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FTC Warns Against Deceptive DRM
Jane Q. Public writes "At the Federal Trade Commission's Seattle conference on DRM, FTC Director Mary Engle started off by referencing the Sony rootkit debacle, and said that companies are going to have to get serious about disclosing DRM that may affect the usability of products. She also said that disclosure via the fine print in a EULA is not good enough, and 'If your advertising giveth and your EULA taketh away, don't be surprised if the FTC comes calling.' Transcripts and webcasts are available from the FTC website." Update 18:13 GMT by SM: as Jane Q. Public was nice enough to diplomatically point out, the webcasts are no longer functioning, but transcripts are still available.
Is there any DRM that is not deceptive at some level? It seems that the makers try very hard to gloss over what the DRM actually does/restricts when they are trying to sell you their stuff.
Sony will just buy a few more congress-critters and pass some laws to shut that down.
...when a certain US president accidentally bought some region 1 DVDs for a certain UK prime minister?
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
'If your advertising giveth and your EULA taketh away, don't be surprised if the FTC comes calling.'
Does this include, "Own it on DVD"?
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
I'm absolutely delighted to have the FTC's assurance that regulatory capture could never ever happen to them.
In fact, I would argue, it already has. Let's be real clear here: what Sony, for instance, did with their rootkit was a crime. If I had done it, I'd probably still be sharing a cell with Bubba. Because it was done by a corporation, under a layer of legalistic obfuscation, to "consumers" it was treated as a fairly minor civil matter. Sony handed over some money, offered to replace a few CDs, and mumbled something about being sorry if anybody was offended. Pathetic.
Uh - your complaint is what the Bugs link is for, nobody from /. is going to read it here.
Did you ever wake up in the morning, with a Zombie Woof behind your eyes? -- FZ
It is nice that the FTC has admitted a few of the problems with DRM but them actually stopping or changing or even challenging it seems a bit out there. Enough money and all government problems seem to go away.
WTF has the FTC to do with the linux Display Rendering Manager? Jim gettys and Keith Hewlett Packard have been working their asses out to make this thing wokring again and have the kernel provide decent acceleration and VT switching. Sure the FTC may be better than the old RTC approach but you don't break backwards compatible APIs every day for no serious reason despite what people do these days. It's up to the distributions if you ask me. And people know that. And that's it.
The FTC won't act unless they know about it and if it's affecting a lot of people.
Notice how those small time telemarketers who violate the Do Not Call List never seem to get caught even when you file complaint after complaint with the FTC; whereas, the big corps who do it are caught and paraded around the media?
The guy does have a point though, for the last few months it's been like they're not even testing their modifications before putting them online.
But yeah, submit a bug report, buddy.
The Slashdot editors chose to change my article to state that webcasts are available at the FTC site. They are not. There were live webcasts but (at least on my Mac) the links only worked when the talks were live.
So if you try to access the webcasts and it doesn't work, please don't blame me. The editors wrote that in.
don't be surprised if the FTC comes calling.
Sony: "Hello?"
FTC: "Hi, this is the FTC, you have some deceptive DRM in your latest product"
Sony: "Oh?"
FTC: "Yeah, so we're just calling to let you know"
Sony: "I'm not surprised that you're calling"
FTC: "Wonderful. Have a good day, sir. Goodbye."
they should require a prominent logo of a broken CD if DRM is in use.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
The problem appears to be that corporations being imaginary beings and not physical are rather hard to put in a jail.
Put the highest level manager who cannot produce written proof this was ordered by somebody higher up the chain in jail. Next time, the CYA chain will go all the way to the CEO.
-- Support a free market in the field of government
Is the FTC actually going to *DO* anything? Or are they just paying lip service?
A quick search reveals the FTC handling of the rootkit debacle.
Basically, $5mil to the government and $175 to each person who's computer was fried by the rootkit (though I'm sure you had to jump through hoops to get it the money, can't tell now though because the website to make a claim was taken down).
Talk is cheap, I want some real action from the FTC.
Where are the >$100mil punitive damages lawsuits? THAT would put an end to subversive/invasive DRM.
OTOH, the libertarian side of me would just like to see better press coverage of events like this to raise consumer awareness of the issues of DRM.
So when are they going to kick the arse of all the movie studios?
They advertise "OWN IT TODAY" on all their dvd releases. Yet they claim in courts and elsewhere that you dont own anything but are merely licensing it.
I want them forced to advertise "Get your limited, conditional and revokeable without warning license to view it today!"
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I covered the FTC meeting for TeleRead.org (though since I'm connected right now through an iPod Touch from a hospital exam room I don't have any way to fetch the link).
I also was credited by name for a question asked at the beginning of the last panel. :)
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
the only difference is, is that it doesn't affects as many people since not too many import videos or go overseas
Region-locking affects millions of people every day, because it is a barrier to open competition in the markets and allows charging different rates for the same product via artificial means. Perhaps those in the US may be less aware of this because they tend to get things first/cheapest, but don't tell anyone from, say, Europe or Australia that.
Now, I'm not saying a company shouldn't be free to sell a product in one country at one price and in another country at another price. Sometimes, this may be justified, for example if the costs of manufacture/transportation are different in the two cases.
However, blocking someone who is willing to buy where the price is lower and deal with any extra logistics themselves has no ethical or legitimate commercial basis. It doesn't even have an economic argument like copyright, unless you believe in protectionism. So why should the law say that anyone who circumvents such provisions is wrong?
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Meant to mod that insightful, hit redundant by accident. Slashdot: please come up with a better way to undo moderation!
So while they can shop around for the cheapest source for production, you can't shop around for the cheapest product.
Or they could just put physically broken discs in the cases, and be done with it when you open the case.
In Soviet Russia, DRM manages Y... oh right.
We're good nevermind.
I am not trying to "blame" anybody else... but I am trying to avoid others blaming me for something I did not do.
Most people consider region locking to be a form of DRM. Which it ts. DRM should not be allowed to exist at all. It is totally intolerable.
So is any company that assumes thate their customers are criminals.
I think a CD behind bars might be more fitting.
Good! Hopefully the FTC will step in and do something about Valve's miserable Steam-ing pile. When I buy software on a disc, I expect to be able to put that disc into my computer and play the friggin' game. Period.
The constitution gives congress the right to
(emphasis mine>
DRM, on the other hand, gives 'Authors' control of their 'writings' for an unlimited time. As such, DRM is not protected by article 1 Section 8 of the constitution. This means that DRM provisions are now far more susceptible to (for example) a first-amendment challenge than most other copyright provisions.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
This is something I have been advocating for years but I had no chance to tell the government or anyone else
Ok, so let me get this straight:
...and this is good WHY exactly???
You basically explain that DVD region encoding was invented so big corporations could circumvent free markets mechanisms and thereby disable free competition...
- Jesper
My security clearance is so high I have to kill myself if I remember I have it...
Not that I want to astroturf and spam this all over, but the ECA today launched a call to action about DRM and EULAs. Over the past year we have witnessed a growing concern among gamers about the issues of increasingly invasive Digital Rights Management (DRM) and End User Licensing Agreements (EULAs). The FTC is holding hearings on the issue of DRM and EULAs.
Read the ECA's statement, sign the petition and comment about how consumer rights are being diminished, http://action.theeca.com/t/2858/petition.jsp?petition_KEY=562.
Brett Schenker, Online Advocacy Manager Entertainment Consumers Association (ECA)