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Vista a Threat to Internet Freedom?
BBC columnist Bill Thompson warns readers that new DRM technology, especially that found in Vista, is damaging the freedoms that the internet was based on. "The freedom of expression that was once available to users of the Internet Protocol is being stripped away. Our freedom to play, experiment, share and seek inspiration from the creative works of others is increasingly restricted so that large companies can lock our culture down for their own profit. [...] governments and corporations around the world are making a concerted effort to dismantle the open internet and replace it with a regulated and regulable one that will allow them to impose an 'architecture of control.'"
...there will always be people that fuck it up.
It's just a matter of how long it takes them to A. Figure out that it is good and B. to figure out how they want to fuck it up.
Living With a Nerd
Then you'll have as much freedom as you can handle. Well, sort of.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
Why is Vista a threat to our freedom? Because it's laden with DRM. Why is it laden with DRM? Because they feel pressure to use DRM so users can't spread media. Why do they feel this pressure? Because huge organizations full of lawyers threaten people everyday with lawsuits, they don't want to be a target of those lawsuits.
Now, I know that Vista will soon be the number one used operating system. Will it be Vista's fault that users are giving up their rights? Yes. Will it be Microsoft's fault for giving in to fears and not fighting for our rights? Yes, but no more so than the DRM that Apple puts on its iTMS. Will it be the RIAA/MPAA/other lawyer's faults for putting this fear into the corporate mentality of how to run a successful business? Most definitely.
Stop complaining about each piece of software that comes out with restricted rights attached to it and hit the root of the issue: legions of lawyers lobbying for unbelievable laws on copyrights and enough money to strong arm cases against any defendant.
The only part of this article worth pointing out (that I didn't really read) is that Microsoft is one of the few companies with the cash to fight back. But instead, they're selling the limitation of rights on their OS as a feature.
That's not a good analogy, nature is both beautiful and ugly. Natural trends are not always the best, for instance, what if I said that "the network tends towards liberal values just as a bull tends to rape any female cow next to him." Doesn't sound so enticing, does it? If you're going to use an analogy, please use one that sheds light or meaning on the situation. Your quote underneath your picture just sounds like you smoked enough dope to spew hippie peace love crap.
My work here is dung.
... Because it's the MPAA and RIAA that imposed this DRM bulls**t on them. I'm not saying that they're blameless. What I am saying is they need the support of the music and movie industry to "embrace and extend."
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
Rubbish. Vista doesn't change anything having to do with the Internet Protocol. You move bits around. You move them around freely.
The question now is, what sort of bits do they want to sell you? It won't work to sell the same bits to two different people any more, because the freedom of the Internet is still just the same as it always was.
What's changing is the kind of bits they sell, and the software that they use to interpret those bits. That's an attempt to make money of the effort that they put into creating those bits.
Maybe it'll work. More likely not; somebody will always find a way to get something resembling the original form of the bits, and then people won't want the highly individualized version. I just haven't seen a good alternative yet. (And if you want to talk about live performances, reply only if you've ever tried to make a living booking venues for a band. I have. Start with an anecdote about how badly you were treated so I know you're not BSing me)
But if you want to say, "Hey, remember the good old days when I got all my music for free, and only suckers actually paid for it?", well, whatever. More power to you. Just don't expect the guys who make bits for a living to reminisce along with you.
Certainly profit and freedom can co-exist ...
The problem is that the music/movie industry's control has been lost largely because of how the internet works and they're using all of their power to regain control. If in 1998-2000 the music industry realized that they didn't need to sell physical media anymore, and passed the savings onto their customers, there would be very little piracy and there would be no need for DRM; the same thing could be said about movies today.
They were wrong, and their parent publications were generally too stupid (or embarrassed) to archive their words on the Internet, so I don't have links for you...
And as for AOL/Compuserve... well, they hardly matter now.
My point is, the companies that try to exert greater control by giving their customers less control, the companies who spend as much effort making their products worse as making them better, do not always win. In fact, they quite often lose. It is largely up to us.
Now, cable companies and telcos tend to be an exception, because they basically have government-backed monopolies and there are so few that they can collude with each other. Even they are vulnerable in the long run, just not to market forces.
"...seek inspiration from the creative works of others..."
Is that what they call not paying what your favorite band is asking for their latest studio production these days? If the band just wants to inspire you, they can (and do) give it away. I'd like to be inspired with free subscriptions to the complete, hard work of the thousands of people that cause SciAm, the WSJ, the NYT, and others to exist, myself. Just for inspiration, mind you. No? Fascists! The MAN is controlling me!
If a filmaker wants you seek inspiration from her creative works, rather than pay for it as entertainment, she has all sorts of ways to make that work available without DRM, and without charging her audience. More likely, though, she hopes you will be inspired, but also that you'll actually pay what she's asking - so that she can eat, pay her production team, hire talent, invest in new projects, and inspire other creative people by doing things like giving them jobs with paychecks to work in the field, etc., rather than looking for a pirated copy of what she just spent three years and all of her investors' money making.
This notion that we're no longer in the good old days when a few nerdly saints had wide-reaching internet access and liberally swapped around material (read as, "physics white papers"), and that if we were all just sweet and nice, we could go back to those days... B.S.
You've got untold hundreds of millions of consumers (a microscopic fraction of which are inspiration-seeking creators) that don't see the 'net as The Glue Of Freedom, but as The Place Where I Don't Have To Pay For Things Cuz That's What My Friends Do And What Do You Mean Blank CDs Cost Money. Those that are looking to inspire and be inspired have all sorts of venues, and can and do swap their works with each other freely (AIB/S). Inspirers/ees aren't traveling in the same circles as the leeches.
Viacom telling YouTube to take down the stuff that Viacom produces and distributes isn't the same as The Man telling Professor Wonder-Visionary that he can't post video of himself standing in a bathtub reciting his Haiku for both of his fans/disciples. You can go to wonderful web sites like photo.net and see freely shared, posted, fantastic, inspiring work (complete with technical discussions!) that's there in exactly the spirit that the Beeb's guy says is going away. But you can't just go and run off with a copy of Annie Leibovitz's new collection of work because she's decided to earn money with it if the book is reviewed well enough to earn paying customers. If no one wants to pay what she's asking, then the book won't sell - but that doesn't make it reasonable to expect it to be therefore free if you just look hard enough for someone who's scanned it and put up on a web site someplace in the name of "internet freedom."
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Like it, hate it, buy it or dont, but its a fucking piece of SOFTWARE!
Someone wake me when Vista morphs out of its CD case into Godzilla, and proceeds to beat the crap out of someone until they put it in their computer and reboot?
Hell, a few weeks ago, we were reminded that water can KILL!
When do we start clamoring for laws against Oxygen-Hydrogen combining, or at least regulations preventing stupid people from drinking water without taking an instruction course?
Khaaaaaaaaaannnnnnn, Bitches!!!
I know I am going against the groupthink here and will be modded accordingly, but how are you "giving" the culture to the company that created a movie/song/whatever? If you want to, you create the culture and give it away. If you don't want to or cannot, then don't complain that the culture is being "stolen". The world does not exist to entertain you, I know that is hard to swallow, but it is true. If you don't like the MPAA or RIAA then go outside to do something, read one of the huge number of public domain books, actually talk to other human beings instead of being glued to the screen cursing the same MPAA who finances the movies you like.
Monstar L
...as soon as profit becomes the motivation in ANY area of life, the quality of that area decreases tremendously. In the case of Microsoft and the internet, this is quite obvious. Sure, they are financially successful, but they have as yet to prove themselves on the technical front. There are many things that I cannot do in Windows, that I can do on alternate platforms. To me, it's all about technical prowess and not popularity or financial gain. From that viewpoint, Microsoft is mediocre at best.
Just to give you a few analogies. Back before the web was what it is today, there was a time when Usenet was where you went for "community" and information. Back then, you could be somewhat more trusting that the person on the other side of the wire was what they said they were and the information was valid. You were interacting with the "best of the best" in the various scientific fields. At that time, the internet was not what one would consider a financial success. But it was much more successful as a tool for self education and research. (Hell, I got a response from Stephen J. Hawking that I was allowed to use in a college paper at a state school in the U.S. How cool is that?)
So why were things so much better back then? There was a natural filter in place. A barrier to entry. You HAD to be more intelligent back then to get on the net. You had to be able to deal with your computer at a deeper level than just pointing and clicking. Or, you had to be a member of an organization that was either military, research or academic. There was a silent selection process going on that ensured that people would be of a certain level of intelligence to be able to join in. As soon as Netscape was released to the Masses and companies like AOL switched from their private proprietary networks to the internet, that filter started to dissolve.
Today, ANY idiot with enough cash or access to a computer at work can jump online and post anything he or she wants to. They can be as "authoritative" as they want. Why did this happen? Because the true point of the internet (free exchange of information, ideas, collaboration on culturally and globally beneficial non-profit projects) was lost.
Instead it became a business tool to be used by one tech company to try and beat another one to death with. It became a pitched battle to be fought to the financial death of your competitor. So, Joe Dumbass was allowed onto the internet to cultivate and share his collection of porn as well as try and "hook up" with "hot chix". Jane Dumbass was allowed to get online and post her mixed photo album of baby photos, various lovers and erotic photos to say, "This is me and I rule. I take your man. I love my baby's daddy". The businesses don't care as long as they get their monthly fee paid. Yea profit motive. Way to go there. Taking what could have been a great way to augment collevtive intellience and once again (as with radio and television) and slowly turning it into another brain sucking avenue for profits and consumerism.
There was even an early time on the web where a search in Altavista would give you decent results on various topics without providing many links to companies that sell related products. But today, no matter which search engine you use, various searches inevitably turn up a lot of dreck that is meant to convince you to BUY a solution to a problem instead of BUILD one. It's no wonder that I've resorted to using Wikipedia when I have questions about things as well as AUGMENTING the information with the subscription databases that my public library provides to it's members for free. At least following those routes, one can avoid the McNet for the most part.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
I wish I knew whether the "Che" image in the article is expressing a positive or a negative aspect. Ernesto "Che" Guevara was responsible for the execution of many people.
So Mr. Author of the article. Are you saying Che would of resisted control of the internet? or Embraced the Cuban style lockdown that exists now (IN Cuba).
What exactly does the image mean in the context of the article?
"I hate to sound so negative, but someone show me where corporations and governments have actually colluded for more freedom, rather than less."
The U.S. Constitution.
And, taking your post as some sort of anti-capitalist statement, it's not exactly as if those eeeeeevil capitalists are the first people to infringe upon freedoms in the pursuit of more profit or power for themselves (and less for others, and less overall). Why, I hear they've had kings and czars and feudal systems and wars and such going alllll the way back. All the way.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
Why does copyright exist?
How dare you be so modest!! You conceited bastard!!
It's a threat to my continuing to use the Windows family of products... I'll stick with XP for a while but once I'm ready to upgrade I'm either going Mac or Linux.
Collector's Edition
Because everyone who thinks the world exists solely to entertain them keeps on ranting about how copyrighted works are not scarce since they can be copied at no cost. What they don't mention is that works that do not exist yet are infinitely scarce. Copyright is an attempt to bridge the infinitely scarce with the infinitely plenty. If it didn't exist then some of the greatest writers would have had to keep day jobs in order to stay alive and thus could not have put nearly as much effort into their work. We wouldn't have most sci-fi films because the cost of doing them would be prohibitive. It goes on. If you don't want to make copyrighted works, then that is your choice. But don't think that the rest of the world has to entertain you out of the goodness of their hearts.
Monstar L
Just for those of you who think I've now totally gone over board,
... is that a threat to internet freedom?
"Free Speech Zones" exist. They are one of the new ways of dealing
with crazed thought criminals who band together to hurl abuse at
the state. On the more sober note they are fenced off areas usually
far away from the event people want to protest where they can shout
and chant what they want.
It only then follows that we have Free Software Zones on our computers
sandboxed environments that wont really have a whole lot of access to
hardware such as the sound card or will have its video output willfully
and on purpose degraded. Vista already does this today.
On top of that Microsoft ever since XP was released Microsoft has embarked
on a drive for a "trusted computing platform" starting with the project
they initially codenamed "Palladium".
A corporation bent on taking away control over your computer through DRM
and "trusted computing", hell bent on shutting out 3rd party competition,
forcing your computer to phone home
It is the day you need an approved software stack to connect to the net.
Microsoft is planning for that day.
Profit is not just "all things good." Profit is not just income. Profit is income that is not derived from work, but from investment of money. People who take profits take money that rightfully belongs to others who actually worked for it. There is a reason Jesus got angry at the money lenders in the temple. There is a reason that lending money for profit was considered a sin.
Just because the capitalists are not the first to impose on others freedoms, and just because they do it economically rather than politically does not make it right. Freedom means having the means to support yourself. Capitalism concentrates wealth into fewer and fewer hands, because the more money you have, the easier it is to game the system. The free market can only remain free if we keep people from abusing their economic power.
Freedom means having the means to support yourself. When everything in the world is owned by a small percentage of the population, the rest of us are "free" to sell ourselves into slavery for our next meal. That is capitalism, the freedom to choose between being a slave or starving.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
> "The freedom of expression that was once available to users of the Internet Protocol is being stripped away."
Who is this Bill Thompson bozo anyway? Does he even have the vaguest idea of what IP is? It's just pure idocy to even mention IP unless he thinks Vista is somehow not fully supporting it (which TFA doesn't).
And as for our freedoms, Vista attempts (probably unsuccessfully) to enforce copyrights on content protected with DRM. It doesn't refuse to play non-DRM protected content though, does it? If consumers want to purchase DRM-protected content and purchase Vista and overpriced hardware to view it, that's just the market at work. Likely both Microsoft and the record/movie industries will lose a few customers who switch to linux/mac or simply delay upgrading. And considering Vista doesn't seem to have any remotely interesting new features (no, the flashy mac-like GUI isn't remotely interesting), it's not like Microsoft is forcing customers to accept DRM in order to get other stuff they actually want.
Not that I don't suspect Vista might not also send your personal information over the internet without your consent or even send information about the content you play to the MPAA/RIAA to attempt to detect piracy, but until someone posts tcpdump logs demonstrating something like that, this is all just bullshit.
TFA is just an alarmist piece trying to rally the support of those who don't understand technology. It's crap like this that makes the MPAA/RIAA's case for them. Vista still supports all the IP-based communication that every other OS supports. It simply supports some new content 'features' that customers probably don't consider 'features' at all. The alternative, of course, is simply not supporting such content, but shouldn't the user get to decide if they want to purchase DRM-protected content in the first place? It's really not Microsoft's job to oppose DRM, it's that of the consumer.
Well duh.. that is what large coporations and governments do..
If you had paid more attention in history class this woudnt be such a surprise.
When it gets too bad, people revolt, and we start the process all over again.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Freedom and Equality don't mix . Freedom is being free to be better than the person next to you . Be it science, power, wealth or sports.
Freedom is ambition.
My Starcraft 2 Blog
Jesus was a cool guy, but that doesn't mean you have to believe everything he said or did was right. Well unless you worship the guy maybe.
"In the game of life, someone always has to lose. To me, if life were fair, that someone would always be Oklahoma." -DKR
If you don't like Vista's DRM, don't buy it. If don't like the terms under which a song or a movie is distributed, don't buy it. If a product is defective, restrictive, or limited by design, then why in hell would you buy it. Microsoft may have an monopoly but there are alternatives. Speak with your wallet and they will listen.
You don't have to be smart to use a Mac, you just have to be smart enough to buy one
"It's all well and good to believe that, but just because some random guy on Slashdot says it doesn't mean it is (or isn't) true.
...
I was almost convinced until you said something about passing the savings on to the customer. Obviously you don't have a fucking clue what you're talking about!"
I admit that it is an old fashioned concept but it is not (entirely) dead
Consider Walmart, an entire empire was built because Walmart found a way to reduce costs and pass the savings onto the customer; had Walmart tried to reduce costs and increase their ROI on every product sold they would probably have never grown into what they are today.
Now I could be wrong but I believe that if music on iTunes (or any music store) was dramatically less expensive (say $0.25 per song) you would see a lot more money spent on music and few people would be willing to admit that they stole an album; at $4 per album I could see most parents buying their children a $20 iTunes card a month, and everyone would (possibly) download the entire album of an artist when they liked one song they heard. At $15-$20 per album the cost almost justifies the effort required to download the album for free.
Q: "how are you 'giving' the culture to the company that created a movie/song/whatever?"
A: You've missed the point that spun [the parent's poster] makes by invoking The Tragedy Of The Commons. Culture is free to use in works of art, e.g., it's simply a product of observation and interpretation by talented artists. It's very subtle, I'll grant that, but consider the case of popular films. They're the ones that summarize, codify, represent cultural aspects in the context of entertainment--hence their popularity. Spun makes the point through sarcasm: It's as though we must "give" the culture to the corporations which control the popular media in order to see our culture reflected back to us. This is the method by which we remain in, and reinforce popular culture.
I'm not claiming that you do, antifoidulus, but people who are into popular culture need some connection to the culture in order to remain in it. For some people, this is equated to "getting a life," and other variations on that meme.
Spun is saying that the media corporations' insistence on DRM, for the sake of what they "own" and their right to profit from same, robs the people of their right to participate in popular culture. The sarcasm lies in the ironic assertion that this is our duty as members of the culture.
Notice how media corporations continue to rely--and to base lawsuits--upon the outdated concept that media distribution is so costly as to give them the right to claim most of the artist's profit as their own. This is the nexus of the debate: This audience realizes--no, *proves* that the distribution costs have become trivial. We know that the RIAA, the MPAA, and their ilk are full of it, that they rely now on lawyers to roll out ancient precedents from an era when distribution costs were significant enough to warrant legal protection.
The question at hand is when/whether the masses will realize this, e.g., for how long will they pay the escalating costs to stay plugged into pop culture? The value of entertainment itself doesn't seem to be nearly as high as the value of having something to talk about, e.g., the song you heard, the movie you saw, the TV show you have on your PVR. It's the latter that has the media conglomerates starting to panic: If I tell you about something I have a recording of--or just the URL for--then all you need is for me to burn you a copy or to give you the URL. Compare/contrast to the TV show you missed, that everyone else is buzzing about. Or the film that everyone else seems to like, that's only at the Bijou for three more days. Or the song on the radio, the one that's sold out at every record store all over town.
It's a different world, entirely. It is my opinion that some kind of poetic justice is playing itself out. These same conglomerates raked in record-breaking profits while we switched to Compact Disc, because it was far less expensive to manufacture. They're simply paying the price for their greed. For now, they're paying it to their lawyers. At some point, they'll pay to transform themselves, or they'll pay with their very existence.
"Press to test."
(click)
"Release to detonate."
There are a number of business models existing on unsustainable business models; in short, they rely on selling a piece of information many times over, in order to stay afloat, when the nature of information is inherently nonconservative. It's only been the case historically that such business models were feasible, because of the difficulty in losslessly copying information. As this is no longer the case, it is also no long really feasible to make money by selling a plastic disc full of bits, at a price that exceeds both the marginal cost of the bits, and of the disc.
However, this doesn't mean that there isn't a market for entertainment. There is, has always been, and will always be, a vast market for entertainment of all forms. So it's idiotic to assume that no DRM means the death of the movie, music, or software industries. Those industries will continue, as long as a market for their products exists -- however, they will have to find new business models that don't rely on pretending that information is aspirin tablets, can can be turned out in factories and sold, over and over and over again.
The market for entertainment is probably quite inflated right now; I suspect that during this switch of business models, to something that's more sustainable and doesn't require draconian consumer restrictions, that the size of the movie industry, in particular, would contract dramatically. But that's the way of things -- a huge studio empire isn't required to produce a good film, and thus there's a lot of redundant overhead there, which needs to go. This change sucks if you make your living right now as a middleman in a movie studio, but it probably sucked being a buggy-whip manufacturer, too.
You cannot destroy the entirety of the entertainment industry, so long as there are people with free time and disposable income, who want to be entertained. Unfortunately, the entertainment industry as we know it today has grown fat and lazy; it has resisted change at every opportunity, even when such change has eventually benefited it (e.g. VCRs, online music sales). Either it will refuse to change, and go down with its failing business model, or it will stop fighting the inevitable, and rethink how entertainment is produced and sold. Either way, people will still be entertained.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Copyright is an attempt to bridge the infinitely scarce with the infinitely plenty. If it didn't exist then some of the greatest writers would have had to keep day jobs in order to stay alive and thus could not have put nearly as much effort into their work. We wouldn't have most sci-fi films because the cost of doing them would be prohibitive. It goes on.
While I agree with the limited monopoly copyrights and patents afford to creators, I used to write and still photograph, to say nothing would be written if not for copyright and nothing invented if not for patents is to ignore the vast majority of human history. When Shakespear wrote his plays he didn't have copyrights, nor did Chaucer when he wrote "Tale of Two Cities". Copyrights didn't exist when Gilgamesh , the oldest known written story, was written. Ancient Greece, Athens, was known for it's arts however Athenians didn't enjoy copyrights.
FalconShould there be a Law?
In a country like the US, if you feel like you're losing a freedom or choice, it's not the product. It's not the company. It's not your legislator. It's not the president. It's citizen/user apathy. We get what we ask for. Unfortunately, most people don't ask for much...
The problem is that they're trying to establish the principle that you don't get to control your own hardware. That's the only way to get DRM to work. DRM can never function the way they want it to on a true general-purpose computer.
Can I buy a computer without Vista and install Linux on my own? Yes.
Look at what happened with decss. We're going to end up with a future in which Linux is seen as a crippled platform. Have you ever watched a video of any kind on a Linux box, using OSS? Congratulations, if you're a U.S. citizen, you were almost certainly using illegal software. All the usable video codecs are patent encumbered, and the mpegla licensing only allows 100,000 copies of a particular implementation to be produced before you have to start paying royalties.
Find free books.
Not only is Apple's DRM less intrusive but Apple, sadly, doesn't have Microsoft's financial clout to withstand an assault from the RIAA and the like.
Apple could have made a stand, but it would have hurt them too much financially to make that stand. So they designed a DRM scheme that is at least somewhat palatable. Meanwhile, Microsoft has enough money and enough power over the computer industry to at the very least keep the DRM pushers at bay, if not break them entirely.
Microsoft does have it's own reasons for wanting some sort of DRM scheme, most of which seem to mainly boil down to them trying to force people to buy their operating system and applications. They did not need to agree to a scheme as draconian as the one they have implemented in Vista.