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

Freakanomics

[AKAImBatman]

"[I asked my tech people, and they said that] theoretically those analog outputs could be disabled, forcing consumers to use a secure digital connection to watch HD content. [Then they tried to convince me that such measures were mostly token measures, but I ignored them.] A lack of copy protection is holding HBO back from making its own content available in high-definition through its popular HBO On Demand platform, [because I didn't take the time to listen to my technologists. I decided that the real problem was the name, not that the technology was backed by poor use of legal constructs.]"

I'm still waiting to see how long it takes these people to realize that they're actually driving piracy with every day they wait. They should consider the data gathered in the "freakanomics" research. The data clearly shows that most people are honest, and those that aren't simply aren't. If you offer up content at a fair price, the majority of users will purchase that content rather than resorting to illegal or immoral means to obtain it. Meanwhile, the DRM restrictions will do little to stop those looking for a free ride. They're not going to pay for it in the first place, so why worry about it now? If they can't get past your DRM scheme (not likely), they'll rip it from the DVDs or HD-DVDs.

The software industry had to learn the same thing many years ago. Copy protection annoyed the paying users while doing little to stop the pirates. Why can't anyone get that lesson through their head?

Re:Freakanomics

[tringstad]

The software industry had to learn the same thing many years ago.

As far as I can tell, the software industry to this day has never learned this.

-Tommy

Re:Freakanomics

[Anonymous Coward]

In the past I believe that they have been called "drivers." Also, they have made things work, as opposed to keeping them from working. Also, drivers haven't in the past sought to manage digital rights.

Re:Freakanomics

[aichpvee]

I'm not going to call it piracy anymore. I prefer Consumer Choice Enablement. CCE allows consumers (not customers, since you won't be paying for the service) to enjoy content not only in ways they haven't before, such as on portable video players like the iAudio A2, but at a more reasonable price than they have been offered in the past. This is also a win-win situation for the content creators as it alleviates all packaging and most distribution costs, as well as providing excellent word-of-mouth advertising for FREE!

Re:Freakanomics

[Propagandhi]

Why can't anyone get that lesson through their head?

This baffles me more than it should, I guess. The idea that there should be some invisible barrier between me and the 1's and 0's in my computer's memory (solid state or otherwise) is insane. This shit honestly needs to be explained, slowly and forcefully, to the higher ups that keep greenlighting this shit.

Re:Freakanomics

[TheMeuge]

The answer to your question is simple - it's greed. Unadulterated, foaming-at-the-mouth greed.

The media executives have for so long held onto their positions of power, privilege and wealth, that they have lost any notions of reality. As far as they are concerned, they are gods, and the consumers are the worshipers.

When they get a whiff of even a minute challenge to this doctrine, they are engulfed in rage, because it is something they cannot control, regardless of how much money they throw at the issue. After all, as far as they're concerned, the consumers are the commodity - they own your eyes, and sell them as they please (not quite that simple in the case of HBO, but you get the idea). So they get angrier and angrier, until this rage spills over as utter stupidity.

P.S. They might as well call executions a "happy express to heaven".

Re:Freakanomics

[AKAImBatman]

DRM = Digital Restrictions Management

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

P.S. ATM Machine.

Re:Freakanomics

[SadGeekHermit]

I recently got a bill from Time Warner Cable for 160.00. 140 of it was for cable, internet, and etc. 22 was for Girls Gone Wild and something even dirtier. Of course, I have no problem with THAT, heh heh...

But jeez, 140 bucks for TV???

I called them and cancelled everything except my broadband internet connection. My monthly bill went from 144 bucks to 44 bucks. I saved a hundred bucks a month by dropping cable television!

The girl on the line sounded positively HURT by this. She asked me "But why do you want to cancel TV?" I told her it just wasn't interesting and she said "oh" in a quiet voice.

I felt at that moment as if I'd just dumped a sweet, loving girlfriend and broken her heart. It was a bizarre thing.

It didn't stop me from saving a hundred bucks, though! Woo HOO! That's two cases of beer a week!

YouTube and AtomFilms are better anyway...

Re:Freakanomics

[zuvembi]

This shit honestly needs to be explained, slowly and forcefully, to the higher ups that keep greenlighting this shit.

Preferably with brickbats and pointy implements.

Re:Freakanomics

[bobcat7677]

Parent should have been modded insightful...not funny. Fight fire with fire.

Re:Freakanomics

[A nonymous Coward]

P.S. ATM Machine.

Isn't that the factory that makes AT Machines?

Re:Freakanomics

[Anonymous Coward]

The answer to your question is simple - it's greed. Unadulterated, foaming-at-the-mouth greed.

Good to see that media execs and geeks have something in common. The greed works both ways, media companies want money, geeks want movies/music/etc. Both sides are willing to do whatever it takes to get what they want, and there is a vicious circle each trying to outdo the other technologically or through the legal system.
If you want to break the circle, just don't consume. It's not like what the media companies are putting out is a necessity for life.

Re:Freakanomics

[Synchis]

I actually made a post along these lines earlier, but with reference to the theft prevention systems.

The same applies here:

Universally, honest consumers want:

The best product, for the lowest price, with the most convenient delivery.

As an example:

Furniture company A offers a high-end fridge for a good price, say $1200, and charges $50 for delivery.

Furniture company B offers the same fridge for $1200, but offers free delivery.

Which company is going to get your money?

Not all choices are this easy, but thats the basics of the industry of today. And so:

If we take todays content (TV, Movies, Music) and present it to honest consumers (I stress the HONEST part) at a reasonable price ($1-2/episode, $2-4/movie, $0.50-1.00/song) and deliver it to them in industry standard formats DRM free. How many people out there would sign up for this, and be more than willing to fork over their hard earned cash for this service? Can I see a show of hands?

Heres my personal take on it... at the prices listed above.

I pay $52/mth for my satellite service. So for a year of TV watching, I pay $624.

On a service above, to get the shows I like (all 3 CSI's, Heroes, House, Bones, Jericho, Smallville * approx 22 episodes each per season = 176 episodes) for approx $352.

Whoa... even at $2/episode, I would be paying half price(or so). And I would have the episodes in digital format that I could watch where, when, and on whatever device I choose.

I know that this is an idealistic approach to it... the problem is bigger than this... but I think I do a good job of making my point. Media producers need to let go of old approaches to product distribution and get with the times. People want a good product, for a good price, with a convenient delivery method.

Re:Freakanomics

[Cadallin]

How about Personal Choice Enablement? I am not a customer. I am not a "consumer." I am not a "citizen." I am a person. It is personhood that comes first. All else is predicate upon personhood, and its about damn time somebody reminded these dehumanizing fuckers about that.

Otherwise I agree completely and in a serious fashion with your premise.

Re:Freakanomics

[soft_guy]

As far as I can tell, the software industry to this day has never learned this. There was a time in the 1980s where every time you bought a game one of two things would happen: either they tried to play games with the floppy disk by adding a certain number of bad sectors, etc. or else at the beginning of the game you had to "enter the first word of the second paragraph of page 46 of the manual".

I haven't seen people do this for years. Now you usually have to hae some kind of license key or nothing at all. No one ships defective media on purpose and the way that licensing is implemented isn't just amateur hour anymore.

Re:Freakanomics

[Falladir]

...to manage digital rights.

I could be wrong, but I think the management is supposed to be digital, not the rights. :)

Re:Freakanomics

[Aladrin]

"No one ships defective media on purpose"

Yes they do. Check a little further into CD protection schemes. That's exactly what they do.

Instead of the words in the manual, they now have the software check online to see if it's valid.

Software DRM has changed considerably over the last 20 years, but it still exists.

Re:Freakanomics

[HAKdragon]

Actually, a number of PC games do rely on "bad data" on the discs to avoid being copied casually. Software, such as Alcohol 120% and Daemon's (sp?) Tools have methods of getting around these various protections.

Re:Freakanomics

[nxtw]

No one ships defective media on purpose and the way that licensing is implemented isn't just amateur hour anymore.

Games on CD or DVD use copy protection schemes that often rely on areas of the disc that would often be ignored or skipped or certain sectors that are intentionally burned as if they are "bad".

Re:Freakanomics

[zero_offset]

Those people who take your service cancellation requests make commissions from convincing you to keep your service. I'm thinking there's a pretty good chance she saw "SadGeekHermit habitually orders PPV softcore pseudo-porn" and concluded the sad-dumped-girlfriend voice might open you up for a discussion where she could set the hooks.

On a side note: what are you drinking? I would hope $100 would get you four cases. My "default" beer is Sam Adams and it runs about $25 for a case, when you can find it by the case, and most people consider it expensive. (In reality MY cost is much less since I now buy kegs, but in terms of cost by the case...)

Re:Freakanomics

[penguinoid]

Fight fire with fire.

I agree, and have changed my sig accordingly. If they can call it a PATRIOT Act or "Cute Furry Kitten Act", it is time we start doing the same right back at them, until people learn that thy can't judge something by its name or, even better, pull out the pichforks and torches and demand a return to proper naming conventions.

Re:Freakanomics

[AvitarX]

Funny how I can still play Ports of Call or Civilization from memmory, but cannot do starcraft because all I have now is the disk.

Also, Activation leads to bigger problems (apps not games) if a company goes under and you want to read that old family tree file.

Re:Freakanomics

[geekoid]

" No one ships defective media on purpose and the way that licensing is implemented isn't just amateur hour anymore."

yeah..that';s why it takes moments after release for there to be a crack.
I have downloaded a no CD crack for every game. Yeah I bought the game, I just want to play it without hearing the cd whine up and down and cause a stutter in the game.

Re:Freakanomics

[bill_mcgonigle]

Software DRM has changed considerably over the last 20 years, but it still exists.

Argh - I can hear my C-1541 drive heads chattering now!

(that never stopped copying either...)

Re:Freakanomics

[tverbeek]

They learned it. Then they forgot it.

In the days of Lotus 123 R1 and dBASE III, diskettes were hacked to prevent duplication without copy-prevention-cracking software, or required parallel-port dongles to be attached to run the software. Consumers revolted against this, arguing that they had a right to make backup copies, and that the failure of a dongle or its drivers shouldn't lock them out of their data. Developers relented.

For a while. I'm not sure what happened. Maybe it was a complete turnover of software execs. Maybe they foolishly thought their new copy-prevention schemes lacked the old ones' fundamental flaws. Probably because the internet changed one-to-one piracy into a one-to-many operation, and you all proved to them that the consumers' cries of "trust us" couldn't be believed. So plenty of blame to go around.

Re:Freakanomics

[Lumpy]

Want your favorite shows back?

set up a old POS 1.2ghz or higher machine at a friends house with mythtv on it. have it after recording use a modified version of myth2ipod to make a compressed Xvid of it and then ftp them to your home PC/server at night.

Works great. I have done this for 1 year now and it works great. A buddy in Tokyo added my scripts to his mythbox for me and now I also get a nice feed of fresh anime for my daughter and incredibly fun to watch game shows for me.

I throw both of them $5.00US a month for the trouble. they are both more than happy and I get the very few shows I watch without having to troll isohunt or pirate bay.

Re:Freakanomics

[Hoi Polloi]

Can we rename MTV then? They have nothing to do with music anymore. How about "Constantly Repeating Awful Programs" or CRAP.

Re:Freakanomics

[zero_offset]

Right, right. I must have "enabled" my reading comprehension skills, HBO-style.

Re:Freakanomics

[bynary]

A tird by any other name would smell just as bad.

Re:Freakanomics

[ceoyoyo]

You missed the point. If you were paying, you'd be a customer. With Consumer Choice Enablement you don't have to pay, you just consume!

Re:Freakanomics

[mazarin5]

I am not a "citizen." I am a person.

I get your point, but I'm willing to take that classification. A government has a responsibility to the citizens of its country. What grates my nerves is being referred to as a taxpayer, as if that is my sole purpose in my nation: funding.

Re:Freakanomics

[lgw]

I've played at least one game tha made my CD-ROM chatter almost as bad as a Commodore Floppy. I stopped playing for fear of damaging my drive!

Re:Freakanomics

[Anonymous Coward]

"I haven't seen people do this for years. Now you usually have to hae some kind of license key or nothing at all. No one ships defective media on purpose and the way that licensing is implemented isn't just amateur hour anymore."

As other people have pointed out already, they most certainly do.

And I know this because I've often downloaded the "no-cd" patches for my legitimately-purchased and DRM-encumbered games in order to:
A) not have to dig out the CD every time I want to play,
B) not have to wait for the CD to spin up,
C) not have to worry about the DRM system becoming incompatible and breaking the game (e.g., for older games, the DRM is often incompatible with new OS versions before the game is, so stripping the DRM increases compatibility),
D) not have to worry about the CD getting scratched or otherwise damaged,
E) sometimes it improves the performance to remove certain (poorly-implemented) DRM schemes, and
F) because I paid for the game and I'll play it any way I please, thank you very much.

As long as I'm not using multiple licenses simultaneously or copying it, I don't feel ethically challenged by doing this (and, no, DMCA anti-circumvention laws don't exist in the country in which I live).

DRM is alive and well in software. And just as annoying to the user and easily circumvented as ever.

It's quite legitimate to wonder why so many software manufacturers still bother with it, especially when it costs money to buy or develop these DRM schemes, but many do.

I'm not counting the manufacturers who only have a license key stamped in the case or manual, and which require you to type it in at installation. That's fair and unobtrusive, and I respect those companies for not hindering the user experience unnecessarily.

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.

Re:Freakanomics

[Vainglorious Coward]

P.S. ATM Machine.

Isn't that the factory that makes AT Machines?

No, you're thinking of the automated ATM machine.

There must be something in the air today - only this morning, I heard a radio presenter talking about "personal PIN numbers"

Re:Freakanomics

[StikyPad]

demand a return to proper naming conventions.

HA! A return.. that's a good one.

Re:Freakanomics

[d34thm0nk3y]

How about Personal Choice Enablement?

I have a better one yet. How about we call non-commercial copyright infringement "Fair Use."

Has a nice ring to it, no?

Re:Freakanomics

[Rei]

DRM is alive and well in software.

No it's not! Remember, it's "Digital Consumer Enablement" now!

I, for one, welcome this change. Nothing makes the public dislike something faster than giving it an Orwellian, "War-Is-Peace" type name. I mean, picture these name changes:

SUV: "Environment Enhancing Vehicle"
Semi-Automatic Rifle: "Bloodshed Prevention Device"
Watching paint dry: "Paint's Amazing Adventure!"
Shooting fish in a barrel: "Experts-only Marksmanship Challenge"
Zombie invasion: "Undead Welcoming Party"
Invading Iraq to pursue your hairbrained geopolitical theories at the expense of the local population: "Freedom"

Re:Freakanomics

[imidan]

Yeah, what is the deal with that? Why do I have to have the CD in to play? Given the right software, which anyone can get, the CD is trivially easy to copy to my hard drive. Or I can download a no-CD crack off the Internet. Why do they make this little hoop for me to jump through? Look, I bought the game. I have the sales receipt and everything!

My theory is that the people who make DRM technologies are kind of like telephone sanitizers. We've just been paying them for so long that if we suddenly give up on this utterly wasteful technology, then we'll be stuck with a lot of out-of-work DRM people, and they'll be meddling in the kitchen cupboards, rearranging them so we can never find anything anymore.

Re:Freakanomics

[Haeleth]

I get a pit in my stomach every time I read some self-righteous tirade from a supposedly intelligent person that amounts to nothing more than a cry for free entertainment.

As well you might. You won't see many of those in a story about DRM, though, since DRM doesn't affect the people who want free entertainment - they can just steal DRM-free copies off some P2P service, and never have to worry about the arbitrary restrictions that are imposed on their law-abiding fellows.

The people who complain about DRM, by and large, are honest types who've paid for their entertainment, only to discover to their dismay that they've wasted their money because they can't actually enjoy the product in the ways they were looking forward to.

Re:Freakanomics

[InvalidError]

Digital Rights Management was deemed a misnomer by educated people, is getting increasing heat from the general public and is now getting called "Digital Restrictions Management"

To "dispose" of the heat, the MAFIAA decides to rename it Digital Consumer Enablement... I'll write it off as "Digital Consumer Extortion" in my book as I expect every control-freak measures to be implemented in the name of DCA to be at least as potentially restrictive and encumbering as anything else that got introduced in the name of DRM.

I hate those moronic execs who try to convince the general public that the likes of DRM allows people to do stuff people could not already do... the only thing DRM enables is taking the willing consumers' wallets to the cleaners without said consumers being able to do anything about it when they hit a DRM brick wall they did not see coming.

Re:Freakanomics

[badboy_tw2002]

Because the name of the game is _delaying_ the inevetible. Eventually its going to be cracked - that's a given. No one today is selling a game expecting that a No-CD patch won't make it out. What they don't want to do is have a Day-0 crack out. They want you to at least consider buying the game before you download it from your buddy, depending on how badly you want it. Reasonable logic? I can kind of see the point, but as the top level poster mentioned, the people who are pirating probably aren't going to buy it anyways. But at least they'll have to wait a little longer than the honest guy. Kind of like hardback/paperback I guess.

Re:Freakanomics

[double07]

Reminds me of that Simpsons quote: Marge:I don't want a cellular transmitter sticking out of my roof. OmniLady: We prefer to think of them as, "keep in touch towers."

Re:Freakanomics

[Opportunist]

It ain't that easy anymore.

Many programs today start running CRCs of themselves to disable exactly this practice (i.e. making a conditional jump unconditional or inverting it, which used to create the funny side effect of the game only running without the CD inserted, but not when it was present :)), they just set a variable and test it a long time later to thwart simple approaches like your step 2, or they use code altering techniques, execute code out of data segments or even the stack (and now try to convince Vista that this is a good idea...).

Cracking games was a fun pastime in the 80s and 90s, with people competing who can do it first. Someone who cannot be me (of course not, I'd never ever do anything illegal) holds a personal record of just under 10 minutes, including the disassembly process (which took quite a while in the old days). But that changed big time with the advent of "professional" (read: done for profit, not done with a lot of knowledge) copy protection mechanisms.

If the computer content industry really wants to find out who cracks their games, all they gotta do is take a close look at the times when people take days off. Whenever a new version of a copy protection program comes out, I bet a lot of very good people take a day or two off. :)

how about...

[smitty97]

Consumer Rights Access Program

Re:how about...

[TCQuad]

No Content Left Behind?

Marketing over content

[JustNiz]

A turd by any other name is still a turd.

Re:Marketing over content

[Jeff DeMaagd]

Yep. DRM 'got' its bad name simply by being bad. Any new name will eventually earn a bad name soon enough once the grass roots gets its message out and when customers see it for what it is. I think they will have a hard time making their new acronym stick.

Re:Marketing over content

[Tom]

No, it ain't, and that's the problem. Read Whorf or Korzybski for some insight into just how much language shapes our thinking.

Do you think the Germans would have joined into a "brutal extermination of a random pseudo-religiously defined group of citizens"? Nope, but they went for "cleansing of the aryan society of the evil jews which destroy the german people".

Or look to more recent history - an "enemy combatant" is still the same thing as a prisoner of war, just by a different name, right? Well, turns out no. Or the fact that Bush didn't need congress to approve his war because it wasn't a war, just an "armed conflict".

Words are powerful. Politicians and marketing drones understand that.

Why not call it...

[swimboy]

doubleplusgood warmfuzzy protection for all your digital lifestyles!

Try...

[Anonymous Coward]

Digital Consumer Encumberment

Honestly, does the name change anything?

The old saying Governments change...

[hkgroove]

The names change, the problem stays the same.

Okay, It's just a term

[Stanistani]

Next task:

Redefine 'rape' as 'enthusiastic love-making.'

Re:Okay, It's just a term

[Kelbear]

Suprise sex.

Re:Okay, It's just a term

[Stanistani]

happy surprise sex

Re:Okay, It's just a term

[c0d3h4x0r]

Surprise sex.

As in: THAT was sex?

Re:Okay, It's just a term

[LWATCDR]

I like the term pre consensual sex.

Re:Okay, It's just a term

[cptgrudge]

exclusively happy surprise sex

DRM = Digitally Restricted Media

[sdo1]

DRM = Digitally Restricted Media
DCE = Digitally Constrained Entertainment

A turd by any other name would still smell as foul... er, or something like that.

-S

Translating service.

[Applekid]

'Digital Consumer Enablement would more efficiently confuse consumers "to prevent the use of content in ways they haven't before," such as enjoying TV shows time shifted to when they want and movies on portable video players like iPods where they can see them more than once. "I don't want to use the term DRM any longer," said Zitter, "even my Grandma knows by now that DRM is bad, so obviously we have to change the name of it."'

Re:Translating service.

[PurifyYourMind]

Jakob Nielsen, is that you?

I must send a gift to Bob Zitter

[Weaselmancer]

A bouquet of "fully organic fecal aroma enhancers". Don't worry - they're just like roses.

Suddenly I feel enabled!

[paladinwannabe2]

Earlier this week I got to have fun with a game I legally purchased -twice- despite being unable to find my CD. After downloading the iso and using Daemon Tools, I was 'Enabled' to play my game again! Yes sir, I was certainly using my content in ways I hadn't used it before!

Re:Suddenly I feel enabled!

[The_DoubleU]

You don't buy a license when you buy a car but the entertainment industry wants us to believe that if I buy a CD or DVD that I'm just buying a license to watch/hear content under their regulations. However if you go to the shop and ask for a replacement for your damaged CD then it is suddenly an object and you have to pay for it. Until they sort this out I will download music of CD's that I already bought.

Note. I'm only downloading music of eMusic or CD's none of the illegal stuff.

Enablement?

[TheRaven64]

Perhaps he could give me a single concrete example of something that I can do with 'enabled' media that I could not do with the same media with the DRM/DCE removed.

Re:Enablement?

[Millennium]

What he's saying is that without strong DRM (or the renamed version), the content providers will simply take their ball and bat and go home.

History shows otherwise. The media always comes around eventually.

Try to remove it, and the HBO mafia will come aknockin'.

And thus, we get to the real kicker: essentially it's a racket. Legitimate users surrender their legitimate rights to the media, and in exchange the media will continue to provide the same crappy level of "service" they provide now.

Re:Enablement?

[$RANDOMLUSER]

Perhaps he could give me a single concrete example of something that I can do with 'enabled' media that I could not do with the same media with the DRM/DCE removed.

Just one - play the media on the DRM/DCE crippled media players which will be the only hardware you can buy.

Makes as much sense...

[bearinboots]

... as Windows Genuine Advantage.

Put a positive spin on the name and you can fool anyone!

Re:Makes as much sense...

[aichpvee]

That's funny, I've always seen windows genuine advantage as a negative spin. The more something is like actual microsoft windows the less likely I am to want to use it!

ya..

[wizardforce]

"Digital Consumer Enablement would more accurately describe technology that allows consumers "to use content in ways they haven't before," In other news HBO announced new functionality for DRMed CDs- as a fancy coaster. No longer will people be restricted to AOL disks to support their drinks.

Renaming fun

[dissy]

I can't agree more!

I no longer want anyone to call it 'copyright violation', but instead lets call it 'early retirement to the public domain'

Powerful Idea

[rlp]

His idea is very powerful and also enhances the growth of plants.

Yeah, right.

[rob1980]

Just because "baking brownies" is a euphemism for "taking a shit" doesn't mean it's going to smell any better.

In other words...

[Cracked Pottery]

The consumer has exactly no rights that are no extended by content provider. DRM was actually a more neutral term, since it doesn't assert that some rights do not intrinsically belong to the customer.

When are they going to actually SELL something?

[cHALiTO]

I'm tired of this SHIT.

Wake me up when they're ready to actually SELL me a record or a movie. I don't want no 'license' to listen/watch something or any shit of the sort. I want to OWN a COPY. Copyright says I can't redistribute copies. Fine. But I want MINE to be MY OWN, and do with it whatever the fuck I want.

They can't have their cake and eat it too... and if they can.. well, they shouldn't.

Sadly, correct

[happyfrogcow]

He's sadly correct that successfull deployment of DRM is only a good marketting campaign away.

TFA Headline: "Don't Call It DRM"

[Mateo_LeFou]

My counter-headline: "Call It Whatever, but Stop Doing It. It's Pointless"

Let's play the name game

[suv4x4]

Those people will never get it. The name doesn't matter. What's so sinister about "Digital Rights Management"? It sounds pretty nice to me. The bad connotations aren't coming from the name, it's the essence of what DRM is.

People keep thinking that the order and choice of letters is all it takes to turn something bad into something great.

This has been happening also in the way people have called people with mental handicaps throughout the years, and the constant "reinvention" of the terms, to keep the names less insulting:

-----

Socially responsible guy: We shouldn't call them "idiots" anymore. That's insulting. We'll call it people with mental retardation: retards.
General public: Yea, that is a nice neutral name, no bad connotations.

One year later:

General public: My brother is a damn retard, I hate him.
Socially responsible guy: That's insulting. We shouldn't call them retards anymore. We'll call them people with "slow mental development". Slow people.
General public: Yea, that's neutral and nice. Cool.

One year later:

General public: My neighbour is "slow" or something. Huhuhu.
Socially responsible guy: We shouldn't call them "slow", that's insulting. Well call them "people with special education needs". Special people.

One year later:

General public: My new coworker is "special". Huhuu, get it? "Special". Hehehe.

----------

Basically you can change a name any times you want. Bad fame will come to haunt you never mind how hard you try.

Re:Let's play the name game

[Shajenko42]

There's a term for this - the euphemism treadmill.

Call it what it is...

[FellowConspirator]

The technology is a Fair Use Circumvention Kit, consisting of equal parts technology, marketing, and industry-written legislation.

The term Fair Use Circumvention Kit is not only much more descriptive of the true nature of the beast, the acronym is also easy to remember, catchy, and equally descriptive.

Re:Call it what it is...

[KewlioMZX]

And for programmers to create software to access this technology: Fair Use Circumvention Kit - Edition for Developers

Obligatory Futurama

[richdun]

Slurm Queen: As for you, you will be submerged in Royal Slurm which, in a matter of minutes, will transform you into a Slurm Queen like myself.

Small Glurmo #1: But, Your Highness, she's a commoner. Her Slurm will taste foul.

Slurm Queen: Yes! Which is why we'll market it as New Slurm. Then, when everyone hates it, we'll bring back Slurm Classic, and make billions!

(thanks to The Neutral Planet)

Excellent Idea!

[Greyfox]

I propose "Herpes".

Yeah I would rip that song from the CD to my ipod but the herpes kept me from doing it.

Yeah I would post that clip from Colbert on Youtube but... you know... the herpes...

That'd be awesome!

In a related story...

[Goose42]

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

A rose by any other name

[Vrallis]

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet...

A steaming pile of shit by any other name would still smell like shit.

Tactics like this make me sick. Every college student working on Marketing degrees should be rounded up and put to work on a farm. At least shoveling shit there would be of benefit to humanity.

It's not buggery

[spun]

It's an internal colon massage! Now bend over...

Great quote

[gr8_phk]

HBO's big concern is the analog hole--in essence the gap in DRM that lets consumers capture the unencrypted analog signal from an HD signal. He, apparently, would like to plug the hole, but can't due to meddlesome laws.

That would be the meddlesome laws of physics right?

What's in a name

[CelticWhisper]

Digital Consumer Enablement, you say? That would turn DRM into DCE.

Now, we've played this alphabet-soup game plenty of times before, and it's interesting to note that a name-change like this comes about just as "Digital Restrictions Management" is starting to overshadow the industry-approved term in the minds of the public.

Therefore, I hereby propose that from this day forward DCE shall be known to stand for Digitally Crippled Entertainment.

Mr. Zitter, we can play this game for as long as you like. And our side will always win.

He is trying to make a point, but badly.

[Russ Nelson]

He is trying to make a point, but he's making it badly. He's trying to claim that there are people out there who are only producing entertainment because it's copy-protected. Which is obviously bullshit, since CDs have no copy protection, and in the libdecss days, anybody can rip a movie they purchased and store a copy on their hard drive. This state of affairs has not reduced the amount of entertainment for sale. His point -- that Digital Restrictions Management might allow for more entertainment -- is not obviously incorrect.

Calling it Digital Content Enabling is a poor way to make his point, because it implies that people would accept a different name for DRM. He thinks that renaming it to reflect the effect HE HAS NOT PROVEN will help people accept DRM.

Rightsizing

[toriver]

This is a suit doing the same eupheismology as when the negatively laden "downsizing" (which was still better than "decimating" I guess) was turned into "rightsizing". These days the negatively laden "offshoring" has also been substituted by "rightshoring".

So they need to come up with a term that starts with "right". "Rightlocking" sounds about right since you're locked to the industry's restrictions.

So: "Rightlocking". Remember, you read it first on /.

Not quite right

[Aim Here]

Taking away consumers fair use rights, and the abilities to copy data is now 'enablement'?

Okay, I can see where they're going with this. It opens up a whole new way of looking at things.

Perhaps those guys in Guantanamo bay were being introduced to cellroom-based liberation therapy, where they are given brand new rights to stay in tiny windowless cubicles behind bars in Cuba, unlike the rest of us, who have to be kept out of there with fences and machine gun nests and minefields. And those Abu Graib so-called "torture victims" were in actual fact being given the benefit of the government's pain-tolerance management entitlement scheme. And at Virginia Tech recently, we had a private citizen taking it upon himself to offer the staff and students a free program of ballistics-based physiological refurbishment.

I think the people behind this 'Digital Consumer Enablement' idea should use it as the basis for a self-administered proctological insertment opportunity.

That's funny

[Control Group]

I also don't want to use "DRM" any more.

I suspect he and I disagree on ways and means, though.

That's the fundamental conflict

[mbessey]

The reason we have DRM is that the media companies don't think that their interests are aligned with those of the consumer. The hell of it is that most of the time, there's no conflict. If HBO makes DRM-free video available on-demand, most of their existing customers would use it just about how you'd expect. They'd occasionally pay whatever nominal fee, and watch that episode of the Sopranos that they missed last week, and everybody will be happy. HBO gets another revenue stream, and the customers get improved ease-of-use.

On the other hand, you know that *somebody* will set up their PC with a cablecard (or whatever) and just start downloading everything they can get and then uploading it to the internet where non-subscribers can get it for free.

HBO is understandably worried that if their most popular content is available for free, some customers will stop paying for it. Based on prior experience with people "pirating" cable, I can't say that they're wrong. People used to regularly break into our cable company's distribution boxes and strip off the notch filters back in the days of analog cable, and there's a brisk business out there on the internet for devices to help people to cheat cable & satellite TV channel restrictions.

I'd like to believe that DRM-free media will eventually win out, because it's so much more convenient for everybody involved, from the producers, to the consumer electronics industry, to the end-user. Unfortunately, there's some anecdotal evidence from the recent experiences of the music industry that the existence of DRM-free digital coipies of content just leads to rampant copying, and that does have some negative effect on sales. The music industry went digital without an effective DRM system in place, and now they're stuck with it - you can't stop making CDs, or nobody would buy your music.

That's a "mistake" video companies are eager not to repeat.

Re:That's the fundamental conflict

[schwinn8]

True, but there are a few issues with your statement.

First off, the argument is that if they charge a FAIR price, people would rather pay for it than pirate it. Just because someone puts the entire HBO library on the internet doesn't mean that EVERYONE will download it. At a fair price, most people would rather pay for it and get a guaranteed "good" copy of the content. Apple's iTunes has proven this fact, since they are pulling in tons of money for 99c tracks (which the industry said was too low.)

Same goes for the cable industry - the reason so many people pirated it is because it's not a fair price. I pay over $40/month for BASIC cable from Adelphia (now Comcast, so I expect the rates to increase) and I get a crappy picture that is very apparent on my EDTV. It's not a matter of local hardware (all my wires are brand new, etc)... it's crappy signal from the head-end. They admitted this on at least a few channels, but say it's out of their control... BS.

I used to have digital cable (with one of their crappy boxes) and it was no better. I would see blocking artifacts when the signal would drop all day long, and all the time. And I get to pay more for that.

If you put out a quality product at a fair price, then there won't be any problems. When you try to say that you're going to lockdown your content (which is mostly crap these days anyway) because there is no DRM... who do you think is going to be the loser there? The pirates will ALWAYS find a way to circumvent the protection... and the customers trying to be legal will run into problems because of mistakes and bugs and other dumb issues. So, you lost the pirates, and you lost your customers. It really is that simple.

So don't bother spewing forth the propaganda that the **AA has been pitching. It's not about enabling the consumer... it's about greed. Period.

Prior art

[Vainglorious Coward]

ZDNet's David Berlind already uses the acronym C.R.A.P. (for Content, Restriction, Annulment, and Protection)

Sounds almost as good as ...

[Tribbin]

Trusted Computing (c)

Interesting name...

[Darundal]

Calling DRM "Digital Consumer Enablement" is the same as calling the rape and assault of a woman "Automatic soul-mate bonding".

Re:DCE = Digital Crap Enforcement

[Anonymous Coward]

Digital Control Enforcement
Digital Content Estopple
Doughnut Cream Euphoria
Digital Content Enslavement
Digital Consumer Enslavement
Digital Consumer Extortion
Digital Crap Exposure
Digital Control Establishment
Digital Consumer Enema
Dumb Consumer Enslavement
Drowsing Consumer Enrolement

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.

calling it that

[little alfalfa]

Changing the name from Digital Rights Management to 'Digital Consumer Enablement' is like changing the term rape into 'surprise sex'. Either way, you're still getting fucked.

Re:Wrong name

[marcello_dl]

If you're against cute fuzzy bunnies, you must be a terrorist!

I'm a "Terror Driven Management of Public Affairs Enabler", you sensitivity challenged clod!

Back to topic:

"Simply let your 'Yes' be 'Yes,' and your 'No,' 'No'; anything beyond this comes from the evil one."
Matthew 5:37

QED.

Re:No, it's about the almighty buck

[Migraineman]

The reason we have DRM is so the media cartels can create an artificial shortage and control the price. If the songs, movies, TV shows are readily available, you'll get more of a free-market pricing response ... which is exactly what the studios don't want.

The entertainment industry's business model is fundamentally flawed. Up until recently, they've had a strangle-hold on production and distribution. That creates and artificial shortage, and allows them to dictate terms like price and availability. It used to be very difficult and very risky to go around them, and the cassette-tape pirates of long, long ago were small potatoes. Fast forward to today, and the entertainment industry is in the latter phases of the "adapt or perish" paradigm. Their control of the distribution channel gets less and less effective with each passing day. People have gotten a taste of freedom, and they like it. I don't care what new name they assign DRM ... I refuse to roll over and be a "good little comsumer." I haven't purchased an audio CD in over 10 years. I haven't been downloading either. The commodity stuff is formulaic crap. I do, however, support indie musicians like Jonathan Coulton. He's earned some of my money without resorting to DRM or lawsuits. Imagine that. I'm also a firm believer that without the internet, Jonathan's music would have never gotten to me.

And finally, the entertainment industry isn't the center of the universe (in spite of what they've told you.) You can do without the latest DVD of American Whatever. Honest. It's not required. The entertainment industry has dictated the value-proposition of their goods (see the "artifical scarcity" argument above.) They're terrified that you'll actually make up your own mind, and realize that whatever they're peddling isn't worth it. That's one of the chief complaints about the iTunes pricing schedule - Joe Consumer can add (barely,) and the audio CD with 10 tracks selling for $18.99 at Best Buy is a lot more expensive than purchasing 10 tracks from iTunes. Additionally, the labels lose the opportunity to pad an album out to two discs by inserting filler or remastered tracks that you didn't want in the first place. Those last two are just pure profit for the labels, and that's where they're taking the biggest hits. Heard them whining about the death of the album format recently? It's not because they fancy the art form.

I've heard this one...

[argent]

An old fellow is talking to his grand-daughter as he works in the garden, and he keeps talking about he manure he's spreading on the flowerbeds. The bothers the girl's mother and she asks her husband "I hope your father washes his hands before he comes in... and why can't he call it 'fertilizer' like polite folks"? He replies, "honey, it took us 30 years to get him to call it 'manure'".

Look, folks, you got people to quit calling it "Copy Protection" because people got tired of the smell. Now it seems like it smells just as bad when you call it "Digital Rights Management". Calling it empowered this or enabled that isn't going to make it smell any better.

Re:Wrong name

[maxwell demon]

"Simply let your 'Yes' be 'Yes,' and your 'No,' 'No'; anything beyond this comes from the evil one."
Matthew 5:37

Does that mean everyone who used the "Cancel" button goes to hell?

Re: H.E.R.P.E.S.

[fred fleenblat]

* Highly Effective Restriction of Personal Entertainment Systems
* Had Ecstasy, Resigned to Pretty Excruciating Software
* Hamstrung Electronic Reuse Platform--Extra Stupid
* Half-assed Extra Rotten Playing Encryption Setup
* Helps Evil Recording People Eat Sushi

That's the Spirit!

[Greyfox]

From this day forth I propose that we refer to the content protection system previously known as "DRM" as HERPES! You could copy that DVD if it didn't have HERPES! I'd subscribe to HBO but I'm morally opposed to HERPES! Microsoft Word now comes with HERPES! Linus and RMS say 'no' to HERPES!

Do I have a second?

I am a person!

[nurb432]

No you arent. You are just another number, that pays taxes to keep the system going.

Re:I am a person!

[Chris Burke]

I am not a number! I am a man! And don't you eve... oh wait, I'm number 5. Haha. In your face, number 6!