Actually, copyright applies to copies for distribution (sale or giving away). If you want a copy for your use, you can. Ex: I want to listen to it in the car, but don't want the original out of the house because of the hot summer sun. This example came up in the recent senate (US) hearings, where Sen McCain (who helped author the DCMA, and now sounds very upset with the folks) questioned Hillary Rosen (RIAA head) on this, she stammered & delayed, and he finally said "for the witness's information, it's legal."
Hadn't been thinking about what you describe, as I find debian's APT handles this quite well. What I want is the ability to have a database of where I put downloaded stuff (this goes in/usr/local, this in/usr/share, etc), what my system is (smp, i386/686/alpha, etc), and so on. So, system goes out, grabs the source (along with source to the various requirements), compiles to binary, and installs.
Slight correction - ideas are protected by patent. Copyright is intended to protect the EXPRESSION of an idea. i.e. the idea of waterbeds could have been protected by patents (except the person who developed the idea didn't think it was NOVEL enough). However, writing stories that include waterbeds are protected by copyright, and I could (if I had any talent) write one, even though many others have written them.
Care to cite the law and court cases to back up that that's breaking the law?
(hint: the current court cases are about DETERMINING if it is - MPAA/DVD-CCA says it is, EFF et al say no, wait until the Supreme Court rules. Remember - innocent until PROVEN guilty.)
Insurance claims. The information on your medical records is not protected by federal law, but something as inane as a video rental records are. Everytime you make an insurance claim and signing the form, you authorize doctors to release sensitive information to insurers and other third parties, like the Medical Information Bureau, which keeps records of health problems on some insurnace applictions and forms and informs insurers about pre-exisiting conditions, making it potentially harder to receive quality insurance. These records can be shared with various companies, but in half of the states in the US, you don't have the legal right to see your own medical records.
Actually, they are protected by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), which mandates that they get your signature for release, places stiff penalties on misuse of medical records (including fines and jail time for disclosing them improperly), etc. it also mandated that Secretary of HHS define the rights of the individual who is insured in regards to the records.
The fatal flaw is that the entertainment industry is lazy, and is attempting to find a technological solution to what is a legal problem. It
is illegal to steal copyrights and trademarks, whether it is a DVD movie, a magazine image, a Ralph Lauren shirt, or a Louis Vitton
handbag. This legal protection still exists, and is still strong. For some reason the entertainment industry has decided that it has a
legal right to the protection of its technology, and that makes no sense.
Basically, if they feel their copyright is being violated, they should take the violators to court, not make everyone else pay by restricting OUR rights.
In order for the system to decrypt the disk, it MUST read the keys, otherwise, they're just taking up space. Sure, most software won't let the user see the key, but nothing the proper snooping tools won't let you see. Sure, you need to provide it with a valid key to begin with, but if you know the algorithm, you can create a key. You have to know the algorithm, or you can't decrypt the stream. To quote Bruce Schneier from the article:
The flaw is in the security model. The software player eventually gets the decryption key, decrypts the DVD, and displays it on the
screen. That decrypted DVD data is on the computer. It has to be; there's no other way to display it on the screen. No matter how
good the encryption scheme is, the DVD data is available in plaintext to anyone who can write a computer program to take it.
And so is the decryption key. The computer has to decrypt the DVD. The decryption key has to be in the computer. So the decryption
key is available, in the clear, to anyone who knows where to look. It's protected by an unlock key, but the reader has to unlock it.
The DVD software manufacturers were supposed to disguise the decryption program, and possibly the playing program, using some
sort of software obfuscation techniques. These techniques have never worked for very long; they only seem to force hackers to spend
a couple of extra weeks figuring out how the software works. I've written about this previously in relation to software copy protection;
you can't obfuscate software.
It might be a bitter pill for the entertainment industry to swallow, but software content protection does not work. It cannot work. You
can distribute encrypted content, but in order for it to be read, viewed, or listened to, it must be turned into plaintext. If it must be
turned into plaintext, the computer must have a copy of the key and the algorithm to turn it into plaintext. A clever enough hacker
with good enough debugging tools will always be able to reverse-engineer the algorithm, get the key, or just capture the plaintext
after decryption. And he can write a software program that allows others to do it automatically. This cannot be stopped.
If you assume secure hardware, the scheme works. (In fact, the industry wants to extend the system all the way to the monitor, and
eventually do the decryption there.) The attack works because the hacker can run a debugger and other programming tools. If the
decryption device and the viewing device (it must be both) is inside a tamperproof piece of hardware, the hacker is stuck. He can't
reverse-engineer anything. But tamperproof hardware is largely a myth, so in reality this would just be another barrier that someone
will eventually overcome. Digital content protection just doesn't work; ask anyone who tried software copy protection.
Note the last paragraph. To work, you have to have a tamperproof device from the DVD to the screen and the speakers. i.e. no computer, no TV, no stereo. A completely sealed system that destroys itself on opening. Like Bruce said, tamperproof is a myth, and if it's not tamperproof, the scheme doesn't work.
1. The article is at http://www.counterpane.com/crypto-gram-9911.html.
2. Actually, every legal DVD player reads the sector that's got the keys. Otherwise they couldn't decode the disk. Yes, you may need to modify the HW to write the key sector (but, since you're wanting to break the law if you're planning to distribute illegal copies, why do you care?)
3. Since at some point, the stream is decrypted (even with legal systems, otherwise they couldn't display the info), you can always tap off the decrypted stream & record. At that point, you then record to an unencrypted disk.
Bottom line - no matter what, it's ACCESS CONTROL, not COPY PROTECTION.
Keys don't matter. Read Bruce Schneier's work at counterpane.com, but I'll give you the short version of copying a DVD without decrypting:
1. Slurp - suck up the bits on the DVD. No interpretation, just such them up into memory, in order.
2. pffft - spit them back out in order onto the new disk.
Result - an exact, bit for bit copy of the DVD. Including all keys. Plays just fine in a standard DVD player. Oh, by the way, this is the way the DVD pirates are currently copying DVDs. In fact, if you follow the court case, MPAA admits that this is the only way that DVDs are being copied and that there are NO cases known of using deCSS to copy DVDs.
1. Linux companies don't make Linux, the linux community does.
2. So don't buy per incident support - I know companies that sell yearly support contracts - they have an incentive to make certain the code works right (less work, more money).
3. Those companies that don't think about recurring charges ought to be the happiest - no upfront costs!
I know in the US, medical records have to be maintained for a minumum of 30 years. Think about it - can you read the files from 30 years ago? At least with open source, you have the file formats (media is another issue - anyone got a paper tape reader around?).
I'll e-mail this as well, but two features I'd like in a package manager:
1. The ability to build a "configuration" for me, so I download the source, recompile to put everything where I want, compiled to support my specific HW/SW
2. The ability to tie back a "user" database. I like to download stuff as myself, run it from my home directory to check it out. I'd like to have an RPM / debian db in my home directory, which knows how to find the main one, to check dependencies. Thus, I could download an RPM, install it in my home directory so it runs as me, and everything works.
Sigh. Yes, I know that's the full version. Guess what - Red Hat for $39.95 is full version. BTW- MS isn't selling you an OS, they're licensing it. If you bought it, you wouldn't be limited by their EULA, but by copywrite law. Red Hat is selling an OS, with a GPL contract. They can sell it because the GPL gives them the right.
To get serious, Windows 3.0 was around $69, plus $39 or so for DOS, total around $108 for a full version. (Windows may have been cheaper, I don't have receipts).
And, the reason for the full version is to compare apples to apples. Everyone's wonderful $98 for Windows 98 is for the UPGRADE - you have to have Windows already to buy it. The other cheap versions I find on Pricewatch are OEM versions. According to the EULA, they can only be bought with the hardware. Again, apples to apples - legal, full versions of the software.
Since the price of Microsoft software has gone down constantly during the last 15 years and competitors usually charge higher prices they don't have a chance of winning. If it has been accepted it's just because of the particularities of Californian Law.
Are we talking about the same MS software (windows, for example, that has gone from retail $69 to retail $189)? If so, you need to learn some math. Down is towards zero. Up is away from zero.
In terms of competitors - Debian -$0. Red Hat - $39.
Office Suites - MS Office - $449. ApplixWare - $99. Corel Office $149 (linux version). Star Office $0.
Another lesson - more is greater than, less is smaller than.
In open source, who do you sue when the bug loses you money? There isn't just "one place" you can aim your lawyers to recoup the lost revenue when something goes very wrong. Even Red Hat isn't a very good target, because they just package Linux, they don't take responsibility for bugs in the kernel.
Read the MS EULA lately? They warrant nothing, and you can't sue them.
Want a solution in Linux? I'm certain you can find a vendor that will build you a solution. One in the enterprise environement in Mission Critical Linux.
Speaking as someone who as taught Windows (it was a job) to complete newbies to computers, Windows is NOT intuitive. I'm convinced there is no intuitive interface, only ones that are more familiar, or are easier to learn.
US Constitution, article 1, Section 8:
The Congress shall have Power:
(snip bunch of stuff not relevent to this discussion)
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
I.e - not so you & your kids can make a fortune, but to encourage you to put stuff into the public domain. Note that for most of the US's history, copyright was 14 years. It worked. About your kids - have you considered saving some of the money you make off the work & passing it on to them? Or even that they might have to (gasp) work themselves, like everyone else?
Also, explain to me how, under Sonny Bono Copyright Act, extending Walt Disney's copyright for another 20 years has encouraged the gentleman to be one bit more productive? Show me one new work by him in the last year.
(hint for the sarcastic impaired - Walt's dead)
The problem is that US firms cannot put anything before profit and shareholder satisfaction.
insert short-term before profit, and you're right. Unfortunately, they seem to forget that the short term may look good, but the long term can kill you (they'd rather have a large slice of today's tiny pie than a small slice of tomorrow's giant, monster, humongous, extra-extra-extra large pie, even though that small slice is bigger than that big slice of today's tiny pie. Comes from that Harvard Business School mentality. Of course, if Harvard were built according to HBS principles, it would have been a collection of tar paper shacks.
I shouldn't. I shouldn't. Don't feed the trolls. Ah, what the heck.
2nd Law of thermodynamics: In a closed system, entropy increases.
OK, read that again. The first part. CLOSED SYSTEM: nothing in or out. OK, let's look at earth. Is any energy coming in or out? Well, there is that bright yellow thing in the day time. What's it called again? Oh yea, the SUN. Oops, no closed system. What does the second law say about a non-closed system? Nothing (nor does it say anything about local variations within a closed system, only that the total entropy increases - it might increase in one region, decrease in another, but overall increase - so entropy could increase in the universe while it decreases here on earth).
Might I suggest you take a course in basic thermodynamics? Or even a simple one in basic physics, like they taught in my High School lo these many years ago?
The company to talk to is Eink. Right now, they do signage, but according to talks I've heard by the people there, they are also looking at the PDA & digital book market. Current issues to do that are with production & color, from what I understand.
I got a demo of their product at a talk - you could read it even when tilted almost 90 degrees! Clear, bright text. The guy had a simple 4 letter sign that changed every few seconds, all powered by a AA battery. Turns out it only takes power for switching the colors.
As for looking at it hours on end, we're talking millions (or at least lots of thousands) of little spheres per square inch - the resolution is limited by the circuits, and the spheres on the edge of a line turn partially white / blue (current colors), sort of like anti-aliasing. Readable like paper.
And, since it's painted on, it's flexible (you could bend the demo sign, although it was about 1/8" thick as signs aren't designed to be flexible). Imagine a computer screen you roll up!
To correct you: Mission Critical Linux is a professional services company focusing on the development, management, integration, support, and enhancement of Linux in the enterprise. I know, because I work there. We've release our Kimberlite High Availability Clustering software to the open source world, along with our crash analysis suite. However, we work with all the distributions, we don't do one of our own.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, copyright applies to copies for distribution (sale or giving away). If you want a copy for your use, you can. Ex: I want to listen to it in the car, but don't want the original out of the house because of the hot summer sun. This example came up in the recent senate (US) hearings, where Sen McCain (who helped author the DCMA, and now sounds very upset with the folks) questioned Hillary Rosen (RIAA head) on this, she stammered & delayed, and he finally said "for the witness's information, it's legal."
Hadn't been thinking about what you describe, as I find debian's APT handles this quite well. What I want is the ability to have a database of where I put downloaded stuff (this goes in /usr/local, this in /usr/share, etc), what my system is (smp, i386/686/alpha, etc), and so on. So, system goes out, grabs the source (along with source to the various requirements), compiles to binary, and installs.
Slight correction - ideas are protected by patent. Copyright is intended to protect the EXPRESSION of an idea. i.e. the idea of waterbeds could have been protected by patents (except the person who developed the idea didn't think it was NOVEL enough). However, writing stories that include waterbeds are protected by copyright, and I could (if I had any talent) write one, even though many others have written them.
Care to cite the law and court cases to back up that that's breaking the law?
(hint: the current court cases are about DETERMINING if it is - MPAA/DVD-CCA says it is, EFF et al say no, wait until the Supreme Court rules. Remember - innocent until PROVEN guilty.)
Actually, they are protected by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), which mandates that they get your signature for release, places stiff penalties on misuse of medical records (including fines and jail time for disclosing them improperly), etc. it also mandated that Secretary of HHS define the rights of the individual who is insured in regards to the records.
Basically, if they feel their copyright is being violated, they should take the violators to court, not make everyone else pay by restricting OUR rights.
Note the last paragraph. To work, you have to have a tamperproof device from the DVD to the screen and the speakers. i.e. no computer, no TV, no stereo. A completely sealed system that destroys itself on opening. Like Bruce said, tamperproof is a myth, and if it's not tamperproof, the scheme doesn't work.
1. The article is at http://www.counterpane.com/crypto-gram-9911.html.
2. Actually, every legal DVD player reads the sector that's got the keys. Otherwise they couldn't decode the disk. Yes, you may need to modify the HW to write the key sector (but, since you're wanting to break the law if you're planning to distribute illegal copies, why do you care?)
3. Since at some point, the stream is decrypted (even with legal systems, otherwise they couldn't display the info), you can always tap off the decrypted stream & record. At that point, you then record to an unencrypted disk.
Bottom line - no matter what, it's ACCESS CONTROL, not COPY PROTECTION.
Read the article.
Keys don't matter. Read Bruce Schneier's work at counterpane.com, but I'll give you the short version of copying a DVD without decrypting:
1. Slurp - suck up the bits on the DVD. No interpretation, just such them up into memory, in order.
2. pffft - spit them back out in order onto the new disk.
Result - an exact, bit for bit copy of the DVD. Including all keys. Plays just fine in a standard DVD player. Oh, by the way, this is the way the DVD pirates are currently copying DVDs. In fact, if you follow the court case, MPAA admits that this is the only way that DVDs are being copied and that there are NO cases known of using deCSS to copy DVDs.
1. Linux companies don't make Linux, the linux community does.
2. So don't buy per incident support - I know companies that sell yearly support contracts - they have an incentive to make certain the code works right (less work, more money).
3. Those companies that don't think about recurring charges ought to be the happiest - no upfront costs!
or by professional companies such as Red Hat, Caldera, Mission Critical Linux, etc. (I leave the web searches to you).
As far as security, shall we compare the virii alerts? Linux is as secure as any competent system admin makes it.
In terms of release dates, you prefer "when marketing says so, regardless of status" to "no release before its time?"
I know in the US, medical records have to be maintained for a minumum of 30 years. Think about it - can you read the files from 30 years ago? At least with open source, you have the file formats (media is another issue - anyone got a paper tape reader around?).
Unfortunately, you haven't been reading your EULA - it's illegal, unless you have a license for each machine, or a site license.
I'll e-mail this as well, but two features I'd like in a package manager:
1. The ability to build a "configuration" for me, so I download the source, recompile to put everything where I want, compiled to support my specific HW/SW
2. The ability to tie back a "user" database. I like to download stuff as myself, run it from my home directory to check it out. I'd like to have an RPM / debian db in my home directory, which knows how to find the main one, to check dependencies. Thus, I could download an RPM, install it in my home directory so it runs as me, and everything works.
Sigh. Yes, I know that's the full version. Guess what - Red Hat for $39.95 is full version. BTW- MS isn't selling you an OS, they're licensing it. If you bought it, you wouldn't be limited by their EULA, but by copywrite law. Red Hat is selling an OS, with a GPL contract. They can sell it because the GPL gives them the right.
To get serious, Windows 3.0 was around $69, plus $39 or so for DOS, total around $108 for a full version. (Windows may have been cheaper, I don't have receipts).
And, the reason for the full version is to compare apples to apples. Everyone's wonderful $98 for Windows 98 is for the UPGRADE - you have to have Windows already to buy it. The other cheap versions I find on Pricewatch are OEM versions. According to the EULA, they can only be bought with the hardware. Again, apples to apples - legal, full versions of the software.
To each his own - I consider them better than MS Office.
In terms of Windows vs Linux costs - doesn't matter. It's what they charge.
Also, any response to the first point - MS has steadily increased the cost of their products over the years?
Are we talking about the same MS software (windows, for example, that has gone from retail $69 to retail $189)? If so, you need to learn some math. Down is towards zero. Up is away from zero.
In terms of competitors - Debian -$0. Red Hat - $39.
Office Suites - MS Office - $449. ApplixWare - $99. Corel Office $149 (linux version). Star Office $0.
Another lesson - more is greater than, less is smaller than.
Read the MS EULA lately? They warrant nothing, and you can't sue them.
Want a solution in Linux? I'm certain you can find a vendor that will build you a solution. One in the enterprise environement in Mission Critical Linux.
Speaking as someone who as taught Windows (it was a job) to complete newbies to computers, Windows is NOT intuitive. I'm convinced there is no intuitive interface, only ones that are more familiar, or are easier to learn.
US Constitution, article 1, Section 8:
The Congress shall have Power:
(snip bunch of stuff not relevent to this discussion)
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
I.e - not so you & your kids can make a fortune, but to encourage you to put stuff into the public domain. Note that for most of the US's history, copyright was 14 years. It worked. About your kids - have you considered saving some of the money you make off the work & passing it on to them? Or even that they might have to (gasp) work themselves, like everyone else?
Also, explain to me how, under Sonny Bono Copyright Act, extending Walt Disney's copyright for another 20 years has encouraged the gentleman to be one bit more productive? Show me one new work by him in the last year.
(hint for the sarcastic impaired - Walt's dead)
insert short-term before profit, and you're right. Unfortunately, they seem to forget that the short term may look good, but the long term can kill you (they'd rather have a large slice of today's tiny pie than a small slice of tomorrow's giant, monster, humongous, extra-extra-extra large pie, even though that small slice is bigger than that big slice of today's tiny pie. Comes from that Harvard Business School mentality. Of course, if Harvard were built according to HBS principles, it would have been a collection of tar paper shacks.
I shouldn't. I shouldn't. Don't feed the trolls. Ah, what the heck.
2nd Law of thermodynamics: In a closed system, entropy increases.
OK, read that again. The first part. CLOSED SYSTEM: nothing in or out. OK, let's look at earth. Is any energy coming in or out? Well, there is that bright yellow thing in the day time. What's it called again? Oh yea, the SUN. Oops, no closed system. What does the second law say about a non-closed system? Nothing (nor does it say anything about local variations within a closed system, only that the total entropy increases - it might increase in one region, decrease in another, but overall increase - so entropy could increase in the universe while it decreases here on earth).
Might I suggest you take a course in basic thermodynamics? Or even a simple one in basic physics, like they taught in my High School lo these many years ago?
I got a demo of their product at a talk - you could read it even when tilted almost 90 degrees! Clear, bright text. The guy had a simple 4 letter sign that changed every few seconds, all powered by a AA battery. Turns out it only takes power for switching the colors.
As for looking at it hours on end, we're talking millions (or at least lots of thousands) of little spheres per square inch - the resolution is limited by the circuits, and the spheres on the edge of a line turn partially white / blue (current colors), sort of like anti-aliasing. Readable like paper.
And, since it's painted on, it's flexible (you could bend the demo sign, although it was about 1/8" thick as signs aren't designed to be flexible). Imagine a computer screen you roll up!
jeff
Not a problem. In fact, if you're at Linuxworld, stop by our booth. We'll be demonstrating all the neat things we do.
jeff
To correct you: Mission Critical Linux is a professional services company focusing on the development, management, integration, support, and enhancement of Linux in the enterprise. I know, because I work there. We've release our Kimberlite High Availability Clustering software to the open source world, along with our crash analysis suite. However, we work with all the distributions, we don't do one of our own.