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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.'"
Like it or not DRM restricts what you can do with your files. When you try to do something the copyright holders have forbidden, even the best DRM system will be plenty visible.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
You can never make DRM invisible, since people are illegally sharing video and music files all the time today. If the point of DRM is to protect the content from being pirated, making it invisible to users will completely nullify its' original intent.
Attention all planets of the Solar Federation! We have assumed control! - Neil Peart
And that's by not having it at all.
I don't buy products with DRM, no matter how much they've tried to make it non-intrusive for me.
And backed by Sony? That puts it on my personal blacklist right away.
...allowing users to share content between any Marlin-enabled device in the home rather than on specific machines. "It works in a way that doesn't hold consumers hostage,"
So long as Marlin stays in business, and every device you want your music on is a Marlin device. So, if Marlin goes under and your computer crashes, you're out of luck?
"Make surveillance invisible and people won't object to it!"
Still, the implementation details would be interesting. How quickly will this be broken? Probably before it ever gets popular.
1. It can never deprive me of my media.
2. It can not restrict what devices I use my media on.
3. It can not restrict the storage format of the media.
In other words it is impossible.
Heck I do believe that copyright infringement is wrong. I just refuse to pay the price for others breaking the law.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
The article doesn't seem to be very clear.
Will this mean I'll have to buy a new TV set, a new stereo receiver, a new DVD player, a new Cellphone, a new car stereo and reconfigure all of my PCs to be "Merlin enabled"?
Probably not, since whenever someone claims it will be "more difficult to circumvent then current DRM schemes", that seems to be a challenge to some of the more clever programmers to break it.
The Internet is generally stupid
One could make the argument that DRM, by its very nature, holds consumers hostage.
Also, I wonder how many slashdotters will be won over by the fact that this implementation is open-source. I'm sure it might make some feel warm and fuzzy inside, but not me.
The biggest problem with DRM isn't that people hate it while they're using it. It's that they REALLY hate it when the company they bought their music/movies/games from turns their entire collection of "owned" content to dust because the company got tired of running their DRM servers.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
"It works in a way that doesn't hold consumers hostage"
But that's the point of DRM - the content distributor gets to decide what happens to the content, not the consumer. Your purchased content is held hostage to the whims of the distributor. That's the point of DRM.
For an encore this guy will sell airplanes without wings that keep you safely on the ground, bladless knifes without handles, and a bucket of jumbo shrimp.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Based on their description, they seem to have built it from a better understanding of the human psychology WRT ownership of property. Most people instinctively believe that they own their music and movies and that their personal use shouldn't be restricted. This DRM seems to operate on the basis of restricting the ability to playback the content to the devices controlled by a customer, not to a set number of devices.
If this article turns out to be mostly right, it's a positive step. It recognizes the fact that most people will never get why it's infringement to share a CD or DVD across a family. So, the solution, is to focus more on how one user might give the data to a user that shouldn't receive it, than to focus on locking up the user's practical enjoyment of the product.
The key to making DRM work is to back off the user's day-to-day playback, and focus on making it so that devices won't receive content from users that don't have permission to give it to them. That's what copyright was created for: to prevent unauthorized reproductions, not tell the user exactly how they will use the IP once they buy it.
"With Marlin, any device that runs Marlin can run content on the home domain," he adds. "It's a level playing field [for manufacturers] - they don't have to go up to Redmond with a begging bowl or suck up to Steve Jobs."
So, open source DRM that works well (only) with other hardware also running the same DRM? Don't we already have that? How is this new, or better? The only thing I can see is that, vis-a-vis it being open source, it could be circumvented easier.
That's not quite right. Yes, the biggest problem with DRM is people have implemented it badly. The solution, though, is to make DRM out in the forefront of the feature list and make the DRM HELPFUL and CONVENIENT to users. Making it invisible will show that the companies are trying to hide something. Steam is always brought up as an example of good DRM. People know there's DRM on it but nobody minds because it's actually useful and makes it easy to transfer the games you've bought over to other computers quicker and easier than if you had an actual disk. Make is useful and people will use it.
Don't trust a bull's horn, a doberman's tooth, a runaway horse or me.
Not "people who aren't breaking the law", but people "who aren't doing what we don't want them to do". Not the same thing at all.
Most DRM schemes are trying to put themselves above law and morality then imply that they are simply enforcing that. But law and morality are more complex than any computer is currently able to understand and enforce.
If he explores all forms and substances Straight homeward to their symbol-essences; He shall not die.
No, plenty of people who aren't pirates complain, in my case it's a self fulfilling prophesy.
I didn't use to pirate, but then they took away all are consumer protections and rights.
When I can return a game I don't like, or resell it, or apply fair use I'll stop.
Now if I like a game or music I pirate, I buy it.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
It dont matter. if I can play it I can rip it to a unencumbered format. all my Audible books are converted to mp3 the second I buy them.
DRM is the emperor standing naked in the forum. only the foolish believe it is pretty, useful and works. I guess it makes them feel safer, like a child hiding under the covers to be protected from the monsters.
To those with common sense and can actually see, DRM is useless, it's cracked moments after it is realeased and the worlds' 13-22 year olds have far more programming skill and resources than all the worlds companies combined.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Almost but not quite. More like:
... ) {
Original source:
char* getData(
char* encryptedData = getDataFromSomewhere();
char* key = getKeyFromSomewhere();
if( key == NULL ) {
return NULL;
}
return decrypt( encryptedData, key );
}
The point is that the content is encrypted, and if you purchased the key you can get the data. Otherwise there's nothing you could do short of breaking the cipher, open source or not.
The whole thing about DRM is how to restrict the key to the people who have legal right to it. That's where having control over the platform begins to help, because you can hack it to not hide the key from you. Which is where Trusted (Trecherous) Computing comes into play: it holds the key in hardware, and tries to ensure that the software has not been tampered with before giving it away.
Because TC cannot know whether a modification is a hack to circumvent DRM or a genuine improvement, it stays on the "safe" side by diassallowing all modification. Hence hardware DRM is incompatible with free software, and software DRM is undefined in the context of free software. Which is why the term "open-source DRM" is an oxymoron.
P.S. How did you indent your code on Slashdot?
Burn to CD (or CD image) and rip.
Any DRM makes comsumers' use of lawfully acquired media subject to external control, which means that sooner or later the consumer is going to get ripped off. Notoriously frangible EULAs, market conditions, corporate acquisitions and mergers, etc., mean that someday the external entity that supports the continued use of the media will likely go away. This also ensures that the lifespan of media is temporary, rather than enduring. In a weird way, artists seeking to use DRM cash in on their work today are ensuring their relative anonymity tomorrow, when no one can find a playable copy of that old song they used to love so much as a kid back in '08.
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
These are exactly the issues:
(1) It should never be possible for me to lose access to media I have paid for, period. Perhaps this could be solved with a consumer rights law and enforced key escrow for media.
(2) I should be able to play any media on any device I own which supports playing the underlying media. I should be able to convert between media types (ie, aac->mp3) for the purposes of using a media type on another device.
(3) I should be able to make and keep backups on any media. I should be able to restore out of backup onto any device I own. There should not be onerous measures required to 'activate' my media on new devices (I'm looking at you, EA!)
Ultimately, this is why piracy is attractive - piracy gives you a "better" copy - a copy you can use anywhere and move anywhere.
Preventing unauthorised reproductions is the mechanism by which the public domain is enhanced. Without control over reproduction (be it legal or technical) copyright doesn't provide any incentive to create. Without the exclusive right to reproduce copyright simply cannot exist. That's the price we pay to encourage artists, authors and so on to do their thing.
I agree that current copyright law is too extensive in duration and fair dealing / fair use rights can too easily be trampled by DRM, but if you allow any and all reproductions you would destroy copyright, not improve it.
Chernobyl 'not a wildlife haven' - BBC News
Line-out, line-in, patch cord. What's so difficult?
A rebellious reporter releases non-government-approved-news. The license gets revoked, now you can't play it back, even though you recorded it.
A corporation is engaging in illegal activities that place the public at risk. Someone leaks the documentation. The license gets revoked, now you can't look at the documentation.
A hospital is using proprietary software that uses DRM and phones home. Through error, the licenses don't get renewed. Or, the vendor demands a larger amount of money, and they can't pay it, and they can't move off to another software package because everything is locked up in the vendors software. Suddenly, the whole hospital shuts down. You die in the waiting room.
Who really gives a flying fuck about music and movies? People who think this is about protecting Britney Spears from Bluebeard the Pirate are missing the point....
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
Nobody said they had to be on the same machine.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Exactly. Using DRM to enforce copyright is the equivalent of having cops watch how much fuel you put in your car's tank, and checking your mileage after a journey, to make sure you don't speed. It's simply invasive, untrusting, and unnecessary for adults, and wrong, given that the assumptions are flawed. This is ESPECIALLY true, given the fact that we actually have a right to change the speed limit, if the majority of us decide to, or to copy things that were previously not copied, if the majority of us decide to.
This is a bit unfair to the DRM creators. Cracking DRM isn't a competition between the skills of the designers of the scheme and the skills of the crackers of the scheme. It's a test of the skills of the crackers of the scheme against the already-written big fat stationary target of the scheme itself. To use a non-car analogy, it's a one-round game of hide-and-seek where the location of the hidden object (often an encryption key) is both fixed and extremely constrained.
Isn't one of the greatest benefits of open source, the hordes of community developers ready to monkey around with the code for free/cheap?
What self-respecting coder would contribute to this project, if not only to create backdoors to it?
This entire thing seems more than pointless to me
This also ensures that the lifespan of media is temporary, rather than enduring. In a weird way, artists seeking to use DRM cash in on their work today are ensuring their relative anonymity tomorrow, when no one can find a playable copy of that old song they used to love so much as a kid back in '08.
I tend to think of it as ensuring repeated sales of their art throughout their lifetimes.
For a while there, ensuring this was as easy as making sure that your music was released on the format du jour. Records, 8-tracks, cassettes, CDs.... With the advent of digital music sans a physical medium, this trend of rebuying all of your albums is at risk. Suddenly, you're faced with customers never having to rebuy the White album, and you see your sustained profits going down the tubes.
DRM solves that. Now, rather than coming out with a new format every few years, you just have to come up with a new DRM scheme and turn off the old servers. Because the devices playing the music are somewhat general purpose, it's easy to move quickly--you don't have to worry about market penetration for the players, because it's just a free software update away.