Slashdot Mirror
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
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.
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.
On the contrary. Microsoft decided that they would implement the DRM because they believed it was necessary to get the media industry onboard.
Thing is, if neither Microsoft nor Apple had gone the DRM route, they would still get on board, because the alternative is to get NO money from people downloading with their media online. With or without DRM, getting online gives them a chance to make a profit, as opposed to not getting online, and having no chance.
If anything I am more angry at Microsoft for knowingly and intentionally helping the MPAA and RIAA strengthen their grip.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
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
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
Doubtful, I for one, in my experience testing Vista, was not inspired. I was so not inspired, in fact, that I tried to go back to windows XP only to find OEMs no longer include working system reinstall disks, and that essentially if I want to get my system back to the way it was I have to pay the Gateway mafia their payola or download an illegal version of Windows and put my legal key in. My response is that I'm sick of paying for dinner and being served cowshit, while they give the bums eating out of the garbage my meal. If I was running pirated Windows to begin with, I would've never had a problem. My problem, essentially, is attempting to buy a Windows PC with Windows installed and think I actually have the ability to run the OS and recover it should I have any errors or difficulties.
I'm going to make sure what I buy from now on is Linux compatible. I've had enough of this "you don't really own anything" culture. DRM will lose out once customers finally realize how much they are being screwed by the big houses. And it won't take that long for that to happen, because as the DRM gets more complicated, the amount of technical difficulties with it will increase, and people will begin to wonder why HD-DVD doesn't work any better than DVD and won't work on anything, while their DVDs will. Resulting in nobody buying into it.
Computing has been free for far too long and there are too many clever hackers involved for this crap to go down now. We've become too smart, and now we'll just move around instead. I don't give a shit if I can't watch HD-DVDs. I won't. I'd rather have freedom than a hi-def version of Speed II: Bladder Control.
Judges and senates have been bought for gold; Esteem and love were never to be sold.
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
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."
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.