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Webcasters Call Bunk on SoundExchange DRM Ploy

Posted by Zonk on from the that's-the-sound-of-the-other-shoe dept.

RadioFan writes "The settlement between webcasters and SoundExchange is starting to come apart at the seams, because everyone is realizing that SoundExchange wants to force DRM on Net Radio. DiMA, one of the largest Net Radio lobbyists, has fired back at Sound Exchange, calling them out for leveraging high royalty fees to push through DRM requirements that they failed to obtain in Congress via broadcast flag and anti-recording legislation. Was this whole thing a ruse to get DRM on net radio?"

2 of 109 comments (clear)

  1. How Could You Implement This 'Solution'? by eldavojohn · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The source also tells me that DRM is the only plausible "tool" at the disposal of webcasters to accomplish SoundExchange's goal of working to stop music "streamripping." I can't think of a way to stop 'streamripping.' I mean, even if you closed the loop all the way down to my soundcard, it would still have to come out as sound in some quality or another. Once it's in that analog form, I just pipe it into another input device on the same or different machine and begin recording. I've used TotalRecorder to just copy the buffer of my sound card to a file and have captured many NPR shows that I could not find otherwise to purchase.

    How in the hell could DRM prevent this?

    But, then again, look at what I'm criticizing! I challenge anyone to list one technology or product that DRM has successfully 'worked' on (in that it prevents piracy). This is laughable and brings the phrase "defective by design" to whole new levels I never thought possible. Not only will it be defective, use cycles and memory on your machine but it will probably make the quality worse. Bravo, DRM, bravo.

    Nothing I've found on this lays out the implementation so here's my prediction. SoundExchange wants the minimum offer/DRM model in place. Then they can prove it's possible to still streamrip. Then where does that put the web radio sites? At the mercy of SoundExchange, of course, because they implemented something that didn't satisfy a contract.
    --
    My work here is dung.
    1. Re:How Could You Implement This 'Solution'? by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I can't think of a way to stop 'streamripping.' I mean, even if you closed the loop all the way down to my soundcard, it would still have to come out as sound in some quality or another. Once it's in that analog form, I just pipe it into another input device on the same or different machine and begin recording. I've used TotalRecorder to just copy the buffer of my sound card to a file and have captured many NPR shows that I could not find otherwise to purchase.


      And similar tools exist on Linux to capture the ALSA buffers. There's absolutely no way to prevent 'streamripping' with any DRM. The broadcast has to be decoded at the time of play -- there's no way around it. For that matter, these same techniques work with any DRM.

      The bottom line here is that DRM schemes are inherently broken and can't be fixed. So let's just get rid of all DRM and be done with it, 'k Mafiaa?

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      My blog