Father of MPEG Replies To Jobs On DRM

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.

Re:What's with the Pro DRM Articles?

[Loadmaster]

I don't think anyone here is anti-DRM. In that. DRM just means the artist gets paid for his work. What everyone is against is that the RIAA and MPAA make DRM incompatible, unwieldy and unuser-friendly as possible and name it the "Thrusting Spear of Pirate Killing" so as to make them seem in the right. I doubt anyone here would have a problem if DRM allowed them to use material they legally purchase how they want instead of having their fair-use rights infringed upon.

Basically, the RIAA/MPAA is tilting at windmills and stabbing the legit consumer. I have no problem with a well implemented DRM (possible?), but I do take offense to having a lance thrust into me midsection every time I want to buy a movie or song.

I hope this makes sense. I'm drinking, and no power in the verse can stop me!

Swi

Difference between a comm protocol and content

[JAFSlashdotter]

Mr. Chiariglione suggests GSM as a model of an open standard that everyone has been using for years to perform sophisticated DRM. I don't know much about GSM, but when I enter into a service agreement with a communications provider, I am doing so for live communications. Perhaps the market is morphing to providing content on mobile phones, but the success of GSM was not built on that model. I pay my mobile phone service provider monthly for access to their network, and if my phone was to stop working because my provider locked me out of their network, I would stop paying them. The agreement would be at an end, and there wouldn't be any content locked in the DRM that I want. I'm not paying them for the right to use their network in perpetuity. On the other hand, I purchase CDs and DVDs so that I may enjoy the content FOREVER. I do not pay them monthly to keep listening to the music or watching the movies, and I am not willing to enter into that sort of agreement. DRM on my music or video content is locking ME away from the content I have legally licensed, especially if the vendors disappear. So while the DRM in GSM might be acceptable, it is not acceptable on the content I purchase.

OMA DRM

[kevinbr]

Is a bag of shit. Most phones only implement OMA DRM 1.0 - forward lock. OMA DRM 2 - I doubt it will catch on. How many phones have implemented it and how many content providers are using it?

Re:Completely Moot

[kripkenstein]

It has already been established that DRM is bad. It doesn't work and it hurts everybody.

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:As a wireless/microwave engineer

[vadim_t]

There are briefcase-sized portable systems that allow easy eavesdropping on GSM communications. IIRC, the encryption is weak, and the tower can be actually told to turn it off anyway.

Re:What's with the Pro DRM Articles?

[jlarocco]

You put DRM in your stuff, I don't buy it, that simple. There's no such thing as good DRM.

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.

Re:Completely Moot

[Tony Hoyle]

Here in the U.K. it's still illegal (as far as I'm aware) to format shift.

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 such a prosecution would succeed anyway.

The a recent report [hm-treasury.gov.uk] proposed making format shifting legal, and having a specific exception on copyright law for parody (another thing we don't have that the US has).

(btw. it's written for politicians so has cheesy things like a 'what is IP' section.. it does mean it's readable though).

Interesting Times

[dr.badass]

It's a little bit strange that when the head of a company with the most successful DRM platform says "No DRM is better than interoperable DRM", people seem to be getting more supportive of interoperable DRM.

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".

Re:Completely Moot

[IdleTime]

Luckily, my home country is smarter than this. Norway is already pounding on Apple and when DRM is gone, thank Norway!

Re:DRM TPM GSM... bwahhh???

[Emetophobe]

You forgot to mention MPEG, which is also an abbrivation, but apparently you don't mind that one.

Re:Completely Moot

[dch24]

In case you wonder what SDMI was (this was me), and how it relates to Mr. Chiariglione today, hopefully this will save you a little time.

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.

Re:Completely Moot

[davester666]

When I buy a song from iTunes, I know *exactly* the rights and restrictions applied. Everything in my iTunes library has exactly one of two restrictions: the FairPlay DRM set and none.

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 with two different sets of 'rights'.

Course, it's not nearly as crazy as MS's two setups[Zune and wmv], where you don't necessarily know what rights you were granted until after you purchase the tune and examine the rights [I have no idea where/how someone would do this as I have never purchased anything with MS's DRM applied to it].

Re:All lies in the definition here

[Grail]

The TFA uses the classic technique of misdirection - changing the topic of the argument and using the differences between the redefined topic and the original topic to attack the original argument.

DRM means Digital Rights Management, and the term applies specifically to software intended to restrict the use of a particular document (be it a sound file, movie, or PDF). What TFA is talking about is copyright notification, which is already supported through ID3 tags. The author of TFA needs to read up on definitions. Digital Rights Management [wikipedia.org] (a proper noun, with capital letters) refers to specific types of technology.

Re:What's with the Pro DRM Articles?

[Russellkhan]

I don't think anyone here is anti-DRM.

Wrong. Many here are.

DRM just means the artist gets paid for his work.

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.

Who says that they HAVE the rights they "manage?"

[dpbsmith]

L. Chiariglione got my back up immediately when he defined DRM as "a means to manage rights with digital technologies." Well, no.

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.

Re:Completely Moot

[dlim]

So Norway is calling for Apple to abandon DRM? I thought they were just asking for interoperability.

GSM is insecure

[this great guy]

GSM is the most sophisticated communications protocol that I have ever seen. I have read the standard (dispite getting a headache in 5 minutes) and it is totally locked down using encryption, session keys, etc.

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]

Summary of the argument

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

Here's a summary of his argument:

"DRM IS NOT BAD ... if you redefine "DRM" to include stuff like Creative Commons licensing and xpdf's implementation of the PDF permissions system."

Assistive technology

[tepples]

The difference is that nobody is being oppressed or killed because MS included DRM in Vista.

People with disabilities are being oppressed because some (small business or non-profit) manufacturers of assistive [wikipedia.org] input devices cannot afford to have their hardware drivers certified by Microsoft.