Slashdot Mirror
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."
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.
Someone posted a good list about Vista's DRM against XP's DRM http://msmvps.com/blogs/chrisl/archive/2007/01/25/ 519180.aspx
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
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."
Vista has gone to great extremes to achieve digital content management. The Vista DRM requirements will greatly affect the design of video cards, monitors, HD-DVDs and other computer hardware in the near future. Microsoft seems to have really gone overboard to try to satisfy all of Hollywood and the music studios fears about computer owners somehow managing to access unencrypted protected content. Windows itself seems to have been designed as a digital content delivery system. Personally, I would have prefered to see a small seperate dedicated box of some kind use for that purpose instead of redisigning the Windows operating system and the computer hardware so drastically for that purpose. Here are two transcripts which talk about Vista DRM. At the top of each transcript there is also a free MP3 version available.
Hollywood, the music industry and Microsoft all seem to think that they should have the right to reach into people home computers and tell the computer owners what they can and can't do. As mentioned recently on Slashdot, the RIAA is now acting much like 17th century French button makers. It is almost as if the same people had been reincarnated again and are back again.
History Repeats Itself: How The RIAA Is Like 17th Century French Button-Makers
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
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
All DRM does effectively is tie people to specific platforms. There's not a movie or song available for purchase that you can't find for free with p2p software. HD-DVDs and BluRay versions of most movies are currently unavailable, but there are hacks available that are allowing people to rip these formats, and I believe they're beginning to show up on the p2p networks.
Again, I have no interest in piracy, and in fact I blame pirates for giving the media distributors an excuse to force DRM on us, but I do hate DRM because it keeps me from being able to use my legitimate media the way I want to use it.
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.
Well, there's some truth to that. It's undoubtably true that DRM is being used for many different things at once - Microsoft/Apple use it to lock people into their platforms, the record companies are using it to maintain their business model, etc, but I don't think you can credibly argue that the poor musicians are trapped by the evil record companies.
I know a couple of musicians and they all want a record deal, because it is the first step along the rocky road to fame and money. Artists who go the "new" road and release their work as MP3s on Myspace sometimes get discovered, and then they get a record deal. Why? Because the record companies do offer them something compelling that they can't get by going it alone.
Whether you believe this particular business model is obsolete or not is irrelevant though - it's not your decision to make. Write a hit album and then your decision will carry some weight, because it'll set an example for others. So far we're many years into the brave new world and the record companies keep signing new artists.
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 haven't seen this with my own eyes, but my brother has. These days he is mostly writing and arranging music for artists who target the 40s-60s market, lots of classical stuff, because there's still money in that, along with the odd teeny bopper. Whether piracy has actually affected the bottom line is hard to prove because there's too many variables, but there's no doubt that the perception of piracy has made the decision-makers a lot more conservative. Of course this is a vicious circle - they produce the stuff they know will be bought and then people go "oh noes! the evil record companies produce monotonous crap so they deserve what they get".
You're arguing a technicality of language rather than answering my original question. It should be clear I was talking about a market that sets prices based on supply and demand, which is pretty generic and applies to most definitions of "market" I'm aware of.
I am claiming exactly what I claimed before - that there was probably an economic system out there that is capable of dealing with such goods. Whether such a system is a market of some kind or not, I don't know and neither do you. Right now it seems unlikely because setting a price based on supply and demand is pretty fundamental to what a market is, but by altering the parameters of the market it might become possible (you can imagine a system in which people are paid for a work in advance of it being produced, for instance).
DRM doesn't affect piracy, it only affects the paying customer. The content ends up on The Pirate Bay and the other file-sharing networks anyway. This realization is even coming to the music industry. Recently, CDON.com, a large Swedish online music store, set up a special section selling unprotected MP3 files, citing customer demand. The section is even prominently advertised on the download section main page.