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The DRM Scorecard
An anonymous reader writes "InfoWeek blogger Alex Wolfe put together a scorecard which makes the obvious but interesting point that, when you list every major DRM technology implemented to "protect" music and video, they've all been cracked. This includes Apple's FairPlay, Microsoft's Windows Media DRM, the old-style Content Scrambling System (CSS) used on early DVDs and the new AACS for high-definition DVDs. And of course there was the Sony Rootkit disaster of 2005. Can anyone think of a DRM technology which hasn't been cracked, and of course this begs the obvious question: Why doesn't the industry just give up and go DRM-free?"
Last I looked Cable HDTV DRM still hasn't been cracked which sucks if you want to use a myth box. You can only get an HDMI with HDCP signal out which I also don't think has been cracked. I really hope they do crack it so I can watch the HDTV that I pay for on my computer whenever I want. As a side note I once talked to my friend(who works for comcast) about driving a GNU/Linux driver for the CableCard. He told me it would be hard and was 100% sure we would be taken to court. The CableCard apparently looks to make sure the hardware using it is certified. Cracking that shouldn't be to hard but apparently the deal that at least comcast has with the content providers is that if there DRM is cracked they have 30days to fix it otherwise they have to recall all devices with the DRM capability and destroy them. Then they can issue new ones with newer DRM, otherwise they risk losing that content.
And the irony of all this is that the industry isn't even hurt by typical casual copying, which is often be done for the private use of the copier anyways.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Of course not. That's why the MAFIAA and similar parties use the legal system to fill the holes that technology can't. If you can't actually stop everyone from doing it, simply make it illegal, and sue anyone who gets past the initial hurdles.
DRM and IP law, the technological and the legal - the two work in tandem, but I would say that the end goal is perfect control over content. Anything less than perfect control is, after all, simply an unexploited opportunity for profit.
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
Mod parent up.
This is indeed the root of any high-distribution system and is applicable to several domains--piracy, drugs, airborne diseases. It only takes one copy on a viable transmission medium to start the ball rolling.
Yet Socrates himself is particularly missed.
A lovely little thinker but a bugger when he's pissed.
Maybe you haven't been paying attention, but the RIAA/MPAA are losing.
How we know is more important than what we know.
"this begs the obvious question: Why doesn't the industry just give up and go DRM-free?"
The entire entertainment industry is so consumed with greed that they are no longer able to think clearly. The failure of DRM is so painfully obvious, but the MPAA, RIAA, BSA, etc. are so blinded by greed that they can't see it. To them, the failure of DRM is proof that they need bigger badder DRM along with bigger badder laws to punish people. This is what greed does to you.
The secret to success is simple: make a good product and sell it at a fair price. But when you are bkinded by greed and convinced that you're losing billions of dollars to "piracy", you think that the secret to success is to control your precious "intellectual property" with the most draconian iron-fisted methods possible.