Here We Go Again — Video Standards War 2010

Andy Updegrove writes "Think of the words 'standards war,' and if you're of a certain age you're likely to think of the battle between the Betamax and VHS video tape formats. Fast forward, and you'll recall we just finished another video standards war between most of the same companies, this time between HD DVD and Blu-ray. Well, here we go again, except this time its the movie studios that are duking it out, and DRM issues are a big part of it. On the one side are five of the six major studios, dozens of cable, hardware, software, distribution and device vendors, and on the other side there's just Disney — and maybe Apple as well, and that's enough to have the other side worried."

Comments

Slave to the server

[Animats]

Another "slave to the server" DRM scheme. Those have a finite lifetime.

What's the longest-lived "slaved to a server" DRM scheme? Has any such scheme been working for ten years? iTunes may be the oldest, but they didn't support video until 2005, and they've been moving away from DRM on audio.

Think of what al-Queda could do with the signing key for Windows Update.

The art of the possible.

[jthill]

All the major media companies except Disney and Apple are supporting a media-purchase-validation system that won't work unless your purchase is DRM'd. Disney and Apple are proposing one that works equally well with un-DRM'd media.

Jobs is at it again.

Except fo Course...

[IBitOBear]

You _aren't_ going to get a key for "The White Album" you are going to get a key for "the 2011 release of 'The White Album" in MP3 format from Sony Interactive for use on sPlayer #xxxxxxx" simply because they _can_ be that specific and they _don't_ want to sell anything once that they can sell a million times.

DRM == RENT, and illegal prior restraint, and a scheme that can never actually work because it is a system that violates every principle of both software engineering and cryptography. No matter how you slice it, DRM is a stupid waste of leptons, time, and money. It is a system based on a complete lack of modularity and locality.

DRM is a classic case of "who will watch the watchers?" and not just at the corporate and financial and cultural levels. As a simple exercise in software engineering DRM must fail. It is a system that must be part of every element of a system (which is the failure of locality and modularity etc) to the degree that you need to have DRM policing the DRM system.

DRM is the Perpetual Motion of Software. People keep inventing new versions of it that don't quite work because no version of it can _ever_ deliver what is promised. Companies keep buying into the hype because they are blinded by "the potential". The only difference is that we are all being forced to buy these perpetual motion machines. Sure _this_ one has a battery in it, _that_ one has to be hooked up to the electrical mains. Some other one needs a waterwheel or a solar panel, and they will all tear off an arm or crush your child if you aren't careful... but we are _almost_ there... just one more scheme and we'll have it right...

The whole thing is a tax, levied by the stupid, paid by the sheep, and ready to break businesses when, I don't know, say Microsoft (or whomever) forgets to update a certificate (or whatever) before it expires (or whatever).

Where the heck do I find the Opt-Out?