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Father of MPEG Replies To Jobs On DRM
marco_marcelli writes with a link to the founder and chairman of MPEG, Leonardo Chiariglione, replying to Steve Jobs on DRM and TPM. After laying the groundwork by distinguishing DRM from digital rights protection, Chiariglione suggests we look to GSM as a model of how a fully open and standardized DRM stack enabled rapid worldwide adoption. He gently reminds Jobs (and us) that there exists a reference implementation of such a DRM stack — Chillout — that would be suitable for use in the music business.
It has already been established that DRM is bad. It doesn't work and it hurts everybody.
So frankly, who cares about this small part of Jobs' argument?
His main point -- that there shouldn't be DRM -- is correct.
Despite disliking DRM, GSM is the most sophisticated communications protocol that I have ever seen. I have read the standard (dispite getting a headache in 5 minutes) and it is totally locked down using encryption, session keys, etc. Perhaps I am in error, but I doubt the standard itself has ever been cracked- unless via law enforcement with the complicity of the companies involved.
Yet it is the most widely used wireless personal communication standard in the world. Woe are the hackers and crackers who try to attact it directly. But like any encrypted system, the weak points usually lie elsewhere. Those would be the point of attack.
If Steve Jobs gets rid off it. He will be my personal hero and I am buying myself a Mac.
Go Steve, Go!
The content industry wants one universal DRM. Everyone thought that would be MS and they were happy. When Apple won the battle, they were not happy. What you are seeing by calls for Apple to license their DRM is this frustration made public and an attempt to allow MS to embrace, extend and extinguish Fairplay. Jobs called their bluff and they realize they just may well be fucked on this. Interesting times.
At least I wasn't the only one who felt the GSM reference seemed completely unsupported. While I know what GSM is, I have no personal familiarity with the GSM stack or how it has anything to do with restrictions on the use of digital content in computers. Why can't the author explain those things? Simple journalism: who, what, where, why, how.
If music were priced at its real cost plus the same small profit that all other manufacturing enjoys, it would cost $1.00 an album. After all, production costs have already been recouped for 99.9% of popular music, hundreds of times over for anything in the top 40.
And with such low pricing, people wouldn't even think twice about buying every new album that comes out in their genre. Youngsters have no money anyway, so asking them to cough up inflated prices is just completely ridiculous, and counterproductive since kids create much of the music buzz. They'll eventually purchase all the CDs that they really appreciate once they've grown up anyway --- just have patience!
You wouldn't need DRM not only because very low cost would make non-market acquisition pointless, but also because everybody would have all the music they want --- there would be nothing left to copy, in one's area of interest!
[The argument that pricing music logically would make new music cost hundreds of dollars per album is bollocks: like in all industries, development of a new product should be funded from past profits, and amortized across projected future sales. Music should be no exception, and the fact that currently the income from sales of age-old music is pure untouched profit and not reinvested to fund new production just shows the extent to which greed has distorted the music industry.]
DRM is only an issue today because of the artificial scarcity created by artifically high pricing --- greed.
The reason the author brings up GSM is because it has some similarities with iPod DRM: Devices have a key, the key authenticates the device to the network, and there is encryption support for content. However, there are lots of major differences:
1. with GSM, your "key" is in your SIM, which means you can take it with you from device to device.
2. Wtih GSM, you only need the key to access a particular network. To switch networks, you throw away the old key and buy a new key. Now that the US (and soon Canada, yay!) have number portability, you don't even lose your phone number when you switch. Unlike DRM on music, where switching brands means losing all music.
3. With GSM, encryption is used to PROTECT your conversation and service; the idea is to prevent thieves from cloning your phone or eavesdroppers from listening in on your converstaions.
Interestingly, according to the gsm-security website faq, both the authentication and encryption protocols have been shown to be trivially broken, either due to poor implementation (using only part of the keyspace) or because the encryption algorithm wasn't that robust. So much for "GSM is a successful DRM".
Based on many past threads and discussions- you are making a bit of an overstatement.
Lots of people here are anti-drm / information wants to be free. In varies from the college student being as ethical as they can afford to be (buy a few CD's and then pirate the rest when they run out of money) to the folks who have absolutely no respect for copyright to people like me that have no respect for the extended copyright periods that I feel were bought by media companies (If it's over 28 years old, I'll pirate away unless i can get it for a *reasonable* price).
For example: I put down $200 smackers five seasons for get smart. On the other hand I ahoy'd some 1960-1966 comics in cdisplay format vs paying $50 for them in hardback format. I'll also download things so I can take them on a trip with me- for example I downloaded Moulin Rouge (which I own on DVD) because I wanted to take it with me and not risk losing my original.
I have a problem with DRM period. I think we have a temporary window where these products are grossly overpriced. I completely disagree that an "artist" should get paid for the rest of their life for a song when the rest of the world gets paid by the hour. The purpose of copyright is not to provide artists/ creators retirement but to encourage them to create works for the public. Given how many artists there are striving to create entertainment today- I really doubt they need any more encouragement.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Did anyone read the open letter to Steve Jobs over at the Inquirer?
7 522
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=3
Full Tilt
DRM already is in the users hands as is.
The IT guy publishing media on that windows server is a user too.
It goes both ways.
No, it's not "1984" yet. But the technology is now in place... for the first time in our history, there's no practical reason why it can't be tomorrow.
This is push-button book-burning technology, plain and simple, and it's being rammed down our throats.
Those who developed it should be executed.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth