" reasons?
Look, in all other uses, a defect is when something works differently than intended. "Defective by design" is a rhetorical device, just like "trusted computing." Buy into both, or neither, but don't go using one while complaining about the other. That's hypocritical.
"In the world of DRM, it turns that we cannot do whatever we want with the legally purchased products (like software, music, videos or text documents)."
News flash - you can't do that TODAY with your legally purchased products. I can't buy a DVD and start charging crowds to come in and watch it. I can't make photocopies of that book I just bought and distribute it to all my friends. Those things are illegal. So you haven't lost the ability to do "whatever you want" unless you've been willing to break the law - and then why are you whining about DRM when you acknowledge later on that it's easy to get around?
I'm not an apologist for DRM purveyors, but I have no patience for articles like this one.
The basic problem DRM tries to solve is really simple - we want professionals to produce high quality 'creative works' despite us having technology that can replicate such an item for zero cost.
Perhaps, but that's not the problem I'm interested in having solved, or that the public is interested in having solved. That problem is that we want as many creative works created and published as possible, and that we also want just as much for those works to be available to everyone who wants them, without restriction, and for the least cost possible, if any.
The quality issue is the problem that should be addressed.
I don't care if someone is a professional or not. And since there's no objective measure of quality in the field of creative works, we can only try to encourage quantity. (Though there is a rule of thumb that only a small, fixed fraction of all works are good, so the way to get more good works is to have more works overall, so it all works out anyway)
There doesn't need to be. Quality is an individual measure and it should be encouraged.
So taking into consideration the actual problem, rather than what you'd like to distract us with, DRM is simply unacceptable. Here's why:
A couple things here. First historically things were created in limited quantities because every creation was a one-of-a-kind. Second the patron system was simply a smaller pool of "customers" calling the shots. e.g. monarchies, businesses, churches, rich collectors. For those who weren't fortunate enough to fall into that system, there was the street performer. However that wasn't much better because one couldn't always depend on getting paid, let alone enough to live on. There's a reason the term "starving artist" came into being. And second the public benefit was a rather variable thing. The patrons could horde their "benefit", and the street performer beneficiaries themselves didn't always have the means to turn what the artists offered into something that trickled down to others. In other words they were in similiar economic circumstances as the artist, and had their own lives to lead. And last, yes there are non-economic motives to creating. But that's not the same as sharing with everyone else. Remember Davinci's cryptic notebooks.
Since we want to get the greatest net public good, the answer is clear: no copyright is good, but not maximally good, and too much copyright is worse than none at all. The best thing is to have some, but not too much copyright.
The artists is "public" too.
DRM is an attempt to have permanent copyrights which are very very limited, and which are implemented privately so that the public and the government that exists to represent and support the public cannot do anything to impair it. Frankly, I regard DRM and those who support DRM to be evil little shits.
I'm certain you do. And yes the government and public can. They just decided to take the easy way out. Now why should one favour an apathetic public and it's government, again?
You are correct in that there is widespread casual piracy. You are dead wrong in assuming that this is bad. Copyright is only about the public good. The fact that artists make more (or at least, very slightly more) money in our third scenario above doesn't change the fact that it is the worst outcome of the three. Copyright does not exist and never has existed to benefit artists. It is there to benefit the public. If it happens to benefit artists, then that is merely a means to an end. If doing something that benefits the public more happens to benefit artists more, then that's great, and I'd support it. But if doing something that benefits the public more happens to benefit artists less, then that's equally as great, and I'd support it just as much. This is because I don't care about artists, I care about the public. Artists are clearly self-interested, which is why copyright can be an incentive to them; it appeals to their avarice. There's nothing wrong with the publ
"It happens more often than you might think. It's not phrased that way though, rather, it's phrased as "we don't think the return on investment for this artist is worth it", which can mean many things but sometimes does indeed mean "the kind of people who like this music are the kinds who will just download it". And then if the musician trying to get funding can't get it, maybe they go work at their local McDonalds instead of sitting around writing their next album because after all, they have bills to pay just like anybody else."
I should point out as anecdotal as it is. I've heard of people who've either decided to go into a creative field were piracy was barely to nothing as a problem. Or simply decided to not invest time and money (much like CS) into becoming artists. There's one effect of casual piracy that can't be measured, but it's there and the selfish public is the poorer for it.
"Besides, this sets a dangerous precedent - that it's OK for dishonest people to sponge off those who pay up. In most walks of life people find that unacceptable, on the grounds that if some pay, all should pay."
Glad to see some read my posts. Now for an exercise try the above with "pay" being measured in open-source terms. "Casual dishonesty" isn't as much fun when it happens to one's pet cause.
I was refering to the fact that, AFAIK (and I'm not an iTunes user, I simply know many people who are), iTunes includes no facility for moving music from the iPod to your mac. This would be a trivial to add (given that iTunes already knows where the songs are on the iPod) and a very useful feature (as evidenced by the many 3rd party tools just for that purpose), and it's omission is essentially an instance of being "defective by design".
It'a also true that the fact that iTunes respects DRM and, therefore, imposes artificial limitations on legal activities of CD burning, copying, etc. DRMed tracks is another reason it's defective by design. But I wasn't refering to that.
"You call it a new way of thinking; I call it regression to ignorance!" -- Operation Ivy
Here's some fairly technical details on output content protection from a Microsoft WinHEC conference: http://doxi.ca/60u4 (or original link for those with Word installed http://download.microsoft.com/download/5/D/6/5D6EA F2B-7DDF-476B-93DC-7CF0072878E6/output_protect.doc ).
If you think about your computer, your possession and then you think about your home you'll see that your computer is just an extension of your home. No more would you let advertisers paste advertisements onto the walls of your home (unless you do it for them) then you would let advertisers take over your computer. You would not let Microsoft employees or agents enter your home to search it so you should see that allowing DRM to exist on your computer is the same as doing just that.
Your computer is an extension like your filing cabinet. It is like your CD collection. It is like your games collection. If you consider all legal and part of your home you would never allow a company such as Microsoft to enter it to inspect your filing cabinet, your CDs, nor your games collection, even if they claim they would never look at anything other than those things. It is a violation of your privacy to not fight against such a thing while watching it happen.
We don't allow private companies to make and enforce their own laws. Just as everyone would love to own their own bank we know every large corporate entity would love to own their own bank, to grant them loans, to set their own interest rates, etc, to collect income off their own interest rates. We don't allow corporate entities to make nor enforce the laws. We elect government to do just that. We know that corporate entities would greatly abuse you. There's no standards of conduct on them set by the law. If we let them make their own laws and enforce them in your home I'd feel that we'd be sanctioning the likes of HP pretexting employees.
You see, the big thing about what happened with HP was that they felt they could do what they wanted and that they could get away with it if only those ordering it were given plausible deny-ability. What really was bad about this wasn't that they violated the rights of free speech and the freedom of the press nor that they participated in illegal acts (in some states), but that they told every single employee that they were subjects (in their personal lives) of the business they worked for. This told every employee that they had no rights when it came to the employer.
This abuse is only an example of what is happening with DRM and content rights management. It tells you that you are subservient to the content provider and that they have the right to enter your home to investigate you and to take action against you even if you were never even in violation.
You need just understand that your computer is an extension of your home.
Think about someone using their vehicle to steal from some business. The way DRM and CRM works is that the owners of those materials can search your car without your permission and can boot your car so that you can't do anything of the sort with it again, even if this inhibits legitimate use of your vehicle for other purposes. Even law enforcement agencies can't search your car without evidence and a warrant while the car is located on your premises. They can't open a door, they can't search through the trunk, they can't do anything to it. While on your property probable cause would be extremely difficult to prove.
Your computer is an extension of your home.
CRM and DRM are the equivalent of allowing companies to make and enforce their own laws and to violate your rights and your privacy. It allows them to do this without the true legal system (with all its procedures and policies, without selective training and strict adherence to the rules of law) having even taken part.
When you can come to grips with the fact that your computer is an extension of your home you'll understand why you can't let DRM/CRM exist in any form. It should be your responsibility to ensure that your children's future is free of private laws created by private companies which are not designed to protect you as an individual (instead giving priority over the company and content rights holder).
Everything that is done in the computer would can be equated to the world we move in. You need only think about it as part of the real world instead of some cyber-world where you can give or take what happens.
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
You see, some people might want to read the book at night, under artificial light. Unfortunately, the special ink only shows up under some wavelengths of light, so normal lamps won't work. The publisher can make some more money to help cover the other expenses by selling a special lamp that lets people read it in the dark. It might be a bit unpopular, but no one complains about needing an iPod, Zune, or PlaysForSure player to play the music they bought online while mobile, and the principle's the same.
In the article they left out the fact that you could not read somebody else's book using your light. You would have to also use their light. The priciple's the same.
The truth shall set you free!
I have been hosed for being an honest guy.
Return defective products for a replacement or refund. Insist on it. Follow-up. Customer care is an expense of doing business. Defective products are expensive for the retailers. Insist on non-DRM products. Have fun, Go into a shop and look for CD's. Tell the clerk you can only use redbook CD's. Have them show you the CD's. Have them help you find the Philips "Compact Disc" logo. Don't buy anything without it.
The truth shall set you free!
I've ripped most of my CD collection into AAC format using iTunes with no restrictions placed on how I use those files.
The problem is there is no easy way from a drag and drop PC screen to tell the DRM from the non-DRM titles. For me and many others we simply use MP3=non-DRM and wma and AAC = DRM for sorting. It makes life simple. Keep and archive the MP3's and re-rip the rest. Someone forgot to toggle the ripper from a default setting.
The truth shall set you free!
My iriver, running rockbox, has no trouble either. It creates the ID3 database in the background, and will even resume if turned off during a database update.
The original firmware had a program to be run on the host computer to create such a database instead. Under both firmware systems, you can put your music wherever you want and use the tag database.
Hard drive players tend to have more powerful processors in many cases than the flash-based ones, so the extra size is less hassle than you might think.
And in what case you must buy DRM stuff?
Just don't buy it. Period.
factor 966971: 966971
I recently picked up a copy of Fragile Things, and it lead me to write this post
This is why copyright MUST continue to expire, and DRM threatens that expiry. It's all very well to say that the copyright on a work has expired, but it might still be illegal to access that work because it has DRM which is protected by the DMCA and other copycat laws.
I think this video explains it very well.
I just played with a Vista laptop for the first time (outside the front door of Bic Camera at Yurakucho Station, Tokyo). A woman with a mic was explaining Aero which looked nice. The ribbon in Word looked nice too and I was intrigued by the new folder explorer. Perhaps there is a lot more new in it but to tell you the truth, from what I could see I can do just fine without it and the DRM built into the OS is a very strong reason for me to stay far from it. I think my biggest impressions in the 2-3 minutes I played with it are:
- Translucent dialog boxes are pretty but harder to read
- Word ribbon might be faster, but the time it takes for a dialog box to "fade-in" is very annoying
- Half of the persistently visible widget boxes in the translucent vertical bar on the right side of the desktop said "service not available". I expect this kind of message will persist throughout the Vista user experience until you are numbed to it.
- I played the three large demo videos. A pan across a seascape with much detail in the water currents was extremely noisy and horrible to look at.. I was wondering if it was DRM, processing time used up by Aero, over-compression, and/or a general lack of concern on the part of Microsoft for the end-user experience.
- Interface is too much in your face. While Aero is intriguing I might be happy with just adding more features to XP.
- Considering Mac OS X will have Jaguar imminently, I decided to get that instead. I could use a Vista desktop at work if necessary, and I might be forced to do so for compatibility and vulnerability updates at some time in the future, but it was not a jaw-dropping experience and not what I would I think enjoy for home use.
>At least they can't take books from us. You can read them aloud, lend them to friends
Sadly this may no longer be true. I received a book recently (a copyright-free classic, no less) that had a 'license' on the copyright/ISBN page. It said the book could not be rented, resold, or even *loaned* without permission.
Granted this may not be legal, let alone enforceable, but where does it end? Will remembering a plot without paying the publisher constitute infringement?
It's ironic that Borland's old "non-nonsense" software license said it was "like a book"; one copy could be transferred, loaned, or resold.
FIXME: Add a sig here
Don't mess with my right to make backup copies of any medium I want to. To not allow me the freedom to copy a CD, or a DVD, or any other digital file is a violation of my rights as a consumer. I won't stand for it. Go http://eff.org/EFF! Vista is trying to make us upgrade our computers so that they can control exactly what hardware they want us to use. To me, that's unfair. I won't be installing Vista on my computer ever. You've got that in writing.
Toria
Company's trying to make money?!?! Those evil bastards!!
are ppl high on crack for thinking about going to vista? why degrade the quality of hd-dvd to your computer monitor for consumers. i feel confident there will be a libdvdcss2 equivelent for hd-dvd content, but how large will the Xvid hd-dvd rips be then? If it wern't for libdvdcss2 i wouldn't have even considered purchasing a dvd player. dvd isn't going away and linux works just fine for me, even if i'm a criminal in the us for using libdvdcss2. It's a shame in order to have fair use rights, one must be a criminal under us law. the dmca was the absolute worst piece of legislation this century which attempted to take away fair use rights, except those permitted by the IP droid's. I'm just glad the us isn't inforcing the dmca and i'm awaiting for the courts to strike it down as unconstiutional and for congress to promote open standards. closed source is a virus on society which needs to be done away with completly and in the long run, it will.
While your point is noted. I should point out that the non-expiration of DRM has NEVER been tested. Same with the DMCA. So far all the objections are of the slippry-slope, this-potentially-might-happen form. It seems to me that all this effort would be better spent getting copyright limits reduced, and the DMCA/DRM issue would take care of itself. You're "rights" are already curtailed within the present system. DRM just uses technology to enforce it.
This would of course present problems for audiophiles given the lossy quality of even the best MP3's.
Of the digital music store out there, is there any who offer a higher bitrate than e-music. I know many of the stores are limited to a maximum of 128Kbits/sec.
e-music has VBR.
"The average bit rate used for VBR on eMusic is 192k."
It beats any of the DRM peddlers in quality. Buy the best you can and ask for better.
The truth shall set you free!
"Keep pretending it's an even playing ground if you want."
Or we could pretend that piracy somehow levels the playing field. Seriously in this day and age there's no excuse for ignorance, either here or with potential bands.
Just wanted to point out that DRM is not just about you and your media player. Most of us (including Bill Gates) recognize that current methods and models of DRM as applied to media are clumsy, unfair and ultimately futile. However DRM extends to all forms of electronic data and in a business environment is a very useful tool in making sure that sensitive data remains secure even when it leaves the business. DRM in conjunction with a range of other technologies ensures that I have complete control over business (and personal) data which allows me to leverage that data in ways that would otherwise have been considered unsuitable for reasons of security, such as unauthorised distribution. Obviously there is nothing to stop someone from recreating data sets from hardcopy but there is no way that data could be modified to suit the purposes of any individual or business and then passed off as the real thing. Being able to work with data that is transparently secured and has a reasonable guarantee of authenticity is a significant benefit of DRM that seems to have passed all by. Surely the argument should be that 'DRM as currently applied to artistic media is clumsy, unfair and ultimately futile' and not that DRM is inherently 'evil'.
I've been using Vista for a while now and I'm not entirely sure how it's supposed to be actively attacking me. I can still play just about any media format in VLC media player without any trouble. Actually, I have a better solution: Why do you need to run HD-DVD's? Are you people daft? If you don't like the technology, don't buy it- and a more open solution will appear. Bingo! Most people already don't buy into HD movie formats because they're unnecessary and sort of retarded. Vista is DRM-compliant, for the most part it just runs like XP only with a smoother more improved UI. Anyone who's ever thrown together a quick business application in VBA or shown their parents how to remove pictures from a camera using a simple wizard knows why Windows is not going anyhwere- it's extremely useful. So it just happens to comply with mandated DRM policies- so will OSX. Just buy your MP3's from non-DRM sites like Bleep.com and buy your movies on DVD. PROBLEM SOLVED. I had issues with opengl games running slow. I installed ubuntu linux on an old HD in order to wait out the improved implementation of ICD drivers. Took 45 minutes. Now I can play a few old games in linux and manage media and do most tasks in windows. PROBLEM SOLVED. It's all so simple. In many cases, DRM even offers awesome enabling technologies like Subscription music. But why is Windows Vista the icon of sin in this case? It's just an operating system. It's the next generation of windows- upgraded, pretty, usable. I'm sorry if you need to feed HD-DVD video into an unsecured buffer for some obviously legal reason. Just pay for your software and media and it won't be any big deal. The market dictates the direction things are going, and if these DRM technologies are convenient for legitimate consumers, they will win. Sorry fringe market- keep bitchin'
We don't allow private companies to make and enforce their own laws.
m e-off-for-good-behaviour-so-you-still-do-4.5-years prison sentences.
In a way, we do. The DMCA allows a private company to write their own restrictions using DRM, and enforce it to with the power of law. Actually, even better, they write the "law" and our government enforces it for them, with 5 year no-parole, must-serve-the-whole-sentence-with-only-slight-ti
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
People ARE caring. I've had several people ask me for advice that are all like "I bought these movies/music that are on my old computer, they won't work when I copy them to my new one." and I'm like "yep, that's that rights restrictions I've been telling you about. Nothing I can do about it -- better buy plain MPEG4/MP3s in the future, they aren't restricted." Then the person is has that "aha" moment when the realize the DRM I mentioned to them at some point in the past wasn't some conspiracy theory, it's actually restricting the products they purchased. Then they either give up on digital video/music, pirate the stuff they already bought in open formats, or rebuy it from a vendor that doesn't have rights restrictions on the products. I have not heard anyone yet say "Oh, I'll just rebuy them from the same vendor".
We call it abortion.
For what it is worth, I tend to agree with your post though.
Semi-automatic amateur armchair Australian philosopher; conjecture ready at any moment...
"However, you need a better principle than "we want stuff for free", which is unquestionably how any anti-DRM protests would be presented as."
If you're saying that the music industry will try to spin anti-DRM protests to their advantage I agree. They will try to frame the movement in any way that they can to bring about the end result they desire.
This isn't about "getting stuff for free." This is about our fair use rights. When I buy music or movies I have the right to backup those copies or move those copies onto a more convenient media such as a movie server. This is a right, not a privilege.
Illegal file sharing is not acceptable and I understand that and agree but taking away my fair use rights is also unacceptable and that is what any protest should be about.
So I guess when you say that anti-DRM protests will "unquestionably be presented" in a certain way, I must disagree.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!