I frankly think they'd be better off with digital signatures of songs that didn't prevent any amount of copying. Because most people wouldn't be willing to put a song on the P2P network if it had their name and address embedded in the file.
That's not much different from the way things currently are. You can put FairPlay-encrypted tracks on P2P networks as easily as any other file. There is no limit to the number of copies.
But more importantly, simple "digital signatures" wouldn't work because then anybody could remove them with even less hassle than DRM. And if they were encrypted or embedded in some way that applications wouldn't play it without the signature in place, you would have to have to somehow ensure they're all "trusted" applications -- you would have just reinvented DRM.
It makes something simple (listen to a CD, loan it to a friend, rip it to use on iPod) into something complicated with rules that never existed before.
Like what? If I burn a CD of DRMed music, it no longer has DRM. Also, since when is letting your friends rip your CDs fair use?
But being allowed to break it when necessary allows many people to make "fair use" of the recordings in ways that the DRM would otherwise prevent.
There is no reason that a properly designed DRM system would prevent fair use. iTunes/FairPlay tracks, to use the best example, are intended to have the DRM removed for those fair use purposes where the DRM cannot be preserved -- the only caveat being that you can't do it losslessly. This, I think, is probably the right way to go. Is there some fair use precedent that says you have to be able to make use of the recording losslessly?
As much as I think the DMCA is a highly abuse-prone law, I think the better and more probable solution is sensible DRM systems that you never need to break to exercise your rights.
We should be able to use anti-DRM programs to fight the recording industry.
Actually, you should use your money to tell them what you will and won't accept. I think that's the way it's supposed to work.
Obviously that is not worth re-licensing what we already have, right?
You have understood part of what "licensing" means but not the other part. You don't own the content, obviously, but you also don't own a blanket license to the content. What you're paying for, really, is a license to use the content in certain specific ways. Mostly "stuff your DVD player can do" and little else. So the license you possess for a film on DVD does not extend to that film on HD-DVD. (You also can't, for instance, screen it in a public venue, even though there is no technical reason you couldn't. So there's no sense in arguing that this is an artificial restriction; after all, we already have plenty of them.)
Just as owning an LP doesn't entitle you to a free CD, owning a DVD does not entitle you to an HD-DVD.
So the time Gnome has been playing catchup is time Vista has been using to move ahead.
This isn't quite true. GNOME's doing a lot of stuff already that's in Vista and Mac OS X, like content searching and "smart folders", and hardware compositing (Xgl). In some places they're still behind even XP, but in others they're skipping the intermediate steps and going straight to the new way of doing things.
That's not an example of Apple threatening people over hacking Mac OS X:
So that's the story. Apple doesn't "have it in" for our site; they were simply concerned with a few links posted by our members. Those links have been removed and we're back." -- osx86project.org
There were links to pirated copies of Mac OS X. That's not the same thing as "threatening anybody".
Except that it'll take the actual pirates all of 30 minutes to defeat every single copy protection system the content owners can put in place.
Not only is this not true, but it wouldn't matter if it were.
Meanwhile, regular people who want to watch the latest movie they bought from best buy, only to find that the $10,000 entertainment system they bought a year ago is inadequate, will get screwed.
1) This has not happened. 2) The story is about how this won't be happening in the future. 3) If your HD set doesn't have a digital input, you bought it much more than one year ago. 4) If you spent $10,000 on an entertainment system, you're a goddamn idiot.
Now throw DRM into the mix and what am I going to buy? A DRM enabled chip that costs more, or a chip that is DRM-Free, costs less, and performs better?
If you're looking for "DRM-free" you're not going to find it from AMD. AMD is a founding member of the Trusted Computing Group, along with Intel, and is building the exact same functionality into their processors.
Hackers get OSX86 up and running on Dells with relative ease, despite Apple's best efforts to prevent them from doing so.
When one of Apple's defences was to include poetry in one of the files you have to modify, I would not say they made their "best effort." Apple's efforts are much more of a deterrent than a barrier. If I remember correctly, the hack involves both pirating the OS and accepting third-party modifications to low-level drivers. That's enough to deter widespread piracy or hacking.
However, they have such a hard time getting Windows to run on a Mac that a contest is started and 13,000 dollars worth of prize money is offered.
Just to be clear, the difficulty was entirely on the side of Windows and had nothing to do with Apple preventing Windows from running.
I'm surprised to see people going in the opposite direction that GTA did insofar as raciness considering they had the most successful game.
I wouldn't be so surprised considering The Sims has sold in excess of 10 million copies. A few million more than GTA:Vice City. Consider also what makes both of them fun: the openness and the different styles of play.
A lot of people look at GTA and see a game where the object is to kill as many people as possible, but if you play the game you find that this is a poor strategy. Likewise people see The Sims and are quick to assume it's all about buying better and better furniture, another poor strategy.
If you really play them, more possibilities open up, and the game becomes more complex, and thus more fun. To excel at GTA you have to get better at driving, evading the police, managing your assets, performing a variety of missions/mini-games. To advance in The Sims you have to get and maintain a job, make friends, form relationships, have children, or do any of the other stuff available in expansion packs.
You can always fall back to stealing cars and running people over, or decorating your house, but that's not the heart of either game.
The article only mentions that Apple would have to allow people to convert their songs into other formats.
They already do. Just not losslessly. Either burn to CD and re-rip or run it through iMovie and export to whatever you like. Even if they were forced to make it easier it wouldn't be a big deal.
This is especially relevant when considering compatibility with other players, most of which don't play AAC at all. You would have to transcode from AAC to MP3 or WMA anyway, which would be no different from the current situation. On the other hand, I don't know of any way to convert WMA to AAC.
They changed the number of CDs you are "allowed" to burn for each song, and the number of computers you are "allowed" to have each song on.
This has happened once. The number of CDs burned for an identical playlist was reduced, while the number of computers you can authorize at once was increased. There has been no change whatsoever in how many copies of the song you can make or where you can put them.
In other words, it's not nearly the big deal you're trying to make it. If Apple were actively preventing Fair Use you might have a point, but they are not.
Contrary to popular belief, these concerns are not being pushed for safety sake, or to protect the world.... they are being pushed to controll the marketplace and lock in monopolies. The sooner people understand that, the better.
It might help them understand if you cite some sort of evidence. As it stands, it sounds like you're just making shit up. That isn't to say you have no reason to be suspicious, but to claim that this is the case is empty without evidence.
How we can get through to these deranged teachers, parents, and psychiatrists?
By finding a way to demonstrate the difference between a chronic disability and willful disobedience. The diagnostic criteria in place obviously are not capable of doing so with a high degree of accuracy. There needs to be a way to conclusively determine whether the will of the patient (not the patients parents or teachers) is being disrupted by the problem. It might help to convince our society to respect the will of it's children first, though.
Once we get that out of the way, then we can start encouraging each (teachers, parents, psychiatrists) to do their job and none other.
Quicktime is just one big potential frustration waiting to happen (not that I'm defending, say, WMP, although at least Microsoft is surprisingly nice enough in that case to leave mplayer2.exe which earns them alot of points in my books).
Windows Media Player and mplayer2.exe both use the same set of codecs. Neither will play something that the other won't. DivX, for example, isn't played by either out of the box. For that matter, neither will play standard MPEG-4.
It just took me 2 computers and "Divx Doctor" to watch a low quality fight video off of video.google.com, that is ridiculous.
Indeed, that is ridiculous, but not for the reason you think. It's because you're an idiot.
Here are things you could have done: 1) Download the right format from Google Video. Given that all of the videos are available in multiple formats, it would make sense to download one that you can actually play. 2) Download the DivX Codec, from the obscure site known as "divx.com", just like you would have done in Windows. 3) Think.
When I tried to play the iMovie my brother made with an iTMS tune of his, QuickTime Player refused to play it on my machine, saying it was "not authorized."
That's really odd. With iMovie alone I can't replicate that at all, in any export format. However, I was able to reproduce it by pasting the track into the already-rendered movie using QuickTime Pro. Perhaps this is what your brother did to add the music. If that's the case, simply doing it in iMovie instead will remove the DRM.
I hope everyone's watching closely as fair use is lying on its deathbed.
TV shows like the Daily Show and Colbert Report depend on their being a large pool of accessible content to discuss and parody.
Says who?
Want to add background music to your home videos? I hope you didn't buy your music online.
Really bad example. iTunes can be added to iMovie videos as easily as any other. In fact, I believe that feature is mentioned specifically on Apple's site. If you're not using iMovie, then yeah, too bad. More reason for Apple to license FairPlay someday. If you're using some other DRM music store, then you've got a lot more problems.
Granted, there is a case to be made for interoperability, but that has never been a part of Fair Use.
Even though this type of use isn't specifically protected under copyright law, it is still felt to be perfectly acceptable by the masses, and courts would probably back it based on the same logic that stopped Hollywood from taking time-shifting away from us.
Time-shifting is not the same thing, not by a long shot. A better precedent would be sampling, which has a much more mixed history.
The future looks bleak for creative works online.
You mean, creative works for whom the creators have explicitly chosen to protect the copyrights through DRM. That isn't all creative works.
Should a work that is only available in a DRM encumbered form still be protected by copyright? If so, why? Why? Because DRM doesn't change anything about what rights the creator has over his work.
Copyright was granted to copyright creators for a limited term, but with DRM, not only do they take away fair use, but they also gain the ability to close up their work forever.
Neither of these claims are true. DRM does not inherently take away Fair Use. It does restrict the channels through which one can exercise Fair Use, but you will find nothing in the law that speaks to this. Also, DRM does not give a copyright holder any rights over his work after the copyright has lapsed. I cannot fathom why you think this is the case.
If prices weren't artificially high, I think a lot of people wouldn't bother pirating clips -- and the whole IP discussion wouldn't be as important.
Copyright, by it's very nature, is a way of making prices artificially high. When you pirate, you're paying no money, but you're violating someone else's rights. Unfortunately, it's been shown that people value their own money more than other people's rights. Price is not the issue. Skewed senses of value and entitlement are.
If, for example, you could download songs you liked at $0.10US each, why bother pirating them?
Because pirating them costs $0.00 each. Or because of the quality. Or because of DRM. Or because it's not in OGG. Or because they just want to stick it to the man. People will always find a reason. It makes no sense whatsoever for business to constantly lower it's prices to appeal to potential customers who see no value in their product.
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe there is even software that can help you in learning to find the right beats in a song?
Just start tapping your foot when you're listening. That's the beat.
I frankly think they'd be better off with digital signatures of songs that didn't prevent any amount of copying. Because most people wouldn't be willing to put a song on the P2P network if it had their name and address embedded in the file.
That's not much different from the way things currently are. You can put FairPlay-encrypted tracks on P2P networks as easily as any other file. There is no limit to the number of copies.
But more importantly, simple "digital signatures" wouldn't work because then anybody could remove them with even less hassle than DRM. And if they were encrypted or embedded in some way that applications wouldn't play it without the signature in place, you would have to have to somehow ensure they're all "trusted" applications -- you would have just reinvented DRM.
It makes something simple (listen to a CD, loan it to a friend, rip it to use on iPod) into something complicated with rules that never existed before.
Like what? If I burn a CD of DRMed music, it no longer has DRM. Also, since when is letting your friends rip your CDs fair use?
But being allowed to break it when necessary allows many people to make "fair use" of the recordings in ways that the DRM would otherwise prevent.
There is no reason that a properly designed DRM system would prevent fair use. iTunes/FairPlay tracks, to use the best example, are intended to have the DRM removed for those fair use purposes where the DRM cannot be preserved -- the only caveat being that you can't do it losslessly. This, I think, is probably the right way to go. Is there some fair use precedent that says you have to be able to make use of the recording losslessly?
As much as I think the DMCA is a highly abuse-prone law, I think the better and more probable solution is sensible DRM systems that you never need to break to exercise your rights.
We should be able to use anti-DRM programs to fight the recording industry.
Actually, you should use your money to tell them what you will and won't accept. I think that's the way it's supposed to work.
Obviously that is not worth re-licensing what we already have, right?
You have understood part of what "licensing" means but not the other part. You don't own the content, obviously, but you also don't own a blanket license to the content. What you're paying for, really, is a license to use the content in certain specific ways. Mostly "stuff your DVD player can do" and little else. So the license you possess for a film on DVD does not extend to that film on HD-DVD. (You also can't, for instance, screen it in a public venue, even though there is no technical reason you couldn't. So there's no sense in arguing that this is an artificial restriction; after all, we already have plenty of them.)
Just as owning an LP doesn't entitle you to a free CD, owning a DVD does not entitle you to an HD-DVD.
So the time Gnome has been playing catchup is time Vista has been using to move ahead.
This isn't quite true. GNOME's doing a lot of stuff already that's in Vista and Mac OS X, like content searching and "smart folders", and hardware compositing (Xgl). In some places they're still behind even XP, but in others they're skipping the intermediate steps and going straight to the new way of doing things.
That's not an example of Apple threatening people over hacking Mac OS X:
So that's the story. Apple doesn't "have it in" for our site; they were simply concerned with a few links posted by our members. Those links have been removed and we're back." -- osx86project.org
There were links to pirated copies of Mac OS X. That's not the same thing as "threatening anybody".
Except that it'll take the actual pirates all of 30 minutes to defeat every single copy protection system the content owners can put in place.
Not only is this not true, but it wouldn't matter if it were.
Meanwhile, regular people who want to watch the latest movie they bought from best buy, only to find that the $10,000 entertainment system they bought a year ago is inadequate, will get screwed.
1) This has not happened.
2) The story is about how this won't be happening in the future.
3) If your HD set doesn't have a digital input, you bought it much more than one year ago.
4) If you spent $10,000 on an entertainment system, you're a goddamn idiot.
you mean like threaten anyone who tries to make it easy to install an x86 operating system on generic x86 hardware?
When have they done this? Cite an example.
Consumers can use a cross-platform, iTunes-like application called Songbird to easily download songs from these sites.
Songbird is not cross-platform. It is currently Windows-only. It also sucks really hard.
Now throw DRM into the mix and what am I going to buy? A DRM enabled chip that costs more, or a chip that is DRM-Free, costs less, and performs better?
If you're looking for "DRM-free" you're not going to find it from AMD. AMD is a founding member of the Trusted Computing Group, along with Intel, and is building the exact same functionality into their processors.
Hackers get OSX86 up and running on Dells with relative ease, despite Apple's best efforts to prevent them from doing so.
When one of Apple's defences was to include poetry in one of the files you have to modify, I would not say they made their "best effort." Apple's efforts are much more of a deterrent than a barrier. If I remember correctly, the hack involves both pirating the OS and accepting third-party modifications to low-level drivers. That's enough to deter widespread piracy or hacking.
However, they have such a hard time getting Windows to run on a Mac that a contest is started and 13,000 dollars worth of prize money is offered.
Just to be clear, the difficulty was entirely on the side of Windows and had nothing to do with Apple preventing Windows from running.
Oh the irony.
Irony does not mean what you think it means.
I'm surprised to see people going in the opposite direction that GTA did insofar as raciness considering they had the most successful game.
I wouldn't be so surprised considering The Sims has sold in excess of 10 million copies. A few million more than GTA:Vice City. Consider also what makes both of them fun: the openness and the different styles of play.
A lot of people look at GTA and see a game where the object is to kill as many people as possible, but if you play the game you find that this is a poor strategy. Likewise people see The Sims and are quick to assume it's all about buying better and better furniture, another poor strategy.
If you really play them, more possibilities open up, and the game becomes more complex, and thus more fun. To excel at GTA you have to get better at driving, evading the police, managing your assets, performing a variety of missions/mini-games. To advance in The Sims you have to get and maintain a job, make friends, form relationships, have children, or do any of the other stuff available in expansion packs.
You can always fall back to stealing cars and running people over, or decorating your house, but that's not the heart of either game.
The article only mentions that Apple would have to allow people to convert their songs into other formats.
They already do. Just not losslessly. Either burn to CD and re-rip or run it through iMovie and export to whatever you like. Even if they were forced to make it easier it wouldn't be a big deal.
This is especially relevant when considering compatibility with other players, most of which don't play AAC at all. You would have to transcode from AAC to MP3 or WMA anyway, which would be no different from the current situation. On the other hand, I don't know of any way to convert WMA to AAC.
They changed the number of CDs you are "allowed" to burn for each song, and the number of computers you are "allowed" to have each song on.
This has happened once. The number of CDs burned for an identical playlist was reduced, while the number of computers you can authorize at once was increased. There has been no change whatsoever in how many copies of the song you can make or where you can put them.
In other words, it's not nearly the big deal you're trying to make it. If Apple were actively preventing Fair Use you might have a point, but they are not.
Contrary to popular belief, these concerns are not being pushed for safety sake, or to protect the world .... they are being pushed to controll the marketplace and lock in monopolies. The sooner people understand that, the better.
It might help them understand if you cite some sort of evidence. As it stands, it sounds like you're just making shit up. That isn't to say you have no reason to be suspicious, but to claim that this is the case is empty without evidence.
How we can get through to these deranged teachers, parents, and psychiatrists?
By finding a way to demonstrate the difference between a chronic disability and willful disobedience. The diagnostic criteria in place obviously are not capable of doing so with a high degree of accuracy. There needs to be a way to conclusively determine whether the will of the patient (not the patients parents or teachers) is being disrupted by the problem. It might help to convince our society to respect the will of it's children first, though.
Once we get that out of the way, then we can start encouraging each (teachers, parents, psychiatrists) to do their job and none other.
It's unclear. Is the DivX codec free, and just the converter trial and time-limited? Or would he have to shell out $20 to see a cheesy video?
No, the actual viewing portion is free and never expires.
Is there any free MPEG-2 codec for Quicktime?
No. Mostly because MPEG-2 licensing is not free.
Quicktime is just one big potential frustration waiting to happen (not that I'm defending, say, WMP, although at least Microsoft is surprisingly nice enough in that case to leave mplayer2.exe which earns them alot of points in my books).
Windows Media Player and mplayer2.exe both use the same set of codecs. Neither will play something that the other won't. DivX, for example, isn't played by either out of the box. For that matter, neither will play standard MPEG-4.
It just took me 2 computers and "Divx Doctor" to watch a low quality fight video off of video.google.com, that is ridiculous.
Indeed, that is ridiculous, but not for the reason you think. It's because you're an idiot.
Here are things you could have done:
1) Download the right format from Google Video. Given that all of the videos are available in multiple formats, it would make sense to download one that you can actually play.
2) Download the DivX Codec, from the obscure site known as "divx.com", just like you would have done in Windows.
3) Think.
When I tried to play the iMovie my brother made with an iTMS tune of his, QuickTime Player refused to play it on my machine, saying it was "not authorized."
That's really odd. With iMovie alone I can't replicate that at all, in any export format. However, I was able to reproduce it by pasting the track into the already-rendered movie using QuickTime Pro. Perhaps this is what your brother did to add the music. If that's the case, simply doing it in iMovie instead will remove the DRM.
Try playing your video on a different machine not authorized to your itunes account and you'll see what he's griping about.
I just did this and nothing unusual happened. The video and audio played as expected. Could you describe what "should have happened"?
I hope everyone's watching closely as fair use is lying on its deathbed.
TV shows like the Daily Show and Colbert Report depend on their being a large pool of accessible content to discuss and parody.
Says who?
Want to add background music to your home videos? I hope you didn't buy your music online.
Really bad example. iTunes can be added to iMovie videos as easily as any other. In fact, I believe that feature is mentioned specifically on Apple's site. If you're not using iMovie, then yeah, too bad. More reason for Apple to license FairPlay someday. If you're using some other DRM music store, then you've got a lot more problems.
Granted, there is a case to be made for interoperability, but that has never been a part of Fair Use.
Even though this type of use isn't specifically protected under copyright law, it is still felt to be perfectly acceptable by the masses, and courts would probably back it based on the same logic that stopped Hollywood from taking time-shifting away from us.
Time-shifting is not the same thing, not by a long shot. A better precedent would be sampling, which has a much more mixed history.
The future looks bleak for creative works online.
You mean, creative works for whom the creators have explicitly chosen to protect the copyrights through DRM. That isn't all creative works.
Should a work that is only available in a DRM encumbered form still be protected by copyright? If so, why?
Why? Because DRM doesn't change anything about what rights the creator has over his work.
Copyright was granted to copyright creators for a limited term, but with DRM, not only do they take away fair use, but they also gain the ability to close up their work forever.
Neither of these claims are true. DRM does not inherently take away Fair Use. It does restrict the channels through which one can exercise Fair Use, but you will find nothing in the law that speaks to this. Also, DRM does not give a copyright holder any rights over his work after the copyright has lapsed. I cannot fathom why you think this is the case.
If prices weren't artificially high, I think a lot of people wouldn't bother pirating clips -- and the whole IP discussion wouldn't be as important.
Copyright, by it's very nature, is a way of making prices artificially high. When you pirate, you're paying no money, but you're violating someone else's rights. Unfortunately, it's been shown that people value their own money more than other people's rights. Price is not the issue. Skewed senses of value and entitlement are.
If, for example, you could download songs you liked at $0.10US each, why bother pirating them?
Because pirating them costs $0.00 each. Or because of the quality. Or because of DRM. Or because it's not in OGG. Or because they just want to stick it to the man. People will always find a reason. It makes no sense whatsoever for business to constantly lower it's prices to appeal to potential customers who see no value in their product.
Maybe it is time to ask that AMD gets out of the Trusted alliance before their chips are like that?
AMD's 2006 roadmap already contains chips with identical Trusted Computing features. That is to say, it is already way too late.
And Intel's new chips are based on the Pentium-M, which is still heavily based on the Pentium-PRO that dates from the early 90s...
This is true of Core Solo/Duo, but not of Conroe. Conroe, Merom, and Woodcrest are all a new architecture.