Secret BBC Documents Reveal Flimsy Case For DRM

mouthbeef writes "The Guardian just published my investigative story on the BBC and Ofcom's abuse of secrecy laws to hide the reasons for granting permission for DRM on UK public broadcasts. The UK public overwhelmingly rejected the proposal, but Ofcom approved it anyway, saying they were convinced by secret BBC arguments that couldn't be published due to 'commercial sensitivity.' As the article shows, the material was neither sensitive nor convincing — a fact that Ofcom and the BBC tried to hide from the public."

Comments

Surprise surprise

[GameboyRMH]

Arguments for inherently impossible protection system that consumers hate flawed, news at 11.

Re:Surprise surprise

[GameboyRMH]

The other side's arguments consist of "WAAAAH I hate the nature of computers, make them work different so that *I* will be the master of other people's computers and those people will be forced to pay whenever any content my company has a perpetual copyright on is viewed with one, WAAAH!"

Re:Surprise surprise

[Fned]

You are dork because you're missing the other side's arguments completely.

He's not missing them, they're just 100% invalid.

DRM is fundamentally broken, mathematically. It seeks to grant and deny access to the same party simultaneously.

Re:Surprise surprise

[Raenex]

Surprise, surprise, a first post that responds to the title only, and not even the summary. The story isn't that DRM is flawed, the real story here is that secrecy laws were evoked to redact commentary from the BBC. Concluding paragraph from the article:

Welcome to DRM Britain. Our BBC will give privileges to American TV companies that the US government won't give them, and our "independent" regulator won't even tell us why.

Re:Surprise surprise

[Moryath]

Britain does this... the US government does this... the fundamental problem would seem to be politicians + businesses + money = corruption, as a definitive formula, no?

Re:Surprise surprise

[gl4ss]

bbc's secret argument is actually this: BBC MAKES MONEY BY SELLING THEIR CONTENT TO FOR EXAMPLE FINNISH BBC EQUIVALENT.

so if we could just download the drm free stuff from internet shared by uk folk... well. that money might go away.

of course, regardless of the drm, we can download it if we wish and the finnish bbc equivalent will still buy them regardless of piracy - and put it online to stream on a shitty format.

Re:Surprise surprise

[CastrTroy]

It's only broken if you assume general purpose device like a PC. I forsee that once computers get fast enough, small enough, and have little enough heat to dissipate that eventually we will have the components encased in epoxy, with most of the important internals on a single chip, placed in a random place on a board (chips are placed in the same spot during manufacturing, edges are cut differently so they exist in a different physical position in the end product). There will be no media slot and possibly no ports of any kind for hooking up peripherals. It won't have general access to the internet, and will only be able to visit approved services, where all code is signed and encrypted so as not to allow unsigned code to run. If you look at the reason most DRM was cracked, it was because they existed on a run-of-the-mill computer, where the key was stored in memory. Or you have a console, where you can add on a mod chip, or edit the save game files to create a buffer overflow error. If you remove the ability of the user to interact with the machine at that level, then you go a very long way towards most people not bothering to break the DRM. It's only a matter of time before some $25 machine becomes all you need, and the only way, to play your media content, but that $25 machine is encased in epoxy and has no user accessible data of any kind. It just has HDMI out, and an Ethernet port. The software inside will only connect and run certified software.

Re:Surprise surprise

[MysteriousPreacher]

Seriously, read beyond the title and post something that isn't just a childlike and generic screed against DRM. The big issue here is in how a state broadcaster and a regulator conspired to very much go against the interests of the public. In that regard it certainly is a "news at 11" situation for the more cynical ones among us.

Re:Surprise surprise

[GameboyRMH]

The big issue here is in how a state broadcaster and a regulator conspired to very much go against the interests of the public. In that regard it certainly is a "news at 11"

Yes it's news, they're both news...although I find this equally unsurprising :-(

Re:Surprise surprise

[GameboyRMH]

You're technically correct (the best kind of correct!) but getting it to work 99% of the time is still a ways off and will require some big technological breakthroughs. Even today's best (in terms of cracking difficulty) DRM schemes, HDCP and TPM-enabled DRM, are still crackable with hardhacks - there are even home HDCP circumvention kits, all you have to do is tap into some wires running out of a TV's HDCP decoder (or you could just get an HDCP stripper box and hope the key doesn't get blacklisted). TPM-enabled DRM is the toughest as it places the decryption keys in a tamper-proofed piece of hardware, but even this has been broken using some fancy equipment.

Let's even say, for the sake of argument, that you can use quantum encryption tech to have the data stream encrypted until it reaches the pixels and speakers themselves. A sufficiently sharp camera with some software pointed at the screen could effectively make a digital rip via light, and then you could tie into the speaker cone leads (sorry, no way to do the same for speakers without super-advanced nanotech) and get a good analog audio rip. You'd have a very good rip using the analog hole, which will always exist until there are surveillance cameras in our homes or non-DRM'ed files are impossible to open.

Re:Surprise surprise

[History's Coming To]

Whether the BBC is a "state broadcaster" is debatable. Yes, they're state funded, but they're an autonomous body required by charter to be politically neutral. It's arguable that enforcing DRM actually is in the public interest if it reduces the cost of the TV licence by providing a revenue stream - which is exactly why they block some iPlayer streams outside the UK; free content in the UK is sold externally, so there's more of an argument for non-UK DRM.

In my experience the BBC have a fairly relaxed attitude to DRM, aside from the legal bluster they're required to go through by law. (If they don't attempt to enforce copyright they lose it.) Non-UK viewing is easy enough with a proxy, and they don't make it particularly difficult to download completely open mpgs.

Re:Surprise surprise

[CmdrPony]

That's not the point though. Companies don't care that much if it's 100% unhackable as long as it protects the content long enough (so that most sales are done) or that it hinders mass copying, as with this case. Whatever you described in your post seems like a huge effort, ever for me (and I'm a geek). It's completely out of reach from masses. That is the point.

Also, there are uncrackable DRM's, but with games. There are still titles that haven't been cracked, or have been cracked improperly which leads frustration for the guy who pirated it. It can make him buy it. With games the companies have also figured out that they can give out the game for free and charge for gameplay features or items, ie. free2play. Lots of gamers hate it, but well, they asked for change. Most of multiplayer games and MMO's are also either unplayable or severaly limited, like WoW (and don't say there are private servers, because they seriously suck compared to real ones and the experience is completely different).

Re:Surprise surprise

[peragrin]

well I always thought it was more like
(Politicians + Businesses)*(money + perceived power) = corruption.

I put perceived power in there because most of a politicians power comes from the thought of power that their office holds with what it actually does.

the President of the United States supposedly the most powerful position on EArth really only has three hammers with which to fix things. Lawyers, diplomats, and Military. He has no other tool. what's worse is his diplomats and Military are partially controlled by Congress.

For being so Powerful he really can't do much.

Re:Surprise surprise

[tinkerghost]

If they don't attempt to enforce copyright they lose it.

Not in any country I know of. Trademarks are subject to this in the US, but it's not true of copyright in countries that are signatories to the Berne convention.

Re:Surprise surprise

[The Askylist]

The BBC is not state funded - it is funded by a license fee which is enforceable by law (if you don't pay, they try to fine you £1000).

.

And while it is required to be politically neutral, it is in fact a nest of Bolsheviks and AGW advocates, and is consistently biased towards the Left.

I only watch it for the odd bit of football and motor sport nowadays - the rest of the coverage (including supposed 'science' programming) is just not worth the effort.

The DRM thing was likely under instruction from Lords Mandelson and Triesmann, who in turn bark to the tune of His Master's Voice.

Re:Surprise surprise

[Bucky24]

the President of the United States supposedly the most powerful position on EArth really only has three hammers with which to fix things. Lawyers, diplomats, and Military. He has no other tool. what's worse is his diplomats and Military are partially controlled by Congress.

For being so Powerful he really can't do much.

It's that way on purpose, so that the "most powerful man in the world" doesn't become a dictator.

Re:Surprise surprise

[desdinova 216]

And while it is required to be politically neutral, it is in fact a nest of Bolsheviks and AGW advocates, and is consistently biased towards the Left.

if I didn't know better I'd think that was the claims of a US talk radio listener about US public broadcasting

Re:Surprise surprise

[wildstoo]

Ok, it seems you're not the only one who gets this wrong, so...

PEDANT MODE ACTIVATED.

The term is "Film at 11".

It comes from the dim and distant past, when news broadcasts from out in the field were recorded on actual film, which had to be cut and processed in studio before it could be aired.

A story would be announced earlier in the evening, promising the "film at 11", when you could tune in and actually see the footage.

Get it now, Mr Frosty Piss?

Re:Surprise surprise

[Pieroxy]

That's not the point though. Companies don't care that much if it's 100% unhackable as long as it protects the content long enough (so that most sales are done) or that it hinders mass copying, as with this case. Whatever you described in your post seems like a huge effort, ever for me (and I'm a geek). It's completely out of reach from masses. That is the point.

And our point is that DRM doesn't even do that. Not even slightly. As soon as the DVD is out, the cat is out of the bag and hours later you find rips on BitTorrent.

The fact that the DRM hinders 99.99% of the people from copying MEANS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, because noone pirates this way anymore! All pirates go to the internet to download their stuff, where the 0.01% that were able to rip did upload their stuff. Even only one person circumventing the protection is enough to make is utterly useless.

The music industry seems to have gotten the point. Next will be the movie industry, TV, eBooks. It's just a matter of time.

In the meantime their model sucks and they lose more and more faithful customers by screwing them with complex measures that hinder them just enough to make them view the content producers as the bunch of scumbags they are.

Re:Surprise surprise

[shaitand]

"The big issue here is in how a state broadcaster and a regulator conspired to very much go against the interests of the public. In that regard it certainly is a "news at 11" situation for the more cynical ones among us."

I think you mean its news for the less cynical. For the true cynics like myself it would have been news had they acted in the interests of the public.

Re:Surprise surprise

[shaitand]

Someone once said that repeating the same action over and over, expecting a different result is the definition of insanity.

Every DRM scheme devised has been cracked, most before they even hit the shelf. And yes it is a paradox. At some point the content goes analog and at that point you can copy it. You literally cannot deny and grant access at the same time.

By that definition it is insane to spend resources developing and utilizing yet another DRM system.

Re:Surprise surprise

[shaitand]

If it still has an ethernet port or wifi access it'll still be software p0wn3d

Re:Surprise surprise

[MysteriousPreacher]

Amen, my friend, unfortunately.

Re:Surprise surprise

[TheRaven64]

And while it is required to be politically neutral, it is in fact a nest of Bolsheviks

I'm pretty sure bolsheviks aren't nearly as pro-strong-copyright as the BBC. For a reference, go and find the most recent article about the EU copyright extension for music. It came with three quotes, one from someone who proposed the bill, one from a music label, and one from a music industry lobbyist. No one quoted in the entire article ever even hinted that perhaps perpetually extending copyright terms might not be the best option.

Re:Surprise surprise

[TheRaven64]

Companies don't care that much if it's 100% unhackable as long as it protects the content long enough (so that most sales are done) or that it hinders mass copying

Except it doesn't. BBC stuff still finds its way onto torrent trackers almost as soon as it's been broadcast. Movies are still uploaded to torrent trackers before they are released in the cinemas. The only people who find the DRM inconvenient are those wanting to legally use the media in a way not specifically catered for by the supplier.

Re:Surprise surprise

[TapeCutter]

FFS, who the hell gave Glenn Beck a slashdot account?

Re:Surprise surprise

[opposabledumbs]

Especially since the bulk of the funds for the BBC come through a license system that I think you are unable to opt out of if you live in the UK and own a TV. That, and the taxpayer money that makes up much of the rest of their funding, should mean that their content is public domain, and needs no DRM.

Re:Surprise surprise

[IgnoramusMaximus]

I hate to burst your bubble but I have this needle called the "analog hole" here...

Or do you propose that in the age of your "epoxy encased $25 PC" people will have their eyes and ear-drums removed at birth and replaced with appropriate corporato-government approved interfaces to your "epoxy PCs" to prevent these silly DRM schemes from being trivially circumvented?

Otherwise a digital camera or a digital audio recorder will put an end to this nonsense in minutes.

The GP is absolutely right. DRM is fundamentally broken because it violates the basic cryptography principle of having the recipient and the attacker being the same person. You just forgot (as most proponents of DRM do) that the attack vectors possible do not end at the computing device but extend far beyond it.

In order to make DRM technologically feasible (as opposed to enforcement by terrorizing the populace via random acts of spectacular and draconian punishments) one needs a totalitarian police state the likes of which Hitler and Stalin did not dream in their most fevered fantasies. A police state that requires surgery at birth, followed by genetic manipulation and eugenics, and ultimately complete mind control of every "consumer" by the "authorities" so that there could exist a separate "recipient" (a government/corporate controlled entity) and an "attacker" (the poor sod whose mind is being destroyed) in the same person's cranium. Should that come to be, DRM will be the least of our problems.

Re:Surprise surprise

[dryeo]

You're thinking of the totalitarians who took over the Bolsheviks, generally by murder, and continued the Russian tradition of totalitarian rule.

Re:Surprise surprise

[JackDW]

Ah, yes, the Bolsheviks were all sweetness and light until Lenin/Stalin took over. What rubbish.

Re:Surprise surprise

[IgnoramusMaximus]

What do you think about per-user watermarking? Then the analog hole doesn't have to be plugged, only anonymity has to be removed.

That still falls into non-technological enforcement measures, i.e. an attempt to terrorize the public into obedience by insinuating draconian consequences for heretical non-believers who could be identified by the police state.

It in no way addresses the fundamental fallacy of the DRM schemes from the point of view of cryptography. It is an equivalent of the authorities officially declaring the sky to be green and then threatening anyone who disagrees with a bullet to the head. Such a procedure will not alter the properties of the atmosphere, but it might frighten many into claiming that it did.

Also, per-user watermarking is a pipe dream, especially for audio. In order to be detectable, watermarking has to be sufficiently prominent to survive noise/data-loss due to digitization, encoding, decoding etc. If that is so, it is also easily detectable by simple comparison of two streams over certain noise threshold. So instead having to record once, you will need two or three copies from different users to detect and remove the watermarks. If the watermarking is subtle enough to be missed by this process, it is also useless as evidence (at least in any sane court) because it is below the noise level and cannot be detected with any degree of reliability.

Re:Surprise surprise

[Xest]

Or until Sony or whoever it is behind the DRM in question just gets hacked and the master key for the whole scheme leaked.

Re:Surprise surprise

[Asic Eng]

Well businesses can have corruption without politicians being involved (e.g. when awarding contracts, purchasing or outsourcing). The larger an organization the more susceptible it is to corruption - it really doesn't matter what type of organization - whether it's a business, a political party, an independent institution, a charity, a church or whatever else.

Re:Surprise surprise

[jabjoe]

My brother told me of a story (year or two ago) where he downloaded pirate version of a game he has bought because the DRM failed to allow him to play the game. The pirate version worked fine....

You also missing the point. DRM only need to be broken by one smart person, then everyone just copies the unprotected copy. You don't have to be the one to crack it to get a copy.

Re:Surprise surprise

[AmiMoJo]

If you remove the ability of the user to interact with the machine at that level, then you go a very long way towards most people not bothering to break the DRM.

Fortunately it only takes on person to break the DRM and upload it to the Pirate Bay, then no-one else has to bother.

HDMI can be recorded, there are devices available that use legit keys copied from consumer products. In theory they could block those keys in the future, but only at the expensive of breaking all those TVs. Even assuming someone made hardware that was too difficult to crack in any way there would still be the analogue hole. Point a camera at the screen. What next, directly inject the images into your mind?

DRM can never win. Never.

Re:Surprise surprise

[makomk]

Actually, the master keys for HDCP are now public so blacklisting HDCP stripper boxes is now pointless - anyone can just create a stripper box that can automatically clone any valid HDCP sink.

Re:Surprise surprise

[CastrTroy]

But pointing a camera a the screen creates very inferior copies. Maybe you can never fill the analog hole, but if you fill the digital hole, you come a long way to stopping piracy. Sure, some people will still go for cam stuff, but that doesn't give you 1080p video (even if you use a 1080p camera) with 7.1 surround sound. I'm not saying that they will be able to make perfect DRM, because I understand that doesn't exist. However, I think they will get it to a point where most people don't want to go through the trouble of breaking the DRM, because it will require physical (ie drilling holes) modification to their TV which most people aren't willing to do.

Re:Surprise surprise

[rufty_tufty]

"As soon as the DVD is out, the cat is out of the bag and hours later you find rips on BitTorrent."
Right so you try and move people over to BlueRay which has stronger DRM. Even better persuade them that online streaming is the way forwards and you can then change the DRM algorithm any time it is cracked. Just make sure that the latest format has the best content and voting with your wallet won't help here because they will take a loss on a format to begin with to allow them to discontinue the now none secure one that will eventually make them no money. Then later ratchet up the prices. Or only offer the extras on the latest format (notice how the HP DVDs don't have all the same extras on it that the blue ray ones do).

It's a brave new world.

Re:Surprise surprise

[rufty_tufty]

But it's not about that. If you can get the public to accept that any format they buy or obtain for free is DRM'd then you have won 99% of the battle. because then you can control how content moves from there.
Yes people will always be trying to break the schemes and will probably continue to succeed, but imagine if the next generation of people accepts that DRM is not only expected but buys into the fact that is required. Kind of like most people buy that intellectual property should be bought and sold like any other property. (Actually i do buy some of that argument, just not all of it but that's another story). If you can change the way people think then your battle for more favourable laws to protect your content are easier to pass.

Re:Surprise surprise

[rufty_tufty]

What if you had a DRM compliant camera that looked for watermarks and refused to take photos if it saw the watermark?
Okay I'll hang onto my current camcorder.
But what happens when it breaks?
What happens when a new 3D, Ultra-HD standard comes out - well maybe I'll get a new camera for that and still keep my old one around. Then I forget I have the old one because I never use it. Well I use it occasionally. My nephew however has no concept that a camcorder could exist that doesn't respect the watermarks and considers my old one faulty because "the picture looks fuzzy" - he has said that about my old none HD camcorder.
It would be very easy to plug the analogue gap given time and the right industry standards.

Re:Surprise surprise

[IgnoramusMaximus]

It would be very easy to plug the analogue gap given time and the right industry standards.

If by "easy" you mean total cooperation of every foreign and domestic manufacturer, electronics engineer, hobbyist and "pirate" out there, combined with total ban on access to electronic components enforced by a Gestapo-style police force, complete with burning of books on topics such as "digital image acquisition", then yes, "easy" indeed!

Otherwise it only takes one (2 or 3 if per-user watermarks are in effect) non-conformist with old/specially-built equipment amongst the billions of the "consumers" to break the contents once out of the idiotic DRM scheme and convert it to a non-encumbered format, following which anyone, anywhere with any sort of data connection can get it. The process is irreversible, i.e. once out, the cat can never be put back into the bag. Wholesale banning of the entire Internet is "easier" then getting the "analog hole" plugged, for in order for it to work one has to ensure that absolutely no one has access to any kind of digitization technology outside of the control of the corporato-government.

And it still does not change anything about the mathematically faulty nature of DRM, which is the point the original poster was making and which I was reinforcing.

Re:Surprise surprise

[rufty_tufty]

You mean like every manufacturer of DVDs and HDMI compliant TV or media source now has to implement DRM. Then yes, easy. It's already happened every new device you buy does implement it.
That mobile phone with HDMI output has to be compliant.
That laptop has to be compliant.
That Blue Ray disk and player has to be compliant.
It's already happened and expect all new standards to implement it.

Re:Surprise surprise

[IgnoramusMaximus]

None of which plugged the "analog hole". As long as there remains one person out there with a non-compliant device and Internet access, the hole will remain wide open.

You said it would be "easy" to plug it. I pointed out that large manufacturers - most of whom are also invested in "contents producers" - complying with the scheme means nothing as long as others do not (and there are a lot of HDMI HDCP strippers available in Asia, and even here). The list of non-compliers has to be completely empty - which includes also any home-brew setups - enforcing which is anything but "easy".

You seem to hung up on the idea that merely denying access to unencumbered digitization technology to a lot of ignorant and easily baffled "Joe Sixpacks" out there is going to somehow deter people who actually re-encode and distribute contents, forgetting completely that people who are so easily controlled were not the ones doing any sort of contents ripping in the first place.

Re:Surprise surprise

[Pieroxy]

By DVD I meant DVD, Blu-Ray and HD-DVD, as well as OTA and Cable streaming. So no, Blu-Ray is cracked and well cracked - and it has been for a long time. The DRM may stay uncracked - I don't know - but there are other ways to dump the stream of data while a software player is playing, so while it is uncracked, it is becoming irrelevant.

Streaming won't solve a thing either. You need software to decode the stream, so it's hackable in no time. Moreover, machines are now powerful enough to to screen grabbing and x264 encoding on the fly, so even if the software is "uncrackable" the stream will be ripped and/or reencoded by the time the broadcast/streaming is done.

Really, this is all pointless. The concept of copyright itself is dissolving since it is based on the assumption that the information flow can be controlled. With the internet, this is no longer true, so enforcing copyright is becoming nothing but a witch hunt. The poor bums new to the game will fall in flames, but the rest of the world will freely share content. And that's not about to change.

Re:Surprise surprise

[rufty_tufty]

Let's stick to the analogue hole argument at the moment as existing schemes can be improved and we could find ourself in the situation where any new device you can buy will be DRM enabled plugging the hole - can we at least agree on that? (e.g. the HDCP strippers I'm aware of rely on a hole in the original HDMI standard that has since been plugged but backwards compatibility keeps the hole open for legacy devices - this can then be used by the strippers. However a new HDCP standard could easily chose to plug this hole. As a further example we now have the HDCP root key but that was due to a security breach which is hardly likely to happen again).

So fine any future TV could be filmed with your existing camcorder and you will always have content of that quality available. This may in the future be the equivalent of filming a 3d blue ray on a VHS tape recorder but if you're happy with that level of quality then fine. Until your camcorder breaks. Or the battery wears out. How will you replace it then when spares are no longer made?
How will these people rip the content is my question, without access to the right keys and using even current encoding schemes then how will you guess the 128bit key required to break them? All the exploits I'm aware of that exist exist by manufacturers poorly implementing the standard or by secrets being spilled. If people carry on doing this and they learn from the mistakes then great however I can easily see the day where a product recall occurs when the device has its DRM broken. All media devices would also in this time period need internet access or at least need to be plugged into a device with internet access and it would be trivial to carry a list of forbidden devices on such internet connection device.
Let me paint a picture: So 30 years from now Panasonic screw up the DRM on their latest camcorder and suddenly you can film movies with it. Every hacker on the planet tries to buy one. The devices are recalled to have their software updated and anyway the first time they get net access they download the new "fixed software". So the hackers ban it from doing that by wrapping it in tin foil and not connecting it to their phone or tablet. So how do you get the content off it? Connect it to your internet enabled TV? Clearly not, so you copy the data to an SD-Card and then import that to your TV. Except the media is watermarked with the ID of the device that produced it and it now dials home to say that that device is now in use. Tell me this wouldn't be possible to implement with current technology if the will was there? Why not have the next standard for internet TV require this level of secuiry - "ahh you want to use windows 9 you must have DirectDRM3! for all attached devices and media." Okay perhaps you try and write some software to read the now insecure file the camcorder wrote and re-encode it. Great but by this point you've really got an underground community. If the people exchanging for example h264 encoded files are 99% copyright infringers and 1% none infringement then simply by exchanging these none protected files you've painted a target on your own head; and you can't distribute one of the formats that would look like amateur produced content because that will all be signed content that you can't produce without the end to end security of the DRM you just broke.
I'd love to say otherwise; I'm a great believer in the importance of the public domain and believe hackers breaking DRM and copyright are the only way to stand against the ever encroaching private stranglehold, but I don't see a long term future and it sickens me.

Re:Surprise surprise

[rufty_tufty]

"Streaming won't solve a thing either[...]"
I really hope you are right, but a lot depends on if the trusted computing thing ever comes to anything. It would be fairly easy for microsoft to say that you can only use its screen grabbing API which forbids the grabbing of secure content. If it became impossible to play content on an open source platform or the architecture/DRM shifted so that media decode was always done in some sort of CPU offload then "You need software to decode the stream, so it's hackable in no time." is no longer true.

"The concept of copyright itself is dissolving since it is based on the assumption that the information flow can be controlled."
Yes and no. I think people are getting more used to sharing themselves but less used to corporate social responsibility - and copyright is all about corporate social responsibility. But then people also seem to forget that public libraries exist so I'm fairly sure the general public is becoming used to a subscription model and not an ownership model. For me a lot depends on what happens in tablets. I see them as the immediate future of home computing and if that is correct then it depends on what happens with android. If windows or apple wins/dominates then forget it. Apple has already sewn up content control and microsoft can't be far behind. Freedom of information doesn't help you if content is locked down.
If android wins/dominates then there is at least a chance of openness but again in the mobile world CPU offload for intensive tasks like media handling is very attractive so again I'm not sure how you could hack that if the device manufacturer was competent.

Re:Surprise surprise

[AmiMoJo]

You missed the most important point - only one person has to put in the effort to defeat the DRM, then everyone else merely has to download an unrestricted version. If people are willing to cam movies in cinemas you can bet they are willing to do it in their own homes under near perfect conditions with zero chance of being caught.

Re:Surprise surprise

[IgnoramusMaximus]

So fine any future TV could be filmed with your existing camcorder and you will always have content of that quality available.

NO. A consumer product, such as a camcorder, is only one possibility. I keep telling you that due to the nature of the way people see images, unless you prevent private individuals from obtaining electronic parts, there is nothing stopping you from building your own digitization device, other then the know-how. It will not be pretty, it will not be portable, it will not be compact, but it will do the job of circumventing DRM. And enterprising companies will gladly sell you kits for this even if they cannot sell you a finished product.

How will these people rip the content is my question, without access to the right keys and using even current encoding schemes then how will you guess the 128bit key required to break them?

By using the "analog hole". 1024 megabit key won't stop them because of that little hole existing. For example, should the corporations somehow manage to block all audio adapters in all computing devices, to digitize any analog audio stream at a quality exceeding the human hearing capacity one needs about $20 worth of electronic parts from DigiKey or any other online supplier. The only thing that will stop them is some kind of dystopian future where everyone's eyes and ears have been replaced with government interfaces, data communication has been banned and all knowledge of digitization of analog data is proscribed under the penalty of death.

Let me paint a picture:

Your picture is irrelevant. No matter what Panasonic or Sony or whatever-big-corp does, people will still need to use eyeballs to watch the TV and electonic components will still be available for sale and those amongst us who are little more knowledgeable than "Gee this here darn camcorder won't record mah movin' pictures! Oh well..." will still be able to circumvent any idiotic DRM conceivable because DRM is fundamentally, mathematically broken.

And if the corps somehow prevent display devices from showing user generated contents (which would incidentally mean an end to all personal computing, smart phones, office computers and the like) then it would only result in a bonanza of sales of "build your own display" kits.

As to transmitting video files being banned, the answers already exist: tor, i2p and freenet, amongst others. Bonus feature: more the "contents owners" disguised as governments crack down, more the peons realize the true nature of the world they live in, which is a good thing and would eventually result in an a bloody "Arab Spring" redux.

I'd love to say otherwise; I'm a great believer in the importance of the public domain and believe hackers breaking DRM and copyright are the only way to stand against the ever encroaching private stranglehold, but I don't see a long term future and it sickens me.

I think your problem is that you want the ability to circumvent DRM and at the same time you insist that this must all be accomplished with ready-made, shiny, consumer items bought at BestBuy. It is then no surprise that you find yourself despairing.

Re:Surprise surprise

[rufty_tufty]

"unless you prevent private individuals from obtaining electronic parts, there is nothing stopping you from building your own digitization device, other then the know-how. It will not be pretty, it will not be portable, it will not be compact, but it will do the job of circumventing DRM"

Okay, look at the raspberry pie project. one of the drivers for that project and what makes it so cool is exactly that these parts are stopping becoming available to the general public. You cannot buy a BCM2835, fine that's broadcom, but can you as a consumer buy a Qualcomm chip, or a CSR bluetooth chip, even if you could (but I believe you can't) they will not release all the software needed to drive the hardware and reverse engineering it is something no-one has managed yet. The large corporations won't sell less than multiple thousands simply because it's not worth supporting the small producer. Some large corporations like TI might still sell their beagle boards which will help, but can you rely on that? It's getting harder with every generation.
Please try and buy a raw camera module. Try and build your own PCB using parts with a ball pitch so fine that you need professional level reflow ovens to plonk the parts down(by the way modern parts are already at this stage and it's getting worse all the time too). So it's not about preventing people from doing it, it's just not worth the man hours of their engineers to put the mechanisms in place to do the purchase. We're not there yet thanks to PCs still being prevalent in the home but give it time.
Now at the moment you always have the hole of a generic PC to do most of this, but as I was worried about in another post if the tablet market basically shuts down the home built PC at home then what? If that doesn't happen then what about "trusted computing" what if that is successful and makes amateur PC building impossible?

"somehow prevent display devices from showing user generated contents"
That's not needed. All content is watermarked. In my scenario user generated content has a watermark embedded in it by the camcorder. Now a sophisticated watermark would include details about the license and your access rights would be monitored too, it may be possible to turn that watermark off for your content but I'm talking about the default setting that 99% of people will use being one that "protects them"

"all be accomplished with ready-made, shiny, consumer items bought at BestBuy."
Show me someone who has built a home made camcorder without using items that you would find at best buy. The projects I have seen all have a reliance on commodity hardware or use vendor supplied test hardware (such as the beagle board) which do have parts of the system that you cannot touch and those are the parts that handle media codecs. Now people do write their own, but as i was trying to communicate in my last post even assuming you do that then surely you end up with a situation like happened to ogg that the only people to use it were the techie elite and therefore it never gained traction. Fine then that's what you use to exchange pirated information with your friends. It soon becomes that the only people exchange in that file format are those pirating at which point it is trivial for law enforcement to find you because you suddenly stand out above the noise of other file transfers. Yes there are ways to hide this but then you're even further underground. and you end up like truecrypt where even possessing the software to hide your activities becomes grounds for search and seizure and by law having to reveal your keys.
This is a long way from the current situation where everything is in mpeg format and enforcing infringement is difficult because at the moment it's hard to see the forest for the trees, but once Joe sixpack has moved on to a place that doesn't allow DRM free content to exist then the game changes.
Now there is still one hope I have left Xilinx and their test boards could be the last back door, so here's hoping but I think old age is making me cynical.

Re:Surprise surprise

[Terrasque]

Take a normal 1080p supporting HDTV. Spend some time reverse engineering it, and connect every pixel on the screen to some AD converters. Technically, if you somehow manage to mux them properly, you'd only need about 2-3 of these to read out all pixels at a 60hz rate.

So.. 1080p, 60hz, 3 colors, 12 bit per color..

1920 * 1080 * (60 hz) * 3 * (12 bits) = 533.935547 MBps (Love Google's builtin calc).

Uncompressed, a 533MB/s data stream. USB 3 have a maximum transmission speed of up to 5 Gbit/s (640 MB/s). You wouldn't even need a video capture card. Then do some logic in the cpu, and save a compressed stream to disk (First step would probably be badly compressed, would just to be able to handle saving the stream to disk. Next step would probably be a 2-pass mp4 encoding). Then burn to DVD / bluray and sell to customers (which then copy/rip it and upload to pirate bay).

I would say that chinese copiers/knockoff producers would be perfectly capable of such a feat. And if the TV's key somehow gets blacklisted, you grab a new one and spend a week's time getting that up and running.

And that is if they somehow managed to protect the signal all the way until it's time to light up the actual pixels. I'm sure that in most cases they could connect to the stream at an earlier point, and get the raw digital data out.

Re:Surprise surprise

[IgnoramusMaximus]

Okay, look at the raspberry pie project. one of the drivers for that project and what makes it so cool is exactly that these parts are stopping becoming available to the general public.

Completely untrue. The entire electronics industry depends on availability of large quantities of parts and there are literally millions of small companies using them. Again, you seem to live in a world where all electronics is somehow restricted to 10 manufacturers. Its a fantasy land.

You cannot buy a BCM2835, fine that's broadcom, but can you as a consumer buy a Qualcomm chip, or a CSR bluetooth chip, even if you could (but I believe you can't) they will not release all the software needed to drive the hardware and reverse engineering it is something no-one has managed yet.

More nonsense. The fancy chips are needed only if you are doing something that requires both small size and complexity. All of their functions are merely a condensed version of what can be achieved with less integrated generic components.

Also, one does not need to implement any of the digital consumer protocols to exploit the analog hole. Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and any other future wireless protocol has no bearing on the matter, whatsoever.

The large corporations won't sell less than multiple thousands simply because it's not worth supporting the small producer.

Yes, that is why all of the electronic mail-order suppliers are long out of business ... oh wait! Its not like any of them buy large orders of parts and then divide them into small chunks to be sold to individuals for a premium, right?

Some large corporations like TI might still sell their beagle boards which will help, but can you rely on that? It's getting harder with every generation.

No it is not getting harder. And yes, you can rely on it. Development boards are sold to all and sundry because there are millions of electronics engineers out there experimenting with components and all manufacturers are eager to give them toys in hopes that some of them devise some new consumer products which will result in the companies they work for ordering large volumes of the said parts. This is the fundamental method by which all sales of parts are conducted and it is not going away in any foreseeable future.

Please try and buy a raw camera module.

You buy a cheap camera and remove the CCD sensor from it. Bonus, you get optics to go along with it. Unless they start making explosive, tamper-proof cameras, you have a very large supply of sensors all around you. And that assumes that you are not using other methods such as an electro-mechanical scan or some such. Again, you forgot that your digitization device does not need to be pretty, small, portable or even 21st century technology. 1930s methods updated for modern components will do just fine, thank you.

Try and build your own PCB using parts with a ball pitch so fine that you need professional level reflow ovens to plonk the parts down(by the way modern parts are already at this stage and it's getting worse all the time too).

Err, you use pre-made PCBs that allow for mounting of SMT components on them and which have old-fashioned DIP pin layout at the bottom. And again, this only applies to specialized SMT chips. DIP packaged chips are and will remain widely available for a variety of reasons. So will discrete components.

So it's not about preventing people from doing it, it's just not worth the man hours of their engineers to put the mechanisms in place to do the purchase.

Huh? Even a few thousand of clients out of the 7 billion people on Earth is enough to get someone in China going, as amply evidenced on Alibaba.com.

We're not there yet thanks to PCs still being preva

Re:Surprise surprise

[Fned]

It's only broken if you assume general purpose device like a PC... It's only a matter of time before some $25 machine becomes all you need, and the only way, to play your media content, but that $25 machine is encased in epoxy and has no user accessible data of any kind...

Yes, you can achieve perfect DRM by totally controlling the hardware. However, this is not a technological solution. It is exactly as effective as having no DRM and punishing people who break the rules. "all you need" is technological; "and the only way" is 100% social. What's to stop someone from creating a $25 dollar box that sits between your box and the mothership, and commands it to do whatever you wish? Law enforcement, that's all.

Computers run arbitrary code. It's WHAT THEY DO. Everything else is frosting. Which is why, when you absolutely, positively don't want someone you don't approve of running arbitrary code on your computer, you deny them access to the hardware. Denying someone access to the hardware is not a technological solution.

There are people out there, right now, for whom the $25 epoxy box is a difficult but not impossible challenge. Make its secrets desirable, and it becomes a fun and interesting challenge. And it only takes one.

Re:Surprise surprise

[shaitand]

"the President of the United States supposedly the most powerful position on EArth really only has three hammers with which to fix things"

He also has the entire executive branch under his direct command. I would much prefer to have a president lobbying on the reforms he will make within the executive than on laws he will propose. Veto power doesn't accomplish much in terms of passing laws. But the president can keep executive branch reform promises on his first day in office with a few phone calls.

Re:Surprise surprise

[rufty_tufty]

Okay this post is getting way too long so let's simplify it to three main points.
1) Availability of an unencrypted sensor.
If you're right and sensors in the future continue to be in a form that the hobbyist can interface to them then I agree, no problem.
If however they all start to use protocols like CSI2 that the hobbyist cannot realistically interface to then there will be problems. If they use any high speed interface that scrambles the data for noise spreading or just simply as a way to embed sync codes i.e. something like 8b10b encoding then without the datasheet (that will not be forthcoming) then again hobbyists have a problem.

2) The availability of components.
I think on this one you and I will just have to differ because I see so many components that we use on a day to day basis that are not available from a Farnell catalogue. I see friends who work in the industry who cannot make the systems they want to because they cannot source the parts they want. I see the number of devices out there growing and getting ever more integrated and technical, but the technology in the RS catalogue staying pretty much the same. But your mileage clearly varies.

3) Watermarking use cases
I saw your earlier post, that does not render it totally invalid. It renders it invalid if used poorly.
All that is needed is that there is a competantly applied watermark. Paramount for example could make sure that all content it gives out to anyone whatsoever has its watermark embedded. Then anytime that watermark is seen somewhere it shouldn't it can be set up to automatically report the issue. because all content contains this watermark there is no differencing possible. Now you could then add region and network specific watermarks to narrow the source of the infringement down further, and these could be overcome by the methods you suggest, but if you have a standard watermark consistently applied - and let's face it that's the easiest and laziest solution - then there's nothing we can do to remove it. (Except detect the frames it is on, remove those and interpolate but again that could be tricky if the job is done competently by the producer).

Re:Surprise surprise

[peragrin]

Take a look at "the entire elective branch". It is lawyers, diplomats, and military

It is what makes up the cabinet. The heads of various agencies also fall into the same lines.

Re:Surprise surprise

[shaitand]

The executive branch is quite a bit more than diplomats, lawyers, and military. It's also the DOJ, FBI, NSA, CIA, DHS, FCC, DOE, FDA, FEMA, BATF and the all powerful EPA to name a few. Yes the president can appoint people to lead these and those appointments have to be approved but his powers aren't limited to appointment but includes and supersedes the authority of those he is appointing and he needs no congressional sign-of to exercise it.

The President doesn't need to ask anyone before commandeering an FBI field office and ordering them to raid your home without a warrant and destroy all you possessions for instance. Or ordering them to the same to a supreme court justice or a congressman. Or ordering them to secretly detain a number of senators on suspicion of terrorism for a period of time that happens to coincide with a vote including an impeachment vote. Or ordering the IRS to take their sweet time in delivering collected funds at congresses request, or ordering the IRS to mistakenly distribute an extra billion dollars to the military and then ordering the military to use that billion to engage in a 'conflict'. What could they do? They could impeach him... but if the FBI warrantless FBI wiretaps on these suspected terrorists indicates they would vote for impeachment it's probably best if they be detained for questioning that day.

But the President of the US is the most powerful position on earth (according to the US only btw) because he has the ability to launch our nuclear weapons on his sole authority.

Re:Surprise surprise

[peragrin]

FBI, CIA,NSA,DHS. Are all basically military various levels of physical force. The limits are on how much physical force they are allowed to bring to bear.

EPA, FCC,DOJ, DOE, etc are basically Specailized lawyers practicing in specific fields like divorce lawyers only deal with matrimonial law.

State dept are diplomats.

Now point out where I am wrong?

Re:Surprise surprise

[shaitand]

You realize that even congress and the supreme have to act through the executive and are doing nothing but blowing wind and killing trees without it. You've summarized every power of government as being military force, lawyers, and diplomats. The president literally has every power that our government possesses to act at his direct command.

I don't even completely disagree. At the end of the day all government power rests in physical force. The lawyers and diplomats are just there to try to talk you into doing as told. The physical force is to make you do as told if the talking didn't work.

Re:So...

[durrr]

Before someone points it out, i obviously didn't read the article, or the summary. Now go read the previous article entry.

Re:What did you expect?

[GameboyRMH]

See also:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_secrets_privilege#Supreme_Court_recognition_in_United_States_v._Reynolds

Entrenched Interests

[Nom du Keyboard]

The Entrenched Interests are going to use every means, including illegal ones, to maintain and extend their hold over content that they profit from. When America was established one of the major things that they overthrew (so major that is is part of the original Constitution) was the concept of Forever Copyrights -- and they were better off for it. Those Entrenched Interests never went away however, and they try to chip away at those rights at every opportunity. We are very close to the point, if not past it, where copyright infringement becomes civil disobedience -- if not a civil duty.

Re:Entrenched Interests

[Enderandrew]

Content owners do have a right to make money from their content.

But the argument for DRM is a poor one. It punishes paying customers while not stopping piracy. Even worse, content owners/providers have to pay money to license DRM technology. It is a lose-lose scenario.

The CEO of Warner Brothers at the time predicted iTunes would fail, because no one would willingly pay for digital content. He compared it to Coca Cola coming out of the faucet for free, so why would someone willingly pay for a Coke?

As it turns out, people do like supporting things they enjoy, and iTunes is the largest retailer of music on the planet. Frankly, I think Apple has enough clout that they could make a difference here. They successfully sell DRM-free music. They need to publicly make the argument for why DRM is a broken concept so that the big players finally listen.

The MPAA/RIAA won't listen to Google because they think Google is the devil.

Re:Entrenched Interests

[ackthpt]

Content owners do have a right to make money from their content.

But the argument for DRM is a poor one. It punishes paying customers while not stopping piracy. Even worse, content owners/providers have to pay money to license DRM technology. It is a lose-lose scenario.

The CEO of Warner Brothers at the time predicted iTunes would fail, because no one would willingly pay for digital content. He compared it to Coca Cola coming out of the faucet for free, so why would someone willingly pay for a Coke?

As it turns out, people do like supporting things they enjoy, and iTunes is the largest retailer of music on the planet. Frankly, I think Apple has enough clout that they could make a difference here. They successfully sell DRM-free music. They need to publicly make the argument for why DRM is a broken concept so that the big players finally listen.

The MPAA/RIAA won't listen to Google because they think Google is the devil.

Back in the days of Mozart, once an opera was performed for the first time it fell into public domain. You were allowed to make money on your first show and by doing the best peformance of said show for as long as the public would support you. You were thus encouraged to keep creating.

Roll to the present and if you have one good song, you employ copyright to make money from it for the rest of your life, plus 70 years for whatever offspring you had or the profit of whomever you sold the rights to.

Since Apple is not writing or performing, they'll make money because there's always a new hot song out tomorrow. **AA are terrified they won't have scratch for their lunch money or to keep their stock price up for tomorrow.

Re:Entrenched Interests

[Elder Entropist]

He compared it to Coca Cola coming out of the faucet for free, so why would someone willingly pay for a Coke?

Water comes out of the faucet for free, but plenty of people buy bottled water.

Re:Entrenched Interests

[abigsmurf]

Yeah, why doesn't the BBC hold itself to the values upon which America was founded! It's like they don't think the constitution applies to them or something!

Re:Entrenched Interests

[russotto]

Those Entrenched Interests never went away however, and they try to chip away at those rights at every opportunity. We are very close to the point, if not past it, where copyright infringement becomes civil disobedience -- if not a civil duty.

Civil disobedience is defeated. First of all, if you want to commit civil disobedience, you've got to be able to show your situation is at least as bad as Jim Crow, or you'll be sneered at rather than sympathized with. Since no one in the mainstream will believe DRM is as bad as Jim Crow (even if they believe it is bad at all, which is unlikely), you're done there.

Second, civil disobedience won't work when the result of disobedience is that you are quietly punished. You need to be _noisily_ punished without being portrayed as a mere criminal, which means you need the support of the media... who are your opponents.

Third, most mainstream people agree with the RIAA's position, when push comes to shove. Oh, they'll violate it left and right, but if you put it to them, they'd agree it's wrong to do so. And they'd see anyone trying to fight about it as merely trying to avoid responsibility for their actions. Authority bias is rampant today; if you can be seen as an authority (as the RIAA is), anyone opposing you is automatically wrong.

Re:Entrenched Interests

[Enderandrew]

That economic model wouldn't work today. Most new artists wouldn't be able to make much money from one public showing. And as evil as the record industry is, they do pay for the expensive/elaborate tours.

I think you can make the argument to shorten copyright, but I think instead of setting a hard/fast length of years, a simpler solution would be an abandonware system.

5 years from the date of the last retail sale, the content enters the public domain. So long as people are still buying the item (such as the Beatles catalog) the market has determined the item has financial value. If no one has purchased a Rick Astley song for 5 years, then it should enter the public domain.

Re:Entrenched Interests

[dmacleod808]

So I, being Rick Astley, can simply go to the store once every 5 years and buy my own album? And put provisions in my will for my estate to do the same in perpetuity?

Re:Entrenched Interests

[Enderandrew]

If only one person is buying a copy, then retailers won't keep it in stock.

Re:Entrenched Interests

[dmacleod808]

Ok Itunes or other digital service, It is negligible overhead for them to "keep it in stock"

Re:Entrenched Interests

[mlts]

Nail, head hit. To the unwashed masses, DRM is made to be just like a lock on a vending machine or a fish-resistant guard on a deposit box. It is something that sucks, but people dismiss as part of what they get.

I doubt this mentality will go away anytime soon. Just like how people compare copyright infringement with theft (or murder). Infringement [1] is more akin to Beavis and Butthead sneaking into an empty theater to watch Twilight than someone shoplifting a DVD of it.

So, we will deal with the DRM cycle where new stuff comes out that is Draconian, and it gets cracked or people just don't buy it, and the content producers go for another notch.

The ironic thing is that in markets where DRM wins, such as consoles... prices for stuff are always increasing. Weren't we promised lower prices if the pirates went away?

[1]: Infringement on a non commercial nature. Of course, copying someone's CD to sell it is a completely different ballgame and is actual theft (as it removed legitimate revenue from the IP holder).

Re:Entrenched Interests

[jonbryce]

Most people would prefer to have the work performed by the original artist rather than a tribute band, and concert tickets are selling better than they ever have done in the past, so I don't agree with your assertion.

Re:Entrenched Interests

[jonbryce]

Probably less than a penny per litre. The vast majority of your water is used for cleaning rather than drinking.

Re:Entrenched Interests

[SleepyJohn]

Water does not come out of the faucet for free - everyone with a faucet pays something for it one way or another, somewhere along the line. If they want better quality they pay more again for bottled water. Could there be a clue here for the cretins that run the media industry?

Re:Entrenched Interests

[Motor]

This isn't about piracy.

It's about all the legally made TVs/videos having to obey bullshit rules - unskippable bits, not allow you to record a show, only keeping it for X amount of time.

It won't do a damned thing to stop copying. If you make TVs you'll need to sign a legal agreement in order to "decrypt the content" however trivial that encruption is. It'll just allow content companies to ensure that THEY control the people who make TVs - and will sue any of them who don't hop into line. They make the rules - and the BBC is a content company

Re:Entrenched Interests

[St.Creed]

Could there be a clue here for the cretins that run the media industry?

Yes. The clue would be "morons pay for anything with DRM on it" since most bottled water is just tap water put in a bottle, with some additions to increase its shelf life. And people happily pay for it.

Re:Entrenched Interests

[Muad'Dave]

He compared it to Coca Cola coming out of the faucet for free, so why would someone willingly pay for a Coke?

People willingly pay for water, for Pete's sake, which does come out of a faucet for free. Sometimes it's perception (bottled water seems to taste better), sometimes it's convenience (I'm at an airshow and it's 100 degrees).

It sounds like Mr. WB CEO has no idea what people want or are willing to spend money on.

Re:Entrenched Interests

[Elder Entropist]

All right, I guess since a glass of water out of the tap generally costs about $0.001 it isn't technically "free".

Re:Entrenched Interests

[Medievalist]

Content owners do have a right to make money from their content.

Really? OK, I'll make a movie that nobody wants to see, and nobody wants to buy, and spend my life's savings on it! Society will owe me money! Wooooohoooooo! I'm in the benjamins, baby!

Absolute statements are rarely correct. In Real Life [tm] a group of citizens have decided to permit certain types of unfair restriction of trade in order to achieve a greater good. But nobody has a "right" in the absolute, moral sense, to make money for painting a picture, recording noise, etc., etc. It is a contrived, fictious legal right meant to serve a purpose, and if it is not serving said purpose it then the law is unjust.

Re:Entrenched Interests

[CmdrPony]

People willingly pay for water, for Pete's sake, which does come out of a faucet for free.

You do know that in most parts of the world, the water that comes out of faucet is undrinkable?

Re:Entrenched Interests

[ackthpt]

Most people would prefer to have the work performed by the original artist rather than a tribute band, and concert tickets are selling better than they ever have done in the past, so I don't agree with your assertion.

Though I can't cite the source, I did hear or read that bands make far more money on tour (money they get to keep) than they do from album sales (most of which probably go to the record company.) Perhaps this is why bands tour as much as they do.

Re:Entrenched Interests

[AvitarX]

But the fact that people have more disposable income, and it's easier to travel means you can keep performing, as you, and that has value.

Cover bands are legal, and the licensing is cheap, and paid by the venue anyway, yet the original performers continue to sell-out stadiums. This would happen with or without copyright, though the writers could be hurt (as they are who get royalties in covers).

Re:Entrenched Interests

[TheSpoom]

Watch out for that jet passing overhead! Man, that was flying at a really low altitude!

Re:Entrenched Interests

[Dan Dankleton]

Whooosh!

Re:Entrenched Interests

[ari_j]

That's a bad idea because (among other reasons that others have posted) it requires you to investigate whether any of the millions-every-day retail sales of content that occurred in the preceding 5 years was for the content you will be claiming is now in the public domain. On the other side of the same coin, the artist would have to do the same except for a much longer time period to prove that at least one sale every 5 years occurred in order to retain his rights.

Re:Entrenched Interests

[newcastlejon]

I'm sorry, what does this have to do with the BBC?
You talk about the use of means to maintain control over content for profit, but when the owner is itself a publicly owned body, what's the problem if the people in the country in question have free access?

Re:Entrenched Interests

[The Askylist]

No it doesn't - it stands for Bolshevik.

Re:Entrenched Interests

[Adriax]

Except then the music companies could just run a small outlet store that keeps 1 of every album they own in stock, and hire someone as a "service quality tester" to go in and purchase one of every album once a year (or once every 2-4 years).

Make it require independent retail sales and customer purchases? Massive discount to said store owner for the albums so they could keep them in stock, and a running "promotion" where if someone purchases 1 of each album and sends the receipts in they get prize money equal to the entire purchase cost plus a modest salary.

Re:Entrenched Interests

[Bucky24]

You know at first I didn't think that the number you gave was accurate-thought it was too low... Then I actually did some research into it:
http://www.epa.gov/ogwdw/wot/pdfs/book_waterontap_full.pdf
"The national average cost of water is $2.00 per. 1000 gallons."
So $0.002 / gallon.
Assuming 16 glasses of water / gallon (http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=1006042500884) we get:
$0.000125 / glass of water.

Re:Entrenched Interests

[Bucky24]

Good point. The statement probably should be "Content owners have the right to make money when their content is distributed"

Re:Entrenched Interests

[deblau]

Content owners do not have a right to make money from their content, and neither do artists. If I, a mediocre musician, toil away for months putting together a crap song that no one will buy, who do I sue for infringing my "rights"?

The same argument also applies to health care, education, and all sorts of other things (generally called entitlements, lord knows why) that, while useful in a productive society, do not give rise to actual rights. For example, if I had a right to be healthy, I could sue you for infringing that right when you give me a cold. And what about genetic diseases, do I get to sue my parents for predisposing me to a heart attack? These are obviously ridiculous conclusions, and people have more of a "right" to be healthy than content owners have to profit from rent-seeking behavior.

Re:Entrenched Interests

[bzipitidoo]

Rights? Entitled? You're looking at the problem wrong. In nature, copying happens all the time. Millions of times every second, bacteria divide. Any number of radios with recorders can tune into 1 radio station. A large crowd of people can gather around 1 radio, and remember what they hear. You might as well try to outlaw gravity or sex or breathing as outlaw copying. In the face of how nature really works, rights mean nothing. You can't realistically control copying, in order to monetize information or for any other purpose. We can compensate artists, just not that way, not by putting a toll on copying.

We are all "entitled" to free content. You know, stuff like Sherlock Holmes and Mozart, which is old enough to have remained out of copyright despite massive grabs of the public domain.

Re:Entrenched Interests

[kramerd]

Of course content owners have a right to make money from their content. They do not have an obligation to do so, however. You, crappy musician, as the content creator, are not being prohibited from making money selling your content. Anyone else, without your permission (as the content creator), does not have such an opportunity.

In the same manner, if I purchase retail space, build a kitchen, hire a chef and waitstaff, create a menu, decorate the space, and pass a state-mandated inspection, I have created a restaurant. You, not being the content creator, cannot come into my restaurant and make money selling your crappy music. I, however, can charge you for food. This does not mean that you are required to eat at my restaurant, but I certainly have the right to make money, and also the right to specifically not allow you to eat there.

Re:Entrenched Interests

[Grieviant]

You've just made a subtle change from "content owner" to "content creator" having the right to make money. That's possibly not even the main issue though - it's about how long they're entitled to legal protection in making said money and when that eventually becomes a burden on society, defeating the intended purpose of copyright. Patent holders for serious inventions, as well as those who gave us technological advances without patenting (before it became such a craze), could only dream of being paid for their contributions for so long. Can you really claim that art deserves such disproportionately superior treatment? Even though you can't pin them down to something as simple as number of copied sold, many tech and math advances are very far reaching in terms of how they influence future work.

Re:Entrenched Interests

[TheRaven64]

It's better than that. You can sell a product that doesn't work, and then when your customer notices that it doesn't work you can sell the new and improved version (which also doesn't work).

Re:Entrenched Interests

[TheRaven64]

Yes, do they have the right, legally and morally

In that case, I am owed money for my Slashdot posts - will you be sending me the cheque? The grandparent was correct. If you create something, then the state will, through copyright, give you a mechanism to attempt to make money from it. If, however, it's crap that no one wants, then you are not entitled to make money. I have four books published, and all that copyright gives me is the right to attempt to profit from them by encouraging people to buy them. If no one does, then I don't automatically make money simply because I created something that is covered by copyright.

Re:Entrenched Interests

[ackthpt]

Ok Itunes or other digital service, It is negligible overhead for them to "keep it in stock"

This has been the future of Retailing Music, it is becoming the Retailing of video forms of entertainment.

I don't expect to see anyone in the developed world still selling CDs in 10 years time. The bar has vastly lowered for aspiring artists, which is a good thing. Technology now means you can sell or even perform over the internet. You've always had the ability to play live, as long as you can find a venue that'll have you.

Re:Entrenched Interests

[cbiltcliffe]

first 'B' in BBC stands for "British"...

So? That's in...like...New England, right?

Re:Entrenched Interests

[microbox]

Most new artists wouldn't be able to make much money from one public showing.

You are under the mistaken impression that artists make art for the money. Why do you think the record companies are able to rip them off so much?

Re:Entrenched Interests

[Jumperalex]

Content owners do have a right to make money from their content.

Actually no they do not. They have a right to TRY to make money. Just like Bank of America does not have a "right to make a profit" they only have a right to TRY to make a profit.

It is a subtle distinction but it matters a whole lot and frames the discussions a little differently.

Re:Entrenched Interests

[aiht]

first 'B' in BBC stands for "British"...

So? That's in...like...New England, right?

Yeah I watch NBBC all the time.

Re:Entrenched Interests

[Kalriath]

Woosh.

Re:Entrenched Interests

[drsmithy]

You do know that in most parts of the world, the water that comes out of faucet is undrinkable?

On the other hand, those don't tend to be the parts of the world where bottled water is a big seller.

Re:Entrenched Interests

[drsmithy]

Good point. The statement probably should be "Content owners have the right to make money when their content is distributed"

And it would still be wrong.

What content owners have, ostensibly, is a right to control the distribution of their content.

It is questionable, however, whether a) this right should exist, or b) that it should exist so expansively.

Re:Entrenched Interests

[drsmithy]

Since you brought up entitlement, people who think they are entitled to content for free are equally douchebags.

Thinking you were entitled to content for free suggests that you have justification in requiring other people to create content for you.

I'm not aware of anyone who thinks this, even the most extreme anti-Copyright advocate.

Re:Entrenched Interests

[drsmithy]

[1]: Infringement on a non commercial nature. Of course, copying someone's CD to sell it is a completely different ballgame and is actual theft (as it removed legitimate revenue from the IP holder).

No, it's not theft and it hasn't implicitly "removed legitimate revenue from the IP holder".

It's still Copyright Infringement, it's just a more serious example of it.

Re:Entrenched Interests

[CmdrPony]

Uh? They are, as that's how you get drinkable water, at extremely cheap prices too. And I'm not talking about something like middle of Africa, I'm talking about Asia, some countries in Europe and Australia. Prices for bottled water is ridiculous where you can get it from faucet (like here in Europe, but I live a lot in Asia too)

Re:Entrenched Interests

[cheekyjohnson]

morally

According to whose morals?

Since you brought up entitlement, people who think they are entitled to content for free are equally douchebags.

That would depend on who you ask.

Re:Entrenched Interests

[Plunky]

That economic model wouldn't work today. Most new artists wouldn't be able to make much money from one public showing.

But you know.. I've seen articles about songwriters and phrases like "it came to me on a train" and "we sat down and wrote it in an afternoon" are not that unusual.. so if an artist had a regular gig at nightclub, and wrote a new song every week.. well, the nightclub owner would pay the artist a regular wage from the nightclub receipts.

What you mean by 'much money' is, an artist wouldn't be able to become a millionaire overnight based on an afternoons work and never need to work a day ever again.. well, sure.

I think you can make the argument to shorten copyright, but I think instead of setting a hard/fast length of years, a simpler solution would be an abandonware system.

That would be an unworkable nightmare. A strict limit is the simplest method: When you publish it, you put a date on it. After 10 years have passed, it is no longer covered.

That means that you can buy a copyrighted work and it is clear when exactly that work is redistributable. With your method, people would need to search the world looking for an obscure store in an obscure town that may still be selling the item, and as others note this leaves a set of loopholes to be exploited. Even the current method of life plus X years is exploitable because if an author decides to change their name and disappear from public life, who is to say when they are dead?

Re:Entrenched Interests

[Plunky]

Show me the equivalent level of patronage today, then we can talk about recreating that model.

A singer and a band working in a nightclub who get paid a regular wage for their work. The music that they create and perform is part of the attraction of the nightclub and the owner pays them from the general profits.

Further to this, plenty of musicians work for television stations and movie studios on a work for hire basis.

Re:Entrenched Interests

[Errol backfiring]

Only if you think that you can "own" abstract ideas. Which in itself is too stupid for words.

Re:Entrenched Interests

[Muad'Dave]

Ok, I'll narrow my focus. People willingly pay big money for bottled water that comes from the exact same municipal source as flows free from their faucet. Seriously, many of the bottled waters sold in the US are from "Municipal Sources" - that means you might be drinking NYC water in Virginia, possibly complete with the copepods that live in it.

From this article, emphasis mine:

Often images on the label show mountains, snow or other bodies of water. For example, the label design on Aquafina (from Pepsi) gives me the feeling of mountains and snow; implying that Aquafina may be from a mountain spring, rather than bottled at Pepsi plants using processed municipal water. Coke’s Dasani, also one of the leading bottled water brands is processed municipal water with added minerals. Many gallon jug waters are also from municipal sources.

Re:Entrenched Interests

[deblau]

Of course content owners have a right to try to make money from their property (your point) -- this is one of the fundamental tenets of capitalism. They do not, however, have a right to succeed (my point). If you read my post carefully, you will see that you are attacking a point different than the one I was making.

So here's a chance for government to really work

[argStyopa]

...so if the government were headed with a real leader (ie instead of a toady to their special-interests), they would confront whoever was the HEAD of the board that made such a statement.

They could discuss the fact that while some government activities necessarily need such protections ("we'd tell you but it's too secret!"), the corrosive and pernicious nature of such justifications when they are revealed to be absolute bullshit makes it critical that any government official resorting to said evasion to protect what is otherwise a weakly-justified decision needs to be punished in the most public and visceral way to show that we (the Government) bears that public trust most seriously.

And then punch them in the face, knock them to the ground, and fire them - banning them from ever working for the government in ANY capacity, ever.

What are the odds that would happen?

As an American, I would love that to happen more here, too.

Government Agency Lies

[ackthpt]

Not really surprised, is anyone? Probably lied for a reason, rather than out of laziness or bull-headed intransigence, but you'll either have to dig a bit more or ask yourself, "Who benefits from this lie?"

Re:So here's a chance for government to really wor

[GameboyRMH]

What are the odds that would happen?

In the same country that has "super-injunctions" and doesn't find them funny or disgusting at all? Somewhere between zero and negative infinity.

Re:What did you expect?

[ackthpt]

They knew that the public would never go for it, so they hid the fact that they had no good reason for it. Sort of reminds me of Soviet-era secret trials, held using secret evidence - no evidence whatsoever is needed to do what you want, because it's 'too sensitive to release'!

Or your patriotic duty to believe the state when it tells you your ignorance is all for the best.

In Soviet Russia .. uh .. I dunno.

Re:Torrents as usual

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll just grab an HD torrent. [...] Recording from TV is as antiquated as wax cylinders.

Where do you think most of those (non-film) torrents come from?

sleazy but the rights holders may be the victims

[Jerry Atrick]

Luckily the encryption is simply a 'secret' huffman table and already available for MythTV, MediaPortal and I guess every other OSS PVR software usable in the UK. It's almost as if the secrecy was about BSing the rights holders knowing full well there was no actual protection in place...

Mmm, anyone can find this story on the BBC itself?

[SmallFurryCreature]

Guess this might finally convince those who think the BBC is unbiased about how wrong they are. The BBC has been caught out so many times in the past yet people continue to believe they are any more credible then Fox or Reuters. Unbiased != telling me what I want to hear.

body or the subject

[Blue Stone]

Reasons that spring to mind for such a flimsy case:

Is someone getting a future payoff (going to work for these 'rightsholders')?

Is someone just so crap at negotiating, they can't even understand that these US rightsholders don't use DRM in their own countries and so have no real leverage to insist on it elsewhere - admittedly, this would require incompetence of the highest order, but we are talking about BBC management, which has proven both spineless and ineffectual in any number of areas.

Regardless of the reasons, whoever negotiated this should be sacked for selling out every license fee payer and for no good reason.

There is NO case for this DRM.

Secret laws ...

[gstoddart]

and finally, the full rules set out by DTLA for its DRM were governed by confidentiality agreements, which meant that UK manufacturers would be ordered to comply with a set of secret rules that the public wasn't allowed to know.

So, I'm of the opinion that any law, regulation, or treaty which the public isn't allowed to know the specifics of should be null and void.

You simply can't have "secret laws" in a free society.

And, once again it seems the US-based media companies are trying to get laws abroad they can't have domestically. Then they'll point to those laws as something that needs to be done domestically in order to keep pace with the rest of the world.

At this rate, the "rights holders" will be the ones who dictate to us how technology can be used on the assumption that everything everybody does is "stealing" from them. (My god, two people could watch this show and nobody would know!!)

Re:Secret laws ...

[jonbryce]

The law itself, that broadcasters are required to use DRM for HD transmissions, is freely available from legislation.gov.uk . What is secret is the reasons the BBC gave to parliament as to why it should be implemented.

Re:Secret laws ...

[gstoddart]

While I agree with your post, this 'secret rules' is akin to a contract or non-disclosure agreement, not a 'secret law'.

Except, in this case, this "non-disclosure agreement" was in direct contradiction to an existing EU law:

the proposal violated the EU common market by breaking foreign TV receivers and it meant that popular free/open source receivers and recorders would be frozen out of the UK device market

The fact that they tried to keep this secret because they had no really good defensible reason highlights the problems with it.

Your NDA can't spill into things affected by laws and policies that are written down.

Re:Torrents as usual

[GameboyRMH]

True, somebody's gotta do it...

Re:So here's a chance for government to really wor

[ackthpt]

...so if the government were headed with a real leader (ie instead of a toady to their special-interests), they would confront whoever was the HEAD of the board that made such a statement.

They could discuss the fact that while some government activities necessarily need such protections ("we'd tell you but it's too secret!"), the corrosive and pernicious nature of such justifications when they are revealed to be absolute bullshit makes it critical that any government official resorting to said evasion to protect what is otherwise a weakly-justified decision needs to be punished in the most public and visceral way to show that we (the Government) bears that public trust most seriously.

And then punch them in the face, knock them to the ground, and fire them - banning them from ever working for the government in ANY capacity, ever.

What are the odds that would happen?

As an American, I would love that to happen more here, too.

I think there's a rule somewhere which says you can't punch the Prime Minister.

Or did you have someone else in mind?

Re:So here's a chance for government to really wor

[Anonymous Coward]

Well it couldn't happen as discussed, because _neither_ Ofcom nor the BBC are a function of government. Ofcom is government-approved (but not an arm of the government), and the BBC is wholly independent (with a constitution established by Royal charter, but not under Crown control).

Our government is wisely engineered almost totally out of this picture.

Typical commercial BBC trying to compete

[Anonymous Coward]

I imagine US executives have scared the BBC by saying they'd go with ITV etc. They know the BBC has a truly monster budget (£3,500,000,000/year) and see themselves as a competitive institution rather than a national broadcaster. The only point of having a national broadcaster is to see things you wouldn't otherwise see on commercial (news, weather, local, documentaries, education). There are lots of people with big salaries in the BBC trying to justify competing with commercial channels. We know how ridiculous the BBC is with money. They paid Jonathan Ross £millions whereas the British people lost nothing when he went to ITV to be paid for by them still free for all to see. The BBC is a crazy organisation.

Re:Mmm, anyone can find this story on the BBC itse

[DaveGod]

Right here.

On this new Guardian piece? Not that I can see yet. But having read the piece, why would they? There's nothing new in it. The Guardian now get to add some quotation marks to exact wording for things which were all described before.

Worse, they quote plain-English paragraphs then paraphrase it and tell you what you should interpret from it. All supposition, opinion and subjectivity.

DRM on BBC broadcasts is an arse, but so is this article.

Re:Mmm, anyone can find this story on the BBC itse

[abigsmurf]

How exactly does this show bias on the BBC? It was a matter that directly and primarily affected their programming. They were always going to have to pick a viewpoint and stick by it. If being in favour of DRM was a biased viewpoint, so is being against. As the whole issue centred around them, they couldn't pick the middle ground either.

The BBC is more than willing to be incredibly critical of itself, if you'd have seen their coverage of the Hutton Inquiry, you would've known that. I've never seen any news agency quite so willing to cover news stories that damn themselves.

Re:UK public overwhelmingly rejected the proposal?

[MozeeToby]

You don't have to be a statistician to know that the figures given there are largely worthless.

Imagine at your work you're in charge of ordering lunch for your department (maybe 300 people). You send out an email asking for suggestions and you get 10 responses back, 9 of which say "anything but Taco Bell". Apparently, your response to this would be to say "well, I'm sure that's not a representative sample so screw 'em" and order Taco Bell anyway.

Not so much DRM as receiver manufacturer lock-out

[ChumpusRex2003]

The technical issues behind this fracas are even more banal, and so trivial that it's already been reverse engineered. In effect, the "DRM" was purely a closed specification, and not a technological measure such as encryption.

Unsurprisingly, the specification has already been deployed in popular open-source projects.

For those interested, the technical extent of the "DRM" and "encryption" was the use of a pre-calculated Huffman table, which must be embedded in the receiver firmware, in order to obtain the programme guide.

Re:UK public overwhelmingly rejected the proposal?

[abigsmurf]

OFCOM is not a democracy. It is obligated to do what it deems to be the best decision, not the most popular one.

For all you know, the 9 people may have been members of the "McRib appreciation club" and they could've eaten at Taco Bells but wanted to eat at McDonalds whereas the 1 had allergies which meant Taco Bell was the only option for him, it was that or he wouldn't be able to eat lunch.

A more apt example is sewage treatment plants. No one ever wants to have one near them so if you went by that, you couldn't build a sewage treatment plant anywhere. Eventually planners have to ignore dissenting voices and listen to everyone to find the least worst option and get the plant built.

Re:UK public overwhelmingly rejected the proposal?

[jonbryce]

A sample of just over 1000 people is good enough to very accurately predict how people plan to vote at the next election, so 432 people is a big enough sample size to get a reasonable feeling about what people think. The fact that it is a self-selecting sample is of course a different matter. I suspect the vast majority would go for the "don't care as long as my tv/pvr work" option, but it does show that very few people actively support the idea.

Re:Torrents as usual

[Lithdren]

This is why the entire concept is broken though.

Its not so much that someone's gotta do it, its that only one person needs to, and suddenly (thanks to services like Bit Torrent) it's now available to everyone.

This is why the entire concept is broken from the start. Even if the only way to record the video involves recording each and every pixel on the LCD Monitor its decrpyted to, frame for frame, you can bet someone, somewhere, will figure out how to do that. As long as its actually watchable, it's able to be pirated. So only people who actually legitly pay for the service get hurt, as eventually to be effective, it cant be watched.

Some would argue we're virtually already to that point.

It's a con trick

[badfish99]

It's a con trick by the BBC.

No-one wants DRM on the BBC's broadcasts; not even the BBC themselves. But many content providers, especially American ones, are trying to insist on it. So the BBC have devised a very clever way to con the content providers.

The trick is to put DRM into the broadcast version of the program guide, that tells you what is on when. This was announced with great fanfare as "the BBC is adding DRM to its broadcasts", with no mention of the small technical detail that the actual video and audio will have no DRM. So the content providers think that they have got their way, but there will be no impediment at all to (for example) capturing a broadcast off the air and making a torrent out of it. Articles like TFA are part of the con: they help convince the content providers that they have got what they want, which in turn induces them to sell stuff to the BBC that we might otherwise not see.

The commercial set-top-box manufacturers don't care, because they have to cater for genuine DRM on the commercial channels anyway. And the hobbyists who are running software such as MythTV don't care, because they download the program guide from the BBC website, which conveniently provides it in machine-readable form with no DRM.

Re:It's a con trick

[majesticmerc]

So let me get this straight... The BBC is deceiving the content providers, to protect the rights of it's consumers?

Do hamburgers eat people in the UK too?

Re:Surprise surprise, Dear Anonymous Coward

[gfreeman]

huh, say it again

Re:So here's a chance for government to really wor

[newcastlejon]

...so if the government were headed with a real leader (ie instead of a toady to their special-interests), they would confront whoever was the HEAD of the board that made such a statement.

No.

It is antithetical to the very nature of the BBC for them to give in to government pressure. Ever.

I find it so strange...

[Genda]

Whether the tyrant is a corporate thug or a bloated bureaucrat, that jack boot goose-steps just the same. It is time for us to forever alter the conversations surrounding wealth, competition, social and global benefit, altruism and enlightened self interest. More important, just as we gave up slavery as an acceptable social practice, its time for us to give up political and economic blind self interest. Accommodating corporations of any type, at the expense of human justice is a crime against humanity.

Re:UK public overwhelmingly rejected the proposal?

[abigsmurf]

With a poor enough sampling method, sample size is irrelevant. As an example: how useful would a survey for "The most popular breed of dog in America" if you asked 1000 people who were all attending the "international poodle lovers convention"?

Your last sentence probably explains the conclusion of the OFCOM inquiry. Few people get especially bothered by DRM, if they know it exists at all but lots would be affected by drops in budget for programs or for more expensive licencing deals.

"rights holders" == BBC

[billstewart]

The story Cory's reporting about is the policies that BBC wants to set for its own programming, and is trying to force everybody else to support technically. It's especially obnoxious because the BBC's content is paid for by the license fees of British television and radio users, so it's trying to sell the public's own content back to the public. And it's especially frustrating because early on. the BBC announced that their policy towards the Internet would be to make everything available for free download, and they've gone back on that.

But then, Cory's one of those troublemaking immigrants from the ex-colonies, swooping down in his red cape and goggles to stop evildoers.

Re:So here's a chance for government to really wor

[TheRaven64]

In the same country that has "super-injunctions" and doesn't find them funny

I think anyone who watches Have I Got News For You finds them quite funny...

Re:Surprise surprise, Dear Anonymous Coward

[TapeCutter]

A "dork" is literaly a whale's penis, at 3 meters long it's hardly anonymous.

Re:Water has a shelf life?

[Plunky]

Water has a shelf life? They should put an expiry date on the label.

They do. The expiry date is not for the water per se, but because the plastic bottle leaches molecules into the water, contaminating it.

Re:So here's a chance for government to really wor

[argStyopa]

You both entirely miss my point and validate it at the same time.
I'm pointing out the fact that SOMEONE is responsible for this decision. A human.
Government likes very much to hide behind committees and collective responsiblity; personally, I believe that this is the root of many of the issues we face today.

Find the person who was in charge of the committee who made the decision. Make them directly, publicly, and personally responsible for this decision. Then move on to the next committee.
I can't think of any other way to motivate these people to take their roles as servants to the public more seriously.

I couldn't care less for whomever is the current leader of the UK.

As far as the current government of the US, yes, I feel the current leader is a toady to special interests, but so were the former presidents, going back to about Kennedy.

Re:Surprise surprise, Dear Anonymous Coward

[OldHawk777]

So, a dork can be a hard large prick, dick, penis ... and anonymous on /., but in the case of a whale it comes naturally?