Slashdot Mirror
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.'"
All right, time to start the ol' betting pool up. Let's guess how long it'll be before someone hacks that and just permanently steals everyone's DPP. I must say, however, it's awfully nice of them to make theft easier than ever. Why bother to leave your house when you can do it from the comfort of your office chair? If you'd like to ransom their belongings you can use the Internet for that too! Thanks Internet!
You are using English. Please learn the difference between loose and lose; they're, there, and their; your and you're.
The point is, for most younger people: I have it, you have it, we all have it. All the time, and for free.
Anything that doesn't encompass that usage model will get bypassed in favor of stuff that will adhere to that model.
The problem is for creative types that this means they get one sale in an efficient market. The first buyer then makes their purchase available to the rest of the world for free. Why would they do that? I don't think anyone is completely sure, but a reputation or status built by sharing is part of it.
The "one sale" idea pretty much pushes things back to a patronage system. Instead of recording a song and selling copies of it, a band is paid by some rich guy to play. The rich guy gets to tell them what he likes and what he doesn't like - and if the band wants to continue living off music they will play that way. They can then distribute their work for free without any worries about compensation.
The problem is, as quite a few creative types found hundreds of years ago, a patronage system quickly ends up where everyone is trying to be just like Elvis because the people with money to spend on the arts really, really liked Elvis. Or whomever was the big favorite. So in 17th Century Europe you had playwrites coming up with pretty much rehashes of the same theme over and over again because that is what the patrons of the arts liked and would pay for.
Sounds sort of like what has happened with music recently. But the problem is while the record labels have (somewhat) learned that an endless series of "Boy Bands" aren't going to cut it any longer with a patronage system it isn't up to the marketplace - it is up to a very small number of patrons. Is that really where we want to go?
And no, I don't see the Internet making much of a difference. If the Internet lead to broad-based financial support it would. But the Internet is a way to distribute stuff for free. There is no "financial support" involved. iTunes is a myth and you might as well get over it. Nobody is making money off iTunes, especially Apple who created it as a music supply for iPods. And as many sales as iTunes has it occupies maybe 3% of music downloads today. No, no money that way.
With DRM, the media companies tried to prevent people from sharing their music. But cracking the DRM led to the same problem as before.
With DPP, the media companies are offering an easier dishonest way to get music: instead of cracking the DRM, just steal other consumer's songs...
Basically, DPP means: Don't steal from me, steal from my customers instead!
Car analogy would be a manufacturer making cars with great anti-theft systems that are to be removed when the car is first sold in order to discourage thieves from stealing a product before it was sold the first time.
Actually after reading the article the guy is an idiot. The "playkey" is the whole problem with DRM. Whether downloaded off a drm server, or transferee securely br protected memory(as the article suggests). Transfer of that key is needed. Without it everything fails. What's worse in order to even be vaguely secure each music file would need it's own playkey. So for me alone that is some 5,000 keys.
If you had even the same playkey for every song title theft is easy. If each person has one playkey. Then it be ones possible to steal thousands of songs nearly instantly.
So I say again the guy is an idiot. A dumb idea so poorly thought out I wonder if he actually thought about it or pulledit out of his ass.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
"You down with DPP?"
From TFA:
"The playkey, unlike the title folder, can't be copied--but it can be moved."
Allow me to speculate that Windows development teams are onboard with this. Windows will come with this feature, or said feature will be introduced via updates. Let's assume that it's actively pushed via automatic updates. Special files will be uncopyabable, at the request of IP holders. That's going to work out really great. For instance, you can't "sys" a floppy or a CD with XP, because vital files are "uncopyable" by Windows.
But - wait one. Aren't there boot CD's all the same? No, I don't mean Linux LiveCD's that can access Windows partitions. BART CD for instance. Win-PE. Various people have done things with the concept, but most haven't really caught on. How about USB? Tom's hardware has a how-to to create "Windows in your pocket". There are dozens more sites, with similar how-to stories. In short, those "uncopyable" files are routinely copied by people who are determined to copy them.
But - wait another one. Linux. Linux just doesn't recognize Windows file permissions. Boot a system to Linux, you can copy anything from anywhere to anywhere else.
So, yeah, I'm down with DPP. It's perfectly cool. They create it, implement it, and I ignore it. No problemo. I mean, this is BEFORE anyone gets around to creating a "crack" for the entire system, which will enable the least tech savvy elementary school student in the world to copy anything he wants.
Bring it on, I say. It's funny to watch the corporate idiots wasting their time and money on nonsense, rather than adapting to the world we live in today.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
This is just the first act. What happens when technology gets to the point that you CAN copy a car? Or a cabbage?
Peace on earth, or greedy rich men trying to stop it?
Free Martian Whores!