Your point is noted. No, what I am doing is not dramatic. or particularly risky, compared to the blatent "in your face, up yours" kind of disobedience that Mr. Perens undertakes. I didn't mean to suggest that it was. I was simply responding to the troll (yeah, yeah, don't feed them) that slashdotters don't have the guts to stand up against this sort of thing. Some of us do, and some do so quite deliberately.
As for being tracked via slashdot, that would be easy: my user profile indicates my web site, which implies my registered domain, and voila: I'm easy to find.
Let's not get carried away here. There's a difference between civil disobedience and breaking the law because you find it inconvenient and don't really expect to get caught.
This is why, even though watching DVDs on my GNU/Linux box is a rather private affair, I am open about how I do it. Perhaps not as open as Perens and others, and thus not as dramatic, but open, and running the risk of arrest commensurate with the act, nevertheless.
1. I run DeCSS, or rather a derivative of it so I can watch DVDs on my computer running GNU/Linux.
2. I am not a U.S. citizen, but am legally on U.S. soil
3. Announcing this publicly places me at significant risk for indefinite incarceration, if the DMCA and Patriot Act were interpreted in the extreme (I may be a technical terrorist, bent on creating economic mayhem in the U.S., by encouraging the use of technology to defeat DRM for purposes of traditional fair use).
Some of us do engage in civil disobedience, at some risk, though perhaps not as dramatically as Mr. Perens. But, laws like this can not ber permitted to go unchallenged.
Well, when the political and government machine pisses enough people off, they revolt. We just haven't got there yet.
Right now, the little freedoms are being taken away, like TV recordings. They are not as important as other major issues and fall by the wayside easily.
One can imagine a world where you're jailed because you share the same national heritage with some evil person (heck, what if your surname just happens to be the same as a certain anti-American?). What if you're slaughtered because of your religion? Or because of your beliefs about personal consumption of certain substances? Or because you know how to use a computer too well?
Some of these attrocities have taken place in the past, some in the present, and some might very well take place in the future. There's an unnerving trend here: so-called "law" degenerates to the point of arresting and killing people because of what they "might" do, presumably because of something they have in common with the perpetrator of some crime.
If history is any guide, things will get worse before they get better.
Ironically, the 9/11/2001 attacks against the U.S. suggest just how vulnerable the nation, and by extention, it's government is. They suggest that when the time for revolution comes, a wide-spread decentralized attack on key areas would have a good chance of success. No doubt, while the government seeks to control panic, it will be caught off-guard as the attacks continue: what will they do? Launch nukes against widespread targets on their own soil?
OBL's strategic "mistake", was blowing his wad on one attack -- he was done for the night, as it were. What is most troubling, though, is that an act of war ("terrorism" is a weasel word applied to enemies not associated with a recognized nation) against the civilians of a democracy is perfectly logical: they freely elect their government with a process they all accept, so why not hold them responsible for it's actions? If you want to wage war on the government, wage war on those who put it in place.
Yes, yes, what about children and other non-voters? Surely they aren't responsible? No, but there's this notion of "collateral damage" in war - unintended, but expected, none the less. It's one of the things that makes war hell -- easily forgotten in these times of sanitized, automated engagement. Funny, thing, though, the winner's "collateral damage" is the loser's "war crime".
It is clear, then, that a revolution against a formidable enemy will likely involve initiation by a relatively small percentage of the population, taking a no-holds barred attitude toward "winning" (or, from their point of view, survival): you're either with us, or agin' us. We see this in acts of domestic "terrorism": people considered sociopaths harm civilians in an attack purportedly directed against government. I ask the following questions: (1) If such an attack were disproportionately effective in harming the ability of the government to infringe upon a right you believe in, and (2) supporting further such attacks would be easy, would you "go along", collateral damage be damned?
History says "yes". And that is what the Second American Revolution is going to look like -- unlike crumbling Eastern European regimes that toppled over from the sheer will of the opressed, the U.S. government is neither weak or crumbling. Taking it down would involve some of the dirtiest and blodiest fighting in history. And home grown -- unlike WW I and WW II, it's unlikely that foreign intervention would be significant.
That's a horrible scenario, isn't it? Sure, but it appears that violent revolution is the natural end result of any oppressive regime that's been handed too much power over the years. The government with the lesser mandate (and thus less centralized power) is the better government. Somehow, the potential price of a government strong enough to protect "us" from "them" doesn't seam worth it and is an illusion on it's face.
Actually, I was thinking of a flag with two squares, a black and a white one, representing binary 1 and 0, symbolic of data, with a multicoloured background, representing the multifaceted users and uses.
Something like that.
Though, with regard to the constitution, I'm rather fond of asking people, "What part of 'Congress shall pass no law... do you not understand?"
Er, no. The strongest beer with which I was familiar in Quebec was Maudit, a beer which involves a second fermentation in the bottle, yielding 8.2% alcohol by volume, or about 16.4 proof.
There may have been stronger Quebec beers, but I am not aware of them. The strongest beer I have encountered is Sam Adams Triple Bock, at around 25% alcohol by volume (50 proof). Interestingly, it's fermentation involves massive quantities of maple syrup as well as barley malt.
...perhaps what we really need are a few ramparts on which we can all stand, wave flags
Ya know, an EFF flag wouldn't be a bad idea at all.
I used to fly an American flag proudly -- no, I am not an American: I am temporarily in the U.S. on an H1B visa, but I have a great deal of respect for the principles espoused in the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. Americans can be forgiven the sin of pride when it comes to those documents. They may only contain words, but they're good words and sharper than any sword out there, to bend a cliche, and worth living by. The American flag, was, for me, a symbol of those words, and the beliefs they represent.
I no longer fly an American flag.
In recent times, it has become a popular symbol of perverse xenophobic nationalism and fear. It is flown by many a coward, cheerfully prostituting the rights their forefathers died for, for an illusion of security.
So, yeah, I'll renew my EFF membership (money's been kinda tight lately and I've been procrastinating), gimme a flag to fly, if only in my imagination.
It seams that your best bets are (a) disassembly of the relevant code, and/or (b) application of differential cryptography.
If you can sniff good packets, you can compare slightly different ones. If you can't sniff good packets, you can try generating packets exhaustively to find good ones, and then attack those differentially.
So they take the most inoffensive shite they can find...
Having lived in Quebec for some 36 years, and legally been able to drink beer there for half of those, I've had my share of microbrews, imports, Labatt's, and Molson offerings.
Molson's beers have got to be the most OFFensive beers I've ever had the misfortune to drink. I'd sooner drink Budweiser's version of sex in a canoe (fsking close to water) than anything from Molson -- it suggests itself to be the urine of a specimen of some yet undiscovered hideous species found only in the Canadian Shield (thankfully).
Ah! But I'd put the PKI in the display devices and not the storage devices.
Furthermore, I'd require that DRM-aware devices like that permit installation of certificates from multiple sources (to play "thier" content) and that they also accept unprotected content, with full access.
You are right that the root of the trust tree can not be in the hands of the AAs (RIAA, MPAA,... "AAs" as I call them). Personally, I'd like to see it decentralized, but I'd expect an "official" government PKI root to evolve. Yes, this has all sorts of clipper-like back key escrow implications, but I hardly think that a back door to my mass-produced content library would be a problem (and you know that the porn industry would have it's own web of trust).
"That was the case I was thinking of. But there are two issues here:
1. Whether it is legal for someone to make extracts of any resolution, and;
2. Whether the copyright holder should be obliged to make them available or make it possible for them to be obtained."
Good point. 1 is a given, but 2 is not that clear cut. There are some acts of fair use that can not be performed unless you have a full quality unprotected digital copy, but the majority of fair use could probably be satisfied with a lesser-quality copy.
Yes, I don't deny that certain fair uses might remain technically impossible, yet still not accomodated (perfect extracts, and worse, things like first sale doctrine, might be lost -- more on that later). However, there has never been an obligation on the part of the copyright holder to facilitate the exercise of any fair use. I'm merely arguing that, with technically unbreakable DRM, there should be an obligation on the part of the copyright holder to facilitate as much fair use as possible. Hence, the making of encrypted copies for time and space-shifting, and "acceptable" resolution extracts for criticism, and parody. Though, even here, I can see cases where these be forbidden: recent decisions have found that distribution for the purpose of distance-learning are fair use, though the materials may not be retained by the recipients. The tradeoff is a limited right to redistribute perfect copies against the inability of the recipient to save them. I do think that matierial used for that purpose is so obviously "classroom content", so there should be no confusion about a "do not copy" tag in that instance.
So, I will admit that any DRM will make impossible the exercize of some existing fair use rights. Is the loss excessive, and more importantly, is there an offsetting gain for the public?
I thing he answer to the latter question is "Yes:". One wonderful thing that DRM would allow is the secure execution of distributed server components on client machines (well, client-side server application proxies -- I don't want DRM in my general purpose computer). In many multi-person on-line interactions, user input has to be validated, and the computational cost to do this grows with the number of users. It's a classic instance of pushing computation to the client being the "right thing" to do. Unfortunately, how do you ensure that this is not hacked to the detriment of the service provider or other participants? Without DRM providing secure execution, you can't. I evision such code running in a stateless sandbox either in the network interface (DSL modem, router/firewall, etc.) or as a separate device (so that it can't be used for censorship purposes!). So, when you "come to the virtual party or game" as it were, you bring your own cycles as well, to be used as the host determines.
Now, this does not mean that DRM has to be used to control use of content, but it does illustrate an application of DRM that is to the public's benefit (by pushing computation out to the client, server costs can be reduced). In fact, in the extreme case, it could conceivabley provide very elegant P2P networking, without the problems of freeloading.
"When I indicated that DRM implementations must remove all restrictions when the copyright expires, I was thinking of that as part of redress for this imbalance."
Removing restrictions on copyright expired works should be a requirement. Not doing so would, imho, be a case of copyright abuse.
Yes, and if those restrictions are implemented with DRM, then the DRM must be such that it removes them without external interaction.
Now, there will be some fair uses that might be lost with DRM. My take on this: (a) would the public find them acceptable, (b) can this be redressed with (greatly) reduced copyright terms?
There are two problems with the scheme I envision: 1) first sale doctrine, and 2) transcoding.
Unless you apply DRM to secure storage (which would create so many problems for archival and space shifting), you can't enforce DRM for first sale: how do you know that all copies have been transferred (reencryption for the recipient can be done with what I'd call a secure "transcrypter"). Do you give up first sale doctrine, or do you give up convenient space shifting? If all storage devices have to know about each other (to validate that all copies have been transferred/destroyed), what if one becomes defective? Frankly, I'd give up first sale doctrine if the copyright term were sufficiently short so that that when I'd likely want to sell it, I could, for it being in the public domain (this may affect sale value, but then again, used books generally don't fetch much); and some mechanism to facilitate transfer, registered with the copyright holder existed, holding me to a promise that I destroyed all my copies in the transfer.
I'm betting here that most people don't buy copyright material with the intent of immediate resale, unless they're in that business, and such distributors can be accomodated -- first sale doctrine, while convenient for individuals, first arose because of the desire of department stores to sell books.
Transcription is more problematic. Say you have an encrypted high-resolution.wav file, and you want to have an encrypted, high-resolution.mp3 or.oog file instead, for convenience. You need access to the full-resolution unencrypted data. The only solution I see, is a "transcoder" device, similar to a transcrypter, that permits the loading of signed transcription code to effect the transformation.
Transcription code could be developed and signed by personal certificates, and used for personal content -- no problem. However, a different signing authority would have to sign it for use with AA controlled material. Yeah, that's a hassle, but likely one that would be undertaken by a manufacturer of the equipment that accepts the transcrypted content: MP3 player manufacturers, for example. It would be part of the package you get when you buy the MP3 player (and yes, this generally means that you'd have to have widespread format standardization). About the only loser here, would be the individual who'd want to rip his encrypted CDs to MP3s on his home or portable computer. But, why bother? In the home computer case, it could easily contact the server that holds the bloated encrypted WAV files, and send them to the secure sound card, or speakers (I know few who compress audio for home network reasons). The portable case is a bit more problematic, but perhaps portable manufacturers would be accomodating and provide appropriately signed transcription code.
Basically, this would cramp the application of no formats to existing content, without the content-provider's permission. That may not necessarily be bad, since it would also allow the content provider control over transcribed fidelity. Furthermore, such transcription is usually a case of compression to accomodate storage or bandwidth limitations. I see both those pressures easing. Finally, there would be nothing preventing the compression of a reduced resolution signal that's available as plaintext (which would compress well, I'd think -- in fact the reduced resolution format for audio might very well be 64 kb/s MP3).
"My take is that if the DRM can be defeated, there is no right to prevent such defeat, if it enables some fair use uses. However, if DRM is such that it is impossible to do so, then some accomodation to facilitate exercise of traditional fair use is required."
Agreed. This would require some changes to the DMCA and the EU Infosoc directive, so let's stop arguing and start lobbying.:)
Those are very bad laws, and would certainly have to have major parts repealed for any kind of DRM to be acceptable, yes. Lobbying? Sure, but somehow "No DRM!" isn't likely to be as effective as "Not THIS DRM!" But, for the latter to work, a DRM alternative has to be proposed, hence my "devil's advocate" stance. Make no mistake, I think the proposals on the table today reek of the worst kind of bought legislation.
Actually, the best argument against any form of DRM is that the piracy it prevents is likely far less costly than the implementation costs of any kind of acceptable DRM, as I've outlined. However, technology does get cheaper over time.
Nowhere do they address "perfect copies". So, while you might have a right to make a perfect copy, I don't see an obligation on the part of a copyright holder to make it possible for you to have one, only that you can make "some" copy, sufficient for criticism, parody, etc.
Huh? I thought I did: you can make as many perfect copies of encrypted material as you want, assuring your ability to time- and space-shift. I've been corresponding in a different thread than yours, so perhaps I addressed that issue there. The sticky point isn't one of perfect copies, it's one of perfect full-resolution unencrypted copies.
I'd be perfectly willing to fight for the right to have "perfect copies", but as you say - there is no firm support for that view in current legislation.
Yes, and I'd be willing to forgo the right to perfect unencrypted copies as long as I can time- and space-shift encrypted copies and make "reasonable" reduced-resolution extracts for parody or criticism. Would you trade the present technical ability to do this, albeit at often great inconvenience in exchange for the facilitated ability to do this if some fair uses were rendered impossible? I'm not so sure the answer is a clear no. "It depends," as they say.
But there is also nothing in the legislation that says that you are _not_ entitled to perfect copies for fair use purposes, so as a matter of law it seems like it is an undecided issue and as a matter of precedent we (afaik) only have the Kaplan ruling.
While you may be entitled to make perfect copies under present fair use doctrine (and Kaplan makes that iffy), there is no obligation that the copyright holder facilitate this. So yes, you may, but if you can't, tough.
"Fair use" is not an exhaustive list. When a court is called upon to determine if something is fair use or copyright infringement they use the four step test:
1. What is the character of the use?
2. What is the nature of the work to be used?
3. How much of the work will you use?
4. What effect would this use have on the market for the original or for permissions if the use were widespread?
[I dare you to try to implement this as DRM rules:) ]
DRM makes feasable the technical imposibility of exercising some fair uses, however I see nothing that prevents this: just because you may do something, does not mean others have to facilitate your ability to do so -- only that if you do, you have broken no law. IOW, I see nothing in present copyright law that would make AA-envisioned DRM illegal. Horrible, yes, but not illegal. The only reason that the AAs need DRM "law" is because the DRM they intend to deploy will not be unbreakable, and they need the clout of law as a club over fair use that could ber perverted for unfair uses. The worst scenario, and a technically feasable one, is deployment of draconian, unbreakable DRM, without any new laws. The kind of DRM law we need is one that (a) restores fair use rights and repeals odious sections of the DMCA, and (b) establishes that unbreakable technical protections that would excessively restrict fair use rights exercise impossible are not legal. It is precisely because the present fair use guidlines are ambiguous that we can use the "excessively" weasel word above.
What of new fair uses that might arise? The example of the VCR is not a good one, because there the MPAA tried to put an existing genie back in the bottle. It wasn't a case of something that was speculatively possible, but currently technically impossible. However, one can imagine that such cases could arise (though I think the most obvious cases would involve a combination of transcoding, transcription, and time or space-shifting, perhaps multiplexing as well).
In such a case, if the fair use can be identified as unique and novel, and it can be shown that it is of public benefit, and that it is not presently accomodated in any "reasonable" form, the copyright holders must accomodate. I envision this as a signed "patch" that can be obtained to be installed on transcripters, transcoders, or other types of DRM equipment, like display devices. An example might be a "zoom" feature in a TV display. Someone develops it, demonstrates it with material they produce and sign (so the feature is accepted for that material), and, armed with a petition, sues for an authorizing signature. This rests the ambiguity of fair use squarely on the shoulders of copyright holders. Does it stiffle innovation? Only to the extent that it can't be applied to protected material as quickly as one might like, but one would think that an enterprising organization would step in to fill that need commercially if it believed the demand was strong enough.
So. if Sony had not included a 'record' button on the Betamax, it is likely that the supreme court would never have had the opportunity to decide whether time shifting of TV broadcasts was a fair use or not. If I remember correctly, the fair use-ness of time shifting had not been determined by the courts prior to Universal vs Sony so this ruling actually _created_ the time shifting right.
New technology create new opportunities for using copyrighted works. By using DRM to prevent many acts, the courts are not given the possibility to decide which of these acts are fair use.
See above. However, instead of the copyright holder being plaintif in such cases, they'd be defendent. To keep the cost barrier of bringing a suit low enough, perhaps they would have to fund a "fair use" escrow account, so if a court agreed to hear a case, funding for the plaintif, in the public interest, would be available. Ah, the cost of DRM "rights" grows ever higher (like I said, acceptable DRM might be more expensive than supposed piracy).
For example, one new potential right might be "storage shifting". I buy some music, and want to be able to access it from anywhere. I upload the music to 'mp3storage.com', and they give me an username/password so that I, and only I, can access the music from any Internet-connected device. Is this a 'fair use'? Maybe, maybe not.
I'd say it is. But this is trivial: you'd upload the encrypted version, and there'd be no need for password protection. A more complex case is someone already having the content, and transcrypting it for you, at a remote location, because you have proven that you have a right to it.
Obviously I can't envision all possible fair uses that might be preemptively stifled by DRM, but I think, other than first sale, I've addressed the major ones.
But, to recap, "acceptable" DRM would require, (a)repeal of many provisions of the DMCA, (b) explicit support in DRM equipment for the exercise of recognized fair use rights, including, but not limited to acceptable extract, space- and time-shifting (without requring networked authentication), authorized transcription and transcoding; (c) a low-cost (to the public) legal framework for explicitly facilitating new fair uses as recognized by the courts; (d) the ability to self-sign or not-sign material so as to essentially make it unrestricted with regard to existing DRM mechanisms (allowing exploration of possible new fair uses).
I think that's a tall order. I think it is technically feasable, and doesn't conflict with existing law (other than sections of the DMCA, which probably already conflict with fair use provisions of copyright law). It certainly wouldn't give the AAs everything they want, but, in certain narrow capacities, it would give them far more, and permit new securely distributed applications to be deployed (ironically, while that may be the best example of DRM in the public interest, it does not require all the content-protecting mechanisms the AAs want).
"It appears that you wish to only give AAs legal recourse against copyright violators, and not technical recourse."
Correct.
Please keep in mind that technology might also make it easier for them to discover copyright infringement online. To participate in massive copyright infringement, I have to make it easy for other people to find the material. This will also make it easier for rightholders to find me (think infringement-searching spiders on the web and P2P networks). Paired with DMCA'esque notice-and-takedown systems and a kind of copyright small-claims court, the rightholders will not be without teeth.
I think this is unrealistic. The technology exists, and even without law to close the weaknesses in poor implementations, it can be used with no new laws. If anything, we need new law to keep fair use possible. Such law could (and if it is to "keep up with the times", should) address DRM as well.
You are right about rightsholders not being without teeth, and I think those legal recourses would be sufficient to deal with widespread blatant abuse of permitted fair uses, like reduced-resolution extracts being traded online via P2P networks. However, if these are the only recourses rightsholders have, they can't go after grey-area abuse: sharing with a small number of friends (note, my approach permits the taking of a transcoder to a friend's house, along with your encrypted content, to play at a party there), for example. Should that be a fair use? Perhaps... it certainly is common enought that the public does not oppose it. If such limited sharing were recongnized as a fair use then much of the case for content-protecting DRM would go away. I don't think that will happen.
Going after the infringers instead of killing P2P service providers and spending a lot of money on developing and pushing DRM systems is - in my book - a better solution.
It may very well be. Like I said, acceptable DRM is likely complex and expensive to deploy. However, in the absence of any action, some kind of DRM is sure to be legislated. I think the kind of action that would be most effective is not "No DRM!", but rather, "DRM? Fine, just do it this way". That presents us as "reasonable" and "willing to compromise" and allows exposure of the perils and pitfalls of what rightsholders propose. It also raises the posibility of entrenching fair use abilities, not just rights in law, when it comes to DRM -- something which I think we don't have now.
At some point, unbreakable DRM will be cheap enough to deploy, without needing any new legislation (to cover the technical weaknesses). Then we will have no fair use abilities, but all the fair use rights -- not much good. I'd rather start to reign it in now, so that when it becomes a reality, legal protections for our ability to excercize fair use are in place.
trusted DRM entities" have to prove to eachother that they are "trusted" (if not, an enterprising young hacker could easily make a DeDRM) - most likely by a crypto handshake using keys that only manufacturers of DRM-enabled devices have access to or by using a PKI certificate system. These keys/certificates have to be controlled by some entity, and rules have to be made concerning who should be able to receive such a key/certificate. This entity will then be an all-powerful gatekeeper with complete control of who should be allowed to manufacture DRM-enabled devices. This gatekeeper will be able to control innovation.
No. Depending on the content, different key signing authorities for the DRM-aware hardware might be recognized, including self-signed ones.
Of course, the major content providers will only recognize DRM hardware signed by sources they trust.
You're suggesting that PKI puts great power in the hands of certificate signing bodies. I don't buy that. The real danger is if DRM-aware devices refused to accept unsigned content (something the AAs want). I would never accept such a state of affairs.
So any "fair use" that requires copying outside the DRM black box will have to be analog. I'm sorry, but that doesn't actually make me jump with joy.
No, not necessarily analog: a reduced resolution digital copy, perhaps without interactive components, would be possible, and I'd say required so that fair use criticism and parody were possible.
[On a related note - many pirates don't give a shit about quality anyway, so the net will still be full of warez. DRM won't stop those that _want_ to commit copyright infringement, so its main function will be to make legal use of works cumbersome]
I don't buy the argument that such inferior copies would appeal to people who would otherwise pay for the real thing. Of course, the AAs disagree. DRM can stop the redistribution of copies better than those allowed to be distributed.
The problem here is that reasonable DRM must allow (and, indeed facilitate), the making of extracts of "low" resolution copies good enough for reasonable fair use criticism and parody, and yet disallow the making of copies of a resolution high enough to upset the copyright holder. The intersection of these two ranges may very well be null.
I don't think consumers need perfect copies for criticism or parody, but I do think they should be able to time- and space-shift uncrippled copies.
"Because, unfortunately, the courts have recognized this argument"
I know Kaplan said as much in the Remeirdes case, but are there other court rulings that also support the argument that you are not entitled to full/original quality?
That was the case I was thinking of. But there are two issues here:
1. Whether it is legal for someone to make extracts of any resolution, and;
2. Whether the copyright holder should be obliged to make them available or make it possible for them to be obtained.
I think that (1) should be a given, though DRM may well make it a technical, and possibly legal impossibility. However, (2) is a sticky issue: when VCRs were introduced, there was no legal requirement to have a record button -- neither was it found illegal to provide one.
What DRM changes is that it is now technically possible to make equipment with an "unencrypted full-resolution output" (the analog to the "record" button, as it were) impossible to produce.
So, while one might have a fair use right, it would be impossible to exercise. Does that mean that DRM infringes on fair use rights? I don't think so: fair use is a right of the consumer to use the content in certain ways, and an obligation of the copyright holder to not interfere with such use, but I don't think it is an obligation on the copyright holder to ensure that such use is possible.
What it does mean is that exercising such fair use rights is now impossible for technical, rather than legal reasons. Is this an imbalance that needs to be redressed?
When I indicated that DRM implementations must remove all restrictions when the copyright expires, I was thinking of that as part of redress for this imbalance. Unless the content is licensed to you and not merely protected by copyright, the copyright holder no longer has legal control, and it stands to reason that mechanisms employed to exert that control during the interval of copyright protection must now be removed, rather like a lien lifted in property that secures a debt, when the debt is repaid.
An extention of this idea is the notion of requiring the ability for the consumer to exercise some fair use rights during the copyright interval, i.e. reduced-resolution extracts, etc. In a way, this goes further than traditional fair use, in that a provider of an electronic "book would now be obliged to provide the equivalent of a "photocopier", albeit a poor one. Currently no such obligation exists.
"Note, that you generally can't do HD time-shifting today, so DRM would not "take away" that ability.
DRM could possibly "take away" my ability to do so in the future.
Before the VCR, I didn't have the ability to time-shift broadcast programming either, so by the above logic I would not have lost anything if the MPAA had been successful in forcing Sony to not include a 'record' button on the VCR.
Not the same thing: it was technically possible for Sony to do this, and the court ruled correctly (though barely so). DRM could make manufacturing such a device technically impossible, though I'd expect that the AAs want a combination of imperfect DRM that requires legal and not technical teeth to ensure that such devices are not made. My take is that if the DRM can be defeated, there is no right to prevent such defeat, if it enables some fair use uses. However, if DRM is such that it is impossible to do so, then some accomodation to facilitate exercise of traditional fair use is required.
This starts to get into issues of semantics: I say that accomodating the ability to produce output with a resolution that you could get before is sufficient on the grounds that this is as good resolution as you had. You appear to say, that "No, this is not the case, because I could make perfect copies before, and can't now." Fair use provisions of copyright law address extracts, criticism, citation, and parody. Nowhere do they address "perfect copies". So, while you might have a right to make a perfect copy, I don't see an obligation on the part of a copyright holder to make it possible for you to have one, only that you can make "some" copy, sufficient for criticism, parody, etc.
Advances in technology create opportunities for rightholders to sell new products, and it also create new opportunities for fair use. DRM will preserve the rightholders' benefits of new technology, but might to a large extent deny the creation of new fair use rights.
What new rights? I can see new ways to exercize fair use rights (i.e. time- and space-shifting, i.e. with a VCR) but the rights do not change (making personal copies, in this case).
"I reiterate that the problem isn't DRM per say, but just what particular rights are being managed, and whether they're reasonable."
I don't agree.
DRM and related legislation will pose a large threat to innovation, encryption and security research and will blunt the development of fair use.
I think it's the "related legislation" that will cause the harm in this area, and not DRM. The problem as I see it is two fold: (1) Properly implemented DRM can make exercising fair use rights of any kind technically impossible -- I addressed this above when I suggested that DRM legislation mandate that copyright holders are obliged to make possible what the technilogy might prevent in this area. (2) Improperly implemented DRM would make exercize of fair use possible, but would likely be accompanied by legislation making it illegal. That latter scenario leads to the stiffling effect you describe. Alas, proplery implemented DRM requires a security infrastructure that pervades consumer, network, and output devices to a degree that just does not exist yet, and would require a massive rebuild. Note that there's no need to introduce it in general purpose computers (except, perhaps sound and video cards), or, more importantly, storage devices. Interactive HDTV could drive such a rebuild, but I don't think it likely.
Pay per view/use also raise potential privacy problems.
This presumes that time-shifting will become a thing of the past. I'm arguing that it shouldn't, and the market values it too much to let that happen. Furthermore, anonymous proxies and digital case can take care of the privacy issue.
Copyright holders don't have the right to eliminate "fair-use" of material that we legally acquire, then toss us a few scraps and expect us to be grateful.
What material? You can copy and look at the encrypted bits all you want! You can even decrypt them if you can. Oh, you mean that if you send them to a certain "magic" box, you get to see and hear interesting stuff?
Yes, the AAs want to eliminate time-shifting, and make everything pay-per-view. Yes, DRM makes it technically possible to do this. I think the market for such ephemeral content will be very small though. Properly implemented, DRM can be used to protect content redistribution, and give you the full-resolution time and space shifting you want.
The AAs are saying, in effect, "We can't prevent copyright violation unless we eliminate fair use, and we envision a form of DRM that can do this." I'm suggesting that, yes, DRM can prevent copyright violation, but without substantially infringing on fair use, but it is much harder to do this, and far more expensive. The sticky issue really only centers around extracts for criticism and parody. The AAs want to elimiate them completely.
It appears that you wish to only give AAs legal recourse against copyright violators, and not technical recourse. I think this is unrealistic: they will lobby hard for the kind of blunt technical recourse that we'd both find horrible, because it is cheap, and easy to implement. It would also be technically ineffective, requireing DMCA-like legal buttressing. The question boils down to "What fair-use impediments are acceptable so that copyright violation can be curbed in an era of great interconnectivity?" I don't think that lower-resolution uncrypted extracts for wide distribution (ostentiably for parody or criticism) is too high a price to pay if it means I can time- and space-shift full-resolution content, and be assured that it will automatically enter the public domain when copyright expires.
Current copyright law (except the horrid DMCA) was written in the pre-digital world. In that world, it was inconceivable that the copyright holder would be able to control what you do with your legally acquired copy in your own home.
And understandable that they'd want to, were a technical solution available. There is one now, and our only choise is whether it will be implemented as a bludgeon or a scalpel.
Therefore, it made no sense to require that rightholders make it easy/possible for the customer to be able to benefit from fair use/copyright exemptions.
And I accept that the balance for foolproof DRM is an obligation to accomodate fair use to the consumer -- an obligation that does not currently exist. Thus, such accomodation need not be as ideal as if DRM did not exist.
I think that present law is on the side of the AAs here: there is no current legal requirement to ensure that technology is not used that makes exercizing fair use rights impossible. DRM could certainly be deployed that way, but it doesn't have to be.
Why on God's green earth should we be forced to live with "reduced resolution" for "fair-use"?
Because, unfortunately, the courts have recognized this argument. A photocopy, for example, is never a perfect copy of the original (though noise is not the same thing as resolution, you get the idea), but it is acceptable.
While you may have a "right" to a perfect extract, I don't see an obligation to provide you with one.
We should have fair-use access to whatever we purchased in whatever resolution we have purchased it in. If I buy a HDTV quality version of something, why should I be forced to try and use an analog VHS quality version to do my research?
480p, even 480i, is hardly "VHS quality". It depends on the nature of the research, of course, but for casual fair use, 1080i is likely not necessary. And remember, you did not "purchase" the content, you "licensed" it, unless you reject the notion of copyright entirely. To put it bluntly, no one owes you a high definition TV broadcast, though having paid to see one, it stands to reason that you should be able to do things like time-shift it at full resolution, or extract all or part of it for parody, or criticism at reduced resolution at the very least. Note, that you generally can't do HD time-shifting today, so DRM would not "take away" that ability.
I think you could make a stronger case for significantly reduced periods of copyright protection, and that I would very much support.
Again, I reiterate that the problem isn't DRM per say, but just what particular rights are being managed, and whether they're reasonable.
When I purchase a book, my photocopier isn't limited to 75% scale, slightly fuzzy copies. I can space/time/resample my audio CD-ROM collection in all of its full digital glory, I'm not limited to 128bit mpg quality, or analog cassette quality.
And you wouldn't be with sane DRM either, as long as you did not try to redustribute the result: your copy would be keyed to you, with reasonable was of replicating "you" in the equipment you own now or later.
So, once again I ask, why should I be forced to deal with this stupidity;
"... you can extract everything so you might as well permit lower resolution plaintext access. We're already seeing this today with HDTV set-top decoders that can conditionally downsample HD broadcasts to SD for display via analog RGB signals..."
Ask yourself why content providers should deal with the "stupidity" of your desire? They don't owe you anything except a non-fraudulent business transaction and a product or service that is convenient to consume. Badly implemented DRM would make timeshifting or personal archival copies impossible. Properly implemented DRM might result in "reduced" audio and video resolution on redistibuted extracts that's as good as the analog stuff you see today. Badly implemented DRM would prevent people from accomodating your desires with less restrictions because all content would have to be protected with a controlled and licensed scheme. That is the horror that is necessary to avoid, and which the AAs want to make a reality: the retention of an oligopoly on distribution.
Copyright holders don't have the right to eliminate "fair-use" of material that we legally acquire, then toss us a few scraps and expect us to be grateful.
But neither do they have to provide the technology so that exercise of those rights is convenient or easy.
If you buy that argument, then VCR's CDR's, and photocopiers should be illegal.
Not true! Only that VCRs, CDRs, and photocopiers don't have to be made to facilitate perfect copies to redistribute to others unless the copyright holder permits as long as the copyright is in force.
You can always take notes when you are watching that television show or movie, perhaps make a few sketches, like those courtroom sketches you always see, if you need to comment or parody. You want to space shift that song, memorize it and sing it to yourself in the car, surely you don't have fair use rights to the music that you own (at least not in the format that you have purchased it in), no one is stopping you from humming in the shower, in the yard, or even to your children at night.
And, properly deployed DRM would have to make sure that you could time and space shift content for your consumption via equipment that you own. It only gets touchy when you try to redistribute.
As for photocopiers, they only exist to help people infringe copyrights.
Hardly. If that were the case, they'd be illegal. The courts have held (in the U.S., at least) that so long as there is at least one non-infringing use, even the preponderance of infringing uses does not render the tool illegal. Sadly, the Napster case goes against this precedent.
If you need to make a copy you can just copy it yourself, by hand. If you aren't up to the task, I hear that large groups of men, I think they were called monks, used to copy and illuminate (that means copy the pictures too) books and maps in special buildings, monasteries right?
Yes, and for the logest time, they had perpetual copyright to do so! Of course, until Gutenberg invented the press, the technology didn't really exist for this "right" to be infringed.
If you want to make "fair-use" of a book, then obviously you wouldn't mind laboriously copying it by hand, right
Depends on the nature of the fair use. But the existence of the book does not require that my convenience in exercising my fair use rights be certain, only that if I exercise those rights, I have not broken any law.
I look at it this way: when life hands you a lemon, make lemonaide. I suppose one could wish for the whole DRM debate to disappear, but technology does not go away: if something can be done, it will be done. I'm fairly sure that DRM will become a reality, and our only option is to shape the nature of that reality.
A 'fair use DRM' would replace our current law with a law that can be translated to fairy simple digital rules.
Yes. Such rules would have to benefit the "consumer" of protected material. I'd expect that citation, extract for review, criticism, and parody, would be permitted with, perhaps, reduced resolution. It may not be what the AAs want, but that's the best DRM they should get.
The 'best' solution is an interoperable DRM system that exists in your PC and any other consumer electronics device in your home - your TiVO, your portable music player, your PDA. This would make DRM-incompatible players or storage devices close to worthless in the marketplace, thus creating an environment where DRM functionality will be a requirement for new equipment (required by market force, not by law - but the result would be the same).
I have come to, and written about, a similar conclusion: trusted DRM entities will exchange encrypted data between themselves, with final decryption for viewing and audio playback, right down to "protected" windows on computer displays managed on the video cards.
Will this make current non-DRM aware equipment obsolete? Certainly, but not right away: fair use rights would necessitate extracts for criticism, parody, etc. If you can extract something, you can extract everything so you might as well permit lower resolution plaintext access. We're already seeing this today with HDTV set-top decoders that can conditionally downsample HD broadcasts to SD for display via analog RGB signals (which is pretty good, actually). Future versions might go to great lengths to protect compressed versions of higher-resolution streaming content, with embedded interactive components (i.e. hyperlinks on program product placements) that offer an "enhanced" experience.
1. DRM cannot be implemented to grant fair use access because the details of the law cannot be programmed into a computer. Can a computer decide that your use constitutes parody and thus greater amounts of copying are allowed?
This is an interesting point. Clearly if there is to be digital rights management, then the rights so managed must be possible to be managed digitally. This includes all fair use rights, and not just the rights of the copyright holder. My essay touched upon this, albeit tangentially, where I noted that it was the responsibility of the DRM implementer to ensure that the restrictions enforced are not unconstitutional.
I was mostly concerned with with the use of encryption to restrict unlawful republication, and frankly, did not think about parody, or other fair use rights: like extraction for criticism. I do think that such rights can be met via lower resolution unencrypted extracts, though. There is no technology that can prevent them anyway, short of a direct source to consumer's brain interface. Ironically, printed text may be the hardest to "protect" this way (when compared to audio or video), for lack of the notion of "resolution". However, the current DRM battles are not being fought over text, but rather music and movies.
2. DRM does more than enforce an agreement, it allows the creation of unreasonable agreements that extend beyond those anticipated by copyright law.
I am a libertarian, therefore I see no justification for restricting the agreements into which people may enter -- one of the costs of liberty is vigilance about one's relationships with others. One would think that DRM implementations that were excessively one-sided would not bear the brunt of the market. However, we do not live in a libertarian society, and governments pass laws regarding rights that are "inalienable". Again, DRM implementations would have to respect such inalianable rights. Specifically, DRM could not be used to bypass copyright expirations, and, in fact, would be required to enforce such expirations.
Call for inalienable fair use rights then, and insist that DRM implementations respect them.
DRM need not be as exclusively beneficial to copyright holders as you fear, any more than traditional copyrights were. The problem is one of erosion of fair use rights and not DRM per se. There is no technical reason why DRM can not enforce fair use as much as it enforces copyright. In fact, your first objection suggests that DRM give preference to fair use over copyright, if anything.
No. Really, a case can be made for DRM... just not the DRM envisioned by the cronies at the various AAs out there.
Let's examine all the bad things about DRM:
1. It kills fair use. Well, yes, but that's an implementation detail. It need not have to. In fact, I'd argue that it should be legislated that any mandatory DRM mechanism should protect fair use rights (and I generally hate more laws). That this scenario is unlikely is an attribute of the political climate and intense content provider lobbying rather than a defect of the principles of DRM. But, imagine a DRM mechanism which automatically releases copyright material into the public domain when the copyright term expires.
2. It stifles "sharing" and enforces "property" rights on things which shouldn't be property. True, but that is a legal and philosophical debate. The fact is that people are generally willing to accept restricted licenses for using something in order to pay less to have access. IOW, I can either pay an artist big bucks to record an album for me, or hope he records one, and don't undercut his efforts to sell them for $10 a pop once I have my copy. A third option, popular in the 1950s for classical music recordings, is to have content produced by prior subscription: when enough subscriptions are sold, the recording is made and distributed to the subscribers. This strikes at the nature of copyright itself, and whether it should have a moral and legal basis. While the existing terms are outrageous, and the music industry probably does gouge artists, DRM is nothing more than a tool for enforcing an agreement. It is the reasonableness of the agreement that should be examined, not the tool.
3. DRM stifles creation of independent content and raises the barrier to entry for independent artists. This is true if (a) DRM use is always mandated, (b) content is difficult or expensive to protect, and/or (c) content designed for mass distribution is difficult or expensive to protect. If this is the case, then clearly DRM is being exploited to restrict access to production and distribution channels: it may prevent you from making an unprotected video for your grandmother or it may prevent you from streaming samples of your music free to anyone in order to get recognized. I don't discount this as a goal of the nefarious AAs out there. However, that's clearly abuse of a monopoly or oligopoly and should be exposed as such.
4. People are too stupid to realize what they are about to lose -- they don't understand how bad DRM could be. Yes, people are stupid. Just look at what leaders democracies elect. But if we "hacking 3l337e" are incapable of educating them, then some of the blame falls on our shoulders. It may be tough, but replacing "stupid" above with "ignorant" (which is a curable condition) would not be a bad start. I am not suggesting this is easy: the public has been conditioned to accept restrictions of civil liberties in the name of preventing future crime (witness the whole DMCA fiasco and post-9/11/2001 "bend over while I rape your rights" hysteria). Yet, when it comes to accepting legislation regarding potentially very oppressive technologies, the state is generally "trusted". Nevertheless, attempts have to be made, including educating what few legislators may not have been bought yet, and are sympathetic to our concerns.
5. DRM will cause me to lose control of my computer. It will become a glorified TV. Again, this is certainly possible. However, DRM could also permit your computer to cache content that you have not yet licensed but are likely to, or keep secure other people's content. The issue isn't so much, Digital Rights ement, but rather the scope of what is Managed. No, it shouldn't be the whole computer.
That's still a lot of reasons to be wary about DRM as it's envisioned today. All the responses to concerns above are of the "yeah, but it doesn't have to be that way" form, and until we are sure it won't be that way, we are wise to be distrustful. But, it helps to look at a case where DRM would make perfect sense.
Webcam Now offers free hosting and download of webcam images, and text and voice chat services. Their site caters to "Friends and Family" (hmm, I smell a trademark infringement suit) as well as "Unmonitored" sections (yes, mostly free amateur exhibitionist porn). Anyone can get an account and upload images to their heart's content, to be served up to Java applets in viewers' browsers. The "free" view rate is 6 frames per minute, and a "pay" rate of 60 frames per minute is available for (I think) US$9.95 a month. This is rather generous, Jennicam updates free images at the rate of once every 15 minutes. Smart move, actually -- they're basically selling bandwidth on the basis of desired content that costs them nothing.
The (black) hack potential is obvious: say I don't want to pay $10 a month, but still want a frame per second refresh or I want to roll my own client (white hack). How can Webcam Now throttle access to their data? More importantly, how can they prevent me from redistributing the images I get?
The obvious answer is an authenticated communication channel that permits faster request rates and an encrypted channel between their image servers and my display. This does not make it impossible to capture what the display shows, but likely makes it difficult enough to thwart casual infringement and severely affect the resolution of what I capture.
Without DRM used to keep the image data secret between their servers and my display, those images could be redistributed anywhere. What if someone scrapes them for their own paid "amateur porn" site outside of the legal jurisdictions where Webcam Now operates? While I'm sure the exhibitionists who use Webcam Now's services don't mind being seen, they'd probably be pretty miffed if someone's making a tidy profit from their free shows: the $9.95 a month probably seems reasonable for Webcam Now to collect per fast viewer to pay for the bandwidth, but heck, if the viewership justifies image scrapers, why not set up their own adult site? They'd leave Webcam Now, and much of the fast-streaming revenue would dry up. While some might exploit the exposure in order to break into the professional porn industry, the true amateurs would probably be upset: somehow being presented as an "unmonitored" video is different than being scraped and represented as "hard core slutty filth". I'd bet that paid fast-streaming porn subsidizes much of the free slow-streaming parts of that site, including the "family" stuff.
On a related note, what if a couple want to do a private long-distance "show" for eachother? Whether they chose to record their cyber-sexcapades or not, they'd probably like the content to remain unviewable except on certain equipment, lest it be redistributed. DRM to the rescue.
Given that the pornography industry seams to be one of the early adopters of new technology (it is rumoured that it fueled the demand for VCRs), perhaps it should drive how DRM is implemented and deployed.
The other aspect of this is controlled access to bandwidth. As it stands, Webcam Now uses trivial encryption on their images, and trusted Java applets to not pull images faster than permitted. While an authenticated session could result in traffic throttled at the source, this requires the server to enforce the stream-throttling policy. As anyone knows, the less a server has to do, the better it scales. Letting the client enforce the access rate policy is a step in this direction. However, once the client application is cracked, it's game over. The current solution involves either accepting the policy enforcement on the part of each server, or a multi-tiered approach where dedicated aggregation and policy servers sit between client machines and data servers. This works rather well, but increases operating costs: the more work you can off-load to the client, the cheaper your operation becomes. However, securely off-loading access policies to client PCs is not possible without DRM.
So, where does this leave us? DRM certainly has legitimate uses, and need not be overbearing or invasive. In fact, it should be deployed in very restricted areas, where secure computing or encrypted content needs to be managed. Example include secure client-side web proxies, display, and audio devices (though it's value in the latter is questionable since "adequate" resolution analog recording is so easy). It should not be a ubiquitious part of a central processor, nor should it enforce draconian measures that are unconstitutional. The burden of complying with constitutional fair use rights should lie with the DRM implementer.
everyone's job is not source control. In fact, most tools go with the approach that it's no one's job
Source control should be somebody's job, if only to ensure that you can rebuild the binaries you make and have backups as necesary. Version control is a logical extention of this.
Whenever something is somebody's job, they're gonna set down rules. Sometimes these rules need to be locally broken in a way that doesn't affect others. This need not be trivial, but it should be possible. It seams reasonable that if an individual developer needs a custom fork to try something for a few days, they should learn a bit of the source control system so they know how to do it. This does not mean that all developers need to be experts in that system.
I didn't set any project up this way, I just note that Clearcase does not scale to handle this well. CVS may be better in this regard simply because it does less and has the notion of default unreserved checkouts, updates, and handles attempts at out of date checkins.
Clearcase can do all that, to be sure, but the emphasis is on reserved checkouts, so the "lots of readers, few committers" sourceforge-style model can't be applied without some tweaking. The whole notion of a read-only VOB bucks the way Clearcase is intended to be used.
VOB replication? Then you get replication overhead as checkins are propagaged, no? You can't win, you can only lose less badly when you have read and write contention.
As for CVS, I never suggested it scales better, though, in some cases, it's lower overhead might make it seam that way. In fact, I liked working with Clearcase, but it didn't strike me as a tool that was good for projects with large numbers (say, hundreds, or thousands) of contributors, on large projects, unless you segmented the project (which you should do anyway).
The combination of project segmentation and Multisite might be a winning combination, though.
The biggest "problems" with Clearcase are the steep learning curve (though I have found learning CVS after Clearcase a pain because of what it lacks (directories as objects, views, etc.) and labeling overhead.
The view model is beautiful. However, the power it provides can certainly be abused, and in general, most developers should use views prepared for them rather than roll their own.
You roll your own when you really want for fork something off the main branch and need to preferentially select your changes over mainstream development.
You get into trouble when you have inexperienced Clearcase admins not knowing what they're doing (and this is understandable, given the learning curve steepness), or worse, developers left to their own devices.
Clearcase really is a tool for a team lead to use to manage the various forks of their project.
Clearcase certinly benefits from having a build manager on hand who knows Clearcase. Personally, I always thought the team lead should have this skill. The learning curve is steep though, and it is easy to fsck yourself up badly if you don't know what you are doing. The best advice in that case is "stop, read, learn, try to undo what you did. Rinse, lather, Rrepeat."
Slashdot Mirror
As for being tracked via slashdot, that would be easy: my user profile indicates my web site, which implies my registered domain, and voila: I'm easy to find.
This is why, even though watching DVDs on my GNU/Linux box is a rather private affair, I am open about how I do it. Perhaps not as open as Perens and others, and thus not as dramatic, but open, and running the risk of arrest commensurate with the act, nevertheless.
2. I am not a U.S. citizen, but am legally on U.S. soil
3. Announcing this publicly places me at significant risk for indefinite incarceration, if the DMCA and Patriot Act were interpreted in the extreme (I may be a technical terrorist, bent on creating economic mayhem in the U.S., by encouraging the use of technology to defeat DRM for purposes of traditional fair use).
Some of us do engage in civil disobedience, at some risk, though perhaps not as dramatically as Mr. Perens. But, laws like this can not ber permitted to go unchallenged.
Though, I do not, repeat not, speak from experience.
Oh, how true that is.
Right now, the little freedoms are being taken away, like TV recordings. They are not as important as other major issues and fall by the wayside easily.
One can imagine a world where you're jailed because you share the same national heritage with some evil person (heck, what if your surname just happens to be the same as a certain anti-American?). What if you're slaughtered because of your religion? Or because of your beliefs about personal consumption of certain substances? Or because you know how to use a computer too well?
Some of these attrocities have taken place in the past, some in the present, and some might very well take place in the future. There's an unnerving trend here: so-called "law" degenerates to the point of arresting and killing people because of what they "might" do, presumably because of something they have in common with the perpetrator of some crime.
If history is any guide, things will get worse before they get better.
Ironically, the 9/11/2001 attacks against the U.S. suggest just how vulnerable the nation, and by extention, it's government is. They suggest that when the time for revolution comes, a wide-spread decentralized attack on key areas would have a good chance of success. No doubt, while the government seeks to control panic, it will be caught off-guard as the attacks continue: what will they do? Launch nukes against widespread targets on their own soil?
OBL's strategic "mistake", was blowing his wad on one attack -- he was done for the night, as it were. What is most troubling, though, is that an act of war ("terrorism" is a weasel word applied to enemies not associated with a recognized nation) against the civilians of a democracy is perfectly logical: they freely elect their government with a process they all accept, so why not hold them responsible for it's actions? If you want to wage war on the government, wage war on those who put it in place.
Yes, yes, what about children and other non-voters? Surely they aren't responsible? No, but there's this notion of "collateral damage" in war - unintended, but expected, none the less. It's one of the things that makes war hell -- easily forgotten in these times of sanitized, automated engagement. Funny, thing, though, the winner's "collateral damage" is the loser's "war crime".
It is clear, then, that a revolution against a formidable enemy will likely involve initiation by a relatively small percentage of the population, taking a no-holds barred attitude toward "winning" (or, from their point of view, survival): you're either with us, or agin' us. We see this in acts of domestic "terrorism": people considered sociopaths harm civilians in an attack purportedly directed against government. I ask the following questions: (1) If such an attack were disproportionately effective in harming the ability of the government to infringe upon a right you believe in, and (2) supporting further such attacks would be easy, would you "go along", collateral damage be damned?
History says "yes". And that is what the Second American Revolution is going to look like -- unlike crumbling Eastern European regimes that toppled over from the sheer will of the opressed, the U.S. government is neither weak or crumbling. Taking it down would involve some of the dirtiest and blodiest fighting in history. And home grown -- unlike WW I and WW II, it's unlikely that foreign intervention would be significant.
That's a horrible scenario, isn't it? Sure, but it appears that violent revolution is the natural end result of any oppressive regime that's been handed too much power over the years. The government with the lesser mandate (and thus less centralized power) is the better government. Somehow, the potential price of a government strong enough to protect "us" from "them" doesn't seam worth it and is an illusion on it's face.
Something like that.
Though, with regard to the constitution, I'm rather fond of asking people, "What part of 'Congress shall pass no law... do you not understand?"
There may have been stronger Quebec beers, but I am not aware of them. The strongest beer I have encountered is Sam Adams Triple Bock, at around 25% alcohol by volume (50 proof). Interestingly, it's fermentation involves massive quantities of maple syrup as well as barley malt.
Ya know, an EFF flag wouldn't be a bad idea at all.
I used to fly an American flag proudly -- no, I am not an American: I am temporarily in the U.S. on an H1B visa, but I have a great deal of respect for the principles espoused in the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. Americans can be forgiven the sin of pride when it comes to those documents. They may only contain words, but they're good words and sharper than any sword out there, to bend a cliche, and worth living by. The American flag, was, for me, a symbol of those words, and the beliefs they represent.
I no longer fly an American flag.
In recent times, it has become a popular symbol of perverse xenophobic nationalism and fear. It is flown by many a coward, cheerfully prostituting the rights their forefathers died for, for an illusion of security.
So, yeah, I'll renew my EFF membership (money's been kinda tight lately and I've been procrastinating), gimme a flag to fly, if only in my imagination.
If you can sniff good packets, you can compare slightly different ones. If you can't sniff good packets, you can try generating packets exhaustively to find good ones, and then attack those differentially.
Having lived in Quebec for some 36 years, and legally been able to drink beer there for half of those, I've had my share of microbrews, imports, Labatt's, and Molson offerings.
Molson's beers have got to be the most OFFensive beers I've ever had the misfortune to drink. I'd sooner drink Budweiser's version of sex in a canoe (fsking close to water) than anything from Molson -- it suggests itself to be the urine of a specimen of some yet undiscovered hideous species found only in the Canadian Shield (thankfully).
Furthermore, I'd require that DRM-aware devices like that permit installation of certificates from multiple sources (to play "thier" content) and that they also accept unprotected content, with full access.
You are right that the root of the trust tree can not be in the hands of the AAs (RIAA, MPAA,... "AAs" as I call them). Personally, I'd like to see it decentralized, but I'd expect an "official" government PKI root to evolve. Yes, this has all sorts of clipper-like back key escrow implications, but I hardly think that a back door to my mass-produced content library would be a problem (and you know that the porn industry would have it's own web of trust).
1. Whether it is legal for someone to make extracts of any resolution, and;
2. Whether the copyright holder should be obliged to make them available or make it possible for them to be obtained."
Good point. 1 is a given, but 2 is not that clear cut. There are some acts of fair use that can not be performed unless you have a full quality unprotected digital copy, but the majority of fair use could probably be satisfied with a lesser-quality copy.
Yes, I don't deny that certain fair uses might remain technically impossible, yet still not accomodated (perfect extracts, and worse, things like first sale doctrine, might be lost -- more on that later). However, there has never been an obligation on the part of the copyright holder to facilitate the exercise of any fair use. I'm merely arguing that, with technically unbreakable DRM, there should be an obligation on the part of the copyright holder to facilitate as much fair use as possible. Hence, the making of encrypted copies for time and space-shifting, and "acceptable" resolution extracts for criticism, and parody. Though, even here, I can see cases where these be forbidden: recent decisions have found that distribution for the purpose of distance-learning are fair use, though the materials may not be retained by the recipients. The tradeoff is a limited right to redistribute perfect copies against the inability of the recipient to save them. I do think that matierial used for that purpose is so obviously "classroom content", so there should be no confusion about a "do not copy" tag in that instance.
So, I will admit that any DRM will make impossible the exercize of some existing fair use rights. Is the loss excessive, and more importantly, is there an offsetting gain for the public?
I thing he answer to the latter question is "Yes:". One wonderful thing that DRM would allow is the secure execution of distributed server components on client machines (well, client-side server application proxies -- I don't want DRM in my general purpose computer). In many multi-person on-line interactions, user input has to be validated, and the computational cost to do this grows with the number of users. It's a classic instance of pushing computation to the client being the "right thing" to do. Unfortunately, how do you ensure that this is not hacked to the detriment of the service provider or other participants? Without DRM providing secure execution, you can't. I evision such code running in a stateless sandbox either in the network interface (DSL modem, router/firewall, etc.) or as a separate device (so that it can't be used for censorship purposes!). So, when you "come to the virtual party or game" as it were, you bring your own cycles as well, to be used as the host determines.
Now, this does not mean that DRM has to be used to control use of content, but it does illustrate an application of DRM that is to the public's benefit (by pushing computation out to the client, server costs can be reduced). In fact, in the extreme case, it could conceivabley provide very elegant P2P networking, without the problems of freeloading.
"When I indicated that DRM implementations must remove all restrictions when the copyright expires, I was thinking of that as part of redress for this imbalance."
Removing restrictions on copyright expired works should be a requirement. Not doing so would, imho, be a case of copyright abuse.
Yes, and if those restrictions are implemented with DRM, then the DRM must be such that it removes them without external interaction.
Now, there will be some fair uses that might be lost with DRM. My take on this: (a) would the public find them acceptable, (b) can this be redressed with (greatly) reduced copyright terms?
There are two problems with the scheme I envision: 1) first sale doctrine, and 2) transcoding.
Unless you apply DRM to secure storage (which would create so many problems for archival and space shifting), you can't enforce DRM for first sale: how do you know that all copies have been transferred (reencryption for the recipient can be done with what I'd call a secure "transcrypter"). Do you give up first sale doctrine, or do you give up convenient space shifting? If all storage devices have to know about each other (to validate that all copies have been transferred/destroyed), what if one becomes defective? Frankly, I'd give up first sale doctrine if the copyright term were sufficiently short so that that when I'd likely want to sell it, I could, for it being in the public domain (this may affect sale value, but then again, used books generally don't fetch much); and some mechanism to facilitate transfer, registered with the copyright holder existed, holding me to a promise that I destroyed all my copies in the transfer.
I'm betting here that most people don't buy copyright material with the intent of immediate resale, unless they're in that business, and such distributors can be accomodated -- first sale doctrine, while convenient for individuals, first arose because of the desire of department stores to sell books.
Transcription is more problematic. Say you have an encrypted high-resolution .wav file, and you want to have an encrypted, high-resolution .mp3 or .oog file instead, for convenience. You need access to the full-resolution unencrypted data. The only solution I see, is a "transcoder" device, similar to a transcrypter, that permits the loading of signed transcription code to effect the transformation.
Transcription code could be developed and signed by personal certificates, and used for personal content -- no problem. However, a different signing authority would have to sign it for use with AA controlled material. Yeah, that's a hassle, but likely one that would be undertaken by a manufacturer of the equipment that accepts the transcrypted content: MP3 player manufacturers, for example. It would be part of the package you get when you buy the MP3 player (and yes, this generally means that you'd have to have widespread format standardization). About the only loser here, would be the individual who'd want to rip his encrypted CDs to MP3s on his home or portable computer. But, why bother? In the home computer case, it could easily contact the server that holds the bloated encrypted WAV files, and send them to the secure sound card, or speakers (I know few who compress audio for home network reasons). The portable case is a bit more problematic, but perhaps portable manufacturers would be accomodating and provide appropriately signed transcription code.
Basically, this would cramp the application of no formats to existing content, without the content-provider's permission. That may not necessarily be bad, since it would also allow the content provider control over transcribed fidelity. Furthermore, such transcription is usually a case of compression to accomodate storage or bandwidth limitations. I see both those pressures easing. Finally, there would be nothing preventing the compression of a reduced resolution signal that's available as plaintext (which would compress well, I'd think -- in fact the reduced resolution format for audio might very well be 64 kb/s MP3).
"My take is that if the DRM can be defeated, there is no right to prevent such defeat, if it enables some fair use uses. However, if DRM is such that it is impossible to do so, then some accomodation to facilitate exercise of traditional fair use is required."
Agreed. This would require some changes to the DMCA and the EU Infosoc directive, so let's stop arguing and start lobbying. :)
Those are very bad laws, and would certainly have to have major parts repealed for any kind of DRM to be acceptable, yes. Lobbying? Sure, but somehow "No DRM!" isn't likely to be as effective as "Not THIS DRM!" But, for the latter to work, a DRM alternative has to be proposed, hence my "devil's advocate" stance. Make no mistake, I think the proposals on the table today reek of the worst kind of bought legislation.
Actually, the best argument against any form of DRM is that the piracy it prevents is likely far less costly than the implementation costs of any kind of acceptable DRM, as I've outlined. However, technology does get cheaper over time.
Nowhere do they address "perfect copies". So, while you might have a right to make a perfect copy, I don't see an obligation on the part of a copyright holder to make it possible for you to have one, only that you can make "some" copy, sufficient for criticism, parody, etc.
Huh? I thought I did: you can make as many perfect copies of encrypted material as you want, assuring your ability to time- and space-shift. I've been corresponding in a different thread than yours, so perhaps I addressed that issue there. The sticky point isn't one of perfect copies, it's one of perfect full-resolution unencrypted copies.
I'd be perfectly willing to fight for the right to have "perfect copies", but as you say - there is no firm support for that view in current legislation.
Yes, and I'd be willing to forgo the right to perfect unencrypted copies as long as I can time- and space-shift encrypted copies and make "reasonable" reduced-resolution extracts for parody or criticism. Would you trade the present technical ability to do this, albeit at often great inconvenience in exchange for the facilitated ability to do this if some fair uses were rendered impossible? I'm not so sure the answer is a clear no. "It depends," as they say.
But there is also nothing in the legislation that says that you are _not_ entitled to perfect copies for fair use purposes, so as a matter of law it seems like it is an undecided issue and as a matter of precedent we (afaik) only have the Kaplan ruling.
While you may be entitled to make perfect copies under present fair use doctrine (and Kaplan makes that iffy), there is no obligation that the copyright holder facilitate this. So yes, you may, but if you can't, tough.
"Fair use" is not an exhaustive list. When a court is called upon to determine if something is fair use or copyright infringement they use the four step test:
1. What is the character of the use? 2. What is the nature of the work to be used? 3. How much of the work will you use? 4. What effect would this use have on the market for the original or for permissions if the use were widespread?
[I dare you to try to implement this as DRM rules :) ]
DRM makes feasable the technical imposibility of exercising some fair uses, however I see nothing that prevents this: just because you may do something, does not mean others have to facilitate your ability to do so -- only that if you do, you have broken no law. IOW, I see nothing in present copyright law that would make AA-envisioned DRM illegal. Horrible, yes, but not illegal. The only reason that the AAs need DRM "law" is because the DRM they intend to deploy will not be unbreakable, and they need the clout of law as a club over fair use that could ber perverted for unfair uses. The worst scenario, and a technically feasable one, is deployment of draconian, unbreakable DRM, without any new laws. The kind of DRM law we need is one that (a) restores fair use rights and repeals odious sections of the DMCA, and (b) establishes that unbreakable technical protections that would excessively restrict fair use rights exercise impossible are not legal. It is precisely because the present fair use guidlines are ambiguous that we can use the "excessively" weasel word above.
What of new fair uses that might arise? The example of the VCR is not a good one, because there the MPAA tried to put an existing genie back in the bottle. It wasn't a case of something that was speculatively possible, but currently technically impossible. However, one can imagine that such cases could arise (though I think the most obvious cases would involve a combination of transcoding, transcription, and time or space-shifting, perhaps multiplexing as well).
In such a case, if the fair use can be identified as unique and novel, and it can be shown that it is of public benefit, and that it is not presently accomodated in any "reasonable" form, the copyright holders must accomodate. I envision this as a signed "patch" that can be obtained to be installed on transcripters, transcoders, or other types of DRM equipment, like display devices. An example might be a "zoom" feature in a TV display. Someone develops it, demonstrates it with material they produce and sign (so the feature is accepted for that material), and, armed with a petition, sues for an authorizing signature. This rests the ambiguity of fair use squarely on the shoulders of copyright holders. Does it stiffle innovation? Only to the extent that it can't be applied to protected material as quickly as one might like, but one would think that an enterprising organization would step in to fill that need commercially if it believed the demand was strong enough.
So. if Sony had not included a 'record' button on the Betamax, it is likely that the supreme court would never have had the opportunity to decide whether time shifting of TV broadcasts was a fair use or not. If I remember correctly, the fair use-ness of time shifting had not been determined by the courts prior to Universal vs Sony so this ruling actually _created_ the time shifting right.
New technology create new opportunities for using copyrighted works. By using DRM to prevent many acts, the courts are not given the possibility to decide which of these acts are fair use.
See above. However, instead of the copyright holder being plaintif in such cases, they'd be defendent. To keep the cost barrier of bringing a suit low enough, perhaps they would have to fund a "fair use" escrow account, so if a court agreed to hear a case, funding for the plaintif, in the public interest, would be available. Ah, the cost of DRM "rights" grows ever higher (like I said, acceptable DRM might be more expensive than supposed piracy).
For example, one new potential right might be "storage shifting". I buy some music, and want to be able to access it from anywhere. I upload the music to 'mp3storage.com', and they give me an username/password so that I, and only I, can access the music from any Internet-connected device. Is this a 'fair use'? Maybe, maybe not.
I'd say it is. But this is trivial: you'd upload the encrypted version, and there'd be no need for password protection. A more complex case is someone already having the content, and transcrypting it for you, at a remote location, because you have proven that you have a right to it.
Obviously I can't envision all possible fair uses that might be preemptively stifled by DRM, but I think, other than first sale, I've addressed the major ones.
But, to recap, "acceptable" DRM would require, (a)repeal of many provisions of the DMCA, (b) explicit support in DRM equipment for the exercise of recognized fair use rights, including, but not limited to acceptable extract, space- and time-shifting (without requring networked authentication), authorized transcription and transcoding; (c) a low-cost (to the public) legal framework for explicitly facilitating new fair uses as recognized by the courts; (d) the ability to self-sign or not-sign material so as to essentially make it unrestricted with regard to existing DRM mechanisms (allowing exploration of possible new fair uses).
I think that's a tall order. I think it is technically feasable, and doesn't conflict with existing law (other than sections of the DMCA, which probably already conflict with fair use provisions of copyright law). It certainly wouldn't give the AAs everything they want, but, in certain narrow capacities, it would give them far more, and permit new securely distributed applications to be deployed (ironically, while that may be the best example of DRM in the public interest, it does not require all the content-protecting mechanisms the AAs want).
"It appears that you wish to only give AAs legal recourse against copyright violators, and not technical recourse."
Correct.
Please keep in mind that technology might also make it easier for them to discover copyright infringement online. To participate in massive copyright infringement, I have to make it easy for other people to find the material. This will also make it easier for rightholders to find me (think infringement-searching spiders on the web and P2P networks). Paired with DMCA'esque notice-and-takedown systems and a kind of copyright small-claims court, the rightholders will not be without teeth.
I think this is unrealistic. The technology exists, and even without law to close the weaknesses in poor implementations, it can be used with no new laws. If anything, we need new law to keep fair use possible. Such law could (and if it is to "keep up with the times", should) address DRM as well.
You are right about rightsholders not being without teeth, and I think those legal recourses would be sufficient to deal with widespread blatant abuse of permitted fair uses, like reduced-resolution extracts being traded online via P2P networks. However, if these are the only recourses rightsholders have, they can't go after grey-area abuse: sharing with a small number of friends (note, my approach permits the taking of a transcoder to a friend's house, along with your encrypted content, to play at a party there), for example. Should that be a fair use? Perhaps... it certainly is common enought that the public does not oppose it. If such limited sharing were recongnized as a fair use then much of the case for content-protecting DRM would go away. I don't think that will happen.
Going after the infringers instead of killing P2P service providers and spending a lot of money on developing and pushing DRM systems is - in my book - a better solution.
It may very well be. Like I said, acceptable DRM is likely complex and expensive to deploy. However, in the absence of any action, some kind of DRM is sure to be legislated. I think the kind of action that would be most effective is not "No DRM!", but rather, "DRM? Fine, just do it this way". That presents us as "reasonable" and "willing to compromise" and allows exposure of the perils and pitfalls of what rightsholders propose. It also raises the posibility of entrenching fair use abilities, not just rights in law, when it comes to DRM -- something which I think we don't have now.
At some point, unbreakable DRM will be cheap enough to deploy, without needing any new legislation (to cover the technical weaknesses). Then we will have no fair use abilities, but all the fair use rights -- not much good. I'd rather start to reign it in now, so that when it becomes a reality, legal protections for our ability to excercize fair use are in place.
No. Depending on the content, different key signing authorities for the DRM-aware hardware might be recognized, including self-signed ones.
Of course, the major content providers will only recognize DRM hardware signed by sources they trust.
You're suggesting that PKI puts great power in the hands of certificate signing bodies. I don't buy that. The real danger is if DRM-aware devices refused to accept unsigned content (something the AAs want). I would never accept such a state of affairs.
So any "fair use" that requires copying outside the DRM black box will have to be analog. I'm sorry, but that doesn't actually make me jump with joy.
No, not necessarily analog: a reduced resolution digital copy, perhaps without interactive components, would be possible, and I'd say required so that fair use criticism and parody were possible.
[On a related note - many pirates don't give a shit about quality anyway, so the net will still be full of warez. DRM won't stop those that _want_ to commit copyright infringement, so its main function will be to make legal use of works cumbersome]
I don't buy the argument that such inferior copies would appeal to people who would otherwise pay for the real thing. Of course, the AAs disagree. DRM can stop the redistribution of copies better than those allowed to be distributed.
The problem here is that reasonable DRM must allow (and, indeed facilitate), the making of extracts of "low" resolution copies good enough for reasonable fair use criticism and parody, and yet disallow the making of copies of a resolution high enough to upset the copyright holder. The intersection of these two ranges may very well be null.
I don't think consumers need perfect copies for criticism or parody, but I do think they should be able to time- and space-shift uncrippled copies.
Also, see this article by Fred von Lohmann
I will research it, thanks.
I know Kaplan said as much in the Remeirdes case, but are there other court rulings that also support the argument that you are not entitled to full/original quality?
That was the case I was thinking of. But there are two issues here:
1. Whether it is legal for someone to make extracts of any resolution, and;
2. Whether the copyright holder should be obliged to make them available or make it possible for them to be obtained.
I think that (1) should be a given, though DRM may well make it a technical, and possibly legal impossibility. However, (2) is a sticky issue: when VCRs were introduced, there was no legal requirement to have a record button -- neither was it found illegal to provide one.
What DRM changes is that it is now technically possible to make equipment with an "unencrypted full-resolution output" (the analog to the "record" button, as it were) impossible to produce.
So, while one might have a fair use right, it would be impossible to exercise. Does that mean that DRM infringes on fair use rights? I don't think so: fair use is a right of the consumer to use the content in certain ways, and an obligation of the copyright holder to not interfere with such use, but I don't think it is an obligation on the copyright holder to ensure that such use is possible.
What it does mean is that exercising such fair use rights is now impossible for technical, rather than legal reasons. Is this an imbalance that needs to be redressed?
When I indicated that DRM implementations must remove all restrictions when the copyright expires, I was thinking of that as part of redress for this imbalance. Unless the content is licensed to you and not merely protected by copyright, the copyright holder no longer has legal control, and it stands to reason that mechanisms employed to exert that control during the interval of copyright protection must now be removed, rather like a lien lifted in property that secures a debt, when the debt is repaid.
An extention of this idea is the notion of requiring the ability for the consumer to exercise some fair use rights during the copyright interval, i.e. reduced-resolution extracts, etc. In a way, this goes further than traditional fair use, in that a provider of an electronic "book would now be obliged to provide the equivalent of a "photocopier", albeit a poor one. Currently no such obligation exists.
"Note, that you generally can't do HD time-shifting today, so DRM would not "take away" that ability.
DRM could possibly "take away" my ability to do so in the future.
Before the VCR, I didn't have the ability to time-shift broadcast programming either, so by the above logic I would not have lost anything if the MPAA had been successful in forcing Sony to not include a 'record' button on the VCR.
Not the same thing: it was technically possible for Sony to do this, and the court ruled correctly (though barely so). DRM could make manufacturing such a device technically impossible, though I'd expect that the AAs want a combination of imperfect DRM that requires legal and not technical teeth to ensure that such devices are not made. My take is that if the DRM can be defeated, there is no right to prevent such defeat, if it enables some fair use uses. However, if DRM is such that it is impossible to do so, then some accomodation to facilitate exercise of traditional fair use is required.
This starts to get into issues of semantics: I say that accomodating the ability to produce output with a resolution that you could get before is sufficient on the grounds that this is as good resolution as you had. You appear to say, that "No, this is not the case, because I could make perfect copies before, and can't now." Fair use provisions of copyright law address extracts, criticism, citation, and parody. Nowhere do they address "perfect copies". So, while you might have a right to make a perfect copy, I don't see an obligation on the part of a copyright holder to make it possible for you to have one, only that you can make "some" copy, sufficient for criticism, parody, etc.
Advances in technology create opportunities for rightholders to sell new products, and it also create new opportunities for fair use. DRM will preserve the rightholders' benefits of new technology, but might to a large extent deny the creation of new fair use rights.
What new rights? I can see new ways to exercize fair use rights (i.e. time- and space-shifting, i.e. with a VCR) but the rights do not change (making personal copies, in this case).
"I reiterate that the problem isn't DRM per say, but just what particular rights are being managed, and whether they're reasonable."
I don't agree.
DRM and related legislation will pose a large threat to innovation, encryption and security research and will blunt the development of fair use.
I think it's the "related legislation" that will cause the harm in this area, and not DRM. The problem as I see it is two fold: (1) Properly implemented DRM can make exercising fair use rights of any kind technically impossible -- I addressed this above when I suggested that DRM legislation mandate that copyright holders are obliged to make possible what the technilogy might prevent in this area. (2) Improperly implemented DRM would make exercize of fair use possible, but would likely be accompanied by legislation making it illegal. That latter scenario leads to the stiffling effect you describe. Alas, proplery implemented DRM requires a security infrastructure that pervades consumer, network, and output devices to a degree that just does not exist yet, and would require a massive rebuild. Note that there's no need to introduce it in general purpose computers (except, perhaps sound and video cards), or, more importantly, storage devices. Interactive HDTV could drive such a rebuild, but I don't think it likely.
Pay per view/use also raise potential privacy problems.
This presumes that time-shifting will become a thing of the past. I'm arguing that it shouldn't, and the market values it too much to let that happen. Furthermore, anonymous proxies and digital case can take care of the privacy issue.
Copyright holders don't have the right to eliminate "fair-use" of material that we legally acquire, then toss us a few scraps and expect us to be grateful.
What material? You can copy and look at the encrypted bits all you want! You can even decrypt them if you can. Oh, you mean that if you send them to a certain "magic" box, you get to see and hear interesting stuff?
Yes, the AAs want to eliminate time-shifting, and make everything pay-per-view. Yes, DRM makes it technically possible to do this. I think the market for such ephemeral content will be very small though. Properly implemented, DRM can be used to protect content redistribution, and give you the full-resolution time and space shifting you want.
The AAs are saying, in effect, "We can't prevent copyright violation unless we eliminate fair use, and we envision a form of DRM that can do this." I'm suggesting that, yes, DRM can prevent copyright violation, but without substantially infringing on fair use, but it is much harder to do this, and far more expensive. The sticky issue really only centers around extracts for criticism and parody. The AAs want to elimiate them completely.
It appears that you wish to only give AAs legal recourse against copyright violators, and not technical recourse. I think this is unrealistic: they will lobby hard for the kind of blunt technical recourse that we'd both find horrible, because it is cheap, and easy to implement. It would also be technically ineffective, requireing DMCA-like legal buttressing. The question boils down to "What fair-use impediments are acceptable so that copyright violation can be curbed in an era of great interconnectivity?" I don't think that lower-resolution uncrypted extracts for wide distribution (ostentiably for parody or criticism) is too high a price to pay if it means I can time- and space-shift full-resolution content, and be assured that it will automatically enter the public domain when copyright expires.
Current copyright law (except the horrid DMCA) was written in the pre-digital world. In that world, it was inconceivable that the copyright holder would be able to control what you do with your legally acquired copy in your own home.
And understandable that they'd want to, were a technical solution available. There is one now, and our only choise is whether it will be implemented as a bludgeon or a scalpel.
Therefore, it made no sense to require that rightholders make it easy/possible for the customer to be able to benefit from fair use/copyright exemptions.
And I accept that the balance for foolproof DRM is an obligation to accomodate fair use to the consumer -- an obligation that does not currently exist. Thus, such accomodation need not be as ideal as if DRM did not exist.
I think that present law is on the side of the AAs here: there is no current legal requirement to ensure that technology is not used that makes exercizing fair use rights impossible. DRM could certainly be deployed that way, but it doesn't have to be.
Because, unfortunately, the courts have recognized this argument. A photocopy, for example, is never a perfect copy of the original (though noise is not the same thing as resolution, you get the idea), but it is acceptable.
While you may have a "right" to a perfect extract, I don't see an obligation to provide you with one.
We should have fair-use access to whatever we purchased in whatever resolution we have purchased it in. If I buy a HDTV quality version of something, why should I be forced to try and use an analog VHS quality version to do my research?
480p, even 480i, is hardly "VHS quality". It depends on the nature of the research, of course, but for casual fair use, 1080i is likely not necessary. And remember, you did not "purchase" the content, you "licensed" it, unless you reject the notion of copyright entirely. To put it bluntly, no one owes you a high definition TV broadcast, though having paid to see one, it stands to reason that you should be able to do things like time-shift it at full resolution, or extract all or part of it for parody, or criticism at reduced resolution at the very least. Note, that you generally can't do HD time-shifting today, so DRM would not "take away" that ability.
I think you could make a stronger case for significantly reduced periods of copyright protection, and that I would very much support.
Again, I reiterate that the problem isn't DRM per say, but just what particular rights are being managed, and whether they're reasonable.
When I purchase a book, my photocopier isn't limited to 75% scale, slightly fuzzy copies. I can space/time/resample my audio CD-ROM collection in all of its full digital glory, I'm not limited to 128bit mpg quality, or analog cassette quality.
And you wouldn't be with sane DRM either, as long as you did not try to redustribute the result: your copy would be keyed to you, with reasonable was of replicating "you" in the equipment you own now or later.
So, once again I ask, why should I be forced to deal with this stupidity; "... you can extract everything so you might as well permit lower resolution plaintext access. We're already seeing this today with HDTV set-top decoders that can conditionally downsample HD broadcasts to SD for display via analog RGB signals..."
Ask yourself why content providers should deal with the "stupidity" of your desire? They don't owe you anything except a non-fraudulent business transaction and a product or service that is convenient to consume. Badly implemented DRM would make timeshifting or personal archival copies impossible. Properly implemented DRM might result in "reduced" audio and video resolution on redistibuted extracts that's as good as the analog stuff you see today. Badly implemented DRM would prevent people from accomodating your desires with less restrictions because all content would have to be protected with a controlled and licensed scheme. That is the horror that is necessary to avoid, and which the AAs want to make a reality: the retention of an oligopoly on distribution.
Copyright holders don't have the right to eliminate "fair-use" of material that we legally acquire, then toss us a few scraps and expect us to be grateful.
But neither do they have to provide the technology so that exercise of those rights is convenient or easy.
If you buy that argument, then VCR's CDR's, and photocopiers should be illegal.
Not true! Only that VCRs, CDRs, and photocopiers don't have to be made to facilitate perfect copies to redistribute to others unless the copyright holder permits as long as the copyright is in force.
You can always take notes when you are watching that television show or movie, perhaps make a few sketches, like those courtroom sketches you always see, if you need to comment or parody. You want to space shift that song, memorize it and sing it to yourself in the car, surely you don't have fair use rights to the music that you own (at least not in the format that you have purchased it in), no one is stopping you from humming in the shower, in the yard, or even to your children at night.
And, properly deployed DRM would have to make sure that you could time and space shift content for your consumption via equipment that you own. It only gets touchy when you try to redistribute.
As for photocopiers, they only exist to help people infringe copyrights.
Hardly. If that were the case, they'd be illegal. The courts have held (in the U.S., at least) that so long as there is at least one non-infringing use, even the preponderance of infringing uses does not render the tool illegal. Sadly, the Napster case goes against this precedent.
If you need to make a copy you can just copy it yourself, by hand. If you aren't up to the task, I hear that large groups of men, I think they were called monks, used to copy and illuminate (that means copy the pictures too) books and maps in special buildings, monasteries right?
Yes, and for the logest time, they had perpetual copyright to do so! Of course, until Gutenberg invented the press, the technology didn't really exist for this "right" to be infringed.
If you want to make "fair-use" of a book, then obviously you wouldn't mind laboriously copying it by hand, right
Depends on the nature of the fair use. But the existence of the book does not require that my convenience in exercising my fair use rights be certain, only that if I exercise those rights, I have not broken any law.
I look at it this way: when life hands you a lemon, make lemonaide. I suppose one could wish for the whole DRM debate to disappear, but technology does not go away: if something can be done, it will be done. I'm fairly sure that DRM will become a reality, and our only option is to shape the nature of that reality.
Yes. Such rules would have to benefit the "consumer" of protected material. I'd expect that citation, extract for review, criticism, and parody, would be permitted with, perhaps, reduced resolution. It may not be what the AAs want, but that's the best DRM they should get.
The 'best' solution is an interoperable DRM system that exists in your PC and any other consumer electronics device in your home - your TiVO, your portable music player, your PDA. This would make DRM-incompatible players or storage devices close to worthless in the marketplace, thus creating an environment where DRM functionality will be a requirement for new equipment (required by market force, not by law - but the result would be the same).
I have come to, and written about, a similar conclusion: trusted DRM entities will exchange encrypted data between themselves, with final decryption for viewing and audio playback, right down to "protected" windows on computer displays managed on the video cards.
Will this make current non-DRM aware equipment obsolete? Certainly, but not right away: fair use rights would necessitate extracts for criticism, parody, etc. If you can extract something, you can extract everything so you might as well permit lower resolution plaintext access. We're already seeing this today with HDTV set-top decoders that can conditionally downsample HD broadcasts to SD for display via analog RGB signals (which is pretty good, actually). Future versions might go to great lengths to protect compressed versions of higher-resolution streaming content, with embedded interactive components (i.e. hyperlinks on program product placements) that offer an "enhanced" experience.
This is an interesting point. Clearly if there is to be digital rights management, then the rights so managed must be possible to be managed digitally. This includes all fair use rights, and not just the rights of the copyright holder. My essay touched upon this, albeit tangentially, where I noted that it was the responsibility of the DRM implementer to ensure that the restrictions enforced are not unconstitutional.
I was mostly concerned with with the use of encryption to restrict unlawful republication, and frankly, did not think about parody, or other fair use rights: like extraction for criticism. I do think that such rights can be met via lower resolution unencrypted extracts, though. There is no technology that can prevent them anyway, short of a direct source to consumer's brain interface. Ironically, printed text may be the hardest to "protect" this way (when compared to audio or video), for lack of the notion of "resolution". However, the current DRM battles are not being fought over text, but rather music and movies.
2. DRM does more than enforce an agreement, it allows the creation of unreasonable agreements that extend beyond those anticipated by copyright law.
I am a libertarian, therefore I see no justification for restricting the agreements into which people may enter -- one of the costs of liberty is vigilance about one's relationships with others. One would think that DRM implementations that were excessively one-sided would not bear the brunt of the market. However, we do not live in a libertarian society, and governments pass laws regarding rights that are "inalienable". Again, DRM implementations would have to respect such inalianable rights. Specifically, DRM could not be used to bypass copyright expirations, and, in fact, would be required to enforce such expirations.
Call for inalienable fair use rights then, and insist that DRM implementations respect them.
DRM need not be as exclusively beneficial to copyright holders as you fear, any more than traditional copyrights were. The problem is one of erosion of fair use rights and not DRM per se. There is no technical reason why DRM can not enforce fair use as much as it enforces copyright. In fact, your first objection suggests that DRM give preference to fair use over copyright, if anything.
No. Really, a case can be made for DRM... just not the DRM envisioned by the cronies at the various AAs out there.
Let's examine all the bad things about DRM:
1. It kills fair use. Well, yes, but that's an implementation detail. It need not have to. In fact, I'd argue that it should be legislated that any mandatory DRM mechanism should protect fair use rights (and I generally hate more laws). That this scenario is unlikely is an attribute of the political climate and intense content provider lobbying rather than a defect of the principles of DRM. But, imagine a DRM mechanism which automatically releases copyright material into the public domain when the copyright term expires.
2. It stifles "sharing" and enforces "property" rights on things which shouldn't be property. True, but that is a legal and philosophical debate. The fact is that people are generally willing to accept restricted licenses for using something in order to pay less to have access. IOW, I can either pay an artist big bucks to record an album for me, or hope he records one, and don't undercut his efforts to sell them for $10 a pop once I have my copy. A third option, popular in the 1950s for classical music recordings, is to have content produced by prior subscription: when enough subscriptions are sold, the recording is made and distributed to the subscribers. This strikes at the nature of copyright itself, and whether it should have a moral and legal basis. While the existing terms are outrageous, and the music industry probably does gouge artists, DRM is nothing more than a tool for enforcing an agreement. It is the reasonableness of the agreement that should be examined, not the tool.
3. DRM stifles creation of independent content and raises the barrier to entry for independent artists. This is true if (a) DRM use is always mandated, (b) content is difficult or expensive to protect, and/or (c) content designed for mass distribution is difficult or expensive to protect. If this is the case, then clearly DRM is being exploited to restrict access to production and distribution channels: it may prevent you from making an unprotected video for your grandmother or it may prevent you from streaming samples of your music free to anyone in order to get recognized. I don't discount this as a goal of the nefarious AAs out there. However, that's clearly abuse of a monopoly or oligopoly and should be exposed as such.
4. People are too stupid to realize what they are about to lose -- they don't understand how bad DRM could be. Yes, people are stupid. Just look at what leaders democracies elect. But if we "hacking 3l337e" are incapable of educating them, then some of the blame falls on our shoulders. It may be tough, but replacing "stupid" above with "ignorant" (which is a curable condition) would not be a bad start. I am not suggesting this is easy: the public has been conditioned to accept restrictions of civil liberties in the name of preventing future crime (witness the whole DMCA fiasco and post-9/11/2001 "bend over while I rape your rights" hysteria). Yet, when it comes to accepting legislation regarding potentially very oppressive technologies, the state is generally "trusted". Nevertheless, attempts have to be made, including educating what few legislators may not have been bought yet, and are sympathetic to our concerns.
5. DRM will cause me to lose control of my computer. It will become a glorified TV. Again, this is certainly possible. However, DRM could also permit your computer to cache content that you have not yet licensed but are likely to, or keep secure other people's content. The issue isn't so much, Digital Rights ement, but rather the scope of what is Managed. No, it shouldn't be the whole computer.
That's still a lot of reasons to be wary about DRM as it's envisioned today. All the responses to concerns above are of the "yeah, but it doesn't have to be that way" form, and until we are sure it won't be that way, we are wise to be distrustful. But, it helps to look at a case where DRM would make perfect sense.
Webcam Now offers free hosting and download of webcam images, and text and voice chat services. Their site caters to "Friends and Family" (hmm, I smell a trademark infringement suit) as well as "Unmonitored" sections (yes, mostly free amateur exhibitionist porn). Anyone can get an account and upload images to their heart's content, to be served up to Java applets in viewers' browsers. The "free" view rate is 6 frames per minute, and a "pay" rate of 60 frames per minute is available for (I think) US$9.95 a month. This is rather generous, Jennicam updates free images at the rate of once every 15 minutes. Smart move, actually -- they're basically selling bandwidth on the basis of desired content that costs them nothing.
The (black) hack potential is obvious: say I don't want to pay $10 a month, but still want a frame per second refresh or I want to roll my own client (white hack). How can Webcam Now throttle access to their data? More importantly, how can they prevent me from redistributing the images I get?
The obvious answer is an authenticated communication channel that permits faster request rates and an encrypted channel between their image servers and my display. This does not make it impossible to capture what the display shows, but likely makes it difficult enough to thwart casual infringement and severely affect the resolution of what I capture.
Without DRM used to keep the image data secret between their servers and my display, those images could be redistributed anywhere. What if someone scrapes them for their own paid "amateur porn" site outside of the legal jurisdictions where Webcam Now operates? While I'm sure the exhibitionists who use Webcam Now's services don't mind being seen, they'd probably be pretty miffed if someone's making a tidy profit from their free shows: the $9.95 a month probably seems reasonable for Webcam Now to collect per fast viewer to pay for the bandwidth, but heck, if the viewership justifies image scrapers, why not set up their own adult site? They'd leave Webcam Now, and much of the fast-streaming revenue would dry up. While some might exploit the exposure in order to break into the professional porn industry, the true amateurs would probably be upset: somehow being presented as an "unmonitored" video is different than being scraped and represented as "hard core slutty filth". I'd bet that paid fast-streaming porn subsidizes much of the free slow-streaming parts of that site, including the "family" stuff.
On a related note, what if a couple want to do a private long-distance "show" for eachother? Whether they chose to record their cyber-sexcapades or not, they'd probably like the content to remain unviewable except on certain equipment, lest it be redistributed. DRM to the rescue.
Given that the pornography industry seams to be one of the early adopters of new technology (it is rumoured that it fueled the demand for VCRs), perhaps it should drive how DRM is implemented and deployed.
The other aspect of this is controlled access to bandwidth. As it stands, Webcam Now uses trivial encryption on their images, and trusted Java applets to not pull images faster than permitted. While an authenticated session could result in traffic throttled at the source, this requires the server to enforce the stream-throttling policy. As anyone knows, the less a server has to do, the better it scales. Letting the client enforce the access rate policy is a step in this direction. However, once the client application is cracked, it's game over. The current solution involves either accepting the policy enforcement on the part of each server, or a multi-tiered approach where dedicated aggregation and policy servers sit between client machines and data servers. This works rather well, but increases operating costs: the more work you can off-load to the client, the cheaper your operation becomes. However, securely off-loading access policies to client PCs is not possible without DRM.
So, where does this leave us? DRM certainly has legitimate uses, and need not be overbearing or invasive. In fact, it should be deployed in very restricted areas, where secure computing or encrypted content needs to be managed. Example include secure client-side web proxies, display, and audio devices (though it's value in the latter is questionable since "adequate" resolution analog recording is so easy). It should not be a ubiquitious part of a central processor, nor should it enforce draconian measures that are unconstitutional. The burden of complying with constitutional fair use rights should lie with the DRM implementer.
<flame suit off>
Source control should be somebody's job, if only to ensure that you can rebuild the binaries you make and have backups as necesary. Version control is a logical extention of this.
Whenever something is somebody's job, they're gonna set down rules. Sometimes these rules need to be locally broken in a way that doesn't affect others. This need not be trivial, but it should be possible. It seams reasonable that if an individual developer needs a custom fork to try something for a few days, they should learn a bit of the source control system so they know how to do it. This does not mean that all developers need to be experts in that system.
Clearcase can do all that, to be sure, but the emphasis is on reserved checkouts, so the "lots of readers, few committers" sourceforge-style model can't be applied without some tweaking. The whole notion of a read-only VOB bucks the way Clearcase is intended to be used.
As for CVS, I never suggested it scales better, though, in some cases, it's lower overhead might make it seam that way. In fact, I liked working with Clearcase, but it didn't strike me as a tool that was good for projects with large numbers (say, hundreds, or thousands) of contributors, on large projects, unless you segmented the project (which you should do anyway).
The combination of project segmentation and Multisite might be a winning combination, though.
The biggest "problems" with Clearcase are the steep learning curve (though I have found learning CVS after Clearcase a pain because of what it lacks (directories as objects, views, etc.) and labeling overhead.
You roll your own when you really want for fork something off the main branch and need to preferentially select your changes over mainstream development.
You get into trouble when you have inexperienced Clearcase admins not knowing what they're doing (and this is understandable, given the learning curve steepness), or worse, developers left to their own devices.
Clearcase really is a tool for a team lead to use to manage the various forks of their project.
Clearcase certinly benefits from having a build manager on hand who knows Clearcase. Personally, I always thought the team lead should have this skill. The learning curve is steep though, and it is easy to fsck yourself up badly if you don't know what you are doing. The best advice in that case is "stop, read, learn, try to undo what you did. Rinse, lather, Rrepeat."
Clearcase scales well across multiple projects (well, DUHH!), but not well within a project.
Been there, done that.