DRM Take II — Digital Personal Property 356
Diabolus Advocatus writes "Ars Technica has an article on a new form of DRM being considered by the IEEE. It's called Digital Personal Property and although it removes some of the drawbacks of conventional DRM it introduces new drawbacks of its own. From the article: 'Digital personal property (DPP) is an attempt to make consumers treat digital media like physical objects. For instance, you might loan your car to a friend, a family member, or a neighbor. You might do so on many different occasions and for different lengths of time. But you are unlikely to leave the car out front of your house with the keys in it and a sign on it saying, "Take me!" If you did, you might never see the vehicle again. It's that ability to lose control over property that is central to the DPP system. DPP files are encrypted. They can be freely copied and distributed to anyone, but here's the trick: anyone who can view your content can also "steal" it irrevocably. The simple addition of a way to lose content instantly leads consumers to set up a "circle of trust" that can be as wide as they like but will not extend to total strangers on the Internet.'"
Betting Pool (Score:5, Interesting)
Seriously? (Score:1, Interesting)
When are the people going to get so fed up as to burn these controlling motherfuckers to the ground? Be them "Big Record" motherfuckers or "Big Government" motherfuckers. I'm already there, but (obviously) I'm too big of a pussy to do anything on my own.
Seriously people, what do we have to do to legally destroy these people and their businesses? LEGALLY DESTROY. I kinda like the sound of that...
Stuff em! That's what I say (Score:2, Interesting)
They can add whatever DRM they like, I don't give a stuff. Bring it on, it will only hasten their ultimate demise.
The miss the point (Score:5, Interesting)
The point is, for most younger people: I have it, you have it, we all have it. All the time, and for free.
Anything that doesn't encompass that usage model will get bypassed in favor of stuff that will adhere to that model.
The problem is for creative types that this means they get one sale in an efficient market. The first buyer then makes their purchase available to the rest of the world for free. Why would they do that? I don't think anyone is completely sure, but a reputation or status built by sharing is part of it.
The "one sale" idea pretty much pushes things back to a patronage system. Instead of recording a song and selling copies of it, a band is paid by some rich guy to play. The rich guy gets to tell them what he likes and what he doesn't like - and if the band wants to continue living off music they will play that way. They can then distribute their work for free without any worries about compensation.
The problem is, as quite a few creative types found hundreds of years ago, a patronage system quickly ends up where everyone is trying to be just like Elvis because the people with money to spend on the arts really, really liked Elvis. Or whomever was the big favorite. So in 17th Century Europe you had playwrites coming up with pretty much rehashes of the same theme over and over again because that is what the patrons of the arts liked and would pay for.
Sounds sort of like what has happened with music recently. But the problem is while the record labels have (somewhat) learned that an endless series of "Boy Bands" aren't going to cut it any longer with a patronage system it isn't up to the marketplace - it is up to a very small number of patrons. Is that really where we want to go?
And no, I don't see the Internet making much of a difference. If the Internet lead to broad-based financial support it would. But the Internet is a way to distribute stuff for free. There is no "financial support" involved. iTunes is a myth and you might as well get over it. Nobody is making money off iTunes, especially Apple who created it as a music supply for iPods. And as many sales as iTunes has it occupies maybe 3% of music downloads today. No, no money that way.
Don't steal from us, steal from them instead! (Score:3, Interesting)
With DPP, the media companies are offering an easier dishonest way to get music: instead of cracking the DRM, just steal other consumer's songs...
Basically, DPP means: Don't steal from me, steal from my customers instead!
Car analogy would be a manufacturer making cars with great anti-theft systems that are to be removed when the car is first sold in order to discourage thieves from stealing a product before it was sold the first time.
Re:It is only DRM+ (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually after reading the article the guy is an idiot. The "playkey" is the whole problem with DRM. Whether downloaded off a drm server, or transferee securely br protected memory(as the article suggests). Transfer of that key is needed. Without it everything fails. What's worse in order to even be vaguely secure each music file would need it's own playkey. So for me alone that is some 5,000 keys.
If you had even the same playkey for every song title theft is easy. If each person has one playkey. Then it be ones possible to steal thousands of songs nearly instantly.
So I say again the guy is an idiot. A dumb idea so poorly thought out I wonder if he actually thought about it or pulledit out of his ass.
Re:why do they keep trying? (Score:3, Interesting)
People don't like dealing with change. Rather than trying to come up with a new system that works well considering the current realities, people try to make the current realities conform to what was previously in place.
Look at movies with flying cars, where so often the flying cars are restricted to 2d multiple lane 'roads' in the air. Seems like a ridiculous restriction to put on flying cars which would lead to almost the exact same set of problems we have with non-flying cars and traffic. It's just how people think (or is that how we don't think?)
Re:It is only DRM+ (Score:1, Interesting)
DRM+ is right : DRM means "stupid", so DRM+ means "stupider"
Re:You down with DPP? (Score:4, Interesting)
"You down with DPP?"
From TFA:
"The playkey, unlike the title folder, can't be copied--but it can be moved."
Allow me to speculate that Windows development teams are onboard with this. Windows will come with this feature, or said feature will be introduced via updates. Let's assume that it's actively pushed via automatic updates. Special files will be uncopyabable, at the request of IP holders. That's going to work out really great. For instance, you can't "sys" a floppy or a CD with XP, because vital files are "uncopyable" by Windows.
But - wait one. Aren't there boot CD's all the same? No, I don't mean Linux LiveCD's that can access Windows partitions. BART CD for instance. Win-PE. Various people have done things with the concept, but most haven't really caught on. How about USB? Tom's hardware has a how-to to create "Windows in your pocket". There are dozens more sites, with similar how-to stories. In short, those "uncopyable" files are routinely copied by people who are determined to copy them.
But - wait another one. Linux. Linux just doesn't recognize Windows file permissions. Boot a system to Linux, you can copy anything from anywhere to anywhere else.
So, yeah, I'm down with DPP. It's perfectly cool. They create it, implement it, and I ignore it. No problemo. I mean, this is BEFORE anyone gets around to creating a "crack" for the entire system, which will enable the least tech savvy elementary school student in the world to copy anything he wants.
Bring it on, I say. It's funny to watch the corporate idiots wasting their time and money on nonsense, rather than adapting to the world we live in today.
Re:It is only DRM+ (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, this sounds like a dumb idea, but there's a kernel of goodness here, I think. Forget about "ownership" for a moment, my biggest concern in digital files is identification - attribution if you will. I would like to be able to watermark a digital file and have everyone know it's mine. I don't care if it gets copied, but I want every copy to bear the sign that this content was made by me. You'd think this would be relatively easy today, but every time I've tried to find a way to do this, all I found were very expensive products from companies I'd never heard of.
I've got a slightly unusual situation. I make something digital, and people pay me for it. The people who pay me can copy it, sell it, do whatever they want, but I want the copies to bear my signature, just like a painting bears the painter's signature. I get my money up front, but attribution is the most important thing.
Let's talk about sound files, music specifically. I've tried putting encoded sound into the file, say very high frequency, but that can pretty easily be filtered out. Or, if the material is in just one part of the file, then that part can be simply edited out. What I'd like is something, I don't know, holographic that will be in any part of the file longer than say 5 seconds. Something that will stay in any copies of the file.
Does anyone know something like this? Every six months or so I try to do some research into any products like this and I come up empty, or as I said, with unknown solutions that are very very expensive.
Thanks.
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:It is only DRM+ (Score:4, Interesting)
This is just the first act. What happens when technology gets to the point that you CAN copy a car? Or a cabbage?
Peace on earth, or greedy rich men trying to stop it?
DRM is not evil, it's just dumb (Score:2, Interesting)
While this may not be the most receptive forum for this perspective, I thought it was worth responding to a few points. One is that the music industry is filled with suits who have their head in the sand while "the world has moved on" away from DRM. The reality however is that average consumers (but perhaps not the typical slashdotter) are shackled with all sorts of DRM everyday whether it's movies, videogames, software or even eBooks. However, any mention of DRM for audio products seems to be a lightening rod of criticism (and perhaps with good reason). I'm not making any assertions as to whether it's right or wrong (at least not yet), but I wanted to make the point that DRM is alive and well in the world around us.
My next comment is that I believe that people deserve to get compensated for their work. If you can't come around on that point, then there's not much else I can say to convince you of anything. You see, I believe that the idea that people should get compensated for their work is concept that average person would agree with. I believe that DRM has, up to this point, been a very poor execution of that concept.
I believe that users should be able to make backups of products that they have purchased. As a corollary to that, I believe that it should be simple to restore their backups when needed. I believe that people should be able to play their music on whatever device they own wherever they happen to be. I believe that people should not lose the music that they paid for (along with the money that they spent) if the retailer that they bought it from happens to go out of business at some distant (or not so distant) time in the future. I don't believe that honest customers should be penalized with restrictions while pirates get the same quality of product with no restrictions. I believe that paying customers shouldn't be treated like criminals. I believe that paying customers should be rewarded for their loyalty to the artist.
These are the things that DRM should have enabled and these are the reasons that DRM has failed us all.
You see, I don't believe that DRM was the antithesis of these ideals. I think that the deployments of DRM were poorly designed and executed. I don't know a thing about DPP, but I know that there is a lot of deserved distrust against DRM and that it will take a massive effort to overcome that hurdle.
Re:why do they keep trying? (Score:3, Interesting)
Unfortunately this type of self-knowledge has never been very popular despite the tremendous advantages it brings. The ability to say, "I have an instinct that makes me want to take this action, however, I know it isn't really what I want" is equivalent to being able to say "I am aware of a subconscious influence that this advertisement is trying to use, but it's not valid because it doesn't agree with my independent assessment of my own needs" or "I know this rude person wants me to be upset, but I am going to be kind to them anyway." The sad thing is that average people only think they make their own decisions, not realizing that many things they think they want are actually external influences.
Re:You down with DPP? (Score:3, Interesting)
While such a thing is quite possible, and even likely, TFA says that the file can be "moved" to other places. Like, maybe a FAT file system? An Active Directory? To an iPod? Maybe mount a ext3 file system under Windows, and move the file to that file system? There are a lot of possibilities and neither MS nor the DPP people can cover them all.
Assuming they are really, really, really good with the concept, and they block all the "easy" methods of copying the file - within days or weeks, there will be a crack. Of that, I'm certain.
Re:You down with DPP? (Score:2, Interesting)
The movie industry is the deciding factor for this DRM, as it's the biggest common source of DRM currently (probably bigger than software DRM). And they aren't interested in giving customers more rights. I'll bet they consider it theft if you lend your DVD to your friend for him to watch (just like the music industry considers it theft that you RIP your audio CD's to your computer HD).
The industry would much rather you purchase a license for a movie either per viewing (or even better, per viewer), but they would settle for per-device.
Re:You down with DPP? (Score:3, Interesting)
Trying to sell bits is stupid, but not quite as stupid as trying to keep people from copying them. Bits are like air -- to sell air you have to wrap a balloon or a scuba tank around it. The people selling "digital content" need to learn to do the same. Don't sell movies, sell DVDs. People LIKE tangible objects.
I agree with this sentiment wholeheartedly. Digital information, because there's very nearly zero duplication cost, shouldn't be treated like property. It shouldn't be commodified. You can try to, with a legal regime that treats it like property, and with technical obstructions like the subject of this story, but that destroys the most valuable aspect of digital information. The "free" duplication of digital information has such incredible potential if relieved of the burden of treating it like physical property, and we instead embrace its inherent nature.
Society would be bettered by not treating digital information as marketable property.
On the other hand, trying to sell bits isn't stupid. There are other ways to sell digital information than the commodities market system. With contractual relationships, for example. Providers of information (on my mind is gigantic databases that provide useful services, like Lexis Nexis) can create lucrative contractual arrangements with people who need that information. A provision of that contract can be "no copying." The prohibition against copying would be part of the contract, though, and not due to the nature of the data itself. Furthermore, both sides of the contract would be able to tailor fair-use-like exceptions as necessary for the situation. Violations can be treated like any other breach of contract, and fits well in our existing court system. In this way, useful, valuable accumulation and distribution of data can be incentivized.
Although software and other forms of digital information are sold with licenses (EULAs), these are really just hacks to try to extend some kind of contractual obligations on what is really a commodity system.
Caveats - I do think there ought to be some rights on digital information - the authors right not have it distributed at all (i.e., private data, like my personal photos), for example, or right to be credited. But these rights aren't based on ownership and facilitating market exchange, as in property rights, but on privacy and "moral" rights, which are for protecting the individual.
Re:You down with DPP? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:why do they keep trying? (Score:2, Interesting)
Well, let's go with that. Let's say our universal assembler can make *anything* so any material form would be essentially free once you could conceive it. So what is scarce?
Can the assembler make food? Assume it can. You can have any food you want. But what does it make the food out of? Air? So if the assembler uses air then air is a valuable resource. Can you control air? Maybe.
Universal assemblers do not make the problems of land, water, raw materials, and labor go away. In some ways they make things worse. Who controls the land? Why would they ever give it up? What could you possibly offer that would convince someone to part with a chunk of the planet once they can turn that chunk of planet into virtually anything?
Could a universal assembler actually cause a return to feudalism? Would a universal assembler instead put a premium on the knowledge of how to assemble unique and distinct forms? Could this knowledge of how to create and invent new material forms be worth more than raw land?