HBO Exec Proposes DRM Name Change

surfingmarmot writes "An HBO executive has figured out the problem with DRM acceptance — it's the name. HBO's chief technology officer Bob Zitter now wants to refer to the technology as Digital Consumer Enablement. Because, you see, DRM actually helps consumers by getting more content into their hands. The company already has HD movies on demand ready to go, but is delaying them because of ownership concerns. Says Zitter, 'Digital Consumer Enablement would more accurately describe technology that allows consumers "to use content in ways they haven't before," such as enjoying TV shows and movies on portable video players like iPods. "I don't want to use the term DRM any longer," said Zitter, who added that content-protection technology could enable various new applications for cable operators.'"

Comments

Marketing over content

[JustNiz]

A turd by any other name is still a turd.

1984

[Tom]

War is peace.

In a related story...

[Goose42]

...George Carlin got a massive headache the same time this HBO exec thought this up.

Re:Freakanomics

[AKAImBatman]

DRM = Digital Restrictions Management

Silly me. This whole time I thought it meant Digital Rights Management.

P.S. ATM Machine.

Re:Okay, It's just a term

[cptgrudge]

exclusively happy surprise sex

Re:Freakanomics

[Anonymous Coward]

He saves $100 a month, so that's about $25/week for beer. So his cases are running about $12.50. I'd rather buy one case of Sammy for the one week, though. :^)

The name is not the problem

[kimvette]

The problem is not what they call it, the problem is this:

Customers recognize, consciously or subconsciously, that when they buy something, they are entitled to several things. This includes, but is not limited to:

• unlimited use; in the case of books, this means bringing it wherever you want, reading it whenever you want, lending it to friends, and so forth. In the case of digital media, it means playing it on whatever you want, whenever you want, lending it to friends, format shifting, and so forth.
• Right of first sale: this includes the ability to do what you like with what you buy (aside from violating copyrights outside of Fair Use exemptions), including selling what you purchased when you no longer desire to possess it. In the case of audio CDs, records, and in the case of books, this involves transferring ownership of any and all copies/backups along with the original (unless the backups are all that exist due to fire/theft/etc).
• Fair Use; this includes using clips in derived works for satire and/or parody, timeshifting, format shifting, viewing on any device you please, and so forth. Also note that Fair Use does not provide for mass distribution to other people.

Re:Freakanomics

[Rei]

Well, in my (admittedly very limited) cracking experience, it's not that hard.

1) Decompile the code into assembly.
2) Search for usage of a string that you expect to be near the validity check you're hoping to remove.
3) Find any conditional jumps in the current block of code (following branches as you come to them).
4) Invert them.
5) Try the program out and see if you get past. If you do, you're done. If not, continue on.
6) Find all callers of the piece of code you're looking at.
7) For each of them, go back to step #3 and repeat the process.

You can also do variants like adding your own jumps in or replacing existing jumps with nops.