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Gamers, EFF Speak Out Against DRM
Last month, we discussed news that the FTC would be examining DRM to see if it needs regulation. They set up a town hall meeting for late March, and part of that effort involved requesting comments from potential panelists and the general public. Ars Technica reports that responses to the request have been overwhelmingly against DRM, and primarily from gamers. The Electronic Frontier Foundation also took the opportunity to speak out strongly against DRM, saying flat out that "DRM does not prevent piracy," and suggesting that its intended purpose is "giving some industry leaders unprecedented power to influence the pace and nature of innovation and upsetting the traditional balance between the interests of copyright owners and the interests of the public." Their full public comments (PDF) describe several past legal situations supporting that point, such as Sony's fight against mod chips, Blizzard's DMCA lawsuit against an alternative to battle.net, and Sony's XCP rootkit.
Why bother to fight DRM? DRM is not the problem, the problem is that distributing DRM workarounds is illegal. Instead, why not go after the root problem, the DMCA?
Palm trees and 8
"DRM does not prevent piracy"
Which implies that piracy is an undesirable thing. Therefore we shouldn't be focused on DRM as the sole solution to the piracy problem, but as part of a larger set of steps to eliminate the problem.
Either piracy is a bad thing which ought to be dealt with, or it is a good thing which should be encouraged.
The EFF's point (as is typical for them) is full of rhetoric but fails to truly understand the issue. It's a shame they are on the right side because they aren't really helping.
DRM Killer, available later this fall featuring SecureROM.
I really wish people would stop the arrogant assumption that they can always work around whatever DRM manufacturers create, even when they all get together to work against the public. Breaking cryptography is HARD. Some crypto is UNBREAKABLE in any reasonable amount of time, using any known techniques. The UK's Sky TV, for instance, has been using the same crypto on their satellite broadcasts for years now, with no cracks available.
The problem is that I don't see the political establishment listening to "a bunch of gamers and the EFF."
I think it tying together the Sony Root Kit issue with farms of own machines used for SPAMing, scaming, or organized crime would get a little attention.
The biggest problem I have had with DRM is that I rented Ratatouille last year and was unable to play it on a standard DVD player, unable to play it on two different computer DVD players, and of course unable to make a copy (which I only tried because I couldn't play it.) The disk cause me to have to unplug and plug back in my Toshiba DVD player to even get it to eject, it totally locked up the player.
Think Deeply.
The whole copyright agreement is to allow exclusive distribution rights to specific material or content for a limited amount of time, after which the works would be released to the public domain.
So far, the industry has managed to have copyright duration extended to unreasonable durations increasing the likelihood that after the copyright term expires, it will no longer be available for access or distribution. But that isn't harmful enough. Now they want to keep the works locked up in an encryption scheme that will likely make copyrighted materials extinct long before the copyright term expires as no one will be able to access it after the term expires.
This is a complete and total breech of the copyright agreement with the people of any given nation that respects copyright under law.
Now if they can't crack something and feel the need to resort to purchasing a solution then some crtpyo may be truly uncrackable. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/12/nsa_offers_billions_for_skype_pwnage/
How convenient. I just bought a copy of Left4Dead brought it home and tried to install it only to discover the CD key that came with the game was already in use (which is odd since the game was in a sealed package). So I went off to valve support to try and get the situation remedied. Their support is anything but efficient or helpful. So then I went back to the store where I bought the game to get an exchange. Wouldn't you know it they have a policy of not having anything to do with games that have been opened. So for the time being thanks to copy protection I'm out $50 for a legitimate copy of a game. Add this story to the big board. Next time I want a game I'll just download the cracked version.
I have nothing compelling to say
I think the fundamental issue is that the DMCA and DRM allows the "industry" to write their own laws.
With the DMCA and the anti-circumvention provisions, the restriction code has the power of law - circumventing it is illegal.
So they can ignore whatever fair use privilege we used to enjoy, because fair use privileges aren't guaranteed rights: if you can't make use of it for whatever reason - tough; they're not required to provide you with tools or systems to give you what you want, even if it could be legal.
So this all boils down to the fact that we've lost all fair use in copyright law (maybe not in theory, but definitely in practice), and as such, copyright has become completely unbalanced in favour of the copyright owners.
The tradeoff was: a temporary monopoly on distribution with some fair use exceptions, in return for a rich public domain later on.
Not only have we lost fair use, we've also lost the public domain part later on. Because the DRM on copyrighted works that end up in the public domain isn't going to magically disappear.
All we're left with is "a monopoly on distribution" - that's not what copyright was supposed to be.
I do know of a couple that bought a Sony entertainment system. The system has the DRM built in. Now logic would tell you that as long as the DVD's are compliant with US rules as to format etc, then that DVD you put in the player should work. This is not the case though. They never know if the DVD will work in the DVD player. So half of their DVD movie collection wont play in the Player. They bought a second DVD player, and use this for those DVD's that wont play in the Sony.
Sony may argue stating that the movies wont play because they are pirated. They are not. They were DVD's bought from reputable stores.
This is how bad DRM has become. Consumers are at the mercy of manufacturers of DRM laden products.
The use of the word "piracy" to describe copyright infringement is as old as the 1709 Statute of Anne
--- when the Black Flag still flew over the Caribbean.
The geek is NEVER going to win this argument.
"The presence of unencrypted transport stream rips of HDTV broadcasts proves the existence"
Not necessarily. I've noticed that almost every HD cable box has a component out that supports 1080i. There are boxes that will capture this stuff (for Myth as one possible use). The 1080p rips out there likely came from BluRay cracks.
In many ways, it's like WMP files from MS. The one genuine crack disappeared pretty quickly, and has not been repeated. However, I'm not convinced it's because WMP is "hard" to crack, rather it's because it's just easier to rip a CD or use MP3's already "in the wild".
I like to think of breaking DRM like water in a vessel. The water doesn't need lots of ways to get out, it only needs one. And when it comes to music, it's not worth breaking the DRM. For video, it's worth it, so it's broken.