Sure the Matrix: Revisited had a lot of extras... but this has even more !! Personally I'm waiting for the FIFTH special edition of this movie, the one with the lost 30 minutes of footage of a farmer milking a cow right in the middle of the movie.
So let me get this straight, you want to amass 150GB of free, public domain files, to access even larger repositories of copyrighted material to which you are not entitled ?
My original point was that a OSS DRM solution is not possible without some type of secure, external mechanism (ie: TCPA). I think you thought I was saying something else.
Secondly, the issue is not whether or not some sort of encrypted file format is supported. If it was just an encryption layer, there wouldn't be a problem. The issue is that DRM platforms will probably support some sort of restrictions on how that file is used. For example, I may not be allowed to transfer the file to someone else over the internet. If those restrictions are enforced, then I have a technology which is acting against my interests and presumably for some other interest.
You see, all technologies which actually do something fall into two simple categories : technologies which empower people, and technologies which control people. Certainly one person's control is another's empowerment, and sometimes vice-versa. The issue here is this : I don't want to be controlled. Certainly I understand how record executives see the situation. They see the personal computer as a technology which empowers people, at the expense of their control. They feel that they own their recordings, and have the right to dictate how others use them. I feel that I own my computer, and I have a right to dictate how it works. It's all very simple, a question of where their rights end and mine begin, and vice-versa.
As for the rest of your post, it sounds like a rant. Nevertheless, I would like to point out one thing. An acceptable balance between empowerment and control usually provides an option to both parties. If my boss doesn't want to pay me, I can work somewhere else and possibly sue him for owed pay. If my boss thinks he pays me too much, he can try to find a replacement. RIAA and Hollywood are saying "we want to sell you content, and dictate the terms of how you use it". The legal system supports this position, it's not illegal, but do I support it ? Of all the products sold, very few have any strings attached. Up until now, it has been the lack of technology which has enforced the RIAA's and Hollywood's terms. Now that the personal computer has put the terms up for negotiation, why should we simply accept their first offer ?
Quite frankly, I don't see how it would be possible to produce a secure open source DRM solution that would run on any current computers without external support. Anybody could edit the code and disable the DRM feature. Unless the code relied on a secure external party (either a server on the internet, or a TCPA enabled bios or operating system) then a hack like this will always be possible. Now, if OSS developers want to code for a platform like TCPA, that's their decision. I suppose this is what you are advocating.
Much of the appeal of OSS is its implied philosophy : the user knows best.
As a corollary we get : software should allow the user to do what he or she wants to do. This is a much deeper idea which extends to every technology, and one which can not get appropriate treatment from a slashdot post. It will suffice to say that DRM is in direct opposition to "the user knows best" philosophy, which is probably why people are so ticked off.
The philosophy I stated would not explicitly rule out DRM, since the user would always choose whether to run the code. However if we were to implement DRM, we would be embracing and legitimizing an idea which is a direct contradiction to the open source philosophy. And that is my quick argument for why we should not do it, at least not now.
The world's greatest civilizations have progressed through this sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to great courage; from great courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to complacency; from complacency to apathy; from apathy to dependence; from dependency back again to bondage."
Wow, that quote was so convincing, it almost makes you forget about the working poor.
Actually I think my argument holds up nicely. The current computers facing Kasparov are powerful, but their brute force is not enough to overwhelm the match. The raw complexity of chess will continue to dwarf any affordable computer for years to come (although I'm willing to bet the NEC Earth Simulator is powerful enough to precompute every possible game, given enough time). Nobody is interested in a match where raw power, applied stupidly, defeats a human opponent. At the same time, chess really is a hard game, and we need computers at least as powerful as the one Kasparov is playing to even make it a worthwhile match. As our analysis of chess improves, and better programming routines are developed, we will eventually start pitting slower and slower computers against human opponents. It is interesting only so long as it is a surmountable challenge to both opponents.
On the contrary, chess is an excellent test of man versus machine. It is interesting precisely because champion chess players are not human calculating machines. At each turn, Kasparov chooses from only a handful of possible moves. He uses his brain, and with it some process which we can currently only dream of implementing in a computer, to find those "good" moves. When or if the day arrives that we can emulate this process on a machine, there will no longer be a contest worthy of our attention or consideration. But until then, there is a sporting game to be played.
An almost indefinate solution to this problem would be to have everyone dial using IPv6. On the plus side, I'd get a lot fewer harassing phone calls. On the minus side, I might get more spam.
Well we could try for something more recent. You're watching Tom Cruise in 'Minority Report'. Or better yet, John Ashcroft is watching you, like Tom Cruise in 'Minority Report'.
The best analogy is that a speeding levy is applied against the manufacturers of new cars, and passed along to consumers, to compensate the "victims of speed". Of course there are many cases where excessive speed is the undisputed main contributor to an accident which results in an injury. There are also incidents of speeding which do not result in accidents or injuries. Speeding may or may not even be against the law, depending on the circumstances. The law may explicitly endorse speeding (under those circumstances) as well.
I know the copyright board didn't pass the law, but the CCB are the ones who allowed the current ridiculous scheme to be put in place.
Actually the law stipulates that this levy will be paid, they can not abolish it. Also, setting it to zero or some similiar tactic would be viewed as an attempt to abolish the levy, when the board has no authority to do so.
Just so people don't get the wrong impression, the Canadian Copyright Board is not a bunch of dimwits or lackeys. They are former judges and civil servants. The current levy (which the recording industry is lobbying to increase) is $.21/disc. As I recall, the recording industry lobbied for a much higher amount, but was turned down for lack of evidence, and that fact that the board "didn't think their request was reasonable".
If you actually read the rates proposed, it will drive portable mp3 players, and eventually subnotebook computers completely off the market. Remember that hard drive capacities double every two years or so. The mp3 player manufacturers are not going to keep making 5 GB hard drives for iPods forever, they are just going to use whatever is in notebook computers. Your 60GB nomad - add $1000 to the list price. Within 10 years the levy on a portable mp3 player could easily be $10^6. Granted it's Canadian dollars, but still.
Thats not the way it works. It's still illegal, even though you are paying a levy because of it. You must be one of those people that thinks that because you hand over money, you get something in return. You obviously haven't dealt with government that much, or for that matter, the criminals which work "on behalf" of artists.
Slashdot Mirror
Future - Here We Come !
Sure the Matrix: Revisited had a lot of extras... but this has even more !! Personally I'm waiting for the FIFTH special edition of this movie, the one with the lost 30 minutes of footage of a farmer milking a cow right in the middle of the movie.
You can use whatever number system you want, but please stop picking on the other bases...
though I hardly need to justify my own purchases...)
Not married.
What about Mission : Impossible
"This message will self-destruct..."
So let me get this straight, you want to amass 150GB of free, public domain files, to access even larger repositories of copyrighted material to which you are not entitled ?
Don't post sexist comments like this, you'll drive away the female slashdot poster.
Jeez, you'd think his family would get sick and tired of all this shit.
My original point was that a OSS DRM solution is not possible without some type of secure, external mechanism (ie: TCPA). I think you thought I was saying something else.
Secondly, the issue is not whether or not some sort of encrypted file format is supported. If it was just an encryption layer, there wouldn't be a problem. The issue is that DRM platforms will probably support some sort of restrictions on how that file is used. For example, I may not be allowed to transfer the file to someone else over the internet. If those restrictions are enforced, then I have a technology which is acting against my interests and presumably for some other interest.
You see, all technologies which actually do something fall into two simple categories : technologies which empower people, and technologies which control people. Certainly one person's control is another's empowerment, and sometimes vice-versa. The issue here is this : I don't want to be controlled. Certainly I understand how record executives see the situation. They see the personal computer as a technology which empowers people, at the expense of their control. They feel that they own their recordings, and have the right to dictate how others use them. I feel that I own my computer, and I have a right to dictate how it works. It's all very simple, a question of where their rights end and mine begin, and vice-versa.
As for the rest of your post, it sounds like a rant. Nevertheless, I would like to point out one thing. An acceptable balance between empowerment and control usually provides an option to both parties. If my boss doesn't want to pay me, I can work somewhere else and possibly sue him for owed pay. If my boss thinks he pays me too much, he can try to find a replacement. RIAA and Hollywood are saying "we want to sell you content, and dictate the terms of how you use it". The legal system supports this position, it's not illegal, but do I support it ? Of all the products sold, very few have any strings attached. Up until now, it has been the lack of technology which has enforced the RIAA's and Hollywood's terms. Now that the personal computer has put the terms up for negotiation, why should we simply accept their first offer ?
Quite frankly, I don't see how it would be possible to produce a secure open source DRM solution that would run on any current computers without external support. Anybody could edit the code and disable the DRM feature. Unless the code relied on a secure external party (either a server on the internet, or a TCPA enabled bios or operating system) then a hack like this will always be possible. Now, if OSS developers want to code for a platform like TCPA, that's their decision. I suppose this is what you are advocating.
Much of the appeal of OSS is its implied philosophy : the user knows best. As a corollary we get : software should allow the user to do what he or she wants to do. This is a much deeper idea which extends to every technology, and one which can not get appropriate treatment from a slashdot post. It will suffice to say that DRM is in direct opposition to "the user knows best" philosophy, which is probably why people are so ticked off.
The philosophy I stated would not explicitly rule out DRM, since the user would always choose whether to run the code. However if we were to implement DRM, we would be embracing and legitimizing an idea which is a direct contradiction to the open source philosophy. And that is my quick argument for why we should not do it, at least not now.
Fuck that last personality sounds like Yoda ! Please don't kick the shit out of me Yoda !
The world's greatest civilizations have progressed through this sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to great courage; from great courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to complacency; from complacency to apathy; from apathy to dependence; from dependency back again to bondage."
Wow, that quote was so convincing, it almost makes you forget about the working poor.
Actually I think my argument holds up nicely. The current computers facing Kasparov are powerful, but their brute force is not enough to overwhelm the match. The raw complexity of chess will continue to dwarf any affordable computer for years to come (although I'm willing to bet the NEC Earth Simulator is powerful enough to precompute every possible game, given enough time). Nobody is interested in a match where raw power, applied stupidly, defeats a human opponent. At the same time, chess really is a hard game, and we need computers at least as powerful as the one Kasparov is playing to even make it a worthwhile match. As our analysis of chess improves, and better programming routines are developed, we will eventually start pitting slower and slower computers against human opponents. It is interesting only so long as it is a surmountable challenge to both opponents.
On the contrary, chess is an excellent test of man versus machine. It is interesting precisely because champion chess players are not human calculating machines. At each turn, Kasparov chooses from only a handful of possible moves. He uses his brain, and with it some process which we can currently only dream of implementing in a computer, to find those "good" moves. When or if the day arrives that we can emulate this process on a machine, there will no longer be a contest worthy of our attention or consideration. But until then, there is a sporting game to be played.
If users don't like what their software does, they should buy different software. Nobody's forcing anybody to use TCPA-enabled software.
In the same way that nobody is "forcing me" to stop using Windows 3.1 ?
An almost indefinate solution to this problem would be to have everyone dial using IPv6. On the plus side, I'd get a lot fewer harassing phone calls. On the minus side, I might get more spam.
It's not doomed, its probably an overclocked Xbox running emulators for everything else.
Well we could try for something more recent. You're watching Tom Cruise in 'Minority Report'. Or better yet, John Ashcroft is watching you, like Tom Cruise in 'Minority Report'.
outlaw special-interest legislation via a constitutional amendment.
Except this WOULD BE tyranny of the majority.
The best analogy is that a speeding levy is applied against the manufacturers of new cars, and passed along to consumers, to compensate the "victims of speed". Of course there are many cases where excessive speed is the undisputed main contributor to an accident which results in an injury. There are also incidents of speeding which do not result in accidents or injuries. Speeding may or may not even be against the law, depending on the circumstances. The law may explicitly endorse speeding (under those circumstances) as well.
I know the copyright board didn't pass the law, but the CCB are the ones who allowed the current ridiculous scheme to be put in place.
Actually the law stipulates that this levy will be paid, they can not abolish it. Also, setting it to zero or some similiar tactic would be viewed as an attempt to abolish the levy, when the board has no authority to do so.
Just so people don't get the wrong impression, the Canadian Copyright Board is not a bunch of dimwits or lackeys. They are former judges and civil servants. The current levy (which the recording industry is lobbying to increase) is $.21 /disc. As I recall, the recording industry lobbied for a much higher amount, but was turned down for lack of evidence, and that fact that the board "didn't think their request was reasonable".
If you actually read the rates proposed, it will drive portable mp3 players, and eventually subnotebook computers completely off the market. Remember that hard drive capacities double every two years or so. The mp3 player manufacturers are not going to keep making 5 GB hard drives for iPods forever, they are just going to use whatever is in notebook computers. Your 60GB nomad - add $1000 to the list price. Within 10 years the levy on a portable mp3 player could easily be $10^6. Granted it's Canadian dollars, but still.
Well, if you have enough escatcy, I don't suppose you'd need a bed. Those glow sticks will be hard to live without though...
Thats not the way it works. It's still illegal, even though you are paying a levy because of it. You must be one of those people that thinks that because you hand over money, you get something in return. You obviously haven't dealt with government that much, or for that matter, the criminals which work "on behalf" of artists.