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The Recording Industry's Failed Digital Strategy
An anonymous reader sends us a link to the Toronto Star, where Michael Geist has a terrific article on how the record labels got the Internet completely wrong. While somewhat specific to Canada, the article' arguments are more broadly applicable. The article links together the misplaced reliance on DRM and the Canadian industry's advocacy for increasing levies on blank media to demonstrate just how wrong-headed this strategy has turned out to be.
TFA:
So now what? A tax on internet access? Charging per port?
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Anyone can see it. If EMI is preparing to offer DRM free downloads, and everyone but the other majors want to do away with it, it's only a matter of time before it's eliminated. As much as the content industry might hate it, consumer demand is more powerful than their distribution policy. If they think they can force draconian DRM on people who won't accept it, then their sales will just decline further and they will not fix any of their current problems.
It took them years to allow internet distribution in any format. It might take a few more before they will allow it in a format which will gain wide acceptance, but ultimately it's in their best interest as well as the consumers'.
The greed of these companies is astounding. They are willing to tax anything that might possibly be used as a medium for Music, just to make sure they get their cut. I don't understand how self-centered and greedy some people can be.
"I'll see you next time." - LeVar Burton
EMI sounds like some smart CIO refreshed their memory on the failures of DIVX; introduced in part by Circuit City to negate the early years of an open DVD format. If you wanted to "own" your movie, you just purchased a "silver" status (at more or less the same cost of a DVD) but were only able to view it on your DIVX player (and other hoops to jump through). Sound familiar? You do not need these lock down schemes to part my money from my wallet. Just look at my DVD and CD shelf. Really, you don't need DRM.
I hope, when they die, cartoon characters have to answer for their sins.
Although I agree that both DRM and levies applied to recordable media were a bad choice to begin with, I also don't think there is a strategy yet that properly addresses the issues of digital rights. Replacing the levy on recordable media with levies on the networks supplying the media is a bad idea. Currently, in Canada, we only pay a levy on specific media, and if we are not going to make duplicates of copyrighted material, we can buy cheaper media, and bypass the levy (or just ignore the 'levy heavy' media all together). If the levy is then put onto the internet or networks, we will be forced into paying, even if we never planned on downloading copyrighted work.
AACS was the advertised poster child of "perfected" DRM. Everyone kept holding that up as the end of DRM cracking. It is dead now, and suddenly nobody in the media is mentioning it.
Trusted computing is the last on the table, though I don't really classify it's completed implementation as DRM.
Because the "ideal" trusted computing platform is built to refuse to run unsigned code period, a "trusted computing" compliant computer really cannot be classified as general purpose any more than a box wrench could be classified as a screwdriver.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
... that I'd never pay per song or per oldsk00l CDs. And yes, I *can* afford to buy stuff, I just want my money here in my bank account, thank you very much. Why waste my money on crap, when there's way better stuff for free (like online radios like di.fm or trance[]control's stuff). Shoutcast forever! Legal, free, and way better.
I am for it. Bump that levy. And make it apply to ALL digital content, and not just music.
Given that I just got a cease-and-desist for sharing "Click" (my network was), and I don't want to have to bother with it -- I want movies treated the same as music is here in Canada.
Unfortunately, I predict that the Candian Recording lobby will "convince" the government to eliminate the levy, and put in strict DMCA style regulations; you know, to conform to the American model.
Maybe I am alone here, but, on reflection, I LIKE the levy. The idea of spending a bit more up front to keep the weasels away appeals to me. I don't really want the government trying to introduce "micro-payments" (I am sure they would REALLY fuck that up). I don't want an "on-line" levy -- because a lot of on-line activity is NOT for "copyright material". But media commonly used for that purpose? Sure, give them the levy.
Just my opinion.
Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061
While the existence of the Blank Media Taxing is mentioned in the article, it doesn't mention the slightly hilarious side effect of this tax - it makes it extremely difficult to go after copyright infringers because, after paying this tax, it would be covered by Canada's double-dipping laws ;)
:(
As an Aussie - I'm considering a contracting stint in Toronto. Those Canadians might have flappy heads and a penchant for saying "eh" a lot, but they do have one of the most liveable cities in the world, and more sensible copyright laws.
Oh an a decent temperature - it was bloody 40 degrees C last weekend
3laws: No freebies, no backsies, GTFO.
Let us not forget that in a recent article, we learned that DRM can add value to Music and other Media, by allowing you to only play media on your Windows-Vista-enable-Dell. Thus, don't simply write off DRM! You don't really think that Consumers want to be trusted?
I just heard an interview with Bob Ezrin. He just did a presentation at the East Coast Music Awards where he basically ripped the industry for being clueless. "It's like they're fighting the atom bomb with muskets and swords." He told the story about talking with an industry executive and asking him where his computer was. The guy said he didn't need one because his secretary opened his email. Ezrin's reaction was something like: "You're so dead." There has been serious carnage in the music industry and it isn't over yet.
From the conference website: "The conference program will include a presentation from legendary producer Bob Ezrin. Having produced, mixed and played on legendary albums by Alice Cooper, Nine Inch Nails, Lou Reed, and KISS, Ezrin is perhaps best known for his production work on Pink Floyd's seminal The Wall. He is currently working with Universal Music Canada on talent development and the creation of a next generation music company."
I know RIAA is enemy #1 here on /., but please realize that their entire business model has evaporated, and they are evaporating too. The treatment here on /. is like whipping a dying horse.
/. come up with a different solution for them?
Music and song were thriving for thousands of years before the recording industry.
The only thing that brought the music industry to life was the ability to control distribution due to -cost of equipment- (recording studio, vinyl production, radio stations)
with technology advances, this control has gone away, and their entire business model has evaporated.
They really have no choice but to try to artificially create a business model based on DRM and legislation, but obviously, these measures are bound to fail.
Can anyone here at
"Fix it"
"As an Aussie - I'm considering a contracting stint in Toronto. Those Canadians might have flappy heads and a penchant for saying "eh" a lot, but they do have one of the most liveable cities in the world, and more sensible copyright laws."
Toronto?!? Come on - everyone knows Montreal's got better food, better public transit, better parties, and cheaper housing.
DRM is an attempt by the Recording and other Media industries to revive a Medieval printing press publishing control Model, where the powerful "Stationers" could control government to create laws to protect the monopoly for publishing works of the often Dead authors.
Powerful organizations/companies would like to put the Internet back in the bottle and rewind to the printing press model, where there is a middle man available to control the use and sale of information.
The strategey is pretty interesting. Essentially, the old business model with DRM specifies that when you are buying a song, you are paying for access to listening to that song. With the new DRM-free model, the RIAA is acknowledging that anyone can steal music online. What you are fundamentally paying for is the convenience of not having to go through the hassle of finding a torrent online/waiting for it to come on the radio/ripping it from a friend's CD.
I for one, don't quite understand how a non-DRM business policy would actually work. If I understand the non-DRM movement, it is desired that music be sold in a format that is non-restricting and usable in many places(most likely mp3).
But will this new strategy really keep piracy at low levels? If I know that one of my friends has a hot new track that he downloaded from a site that lets the users download MP3s, it would seem stupid(in my opinion) for someone to fork over a dollar for the track. If I can get a good from free(from the friend), why in the world would I pay for it? Would it not become even easier to share copyrighted content?
What will keep users not to share files? Morals? Do music companies expect some voice in my head to go "STOP, THAT'S STEALING" before I accept a file transfer from my friend? For some reason, I don't see that happening, for me and many, many music lovers.
Being a consumer, I would love to have non-DRM'ed music, but I don't see how it would be "better" for companies. I would imagine a world with "light" restrictive measures(but yes, I understand, drawing the line would be difficult for what is legal/illegal) would be best.
It's truly comical to see how completely music company executives ignore reality. Watch MTV for an hour or two, and it quickly becomes apparent that music simply doesn't matter much to its primary target demographic. Based on how little air time it now gets, sales should be down much further than they are. Somehow the executives blithely ignore this, however, and blame their troubles entirely on file sharing, p2p, and so on.
They need to concentrate on finding some real talent. Right now they seem to concentrate primarily on finding second-rate wannabe-models, and then try to cover their complete lack of talent with lousy recording, lots of digital processing and when that doesn't work, attempt to distract from the mediocrity with synchronized dancing.
Once they've found some talent, they need to do a good (not over-produced) job of recording them, and sell the recording at a reasonably fair price. Here again, they've fallen down badly -- at one time, the amount of work and machinery raised enough barrier to entry that prices are recordings were at least partially justified. That's just no longer the case. Photocopiers haven't hurt the book market noticeably, simply because most people prefer a nicely printed and bound book to a photocopy, and a photocopy generally doesn't save much (if any) money anyway. The recording labels don't want to compete similarly because it would cut their profit margins -- but it's the only route that has any chance of being truly viable in the long term.
The fact is, if you want to sell something, you have to start by providing something that people actually want. Then you have to set a price that people will accept. These are simple facts the record companies have to face. Until they do, neither DRM nor lawsuits will improve their situation -- or even noticeably slow the rate at which it deteriorates.
The universe is a figment of its own imagination.
There are two industries here 1) artists/directors/moviemakers/bands/actors etc. who make the works we admire. 2) then there are distributors/publishers etc who have gotten the works of group 1 to us. Group 2 is no longer profitable/necessary in its present form. The internet drops the cost of distribution Computers make studios much less expensive digital reproduction makes copies perfect As I see it group 2 failed to produce sufficent income to support itself. Some I know call it picking bad artists / scripts / etc. It blamed the media it had comitted the industry to - digital. Rather than take the blame for the artistic quality they were producing they blamed copying. They said they were losing billions in China - when did they MAKE billions in China. But the politicians followed the lead of the loudest wallets and lawyers designed a system. Unfortunately engineers had to build it. I think better people are trying to take it apart. Then there are people like me who have absolutly no intention fo letting Sony or anyone else F**K up my computers to better their pocketbook. One warning was quite enough for me.
RT-909
I'm a hipster!
What these RIAA asshats don't realize is that they have been a huge impediment to satisfying the needs of customers. They discovered a way to print money and are unwilling to admit the party is over.
As soon as consumers found a way to bypass the aging distribution model, the dam was let loose. Or to abuse a few other metaphors... the genie is out of the bottle... the cat is out of the bag...
"No matter where you go, there you are." -- Buckaroo Banzai
It's so easy to poke holes in how awful the industry's current strategy is... but I haven't heard anyone convincingly lay out a better strategy. It's truly harder to come up with a good original idea than to rip other people's ideas to shreds.
I will just say this: I think the industry's paranoid, DRM-pushing strategy is based on them hugely misinterpreting the data of recent years.
"Piracy is increasing!"
"Our sales are declining!"
Flawed conclusion: Sales are declining due to increased piracy!
Flawed course of action: Get more strict about stopping piracy!
Reality: Very few instances of piracy are lost sales; most people pirate just because they can, but if they couldn't, they sure as hell wouldn't go out and buy legitimate copies of everything they've pirated. People will pirate anything regardless of quality, but most people won't pay for content that sucks and just keeps getting worse. Also, you can't expect people to keep paying $18 for a pre-pressed audio CD when they know damn well it only costs $2 to make (since they can do it themselves at home on a PC and know what's involved).
Correct conclusion: Sales are declining due to decreasing value proposition (overpriced sucky content on increasingly cheap media).
Correct course of action: Aggresively seek out (or create!) better content and promote it; stop promoting crap; drop price-per-unit.
Moderator hint: a comment is neither "Flamebait" nor "Troll" if it is true.
There is no limit to what they're going to want to tax. With this in mind, perhaps it's best not to have any levies at all.
A better solution may encompass letting the recording industry go tax free in all regards. By this I mean no income tax, no sales tax on the materials purchased (i.e. the CDs), etc. In exchange for this, they would have to agree not to sue anyone unless it's for true piracy. I.e. selling someone else's intellectual property (like making copies and eBaying them off).
Pfft. If you had better food, better public transit and better parties, the housing wouldn't be cheaper :)
I'll take TO over Montreal. And soon, it might happen.
Montreal has all those english-hating french people though
It seems that since a recording becomes completely worthless once the first run is let loose in the wild, maybe the recording industry should start releasing recordings on a pre order only basis.
I buy a newspaper almost every day, although if I wanted to save the 50 cents, I could surely find a discarded newspaper or ask a friend to give me his copy after he's done. Or I could hang out next to a newspaper vending box and piggy-back on somebody else's coin to steal a copy for myself. But the convenience of picking it up from the vendor or the box without having to look around or ask around is worth more to me than the money that I could save.
Come to Calgary ... We have all the French-hating English people
I don't quite understand the "the blank media levy is terrible!" stuff that I keep seeing.
:)
I, as a Canadian, get to download all the music I want. The price for that is not prohibitive. The organization gets the money (them not paying it out fairly is a problem with the mechanics of the system, not the reasoning behind the system).
Not all media is used for copying music? So? I pay gasoline taxes that go to road infrastructure even when I use the gasoline in my lawnmower or snowmobile or to soak engine parts. I pay school taxes even though I homeschool my kids.
Instead of looking at it as "they consider me a thief, I am subsidizing people who are stealing music", I consider it "Hmm, I have a license to get any music I want, legally". The extra money on my iPod buys me the right to get any music I want, not just those that I have on CD. You don't want to do that, fine, but the right is there.
I think I must be missing something, because I can't reconcile the "but in Canada they can download!" and the "but the levy is bad!" statements. You often see the former in discussing the American system, and the latter when discussing the Canadian system.
An open licence to copy is a convenient good thing, in my book. The levy seems about as reasonable a way to collect a fee for that as any. It seems very Canadian to tax something to provide a service to all.
Man alive. I live in Toronto, but have to admit that ontreal women are more gorgeous, and better dressed.
blah, blah, blah...
I read two issues in TFA: 1) listening to Jobs and rumours about a DRM-free EMI, DRM is on the way out and 2) the copying levy in Canada is also on the way out, albeit not so quickly, and maybe to be replaced by something else. I'm thrilled by the first, but less optimistic (and possibly less enthusiastic) about the second.
What pisses me off about DRM is that it is not just about ensuring that content cannot be distributed to anyone holus-bolus, but it is about restricting use far and beyond current practise. It is useful to think about DRM not just in the context of say music distribution, but rather in terms of its impact on content distribution and sharing in general. A good example is Stallman's The Right to Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html; I don't think there are many people out there who will dispute that I should be able to loan you a book to read, but the current climate and direction of DRM is to indeed to restrict that practise. 'The Right to Read' might have seemed a little far-fetched in 1997 when it was written, but it sure doesn't look all that unlikely now, does it? DRM is no longer (and maybe never was!) about saving content producers from low-effort, high-volume piracy - it is now about fundamentally changing the consumers rights regarding the use of that content.
The copy levy in Canada was intended to recover dollars lost to producers and distributors as a result of technology that facilitated easy copying and the resultant alleged lost revenue. My problem with this is that we don't know whether any revenue actually is lost, and even if we accept that some is, quantifying the lost revenue is not really possible. Well, I guess you can make numbers up, but that's about it. :)
The levy has turned out to have a useful legal side-effect in Canada in that it has provided a basis for stopping P2P downloading from being identified as illegal, much to the chagrin of the distribution industry, who lobbied for the levy in the first place. Extending the levy to other devices I don't like the sound of quite so much.
However, as other posters have noted, we really haven't addressed the problem of compensation for the admittedly low-effort, higher-quality-that-cassette-mixed-tapes digital piracy that abounds today. If I download a song from my P2P network of choice, the artist hasn't been compensated. I'm suspicious of the levy being used as a mechanism for such compensation, because it is so circuitous, but I don't see the industry letting this one go now that they've got it, unless they are blindly pissed off by the legal side-effect.
As long as the levy lets me download music without fear of reprisal, and if those levy dollars could be used as a rough justice method to compensate artists for piracy that does occur (and yes, I do know this may be difficult/not possible), then I'm okay with the levy. I may even be able to live with an extension of the levy
Are there any other ideas out there about how we can fairly compensate artists for uncompensated distribution of their work?[17] Leary, T., White, C., Wood, P. R., Bhabha, W. D., and Wirth, N. Lambda calculus considered harmful. In Proceedings
I have a collection of about 500 cds mostly purchased at full price from chain stores. You do the math as to what that put in the pockets of the RIAA.
Most of these were purchased before DRM existed and include numerous full-catalogue purchases. I have no ripped-off material.
I have about 3 or 4 DRM'd cds. They SUCK. They all give me problems on older players that I have, or refuse to play on my PC through the speakers. That's not trying to copy them or anything fancy, they just don't F'n work on sub-optimal equipment, where everything else does.
End. I don't buy music anymore. Not if it has a DRM logo on it. Neither do I steal it BTW, I just don't consume music anymore, except for some local homegrown bands who cut their own slugs, sell direct and pocket the income.
Goodbye RIAA.
"Montreal has all those english-hating french people though"
Really? I just spent a month serving on a bilingual jury - 4 english and 8 french canadians ... everyone treated everyone else with the utmost respect. Many involved were bilingual - including the entire jury, the judge, the crown and defense lawyers, our police escorts, the clerk, the bailiff, the sheriff, many of the witnesses ...
The french don't hate the english - they just hate jerks, same as everyone else does ...
"Better food? Debatable. Most restaurants are overrated here, they just rely on the undeserved reputation of Montreal for food."
Most restaurants are overrated everywhere ... but home cooking is definitely better in Montreal than in Toronto. Sandwiches are not considered real food in Montreal. Breakfast isn't breakfast without cholesterol.
"Public transit? You mean the Metro where people SMOKE in the train, light up CRACK PIPES and generally have tons of homeless people loitering around?"
People don't smoke on the subway. I had to take it to the courthouse for 4 weeks, and not once did I see anyone smoking on a subway train. Then again, I wasn't on the subway at 01:00h in the morning. If you see someone doing it, use your cellphone to make a video of it, then call the cops ... its a $300.00 fine.
As for the homeless, yes, they come into the stations during the day. It was brutally cold this last couple of weeks; it was -23 here last night. Are you going to begrudge them a little warmth?
"Better parties? A party's a party."
"Cheaper housing? You don't live here, that's for sure."
Actually, I do, and I'm paying $200.00 less per month to to rent a house (including heating and electricity), than my aunt is paying for a cramped 4-1/2 in Toronto - she moved back there in December, same week I signed my lease here.
"I'll take TO over Montreal. And soon, it might happen."
So go. Just remember, the traffic is also a LOT worse in Toronto than in Montreal, so you're also going to lose another 20 to 30 hours a month in traffic to and from work ...
I have 3 sisters living in Toronto, so its not like I'm totally unaware of what its like there ... one of them comes down here a few times a year and stocks up on real bagels every time, because you only get those crappy cake-style bagels in Toronto.
I quite agree that DRM isn't good or necessary, but don't DVDs still ship with CSS encryption on them? I don't own many DVDs (a dozen, all were gifts), but as I understand it CSS encryption qualifies as a digital restriction despite being cracked. deCSS is still being passed around semi-secretly from servers in countries that don't have a DMCA equivalent, and no major free software OS distributes deCSS as part of the standard distribution, isn't that still the case?
Digital Citizen
I really REALLY wish i had the foresight to record the episode, but around 1998 there was an episode of beyond 2000 (discovery channel) where they detailed a software called "hitmaker".
it took a piece of music, analyzed it based on a bunch of criteria, and graphed it. Where it fell on the graph determines if it will be a "hit" or not.
The advent of this software conincides with the homogenizing of all musical genres, and the stagnation of the music industry in general.
Music simply ceased evolving, period, because it was no longer a&r's making the decision based on how much the liked it, or how innovative and new it was, and was instead based on a machine's analysis, on a series of 1's and 0's.
2 years later, when the last of the naturally evolved music had lost its flare, sales started flagging and didn't stop until they had reached a plateau consistent with the loss of a major segment of their listeners and customers, the people who want to hear original, different, and groundbreaking tunes.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
I know RIAA is enemy #1 here on /.
I thought they were #3 on Slashdot. I guess I haven't been paying attention.
I thought the top list was;
#1 Microsoft
#2 SCO
#3 **AA
Thanks for the update.
I guess it's time for a new poll to update the official list.
The truth shall set you free!
The pirates offer a better product. Most of my friends would be willing to pay at least $.99 a song if it didn't have DRM and was encoded at a higher bitrate than iTunes, but they don't get that option - it's either accept the DRM, or pirate.
Many people make the assumption if it isn't marketed, there is not a choice except to pirate. This is wrong. I do vote with my pocketbook, but you don't have to pirate to cast a no vote on high price and low quaility. Buy high quality alternatives instead. Money Talks! If emusic had no customers, then the RIAA can declare victory. Quite the contrary is happening. emusic is doing well. Some artists and labels are already following the money and going inde.
The restrictiions on mainstream contnet is becomming problematic in consumer relations. (Apple lawsuit regarding interopability) The number of non-subscribers due to restrictions is huge. These consumers buy games, DVD's, upgrade computers, buy CD burners/DVD burners and such with their dollars they are not spending on DRM content. The value is much higher. The industry notices where the consumer spends their dollars. When they feel left out of the money, they then look to see what they are doing wrong. This is why the Steve Jobs comment got so much attention. He got what was keeping people out of the online store.
The truth shall set you free!
pr0n industry won't pick up on watermarking because of privacy issues, hence watermarking is dead before it's born.
First, please don't compare visual artists with recording artists directly. The skills don't necc. overlap. /. member has taken it on himself to remember one of the "worst" poets of the 19th century. ("What ho! The Tay Bridge has blown down!")
I believe that the Beatles' music will be remembered a century from now--hey, its still being remembered now is worth something. Likely the more iconic drawings of John Lennon will be remembered as well. I suspect Paul McCartney's paintings will be remembered, too, but I don't know if they'll be remembered as good examples.
Hey, at least one
Yes, we moderns have a strange idea of "great." It's not that we don't appreciate Beethoven, Vivaldi, and Mozart; often, we like them, but we just don't recognize them when we hear them. There aren't as many classical music buffs as there used to be, and I am sure that 100 years ago, there were classical musicians famous then & forgotten even among most buffs now.
It's hard to know which modern artists are likely to last 100 years, because the art of recording music hasn't been around much longer than that. The art of recording it onto something that isn't a wax cylinder is likely shorter than that. But that doesn't mean none of them will last.
If the Beatles (as a group) were going to be forgotten, it would have happened before now. Same for Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Elvis, the Who, and Marvin Gaye.
There is a fine line between recklessness and courage... -- Paul McCartney
Sony is enemy #2 because of its RIAA membership. /. would still like them because of all the Playstations.
If Sony were not in the music biz, then it would not have sold CDs with rootkits on them. If Sony had not sold CDs with rootkits on them, then maybe members of
There is a fine line between recklessness and courage... -- Paul McCartney
what happens if my ipod is stolen with all watermarked (i.e. linked to me) songs? the thieve publishes to some p2p networks, and I am liable for millions of copies (i.e. billions of dollars)?
watermarks solve nothing, you cannot sue anyone for being robbed.
Sure -- off the top of my head...
Keep the old business model in place, for the time being, and branch out. Start signing artists to contracts specifically for digital distribution -- do it without DRM or other inconveniences. This is an important detail: sign a huge variety of artists, not just the few that fall into the lowest-common-denominator-pop paradigms.... sign *talent* that has something new and different. Set up distribution and commerce channels that make it not only easy, but *inviting* for people to check-out the music you're publishing, and purchase it in a format that can be format shifted an infinite number of times, that is not watermarked, etc...
I'd stake my life savings on this model... If you give people something of quality, make it easy for them to get it, and don't overcharge for it, your business is bound to do very, very well. Once they see the ratio of profit to expenditure on the new "product" they'll either change or absolve the old businesses, as they'd largely be a ball-and-chain around their ankle.
Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind. - Dr. Seuss
...tagged this story with the word "music"? It's barely applicable to this, and, come to think of it, most other submissions relating to the RIAA these days.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
The actors are in full view.
Purchasers very often use credit cards, so any person with the correct legal clearance. can get to the person buiyng stuff anyway.
SO agian, which privacy issues?
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
"...but I haven't heard anyone convincingly lay out a better strategy. It's truly harder to come up with a good original idea than to rip other people's ideas to shreds."
You make the false assumption that anybody at all needs a so-called "strategy". When recording technology became viable in the 20th century, both copying and distribution remained inconvenient, time-consuming, imperfect, expensive and difficult in the first place. The "media industry" (the power-brokering cartels, excluding members of the centuries-old profession called "artist") served a very real and useful purpose. They distributed audio and video to people in a mutually beneficial business relationship.
The personal computer removed all those barriers. Turns out the means of copying and distribution are quick, convenient, lossless, cheap and easy. The media industry is no longer a cheaper, easier, faster option for people to listen to music etc. The media cartels are middlemen whose offered business proposition is no longer the best available.
So of course nobody offers a better solution to their problem. "Their problem" is moot; they are just an accessory, and they are obsolete. There is no problem, and there is no "they" in the first place. There is only a dinosaur who served well but is no longer useful, but who clings to life through self-serving legislation at the cost of the public at large, all for love of money.
One of the industry's most accomplished producers, Bob Ezrin agrees and said as much in his keynote address at last weeks East Coast Music Awards:
b obezrin.ram
Interview with cbc after this speech:
http://www.cbc.ca/soundslikecanada/media/20070219
(apolgies for the real media link)
I'm looking for the text or a recording of his speech at the awards, no luck yet.
Because the "ideal" trusted computing platform is built to refuse to run unsigned code period
This is a common /. meme, but it's incorrect. A TCPA TPM has no ability to control what code can or cannot run on the system. It's just a little device that sits on a bus (usually USB, though I think there may be PCI implementations) right next to all of the rest of the devices on your system. Like all of the others, a TPM is controlled by the OS and applications, not the other way around.
A TPM does four basic things:
An operating system can refuse to run unsigned code, but it neither needs nor really benefits from a TPM to do that. What a TPM offers (through the PCR hashing and sealing of keys) is a way to make data inaccessible unless the machine is booted with a certain set of software as well as a way for a machine to prove that it is running a certain set of software.
By itself, a TPM isn't a very useful tool for DRM, and it certainly doesn't have anything to do with making a machine not a general-purpose computer -- you can always boot a different set of software that does whatever you want, because the TPM has no way to stop you.
NGSCB/Palladium needs one more component to be able to implement really strong DRM: Hardware-supported virtualization, using Intel VT or AMD-V. The result would enable strong DRM, but only within specific virtual machines. Other virtual machines would still be fully general.
In theory, you could implement strong DRM with only a TPM and no virtualization. The process would require you to boot into a "trustworthy" OS and then use remote attestation to prove to the content provider that your machine is "trustworthy". The content provider would then give you a key which would be sealed to your trustworthy state by the TPM. This key could then be used to encrypt media which you could only play when booted into the trustworthy OS.
The problem with that is that the TPM attestation process only attests to a single hash value, meaning that all the various permutations of "trustworthy" configurations would have to be enumerated and the content provider would have to know the hashes. For several reasons, that's impractical. Workarounds based on attestation chains, where the TPM attests to PCR values at multiple points in the boot process, can be used, but those "prior" attestations are weak. There are also real problems with how to manage changes in the software stack (e.g. security patches), which would completely change the PCR values of the running system and disable access to the sealed keys unless an error-prone key migration dance was successfully performed during each update.
Not only that, such an approach would only work if the OS had no exploitable security defects that might allow a user (usually with administrative access!) to bypass DRM checks in the running system. Securing a whole, general-purpose OS against the system administrator is exceedingly difficult. Look how much trouble we have securing OSes against code downloaded from random places and run under non-admin accounts in restricted sandboxes.
The solution proposed by Microsoft in the Palladium design is to simplify the problem by having the OS boot up first (unhashed), then enable virtualization, installing a hypervisor underneath the OS and shifting the OS from running natively on the machine to running in a VM under the hypervisor.
Given that state,
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
I'll say there is something wrong. If great art is a form of worship, Clapton should have ranked much higher. After all, Clapton is God.
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you said:
A TPM does four basic things:
* "Seals" keys to a specific PCR value, by XORing the TPM's internal master key with a PCR value and using the result to encrypt a key, which can then be stored by the OS/application software on the hard disk.
And just who owns "the TPM's internal master key"?
Can the owner of the machine see it/change it?
Can the owner of the machine disable it for warm and fuzy feelings? (and not "a-la-P3-s/n-disabled-until-remotely-reenabled" disable either)
IOW: with a "TPM-enabled" mobo, who owns who?
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
"Everywhere" doesn't go on and on about how great their food is, though. I am *tired* of eating utility grade meat in so-called "great" restaurants.
"People don't smoke on the subway."
I have pictures of a guy smoking in the train, at 8:30 AM. I see a person smoking on the subway AT LEAST once a week. The crack guy was exceptional, but not unheard of. I know, because I'm the guy taking the pictures. Oh and when you hear the voice announcing a metro delay because they're 'waiting for authorization', that's code speak for "we're waiting for the rent-a-cops to drag away the smelly crack addict."
"Are you going to begrudge them a little warmth?"
I pay nearly 50% of my gross income in taxes. Let the assholes who steal my money actually DO something with it, rather than me having to step on vomit and piss-stained old clothes every day. Let the homeless crash in Tremblay's digs, the smug egotistical fucker might do something for them, then.
"... except in Toronto, where they roll up the sidewalks after midnight ..."
So go out an hour earlier. Toronto also has a much bigger array of places to pick from.
"So go. Just remember, the traffic is also a LOT worse in Toronto than in Montreal"
At least I'll be able to afford a car. How much higher are the wages and the taxes lower?
Use of the word 'Man' as reference to humankind excludes women...
Wikipedia says... The English term "Man" (from Proto-Germanic mannaz "man, person") and words derived therefrom can designate any or even all of the human race regardless of their gender or age. This is indeed the oldest usage of "Man" in English. This derives from a Proto-Indo-European root *man-" meaning hand. A similar cognate is Old Norse "mund", hand. The distinctive and dexterous hands of humans, compared to those of other animals, are the basis of this term and the similarly derived term, "manual" (from Latin "Manus", hand), by hand.
However, your point is well taken when you say "Welcome to the 21st century, enjoy your stay.", as it is well known that these days people often employs gender neutral terms in order to be politically correct. I am sorry, but I just never got the hang of all that politically correct speech. It all began well after I graduated and formed my primary vocabulary. I hope that my respect for women-kind is obvious in more direct, everyday actions and behaviour, even if I do not adopt the latest trendy double-think. Speaking directly to any women who may be reading this, if I have offended you, please accept my deepest apologies. Clearly women have made every bit as much or more contribution to our culture as men, but why in the world would you ever doubt that anyhow?
I'm suprised nobody brought to court by the RIAA hasn't argued that they already paid for the Music/Video because all their blank media has a Levy (tax) based on the industry losing money to copying.
So you paid for it.
If the RIAA doesn't like the deal, then they can either end the Levy or increase it -- it seems to be their ballgame. But you cannot accept money for a service, and then say it wasn't enough -- can you? How can they presume a tax based on theft? Isn't that a subsidy for usage?
And I agree with teknomage1 -- about 99.5% of my DVDs and CDs has had my data backed up, or passed around or distributed -- not the RIAA's lost music. Most of the music I have is from my Wife's CD collection on a hard drive to run her iPod. CDs and DVDs of music just gather dust.
>>"ad space available -- low rates!!!"
You must be new here. The chance that a woman reads any given post on /. is minute, if not infinitesimal.
What was once true, is no longer so
If one simply watched the music which falls off their personal playlists over the years, it's quite obvious that music is a commodity. When it's hot it has value and when it's not it's practically worthless regardless of how free it is. Since hot music is so easy to come by the only thing left to sell is its quality. 48, 64, 96, 128, 160, 192, WAV...take your pick. 7 models fo music just like 7 models of anything else. Oh...and for anyone out there thinking that all these models are still downloadable...your right but just leave it up to the marketing and advertising folks to fuel peoples fears into making sure they have a pristine copy. I mean they do it with everything else out there. The recording industry may not make the gobs of money they used to make but I am sure they won't starve either. Just my 2 cents. Hedghog
I call bullshit. You say "I pay nearly 50% of my gross income in taxes." and yet you can't afford a car?
here's a 1991 Toyota Corolla for $300.00 right here in Montreal.
:) Fair enough. The point of gender non-specific language and my post was to make sure that the contributions of women, and non white males are not overshadowed and made invisible by their absence in discourse. As you say, "women have made every bit as much or more contribution to our culture as men" and many people wouldn't doubt it, but don't believe that everyone feels that way; there are a lot of mysogynists out there who _would_ invalidate a woman's contribution to culture, and it is only a fairly phenonmenon where an assumption otherwise is (may be) the norm.
Regards,
PA.
Eighteen occurrences of some variation of the word "criticise". Eighteen. Insert jokes about DRM'd thesauruses.
"I say, Jeremy, isn't that Reginald B. Stiffworth, the young, upstart chap who's been touting the merits of the Recording Industry's Failed Digital Strategy?"
"Why, yes, I dare say that's the fellow."
"Oh, let's criticise him!"
"Oh Reginald... I disagree!"
Evidently, the key to understanding recursion is to begin by understanding recursion. The rest is easy.