Install Copyright Filters on PCs, Says RIAA Boss

Don't squeeze the Sherman writes "At a conference last week, RIAA president Cary Sherman said he didn't support mandatory filtering by ISPs, but in a video clip posted by Public Knowledge, Sherman offers a far more troubling 'solution': installing filters on users' PCs. From Ars Technica's coverage: 'The issue of encryption "would have to be faced," Sherman admitted after talking about the wonders of filtering. "One could have a filter on the end user's computer that would actually eliminate any benefit from encryption because if you want to hear [the music], you would need to decrypt it, and at that point the filter would work."'"

Comments

LOLOLOLOLOL

[Captain Splendid]

How the hell did these clueless fucks get so much power?

Oh yeah. Lobbying. God bless free speech!

Re:LOLOLOLOLOL

[dreamchaser]

You laugh, and while I agree he is an idiot, if they built DRM into CPU microcode we're fucked. They are already laying the foundations with crap like TPM and the like.

Re:LOLOLOLOLOL

[GregPK]

Then, no one will buy a new CPU. Intel and AMD aren't stupid. they know the consumer will run if they add this crap to thier products.

Personally, I might buy a new CPU, but I'd never use it for music. If they suddenly required that I had to have a new CPU to play or download new music then I'd just stop buying music and just listen to the classics I do have and only buy the independent artists out there who don't use the DRM like I do now. I'm not alone in my practice. I personally know a half-dozen people who follow the same practice.

Re:LOLOLOLOLOL

[LiquidCoooled]

You could buy the cpu if you want and let it attempt to work out whether the result of this innocuous calculation results in a waveform or bitmap which happens to be contained somewhere in its enormous brain.

Besides, there is a bigger reason this will never be implemented:

How can it detect infringement without having something to compare it against?

Remember, google have pretty much said to the big movie people "Sure, we will block all your shit but you have have to give us a copy of everything you want blocking first".

Do you think the RIAA will give us all a full copy of everything we aren't allowed to view or listen to?

Re:LOLOLOLOLOL

[jellomizer]

"Analog Hack". There is always the Analog Hack, Get an audio cable plug one end into Line Out and then the other end into Line In or microphone, Play and open up an other app to record... There you go. If you want to get more detailed take your sound card figure out where it goes the DA Conversion and reroute it to a input device (a harder hack but heck it will work too, and without any loss in quality). It only takes one person to de DRM a file then it can be spread. If there is DRM in the microcode there is no reason why you can't do the work on an older computer wihtout it. Yea it will take longer but once it is done you can share it with the world.

Re:LOLOLOLOLOL

[spazdor]

It doesn't matter. The DRM can go as deep as they like but they will never be able to escape virtualization. Alan Turing has already explained, better than any of us ever could, why their goals are impossible.

Re:LOLOLOLOLOL

[RobertM1968]

Then, no one will buy a new CPU. Intel and AMD aren't stupid. they know the consumer will run if they add this crap to thier products.

This is where I sadly think you are wrong - in what would happen - even though you are right in what consumers' reactions should be.

Most "high end electronics" consumers do not have the knowledge or tech savvy to make such a decision, and will continue to buy the "latest and greatest" they are told to buy - unless it sufficiently curtails their actions. Most of the people who will be affected by such a theoretical move (by the CPU manufacturers) are the tech savvy computer community - not the computer users who are otherwise (technologically) computer illiterate.

Unfortunately, they comprise the far larger share of computer users, leaving those of us who are technologically literate, stuck with such theoretical choices because that will thus become all that is available.

It didn't matter how many video geeks knew and understood that Beta was better than VHS, did it? They were the small minority of video users... the same sadly applies to the computer world.

I'd expect (most) everyone here on /. who has the friend/relative/neighbor who comes to them to solve (what to us are simple) computer problems, would remember that when looking at the tech world, what is better (technology wise, user rights wise, performance wise, could keep on going on this list all day) is irrelevant to the mainstream user community, regardless of what the small (yet vocal in places like this) tech oriented community knows is the actual truth.

Just my thoughts... which covers my quota for thinking for the week... :-)

Re:LOLOLOLOLOL

[Shakrai]

I'd do the same if my whole business model was suddenly fucked.

Wouldn't it be more effective to use the millions (billions?) of dollars you have in the bank to come up with a new business model? They'd still have a pretty big advantage -- after all, if you or I wanted to start a new business model we'd probably have to go to venture capitalists to get the funding.... the labels can just move some money out of the legal fund and into R&D.

I guess using the legal system is what passes for "innovation" these days.

Re:LOLOLOLOLOL

[trolltalk.com]

Instead of cracking the DRM, why not crack their skulls?

Not everyone listens to music all day.

Re:LOLOLOLOLOL

[renegadesx]

Intel and AMD will never comply to putting DRM at the processor level, the open source market is too big to entirly cut them out and its obvious any RIAA DRM solution will NEVER make it's way into the Linux kernel.

Re:Brainstorming broken?

[orclevegam]

Seriously, it makes me wonder why these people are even let out in public without chaperons. At the very least they should have a lawyer and someone technical around at all time. The technical guy to hopefully whisper "uh, that won't work, and it's a bad idea" in their ear every time they come up with one of these stupid ideas, and the lawyer to say "that's not our official opinion, and this is all off the record" every time one of these guys opens their mouths.

How about installing a greed filter...

[syousef]

...on his PR statements, and a bullshit filter on his mouth?

I have better things to do with my PC than protect your artificial and increasingly indefensible "rights". People and organizations buy PCs to conduct business, science and for their entertainment, not to put money in your coffers you greedy fuck!

I'd like to believe that this would not happen...

[argent]

But in 1995 I honestly believed that no company would be stupid enough to automatically run code delivered in an email message, and in 1997 that Microsoft would be forced by public opinion to back down on the obviously absurd integration of the browser and the desktop, and in 2000 that people would reject an operating system with components to lock them out of their own computer... after all, dongles had proven to be a passing fad, surely people were wising up to things like this.

I no longer believe in any limits to the complaisance and naivete of the computer-using public.

MAFIAA to Bully ISPs?

[Silentknyght]

FTA:

The only way to make it work is to mandate the filters or have ISPs mandate that users install them to get on the Internet. The consumer backlash from such a plan would be like the force of a thousand supernovas, and it's hard to visualize this happening.

Actually, it's not hard to visualize this happening. Most people connect with what, one of four major ISPs in the US, and there are usually no more than three competing ISPs, except in big cities? That's only four companies, each headed by a relatively few number of individuals whose motives are driven by shareholder (not necessarily customer) demands. If the MAFIAA writes a solid-gold check to Comcast, Qwest, Verizon, and Time-Warner, you can bet that find ways to impose an end-user filter on your PC as a requirement to connect, and with a limited number of broadband ISPs in the area, you can bet that people will suck it up and deal with it.

~SK

almost right.

[JonTurner]

The solution is simple: Just don't play^H^H^H^H^Hbuy ANYTHING unless it passes the DRM check (e.g. "is it DRM-free?")
I think it's the only way to end this nonsense. Defang the industry by striking at what gives them power -- profit. When the money dries up, the investors will force the company to change or it will perish. Or, they'll behave like the newspaper industry, deciding to favour biased political viewpoints over profit and they watch their subscriber base drop %20 year-after-year until they are no longer relevant. Any of these is an acceptable outcome.

"if people are creating their own music they're just stealing from the music industry anyway."

That's pretty funny! But it's also very, very close to the totalitarian ideas of the ex-Soviet Union (a Worker's Paradise, dontchaknow?) The State owns everything, and controls the means of production, including the people. We saw how well that worked out.

Re:almost right.

[jandrese]

If you boycott the industry they'll just assume you're pirating and convince Congress to pass even more bad laws that let them snoop on you and control your life.

Re:almost right.

[JonTurner]

Not without money they won't -- Congress is only interested in being bribed... uh, I mean "lobbied" by those with bags of money, especially around re-election time. In their death throes (which is fast approaching) they'll certainly lobby for more bad laws. That's inevitable, but once the industry bottoms out, they'll be reduced to having as much influence as the average voter. That is to say, none.

Re:almost right.

[DM9290]

That's pretty funny! But it's also very, very close to the totalitarian ideas of the ex-Soviet Union (a Worker's Paradise, dontchaknow?) The State owns everything, and controls the means of production, including the people. We saw how well that worked out. now that the competing "workers paradise" is out of the way, our unelected hegemony of massive corporate concerns can look beyond the business of marketing and spinning the wonders of unfettered capitalism and get back to the business of maximizing profit. That is to say: busting the unions and teaching our work force to work faster, longer and harder for less pay, less compensation, less education, and a lower overall quality of life).

What kind of oppressive society would infringe on my natural born right to own the means of production and do with it as I see fit? If I want to own the only automobile factory in the world, (and buy out the other automobile manufacturers) the state should protect my right. If I want to be the sole owner of the means of producing food, only a terrorist would deny me! If a pendemic threatens to kill a million people. Well who are they to infringe on my intellectual property rights? The government should bomb them if they try making generic drugs. Its not my fault if they dont want to pay me whatever price I set? my ideas are my own. I paid my employees fair and square! I own them!

Men have no right to produce for themselves. They'll need to deal with big business if they want to avoid starving to death. They are lucky that they still get free air! If we didn't live in such a pinko bleeding heart society we'd auction off the atmosphere to the private sector. Use the proceeds to lower taxes. Think of how much the GDP would go up if we could turn breathing into a profitable business?

Where does the State get off owning the means of breathing? I thought protecting the minority (the wealthy) from the oppression of the majority (the poor) is what our country was about?