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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?"
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
security thought who-the-hell-would-have-thought-of-implementing- something-as-dumb-as-that
;)
Any DRM scheme falls under this heading. If I can play it on my computer (or another electronic device), I can copy it.
OK, well, I probably can't, but there are lots of smart guys on Slashdot who could.
Put identity in the browser.
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?
Ultimately that is what the recording industry wants to stop. In order to stop it they would have to have all recording devices regulated, and under that scheme the big boys would once more be the gatekeepers to mass media.
You did look at MS's "trusted" computing platforms? Who do you think is going to be trusted? Who do you think is not?