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?"

Comments

Nobody is to blame

[sakdoctor]

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.

Re:Nobody is to blame

[Maelwryth]

DRM may not work, but that's just the band aid. The problem the content providers really face is that we all grew up. When we were children, if we found a $20 bill on the sidewalk, we would have handed it in. We believed in doing the right thing. As we grew up, we watched our heroes (eg; the people we looked up to) throw away their ideals in the name of pragmatism. We watched wars, and death, and crime, and no one seemed to be punished for doing "bad" things.

The problem that content providers face is that we don't care anymore. Times have changed. We have watched them rake in money for thirty years, and now they want to give us toys, make us pay for them, and then take them back. That isn't going to work. We don't value them that much, and if we feel a small twinge of guilt at keeping it, then that is oh so easily justified by the way in which we have been treated.

How's that for a hypothesis?

Re:Nobody is to blame

[TheRaven64]

You can have a completely secure chain from the music store to your speakers, but as soon as it gets to your speaker wires it's in a form where someone can record it.

Back in the '90s, CDs came with an early form of DRM. Each CD had two flags, a copy and a copyright flag. You were allowed to make digital copies of copyrighted CDs, but not copies of copies of copyrighted CDs. I recall reading a review of a CD recorder which enforced this. It had a single cable connecting the two drives together. If the copy and copyright flags were both set, it would flip a DAC and an ADC into the circuit (one at each end). Even back then, the resolution on these was sufficiently high that in listening tests no one could tell the difference between an analogue and a digital copy of the music.

Nature cannot be encrypted

[six025]

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.

You Blame Adobe

[rsmith-mac]

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.

One view of importance

[blowdart]

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.

Re:The last one

[Daengbo]

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. ;)