Open-Source DRM Ready To Take On Big Guns

Barence writes "An open-source digital rights management (DRM) scheme says it's ready to supplant Apple and Microsoft as the world's leading copy protection solution. Marlin, which is backed by companies such as Sony and Samsung, has just announced a new partner program that aims to drive the DRM system into more consumer devices. 'It works in a way that doesn't hold consumers hostage,' Talal Shamoon told PC Pro. 'It allows you to protect and share content in the home, in a way that people own the content, not the devices.' When asked about the biggest problem of DRM — that customers hate it — he argued that 'the biggest problem with DRM is people have implemented it badly. Make DRM invisible and people will use it.'"

Comments

How can it be both effective and invisible?

[Tetsujin]

I don't get it... If DRM works, it restricts what you do. If it restricts what you do, it's not inivisible. How is this implementation different from any other DRM?

Re:How can it be both effective and invisible?

[theaveng]

I visited their website. It appears to be based on the tried-and-true "license" model where you must buy a license in order to use a program... or in this case, play a song. The obvious flaw is that is the server goes down, no more license.

And of course licensing is typically an annual payment plan. I don't want to "rent" my purchased songs year-after-year-after-year.

http://www.marlin-community.com/technology/how_marlin_works

Re:How it's theoretically different

[Evanisincontrol]

You're saying then that I can't loan a copy of a book I own to a friend or family member because it's copyright infringement. That's utter and complete bullshit.

No, he's saying that can't make a complete copy of a book you own and give it to a friend or family member because it's copyright infringement. And he's right. The difference between loaning a book and "loaning" an MP3 is that once you'd "loaned" your buddy a song, he has complete access to it whenever he wants. More importantly, he has complete parallel access to it with you. Only one instance of the song was paid for, yet two people are able to enjoy its use at any time, perhaps simultaneously.

If I have physical media that I legally purchased, I should be able to loan that media out to whoever the hell I want to, and it's nobody's damned business.

Agreed. If you have an iPod with songs on it that you purchased, you should absolutely be allowed to lend someone that physical media -- that is, the iPod -- and let them use it as long as they want. And you can. You cannot, however, just send them the songs off your iPod, for reasons stated above.

Even easier...

[gravyface]

Set your recording device to be "wav" or "what I hear" or something similar in your soundcard's mixer's "recording" view. Grab Audacity, hit record, then hit play on *insert_audio_source_here* No signal loss from using the physical outputs.