Slashdot Mirror
How Important Is Protecting Streaming Media?
spaj writes "In the ongoing battle with the MPAA and RIAA, there seems to be an ongoing argument about who is to blame. If you leave a $20 bill on the sidewalk, can you report it stolen when someone takes it? Of course you can, but will you be taken seriously by the authorities? When my car was broken into, I was told by the responding police officer that I might have prevented it by keeping my seats and visible areas clear of junk that would entice criminals. So, who is at fault when it comes to users abusing their right to capture streaming media for personal use? According to Applian.com's Legal FAQ, the RIAA will not come after you if you make a recording for your own personal use. I have often been torn on this issue, and I am looking for input. Adobe recently released a new format of their widely used streaming protocol, RTMP, that includes 128-bit encryption (RTMPE). I can only interpret this as an attempt to prevent capturing of the streaming media content for personal use. However, Applian has already circumvented the RTMPE protection, and you can read about it on Adobe's forums, where some users seem quite dissatisfied that their content is not protected enough by Adobe's technology. I think the main question boils down to: Who is to blame? Can you blame Adobe for not making a better encryption? Or do you blame Applian for bypassing such security features? Or do you blame the authors of stolen content for leaving the security of their material in somebody else's hands?"
Or do you blame the authors of stolen content for leaving the security of their material in somebody else's hands
Yeah, that one, because although content authors are probably not experts on digital security, they can all roll their own protection and rely on security thought who-the-hell-would-have-thought-of-implementing- something-as-dumb-as-that (for the first few weeks anyway).
ccalam - acoustic versions of new songs.
Why does this drone on and on about assigning blame.
This just isn't sensible because DRM can't work ever. It's just not mathematically possible.
Right, now you can go back to trying to stop people "stealing" images off web pages with crappy bits of javascript. Good luck.
DRM always has been and always will be broken. If you can watch it, you can record it, end of story.
See wikipedia article for more information.
Could we extend "Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc.," to recording streaming video online?
[I will not argue that it is okay to record Pay-Per-View, or certain premium content.]
once you put it out where anybody can freely access it you have given up control of it.
you put your flash file on your web site and someone likes it they will make a copy of it, that's jsut the way it works.
goes the same for every other file on the net.
you can put out as many DRM and copy protection mechanisms that you want, they will just keep being broken faster than you can release them.
Sound waves cannot be encrypted - where there is a will, there is a way. Certain people will always take pleasure from using whatever means necessary to make copies of music, or almost any art for that matter. Digital systems just make it more convenient and therefore it occurs on a massive scale.
Setting up a microphone and recording the output from the speakers might be the last resort and the lowest quality, but people will go to these lengths if it is the only way they can get something for nothing / they are not supposed to / what other people have or even because they like the technical challenge of getting the best recording they can using the tools and techniques they possess.
is this supposed to be a troll or something? this is slashdot, protecting media with DRM is seen as bad around these parts; you'd have to be a moron to think you were going to get anything other than a flamefest out of this one
I blame the copyright holders for sticking their fingers in their ears and screaming about "protection" when what they mean is demanding perpetual control over how anyone ever uses the material.
If you send a video stream to someone, they'll be able to record it. The VCR proved that once -- do these authors think digital media will be any different? Or should be any different?
Adobe isn't at fault for "not making a better encryption". It's not possible. You have to send someone the key if you want them to watch the video, and once they have the key, they can decrypt it for any other purpose. No amount of programming can evade that basic logic.
Applian isn't at fault for making a program that decrypts the stream, either. They're the VCR manufacturer of this era, making a tool that people can use to time-shift videos. What's wrong with that?
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
Idealism of liberal copyrights aside, if Adobe is selling a product that is intended to keep people from copying your wares, and it is in fact it's not stopping them, then it's pretty clear who is at fault. It's a faulty product, the blame lies with Adobe. Of course if they had any brains they'd know that what they want to do is impossible, but since they're selling the product, it needs to work as advertised.
If your Adobe you make a shitty lock that anybody in the world can bypass and then you get the FBI to your dirty work for you by trying to make the guy disappear when he comes to your country to show just how shitty the lock is. So Applian is just asking to wake up one day with the head of a dead horse in their beds.
If your a customer or a shareholder than you certainly BLAME ADOBE for creating an inferior lock, trying to pass it off as superior, then have no limits on what they will do to hide the truth. The fact is, that there is practically no content author out there that also possess the requisite skill sets for providing protection for their content. People specialize. You might as well blame people who get their appendix out through a surgeon instead of taking it into their own hands one day in the kitchen. Of COURSE content authors have to put trust in somebody else.
That is what always bothered me about Adobe. Don't admit the protection does not work and learn from your mistakes and create a better method of protection. Create security through legal threats.
..for having your car broken into?
The solution is: if you can take it, you can have it. This format has worked for me thus far, I see no reason why it needs changing.
The media companies are not content with the amount of profits they are making and even if they could stop piracy, it would cost them a huge amount of money to do so. Consequently, an easier way of making more profits is to make the honest buyers pay more, and a good way of making them pay more is to enforce a rental model on them.
So they go to the software companies to create the mechanisms that allow the creation of DRM (="Media with a built in time bomb) delivery mechanisms and of course it's great for Adobe and others to be able to put their logos up alongside Disney's or Paramount's.
But because no software is perfect, the DRM gets cracked & it's back to the drawing board.
As long as DRM is around, this cycle will just keep repeating itself because this is no longer about corporations giving consumers what they want but waging war on them. So DRM will fail.
All I'm waiting for now are for Apple to find the guts to drop DRM completely in iTunes (if they really are the "nice" company all the people on here say they are) and I think that will be the final death knoll for DRM.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
After searching around, it looks like RTMPE is nothing more than a transmission encryption that prevents a stream from being intercepted by a "middle man", analogous to wifi encryptions that prevent others from capturing your wifi network packets. If my understanding is correct, then this doesn't actually have anything to do with "stolen" content, right?
Respect the laws of physics, for the laws of physics have no respect for you.
7 years ago now I worked for a streaming media company in the UK who did pretty much all the promotional streaming for the labels. We'd put pre-release music on-line weeks before it was due for release; and, if the customer wanted it, made it available for download as well. All the tracks were free but DRMed to switch off on the day the record was released. Sometimes you'd have to enter some marketing details (although there was always an opt-out checkbox and we'd never pass details on if that was ticked).
One thing sticks in my mind. At the time Microsoft had just released the ability to DRM live streams and a particular heavy metal band wanted to play a charity concert with the proceeds going to a UK charity for a kids charity, I believe because one of them had a child afflicted by illness the charity was raise funds for. It was a small concert, tickets sold out partly because they have a huge following and partly because they were cheap, £5 if memory serves. The band knew there was a large audience for it; so they paid us (and we didn't take a profit on it) to stream the concert live. We discussed it with them and DRMed the live stream and made an archive of it available for a month afterwards. All at no cost to the viewer, not even marketing information, although at the end the band spoke about the charity for 5 minutes. When the month was up the band were going to release a DVD of the concert for sale; with all profit going to the charity. The DVD was pretty cheap too, I think around £8.50 including shipping.
The month expired and the streams were taken down, and the DRM kicked in (because stream rippers ripped the DRM as well *grin*). For the next month the band's official band bulletin board was filled with fans complaining that the streams they had ripped no-longer worked. It was pointed out the DVD was available, it was all for charity, and they'd had it free for a month, but no, lots of whining and sulking and demands that it should be free for ever.
Now you may argue that DRM is bad; and in a lot of cases I'd agree with you; but when it protects something that was free so after a while charities can make some money; well then frankly you can't complain and you're nothing but a freeloader.
Still annoys me now.
The only person who's ever to blame is the one who's doing something illegal such as violating the content owner's copyright.
The person designing the security is generally trying to do the best that they can to balance security against annoyance of said security of customers, knowing full well that it's only a matter of time before that security is broken.
You can't blame the person breaking the security either as they may only being doing so to enable fair use rights that were taken away by the security. Likewise, anyone who uses the security remove technique could only be doing so for fair use reasons. Fair use may seem sketchy when talking about streamed video online, but if you want to use parts of the video to form a rebuttal video to the points or opinions expressed in the original video I believe making a copy of the stream would fall within fair use. Also I believe it's considered fair use to use any video if providing commentary on segments of the video.
You really can't necessarily blame the content creator either. In some cases they're not even responsible for their works being available somewhere on the internet. Someone violating their copyright may have uploaded it to a video streaming site. Is lack of security on a video streaming site the fault of a movie creator if someone rips the movie from DVD and uploads it to a website?
Blame copyright violations on the people who actually commit them.
Does linux have a DRM converter for Flash?
When will those trying to concoct DRM schemes realise that DRM in an open environment is impossible?
You can't give someone something and at the same time not give them something.
You can't stream media to a PC and at the same time restrict what will be done with it (unless they can control all other variables, which they can't as soon as the data leaves the server).
I am going to write "The US Constitution for Dummies" as part of that series. However, I doubt that anyone will every buy it. Hell, on the Tonight Show, all the people they interviewed on the street a few weeks ago didn't even know who was the US VP.
Its not so much a case of someone leaving a £20 note on the pavement as it is a case of handing someone a book to read, then expecting that they can't remember the plot afterwards.
SURELY NOT!!!!!
Who is to blame?
Why do we always need someone to blame? All the sides involved have their own valid way of seeing the situation...
The content creator wants to "protect" their work; The end user wants to keep a copy for a variety of reasons. The container/transport producer gets paid by the content producer (usually); and the crackers don't actually count as a separate group, they just reflect knowledgeable end-users who have the power to make sure they can keep a copy.
Who in that chain do we call "wrong" for what they do? The creator we can perhaps call "overprotective", thinking that once the baby grows up and leaves home they can still tell it what to do. The middlemen perhaps should perhaps advise their customers better, but at the end of the day they need to eat too. The end users should of course reimburse the creators for the content, but I would consider "free" the least of the reasons to have a local copy.
Or looking at it from a slightly different angle... At every step, the situation boils down to pure self-interest. And put bluntly, I value my interests above yours - just as you value your own interests above mine.
...until they force this trusted all your spying are on done by us computing on us by legislation.
Then it gets really hard, although I guess not technically impossible.
Hmns a good analogy is: encrypt all my stuff give the cryptfile and keyfiles to my friends as a backup. I wonder if they're going to open it up and read it... um...
I drink to make other people interesting!
It's really very simple. If you take something that does not belong to you, you are a thief. The person doing the taking is in the wrong.
The idea that failure to 'protect' your valuables makes it OK to steal them is wrong.
If someone leaves their keys in their car, and someone steals the car, the car owner is guilty of stupidity but you haven't broken any moral laws - but the thief is a thief.
-Popgun
Please tell me that's not what you meant to write. WTF does it mean?
Because it's impossible - and Adobe should know that - then they're wasting money tilting at windmills.
Except there's money in tilting at windmills, from plenty of proprietary publishers who will pay to have some DRM in place "to keep honest people honest". It's like any other kind of security theater: it doesn't work all that well for its perceived purpose, but organizations will offer large sums of money for it.
You haven't given up your rights regarding ownership of it, just the ability to stop anyone else from downloading it for their own use, or for some sharing. The issue here is an unwillingness to understand the latter. The former has never been in doubt.
What I see as the main problem is the state of mind DRM brings about. Put simply, if you try to restrict access, there will always be people who will be interested in it simply because they want to break it.
Put it out there as is, with a nice complete 'my property, do not claim as your own, but otherwise, have fun' type license, most people will watch/listen to it and move along, not bothering to download it to keep because you haven't added the 'forbidden fruit' enticement of DRM.
They may even be willing to pay you for a super HQ version, streamed direct to them from your servers with no interruptions. Provided you don't irritate by piling on restrictions (this is the two second attention span internet after all).
A learning experience is one of those things that say, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.' - D. Adams
IANAL.
> In the ongoing battle with the MPAA and RIAA, there seems to be an ongoing argument about who is
> to blame.
Questions of blame are is boring, but there are a few points I wanted to address.
> When my car was broken into, I was told by the responding police officer that I might have
> prevented it by keeping my seats and visible areas clear of junk that would entice criminals.
True, but not relevant to the issue of blame. Unlike the $20 bill example, in which -no- precautions were taken, in this case you merely failed to use some possible protections over and above a base amount (locking the doors and closing the windows).
The first case involves negligence, the second would probably not be considered negligent.
> According to Applian.com's Legal FAQ, the RIAA will not come after you if you make a recording
> for your own personal use.
Not quite true. The RIAA probably can't WIN such a case, and probably wouldn't TRY, but they CAN AND HAVE persecuted the innocent, and will until they are completely stopped.
And win, lose or draw, it's not something you'd want to go through. The DMCA makes a crime of circumvention; it includes no out clauses for personal use.
If you want to use something to bypass the protections, whether Applian's or other, go ahead. Just don't expect that a debate on blame is going to protect you in court. Keep your head down and cover your tracks.
Sound waves cannot be encrypted - where there is a will, there is a way.
What happens when the work that makes the sound waves is interactive? In that case, the instructions to make the sound wave don't ever need to leave the player. Capturing the sound wave just captures one playing of the work, and replaying that over and over can get boring.
Recording live streams... Wasn't there something called the Betamax Decision that had something to do with that? Oh, wait, the Broadcast Flag really went and fucked that up.
You should blame yourself for putting the blame on companies that blame you and the customers for blaming them in blaming that their DRM is faulty.
No DRM is perfect. If you want to protect your media, just encode it into a shittier quality (to the point where nobody wants it), distribute it to the masses and keep the original for yourself, or just don't distribute it at all.
EXTREME FOR EXTREME. THERE IS NO LATTER IN THIS >:C
New Microsoft One Time Pad(tm) for WMA!
A learning experience is one of those things that say, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.' - D. Adams
When my car was broken into, I was told by the responding police officer that I might have prevented it by keeping my seats and visible areas clear of junk that would entice criminals. So, who is at fault
If you'd listen to the police, you'd realize they're giving you preventive measures you can take to lower the chance your car will be stolen. They're not blaming you, just trying to educate. You could've put a million dollars on the front seat, doors locked, and something stole it, the thief would still be at fault, but you would definitely be the laughing stock of the police station.
I've got one that relates to the RIAA. I had my storage locker broken into with literally _every_ box (a lot -- think Rubik's Cube with U Haul boxes) opened and ransacked in '06**, but since I could not think of even ONE THING in the whole mess that was _missing_, the police couldn't think of what crime to pursue. So when a file is copied, what is _missing_?
** an entirely different discussion in paranoia in the year of our Lord Dubya, but I digress
I personally find it clear enough, even if there was no DRM involved:
If the content owner states "Do not copy this" and you do it (with special software or not), you are to blame.
This is of course not Legal POV but Moral POV.
Eerily relevant is todays EFF Article pointing out that the Free Ad-Supported music sites imeem.com and lala.com both stream unenctrypted mp3s with the blessing of the record business. Indeed it was revealed that Warner Brothers Music invested millions of dollars in both of these (although their imeem investment looks a whole lot better). There are some speed bumps to filling your iPod with the music that fans have uploaded to imeem, but it's only sufficient to keep the honest people honest.
Blame Canada!
so if a woman doesn't carry mace, a gun and a taser was she asking to get raped. Does the same go for people who are mugged? I'm all for exploiting protocol weakness and downloading anything I can get my cheap hands on but this argument of not being able to prevent a crime does not make it their fault. Its not just about keeping others from breaking the law forcefully through encryption or other matters it's also about them having the good nature not to commit those crimes in the first place.
From these 3 simple things I learned in elementry school you can clearly see that the only viable solution is to make sure nobody can kick your ass.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
That's who I blame for their false claims of ownership for something that cannot be owned, and their mad desire control it for a near infinite period of time. We steal nothing from them. We "lend" them this monopoly of control for a very limited time. And the greedy bastards want ever more. They are the ones stealing with their bought and paid for laws. It's time for them to realize that they are not special and deserve no special privileges. They must realize that each work is nothing more than an ad or promotion for their next work. It's time to bring them back to earth and have them do their work the same way the rest of us do. The time of "artist as king" is over.
What?
Okay...let's look at this. Yesterday in my office, we had a conversation about a quaint method of distributin media that I had forgotten about....the public library.
The idea that a popular piece of media, in this case a book, has more than 300 readers or people on a waiting list to read a book indicates to me 300 lost sales for the book publisher. However, this notion of media distribution has long been supported by federal laws.
So we as a community need to ask, do the makes of music, movies, other media, work more than authors? Why are their works more protected than a lowly book that gets passed around like a drunken cheerleader with the publisher's blessing? There is only one answer that can satify this...greed.
Is this greed that has enveloped the movie and music industries likely to destroy this nation's information distribution system? Is the library a leak in the profit margins for book manufacturers? Do humans have an obligation to share information without profit for the continued growth of knowledge?
I think this was the original thinking behind the Open Source movement. People have tools, like computers, and need to be able to use additional tools, like software, to better ourselves. I believe that the same is true for media.
So guys...does DRM deny access to materials and put profit before the betterment of the species? (in the long term) And no, I am not saying things like an Ashley Simpson or Coldplay album can be used to help the human species evolve. Those items are best used for Olympic sports like target shooting.
Is it 5:30 yet?
Every dollar spent on DRM is wasted. I don't know how to be more blunt than that.
Streaming media can be protected?
2. There will always be people who pay for content regardless of whether they can get it for "free" through some technological means, because hey're wired that way.
3. NOTHING IS GOING TO CHANGE THAT, EVER, SO FUCKING GIVE IT UP ALREADY AND ACCEPT THE FACT, WORK AROUND IT!!!
A few points:
1) The piracy argument often speaks of "lost sales." This is a spurious argument: it is impossible to know how many people would actually buy the material whether it available for sale or not. Piracy helps artist promotion because it often gets their content to people who would otherwise not spend the money anyway. And as they say, no publicity is bad publicity. Are you an artist because you want to make money? Are you an artist because you want to express your creativity? While the answers to these questions are not necessarily exclusive of each other, nor are they necessarily bound to each other.
2) On the futility of streaming: Don't blame consumers for gathering bits and bytes that flow through their computer. It's simple: if you don't want content captured, don't release it. And if you do take the chance and release it through a stream, don't cry foul because the economic model is more constrained than the distribution model.
Not to say I support the sometimes attorney-heavy decisions they made about PDF, but "better protection" isn't possible in the context you're talking about - if you can see it you can save it.
RTMP has had an SSL option for a long time. RTMPE is supposed to be faster and work better through some firewalls. But either way it's real, legitimate job is to protect all that content from a middleman. If your computer is compromised, or YOU really want the data, and encrypted transport doesn't matter; you'll get it from RAM on your machine.
Letting people watch something and pretending you still have control over that is an INSOLUBLE problem - and it's also one where Adobe is too large a company to be TOTALLY forthright about the limitation, because they can't be saying "our product doesn't do that" when compared to a competitor's product.
Looking for freelance Actionscript (Flash/Flex) or ColdFusion work and/or freelance developers. Email me, put Slashdot
The car analogy is interesting since some of us have convertables. We -can't- secure our cars, anyone could take something from our car. (Or worse, leave something in our car if they need to dump something illegal fast.)
But the courts and insurances have an answer -- lock our doors. It's a clear demonstration of our intent to secure the car, even if it's of no practical value. Other than giving us full protection on our insurance policies, that is. :-)
Ditto tents, at least in Colorado. Tent flap open, anyone (and specifically, cops) can look in and see what you have. Tent flap closed and they need a search warrant, same as if they wanted to look into your house or the closed trunk on a car. Tent zippers are no real deterence, but it's enough to change the legal status.
So DRM isn't just about preventing unauthorized use, it's about -demonstrating- a reasonable effort to prevent unauthorized use. The original infringer will have a hard time claiming that 'I didn't know' if he had to use sophisticated to crack the DRM -- same as trying to claim that somebody didn't mind you going into their house since their locks were easily broken with a set of lock picks.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
If you are going to scream into the ether, for whatever reason, then I should be able to record it for my own personal use.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
"When my car was broken into, I was told by the responding police officer that I might have prevented it by keeping my seats and visible areas clear of junk that would entice criminals."
It seems to me that the media companies may be taking this approach by making movies and music so bad that nobody wants to steal it.
There's a cute little program out there called Snapz Pro. I've been using that to transcode some of my old RealPlayer files to another format, (QuickTime in this case) What I like about the probram is the fact that I can record anything, still images, movies, or just audio. Thinking about this even more, if you had a video camcorder lying around you could use that to record the video footage. You just need to connect the ling in on the camcorder with the line out or speaker out of the computer. I don't see anything wrong with making a copy of something for your personal archives, as long as you aren't going to be reselling the content. Like what most people are saying, once the contents has been made available, it can be copied one way or another.
I wanna take it to the next level. How do we look at this in terms of porn? Well I want to make two points with that. First, nobody is at fault for loving porn, it's natural.
Second, on the issue of encryption, let's face it you can't encrypt pussy, it's already encrypted. You already don't know what to do with it when you get one, who the hell is going to put you through the pain of being confused when you just *SEE* one?
How important is protecting streaming media?
That is the question being asked to slashdotters? Really? Is the one asking the question pretending not to know the answer? Alright, I'll play along.
Not. Important. At. All.
We dislike DRM. It doesn't stop pirates, and honest users pay the penalty. Sure, some DRMs are harsher than others, but a DRM that can smartly tell honest users fron pirates doesn't exist. That means DRM is always worse than DRM-less. So, DRM is way at the bottom of the priority list.
Nonlinear media is much harder to extract through those means, but even so, a digital file is a digital file - you're only going to be able to slow down complete replication if much of the data is served from a remote location in response to active user choices. And depending on how many people are finding and grinding the decision tree, it'll all get extracted eventually anyway.
Content which is generated in real-time by server-side software is much more difficult to copy, especially if it's being modified by humans in strange-attractor loops. Blizzard probably doesn't give a huge flying damn if WoW gets ripped and copied, because each account still needs to pay per month to get access to not only the constantly-updated content on the Blizzard servers, but also the interactions with the other players. The initial upfront cost is just gravy and covers the admin load from n00bs.
The problem the linear media industry has is twofold. First, they don't have experience with making nonlinear media. No-one has put together some brilliant work which clearly shows the way forward. On the other hand, they're being held back by their current audience, which has a HUGE cultural, psychological and technical investment in exactly that - linear media. If all music/film/tv producers found the holy grail of a new format and moved all production to nonlinear versions overnight, it would mean abandoning every customer who buys CDs, DVDs, tapes, vinyl, iTunes, listens to the radio/podcasts/streams, or watches TV, and trying to get ALL of them to buy brand new expensive non-simple technology.
It's cheaper to simply thrash around trying to find a nonexistent cork for the leaks in their submarine, when the problem is that the sea has changed and their hull is now made out of chicken wire.
I still don't think we're going to see the death of linear media. It's too ingrained in pretty much every human culture. What we will see is new ways of getting the performance from the performer to their audience. I'd note, however, that in a world where everyone and their dog has a YouTube video, there will still be a demand for marketing. It's just that now, the marketing will be through SEO, online radio stations and the playlists of web-celeb DJs.
The question is - how long until the *AA or their descendants have 'arrangements' with web sites or podcasts known to attract a lot of viewers/listeners?
I don't think "blame" is really the right word to use here, but since you did use it, and I can't think of a better one off the top of my head, I would say that the largest part of the "blame" goes to the content owner who somehow believes that they can somehow share their work without, er ...sharing it. If the end user has the ability to play a recording once, then they have the ability to play it a thousand times. There is no middle ground. If you can't accept that, you shouldn't be selling content.
Beyond that, I suppose some small amount of blame should probably go to Adobe for selling and advertising a product that they know can never live up to their claims. But even then, they are only marketing it because of the other group of people I already mentioned. If they would accept the reality of their situations, then Adobe wouldn't have a viable product.
If I don't put anything here, will anyone recognize me anymore?
Please read John Scully's post here: http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/webforums/forum/messageview.cfm?forumid=15&catid=578&threadid=1383125 Couldn't have said it better myself!
in fact, it is duplicating information. I believe that the transfer of information uses it, and that information not used is being wasted. Therefore, those who restrict the free exchange of information are wasting it, and impoverishing the rest of us all. In my opinion, the corruption of copyright and the destrction of public domain is the greatest threat to freedom that mankind is currently facing. To those working for content protectors, please, I beg of you, quit being a corporate tool for evil before it becomes a completely despotic state.
Imagine the most tech-ignorant person you can imagine asking "is it encrypted so people can't copy it".
Now imagine people trying to answer that question without saying "no".
See the problem?
Will it go away? Of course not.
No sig today...
"If you leave a $20 bill on the sidewalk, can you report it stolen when someone takes it?" Stupid analogy. Its closer to:
1) You have a $20 in your wallet
2) Someone lifts it and copies it
3) Then copies it over and over
4) and then the doller deflates
5) and then the dollar is worthless
6) then the people who copied the 20 complain that their fake 20s are valueless.
Given the current rate of inflation, who else did read that as $20 billion ?
I'm not a coward by any name.
I dare you to download Daily Show episodes. You just can't download them, but you can record the screen (not very viable).
this is really dumb... it's just like the VCR, it's just like the tape recorder... any recording device. records could be 'stolen' for a very long time. things could be 'stolen' from the radio for a very long time. why is this any different?
they need to realize if a person can experience something for their own viewing/listening pleasure, it can be recorded. that is the end of the story. they need to stop wasting all their money on trying to prevent it, because honestly the amount of money spent to prevent it doesn't nearly equate to the money they are making back out of this investment. it's a simple cost:benefit analysis. whoever the hell is at these recording industries that are doing the cost:benefit analysis need to be fired, because i'd guarantee you it has not earned them even a fraction of what they have spent back that is stolen. as long as there are crooks, things will be stolen. it's a fact of life. if you don't like it, become an hero because it's the only way you can get away from it.
>When my car was broken into, I was told by the responding police officer that I might have prevented it /from/ your car. If the item wasn't locked in the trunk or in the glovebox then your insurance won't pay out.
>by keeping my seats and visible areas clear of junk
Isn't this an insurance requirement in the US? AFAIK it's a standard insurance requirement in the UK, at least for when stuff is stolen
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
lol talk about encryption - once the streaming media goes through ur sound card thats pretty much it you can capture it however the hell you like. No encryption can stop it
You can get far better quality for less in stores (and you actually get hold of the real CD and covers). So why bother paying for crap?
Because after having listened to 30 seconds of each track on a site like Amazon.com, I want three tracks from the album, not the nine filler tracks. Only pawn shops and garage sales can sell a CD for $2.97, and the masses don't want to suffer the inconvenience of waiting for garage sale season and visiting every garage sale in town.
You can get far better choice for free. So why bother with a dozen of crappy services?
Because I have a hard time convincing other family members to like Creative Commons or otherwise freely licensed music rather than what the commercial FM radio plays.
People need to debug stuff and encrypting everything makes debugging, and therefore ANY DEVELOPMENT, virtually impossible.
Of course you can debug if you have a certificate signed by the platform publisher.
Microsoft found this out the hard way with signed driver requirements. They made signing a requirement and then immediately backed off because it made debugging drivers near-impossible.
It is already a requirement on Xbox and Xbox 360. Even on Windows Vista 64-bit, if you use a driver signed with a self-signed certificate, you get "Test Mode" in all four corners of the screen (.doc).