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DRM Take II — Digital Personal Property
Diabolus Advocatus writes "Ars Technica has an article on a new form of DRM being considered by the IEEE. It's called Digital Personal Property and although it removes some of the drawbacks of conventional DRM it introduces new drawbacks of its own. From the article: 'Digital personal property (DPP) is an attempt to make consumers treat digital media like physical objects. For instance, you might loan your car to a friend, a family member, or a neighbor. You might do so on many different occasions and for different lengths of time. But you are unlikely to leave the car out front of your house with the keys in it and a sign on it saying, "Take me!" If you did, you might never see the vehicle again. It's that ability to lose control over property that is central to the DPP system. DPP files are encrypted. They can be freely copied and distributed to anyone, but here's the trick: anyone who can view your content can also "steal" it irrevocably. The simple addition of a way to lose content instantly leads consumers to set up a "circle of trust" that can be as wide as they like but will not extend to total strangers on the Internet.'"
what are they trying to achieve?
surely after years of being beaten to a pulp they MUST have learned that any attempt at controlling is more than futile?
Looking for people to chat about multicopters, coding, music. skype: gtsiros
Right now, it's easy to include DRM while only upsetting we, the minority, because the average consumer never tries to use their media in a way that runs afoul of DRM. They buy song off iTunes and just use it there on iTunes, never knowing the limitations of the "product". (I use iTunes merely as an example, I know there's DRM-free music there now)
With every new push, however, the average consumer comes closer to running head-first into these limitations. When you have people's files start disapearing off their hard drive when there is no physical product, they might finally join us in asking: "Why the Hell is a collection of ones and zeroes being treated this way?"
The harder DRM advocates push, the more the consumer becomes less ignorant of their questionable ownership philosophy.
Caffeine is my anti-drug!
Duranin - A NWN2 Roleplaying Persistent World
what they want, he tells Ars, is for digital property to "complete the emulation of the physical world."
One would think they would eventually see the change of paradigm that's been going on for... 30 years?
I wouldn't leave my car outside my house with the keys in the ignition for all to steal (well, actually, my car is terrible so I have contemplated it). However, if I could 'burn' a new car from a car 'blank' for the price of a few pennies every time I left the house I would. I would also drive it over to my friends house and not worry if I found a different way back - I'd just leave my car there and create a new one. There is no reason to treat digital media the same way as physical media unless you're trying to force people to play by your old rules when the world has moved on.
And anyone with a "link" to the key can assume ownership. So if you, or any of your friends' computers are compromised, they can "steal" your DPP protected stuff. And you can never get it back.
Of course, there is little reason to steal; people who want the files in question would simply get DPP-free versions. Only malicious sorts and vandals would bother, since there'd be no real gain from the act. But if you have a falling out with your friend, it doesn't look like you can "change the locks" so to speak. If I give a house key to a friend, and for some reason stop trusting him, I can change the locks on my house. This doesn't seem to support a similar mechanism. Also, unless you store the playkey online (which has its own problems), a hardware failure in the playkey storage device will cost you your files. Returning to the house analogy, it would be like your house burning down (okay, becoming inaccessible forever) because you lost the key to the front door.
$_ = "wftedskaebjgdpjgidbsmnjgcdwatb"; tr/a-z/oh, turtleneck Phrase Jar!/; print
It's like when a five year old tells you he can't find his shoes because he lost them. But he doesn't want to get in trouble so he'll say a gypsy took them. And you know the kid is lying but when you press him - he'll start to describe the gypsy. "He had purple pants, a gold shirt, and a moustache. He had a little monkey with him."
Much the same with DRM. They've lobbied for it, they've pushed it, they've gotten people to buy it and then yanked the key servers and left them high and dry. It can't be a swindle, they just haven't found the correct solution yet! So we go around and around with the industry talking about how to do this the right way. The truth is that there is no right way. The truth is that DRM is a lie. It can't work. Ever. Whenever you hold both the lock and the key, it stops being about cryptography and starts being about how to game the system.
Read up on how people beat DRM systems. Like DVD Jon. He's not a gonzo cryptographer. He didn't break DVD by his sheer mathematical skills. No. He was a kid with a machine code monitor who found the decrypted key in memory.
But like any good lie, you have to keep telling it once you start. Because the minute you say "well as it turns out there wasn't any gypsy" that's when you get in deep trouble. Imagine the class action lawsuits that would result! No, telling the lie over and over is much cheaper. So let's hear it for DRM2. I'm sure it'll buy the industry at least six more months before the next bored kid from the Netherlands comes along.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Forshame, whoever tagged the parent offtopic.
That's why I hate getting first post, although the last time or two I didn't get downmodded. Some mods just automatically mod down a first post.
As to the actual topic,
It's DPP, data other people's what you get it
There's no room for rights management, there's just room to hit it
I wish the charlatains who keep trying to come of with new Digital Restrictions Management software would get honest jobs. There's no way to stop bits from being copied, and like DVDs, the key has to be with the encrypyed media. It's like leaving the key to your front door under the doormat; the first time somebody finds it, your TV is gone. Only with DRM it's several hundred copies of your TV that's gone.
Trying to sell bits is stupid, but not quite as stupid as trying to keep people from copying them. Bits are like air -- to sell air you have to wrap a balloon or a scuba tank around it. The people selling "digital content" need to learn to do the same. Don't sell movies, sell DVDs. People LIKE tangible objects. Don't worry about the "piracy", nobody ever went broke from piracy.
Whare would Photoshop be if it weren't for piracy?
You can't compete with free, but you can use free to sell stuff. The trouble with the media moguls is their own greed. If it weren't for their greed they'd not be taken in by the DRM-writing charlatains (who must be laughing at their poor stupid clients), and they'd use free to their advantage.
Free Martian Whores!
What about option three? People stop designing cars, watches, etc, because once they sell one, anyone with the "replicator" can get theirs without the original designer being paid
In a world where everything costs nothing, what would they spend money on?
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