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?

[Mesa MIke]

It's different because it's Open Source!

Re:How can it be both effective and invisible?

[ShieldW0lf]

How is this implementation different from any other DRM?

It's the shiniest turd of all!

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 can it be both effective and invisible?

[Aeolien]

The most invisible form of DRM I've seen is Steam. That's because it isn't just DRM, it's a fairly significant service. I can't sell my game, but I can play it on any number of computers, even if I don't have the original disc. I can chat with friends during my game, and every so often, I can play a game for free for a weekend, or give out a guest pass to my friends for a month or two. Given these benefits, and because the only thing it restricts is reselling, I hardly ever think of it as DRM.

Re:How can it be both effective and invisible?

[Lumpy]

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.

Re:How can it be both effective and invisible?

[camperdave]

Line-out, line-in, patch cord. What's so difficult?

Re:How can it be both effective and invisible?

[billiam247]

Burn to CD (or CD image) and rip.

Re:How can it be both effective and invisible?

[Gizzmonic]

Unfortunately, I think this is the future of gaming. The next game consoles might not even have optical drives. You won't be able to loan a game to a friend, or rent a game from Blockbuster. And good luck reselling games that you bought over the Internet! Gamestop and others might go out of business. When your hard drive fails, you'll spend days re-downloading content (if you're lucky). If not, you'll be branded as a thief and have to spend hours arguing on the phone with Indian tech support for the right to re-download stuff you already paid for.

The Internet has done a lot of great things for gaming, but I am really scared of what will happen if console manufacturers get rid of removable media for games.

Re:How can it be both effective and invisible?

[NotBornYesterday]

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.

Re:How can it be both effective and invisible?

[ciderVisor]

I wonder if the Marlin team are going to buy some DRM'ed songs from iTunes with their thirty pieces of silver ?

Re:How can it be both effective and invisible?

[genner]

I guess it makes them feel safer, like a child hiding under the covers to be protected from the monsters.

Hey don't mock it. It works!

My bedroom has been monster free for thirty years.

Re:How can it be both effective and invisible?

[Kamokazi]

Personally I think it's a great idea. Make DRM invisible. Going by our current level of cloaking technology, we could make it invisible by removing it completely. I'm all for it.

Re:How can it be both effective and invisible?

[plague3106]

Well, that may be true, but the license seems to be perpetual and non-revokable. Or, more like ownership.

Re:How can it be both effective and invisible?

[sammyF70]

You bought a copy of the song. the copy belongs to you, the original recording doesn't.

Re:How can it be both effective and invisible?

[Hojima]

This is exactly why it's so useless to prevent pirating of digital media. As long as the purchased information is streamed into an output device, it can be pirated. You don't even need software for it, as there can be hardware as such as monitors and speakers that can be rigged to record their output.

Re:How can it be both effective and invisible?

[ShieldW0lf]

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....

Re:How can it be both effective and invisible?

[Lumpy]

Line patch cords work... but it takes only a couple of minutes on google to find the answer...

http://forum.dbpoweramp.com/showthread.php?t=11045

dbpoweramp is an awesome program. by using that setup I can convert an entire book in a few minutes instead of taking the hours the book is long.

Honestly, did you even try to search? I typed in audible to mp3 and it was link #5

Re:How can it be both effective and invisible?

[theaveng]

>>>Line-out, line-in, patch cord. What's so difficult?

If Microsoft or the DRM disables recording the Line In at the same time as audio playback, then this technique would not work.

Re:How can it be both effective and invisible?

[DeskLazer]

I guess it makes them feel safer, like a child hiding under the covers to be protected from the monsters.

wait, so you're saying that the blanket won't protect me? what about a towel instead?

Re:How can it be both effective and invisible?

[camperdave]

Nobody said they had to be on the same machine.

Re:How can it be both effective and invisible?

[CarpetShark]

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.

Re:How can it be both effective and invisible?

[russotto]

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.

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.

Re:How can it be both effective and invisible?

[nicodoggie]

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

Re:How can it be both effective and invisible?

[Count Fenring]

We'd be missing the point if DRM was primarily (or even AT ALL) used as a censorship tool currently. But it's not. Partly because a rebellious reporter would presumably have enough sense to release the report in a format not immediately susceptible to DRM takedown. And in your second example... un-DRMing the document is the FIRST NECESSARY STEP in leaking the DRM'd document. Otherwise, it won't be readable by unauthorized computers. Like, say, everyone you want to read it.

Hospitals with licensed programs are an issue... but not in this way. Not a single program vital to the functioning of a hospital just hard shuts down when the license expires. The issue is that the hospital stops getting updates, stops being able to get support for maintenance issues, etc.

People give a fuck about music and movies because, like it or not, entertainment is an important part of human life. Reading, watching movies and television, etc. are part of our engagement with our own and other cultures. And documentaries exist. Humor with political or philosophical elements exists.

Also... frankly, this IS about piracy. It isn't actually about censorship or corporate whistleblowing or shutting down hospitals; it's about corporations trying to cripple potential uses of media in order to try and force pirates through their media channels. It's about entertainment revenue, deal with it.

Re:How can it be both effective and invisible?

[Sancho]

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.

Re:How can it be both effective and invisible?

[MilesAttacca]

Why not continue the CD-era tradition of "remaster" releases? Lots of digital music is sold in relatively low-quality MP3 files. As time goes by, the audio equipment and music industries alike could promote better-sounding equipment *and* higher-quality releases, such as on FLAC, to supplant the cheap iPod dock speakers and MP3/AAC files that the populace buys today. I wouldn't mind an audiophile revival to replace the "make it small and pretty" trend.

Re:How can it be both effective and invisible?

[williegeorgie]

I remember many years ago on the Pennsylvania Turnpike after you exit the system you would get back a copy of the card it had some checkboxes next to a code on it like "Lost Ticket" etc. One of those was "excessive speed" I always figured it made some kind of calculation just like this. That was before EZPass.

Re:How can it be both effective and invisible?

[George Beech]

Let's say you pass through an EZ-Pass terminal. You keep on driving and pass through another one. Using timestamps, a computer calculates how long it took you to get from Point A to Point B and whether you've been speeding. If you cover 25 miles in 15 minutes, then you've obvously been speeding (100 miles an hour).

Well, they do take timestamps - AFAIK if you have EZ-Pass you can see when you went through a particular toll on the web interface to your accound (At least in PA ... ).

Now the math to figure out your speed is trivial enough a 3rd grader could do it. The reason they DON'T start issuing tickets is that everyone would simply stop using EZ-Pass. Everyone stops using EZ-Pass the congestion at the tolls goes back up - in fact gets worse because at least in the Philly area a good half of every toll is EZ-Pass only now. Then there is the added cost of having to rehire all those toll agents that due to a strong union make something like 27-30$/hr.

So in short ... yes it is something completely in their ability to do, however they would actually LOSE money on the deal. As stated above, rehiring all those people, less people actually using the toll roads due to congestion, etc.

it would probably be hard for it to hold up in court.

I don't know about that, it seems like a pretty scientific measure to me. Also they take a picture of your plate and match it up to the registered owner of the EZ-Pass. It's illegal to lend your easy pass to a friend btw so you would be hit by an other ticket if you used that as your defense.

Re:How can it be both effective and invisible?

[ShieldW0lf]

We'd be missing the point if DRM was primarily (or even AT ALL) used as a censorship tool currently. But it's not.

First, you put the hardware on peoples machines. Trusted Computing module in everyones chips, everyones Set Top Boxes. Then you add software support. That's Windows Vista, and the reason behind the driver flakiness. The set top boxes, they've already got the software, just not enabled yet because the broadcast flag is turned off. Next step, get rid of analog gear, get rid of analog broadcasts. Once you've done all of this, the locks and keys are all set up and can't be replaced, because there aren't any devices to replace em with. THAT is when you start using it in a draconian fashion, when you're already got em locked up tight.

Like I said before, if you think this is about protecting music and movie revenue, you're totally missing the point.

Re:How can it be both effective and invisible?

[McNally]

wait, so you're saying that the blanket won't protect me? what about a towel instead?

Effective against the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal. Against other threats, not so much..

Re:How can it be both effective and invisible?

[Ant P.]

I'd love to see them try disabling the line-in when it's on a separate computer from the line-out.

Re:How can it be both effective and invisible?

[Kadin2048]

That would make it more obnoxious but it wouldn't fundamentally change anything. You could use two computers, or maybe even just use two VMs running on a single host. If your VM system was clever and simulated the hardware well enough, the virtualized OSes might not be able to tell they're not running on actual metal, and then you could hijack the audio stream and do whatever you wanted with it.

Sure, it's probably complex for a casual user, but remember: casual users don't need to do any cracking themselves. It just takes one reasonably-competent user somewhere to do the actual cracking, and then they can distribute the unprotected file. The more onerous the DRM, the more attractive the unprotected file will be compared to the legit product.

And of course, as the content producers become more enraged at the piracy, they'll turn the DRM screws and make it more obnoxious, devaluing their own product compared to the pirated one. Barring them getting a clue, it's like quicksand: the more they struggle, the faster they sink.

Re:How can it be both effective and invisible?

[ShieldW0lf]

Also, you're shoving huge world-wide changesets into single steps here. First, we get EVERY CONSUMER DEVICE IN THE WORLD moved to a trusted computing platform. Note that TC has utterly no foothold in commodity PCs or laptops currently.

Trusted Computing has been built into most desktop PCs since 2004. It's been built into most Laptops since 2006. Intel is integrating TPM into their southbridge this year. It's also installed on every Classmate PC. It's just been sitting there like a landmine, waiting to be enabled.

In Vista, it IS enabled. Bitlocker uses it. That's why Vista has bad driver support. It's not because they suddenly forgot how to interoperate with the drivers after decades of experience. It's because it's locking down non-secure paths and analog holes and that makes things break.

Aside from this, it's also ALREADY integrated into all those set top boxes, and has been for years. When you get a digital cable box, it's got TC and support for the broadcast flag. And they're cutting off analog television broadcasts this year.

This stuff is already in the end game. The time for discussion of "stealing movies and music" is long past.

Re:How can it be both effective and invisible?

[Zanth_]

The interesting fact is there is a revival going on albeit with relatively slow inertia as compared with online files. The revival? Good old LP's. The stats are clear, over the past 8 years as CD sales have decreased, with Redbook only players practically vanishing to be supplanted by the DAP phenomenon, turntables and LP's have been steadily rising and have had their best sales year this past year in decades.

For the record labels, LP's have the advantage of built in DRM. Sure, like any DRM, it isn't full proof, anyone can hook up a deck to a computer with the right gear (and some decks are built with a USB output) but the fact that recording is in real-time and that software cleaning of the signal is often required means most won't bother.

Many labels in the indie rock genre are releasing lp's with codes for an mp3 download, usually at 192 kb/s. Not too bad but not lossless either. If you want lossless you spin your record or do a need drop. Still, the convenience is there, higher quality audio at home and the mp3 tracks for on the go any time any place.

My ideal situation would be an LP with a FLAC download code and perhaps this will come to be. For now, when I can, I buy vinyl. To me it sounds better most often (at least the records I buy) compared to the CD counterparts and the art and liner notes are far more attractive.

Invisible DRM is no DRM

[Hatta]

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.

Re:Invisible DRM is no DRM

[frieko]

Exactly. There's no way to change a fundamental fact: No matter what you do, pirates will always strip the DRM and upload it. Therefore this new DRM doesn't prevent piracy, and (they claim) it doesn't prevent fair use, so therefore doesn't it have absolutely no utility whatsoever?

Re:Invisible DRM is no DRM

[Alsee]

A particular implementation of DRM might work if it expands what you can legally do with your files (relative to the normal terms-of-service).

All POSSIBLE implementations of DRM diminish your ability to make non-infringing use of your files It is impossible to have any meaningful DRM at all without criminalizing valuable non-infringing products and criminalizing non-infringing technology and criminalizing non-infringing people.

DRM has absolutely nothing to do with copyright infringement. DRM is about criminalizing abilities. And the ability to engage in general non-infringing use inherently means the ability to infringe as well. Any product or technology that gives you the ability to engage in general non-infringing use inherently means the ability to infringe as well. Imagine trying to prohibit the ability to commit shoplifting - pretty much like chopping everyone's hands off.

-

Impossible

[TheNecromancer]

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.

Re:Impossible

[gstoddart]

You can never make DRM invisible, since people are illegally sharing video and music files all the time today.

I think they'll be happy if it's invisible to the people who have bought the content and are playing by their rules.

The ones who are sharing files on the internet .. they'd like to stop and have the DRM be anything but invisible.

Cheers

Re:Impossible

[m1ss1ontomars2k4]

Oh crap, here comes an...wait, your apostrophe is after your "s". I am confused.

There's only one way to make DRM really invisible

[DreamerFi]

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.

Sense, it makes none!

[ijustam]

...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?

Re:Sense, it makes none!

[Z34107]

The bold-faced part of your quote is Marlin-enabled device, not just a "Marlin device." I think they're open-sourcing the DRM scheme because they want it on as many players (from different companies) as humanly possible.

Which leads to interesting problems. Will Marlin have the one and only licensing server? Could each studio run their own server to license their own content under this scheme? Could I run my own h4x0r sever to license everything to myself?

Ideally, this would be some kind of Steam/iTunes hybrid: download the music you bought as many times as you want on as many machines as you want. (You could look at the users with most machines activated to see who activated the entire internet.)

But, that's just a pipe dream and completely unrelated to what's in the article I haven't read (natch.)

It will also be an interesting test case of the music industry's pet theories (if it "works:")

• Piracy costs us money.
• DRM stops/lessens piracy.
• DRM will make us more money.

If all 3 are true, and the music industry is "competitive," DRM would mean falling prices on song tracks. If this is implemented and we don't see falling music prices, then one, many, or all of these 4 assumptions have been demonstrated incorrect.

Invisible!

[MadKeithV]

"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.

Re:Invisible!

[Aphoxema]

Any code made by a person can be broken by a person. We should invest less in cheap control schemes and more into robotic overlords.

Re:Invisible!

[squiggleslash]

I've taken a look at the specs and it's pretty impressive actually. They're using ROT-26 encryption, and you manage copies using commands called "cp", "mv", and "rm". These commands look at a set of user rights before they operate - read, write, and execute permissions are set separately and the content owner can also assign permissions to groups or even the whole world.

The only major fly in the ointment is that apparently DVD Jon has already released a beta of a tool called "chmod" that can change all of those permissions.

What DRM has to do.

[LWATCDR]

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.

Re:What DRM has to do.

[AKAImBatman]

In other words it is impossible.

Untrue! It is possible to cryptographically lock media to your identity. (Whereby your identity is represented by a public/private key pair.) By loading your key to your different devices (something that can be done transparently if there is a standard), you can remove the media barriers while still throwing up barriers against illicit sharing.

Granted, the result would do little more than keep reasonably honest people honest, but that's about the best that companies can do anyway. If you can play it, you can crack it. So what's the point in coming up with ever-more convoluted DRM schemes? They all rely on security through obscurity, and are thus guaranteed to be circumvented.

If token DRM would give companies a warm, fuzzy feeling, than I'm all for it. (Assuming that a consumer-friendly standard is drafted and a good key backup system is provisioned in the standard.) It may not do much to stop full-on pirates, but what will? It will achieve the exact same goals as current DRM, but without all the anti-consumerism. A friendly compromise if you will.

Unfortunately, I have my doubts about the industry accepting such an idea. The RIAA's position appears to be that everyone is dirty-rotten pirates that must submit to their lord and master, the music cartel. Because if they don't submit, they'll just go back to their evil, immoral ways!

Yeah. The industry would be a lot better off if the RIAA was dissolved. :-/

But how does it work?

[interstellar_donkey]

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.

Invisibility (re)defined

[Carik]

They don't mean invisible to everyone. They mean invisible to people who aren't breaking the law. Frankly, that's good enough for me, in this case; if it doesn't interfere with my legitimate use of a game or my music, I don't have a real problem with it. Yeah, it'd be nice if DRM weren't necessary, but when you get right down to it, most people will steal digital media (as opposed to physical media) when they think they can get away with it. I'm not going to debate whether that's morally wrong or not, but it IS against the law.

Now, of course, I'm not convinced this company is going to be successful in creating effective DRM that doesn't interfere with legitimate use, but it'd be interesting if they managed it.

Re:Invisibility (re)defined

[jeffasselin]

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.

Re:Invisibility (re)defined

[Mesa MIke]

OK.
But will it be invisible to those who would exercise fair use rights?

Re:Invisibility (re)defined

[Aladrin]

Isn't it the same? They licensed their works to you under certain restrictions. Using the works outside those restrictions is not allowed under any license you have acquired, which makes it IP infringement, and therefore illegal.

So yeah, it -is- the same. If you don't like that, work to fix the laws.

Note that I made no moral or ethical judgements here. It is simply fact.

Some would disagree

[Non-Newtonian Fluid]

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.

Awww Man

[svendsen]

Let's not open source a turd...

The biggest problem with DRM

[elrous0]

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.

Marketing doublespeak

[Weaselmancer]

"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.

Open Source DRM would be cool

[Rik Sweeney]

Just think what you'd need to do to bypass it:

Original Source:

bool isLicenceValid()
{
      (Implementation goes here)
}

"Hacked" Source:

bool isLicenceValid()
{
      return true;
}

Job done :)

Re:Open Source DRM would be cool

[An anonymous Frank]

That's okay, since they've already planned to bundle a piece of "software" that prevents you from using a text editor, called OpenSony.

Re:Open Source DRM would be cool

[Godji]

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?

OK, please 'splain this to me . . .

[arizwebfoot]

If it's open source, then I can go in, change the code and bypass the whole kit-n-kaboodle, right?

How it's theoretically different

[MikeRT]

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.

Re:How it's theoretically different

[theaveng]

No it works on licensing. You can copy the song as many times as you want, including over the internet with friends, but you can't use the song until you obtain a license.

I hate licensing. It's too much like renting. I want to OWN the device, program, song, whatever; not rent it.

Re:How it's theoretically different

[JustinOpinion]

That sounds great... but I have trouble imagining a DRM system that could actually make the distinctions you mention (given that we haven't quite solved that whole artificial intelligence problem).

For instance, the average person (as you mention) is going to want to be able to copy a song to their spouse's computer over the LAN. But how exactly does the DRM recognize the difference between a copy to the spouse's computer, a copy to a friend's computer, a copy to your work computer, a copy to a coworker's computer, a copy to a stranger's computer, or a copy to a redistribution server?

The only way I can think is with encrypted content, and then by defining "permission zones" or somesuch, where various devices get authorized as part of a zone, with restrictions on how many devices can be registered in a zone at a time (so that you can't add your closest 30,000 P2P friends into your zone). But managing these zones isn't going to be invisible. You'll be adding new devices as they are purchased, removing old devices as they are sold/discarded (do you have to prove you've erased the previously authorized content?), flashing firmware to re-authorize devices (because keys will have been revoked), using a restricted set of software (that is able to understand the DRM), waiting for network connections to be available (because it's been too long since the last time the device phoned-home), and so on. The user will notice.

I don't think there is any scheme that is sufficiently permissive that users will never notice it, yet sufficiently restrictive to actually put a dent in the "really bad copying" (commercial redistribution, uploading to P2P networks, ...). And TFA does nothing to actually address this issue: how does the software differentiate between good copies and bad copies.

Answer: computers can't. Actually, given the confusion and disagreement around copyright law, evidently humans can't either.

Re:How it's theoretically different

[Duncan Blackthorne]

It recognizes the fact that most people will never get why it's infringement to share a CD or DVD across a family..

Now, see, I take issue with that statement. If that's true then it should apply to all IP, shouldn't it? That would include a printed book, too, shouldn't it? 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. 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.

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.

Re:How it's theoretically different

[BorgDrone]

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.

Indeed, and this is completely different from a physical object like a book. The problem is trying to apply an economic model to a situation where it doesn't apply. Prices of physical objects are more or less determined by supply and demand. For this to work the object in question has to be scarce. Digital data isn't. Once it's created, there is an endless supply of it. Supply and demand doesn't work here. Trying to create artificial scarcity through DRM is solving the wrong problem. Don't try to make a product fit your business model, adapt your business model to the actual product.

Even worse, in trying to make the 'new' work exactly like the old they are actually trying to destroy some of the properties that make the 'new' more exiting and desirable.

Re:How it's theoretically different

[russotto]

I hate to tell you, but you don't own any song or movie on any CD/DVD/Blu-Ray in your house. The RIAA & MPAA may let you own the physical disk, but they own the content. Their license only lets you play it on their terms and they're never gonna let you forget it. Sad but true...

Sad and false, though the xxAAs would like you to believe it. For CDs, it's unqualifiedly false. You own the copy of the song, you can do what you want with it within the bounds of copyright law (not any license). For DVDs and Blu-Ray, you still own the copy, but the (totally misguided) decision in the 2600 case said they CAN restrict what you play it on. But there's still no license between you and them. The licenses are between the DVD makers and the player makers and the DVD-CSS or Blu-Ray organization.

Same Issues?

[Silentknyght]

FTFA:

"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.

not quite right

[nEoN nOoDlE]

"the biggest problem with DRM is people have implemented it badly. Make DRM invisible and people will use it."

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.

My head just asploded

[mcgrew]

Doesn't the latest revision of the GPL specifically prohibit DRM?

So I assume (withot RTFA of course) that the source to this DRM is published, but it isn't GPL 3? Is it GPL 2 or some pseudo "open source"?

Dumb Restrictions on Media can use any license it wants, I want no part of it. Anyone who has anything to do with DRM is either ignorant or a fraud, and I really don't like doing business with the ignorant or with frauds.

When information isn't free, neither are you. I think I'll make that my new sig.

Re:Invisibile

[geekoid]

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.

Bad Solution to the Wrong problem

[hAckz0r]

DRM is just using a technology to try and solve a "social" problem. It will never happen, in fact it just makes the urge to become a criminal stronger. I might not think of pirating software or music, but when I can't use what I purchased I then become a criminal under the DMCA for going around the technological road blocks.

The whole concept of DRM is flawed, because they give me the media, and the key, and the algorithm and then tell me I can not put the three together in any other way than the way they choose. Sorry, not happening here. You can keep your broken products to yourself and I'll spend my money somewhere else.

Re:It's possible that I'm being extremely stupid h

[Applekid]

Doesn't open-sourcing a DRM implementation make it extraordinarily easy to circumvent?

Very true. I fully expect "Tivoization" where only officially signed binaries implementing the DRM will run on equipped devices, though.

It always sounds good on paper

[Sir_Dill]

I like many consumers have been bitten bad by drm and other content "protection" schemes.

From my experience its not so much the DRM itself, but rather difference of opinions between the implementation and interpretation of the spec among the various hardware vendors.

Case in point. My home theater receiver is HDCP compliant, however it doesn't play nice with Vista. This forces me to use gray market software just so I can watch video on my projector. For the record I am not talking about just DVDs and HD disc based content. I can record an AVI with my digital camera and I will still get errors trying to play that content on my projector.

My main point is that its not necessarily the DRM itself that is the problem. HDCP "looks okay" on paper. However when you have a multitude of manufacturers interpreting the spec and the logistical impossibility of unit testing against everything else out there, ultimately its left up to the consumer to do the testing which will ALWAYS end up bad for the little guy. And there is NO WAY an individual user is going to have any teeth when a manufacturer doesn't play by the rules.

My last point is this. DRM doesn't prevent piracy.

again...let me repeat that for the industry folks who are a little slow. DRM DOESN'T PREVENT PIRACY.
It's kind of like network security. The only truly secure computer is one that is sealed in concrete, has no keyboard, no monitor, no mouse, no network, and no power. If someone wants in bad enough, they will get in. Period.
The only truly secure content is that which is never distributed.

There will always be a better mouse.

DRM encounters a problem

[SmallFurryCreature]

It is a simple problem but very hard to get around because the problem used to simply not exist. Standards.

Get this and get this if you get nothing else. STANDARDS HAVE GONE OUT THE WINDOW in the digital age.

ALL VHS was VHS. A LP's were LP's. All cassette tapes were cassete tapes.

Sure, there were competing standards for a short time but by and large, to the consumer media tech had one standard.

Now, in the digital age, this is no longer true. iPod may be synonmous with MP3 player but the fact is that it barely got 50% of the market. The rest of the market is split by dozens of brands each with dozen of models. Each model has its own system, its own capabilities.

This is why iTunes is NOT the standard method to distribute music. Nor is MS fairplay. Hey, even zune didn't support that.

This hampers DRM (and don't we all feel sad about this), how are you going to get your DRM method on all devices? Apple doesn't even bother with it, that is why it is trivial to convert iTunes music to MP3's and they don't license their solution out. Why would a MP3 maker bother with supporting fairplay when nobody uses it? And when so few players support it, nobody is going to use it.

Sure, Sony is a big company, but we all know how succesful it has been in the MP3 market. The company that OWNS the walkman has totally lost its touch, choosing to push its own formats over making money.

Unless someone comes up with a solution of DRM that works with just the file and doesn't need any software installed on devices that can't have software installed it can't work.

This new system doesn't fix that. Why is going to buy a Marlin enabled device when there are no services that use it, and what service is going to support it when nobody is buy marlin enabled devices?

Apples DRM slipped in by accident. People didn't buy iPod's because of iTunes. It just came with it. MS has totally screwed up its own changes by dropping its own system on its own MP3 players.

Saying that Apple and MS are the big boys in DRM land says it all. THERE IS NO DRM INDUSTRY. The consumer not only doesn't want it, but has no need for it. The industry, the hardware makers only offers it if it thinks the extra checkmark on the box is worth the effort and increasingly, they don't.

Re:Missing points

[paintballer1087]

4. ...
5. CASH!

umm... I think you mean:
4. ...
5. PROFIT!

Open Source DRM makes the most sense of all

[Sloppy]

So, if Marlin goes under and your computer crashes, you're out of luck?

Nope. Since it's Open Source, you just comment out the part of the code that says "If I can't contact the server, refuse to work," recompile, and then everything works.

Or if they use a decryption key downloaded from Marlin, then before they go out of business, go into the part of the code where it downloads the decryption key, and store that key somewhere. No, wait, even better: use that key to decrypt your content, and store the plaintext and delete the original. At that point, everything works flawlessly regardless of when Marlin goes out of business.

Now that's what I call effective DRM.

Cool!

[Gerald]

When do I get to DRM my medical and financial records? Or does this still only restrict consumers?

Not "open source"

[lucas_picador]

The article linked here is the only place on the web that makes the peculiar, and false, claim that Marlin is "open source". Marlin's own creators make no such claim; they only claim that it operates on "open standards", which is quite a different can of worms.

No story here, just one careless reporter and one careless ./ submitter.

Form Letter

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't have the answer to your question, but you bring up a good point. Perhaps it is time to start a new form letter.
I'll get the ball rolling:

Your system advocates a

(X) technical ( ) legislative (X) market-based ( ) vigilante

approach to fighting copyright violations.
Your idea will not work.
Here is why it won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have other flaws.)

(X) It will stop copyright violation for two weeks before it gets hacked
( ) Users of media will not put up with it
(X) Microsoft will not put up with it
(X) Consumers will have to buy new versions of all their gadgets
(X) Requires too much cooperation from device vendors
( ) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once
( ) Many device vendors cannot afford to lose business or alienate potential employers

Specifically, your plan fails to account for

(X) Laws expressly prohibiting it
( ) Lack of centrally controlling authority for media
(X) Asshats
( ) Not every device has a permanent connection to the internet
( ) Unpopularity of weird new taxes
( ) Public reluctance to accept weird new forms of money
(X) Susceptibility of DRM protocols to attack
(X) Eternal arms race involved in all DRM approaches
( ) Extreme profitability of copyright violation
( ) Identity theft
( ) Technically illiterate politicians
(X) Extreme stupidity of consumers
(X) Dishonesty on the part of copyright violators themselves
(X) The Internet

and the following philosophical objections may also apply:

(X) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever been shown practical
(X) The customer is always right
( ) We should be able to share our own media all we want
( ) Countermeasures should not involve sabotage of private computers
(X) Countermeasures must work if phased in gradually
(X) Why should we have to trust you and your servers?
( ) Incompatiblity with open source or open source licenses
( ) Feel-good measures do nothing to solve the problem
( ) I don't want the government listening over my shoulder

Furthermore, this is what I think about you:

(X) Sorry dude, but I don't think it would work.
( ) This is a stupid idea, and you're a stupid person for suggesting it.
( ) Nice try, assh0le! I'm going to find out where you live and burn your house down!

Re:Queue the anti-DRM utopians.

[RightSaidFred99]

Well holy shit, brilliant argument. Shit, I suppose a construction worker can go build porches on people's houses for free then hope they pay him some pittance! Maybe Adobe or Apple should follow this path to riches and make all their software free with "Donate Here" buttons, I'm sure they'll recoup the cost of development.

Your repetition of Slashdot's tired propaganda and your overall indistinguishability from a puckered asshole make you a douchebag.

Seriously, did you just use the "they shouldn't be in it for the money if they're any good anyway" argument? What a jackass.

Well Put

[MattW]

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.

Re:Well Put

[ikarous]

Ultimately, this is why piracy is attractive - piracy gives you a "better" copy - a copy you can use anywhere and move anywhere.

This point deserves emphasis. Historically, pirated CDs, disks, and video tapes have been of lower overall quality than their legal commercial counterparts, a fact that provided some impetus for people to fork over the dough for a copy guaranteed to have decent quality. But the situation has changed: it is now the case that pirated copies are of both higher quality (due to the lack of DRM) and easier to obtain through downloading. While Amazon's selection isn't all-inclusive due to lack of licensing agreements with a few labels, TPB comes damn close to having everything.

So other than personal honesty and the potential barrier provided by a lack of technical knowledge, what motivation exists for an average person to buy music legally, subjecting themselves to DRM or a limited selection, instead of simply downloading the file from one of the many file-sharing services?

DRM is not the solution to piracy. The only way to substantially curb piracy is to follow these guidelines:

• Make downloads convenient and fast (Amazon and iTunes both do a pretty good job of this).
• Don't hold your customers' data hostage! This will just piss them off and give them an excuse to pirate.
• Get the labels to agree to online downloading. Most people don't want to buy CDs now that they can download music without leaving their home. Once the can is opened, it can't be closed. If Joe can't find the song he wants on Amazon, instead of going to Barnes & Noble to buy the CD (and pay extra for all the filler songs), he'll probably consider downloading it illegally. Or asking his teenager to do it for him.

I don't comment very much, and this topic has been repeatedly beaten to death by the Slashdot community, but sheesh. I just don't understand why media industries insist on pissing off the customers that actually pay for their products while doing nothing at all to inhibit the actual pirates. It's ridiculous.

Re:Queue the anti-DRM utopians.

[RightSaidFred99]

Yeah, dubbing a tape is just as effective as publishing something on a torrent site. Piracy was even rampant back then, but the need to have physical media and the fairly noticeable loss of quality was a hindrance to it really affecting the studios.

What you people fail to understand, amazingly, is that DRM doesn't have to be perfect. Even the crappy DRM on DVDs stops the majority of people from copying them.

You all remind me of the people who want laws passed for "their own good". If DRM didn't work they wouldn't use it. It's as simple as that. I guess it's easy to assume that billion dollar industries are full of dummies who don't know what "UngleLoogie" on SlashDot knows, but the odds are they have very smart people, both technical and in finance, working for them.

Re:Never limit sharing.

[mollymoo]

US copyright was not made to prevent, "unauthorized reproductions" it was made to maximize the public domain and advance the state of the art.

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.

But if you do want to rent.

[pavon]

I hate licensing. It's too much like renting. I want to OWN the device, program, song, whatever; not rent it.

Exactly, if I buy something then it is mine for personal use and I will not tolerate any DRM whatsoever. And when it comes to music I want to own it. However, there are somethings which I don't mind renting because they only have limited replay value anyway. DRM allows the concept of renting to be extended into the digital realm where things are easily copied, and can create some nice business models that wold not be financially viable otherwise.

It seems like most of the focus right now is on on-demand streaming of videos, which can be obfuscated to discourage most people from recording, but it has it's problems. For one, the bandwidth for high quality video really isn't there yet, and it would creates huge peaks in demand during prime-time if it ever became widespread. By using DRM'd downloads rather than streaming content, distributors and ISPs benifit by allowing downloads to be more spread-out and even intentionally scheduled during low usage hours if it's automated (using a Netflix queue model). Furthermore, not all places have fast internet connections, like subways, cars and airplanes. Being able to sync the movie to a portable device really makes the system more useful to customers. The only problem I have with existing services like this is that they are tied to specific devices, like the rentals on iTMS can only be used with Apple computers and devices. An "open" DRM system like is being proposed here would fix that.

Breaking the law? Them's fighting words, part'ner

[Moraelin]

1. Now I'm against piracy, but claiming something as broad as "invisible to people who aren't breaking the law" is BS.

For example, from what I understand, you only need to try playing t on a device which isn't "Marlin-enabled", for it to become very visible right there. I fail to see what counts as "breaking the law" if I merely take my bought song and try to play it on my old car stereo. Care to explain?

2. How _do_ you enforce a DRM without locking access to certain parts of the "pipeline"? E.g., if I can use open-source sound drivers, what's to keep me from writing an un-DRM-ed .WAV to disk of their music? E.g., if I can play it in a self-compiled music player, what's to keep me from writing the decrypted stream from the player instead of playing it? Etc.

That's why MS's "trusted computing" insists on authorizing and authenticating every single bit of your computing, starting from the CPU. And you can't have a signed program that you can change, recompile and have it still stay signed.

So basically they _have_ to restrict what drivers, software, etc, you use, or they can't guarantee enforcing that DRM. And as soon as you, say, went the OSS route and recompiled anything, again, it _has_ to become very visible. Because as soon as the binary has changed at all, you no longer know whether it now has a backdoor which extracts the binary stream.

_But_, and here's the important part, the binary changes even if you didn't do anything devious there. If I, say, decide to play with these stupid drivers and make them able to play multiple streams like under windows (Gnome and KDE do come with daemons that do that mixing, but natively it isn't available) it necessarily produces a different executable.

So, again, care to explain what's illegal or "breaking the law" if I decide to tweak my sound drivers on this here Linux machine? I mean, FFS, even MS's FUD at its darkest hour stayed clear of claiming that doing any OSS work is criminal.

4. I thought that it was up to the courts to decide if a law has been broken? Just a thought. Deciding a priori that anyone running into trouble with a particular piece of retarded software is a criminal, is rich. The whole fundament of the western justice is based on such ideas as establishing exactly what happened, the degree of evil intent ("mens rea"), hearing the other side's half of the story too, etc. It seems to me that deciding a priori that, basically, anyone doing things differently than you imagined is automatically a criminal, goes against pretty much everything that justice stands for.

Re:Invisibile

[thepotoo]

plenty of people who aren't pirates complain

People who aren't pirates are the only ones who complain (at least about music and movies).

Game pirates gripe all the time about releases being a mere week in advance of retail release, or about how the crack just uses a VM to break the DRM without actually removing it from the executable.

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.

Re:Even easier...

[Snospar]

Wish I had mod points right now as the above comment is a top tip often overlooked by people.
You can use VLC in a similar manner to play-and-record "troublesome" DVD's.
Keeping everything in the digital domain cuts out any interference from the digital/analogue conversion stage.

Re:Even easier...

[tepples]

Set your recording device to be "wav" or "what I hear" or something similar in your soundcard's mixer's "recording" view.

Secure Audio Path (Windows XP) or Protected User Mode Audio (Windows Vista) is mixed into the output after the "what you hear" patch point. But line-out to line-in works just as well, and the quality loss is negligible for a typical overcompressed pop song.

Re:Queue the anti-DRM utopians.

[RightSaidFred99]

The construction worker expends resources for every porch built. Thus every porch needs to be payed for. The artist does not expend resources (bandwidth notwithstanding) for every copy distributed to every fan. Thus not every copy needs to be payed for. There will be enough people who will donate*, assuming the guy is any good, to make up for the costs. An artist who's not in it for the money, but rather for the love of doing it, will not care about getting every cent that could possibly be made under RIAA-style accounting**

Not that it matters, but the studios do spend money advertising and publishing media. I say it doesn't matter because there's this thing called "opportunity cost". Let's say God comes down to earth and creates a perfect DRM model. Basically your brain refuses to distribute content you don't own. Now, how many people would buy Album X and what would they pay? The difference between that amount and the amount earned because people copy content is what DRM attempts to recoup. The "but it costs nothing for another copy" argument is just a distraction and not a real argument. I will agree that RIAA/BSA/etc.. style accounting is wrong. e.g. if I copy a $1000 piece of software and play with it, they didn't lose $1000 because I wouldn't have bought it anyway.

Not quite, compare our wordings very carefully. Take a really good artist. He makes art because he loves to make art. If he does not make a load of money, he will continue to make art. As long as he has enough money to live off of his art, he will keep on doing it, and he'll get better. If you love what you're doing, chances are you're good at it.

This whole line of reasoning bores me with its stupidity, frankly. You're making a value judgement on a profession and arbitrarily claiming they should have motivations you agree with or that their ability is dictated by their lack of greed. I could make the same argument for a software developer. Or a doctor. Or a lawyer. You can say the same thing about any profession. It's nonsensical. What if I have a really good voice and musical ability, I can't treat that like a profession and instead should "suffer for my art"? Laughable.

Full Digital Kit...

[da5idnetlimit.com]

My TV is digital and incorporates HDMI with it's nice, integrated DRM scheme.

My HD reader is digital, incorporates HDMI, with it's nice, integrated DRM scheme.

My TV tuner is digital, with it's nice, integrated DRM scheme (no record bit...ah yes, they said they would never use it)

My radio is analogic. But they are all pushing that DAB thing that is digital

My Ebook reader....

ad nauseam.

Now add a touch of ubiquitous Wimax/wireless in all of those pieces of kit. And they can revoke your licences at will.

Re:Full Digital Kit...

[da5idnetlimit.com]

I forgot...

My pc is digital. Wasn't there some talks of integrating something called Palladium (drm...) in all PC hardware ? And Vista (and possibly -lol- Windows7) integrates DRM by default.

again, ad nauseam...

Don't make this assumption

[CarpetShark]

Assuming that you'll be able to rip whatever DRM they use is dangerous. With hardware that cooperates to undermine you, PKI could easily be used to encrypt data in ways that are unbreakable through software -- by ANYONE. All it takes is a chip that publishes its public key for the media source, and re-encypts data directly to digital monitors (IE, an LCD monitor, and speakers) which also publish their public keys. Short of breaking your OWN chip apart to see it's unique key, you're screwed. Moreover, it could well be unbreakable, if those chips used one-time pads.

Battling DRM and other abuses of power is a lot like the anecdote about battling the nazis: if they come for others and you don't speak up, there will be no one left to speak up when they get to you. Or, in other words, don't be complacent on the grounds that you'll survive. If you let the technology gain a foothold, you'll be up the creek too, just like everyone else.

Re:Don't make this assumption

[collinstocks]

Hey, Godwin's law.

Also, a factual correction:

A one-time pad is not a method of public-key cryptography. Also, using a one-time pad would set up a limited lifetime for the chip, as it would have to stop executing when it finished the pad. There is no possible secure way to extend the life of a pad.

The final quote without the corperate PR revision

[wolf12886]

Make abuse of IP law invisible, and people will tolerate it.