IEEE Working Group Considers Kinder, Gentler DRM

slave5tom writes "An IEEE working group is trying to put the genie back in the bottle. Its scheme will allow unlimited copying of encrypted content, which will require a playkey to activate. Trying to add a cost by making the playkey 'rivalrous' (what you take I lose) and rescuing the big content players from the brink of oblivion does seem futile, but it is entertaining to watch them fight the inevitable."

Comments

Palyers?

[Ltap]

Come on, at least get the spelling in TFS right.

Sounds kinda like a shit sandwich

[grahamsaa]

On tasty artisan bread.

Still not terribly appetizing.

Re:Sounds kinda like a shit sandwich

[paeanblack]

From TFA:
To access the content inside, however, you'll need the playkey, which is delivered to the buyer of a digital media file and lives within "tamper-protected circuit" inside some device (computer, cell phone, router) or online at a playkey bank account. Controlling the playkey means that you control the media, and you truly own it, since no part of the system needs to phone home, and it imposes no restrictions on copying (except for those that arise naturally from fear of loss).

"tamper-protected circuit": you may gain some "ownership" of some encrypted media files, but you have to give up ownership of your device.

You can just as easily label what they still control as the "content" and the encrypted files on your device as the "key". Interchanging those labels is just semantics, since you still need both parts to hear the music. The end result is that you gain no additional control over the content, and you have sacrificed control over the hardware.

No thanks.

Re:Sounds kinda like a shit sandwich

[Anonymous Coward]

It is still better than what's available, I guess - note that the DRM scheme doesn't just pertain to how/where you store the media but also issues controlling playback and how you can play it back. Being able to pass it around is all good and well and solves one of the issues.

One thing I am interested in is whether it would let you control how it is played - instead of making you wash the same shitty trailers every single fucking time you pop a DVD into the player.

I am also curious as to whether distributors would allow this kind of freedom, they'd probably balk at the prospect of not being able to charge different prices for the same item in different markets (since now you can buy it anywhere and just pass the key around).

Re:Sounds kinda like a shit sandwich

[interval1066]

...give up ownership of your device.

Only if you give up ownership of the money I give you for use of your product. Or; in other words, not in this life.

Re:Sounds kinda like a shit sandwich

[Silentknyght]

Sweazey argues that a truly non-rivalrous system makes commerce too difficult, even impossible, and that we need to create ways for the digital world to mirror the constraints of the physical one.

On a philosophical level, I am opposed to artificial scarcity for the sake of profiteering. It scares the hell out of me. However, playing devil's advocate for myself, it *could* work to allow sharing, resale, and the other benefits currently enjoyed by physical items.

However, as the parent poster rightfully states, the whole tamper-protected circuit notion is nice on paper but going to be impossible to implement while actually "giving" it to the same people who hold the data.

Re:Sounds kinda like a shit sandwich

[jedidiah]

Those little shiny discs are fine as a medium of exchange and proof of ownership.

The only real problem here is that the content industries are bound and determined to make those shiny discs less useful.

A shiny disc that I can freely copy is MORE VALUABLE to the end user.

They can go into a media center or onto a PMP. Right now if you want an iTunes style video experience you need to do a lot of your own legwork. Or you can just pirate stuff.

The Pirate Bay should not be the more attractive option in terms of features and ease of use.

Re:Sounds kinda like a shit sandwich

[icebike]

Tamper protected might mean that it simply stops working if altered. That should be enough to keep 5 9s (99.9995) of the would be hackers at bay, and would probably be good enough.

If you buy something and it gets encoded to some key you own, you still want the ability to use that key on more than one device. (computer, smartphone, ereader, TV, etc), or authorize that media on every device you own.

That is where the problem comes in. Offering device flexibility without giving the game/ebook/song to every resident in the dorm.

Even assuming you could indeed create an un-duplicable play key, people want to read/watch/play on all of their deivces.

Do you put one playkey on multiple devices, on separate playkeys on each device?

The fundamental problem is that the means of duplication is in the hands of the masses. And playkeys will be JUST as quickly duplicated as the media is today.

Baring some form of quantum entanglement you can't make a key that someone else can't duplicate.

Re:Sounds kinda like a shit sandwich

[characterZer0]

Great. So the 6th 9 hacks it and posts a torrent. The cat is out of the bag.

Re:Sounds kinda like a shit sandwich

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

There is a second problem: Unless the "tamper-protected circuit"(and presumably "trusted" software) is the entirety of the device, it will be completely useless, even if never cracked. Consider:

1. I receive an encrypted copy of $BIG_MEDIA_PABLUM$. It requires the super secret playkey to decrypt. The super secret playkey is stored in an unbreakable TPM.

2. My software requests the playkey, uses it to decrypt $BIG_MEDIA_PABLUM$ and hands me a plaintext copy.

3. I have a plaintext copy. I no longer care a whit about the playkey. Even if the TPM is unbreakable, and the "rivalrous" revocation mechanism impossible to defeat, what does it matter? I have a plaintext copy.

As with any DRM system, this "kinder, gentler" system requires that all the software on a system be aligned against you(and, to keep it that way, typically involves hardware measures that make it hard or impossible to replace that software, even if you wish to opt out of the "ecosystem" entirely). Thus, no matter how "benevolent" the terms of the DRM are technologically capable of being such a system will necessarily be an enemy of software freedom(or even the potential possession of software freedom) and will, in practice, be as restrictive as desired by the company or consortium that exercises cryptographic control over "your" hardware in perpetuity.

Re:Sounds kinda like a shit sandwich

[drsmithy]

Great. So the 6th 9 hacks it and posts a torrent. The cat is out of the bag.

That's of relatively limited importance if it takes them, say, 6-12 months to do it. The bulk of money is going to be made immediately after release, when popularity is high.

The *real* issue is not whether or not the cat gets out of the bag, it's how long it takes to do so.

Re:Sounds kinda like a shit sandwich

[Anonymous Coward]

If anything, what we need is to create ways for the physical world to mirror the (lack of) constraints of the digital one. In a world with replicators, who needs commerce?

Re:Sounds kinda like a shit sandwich

[SanityInAnarchy]

Unless he then creates a repeatable process, which shouldn't be hard to do -- the player needs such a repeatable process in order for it to work.

Re:Sounds kinda like a shit sandwich

[hweimer]

You can just as easily label what they still control as the "content" and the encrypted files on your device as the "key". Interchanging those labels is just semantics, since you still need both parts to hear the music.

It's even worse as the content distributor no longer needs to actually distribute gigabytes of data, but can merely wait for others to do it, e.g., by uploading to P2P networks. So in the end the user also pays for the distribution, leaving even more money in the pockets of the media cartels.

Re:Sounds kinda like a shit sandwich

[testadicazzo]

The people who need commerce are those who are deeply programmed with our heirarchal culture, which in so many ways imposes a class structure on society, breaking them down into haves and have-nots. A great many people, with a great deal of power, would be lost without the validation that their relative wealth brings them. Thus, a disproportionately powerful segment of the population would rather see us all grow poorer and retain their relative position of advantage, than to see us all grow wealthier, but they themselves be reduced to social equals. This is exactly what's happening with our society's new ability to disseminate information and culture at virtually no cost. The parasites who have grown fat off the old system of want, are terrified of losing their social advantage in a system of plenty

If someone did invent a replicator, and necessary free energy to fuel it, you should expect a period where these elements attempt to exert control, through copyright, patent and trademark laws. One hopes the period would be brief, but who can tell.

The level of indoctrination into this system is profound, but there have been many successful cultures and societies which didn't have this feature, so there is hope.

As food for thought, consider the engineers at IEEE working on this. These are by all means intelligent and capable people. How much richer would we all be if they would stop working on stupid useless shit, whose only purpose is to keep arbitrary, harmful systems of power in place, by creating an artifical barrier to communication? Surely they can find more useful applicatoins for their talents.

Re:Sounds kinda like a shit sandwich

[lxs]

That can easily be fixed by not putting the decryption keys into the player. Not being able to access the content might actually be a blessing considering most of the crap they put out these days.

Tanks for......

[Anonymous Coward]

....the laugh.

lame

[girlintraining]

Turn to page 5...paragraph 4, sentence 3, word 4. Write it in the box. Insert dongle to continue. Serial numbers, online activation, warder, blah blah blah, and the list goes on.

Guys, no matter how you want to fuck with the technology, you can't erase one simple fact: At some point it needs to be viewed by a human, listened to by a human, interpreted... by a human. That means that at some point the data comes out analog, and can be scanned, manipulated, copied, and everything else.

DRM will always be an excercise in fail.

Re:lame

[The MAZZTer]

Actually, it is more accurate to say at some point the game has to execute code locally on the user's computer. Where the user has full control of what runs and what doesn't run. Where the user can use a disassembler to reverse engineer the game and disable the DRM.

On a console it's harder because of the locked-down nature but the hardware running the code is owned by the user and they can get access to the system one way or another and decompile the code.

Re:lame

[Monkeedude1212]

User accounts that can only have 1 session logged in at once have worked very well.

People can still share the game, but they can't both play it at the same time. It's a good balance that lets people lend games if they want to, while still forcing most people to buy at least 1 copy.

However, this is only really effective for games that focus on a multiplayer element. Otherwise, one could share the login details and disconnect and both users could play the singleplayer aspect at the same time. Ubisoft tried getting around that with constant connections to their servers but it's had a very negative response.

All in all, there are DRM schemes that have been shown to work well enough to keep a game secure while giving it the leniency most users want. CD Keys are another one that has worked well (and still is).

Re:lame

[Anonymous Coward]

Not if we scan them all and put them on the game grid. Bwahahahahahaha!

--
MCP

Re:lame

[m94mni]

Console?

No, think iPad. Do you think a disassembler or virtualisation software will be allowed to enter the App Store? Me neither.

We are already starting to lose the hardware battle to Apple. Apple owns the hardware, not you. RIAA and MPAA owns the content, not you. Then they can make deals without bothering with pesky details such as customers.

The biggest threat to information freedom today is Apple and the iOS.

Re:lame

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank god you're on our side, Mr. Ballmer.

Re:lame

[Anonymous Coward]

Depends.

I own a copy of Neverwinter Nights (Yes, old game), and the "premium modules" require you to have an online connection to play, even single-player. You can play the downloadable modules all you'd like, you can play the game and the expansion simultaneously, but the premium modules and multiplayer require you use your unique key(s).

Not much fond of online-required play, but at least this way you're not locked out of your game completely if you're not online.

Re:lame

[c 0xFF]

Enter: Cloud computing.

Here's another consequence of moving the execution to the cloud ... you don't get local access by definition. Just wait until games execute on the server and stream the video of the action.

Re:lame

[Hurricane78]

Only if your mind can only reach as far as the Apple delusion bubble goes.
Protip: There are a bazillion fuckin’ great media players out there. Half of them are better than any Apple product. And if you consider the price/performance ratio, most of them probably are better.
Tip: Buy one that is Rockbox-compatible and get tons of features and formats for free.

Re:lame

[Anonymous Coward]

Same deal. Root the iPad, reverse engineer whatever local restrictions iOS runs.

Saying "It won't happen on an iPad because it's not in the App Store" is exactly the same as saying "It won't happen on a PS3 because there's no disc for it."

I agree that Apple is too tyrannical, but all they are really doing is moving console-style management into the PC world, ironing out some 'bugs' as they go.

Re:lame

[Anonymous Coward]

Errr, not really. Ipad can be jailbroken and fully modified. App Store apps can be ripped and cracked and pirated.

Re:lame

[guruevi]

You're still free to jailbreak your phone and the iPhone emulator in the iPhone SDK allows you to run any program you want AND decompile/debug it.

You're full of FUD and I suggest you get off the Internet. Now!

Re:lame

[Patch86]

If I'm listening to a song, sound is coming out of the device. I can always just hold the speaker up to a microphone and voila, copied content. Movies? Camcorders.

The quality might not be easy to achieve, but give the AV-philes a while with "HD" content and high-quality modern kit, you'd soon end up with something as good as VHS.

Games are trickier, but it's not the gaming industry's lobby we're really talking about here, is it.

Re:lame

[Marillion]

At a more fundamental level, a computer has a natural tendency to always do something or never do something. The whole idea of sometimes doing something is ripe for failure. you can get better and better at defining the rules for what sometimes means. But when a computer only understands legitimate versus illegitimate as a set of rules, the computer will fail because the rules failed.

Re:lame

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Unfortunately, Apple (while abundantly evil, and extra dangerous because they are good at it), is not especially short of company.

Microsoft has Xbox360, Zune, and Windows Phone 7, all as cryptographically controlled platforms. Further, their newer PC OSes feature goodies like the "protected media path" and the steady deprecation of kernel drivers not blessed from Redmond.

Sony has the PS3, PSP, and all things Blu-ray. Not to mention their creative subversions of the CD standard...

Intel are the fine folks behind HDMI, and reading any of their TPM or EFI "trusted boot" related whitepapers should give you a good case of the chills for their vision of the future of the x86 platform.

Re:lame

[tepples]

No he isn't. Windows Phone 7 is just as closed as iPOS.

Re:lame

[tepples]

Just wait until games execute on the server and stream the video of the action.

That won't take off in places where ISPs cap transfers or on medium- to high-latency wireless links. Good luck running this business model on a smartphone.

Re:lame

[tepples]

People can still share the game, but they can't both play it at the same time.

You don't need two copies for two players to play a video game. Just connect two gamepads to your computer and play something like Street Fighter or Bomberman.

Re:lame

[harlows_monkeys]

Actually, it is more accurate to say at some point the game has to execute code locally on the user's computer. Where the user has full control of what runs and what doesn't run. Where the user can use a disassembler to reverse engineer the game and disable the DRM

For now, as homomorphic encryption is still in its infancy. Once we get practical fully homomorphic encryption, everything changes.

Re:lame

[codemaster2b]

DRM will always be an excercise in fail.... at least until human cyborg components are mandatory.

Re:lame

[Kitkoan]

Errr, not really. Ipad can be jailbroken and fully modified. App Store apps can be ripped and cracked and pirated.

And those laws with things like jailbreaking are getting tougher. Many of those groups that do things like this do it in countries where the law is at best grey. With ACTA moving in you'll find more of these groups will just stop as they won't want to risk the legal battles (court fees alone). Look at DarkAlex of the PSP scene. He's gone from what I've heard was Sony was breathing down his neck a little too much. Just because you can jailbreak the device today doesn't mean the options will be as easy tomorrow. Then we are all left which devices like the iPad that aren't truly ours anymore, and might be able to call home if you've jailbroken it sending you to jail for 'bypassing a security measure' a la hardened DMCA laws.

Re:lame

[Anonymous Coward]

i believe you are correct about apple and the ios. however, once apple monopolizes the world to the extent that MS has, i believe it will lead to a great information freedom revolt. *nix would have a much easier time conquering an apple dominated world than a windows dominated world.

Re:lame

[asdfghjklqwertyuiop]

The point is Apple actively tries to prevent that sort of freedom. They keep releasing firmware updates that block various jailbreak methods and won't just leave some simple method to accomplish that sort of thing.

Re:lame

[Anonymous Coward]

We are already starting to lose the hardware battle to Apple.

You know that burning when you pee? No? Ok how about when you poo? Yeah you feel that don't you, I bet you really feel it bad. Yeah that means you are getting fucked? Don't like getting fucked, well stop buying Apple dumbass.

Re:lame

[mandelbr0t]

We are already starting to lose the hardware battle to Apple. Apple owns the hardware, not you. RIAA and MPAA owns the content, not you. Then they can make deals without bothering with pesky details such as customers.

This has always been the case with Apple.

Re:lame

[m94mni]

Well, no? OSX is an open computing platform, where you can compile your own binaries and where you are free to use your harware more or less as you see fit.

Also, Apple has never before been in a situation where it starting to become dominant.

Dominance + hardware lockdown is my issue here.

Re:lame

[m94mni]

I don't worry about myself, I worry about the majority of internet users in the future, and where this development will take the market.

Just imagine a world where web pages start to get replaced by apps, controlled by apple. That is not a nice picture, but it's where current developments are taking us.

Re:lame

[m94mni]

There's a huge difference between relying on potentially illegal modchipping and having an open platform to begin with, that lets the user choose what to install and use.

Re:lame

[m94mni]

I have never bought anything from apple, and I hope I never will. My worry is not about myself, but about the majority of internet users and what these developments will do to the market.

I don't want a world where every startup needs to ask themselves "will ths be accepted by the Apple censors?"

Re:lame

[Microlith]

You're still free to jailbreak your phone

Not according to Apple, who consider it a DMCA violation. Never mind the retarded acceptance of fighting the manufacturer for control over your property.

the iPhone emulator in the iPhone SDK allows you to run any program you want AND decompile/debug it.

Totally irrelevant, since you have to pay Apple $99 to load it on a non-Jailbroken device and not at all to others.

There is no FUD here. Apple is totally hostile in the mobile front and that's dangerous.

Re:lame

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody cares about analog. The whole DRM stuff is intended to prevent you from creating perfect, digital copies. That's why piracy wasn't such a problem with VHS or audio tapes - because copies were never 1:1.

Re:lame

[Anonymous Coward]

Meh, screw Apple and the silicon horse's tukhus they rode in on, I own NO iPad, iPod, iMac, i-ANYTHING hardware from Apple. Do not want, do not need, did not buy, beg, borrow, OR steal. Apple's hardware is rendered irrelevant to ME.

Now get off my lawn!

Re:lame

[IndustrialComplex]

You're still free to jailbreak your phone and the iPhone emulator in the iPhone SDK allows you to run any program you want AND decompile/debug it.

You're full of FUD and I suggest you get off the Internet. Now!

You are only free to jailbreak your iPhone because Apple has failed to stop you from doing it. With that definition of 'free' I think it needs a big honkin' asterix placed next to it.

Any system that requires you to circumvent measures which were specifically installed to prevent you from using the hardware in a manner not pre-approved by the manufacturer is not free.

Re:lame

[IndustrialComplex]

That won't take off in places where ISPs cap transfers or on medium- to high-latency wireless links. Good luck running this business model on a smartphone.

When ISPs are now getting into the business of streaming content, caps don't matter at all*.

(As long as you aren't the ISPs competition)

Re:lame

[Anonymous Coward]

You're still free to jailbreak your phone

Not according to Apple, who consider it a DMCA violation.

The DMCA does not apply in my country.

However:

Apple is totally hostile in the mobile front and that's dangerous.

I agree completely with the above statement.

PS3 hasn't been cracked yet

[Eponymous Coward]

There are examples of successful DRM out there. The PS3 is probably the most biggest. The PS3 has been out a long time now and it's looking like the DRM isn't going to be cracked anytime soon. The machine is definitely in the second half of its life right now and the most high profile attack was geohot's ultimately useless hypervisor hack.

Re:PS3 hasn't been cracked yet

[HBI]

So I bought one for GTA4 and use it for playing blu-rays now. That was a big win for them, 1 game sold. Great DRM.

Re:PS3 hasn't been cracked yet

[zmollusc]

Sony's DRM has succeeded mightily in stopping me spending money on their products. The Sony amp and speakers I bought in the 80's look embarrassed at the way their maker has pissed its good name away.

Re:PS3 hasn't been cracked yet

[Darkness404]

Just because it isn't cracked yet doesn't mean its uncrackable. I think with the PS3 there just isn't any motivation to hack it. Its expensive if you break it, Cell is a pain to code for, and really has no use when compared to a Wii or even 360.

If there is no motivation, no one will crack it. Just like I can make Super Crappy Game 8000 with DRM built in but if no one buys my game or wants to crack it the DRM remains uncracked.

Really, what is there to do on a cracked PS3 that can't be done on a 360 or Wii aside from things that use the Cell Processor which only really does obscure mathematical calculations very well.

Re:PS3 hasn't been cracked yet

[Bill_the_Engineer]

Yea but Sony thanks you for your blu-ray purchases (or rentals).

Re:PS3 hasn't been cracked yet

[mea37]

And for every disgruntled consumer that won't buy their system because it carries DRM, would you care to take a guess at how many non-disgruntled consumers are pressed into playing by Sony's rules?

I don't know the number, but I'm willing to wager it's a lot higher than you'd like it to be.

Re:PS3 hasn't been cracked yet

[chill]

...Sony thanks you...

These words should never be together in a sentence.

Re:PS3 hasn't been cracked yet

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because it isn't cracked yet doesn't mean its uncrackable. I think with the PS3 there just isn't any motivation to hack it.

That's like saying no lock is unbreakable. I think you miss the point.

PS
Nice troll

Re:PS3 hasn't been cracked yet

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know the number, but I'm willing to wager it's a lot higher than you'd like it to be.

Yea, the number is sitting at around 36 million at the moment. I'm sure execs over at Sony are losing sleep over the 8 guys on Slashdot who didn't buy one because of the DRM though.

Re:PS3 hasn't been cracked yet

[easterberry]

you can play bootleg versions of PS3 games without paying for them. Which is basically what everyone I know who cracks their systems uses it for. Playing free games for that system on that system. So unless you're going to claim that there are no games anyone wants to play on the PS3 (which is a bad joke at best and a played out attempt at trolling at worst. So don't bother.) there is motivation to hack it.

They have succeeded in making a very difficult to crack system or a system where the potential benefit is outweighed by the potential loss if you want to go the "it's expensive if it breaks" route. Either way, they pulled it off pretty well.

Re:PS3 hasn't been cracked yet

[Late Adopter]

Really, what is there to do on a cracked PS3 that can't be done on a 360 or Wii aside from things that use the Cell Processor which only really does obscure mathematical calculations very well.

Play copied PS3 games. I think from Sony's point of view they have more than made back their investment on DRM for the PS3.

Re:PS3 hasn't been cracked yet

[Darkness404]

Oh yes, because what person -doesn't- want to spend hours slaving over a hack to let them do... pretty much the same thing you could have done on a Wii or modded 360. A hacked Wii can play just about every console up to PlayStation and doesn't play PS1 games very well. But wait... The PS3 plays them by default. Oh what about a Cell-based PS2 emulator? Well, Sony themselves tried that and ended up giving up. So where does that leave you? N64? (though I think there was a port for an N64 hacked Wii emulator but never tried it to see if it ran full speed or not...), Dreamcast? Gamecube? (But the Wii can play Gamecube games natively...).

As for a media center, the PS3 already does some of that and really for the price of a PS3 and the labor it would take to do this, you could buy a nice HTPC setup.

Look, there is no reason for anyone beyond saying "Look! I have a hacked PS3!" to really even bother trying to hack it.

Re:PS3 hasn't been cracked yet

[zmollusc]

Meh, there is no accounting for human nature (see religion, sports, soap operas), there are likely 6 billion people eager to exchange their money (that Sony can do anything it wants with) for Sony DRM products ( with which they can only do what Sony wants ).
It is better to moan about DRM than to curse some candles in the dark. Or something.

Re:PS3 hasn't been cracked yet

[BoogeyOfTheMan]

Except that I already own a PS3 and would have to spend ~$200 for a Wii or 360. Also, what effort is involved in turning the PS3 into a media server? All I had to do was install some software on my pc and tell it what I wanted shared. (PMS-linux on Ubuntu 10.04)

Re:PS3 hasn't been cracked yet

[Mitreya]

There are examples of successful DRM out there. The PS3 is probably the most biggest.

Absolutely. All you need for successful DRM is locked hardware. If personal computers are ever replaced by several additional lines of XBoxes, then DRM might start working as intended. Fortunately that cat is out of the bag...

Re:PS3 hasn't been cracked yet

[Qwavel]

Yes, and so we might start seeing more DRM in our lives, so it worth standardizing.

The conversation on /. is often driven by those who reject DRM, but what about those of us who would accept it if it were done right (like me)?

Just like for formats and containers, we need royalty free standards for DRM. If I buy DRM'ed content I want to be able to take it to any phone, iPod, TV, car, etc. that I own. I do not want to buy multiple copies and I certainly don't want to get locked into a single supplier.

Re:PS3 hasn't been cracked yet

[Voyager529]

...Sony thanks you...

These words should never be together in a sentence.

Sounds like the first half of a Soviet Russia joke, which given the wide scale piracy happening over there, doesn't seem too inaccurate.

Re:PS3 hasn't been cracked yet

[Anonymous Coward]

I steal mine. Shoplifting FTW!

Re:PS3 hasn't been cracked yet

[sconeu]

I didn't buy one... not because of the DRM, but for two reasons.

1. I have no need for a console
2. If I did have a need for a console, I don't spend any money on Sony products, period. Sony management thinks that they can bork my machine at their pleasure.

I realize its minimal, but that's the only way I can punish Sony.

Re:PS3 hasn't been cracked yet

[Eponymous Coward]

The big content producers mostly want you to be able to do this as well. The big problem is that they want to be paid for it.

The formula is simple: if some action has value (like format shifting), they want to be paid.

This is why I think "DRM done right" is not possible. DRM *is* rights management. It's all about stopping you from freely using the content in arbitrary ways.

How would you define "done right"?

Re:PS3 hasn't been cracked yet

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

you can play bootleg versions of PS3 games without paying for them. Which is basically what everyone I know who cracks their systems uses it for. Playing free games for that system on that system.

This. PS3 is cracked sufficiently to cover 99% of the reason people crack systems. So what if it isn't completely opened up? Its open enough to pirate with which is Sony main reason for trying to lock it down in the first place.

Re:PS3 hasn't been cracked yet

[IamTheRealMike]

Could you link to an explanation of how this PS3 cracking works? Your post contradicts the original post saying it's not been cracked. I keep half an eye on the DRM world and I didn't hear of any copy protection breaks on the PS3. I'd be interested to know how they pulled it off, if it's true.

Re:PS3 hasn't been cracked yet

[IamTheRealMike]

Actually what you need for successful DRM is any sufficiently strong/complex protection (it can be purely software too), combined with aligned incentives in all the needed parties and most crucially a content experience that isn't the same for everyone. One of the reasons that DRM fails again and again with things like movies and music is the analog hole. The reason it has worked very well on the PS3 (and to a lesser extent the xbox) is that there is no analogue hole. It's a digital copy or bust.

Re:PS3 hasn't been cracked yet

[Pentium100]

However, that applies only to interactive content (games, software). Non-interactive content like music or movies can be pulled trough the analog hole and there is no way the manufacturer can both allow me to listen to the song I bought and prevent me from recording the song to a different device using a microphone (assuming it is somehow possible to prevent me from connecting the wires directly).

Re:PS3 hasn't been cracked yet

[Jane Q. Public]

"The conversation on /. is often driven by those who reject DRM, but what about those of us who would accept it if it were done right (like me)?"

Nothing personal, just an honest response:

Most people on /. consider people like that to be the sheep who are primarily responsible for many of the world's ills. You really should get this idea through your head: if DRM ever truly became successful, eventually you would be kissing your freedom and privacy goodbye. And I would hold it against the sheep who helped allow it to happen. I'll pass on all that, thanks very much.

Re:PS3 hasn't been cracked yet

[prediff]

So I bought one for GTA4 and use it for playing blu-rays now. That was a big win for them, 1 game sold. Great DRM.

I guess they also thank you for being a part of their "X people own PS3" statistics as well.
No Sale is Bad Sale.

From Sony's perspective its better that they do not have people ripping off the PS3 games and playing than having people not using their consoles at all.
At least this way, they are making it painful for the pirates and maybe it would make a infinitesimal percentage go out(optional) and actually buy a game instead. Great DRM indeed.

Re:PS3 hasn't been cracked yet

[Anonymous Coward]

Heh... They got really, really close to it- which is why they ganked all the OtherOS users. >:-)

Re:PS3 hasn't been cracked yet

[tepples]

Really, what is there to do on a cracked PS3 that can't be done on a 360 or Wii

You have to crack an Xbox 360 or a Wii to do the same things that you used to do with Other OS. You don't have to crack a PC, but a PC has its own advantages: a PC needs an extra $40 adapter to output to an SDTV, and unlike (say) Internet Channel on a Wii, most PC web browsers aren't sandboxed to contain drive-by installations of malware.

Re:PS3 hasn't been cracked yet

[Eponymous Coward]

DRM needs to be turned on its head. Every day, people give up all kinds of personal information. I would like that to be protected by DRM that I control.

So, for example, if I don't like Facebook's latest privacy policy I should be able to revoke their right to my data. If I get tired of the grocery store tracking my purchasing habits, I should be able to turn it off with a click. Want to change physicians or insurance companies? It should be simple to block your old doctor or insurance company and grant access to your new doctor or insurance company.

Re:PS3 hasn't been cracked yet

[Jane Q. Public]

As a corollary, we should have a law such that ALL information gathering will be opt-in, never opt-out. Privacy by default.

Re:PS3 hasn't been cracked yet

[Anonymous Coward]

Consumers' expectations for game consoles is very low. If people bought PS3 games with the expectation that, like media files, they should be able to use any sort of player (i.e. their home-built Linux box, their Mac, whatever -- not just limited to a Sony Playstation 3) then the media would be required to be interoperable. If the media is interoperable (i.e. anyone is allowed to implement software that uses it) then the DRM will be trivially defeated (or actually, not exist in the first place).

PS3 game players don't care that they have to use a specifically-Sony box, and that they can't ever really upgrade or maintain that box or build their own out of the latest and greatest chips for a higher rez or FPS. For some reason (and it's pretty perverted when you think about it), this is the norm for now in the game market. Even Flash games are mostly getting away with the requirement for specifically-Adobe Flash, although this may be more seriously challenged some day (e.g. Gnu Flash). (But really, who is holding their breath on that?)

With movies and music, it's different. Movies have to work with HTPCs because nothing else even vaguely approaches an HTPC's utility and convenience. Music needs to be extremely interoperable, because there is such a tremendous diversity in the ways that people might want to play it (everything from the living room of the sucker who buys $5000 cables, to the shitty speakers in some biker's helmet). Every company in history who thought they had the product for the entire music-using market, turned out to be wrong.

This is what makes DRM a deal-killer for stuff like music and movies. I don't want to have to use a $BRAND device to access the content. I might decide to end up using that brand anyway, but if I can't use a non-proprietary general-purpose personal computer for the job, then I know it's going to have so many problems that I can't take it seriously.

Re:PS3 hasn't been cracked yet

[Sloppy]

Just like for formats and containers, we need royalty free standards for DRM.

And just like royalty free standards for DRM, we all need free ponies powered by perpetual motion.

You can't ever have a standard for DRM. If something is a standard, anyone can interoperate with it (i.e. create a player). If anyone can make a player, anyone can make a copier which removes the DRM.

You're not just asking for something hard to do or difficult to socially arrange. It's deeply impossible to have a DRM standard. To have DRM, the world's population MUST be divided into who is allowed to implement compatible machines, and who is not allowed to. The very act of creating this division (Joe Hacker is not allowed to write software that plays this movie) causes it to not be a standard.

Re:PS3 hasn't been cracked yet

[Anonymous Coward]

He's wrong. The Xbox360 is hacked to death, but not really the PS3. Maybe a couple of individual games, but that's it.

Re:PS3 hasn't been cracked yet

[Anonymous Coward]

Call everyone else a sheep as much as you want. You know how many groups out there with differing ideals think that way, that those that don't agree with or care about them? ALL OF THEM. Pretty much every religion, every left wing group, every right wing group, they all say everyone else is a sheep for not caring.

How long do you think it takes the majority to realize this, and stops caring? I dunno, but I think it happened in the 70s.

Re:PS3 hasn't been cracked yet

[easterberry]

I was saying "you can play games" in response to "what could you do with a hacked PS3?". I was not saying that hacking a PS3 was currently possible. I was actually saying that you can't really do it in any effective of guaranteed way.

Re:PS3 hasn't been cracked yet

[Gaygirlie]

PS3 is a great console in many ways and there's some absolutely fantastic games for it. I've been hankering to get one for a good long time. But I'ver never done it.

Why?

Well, I am well-aware of Sony's bad reputation and the fiasco with them removing already-existing features from working consoles completely ruined my trust in them; I wanted to try out Linux on it myself too, and their complete disregard for their end-users just puts me off entirely.

Microsoft ain't any better though: they just recently disallowed the use of any controllers, memory sticks or any other appliances unless they're Microsoft-made or approved of by Microsoft, ie. in other words the manufacturer pays Microsoft license fees.

And Nintendo? They too act like they own your hardware and do equally stupid stuff.

That leaves me no console maker whom I could really trust and thus no console for me to buy :/

Re:PS3 hasn't been cracked yet

[randyleepublic]

>> ...the sheep who are primarily responsible for many of the world's ills.

Eggs-fucking-zactly!

Re:PS3 hasn't been cracked yet

[Anonymous Coward]

I won't buy Sony anymore. All their stuff is DRM'd, and after their removal of Other OS, the PS3 keeps its old firmware forever, I only use it to play dvd's and music, and when it eventually dies, I gut the hardware of anything useful and then never buy Sony again. I swore off HP after they sold a computer with a completely useless dvd player (they got me good, but its the last time). Sony is gone too. Screw with me and I won't buy from you. I'm not alone. If me and 50 million of my friends stop buying your crap, and stop recommending it to people who ask us, you start to lose bad.

Re:PS3 hasn't been cracked yet

[shentino]

The reason Sony (and others) are so hard on piracy and are willing to abuse the consumer is most likely due to the content providers who scream and yell at the console makers to lock down their boxes.

Piracy means pissed off game vendors.

Re:PS3 hasn't been cracked yet

[tibman]

Valve's Steam is good. But they have yet to add a trade/lending feature or even reselling. I doubt they'll open up reselling but game lending sounds easy.

Re:PS3 hasn't been cracked yet

[Agent0013]

I'm sure execs over at Sony are losing sleep over the 8 guys on Slashdot who didn't buy one because of the DRM though.

I think that Sony's name is getting to be more of a liability than that. Slashdot and the technical people are one thing and there may be many of us that are avoiding Sony. But I know of several non-technical people that have started to notice how Sony likes to screw their customers over and have decided to stop buying Sony products. Sure, there are plenty of people that sleepwalk through like and buy what the commercials tell them to, but some people actually use their brain and they are starting to see the futility of buying Sony.

Re:PS3 hasn't been cracked yet

[mounthood]

The big content producers mostly want you to be able to do this as well. The big problem is that they want to be paid for it.

The formula is simple: if some action has value (like format shifting), they want to be paid.

This is why I think "DRM done right" is not possible. DRM *is* rights management. It's all about stopping you from freely using the content in arbitrary ways.

So the debate about DRM is a modern re-enactment of the legal evolution of property rights. Rather then defining how one party can or can't control another party based on physical boundaries (on my land, a product in my possession, etc...) it's defining how control will work in the digital age.

Re:PS3 hasn't been cracked yet

[Anonymous Coward]

How would you define "done right"?

Easy: DRM done right is DRM not done at all.

There is no way to actually do DRM right. It's a logical contradiction, based on a faulty premise, and cannot be fixed. There is no such thing as a DRM mechanism done right. It. Does. Not. Exist.

Re:PS3 hasn't been cracked yet

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, and so we might start seeing more DRM in our lives, so it worth standardizing.

No, it isn't.

The conversation on /. is often driven by those who reject DRM, but what about those of us who would accept it if it were done right (like me)?

You are misled and/or ignorant, I'm afraid.

You are missing something: There is no such thing as DRM done "right". It does not exist, even as a theoretical concept. You (and those promoting DRM) are arguing based on a faulty premise. You cannot, even in theory, construct an effective DRM mechanism while not also simultaneously eroding almost completely everything related to personal integrity, privacy and property control.

Any truly effective DRM will intrude way too much in people's personal lives to be acceptable.

Any DRM not intruding in such a way will not be effective.

DRM done "right" is thus not possible.

At least there being honest

[moogied]

From TFA:

Making digital goods act like physical objects might sound like a bizarre step backward. Didn't we gain quite a lot with the shift to digital, non-rivalrous items? We certainly did, but Sweazey argues that a truly non-rivalrous system makes commerce too difficult, even impossible, and that we need to create ways for the digital world to mirror the constraints of the physical one.

There argument is that its impossible to regulate the spread of there goods once they release a small quantity into public. They seem to of missed supply and demand.. if the supply is infinite, then no matter what scarcity is going to be low. With no scarcity, theres no real reason to pay.

Re:At least there being honest

[Darkness404]

There are always ways to make money though even though people can get your content for free. Look at webcomics, videos like Homestar Runner, etc. if you are truly -good- at what you do, you can always make money because your fans will support you.

Yes, with no scarcity there is no reason to pay for all the crap coming from hollywood with generic plots, sub-par acting, etc. but if you are truly good at what you do, you are almost always successful.

Just about every artist or product "killed" by piracy wasn't very good to begin with.

Re:At least there being honest

[abigor]

That is a stupidly naive position. Many small and independent movies won't be made thanks to piracy, as no studio will fund anything that doesn't have a chance at being a mega-hit. Even moderate hits like Zombieland are at risk: http://www.tribalwar.com/forums/showthread.php?p=15074641#post15074641

You aren't hitting a bunch of Hollywood fat cats by downloading movies. You aren't Robin Hood, and you aren't doing what's "right". You are simply killing off adult drama. We won't see another era where absolute classics like Raging Bull, The Passenger, The Conversation, etc. are released in close succession, because no one will take a chance on such films. Instead, look forward to a cinema landscape that consists of Transformers and Twilight. Thanks.

Re:At least there being honest

[easterberry]

yes, the two guys who make homestar runner or the one guy who makes a comic can make a living for himself and his family off it. But an entire corporation or game company can't "rely on the kindness of strangers" as a certain streetcar might say and expect to stay in business.

Re:At least there being honest

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that why Uwe Boll is suing people?

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/06/14/2136233/Uwe-Boll-Other-Filmmakers-Sue-Thousands-of-Movie-Pirates

Re:At least there being honest

[Darkness404]

Right, because an internet forum is a great place to get accurate data...

Lets see here, Zombieland made $102,297,496 with a budget of $23.6 million (see http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=zombieland.htm) . And that isn't even taking into consideration any sales from DVD sales. I'd say that is a lot of money made in profit. Note that they've made over 50 million dollars in -profit- not just sales but profit after they've paid everyone.

Can you show me a great movie/game/etc that really -has- been killed off by "piracy" and not just the fact that it didn't appeal to a wider audience or that the movie/game/etc was terrible?

Technology is coming along at such a fast pace that you don't need a studio to make a movie, you don't need theaters to make a profit. The internet is full of examples of this. In the '80s and earlier, yeah, you needed professional equipment, today? You can go out and buy a camcorder that will shoot HD video, a computer and programs that add in special effects, etc.

So go on, find an example of something "killed" by "piracy" that was truly killed by it.

Re:At least there being honest

[Darkness404]

But the main question is, do we need a huge company to do all this stuff? Does having a $200,000 wardrobe budget really make the movie that much better? Heck, a lot of the stuff on YouTube is better than the trash on TV, xkcd and other webcomics are usually better than all the "professional" cartoonists with a "real" publisher and editors and the like.

And there are also ads and the like to generate revenue. Look at Google, it had a profit of over $6 billion last year, and yet it in essence gives away its chief product(s)! I don't have to pay $30.00 for a license to use Google's search engine, the majority if not all of their downloadable programs are free, the majority of Android save for a couple of Google created programs are open source, etc.

Again, there are very, very few people/companies that have been "killed" through "piracy" and had a good program that appealed to people.

Re:At least there being honest

[easterberry]

Think in terms of gaming though. Portal wasn't cheap to make and a small team without much funding couldn't have done it as well, same with team fortress 2 and HL2. They spent 10 years on that thing. that isn't cheap and the finished products are some of the best games ever made. Valve can't live on donations. And neither can Blizzard, Nintendo (well ok at this point Nintendo could pay YOU to take their games and still be in the black, but still)

As for movies. Does the huge budget make the movie better? not necessarily. But there's some amazing comedy troupes on youtube, beyond that though, Shaun of the Dead, Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, Terminator 2 and the Original Star Wars and Indiana Jones trilogy? Those weren't cheap to make, and small time people won't put stuff like that on Youtube. Trust me. They'll sue them if you try.

Re:At least there being honest

[IamTheRealMike]

Lets see here, Zombieland made $102,297,496 with a budget of $23.6 million

The vast majority of movies either lose money or break even, so the big studios subsidize them with the profits made by the big hits. Picking a single very successful movie and trying to make an argument about the entire industry then isn't going to work.

Can you show me a great movie/game/etc that really -has- been killed off by "piracy"

No obviously not, because something has to be made before it can be pirated, so piracy cannot "kill" a game or movie. It can significantly reduce the probability of a sequel, presumably, but as we're talking about probably and decisions made behind closed doors that's tough to prove.

What we do know is that from time to time a loose lipped game company executive mentions that they de-prioritize PC ports of games because of piracy. This usually leads to widespread condemnation from PC gamers of course so it's not surprising that mostly they prefer not to discuss it. But I frequently read on Slashdot that "PC gaming is dying" and it's being killed by consoles.

Business is not, entirely, about rational financial decisions. If a team of people work on a big, complex project for 3-4 years and when it launches, 90% of players are pirates, that takes a serious emotional toll as well as a financial one. The next project, whoever is in charge may well look at PC game development, the piracy rates, the extra server and support costs involved in supporting the pirates etc and say "fuck that".

Technology is coming along at such a fast pace that you don't need a studio to make a movie

What a load of crap. Film technology has been advancing rapidly for more than three decades, but I fail to see movies produced in peoples bedrooms taking over the cinemas. After all, isn't the most successful movie yet made also one of the most expensive?

Re:At least there being honest

[Endo13]

Interesting that you should bring up Portal. The team for that in fact was quite small, (no more than 10 people involved, according to wikipedia) and made a very similar game before Portal on their own - with presumably very little funding. Apparently most of the time and money required in Portal compared to the previous game was to create it in the Half Life universe. And even then, going by the MSRP for the game, it's a pretty safe bet it was in fact fairly cheap to make.

As far as movies go, a lot of things that used to cost a lot of money can already be replicated fairly cheaply with a green screen and CG. And then, take Avatar for example of what things will probably look like in the future. Sure, that tech is expensive now, but only because it's new. Give it a decade or two, and anyone will be able to create their own movie with that tech, with consumer-grade equipment they'll probably be able to purchase for the equivalent of 1-2K in today's US dollars or less. That will basically put the movie industry in the same place the music industry is now: where the only real difference is that the "expensive" stuff is a lot more heavily advertised, and you'll be able to get all you want of just-as-good stuff for [nearly] free from indie sources.

Re:At least there being honest

[Jane Q. Public]

He/she did not single out a particular movie for an example, the other person did.

But since you want to generalize about the industry as a whole, let's look at the fact that last fall the head honcho of one of the big studios stated in public that "piracy is killing the industry"... while that industry actually made record profits in 2008 and I believe in 2009 as well.

So your argument still doesn't fly. The movie industry as a whole is doing better than it ever has, and the game industry as well. And if you are talking about the music "industry", it is true that CD sales have been going down... but there is strong argument that people simply don't want to pay $17 for a CD anymore, when it has one good song and the rest of the contents are crap. But people have shown instead that they will pay $1 for that one good song. But the "industry" flatly refused for many years to give people what they wanted. Instead they tried (and failed) to preserve the cash cow status quo.

If you look at a timeline of sales and profits superimposed on a calendar of events, there is plenty of fuel for the argument that it was lack of a modern business model plus DRM and lawsuits that have been ruining that industry.

Re:At least there being honest

[Jane Q. Public]

"... beyond that though, Shaun of the Dead, Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, Terminator 2 and the Original Star Wars and Indiana Jones trilogy?"

There was a Star Wars and Indiana Jones trilogy? Doggone it, I must have missed those. They sound pretty cool, too.

Re:At least there being honest

[Anonymous Coward]

The vast majority of movies either lose money or break even,

Like how "Return of the Jedi" hasn't made a profit?

Business is not, entirely, about rational financial decisions. If a team of people work on a big, complex project for 3-4 years and when it launches, 90% of players are pirates, that takes a serious emotional toll as well as a financial one. The next project, whoever is in charge may well look at PC game development, the piracy rates, the extra server and support costs involved in supporting the pirates etc and say "fuck that".

Like how id has released all of their basic engines under the GPL? Now, admittedly, that's different than a full game, but it seems to me that those were big, complex projects that they worked on for several years, and then they gave them away. Or how about something more appropriate, like all the original Half-Life based games? Remember how they used to come on CDs, then you could install them and run some simple CDKey program and suddenly have an entire computer online in a TF tournament? Yeah, we pirated it, cause it was easier than everyone bringing their CDs. But we all had copies, because we all played at home, and we all wanted to be sure we could start a match whenever, wherever. Out of my group, we were 100% pirates, yet 100% owned the game as well. I guess that takes an emotional toll, but it sure didn't take a financial toll.

What a load of crap. Film technology has been advancing rapidly for more than three decades, but I fail to see movies produced in peoples bedrooms taking over the cinemas. After all, isn't the most successful movie yet made also one of the most expensive?

Like "Paranormal Activity"? Or "28 Days Later"? Or the freaking "Blair Witch Project"? Even "El Mariachi" falls into the category. If you read Rodríguez's book, it was difficult, though not impossible, for him to obtain editing equipment for free. Nowadays, every piece of editing equipment he used can be replaced with an iMac and a DV camcorder (he shot on 16mm film, when you send that film in to be developed, they send you back a miniDV tape with the footage on it, plus your negative, so all you have to do is transfer from the tape into iMovie...).

Sorry dude...you're just sorta repeating the Hollywood line.

Re:At least there being honest

[easterberry]

I am aware of narbacular drop (the original game). However the fact that not many other people do kind of shows my point. It isn't well known and it wasn't nearly as good because while the mechanics were similar and engaging, the graphics and writing was meh. Before the portal project Valve hired 2 (or 3, I forget) writers and basically let them do whatever the hell they wanted for a while until the portal project started and they decided to work on it. That's one of Valve's strengths. They let people do whatever they want. You want to spend 10 years making a game? You can! That's how valve time happens. They don't force deadlines because they're so far in the black they don't have to. A smaller company can't do that sort of thing because they need a product on the market before they all starve to death.

Valve can afford to hire people they don't even need yet because they think they might be useful later. Their Cabal system of game development requires ridiculous amounts of time and money to implement properly but it makes games like HL, HL2, TF2 and Portal.

But enough of my flagrant Valve Fanboying.

Yes special effects will get cheaper, but a movie is more than special effects. You need costumes, you need sets, you need film equipment and most importantly, you need actors. no matter how cheap equipment gets, people don't. Extras, crew, actors etc. For a full scale movie you're probably going to need a significant financial investment. Plus marketing costs (viral will only get you so far) food for the actors your already paying if you need to travel anywhere. Travel costs etc. You can't use JUST cgi. Lucas tried that. It was terrible.

Re:At least there being honest

[easterberry]

They were amazing. It was like a Harrison Ford twincest fanfic meets the big screen. Half naked natives with terribly aimed blasters as far as the eye can see.

Re:At least there being honest

[Anonymous Coward]

Sega Dreamcast

It had a bug in the bios that allowed you to bypass its copy protection. You could literally just burn a game to a CD and play it in a stock Dreamcast with no modifications.

Re:At least there being honest

[Kitkoan]

Lets see here, Zombieland made $102,297,496 with a budget of $23.6 million

The vast majority of movies either lose money or break even, so the big studios subsidize them with the profits made by the big hits. Picking a single very successful movie and trying to make an argument about the entire industry then isn't going to work.

The problem is with movies that either lose money or break even is that they are shit movies. You can throw billions of dollars at shit, its still shit. These movies that aren't making money should be the wake up call that maybe they should try to write something decent that people will want to watch.

It doesn't take millions of dollars to make a good movie that will sell, think of these movies. Most of them are now considered classics (depending on your tastes) and they didn't take mulit-millions to make. Some of them were also made in the last 10 years so internet downloading shows that its not some death blow to movies:

The Blair Witch Project (1999), Budget: $35,000, Worldwide Gross: $248,300,000.

Mad Max (1979), Budget: $200,000, Worldwide Gross: $99,750,000.

Super Size Me (2004), Budget: $65,000, Worldwide Gross: $29,500,000.

Rocky (1976), Budget: $1,000,000, Worldwide Gross: $225,000,000.

Night of the Living Dead (1968), Budget: $114,000, Worldwide Gross: $30,000,000

Halloween (1978), Budget: $325,000, Worldwide Gross: $70,000,000.

American Graffiti (1973), Budget: $777,000, Worldwide Gross: $140,000,000.

Napoleon Dynamite (2004), Budget: $400,000, Worldwide Gross: $46,000,00.

Friday the 13th (1980), Budget: $550,000, Worldwide Gross: $59,700,000.

Open Water (2004), Budget: $500,000, Worldwide Gross: $52,100,000.

Once (2007), Budget: $150,000, Worldwide Gross: $19,000,000.

Saw (2003), Budget: $1,200,000, Worldwide Gross: $103,000,000.

The Evil Dead (1981), Budget: $375,000, Worldwide Gross: $29,400,000.

Re:At least there being honest

[grcumb]

The vast majority of movies either lose money or break even, so the big studios subsidize them with the profits made by the big hits. Picking a single very successful movie and trying to make an argument about the entire industry then isn't going to work.

Okay, let's take another metric that does (or should) reflect the state of the movie industry: Barry Diller.

I first paid attention to him when his 3 masted yacht - one of the largest private yachts in the world - arrived in our harbour a couple of months ago. He was chairman and CEO of Paramount, and later head of Fox Broadcasting (including 20th Century Fox). When he left, he received (IIRC) a US $400+ million payout.

Perhaps you could reconcile the supposed impoverishment of the movie studios to the benefits reaped by their illustrious leaders?

I'm actually not trying to be a smart-ass here (not entirely, anyway). If there really is a way to explain how an executive could legitimately receive such an immense payout in reward for his service to an industry that scratches by from blockbuster to blockbuster, how an apparently moribund industry could even manage to have that kind of equity... well, I'm entirely open to persuasion.

Re:At least there being honest

[Anonymous Coward]

The logical fallacies are startling, see if you can find them all!

Think of it as a McDonalds' placemat adventure :)

Can you find them all boys and girls?

Captcha: Trophies! :)

Re:At least there being honest

[Endo13]

I am aware of narbacular drop (the original game). However the fact that not many other people do kind of shows my point. It isn't well known and it wasn't nearly as good because while the mechanics were similar and engaging, the graphics and writing was meh.

And yet, somehow we've recently seen lots of indie games on shoestring budges with excellent graphics and writing that were massively successful. Also, there was obviously something good about narbacular, otherwise Valve wouldn't have hired on the team.

A smaller company can't do that sort of thing because they need a product on the market before they all starve to death.

Sure they can. It's called holding a full time job and working on your pet project in your spare time. LOTS of teams have produced great games and mods like that.

Yes special effects will get cheaper, but a movie is more than special effects. You need costumes, you need sets, you need film equipment and most importantly, you need actors. no matter how cheap equipment gets, people don't. Extras, crew, actors etc. For a full scale movie you're probably going to need a significant financial investment. Plus marketing costs (viral will only get you so far) food for the actors your already paying if you need to travel anywhere. Travel costs etc. You can't use JUST cgi. Lucas tried that. It was terrible.

Have you heard of this great new film called Avatar? I've heard it's got some pretty interesting CG tech. You might want to check it out.

Re:At least there being honest

[Technician]

Can you show me a great movie/game/etc that really -has- been killed off by "piracy" and not just the fact that it didn't appeal to a wider audience or that the movie/game/etc was terrible?

There is plenty of examples of locked technology that is throw away due to lockdown.Hardware becomes either single use or repurposed when the lock is broken and the business model is broken.

Locked hardware that became more popular and re purposed include;
The Cue Cat
The i-Opener

Locked hardware and software that had such tethers that it had little market penetration include
The Mailstation
The Web TV
The Zune store
Liquid Audio
Plays for Sure
The Dongle

The list goes on.

Re:At least there being honest

[DreadPiratePizz]

Okay, I'll give you an example of something killed by piracy. I worked on an independent film with a budget of about 150 grand. We were nearly finished and from what we'd shown there was a lot of buzz and there were a lot of distributors literally coming to our doors to make deals with us. The film was leaked onto the internet, and after that nobody wanted to make a deal with us anymore. We went from tons of interest in theatrical release, to none in the course of a day. Basically, nobody will buy our film now so we are out of luck.

Contrary to what you think, it's difficult if not impossible to even just get DVD distribution on your own. It's not as easy as you'd like to make it out to be, and I suspect you know very little about the movie business.

Re:At least there being honest

[easterberry]

And yet, somehow we've recently seen lots of indie games on shoestring budges with excellent graphics and writing that were massively successful. Also, there was obviously something good about narbacular, otherwise Valve wouldn't have hired on the team.

Yes. The gameplay was good. I said that. But Narbacular drop was not an amazing game. It was an INTERESTING game with a lot of potential. And could you list all these amazing free games you're talking about? Because last I checked indie games still cost money. Which means they're still relying on the whole "people buying their product" model.

Sure they can. It's called holding a full time job and working on your pet project in your spare time. LOTS of teams have produced great games and mods like that.

Again. Can I get a list? Counterstrike comes to mind but really, beyond that... Flash games? Maybe? I'm pretty sure all of my favourite games were made by companies trying to make a living off selling video games

Have you heard of this great new film called Avatar? I've heard it's got some pretty interesting CG tech. You might want to check it out.

It didn't use JUST cgi. The CG was one step above photomanipulation, not pure rendering. They had actors do everything models do everything and then they went over it all with CG. You can, at best, replace the extras with that and that's making some pretty heavy assumptions about the degree technology will drop in price. Might I point out they had a MAKEUP DEPARTMENT. And scroll down the list of 3D artists they needed for that. I won't wait though, it'll take you too long. It's a VERY LONG LIST. No matter how advanced you make the technology you still need a crapton of people. The more art you have the more artists you need.

Re:At least there being honest

[Endo13]

And could you list all these amazing free games you're talking about? Because last I checked indie games still cost money. Which means they're still relying on the whole "people buying their product" model.

Never said anything about free games. I was talking about cheap games. That being said though, there *have* been tons of free mods for games (basically new games in and of themselves) and yes, even a few free games that are good. That is, of course, besides the myriads of free flash and popcap type games you can find online - which probably accrue more hours played than pay-for games. Then there was the recent indie bundle with the "pay what you want" deal. $.01 isn't quite free, but near enough as makes no difference for the buyer.

Again. Can I get a list? Counterstrike comes to mind but really, beyond that... Flash games? Maybe? I'm pretty sure all of my favourite games were made by companies trying to make a living off selling video games

Really? You need a list? I suppose you also need a list of all the privately-owned restaurants in the US before you'll believe someone can be successful with one?

It didn't use JUST cgi. The CG was one step above photomanipulation, not pure rendering.

Give 'em time to perfect it. In 10-20 years, it'll be pure rendering. And you'll be able to buy a PC at Best Buy capable of doing it.

They had actors do everything models do everything and then they went over it all with CG.

Sure they did. But you're missing the hugely obvious point: when you're displaying models instead of the actors, it doesn't matter what the actual actors look like. You no longer need beautiful, popular people to do your acting. Sure, Zoe Saldana helped sell Avatar, but you know as well as I do there's no reason they couldn't have just as easily replaced her with any of about a billion other females on the planet. All you need is a decent voice actor. Those aren't really all that hard to find.

Might I point out they had a MAKEUP DEPARTMENT.

Sure, you can point that out. I can also point out that you don't need a makeup department when your whole film is rendered or animated. We're not there quite yet, but again, give 'em a decade or two.

Oh, and while we're at it, I'll also go ahead and point out that just because you have a makeup department doesn't mean they have to be grossly overpaid fat cats.

And scroll down the list of 3D artists they needed for that. I won't wait though, it'll take you too long. It's a VERY LONG LIST. No matter how advanced you make the technology you still need a crapton of people. The more art you have the more artists you need.

It's still in the early stages. Of course they needed a lot of people on the first attempt. Like I said, wait a decade or two. By then, I'm willing to wager pretty much all of that work will be done by a handful of people and a computer program.

All that being said, it's already possible to make good flicks on a shoestring budget with consumer-grade equipment, even without using CG. For some examples, see Blair Witch Project, Primer, Clerks, and El Mariachi.

Re:At least there being honest

[Anonymous Coward]

Tough break, dude. At this point in the game, because someone couldn't hold on to the original print long enough get locked into a deal with the establishment, it would seem to me the only route available to you (based on what you've posted) is to release it outright and solicit patronage. I mean, really, what have you got to lose at this point?

Re:At least there being honest

[CoderJoe]

Contrary to what you think, it's difficult if not impossible to even just get DVD distribution on your own.

I don't understand this... It is pretty easy to self-publish DVD. It might be harder to get B&M facings, and all the marketing, but DVD replication isn't terribly difficult. You could even sell it on Amazon. As an example, Cinematic Titanic is capable of self-publishing DVDs, selling through their web store and on EZ-Takes.

I'm not saying that DVD authoring and replication is cheap (by whose standards, anyway?), but that it isn't some huge, insurmountable obstacle.

Re:At least there being honest

[kendbluze]

Let's take a(nother) look at Google from a business perspective: 96% Google's 1Q 2010 revenues came from advertisers. 66% via their own sites and 30% via Adsense. Google 1Q 2010 Results Our clicks are the real product, sold to advertisers. The Google "products" mentioned above are the production method, not the product.

Re:At least there being honest

[Battle_Ratt]

"It can significantly reduce the probability of a sequel"
Thank God for piracy!!

Re:At least there being honest

[shentino]

Giving something away and having it stolen from you are two different things.

Compare and contrast a burglarized homeowner with Santa Clause, for example.

Re:At least there being honest

[shentino]

I think it has more to do with how well CEOs can play hardball with the companies they run rather than how well they actually run them.

Re:At least there being honest

[DrgnDancer]

Technology is coming along at such a fast pace that you don't need a studio to make a movie, you don't need theaters to make a profit.

I think you're ignoring reality here. Can you record music without a label? Sure. Can you make and distribute visual art without a backer? Again, no problem. But a movie? Do you have any idea what those cost to make? You have to pay actors, set designers, cameramen, buy sets, buy cameras, buy rail systems to put the camera's on, feed everyone, pay for any special effects (and yes even low budget movies usually have at least some special effects, not fully computer rendered aliens or anything, but special effects), buy editing time (or pay for for a few high end Macs with Final Cut Pro)... and that just scratches the surface.

I went to the premiere of a low budget art flick about post-Katrina New Orleans a few year back. It was call "Low and Behold" and it was pretty good. This guy got a grant to make the movie. He used equipment provided by the University of New Orleans Theater Department. His actors worked for a take of the hopeful eventual profits (he was the star, there was only one other major character and one minor character. The minor character was his uncle, both in the movie and for real). He only rented two sets. One was the apartment where he and his uncle lived, one the destroyed house of the other major character (which he actually got for free. They just used one of the hundred of abandoned houses in the flood zone). Everything was filmed on public streets or in a bar that allowed it during their off hours for the publicity. The movie cost a bit over 100K to make. His grant was only 100K, so he had to spend 10-15K of his own money.

This is the lowest possible budget movie. The vast majority of the expenses in equipment and labor were paid for him or volunteered. Set design was basically moving some furniture around in a few buildings. He provided his own script, direction and acting. The whole thing was the definition of shoestring budget, and it cost over $100,000. Had it not been being made about a hot button issue of the day, it probably wouldn't have gotten the grant and would never been made.

A camcorder and Microsoft Maker Maker isn't a movie by the way. Not in any meaningful way. It's a You-Tube video. It's not the same thing. One of the most professional and well known "inexpensive" web productions ever, "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog", cost over $200,000 to make, ran less than an hour, had essentially no labor cost (everybody worked for a share of the profits, which is fine if you happen to be Joss Whedon, be friends with half the talent in Hollywood, and have bankable name recognition) and used mostly equipment that the all star cast and crew had available because of who they are and what they do. Even assuming some less famous director could get that kind of talent together on the promise of hopeful eventual profits, and get equipment, $200K is outside most people's budget.

Re:At least there being honest

[JustABlitheringIdiot]

Lets see here, Zombieland made $102,297,496 with a budget of $23.6 million

The vast majority of movies either lose money or break even, so the big studios subsidize them with the profits made by the big hits. Picking a single very successful movie and trying to make an argument about the entire industry then isn't going to work.

Those under-performing movies are really an example of the gross over payment of the acting staff. What happened to the "staving artist"? These people make multi-million dollar salaries and cry poverty. Frankly that makes me sick. When you can't afford to pay anybody in the industry $500k/yr then we can talk about your profits hurting.

Also like some others have said stop spending so much to make shit movies and you may actually make some money. Under-performance is an indicator of a bad idea, poorly targeted audience, or a bad implementation and nothing more.

No. This is BULLSHIT

[Anonymous Coward]

There can NEVER be "kind" or "gentle" DRM. DRM is, by its very nature, a blight on consumers who have paid fair and fucking square for the content, and will ALWAYS infringe on their fair use rights (unless they've figured out how to put judges inside the media). It also violates the Four Freedoms.

IEEE needs to cut this shit out RIGHT NOW. No DRM, no way.

Yawn.

[russotto]

I'm pretty sure I've seen this exact proposal before. Of course it won't work, because it assumes it is sufficient to protect the playkey. It isn't; you have to protect everything-- the encrypted content, the keys, and the output. It can be done, provided the device you're playing your content on is a sealed box and the content can't be read from the box by some sort of capture device. Problem is, those sealed boxes keep getting unsealed and the capture devices keep getting better.

Re:Yawn.

[Thinboy00]

Of course it won't work, because it assumes it is sufficient to protect the playkey. It isn't[...]

Why not?

Re:Yawn.

[russotto]

Of course it won't work, because it assumes it is sufficient to protect the playkey. It isn't[...]

Why not?

Suppose I've got my magic tamperproof decryptor box which contains the playkey. I want to read my new copy of _1984_, so I use the tamperproof decryptor box to decrypt _1984_. Now I take the decrypted output and post it on the Internet. Oops. Not only does the playkey have to be protected, everything it decrypts has to be protected.

Re:Yawn.

[droopycom]

Of course it won't work, because it assumes it is sufficient to protect the playkey. It isn't[...]

Why not?

At some point some unencrypted content is going to be flowing in some memory for some video codec to decode... thats when you snatch it, and put it on bittorrent....

The only way to fight that now is to track content with individual watermarks and get the lawyers after the guys who are copying.... its going to end up being cat and mouse game to defeat the watermarks, but it would be a lot more scary for the copiers... you never know if you might have left some fingerprints when copying...

Re:Yawn.

[Anonymous Coward]

You might want to try reading slightly further past the sentence you copied there. Might help you out a bit.

Re:Yawn.

[Thinboy00]

OP simply states "you have to protect everything" -- they never give a reason.

Makes no sense

[Darkness404]

This makes no sense, you are trying to make digital copies behave like analog copies and creating artificial scarcity that is needless.

I can see no good coming out of this. The only "good" forms of DRM are similar to those in the Google Market on Android, it keeps track of payments so you can always retrieve back your programs.

Re:Makes no sense

[Anonymous Coward]

trying to make digital copies behave like analog copies and creating artificial scarcity

Well yeah. That is what DRM is, and always has been, since long before the acronym "DRM" was ever used.

Artificial scarcity keeps wealthy people wealthy. It is also injust. Invariably, arguments about preserving incentive to create are used to justify it. Invariably, they fail to convince the majority.

Its just the same old song....

EOL

[jeti]

So when the publisher is no longer interested in maintaining the DRM servers, I still lose my 'property'?

Re:EOL

[zmollusc]

Of course not. The 'property' you have paid for is the right to access the content. You won't be able to actually _access_ the content, but you will still have the _right_ to do so.

Re:EOL

[denis-The-menace]

You mean like this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_rights_management#Obsolescence

Re:EOL

[denis-The-menace]

Why can't we do the same with the money we give them?
They would have to right to getting our money but never be able to actually access the money.
Seem fair if you ask me.

This way I get my money back when they stop providing *the Right* to access the content.

Re:EOL

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

So when the publisher is no longer interested in maintaining the DRM servers, I still lose my 'property'?

This is why I prefer DRM for rental instead of ownership. Renting movies and music on-line is cool. It's cheap and there's instant gratification. Purchase of content that way... yick.

Gentler

[Anonymous Coward]

If I can't watch the movie that you're selling, then you're not really selling something yet, so I might as well torrent. That has been the problem with DRM up to now. If this scheme, despite restricting access to the key, allows mplayer, mythfrontend, etc access to the plaintext, then that's cool. That's how much gentler the DRM needs to be. I have to be able to play the movie, or else you're just not serious.

IEEE-USA also lobbies for software patents

[ciaran_o_riordan]

• IEEE-USA's brief to the Supreme Court for Bilski, last year
• Groklaw discussion
• All the other Bilski briefs (for the Supreme Court case, begun 2009, decision pending)
• Bilski overview

DRM is DOA. The real "genie" has been out....

[scottbomb]

DRM itself is like trying to put a genie back into a bottle. The original genie was let out with the LP vinyl album. They played on ANY record player and didn't need to "phone home" to get permission. Along came cassettes and then CDs. Back in the 80s, artists complained about cassette recorders making copies of their music. I also recall the movie industry crying about the VCR. ANY form of DRM is unwelcome on my devices. Why? Middlemen only get in the way. I like to make backups, just in case. I also like to play what I want, on any device I want, and I shouldn't have to ask permission to do it. I got that permission when I paid amazon.com $1 for the song.

Re:DRM is DOA. The real "genie" has been out....

[Monkeedude1212]

DRM is only implemented by Middlemen. Artists do not worry about encoding CD's, artists rarely make CD's. It is record labels (definition: middlemen) who worry about DRM. Some Independant artists make enough money doing live shows that they host their music for free.

Re:DRM is DOA. The real "genie" has been out....

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Its to stop thieving cunts helping themselevs to everyone elses work. get that into your fucking thick skull.

That's almost entirely what he's talking about. Reread his post Mr. Notthickskull.

Re:DRM is DOA. The real "genie" has been out....

[Knara]

Very few Independant artists make enough money doing live shows that they host their music for free.

FTFY. And of those very few, the ones who are making a living that's equivalent to even a 1st year helpdesk employee usually had help from a label at one point or another.

Re:DRM is DOA. The real "genie" has been out....

[phyrexianshaw.ca]

bwhahahaha!

DRM does nothing of the like. all it does is make somebody THINK the content's protected.

if the work is WORTH paying for, people happily will. distributing a string of ones and zeros and calling that "your life's work":

that better be the best string of ones and zeros I've ever had interpreted by processor and converted into something I want.

if you want people to HAVE to buy something, then start selling something.
making an endless string of copies of your ones and zeros is NOT something, it's information.

Re:DRM is DOA. The real "genie" has been out....

[denis-The-menace]

But I bet they enjoy making the music way more than that helpdesk employee.

There is no law (yet) that state any twit that can make music is entitled to be super rich. Middlemen even less so.

Re:DRM is DOA. The real "genie" has been out....

[jedidiah]

> DRM has nothing to do with middlemen. Its to stop thieving cunts helping themselevs to everyone elses work.
> get that into your fucking thick skull.

You're the one who's "thick".

DRM doesn't stop anything. All it does is inconvenience the PAYING CUSTOMER.

For any actual pirate, it isn't even ever noticed.

The DRM gets cracked long beforehand. It gets cracked because there's a planet full of hackers out there that like a challenge.

Re:DRM is DOA. The real "genie" has been out....

[Knara]

The gulf between "average independent musician income" and "super rich musician" is astronomically huge.

If you want our culture to have a rich music component, full-time musicians need to make a decent middle-class living. Currently the number that can is vanishingly small.

Re:DRM is DOA. The real "genie" has been out....

[Monkeedude1212]

Very Few musicians make as much money as what you would attribute to rockstars.

However, there are PLENTY of musicians who are not on the top 40 list who make more than a helpdesk employee based on their independant label.

At least, here in Canada there is.

Re:DRM is DOA. The real "genie" has been out....

[Endo13]

If you want our culture to have a rich music component, full-time musicians need to make a decent middle-class living. Currently the number that can is vanishingly small.

The number of people who have been able to make a living doing nothing but make music has always been vanishingly small. I'd wager the percentage of people able to pull that off today is significantly higher than it has ever been. The reasons that the number of profitable musicians are (and should be) relatively low are so numerous and obvious, I find it a bit dumbfounding why anyone would try to imply that we need more of them. In fact, we have so many "musicians" these days that I'm mostly surprised that anyone is able to make a living in that industry. Supply so far exceeds demand, it's not even funny. It's almost like trying to sell some basic run-of-the-mill air. What's not surprising though is that things are starting to come to a head. Western culture (and the US in particular) have so drastically overvalued IP (and more specifically entertainment) that we have a lot more people "working" in those industries than ever before to make a quick buck. It's a huge bubble waiting to burst. Thankfully, in the music industry that bubble is all but finished.

Re:DRM is DOA. The real "genie" has been out....

[cdrguru]

Yes, but your buddy down the street wants to have a copy of everything you paid Amazon for - for nothing, because you have it and can share.

Then he can post it through whatever mechanism he wants to share with the rest of the planet - after all, sharing is just being friendly, right?

With this model at most one copy of anything can be sold.

Re:DRM is DOA. The real "genie" has been out....

[Jane Q. Public]

"The original genie was let out with the LP vinyl album."

Actually it was long before that. The "original genie" was let out with the paper rolls that control player pianos. They could be copied with a paper punch and some glue.

We owe a lot of our modern copyright law (up until DMCA, that is) to the lawsuits that took place over the copying of those rolls. That is also when it was first determined that software -- even software that is made "real world" by causing a machine to do something -- is properly covered by copyright law, not patents.

Re:DRM is DOA. The real "genie" has been out....

[Silentknyght]

Western culture (and the US in particular) have so drastically overvalued IP (and more specifically entertainment) that we have a lot more people "working" in those industries than ever before to make a quick buck. It's a huge bubble waiting to burst. Thankfully, in the music industry that bubble is all but finished.

Very interesting, relating the current state of IP as a "bubble," perhaps analogous to an economics (e.g. housing) bubble. I'm curious to see if that's how it plays out, over time, though I'm a bit leery that--if true--this bubble will be more catastrophic than the housing one.

Re:DRM is DOA. The real "genie" has been out....

[Knara]

Most of the folks working in the "music industry" are not musicians.

If you do not agree that we should encourage a robust system whereby musicians (and other artists) can make a middle-class age and contribute/enrich our society, you and I will never be able to have a reasonable conversation.

Re:DRM is DOA. The real "genie" has been out....

[Knara]

I did not state that many people make the "rockstar" salary. That was the poster I was responding to.

In the US, the majority of "independent" arts who make middle-class, stable incomes are folks who compose for TV/movies and contribute to music libraries.

Making money as a performing artist is very difficult, not the least reason of which is that in the US touring rock acts (regional bands, for example, which 3-4 decades ago could make a hard but respectable living touring around their region) haven't gotten a pay raise in 40 years (that is, the per-man take for a night is about the same as it was in the 1970's -- a regional touring band, assuming it can find regular venues -- which is difficult -- can expect to make 125$ per man, per night, before expenses). The only local/regional "music" occupation that can play regularly and make a decent per-man income is that of a DJ.

Re:DRM is DOA. The real "genie" has been out....

[Anonymous Coward]

Very few ... artists make enough money doing ... music ...

Re:DRM is DOA. The real "genie" has been out....

[Endo13]

Very interesting, relating the current state of IP as a "bubble," perhaps analogous to an economics (e.g. housing) bubble.

That's exactly what I had in mind when I posted that.

Re:DRM is DOA. The real "genie" has been out....

[Endo13]

I'm all for musicians and other artists being paid what their creative work is worth. The problem is, artistry in general (and music specifically) have a relatively low worth to begin with, and the value drops off so much faster as supply increases than for other more necessary goods. The thing is, at the end of the day music especially is just entertainment. And not only that, it's an amazingly easy form of entertainment to create. Literally, anyone can create music in some form. There's always going to be a very small, very limited number of performers whose work is great enough to be worth any significant amount of money. Right now, there's way more money being pumped into the music "industry" than its actual value, by several orders of magnitude. Making music is not the same as making food, or making furniture. Music is not something anyone has to buy. So, while a burger or a pizza, for example has some inherent minimum value as a food item, (provided it's constructed well enough to be considered "food" and enjoyable to eat) music has no inherent minimum value - regardless of how good it is. Your music (or any other creative work) only has value if someone likes it (or you) well enough to pay you to create it. If you create it first and then expect to be paid for it later, well, that's your problem.

So no, I don't agree that someone should get paid merely because they're in the business of "creating art". I definitely don't agree that there should be some kind of "minimum wage" for creative work. If you want a guaranteed income, get a real job and do some real work. Most of us can't make money doing what we'd most like to do. That's life. Deal with it.

Playkey can't be copied?

[rfugger]

The playkey, unlike the title folder, can't be copied

Bwahahaha!!!

rivalrous?

[gandhi_2]

Your definition of "rivalrous" sounds like the more commonly-used "zero-sum".

Re:rivalrous?

[Late Adopter]

Rivalrous is commonly used to mean something akin to "scarce". As in, like physical goods that can be lent, resold, or even stolen, unlike normal bits which can be copied infinitely.

Re:rivalrous?

[Hatta]

Rivalrous is an economics term. Zero-sum is a game theory term. Different, but related fields of study may use different terms for similar concepts.

Re:rivalrous?

[blair1q]

binary semaphore

Re:rivalrous?

[Anonymous Coward]

Rivalrous is an economics term. Zero-sum is a game theory term. Different, but related fields of study may use different terms for similar concepts.

And in some cases the same term could be used different things for different concepts. "Entropy" in thermal dynamics is something different than "entropy" in information theory / communications.

Language can be a funny thing.

Re:rivalrous?

[shentino]

One idea they came up with was to let play keys be stealable. That way, if you gave someone else the ability to read your copy, they might keep it and perform a bit of electronic "adverse possession" to take it away for good.

Which is a monumentally stupid idea in a world full of hackers and malware artists.

rights

[Tom]

Who knows, it may yet work - if it manages all rights, not just the distributors rights. For example, I want my user rights to be just as important - if it fails, it has to fail "open". If the company goes out of business, I must still be able to use the stuff I paid for. Likewise, it must automatically unlock/decrypt the content when the copyright term is over and the stuff enters the public domain.

Treat my rights as a consumer as equally important as the rights of the distributor, and we can talk about DRM. It's probably still a stupid idea, but as long as the "R" in DRM is entirely one-sided, remind me why I should even consider it as an option?

Re:rights

[Anonymous Coward]

Likewise, it must automatically unlock/decrypt the content when the copyright term is over and the stuff enters the public domain.

So it has to still run in 150 years?

Re:rights

[Anonymous Coward]

when the copyright term is over and the stuff enters the public domain.

As if *that's* going to happen to any content produced since 1921 - Disney will buy up every Congressman they need to keep Mickey. They've already done it several times...

Re:rights

[Wrath0fb0b]

For example, I want my user rights to be just as important - if it fails, it has to fail "open". If the company goes out of business, I must still be able to use the stuff I paid for. Likewise, it must automatically unlock/decrypt the content when the copyright term is over and the stuff enters the public domain.

According to the TFA (the claim is, the standard isn't written), it does "fail open" since you have both the key and the media in question even before failure. That seem to be a key ingredient in the whole scheme -- that you need not be connected to any network to play it.

Controlling the playkey means that you control the media, and you truly own it, since no part of the system needs to phone home, and it imposes no restrictions on copying [the media, not the key -- which can only be "moved", not "copied"].

Now, this scheme relies on magic tamper-proof hardware and so the usual caveats about DRM apply as always -- if it is possible to read a key it is possible to copy it. That said, it does appear (on its face) to give the moderate consumer (e.g. not the "all bits are free" people) just about everything they asked for. You can use it without phoning home (and hence fail-open) and you can loan it to your buddy or sell it on eBay.

As for the public domain stuff, I don't see any particular reason for that. Public domain doesn't mean they aren't allowed to sell it and you can just as well grab a free copy from wherever you want. Plus, I'll likely be dead by that point.

Re:rights

[nine-times]

If the company goes out of business, I must still be able to use the stuff I paid for. Likewise, it must automatically unlock/decrypt the content when the copyright term is over and the stuff enters the public domain.

And how about you must be able to circumvent the DRM if you're using it in a "fair use" situation?

Re:rights

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Who knows, it may yet work - if it manages all rights, not just the distributors rights.

Ugh. Imagine how much money they'll have to spend to develop and maintain that. As it is, these silly people have long-term support costs for every product they sell. Every time you ask for permission to play something, somebody they're paying (or a system they're paying to maintain) has to grant or deny it. This is not a problem DVDs, for example, have. Once it leaves their hands, that's it, they're done. This is why it's important for them to find out what the affect of piracy really is. They're going to spend all this money and energy and not find an extra $40 billion in their bank accounts.

Re:rights

[Anonymous Coward]

For example, I want my user rights to be just as important

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHA! -- (Big media meeting reading your comment)

Re:rights

[Tom]

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHA! -- (Big media meeting reading your comment)

BwuahahaHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! -- (me after reading their latest whining about piracy while I look for stuff on torrentz.com)

It's a free market, right? Supply and demand, sales occur where the two meet. Only in the 101 primary school version is price the only factor.

Re:rights

[Tom]

Good point, yes. I didn't intend to list all rights, I was shooting for examples. Obviously, the list is a lot longer, with fair use and all.

Re:rights

[Tom]

Public domain doesn't mean they aren't allowed to sell it

No, but it does mean I am allowed to copy it - so a "fair DRM" system has to let me, basically, disable itself.

Re:rights

[nine-times]

Yeah, I guess that was tongue-in-cheek, bringing up "fair use". The point is, for a user/viewer to have all of his rights, the DRM must be easy to circumvent, which defeats the entire purpose of having DRM.

Re:rights

[DeadDecoy]

Ah, but that's just the thing, the GP proposed that the company gives up control when they or their copyright expire. Beyond that point, I don't expect them to maintain and develop that media. Nor do I expect them to hassle me about it. Their one benefit in distributing expired media, if they're not stupid-greedy, is that they have a wider selection of free content to attract the user and better control over its distribution. Besides, if the information is digital, and hosted over the internet, there's not a whole lot of extra effort or cost involved; just open up a link to the bits you want available and close it down when you're done. This is why unauthorized media distributors (I'm disinclined to call them pirates), thrive so well in that environment. Creating the product is expensive, but distribution is now relatively cheap.

Re:rights

[Anonymous Coward]

Likewise, it must automatically unlock/decrypt the content when the copyright term is over and the stuff enters the public domain.

It already does this.

Naturally it does make the assumption that copyright terms will be extended to perpetuity, as the trend seems to support.

Re:rights

[Tom]

I'll see if anyone can come up with a DRM system that does not restrict my rights. If someone does, I will applaud him for completing a task I consider almost impossible. But then, we never thought humans would actually fly a thousand years ago, and talking to someone who is hundreds of miles away would have been magic for most of history. So, I'll wait - but I won't hold my breath. It'll probably require telepathic computers or something unimaginable. :-)
 

Re:rights

[shentino]

DRM is made to guard against pirates.

And pirates, by definition, don't give a shit about copyright laws, and will circumvent it for everything, fair use or not.

Trying to put DRM on something is like trying to outlaw guns. It only hurts the good guys, while leaving the bad guys that don't give a shit unscathed.

Dear $CONSUMER

[wowbagger]

From: Sony Media
To: $CONSUMER

Re: Unlawful copying of content

Dear $CONSUMER:

It has come to our attention that you are in violation of our copyrights, by making unauthorized copies of our BluRay content using a device known as a Hippocampus. We are bringing suit against you for US$10,000,000.

And now you know why researchers are trying to create an artificial one....

Hubris

[Weaselmancer]

To access the content inside, however, you'll need the playkey, which is delivered to the buyer of a digital media file and lives within "tamper-protected circuit" inside some device

A "tamper-protected circuit". Oh boy! When did we invent these??

You'd think the IEEE, of all groups, would know better than to suggest something that stupid.

It doesn't matter how clever you think you are - if you can build it, someone can unbuild it. It's really just that simple. How many times have we seen this before? Someone says "aha this time, THIS TIME, it is absolutely unhackable!" And then two weeks later some teenager from the Netherlands puts the keymaker on P2P.

The best part - my favorite part - is that some idiot in the *AA will believe them. Sink a metric crapload of money into the company that has "the fix", and then get burned. Again.

I love watching this idiot's dream dry up over and over. It makes me grin when the stupid and the greedy get what's coming to them.

Re:Hubris

[blair1q]

in my version of The Dog and the Bone the dog sees the bone hit the water, observes the group velocity of the waves, estimates the depth of the bottom, and realizes he can retrieve the bone by waiting a few minutes for the tides to recede.

In the 'shadow and substance' version, the dog learns to swim, impresses a small pack of females on the shore, and shows them he has quite a bone after all.

In the Kalayamutthi Jataka the monkey does indeed lose most of his peas, but after eating the one he retrieved he gets violently ill, and realizes they were poison berries, not peas, and eating two of them would have killed him.

In the Fox and the Kite, the fox gains the loyalty of the kite, who appreciates the handout and helps the fox kill a chicken a day until they retire.

The moral of the story is: all risks require the application of analytic intelligence. You're a human being, not a dog, a monkey, or a fox. You can always precalculate the expected value of a risk, because when you know the advantage is in your favor nothing ventured is a bigger loss than nothing gained.

The Intractable Problem

[decipher_saint]

I'm sure this has been articulated better by others but it's on my mind so here goes...

How do you get money from people who wouldn't spend it regardless of DRM. That's the core problem right?

Are these not the people that DRM schemes seek to deter? Are the people who buy things with restrictions feeling pressure to circumvent these countermeasures to fully enjoy the things they buy (LAN play with no internet type games, resale purchases, etc).

If this is so, then the only thing DRM has been successful at so far is creating an environment that encourages more non-customers.

Re:The Intractable Problem

[IamTheRealMike]

How do you get money from people who wouldn't spend it regardless of DRM. That's the core problem right?

No. If you believe that, it's not surprising that DRM seems mysterious and stupid to you, for you have failed to understand the business rationale underlying it.

The "core problem" is to get money from people who want something yet are basically lazy and cheap. This sadly describes the majority of consumers. DRM can work because most people are not infinitely cheap. Even students will look at a large investment of time vs a small investment of money and probably choose the money, if the time is large enough. So if you make it a lot of effort to obtain a low quality, crappy version of a movie that has Hungarian subtitles and the best lines obscured by somebody coughing, then a non-trivial percentage of people will go and buy it from their local store. This effect is quite measurable, although I've mostly seen public stats about video games, I know the movie industry has some stats on this too.

Designing working DRM is incredibly difficult, very few organizations have achieved it. But ultimately, it's actually pretty cheap. Relative to the cost of making a movie, designing yet another funny DVD menu hack to disrupt rippers for a few weeks is pretty low. And if it lasts a week or two past the time of release, a whole lot of people will see the ads on billboards, want the movie, discover that the only downloads on LimeWire are viruses in disguise and go buy the DVD rather than wait and check back later. If this happens the cost of the DRM can easily pay for itself.

By the way, if you do pirate stuff today you've got to to be insane. I've seen stats on how much stuff on big torrent trackers like TPB are infected and it's just nuts. You get tens of thousands of downloads on torrents that contain keyloggers and then people blame Microsoft for the prevalence of million-strong botnets, online bank fraud etc.

Re:The Intractable Problem

[martin-boundary]

The "core problem" is to get money from people who want something yet are basically lazy and cheap. This sadly describes the majority of consumers.

Ha, ha. The real "core problem" is how to make people, who otherwise don't care, want something they don't need so much that they think they want to buy it. That's the problem marketing purports to solve, and leads companies to believe that people are lazy and cheap consumers out to steal their precious products.

You'll be enlightened the day you realize that lazy and cheap really means not actually a consumer in the first place, no matter what the marketing droids claim.

Re:The Intractable Problem

[decipher_saint]

Bingo.

I couldn't have put it better myself.

An example of a successful PS3 or XBox

[Anonymous Coward]

... is called Wii.

Somethimes I think ...

[gerddie]

... IEEE members should read their own publication more

Zen

[2obvious4u]

DRM may last 5, 10, 50, 100 years, but eventually it will fade away. As networks bandwidth increases information spreads more quickly. If you look hard enough you can find anything you want right now. Eventually people will realize that we all benefit from having all information available on demand, and once that happens DRM will cease to exist.

Re:Zen

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats the beauty of free markets, there will always be people stupid enough to pay far more then the market price for a product. In 100 years there will still be people who will voluntarily choose to be restricted by DRM, even if it has become completely unnecessary.

they really don't get it.

[macbeth66]

I used to buy some 50 albums a year. I haven't done that in a number of years. And it is not because I am stealing the albums now. The new music sucks. There is nothing I want from them. At any price. I will admit to buying used albums, but that is for 'missing' items from my collection.

Re:they really don't get it.

[Hurricane78]

Now tell me... how exactly would this “stealing of music” work?
Explain to me, how you could take away the music from someone, so that he does not have it anymore?

Protip: Container = meatspace = physics of meatspace. != physics of bitspace = bitspace = music.
If you manage to steal (take it away, so that he doesn’t have it anymore) music from someone I’ll give you $200 in cash on the barrelhead!
(Remember that a brain is a lossy but valid storage container for music too!)

Re:they really don't get it.

[Chelloveck]

The new music sucks.

Of course the new music sucks. New music has sucked ever since Oog's children figured out you could bang sticks together, not just rocks. And it sucked even more when Oog's children's children figured out you could bang the sticks on the rocks. It's just been all downhill ever since then.

Excuse me, I'll leave and let you get back to the maintenance of your lawn.

Re:they really don't get it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you considered the possibility that you are just getting old ?

Re:they really don't get it.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what my grandpa used to say.

Re:they really don't get it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't most of the "good" stuff supposed to become free soon?

Re:they really don't get it.

[auLucifer]

Funny? That should definitely be insightful. As the music changes to adapt to the current generation the last generation always says it's gotten worse. My parents did it, their parents did and I'm sure the parents before said exactly the same thing.

Re:they really don't get it.

[StuffMaster]

Just try to tell me this album sucks and I'll beat you with a stick.

Damn! I can't copy an image/sound/video file...

[Chris Tucker]

...via the usual Mac OS commands, due to new and improved DRM?

SnapzPro and WireTap to the rescue!

Re:No. This is BULLSHIT

[jedidiah]

DRM is about screwing the consumer.

Your references to RMS don't alter this.

Again ?

[droopycom]

The exact same scheme was introduced last year... It had some other fancy name I think... Looks like its going nowhere....

New DRM

[Anonymous Coward]

It will now require right-holders to give users a kiss before but-raping them!

Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm unimpressed. They have essentially reinvented the hardware dongle. I don't know why more software distributors don't use them.

My solution

[Voyager529]

Digital REFUND Management. When my access to the content stops, their ability to use the money I paid for that access stops. Put whatever system you want into play, 'cuz if it breaks, I get my money back. Oh, my solution also allows me to determine what my money is spent on, and it defaults to preventing its expenditure on lawyers, lobbyists, hookers, drug dealers, and overly intrusive advertising campaigns.

Personally, I think it's fair. I might be a bit biased though.

Focus on Convenience and Experiece

[scamper_22]

DRM will never work. If you play it once, you can record it, and then you can copy it.

I can't believe they're still focusing on it as opposed to recognizing this simple reality.

People will pay for convenience and experience.

I still have cable. I suppose everything I watch is 'online' somewhere. Yet I have cable because I just turn on the TV and it's all there, no downloading, no decisions...

I still order on Demand Movies because again... my time is worth $5.00 of not browsing torrents, dealing with crappy streaming... People spend $5 on a coffee for gods sake. Make it easy for them to buy a movie online and they will.

Heck, Apple has ITunes. It works as a great experience.

Steam has DRM, but people use it for the convenience. Easily download games, no need to worry about losing a DVD...

Now you'll probably never capture the 'college nerd' market where people are cheap and they will torrent everything. Just accept that as a loss.
But other groups can and will spend money.

Even if we take say online newspapers, the main reason I don't pay now is that
1. I don't like signing up for a thousand different accounts and bills.

They should find a way to partner up with all papers and offer a package through the ISPs. $3.00 a month gets you unlimited full access to all news sites. A lot of people would buy into that. They can then split the revenues maybe based on page hits or something. Who cares.. that's for them to figure out.

Re:Focus on Convenience and Experiece

[cdrguru]

Most of the people that I know that are under 30 understand only one thing - Internet == Free. If it isn't free, they aren't interested. If it can be obtained for free, they are going to take it if they are even remotely interested.

What this leads to is huge volumes of downloading crap that is then "archived" and never really watching it or using it.

It also means that any service that insists on being paid will simply not be used. And, the material will be pirated and distributed. Mostly by people that "buy" it once with a stolen credit card number and post it for everyone to download and take. This pretty much means anything digital will sell once.

Some people with more money than time will pay for media. The rest of the planet (and the majority) will never pay no matter how convenient or painless. Paying is pretty much doomed.

Re:Focus on Convenience and Experiece

[scamper_22]

I am under 30.
I used to torrent everything... now I have fulltime job. I really don't have the time to bother with such things anymore. I still do download, but I pay as well. It's not a moral reason for payments, it's just convenience.

I don't see the next generation being that much different.
People will pay. They pay $10 dollars a meal, $5.00 for coffee... all things they can get much cheaper on their own. But they don't. It's the experience. It's convenient.

The main reason people don't pay now is that companies have made it easier to download than pay.
As they change models to make it really easy to pay and make the legal options affordable, people will buy it.

We just got an offer through work to get various 3rd party pieces of popular software for $10. Pretty much everyone bought it.
Would any of us have actually bought the software legally? I don't know... I doubt it.
But at $10 for us working folks... we all bought it via the download service. The companies probably made more money with this deal.

It is changing, albeit slowly.

different countries have different copyright laws

[Chirs]

How exactly do you "automatically unlock the content when the copyright term is over" when different countries have different copyright laws?

If you go by the copyright laws of the country where it is published, they'll just flock to whatever countries have infinite copyright terms.

Mafia version:

[Hurricane78]

Eehh Tommy, you’re lucky! The Don considers a kinder, gentler ass-rape torture for ya! How about that? Aren’t ya happy now? *laughs*

Re:No. This is BULLSHIT

[Grishnakh]

Even funnier, I just got an email from IEEE today trying to get me to join for 1/2 price. I haven't been a member in about 10 years; I guess they're getting really desperate.

Yes but that doesn't matter

[Colin Smith]

It's shiney shiney.

 

no hookers?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, my solution also allows me to determine what my money is spent on, and it defaults to preventing its expenditure on lawyers, lobbyists, hookers, drug dealers, and overly intrusive advertising campaigns.

What's wrong with hookers? Remove them from your list and you've got my vote.

Re:no hookers?

[Voyager529]

oh it's all configurable by each individual customer, and can be changed at any time, for any reason. If you want to give the *AA permission to spend your money on hookers, that's up to you.

Alternate Headline

[darth dickinson]

Sexual predators consider kinder, gentler rape.

And get off my lawn!

[DarthVain]

You young punks and your "Rock" and/or "Roll" music. Cut your hair and get a real job!

PlayStation parent owns Columbia Pictures

[tepples]

So I bought one for GTA4 and use it for playing blu-rays now. That was a big win for them, 1 game sold.

How many of those Blu-ray titles are published by Columbia or Tristar, movie studios that share a parent company with Sony Computer Entertainment?

Can't use analog hole on a video game

[tepples]

the capture devices keep getting better.

It doesn't matter. Even as the movie industry shrinks, the video game industry continues to grow. You can't use the analog hole on a video game because watching a Let's Play video is no substitute for playing it yourself.

IEEE, WTF.

[Arancaytar]

The IEEE is a standards body. They're supposed to work towards data being accessible and readable, not help assholes find closed formats.

Why can't the IEEE understand this?

[bzipitidoo]

I expect this kind of greed and stupidity from content makers, but the IEEE? Or are they accepting money to do something they know won't work?

Re:Why can't the IEEE understand this?

[shentino]

Maybe the IEEE is trying to "soften" up DRM so that the public won't scream "taboo" whenever it's brought up.

Unfortunately, the vocal minority that stands against DRM on principle won't be satisfied with anything less than its complete eradication, in my opinion rightly so.

This is an attempt at compromise.

Re:"Tamper-protected": The only real DRM

[TheSpoom]

The "tamper-protected circuit" is yet another attempt to bring about trusted computing, the idea that while you physically own a computer, there are parts of it that if accessed in non-approved ways, stop working. It's the only real way to implement unbreakable DRM... or at least, it makes the target the hardware, which can be much more difficult to crack than a software implementation. Think encrypted RAM with the key stored in such a "tamper-protected" chip, gooped up with epoxy and a self-destruct mechanism if it detects an attempt at physical access. They're just framing the idea in a different way; the result is the same.

If this ever actually took off, it could split the internet in two, between open and "trusted". Avoid these things like the plague, and refuse any hardware or software that uses them.

DRM is not a valid application of encryption

[Anonymous Coward]

Their new DRM scheme relies on encryption.

Encryption technology will not be successful unless Alice and Bob are both motivated to keep the message away from Eve.

For all DRM schemes that use encryption, Bob is necessarily the same person as Eve. There are no exceptions.

Therefore, encryption technology cannot be successfully employed for DRM. There are no exceptions.

This is why all DRM schemes have failed in the face of sufficiently-motivated attackers.

Dinosaurs and distribution

[Fishbulb]

...rescuing the big content players from the brink of oblivion...

Why do they deserve to be rescued from oblivion? What have they done to deserve having their profits protected? Did we kill the automotive industry to protect all the businesses dependent on horses being used as transportation?

No.

Re:Somethimes I think ...

[noidentity]

Hey, sometimes I think too. What a coincidence.

Are you one of their accountants?

[Anonymous Coward]

> The vast majority of movies either lose money or break even, so the big studios subsidize them with the profits made by the big hits

Better known as Hollywood Accounting

Unlikely

[Mathinker]

Just imagine a world where web pages start to get replaced by apps, controlled by apple. That is not a nice picture, but it's where current developments are taking us.

That could only happen if the generation of children growing up now would swallow it. I don't see that happening, so you can feel relatively safe.

Anyway, Apple has shown that it's not willing to demean itself with porn, and we know that's not going to disappear anytime soon.

Re:Unlikely

[m94mni]

Porn might, ironically, be a key driver in securing a free and open internet. I agree.

Sorry, Porn mags freebies already worthless

[Anonymous Coward]

Porn mags have been flogging 'free' dvds with them - and that scheme died.
If DRM won't work for porn, it's not going to work for anything else.
Only the 'buyer' finds out later both $$$ for a key is required.

Local porn shop has a grab bin of useless DRM crippled dvds for 50 cents each - and the porn industry not attaching dvds anymore - as there is Sweet F.. All interest from the punters - even at 50 cents is negligible.

This scheme is another pig in a dress, and its not going to fly.

disable irrevocable destruction of privacy

[stefanPryor]

grant people copyright over their personal information (life of author + x(current copyright extension amount))

require entities that hold personal information on US citizens to register that information in a database

devise a method for individuals to access this database and revoke/allow rights to specific information and entities

prosecute violations using "draconian copyright law"

Laws must be just and applied in a fair and non discriminatory manner. Maintaining this type of character for the law should be of the highest priority.