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Father of MPEG Replies To Jobs On DRM
Posted by
kdawson
on Sat Feb 10, 2007 01:00 PM
from the way-forward dept.
from the way-forward dept.
marco_marcelli writes with a link to the founder and chairman of MPEG, Leonardo Chiariglione, replying to Steve Jobs on DRM and TPM. After laying the groundwork by distinguishing DRM from digital rights protection, Chiariglione suggests we look to GSM as a model of how a fully open and standardized DRM stack enabled rapid worldwide adoption. He gently reminds Jobs (and us) that there exists a reference implementation of such a DRM stack — Chillout — that would be suitable for use in the music business.
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Completely Moot (Score:3, Interesting)
So frankly, who cares about this small part of Jobs' argument?
His main point -- that there shouldn't be DRM -- is correct.
Re:Completely Moot (Score:4, Interesting)
So Microsoft could choose to go a more flexible route with DRM. That might change the market. But I think we all know that's not going to happen.
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Re:Completely Moot (Score:5, Insightful)
That's an interesting opinion to have. If party X is in charge of dictating the restrictions and policies in your product, isn't party X your real customer?
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Re:Completely Moot (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The IT guy publishing media on that windows server is a user too.
It goes both ways.
No, it's not "1984" yet. But the technology is now in place... for the first time in our history, there's no practical reason why it can't be tomorrow.
This is push-button book-burning technology, plain and simple, and it's being rammed down our throats.
Those who developed it should be executed.
Re:Completely Moot (Score:5, Insightful)
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What should we believe? (Score:4, Insightful)
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DRM doesn't kill music; people kill music. (Score:4, Insightful)
"Our view is it's our job to provide the weapons and the warlords can tell us what kind of restrictions and policies they want to apply to that." Where's the difference?
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Completely Moot (Score:5, Insightful)
With Windows Media Player, I have no fracking clue. Will this track self-destruct in 3 plays? Will this track play indefinitely? Can that track only be used while my subscription is active? Can this one be burnt to a CD?
MS's approach to DRM is the same as their approach to Windows PC technology and is the exact reason their ecosystem, while vast in scope, is also vastly inferior. It's precisely this issue that has led MS to go with the more vertical approach with the Xbox and Zune. It's interesting to note that these two markets where MS is the underdog, where they must woo the consumer with a superior experience if they are to have any hope of success, they take the more controlled, limited approach (the type of approach, in fact, that they deride Apple for taking with their PC hardware and their iPod).
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, this isn't completely true. A year or two ago (possibly more) Apple changed the number of computers you could authorize at one time and the number of burns you could make of a given group of songs. Since they can't legally [IANAL] change the rights of music you have already purchased, you may have Fairplay music
Re:Completely Moot (Score:5, Insightful)
If "management" *could mean (as TFA suggests) just attaching stuff to your work that indicates what you think your rights are, I'm all for it I guess. Attach it, be honest, and I'll avoid most of your crap like the plague.
But what many technologies do is actually digital rights *enforcement (i.e. of what your rights are) on people who might not share that opinion; in a great many instances, the federal government agrees with the *recipient about what is allowable.
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Also, Chillout isn't the only open-source DRM project, Sun has (had?) their DReaM [wikipedia.org] initiative. But none of these attempts seem to be gaining any traction. The only widespread DRM scheme is Apple's, and Jobs himself says they would rather not be using it at all. The media companies should listen to him and finish the entire embarrassing affair.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It is somekind misleading for me. DRM itself is not bad per se - it is only a product, a technology. Same as with knifes - knifes are not bad. It is bad to kill somebody with knife but not bad to prepare delicious meal using knife.
So using DRM to take their rights from users is bad. Not DRM per se. DRM as a way to control information is neutral. It would me nice to have The Good DRM in your use. F.e. in organisations that proces confidential data - to con
Re:Completely Moot (Score:5, Interesting)
Jobs and Gates are essentially doing the same thing here. They both understand that DRM is pretty bogus, they are both supporting it since that is the only way to bring the content providers onboard at the moment.
Having attended one of Leonardo's SDMI meetings I would not trust him as far as I could spit. He was the architect of the SDMI fiasco. I have no confidence in either his technical or his political skills.
Incidentally the title father of MPEG is somewhat overblown.
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Re:Completely Moot (Score:5, Informative)
The End of SDMI [archive.org]
The reason why the article says SDMI is "ending" is because SDMI was a "solution" to the MP3 problem of the late '90's. When Eric Scheirer wrote the article for MP3.com, he had this to say:
"The solution is to get the technology companies into bed with the record industry. But the consumer-electronics industry knows a hard lesson that the RIAA has yet to learn: regardless of the business model, it has to start with value to the consumer. What it all adds up to is this: the floodgates are opening. Portable devices will be huge for Christmas this year [Article published Oct 15 1999]; they will all play MP3, and none of them will be SDMI-compliant in any way that matters."
So if SDMI (Mr. Chiariglione 's baby) was truly failing in October of 1999, and MP3 was going to be the wave of the future, the core problem was DRM.
But Mr. Chiariglione had a rebuttal for that article (also on mp3.com), just like he has a rebuttal for Jobs today.
SDMI Checks In [archive.org]
Moreover, in contrast to your report on October 15, SDMI is not merely some theoretical possibility. I am sure you have seen the same announcements I have-advertisements and other public statements that announce the intention of some leading manufacturing companies to produce portable devices complying with the SDMI specification.
Mr. Chiariglione is convinced that SDMI will be a success.
Finally, read the Wikipedia article on SDMI for the rest of the story:
Scheirer's comments proved to be correct; the SDMI has been inactive since May 18, 2001.
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Re:Completely Moot (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Completely Moot (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Completely Moot (Score:4, Interesting)
Or he could, you know, like, open the store and let the MARKET decide how they felt about it.
Being "consistent" would have removed OUR choice in the matter. It's one thing to get on your high horse and make a decision. It's quite another to do so and assume that what you're doing is right for everyone else. For example, I've no doubt that a pro-life individual would be happy to stand up and make your decsion for you in that matter, but that ignores you right to choose for yourself.
Further, consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds. Steve could well have accepted the idea that DRM is a neccessary evil and now, after years of actually running the business that's the iTMS and seeing the results, decided that it's no longer needed.
I "expect" people to be able to look at the world and have the wisdom and courage to change their minds if needed.
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Yes it is. For example it's technically illegal to use a video recorder or Tivo or to rip a CD that you own into itunes (the apple 'rip, mix, burn' advertising was in fact an incitement to break the law - a crime in itself).
However a law has to be backed up by enforcement to by effective. Nobody has ever tried to jail someone for recording Eastenders for example.. and they would look pretty damned stupid if they did. It's unlikely
Re:Completely Moot (Score:4, Insightful)
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As a wireless/microwave engineer (Score:5, Interesting)
Yet it is the most widely used wireless personal communication standard in the world. Woe are the hackers and crackers who try to attact it directly. But like any encrypted system, the weak points usually lie elsewhere. Those would be the point of attack.
Re:As a wireless/microwave engineer (Score:5, Insightful)
GSM is very secure, but is a communications protocol, not a DRM protocol. GSM allows Andrew and Betty to talk, without Charlie hearing. As has been stated often before, in DRM, Betty and Charlie are the same person.
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Re:As a wireless/microwave engineer (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.gsm-security.net/faq/gsm-a3-a8-comp128
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Re:As a wireless/microwave engineer (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:As a wireless/microwave engineer (Score:5, Informative)
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GSM is insecure (Score:4, Informative)
I am shocked to see this statement so highly moderated ! You are obviously not qualified to comment on the GSM standard. GSM is riddled with flaws and makes use of particularly weak ciphers that are known to be so poorly designed that communications can be decrypted in a few seconds with a stantard PC. [technion.ac.il]
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please define your terms .. (Score:5, Insightful)
If I was on Usenet I would assume the OP was doing the meaning of the word shuffle. Pretending to misunderstand what the other fella meant and addressing a made up meaning instead.
"while it makes sense to claim, based on empirical evidence, that protected music does not sell, it remains to be demonstrated that managed music does not"
What's the difference between 'managed' and 'protected' in relation to Jobs meaning of DRM and your version of DRM.
'That would be like saying that the Creative Commons movement is a hollow shell'
False analogy and strawman
"Curiously Steve Jobs restricts his analysis to just one option: how can Apple safely license its DRM technology to other manufacturers and be able to keep its obligations vis-à vis the record companies"
Well he can only speak for Apple after all.
They are scared. (Score:5, Interesting)
Difference between a comm protocol and content (Score:3, Informative)
DRM TPM GSM... bwahhh??? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
1. with GSM, your "key" is in your SIM, which means you can take it with you from device to device.
2. Wtih GSM, you only need the key to access a particular network. To switch networks, you throw away the old key and buy a new key. Now that the US (and soon Can
All lies in the definition here (Score:3, Insightful)
OMA DRM (Score:5, Informative)
The issue isn't DRM, it's greed (Score:3, Interesting)
And with such low pricing, people wouldn't even think twice about buying every new album that comes out in their genre. Youngsters have no money anyway, so asking them to cough up inflated prices is just completely ridiculous, and counterproductive since kids create much of the music buzz. They'll eventually purchase all the CDs that they really appreciate once they've grown up anyway --- just have patience!
You wouldn't need DRM not only because very low cost would make non-market acquisition pointless, but also because everybody would have all the music they want --- there would be nothing left to copy, in one's area of interest!
[The argument that pricing music logically would make new music cost hundreds of dollars per album is bollocks: like in all industries, development of a new product should be funded from past profits, and amortized across projected future sales. Music should be no exception, and the fact that currently the income from sales of age-old music is pure untouched profit and not reinvested to fund new production just shows the extent to which greed has distorted the music industry.]
DRM is only an issue today because of the artificial scarcity created by artifically high pricing --- greed.
Open letter to Steve Jobs (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=3
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I see that TPM has been mentioned. While my MBP has a TPM module, there are no drivers for it and the updated MBPs do not come with TPM.
Consider this, DRM costs Apple money to implement and update whenever someone cracks it. They a
Interesting Times (Score:3, Informative)
It's also a little bit strange that "the father of MPEG" is how Leonardo Chiariglione is described, rather than the more relevant "father of SDMI".
Who says that they HAVE the rights they "manage?" (Score:3, Informative)
The most obnoxious thing about so-called DRM is that it allows content owners to manage any arbitrary restrictions. There is absolutely nothing about DRM to ensure that those restrictions are, in any way, aligned with rights the manager actually holds, and in practice DRM users invariably overreach.
A famous example was Adobe releasing an eBook version of "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland," which is well and truly in the public domain, with restrictions prohibiting its use with text-to-speech converters... and compounding the error by presenting this with unfortunate wording, which said, not that they were preventing the electronic conversion to speech, but that the user could not "read it aloud."
Adobe has insisted that it was all a mistake, as it may well have been, but nevertheless DRM allowed them to exercise "rights" they did not possess.
Now, since nothing about intellectual property is obvious, and most likely not even a lawyer knows what the law is until there is a court case, there probably is no way at all to implement a technology that actually manages "rights." In practice, DRM manages whatever the content vendor believes or wishes its rights were, not what those right may actually be.
In practice, content rights owners opinions of the extent of their own rights are, at the very least, expansive and optimistic. The RIAA believes, for example, that when I copied my collection of vinyl LP's to CD-Rs, and the moment when I threw away the LPs I lost my right to listen to those CR-R's. Without DRM, such beliefs are no more than a curiosity. With DRM, the content owner becomes judge and jury, and the DRM techology becomes the executioner.
Word games and red herrings (Score:3, Insightful)
What Steve was talking about was content protection technologies - restricting the ability of the user through technical means. That's what people mean when they say DRM. Anything you have to say about Steve's letter that doesn't have
to do with that face of DRM is, well, it's got nothing to do with Steve's letter.
Yep, a DRM system that didn't restrict a user's abilities wouldn't get any pushback, Steve wouldn't be writing about it like this, it'd be great, but it also wouldn't exist. The only reason to statically encrypt a published document, song, or movie is to restrict the abilities of the person who buys it. Without region coding, there would be no CSS. Without the restrictions in iTunes music, there would be no Fairplay.
GSM is a red herring. GSM is a communications mechanism. It's not using a broadcast model, the call is point-to-point. Using encryption for authentication and privacy has nothing to do with anything the music industry wants out of DRM. Take out the restrictons on the end user, and there's no point to it.
Re:What's with the Pro DRM Articles? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:What's with the Pro DRM Articles? (Score:5, Funny)
42
Swi
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Re:What's with the Pro DRM Articles? (Score:5, Interesting)
Lots of people here are anti-drm / information wants to be free. In varies from the college student being as ethical as they can afford to be (buy a few CD's and then pirate the rest when they run out of money) to the folks who have absolutely no respect for copyright to people like me that have no respect for the extended copyright periods that I feel were bought by media companies (If it's over 28 years old, I'll pirate away unless i can get it for a *reasonable* price).
For example: I put down $200 smackers five seasons for get smart. On the other hand I ahoy'd some 1960-1966 comics in cdisplay format vs paying $50 for them in hardback format. I'll also download things so I can take them on a trip with me- for example I downloaded Moulin Rouge (which I own on DVD) because I wanted to take it with me and not risk losing my original.
I have a problem with DRM period. I think we have a temporary window where these products are grossly overpriced. I completely disagree that an "artist" should get paid for the rest of their life for a song when the rest of the world gets paid by the hour. The purpose of copyright is not to provide artists/ creators retirement but to encourage them to create works for the public. Given how many artists there are striving to create entertainment today- I really doubt they need any more encouragement.
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Fraud. (Score:3, Insightful)
In fact, I believe that most medi
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Wrong. Many here are.
Wrong again. That's just a line used to sell DRM. Artists have been getting paid for ages before DRM existed. This FUD against copying and sharing is the same drivel that was pushed against people sharing cassettes, copying videotapes, or taping television/radio broadcasts.
There is no justification for DRM and your hypothetical well implemented DRM is not possible and therefore will never be created.
Re:What's with the Pro DRM Articles? (Score:4, Informative)
I'll second that.
If I can't buy a product without DRM, I'll download it from a torrent site, or I'll go without. If I crack the DRM to get a copy in a different format, I'll be a "criminal" anyway, so might as well go the path of least resistance.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Mr. Chiariglione differentiates between DRM (management), which would be that unencrypted MP3 with license notice attached, and DRM (protection) which enforces.