"Squishy" DRM? 312
lhouk281 writes "There's an article on
Wired about squishy DRM. Apparently some companies are trying to find a happy medium in implementing DRM between the consumer and the RIAA. Good luck..."
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"Squishy" DRM?
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Digital Managament = Digital Management (Score:3, Insightful)
Just my dos centavos.
Re:Digital Managament = Digital Management (Score:2)
Squishy = Sneaky (Score:2)
From the article. So, let me get this straight. The idea is we don't "feel" the "walls" of DRM, 'cause basically it's just quietly violating my privacy rather than telling me outright what it's trying to prevent me from doing.
Uh, so do you "feel the walls" of digital rights management when the RIAA makes your ISP shut down your service because some hacker spoofed the "digital fingerprint" on an illicit MP3, or hacked your computer and stole your legitimate MP3s, and then distributed them all over hell with KaZaa?
" 'People will pay for better MP3s,' said Henry Linde, Thomson Multimedia's vice president of new media business."
Now why the hell would I do that when I can get a better Ogg for free just by sitting around on my ass for a few more months?
simple (Score:4, Insightful)
the consumers is happy, and the business that can adapt are happy.
the rest will die.
Re:simple (Score:2)
Forget DRM, let market forces dictate the business model for business. the consumers is happy, and the business that can adapt are happy.
Forget the police, let the criminals decide whether to steal or not. The criminals are happy, and the citizens that can adapt are happy. The rest will die.
On behalf of the people that actually create things of value in society, rather than people like you who just want to take the work of others, let me say: screw you.
Too late. The cat is out of the bag. (Score:2)
Mozart did it, look how much it helped him with fame.
Re:Too late. The cat is out of the bag. (Score:2)
Mozart died nearly penniless, without even the money for a private grave. (He was buried in a mass grave, so we don't know exactly where to go to pay respects.) Yeah, that's a great incentive.
Re:Too late. The cat is out of the bag. (Score:4, Informative)
Mozart died nearly penniless, without even the money for a private grave. (He was buried in a mass grave, so we don't know exactly where to go to pay respects.) Yeah, that's a great incentive.
Myth.
http://europeanhistory.about.com/library/bldyk11 .htm
-Rob
Re:Too late. The cat is out of the bag. (Score:2)
Re:Too late. The cat is out of the bag. (Score:2)
http://www.wamozartfan.com/bio.html
(cue duelling banjos theme)
It's clear that finances were a problem through all his life, though, so the central point remains.
Re:Too late. The cat is out of the bag. (Score:2)
Money and luxury, thank you very much. Same reason I get out of bed before God and go to work in the morning.
Re:Too late. The cat is out of the bag. (Score:2)
Re:Too late. The cat is out of the bag. (Score:2)
Would you rather have music only made by one or two obsessed people who can't help but create music? Or would you rather have a legion of people who create music? The fact is, allowing folks to make a living of some sort by making music, even if they do get screwed by the recording labels, means that a lot more people are creating music. That means there's more music around.
Yes, there would still be music without copyright, but there would be much less. Whether this situation would be better or not is debatable.
I'd rather feed my kids! (Score:2)
Or should artists have to get day jobs so cheap bastards like you can have the fruits of their labor for free.
Go to Hell.
Re:Too late. The cat is out of the bag. (Score:2)
From the recording studio, quite ironically.
Mozart (Score:2)
Re:Too late. The cat is out of the bag. (Score:2)
And Microsoft is welcome to release Windows under an open source license. That doesn't mean they have any incentive to do so. If you want open source music, make some of your own. That's how it's worked so far with open source software, at least.
Oddly enough, even RMS hasn't done the open source equivalent of music. On his song page [stallman.org], he gives people free license to sing and perform the songs. He does not, however, give them license to modify the songs. Furthermore, the copyright notice at the bottom of the page only provides permission for verbatim copying. Given his passionate views on software freedom, you'd think he would've made the logical extension to other intellectual property ventures.
Re:Too late. The cat is out of the bag. (Score:4, Funny)
Obligatory Slashdot reply:
1. Release music under GPL license.
2. ???
3. Profit!
It'll work. (Score:4, Insightful)
And then in another year, after our collective memory has faded.... it'll be 40% painful.... then 60%... then soon you'll find a coin slot next to your 3 gig floppy drive to pay for copywritten letters that make up the emails you are reading.
Once down the slippery slope, the only way to stop is to either dig in or hit the bottom.
Re:It'll work. (Score:2)
No one but me has the right to copy something I own the copyright to--or charge for that right.
The logical extreme of DRM is a flag that truly prevents you from copying or saving a file with that flag on--but that's it. Everyone, even RIAA drones, wants some use of "copyrighted works" to still be free.
Once down the slippery slope, the only way to stop is to either dig in or hit the bottom.
And if Vietnam fell to communism, the entire world would follow...
Or if you start walking towards a wall that's 1 mile away, and you cover half the distance in a minute, you'll never get there...
And because your stock is going up, you can assume that it'll go up forever because people can just buy in and sell higher no matter what.
There are very, very few real "slippery slopes." DRM isn't, IMO, one of them.
The slippery slope in this model is, IMO, "file-sharing." Once it was MP3s on IRC, then websites, then Napster--and then the slope ended when RIAA was forced to take legal action because it had gotten too big to ignore.
Re:It'll work. (Score:2)
Or hit the bottom and dig?
Good.. we need Ideas, not just complaints (Score:5, Interesting)
What needs to be done is more people seriously thinking of DRM models that are good but flexable on a Personal level.
Its going to come, one way or another, so the best course of action is to attempt to develope one that is "Fair". If it means that you cant send your DVD you ripped over the net, Fine, you cant do it, but maybe it can be written so that you can Fairly RIP your DVD to a Video Disk that you can view on your LAPtop that for some reason doesnt have a DVD player.
Are there any Open Source projects thinking about DRM? I dont know how it would work but it must be possible. Plus, with so many companies looking towards Linux for embedded players and such, if an Open Source alternative for DRM came out that at least satisfied whatever stupid laws may eventually get passed, then its just another victory for community software evolution and a loss to Microsoft's plans rule the media future
DRM must be possible (NOT) (Score:3, Insightful)
Are there any Open Source projects thinking about DRM? I dont know how it would work but it must be possible.
Reality does not require that it be possible. Palladium is coming around precisely because nobody's thought of a way to make guaranteed software DRM and few expect such ways to ever be discovered. DRM that's not trivially beatable when you have unlimited abilities to use and modify both code and data is pretty widely believed to be impossible.
Be careful with the word 'must'.
Re:Good.. we need Ideas, not just complaints (Score:2)
Re:Good.. we need Ideas, not just complaints (Score:2)
How is this logical? I fully appreciate the fact that if the media itself has a limited life under normal circumstances, then that should either be disclosed to the consumer, or the supplier should be somehow responsible for replacing damaged media provided the media is within its expected lifetime, and the customer has taken reasonable measures to protect it.
I don't think it's reasonable to expect me to shell out for the $75 box set again because my pet knocked the box off my bookshelf.
If you know that you have an hyper child and violent cat, then adequate measures should be taken to protect your valuables. This isn't the supplier's role!
Instead of being able to make a "completely functional" backup, I think you have to look at a "reasonably functional" backup. For a DVD, you could then argue that the menu is important, for a CD, the quality has to still be there... but that doesn't mean they will replace broken jewel boxes!
Crack to stop all this... (Score:5, Insightful)
Trillions of dollars in damage to protect a billion dollar industry.
Re:Crack to stop all this... (Score:3, Interesting)
However when copyright infringement is so obviously present (and rampant) it will only convince them that they are losing money because of MP3's and such, not because of dissatisfied customers.
Losing money... (Score:5, Insightful)
They are thinking about DRM in terms of increasing future revenue.
If you look at enough of these studies, music file trading doesn't generally cause fewer music cd sales. People with disposable income get exposed to more music, and buy more music. People without disposable income get access to music they wouldn't have paid for anyway. And, yes, some people with poor ethics take music they could pay for but just don't want to.
But this isn't about current sales, and the known-to-be-false belief that the record industry is losing sales. It isn't, really, even about preventing loss of revenue in the future.
This is about future control, and increasing revenue in the future.
As to workable forms of DRM... Loaning a physical music CD to a friend is perfectly acceptable and completely legal. The digital equivalent would be to "loan" a copy of a computer audio file to your friend, where your friend gets a copy of the music and you lose the ability to play that music until your friend returns or deletes his copy, or buys/licenses his own copy.
Now, this introduces a few problems.
If your music license server doesn't allow loaning, then, personally, you have a broken system, and I won't use it. But this is really a minor thing.
I have a larger issue with this. How do you support loaning in a digital environment? I backup my computer, "loan" a computer audio file to my friend, my local license is disabled until it is "returned" from my friend... and then I restore from my backup... I just got my license back, and my friend has it too.
To get around this, you either need an OS that doesn't let you backup/restore licenses, or a central server that controls and validates license backup/restores, or simply a central license server that you have to connect to periodically.
None of these are good solutions for the consumer, for a number of reasons. My OS on my computer should do what I say. If it doesn't do what I say, then the person/company that does control it should pay for my computer, because it obviously isn't mine.
But further than that... No central server, and no company, has any right no know what I'm listening to, or how often I'm listening to it. This is a privacy concern. This is one of the major reasons I hated Divx. (Circuit City's Divx, not the codec.)
DRM has major problems working in a way that supports privacy rights. This is *one* of the reasons why I don't now, and probably never will, support it.
Not True. Stop Spreading Microsoft Hype. (Score:4, Informative)
You are echoing Microsoft marketing hype which is simply untrue. Palladium will only allow "signed" or authorized software to run, which sounds good until you realize that many worms and viruses run as a subprocess of an authorized process. That is one of the reasons wbhy ActiveX was such a dismal failure at preventing malicious code from being executed.
Palladium will do nothing to stop viruses or worms from spreading or running on systems, as the worms and viruses will simply insinuate themselves into authorized code and run anyway. Microsoft's claim to the contrary is simply untrue and deceitful (what else is new?), designed to leverage their incompetently designed systems and their notorious reputation for being unable to design a secure system into a selling point for a new product designed to kill the commercial viability of free software, not viruses.
DRM isn't the same thing as Palladium, though the two are certainly akin to one another in some respects, and doesn't address authorization of software at all, merely of access to data, something that is also orthogonal to virus and worm prevention.
Cmon (Score:2, Interesting)
How do these numbers keep floating around with no evidence whatsoever? I'm sure I'm like most people, if I download a song/movie, it's because it's there, i'm not going to buy it othwerwise.
Two Evils (Score:5, Insightful)
- Palladium style DRM - The hardware/software prevents you from making copies even if they would be legitimate ones.
- Squishy DRM - No restrictions on copying but copies can be traced back to the source so that people who make illegal copies can be prosecuted.
So we basically haveRe:Two Evils (Score:3, Insightful)
And really, you don't lose privacy unless you're "sharing" with 50,000 of your best friends via Gnutella or something. I could live with a system like this; it seems to be one of the few cases where "if you're not guilty, you have nothing to fear" is actually true.
Of course there would still be problems, as the RIAA would continue to try to censor software and research that could possibly be used to defeat the protection, but overall I think it would be an improvement.
Re:Two Evils (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry, but this is incorrect. I'll use the same example I did earlier:
I give my pal bob a single copy of one of the fingerprinted mp3s in a mix CD. This is legal through a couple of ways (ARHA primarily). Then, without my knowledge, he shares that SuperMP3 with the world. I did nothing illegal but the RIAA & their FBI pals just kicked in my door and are dragging me off.
And would you like to take bets as to how long it will take a utility to change that fingerprint to come out? Sounds like a darn tootin' way to frame somebody.
This is not really a good system once you dig into the possibilities. It's nice on the surface, but (as with my rights issues) the larger implications are not good at all.
Re:Two Evils (Score:2)
I find your post interesting, but I'm curious about one thing: what is ARHA? I have not seen that FLA before and google is not helpful in providing a definition.
Re:Two Evils (Score:2)
Re:Two Evils (Score:2)
Re:Two Evils (Score:2)
ARHA is ancient Kargish for The "Eaten One" [amazon.com].
Actually, as others have said, it's a typo of AHRA (Audio Home Recording Act).
Re:Two Evils (Score:2, Insightful)
I think the idea of Squishy DRM is that every time you copy a file it gets an ID tag embed in it, perhaps the serial number of your computer.
I suppose it depends on how its implemented but some possible issues do come to mind:
Re:Two Evils (Score:3, Insightful)
I beg to differ with the conclusions.... (Score:2)
1. Palladium - Less privacy, less fair use.
2. Squishy - Less privacy, more fair use.
In order for Palladium to be useful, it's going to have to report home periodically. I don't want either, but if they're going to make it so there's only two options, I'll take the second for sure.
Re:Two Evils (Score:2)
> 2. Squishy - Less privacy more fair use
Except that with Palladium, you'll have less privacy and less fair use, because the hardware will have identifiers built on.
Re:Two Evils (Score:2)
1...You REGISTER
2...You can make copies
3...If they find the copy they know who it comes from.
The privacy invasion come in at #1...
3...2...1... Cracked! (Score:5, Funny)
1) Hilary Rosen
2) Jack Valenti
With William Gates coming in close with the #3 spot
Security through obscurity. (Score:2)
Watermarking... (Score:4, Interesting)
I mean, nothing stops a user from doing anything with the music. You can play and copy as much as you like.
As companies scan P2P networks and use the watermarks to identify huge distributers, those would be cracked down on.
This is the ideal, but the reality probably wouldn't work within those bounds.
Of course, there are privacy concerns, but if it is distributed, the law is broken. However, the music industries would likely use this as a foot in the door, producing players that required that Watermarks match the current system. If lack of the correct watermark becomes 'wrong', then the system loses the fairness...
Ultimately, there is no practical and fair solution. Nothing will be bullet proof. Somehow books have gotten by without strange measures to protect them from scanning.... Amazing, isn't it?
Re:Watermarking... (Score:2)
Good luck...? (Score:4, Interesting)
When are we going to realize that we are most definitely a minority. Call us nerds, geeks, techno-savvy, educated...call us whatever you want, but the general public, en masse has no idea about any of this.
Ask you average AOL using grandma/grandpa to define DRM, DMCA, GPL, OSS, etc., and all you'll get is a puzzled look of bewilderment. These people have no idea what's brewing beneath the shiny exterior of their favorite programs. All they know, and all they care about is the latest, greates features in those programs. Do you really think grandma is going to read that EULA, start to finish, and understand the implications involved in it? In fact, I'm willing to bet that grandma doesn't even know what an EULA is, so you can add that to the list of acronyms above.
So you see, there will most likely not be any luck involved in this at all. The developers just have to give the users the features they want, and the users will buy into it. Nobody is going to hear us, the minority screaming about fair use, privacy, or any of that.
I'm not saying that we're wrong, just that luck is hardly a factor when the average computer user has no idea why this type of stuff is bad.
Re:Good luck...? (Score:4, Insightful)
"You know, Grandma, how i used to send you pictures on the internet that i made with my camera? Well, i won't be able to do that any more unless i pay someone some money to make sure that it can't be stolen..."
"Mom, i used to send you DVD's full of video that we'd make of the new baby... we'd use our video camera and iMovie and then use iDVD and make those for you? Well, now that Apple is gone because they tried to survive the legal assaults on them for iMovie 3 - i have a Windows computer now since computers that could copy DVD's without protection were made illegal - and the DVD's i burn in that machine won't work in your Microsoft Media Center/HDTV setup unless i pay a license fee to Microsoft..."
"Aunt Mary, why are you calling me that your computer won't start up? Did you pay your computer-use bill to Microsoft this month? You did? Well.. hm.... Oh - i see, you installed a new hard drive because the old one went bad, and the 800 number has had you on hold for an hour?...."
"The new Michael Bolton CD won't play in your old CD walkman i got you a few years ago, cousin Sally. you're going to have to buy a new CD player that only plays only the new CDs. No, i know you're not a studio artist, so they won't sound any better.. but you're going to just have to keep 2 players around until next year unless you pay to migrate your old CD's to the new protected format..."
"I know, dad, you like to record Matlock when its on during the day - but unless you pay $5 a month for the right to record the show, you're just going to have to come up with something else..."
give them real examples of what's going to happen - then point out to them that its already happened with their new Windows computer at home.
Did you know that you've already given Microsoft the right to access your computer and modify your system without letting you know? And that they may pick and choose which software you can run on it?
this isn't hard - you fscking nerds just don't can't explain shimple shit.
Re:Good luck...? (Score:3, Insightful)
"You know, Grandma, how i used to send you pictures on the internet that i made with my camera? Well, i won't be able to do that any more unless i pay someone some money to make sure that it can't be stolen..."
"Who would want to steal your pictures? They're not worth anything to anyone else! They wouldn't really make you pay for that, that law is to stop criminals."
"Mom, i used to send you DVD's full of video that we'd make of the new baby... we'd use our video camera and iMovie and then use iDVD and make those for you? Well, now that Apple is gone because they tried to survive the legal assaults on them for iMovie 3 - i have a Windows computer now since computers that could copy DVD's without protection were made illegal - and the DVD's i burn in that machine won't work in your Microsoft Media Center/HDTV setup unless i pay a license fee to Microsoft..."
"I don't understand all that technical stuff. Why can't you make DVDs I can play? My friend Bob at work says his niece just sent him a DVD of her wedding, and he has the same setup I have. Why can't you do that?"
"I know, dad, you like to record Matlock when its on during the day - but unless you pay $5 a month for the right to record the show, you're just going to have to come up with something else..."
"Oh, I'm not paying $5 for that, I'm paying $5 for these great new features that I couldn't get a few years ago. I could never figure out how to program my old VCR, that thing was such a pain. This is so much easier!"
etc.
Try it. You'll find I'm right.
Conflict (Score:4, Insightful)
So who's going to win? The IP industry getting the legal defintion of Fair Use restricted even more or the electronics industry who can't give the majority of its customers what they truly want? There can't be any compromise or solution until the legal defintions of acceptable legal use are able to be encoded in software.
Any compromise is a defeat for the consumer (Score:3, Interesting)
Next time Congress meets, or next time industry works out a new spec for standardizations, they'll demand outrageous things once again. Maybe they'll get another 10%, maybe 1%, maybe nothing. But they'll just keep coming back, again and again, until they've whittled away free use rights down to nothing. Eventually they get what they want, it just takes them a while.
Don't give them anything. They're not entitled to anything, so don't give them anything. Appeasement is a slippery slope to defeat.
Re:Any compromise is a defeat for the consumer (Score:2)
Note: In reality there would never be 120 copies made. Prolly everyone would back up the original and then never touch it until the first copy died, and prolly share that one, reduced to 20(24 - 4 for personal use) individual non-copyable files. And there would be programs that allowed you to reset the counter, but they would be illegal and their distributors cracked down on. The crackdown would work because people would buy into the copyright scheme if they saw it as something whose benefits outweighed it's high costs. Right now most educated people see it as a perversion perpetrated by Disney. I can't tell you how many lawyers really thought the name of the Sonny Bono Act was the "Disney Act II."
How is this security? (Score:2)
words are just words and they mean what we use them to mean. But I am sick of this use of the word "security".
Security A: protection from hackers, SPAM, viruses, spies, corruption
Security B: copy/cartel protection
A and B have nothing to do with each other. And current software (especially the MS variety) is full of security (A) holes. Consumers are concerned that their computers are at risk and want to be more secure (A). And they enjoy the freedom that digital media (without security B) provides.
By saying that DRM addresses computer security, the industry is throwing up a smoke screen. The consumer believes that MS, Intel, et al. are addressing their security concerns when in fact they are really crippling their hardware and software. With no added security (A).
RIAA also wins using this technology because file-sharing and burning are thrown together with viri and hacking as "threats to computer security". Just a semantic turn away from making casual file-swappers into federal felons.
Security is the wrong word. I can't even imagine how it came into use in this sense, except as an incredibly succesful PR ploy. Just stick with "Copy-Protection" or better "Software Restriction" or more realistic "Software Crippling".
Sweat
Nothing new; DRM is still destined to failure. (Score:5, Interesting)
Consumers define a market, not the other way around. When people start getting crippled hardware that doesn't do what they want it to, companies will pay the price.
Moreover, once media companies lose legislative support for DRM enforcement (and this will happen, although it may take the judicial system a while), tech companies won't have any more reason to implement this sort of consumer-unfriendly crap.
We need to remember that the judicial branch of the government is always slow to react, but that it does react -- and more often than not, it will favor the rights of the consumer over the rights of industry. A very convincing argument could be made (and will be, in the next couple years) to the Supreme Court challenging something as unconstitutional as the DMCA, or mandatory DRM. When Hollywood does get slapped in the face by the courts -- and I'm confident they will -- all of this nonsense will fade into the past, and a new wave of technological innovation will be allowed to continue.
This sort of situation has come up in the past, and the American system has resolved it. If this weren't the case, we would have no VCRs, no cassette tapes, and certainly no MP3 players. But we do. It's only a matter of time before we can continue the developmental trend uninhibited.
Super MP3 doesn't seem to be DRM (Score:2)
This ISN'T DRM (Score:3, Interesting)
The other DRM solutions had bits of code deciding I could do X, Y but not Z.
This one says, I can do X, Y AND Z, but if Z turns out to be illegal, I can be punished.
Fine - thats innocent until proven guilty. Exactly the principle what these new RIAA and MPAA rules forget.
Now give me all that nice digital media, in this unprotected digital format, to use how I wish and I promise not to distribute it.
If I do, it will have a watermark that can track it to my account.
Fine. There's no code managing my rights, if I do something illegal, I get to argue my case infront of a human.
Kinda reminds me of... (Score:2)
Part 1 [machall.com]
Part 2 [machall.com]
Part 3 [machall.com]
Scary prediction (Score:2)
ITS NOT ABOUT PIRACY! (Score:2)
They're concerned about people stealing music, but they know as much as we do that some college kid downloading 5 CDs doesn't equal $100 in lost revenue.
Digital music frightens them because they lose control. Once you have that music, you own it FOREVER in whatever format you want!
That means that all of their great ideas about having people pay for music that "expires" after 30 days, and all their other reoccuring revenue plans can't happen.
They WANT you to get sick of music. If you can listen to any one of your 6000+ songs at the touch of an iPod, thats less of a motivation to buy new music than if you're getting tired of listening to the same 6 CDs that you've had in your car the past month.
This isn't even touching on the whole business of buying and selling physical CDs. There is a huge business in printing, selling, distributing, and marketing the CDs that you buy at the mall. If music was totally electronic, that revenue would be GONE.
What About Independent Artists? (Score:2, Interesting)
A Step in the Right Direction? (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm not so sure that voting does any good these days, with politicians being easily bought, but we can be heard with our dollars! Just Don't Buy It! We may be a minority in this but out dollars do count! The consumers should not have to comprimise to the products; the companies producing these products should be comprimising to the consumers' demands.
Okay... (Score:5, Insightful)
We all know the RIAA has been getting what they want when it comes to anything related to intellectual property.
So how will it be recieved amongst them? Well I'll let you decide for yourself. However, allow me a chance to display the facts.
The Recording Industry Association of America is an interesting animal. It deviates from our usual assumptions in the way that most corporations work. It is usually assumed that a large corporation wants money, that money is the bottom line. This is not the case with the RIAA. The RIAA wants control. The end result is still money but control is the most effective means to get money.
I've explained this situation before, but for the sake of clarity I'll explain it again. They don't want control just because they're the multinational, multibillion-dollar, multi-million employing incarnation of pure satanic force. They want control because in the entertainment industry, more than any other, this is how you make the most money.
The (literally) billion dollar question is "why?" The answer is simple. Cost and risk. More than any other industry there's more money spent at a higher risk in entertainment (save, possibly, stock trading). Unlike other industries with development processes, the entertainment industry does not gaurantee that a large amount of time and money will produce large profits. So what must they do? They must assure that they are the only sources for their product. They must make it as difficult as possible for users to get music other than theirs.
That's half the reason the RIAA exists, to remove competition between high profiting companies and instead force it upon the rest of the world, including start-ups and independant businesses. I'm getting ahead of myself, however.
So what do they do with this control? They bring on a finite number of artists, have them produce as many CDs as possible, while diluding the mainstream public with as much related advertising as possible.
So you say, "why not hire more artists and make more CDs? Then you'll make more profit!" That's the traditional way of looking at it, but it's altogether untrue. They'll make more money, yes, but they certainly will not make more profit. Albums sold would increase but the cost of developing this music, signing the band, advertising for the band, buying radio play, and everything else associated with music production would increase at a higher rate than their sales.
So you see, keeping a small number of artists (a full CD store doesn't appear to be a small number of artists but when you consider that the RIAA only signs approximately 1000 artists annually you begin to see the situation with clarity) is quite beneficial to them. Making sure that these are the only artists you ever see, hear, or talk about is even more beneficial to them. It's the real reason P2P is under attack.
Given this super short, abridged, and summarized synopsis of the situation let's look at this DRM approach again. This "Squishy DRM" would allow P2P to continue. It would assure that people could not illegally acquire music. Yet, it would also allow consumers to venture with their music taste, and try smaller, less advertised artists/bands/genres. This DRM method would still compromise their control, and thus, their profits. How do you think they will recieve this idea?
Finally a name that makes sense (Score:2, Funny)
they've got it all backwards (Score:2)
What would keep you from ripping your songs at work (with the ID similar to: BigCompany PC#2004).
Then take them home, log into your favorite P2P system and sharing them with the world.
Actually the whole setup seems to be against the original ripper, but not against the 400 people later trading it. Considering most of the leaches out there in P2P-land, who download only, and hardly ever upload (or rip) it seems like it would be safe to continue trading all your BobSmith-PC#01 files, as long as your name isn't BobSmith.
here is where I would draw the line (Score:2)
So, tracking is fine by me. I think it's technologically futile, but if they succeed and don't track things that don't belong to them, more power to them.
Know what scares me? (Score:2)
The problem with FX is that some of the best effects you can do are the kind that people don't notice. For example, there was a scene in Showgirls where a fountain had to be played with digitally in order to make it come out right. (If memory serves, the fountain didn't work when it came time to shoot, so it was fixed later...) Not a spectacular effect, nobody even noticed. The idea was to save money on a reshoot later.
Well, the problem I have is that if I do a good enough job doing effects like that, how's anybody going to know what I did? An interesting idea hit me: Why not perform an alteration to a well known movie?
I could take a movie, do a DVD-Rip of it so I have an
The more subtle I make it, the more likely that the effect will go unnoticed. But to have that poster hanging in a Star Trek movie would be startling. So my subtle effect could easily go noticed. Good, eh?
Well, here's what bugs me: the DMCA says I can't do that. Fair use rights used to let me do that. I'm legitimately trying to use copyrighted work to privately advance my education. If the problem wasn't so serious (i.e. DRM enfocrement of 'copy restriction'...) then this situation would be comical. The very industry that is pushing for this type of enforcement is the same industry I'm trying to build a skillset for so I can work for them and make more content!
Can I succeed without doing the DVD rip? Yeah, sort maybe. But they've made my life a good deal harder. I want to learn how to green-screen against footage shot professionally. This is easy to do if I rip a DVD with documentary footage. Without that footage, I'll have to hire somebody to professionally light a greenscreen set. Cute. If I had the money to do that, I wouldn't be trying to educate myself!
I hope the *AA realizes that they're destroying their talent pool.
It won't work.. (Score:2)
Besides, this messes with the consumer when 6 months after they download this DRMP3 file, they find that they have to reinstall Windows. *poof* there goes your music.
Give the RIAA / MPAA enough rope, and they're bound to hang themselves with it. I don't think they *really* understand where they're being hurt by piracy. It isn't by teenagers trading mp3's on-line (who weren't going to buy it anyways), it's the major pirates that press bootleg CD's and sell them at Flea Markets that does damage to their business.
Same goes for software. One kid burning a CD for a friend is NOTHING compared to the major illegal pirates. These clowns are trying to blow out a birthday candle when they've got a forest fire in their backyard.
Ah - screw them (the RIAA / MPAA). Their pure, unadulterated idiocy will be their downfall.
How does squishy work? (Score:2)
I couldn't get very far with the scheme since as I was trying it, anyone who could get a hold of several copies of a song could figure out which bits were the id and change some of them. I didn't have the energy to pursue it after that, especially since I'm not sure it would prove a satisfactory disincentive to piracy anyway. Maybe something with a secret checksum but that would easily be hacked.
If they solved these problems, it would be nice, except that it seems too late to stop the RIAA Nazis.
Heil!
sonofabitch (Score:2)
Oooh. I'm so angry I could spit. The $20 Billion music industry wants to curb the $600 Billion tech industry? I didn't steal anything when I put 1000 songs on my ipod. He wants DRM to be squishy in that no software will contain the features that violate DRM. They're just talking about improving the user interface so you don't realize that capabilities have been stolen from you.
Re:Squish This Maddog (Score:2)
I don't want the DMCA SWAT team to come "hup-hup-hupping" their way into my trailer and dragging me off to a SuperMax facility in Colorado for advocating the notion of "squishing DRM".
Re:Squish This Maddog (Score:2)
I took it the other way around. Squishy DRM is indeed a "compromise". It's a compromise in the same sense that the DMCA was a "compromise" between ISPs and Hollywood and the CBDTPA was (presented as) a "compromise" between hardware makers and Hollywood.
Jack and Hilly are very capable of understanding what "compromise" means. To MPAA and RIAA, "compromise" means "You give us some of what you used to have, and we keep it until we decide it's time for another compromise."
(The content cartel's notion of compromise from one of their more popular movie characters, namely Darth Vader, of "I am altering the terms of our bargain. Pray that I do not alter it further" fame)
I find it appropriate (Score:5, Interesting)
There ARE other ways to stop piracy, like prosecuting those who break the laws.
This "squishy DRM" system, which puts a unique identifier in each record ("record" in copyright law refers to a copy of a recording) but doesn't restrict fair uses, allows copyright holders to identify those who break the laws so that prosecution can begin. I find it an appropriate compromise, as long as there's a way for any individual copyright owner to mark a record for free redistribution.
Re:I find it appropriate (Score:2)
And, of course, the tracking information embeded into songs would never be used for anything other than tracking down pirates. After all, the RIAA would never want to track users listening habits.
Sarcasm aside, it wouldn't be easy to track people's listening habits. Especially in a car CD-player, but on a computer, it gets eaiser. And assuming Gates and his ilk are right, we are going to end up with more of our entertainment equipment on our network, and eventually internet.
I admit it may be a bit parinoid at this point, but its something to keep in the back of the mind. Personally, I wouldn't mind this "squishy DRM" idea much, as long as there are some strict regulations preventing collecting any of this sort of data. And, of course, those regulations would have to require a fine large enough to cripple the biggest business in the event they are broken, lets say aroung $5 billion inflation adjusted from 2002 dollars. In the end though, I have a feeling that we are going to have something like this forced upon us, and we are not going to be given the protection that should come along with it.
DMCA already prohibits collecting that data (Score:2)
Personally, I wouldn't mind this "squishy DRM" idea much, as long as there are some strict regulations preventing collecting any of this sort of data.
The DMCA (17 USC 1201(i) [cornell.edu]) exempts from the circumvention ban any copy-protection system that collects personally identifying information about a user and doesn't tell the user about it.
Re:DMCA already prohibits collecting that data (Score:2)
But is doing so a punishable offense? And, if so, is it a useful punsihment, or just a slap on the wrist?
Re:I find it appropriate (Score:2)
Also closed-source players have lots of other ways to track listening habits and don't need this tag for that.
Re:I find it appropriate (Score:2)
It'll give them added incentive to stop putting out crap.
Point taken, I guess its just a bit of a knee jerk reaction on my part, I really don't like being tracked. Realisticly, I wouldn't mind them getting aggergate data, which has no serial numbers, no names, no individuality to the data. That is as much as they need, and keeps info about me happily lost in the noise.
I realize that, as things currently stand, that privacy and amnomitity are basicly dead, I still don't have to like it. When it comes to privacy/amnominity I really feel that every inch of ground should be fought for. Maybe I'm just parinoid, but on the other hand I'm sortta glad that I'll be dead in 70 years or so and no longer care about where some of this stuff might go.
Re:I find it appropriate (Score:2)
Re:I find it appropriate (Score:2)
Stop right there. This is not Psych research. I do understand the principals behind scientific studies, yes they need the ability to ensure that there were no double votes or the like. What I'm talking about isn't research in the scientific sense of the word. Its collecting of aggergate listening data to get a feel for what people listen to. It has no need to be scientifically valid.
This can be a serial number that is bound to nothing but that particular set of responses, but without a system to ensure that each set of responses--and each respondent--is unique, no credible institution or journal will accept the data.
Again, true enough for a scientific study. Though this means that there must be some relationship between respondent and serial number, to avoid issuing more than one number. So the serial number is linked to the person.
If you want your opinion to be heard, you'll have to accept the fact that your opinion will be uniquely identified, even if measures are taken to prevent revealing who, exactly, "you" are.
Not always true, just because my opinion isn't in a scientific journal, doesn't mean that it won't be heard. I'm not talking about trying to get a paper published, I'm talking about marketing weasles getting a feel for thier market. Moreover, the measures to prevent identifications become doomed to fail at this point. They have my answers, linked to a serial number, in a separte table in thier database that serial number is linked to me. An SQL join command is really simple.
Re:I find it appropriate (Score:2)
Re:I find it appropriate (Score:2)
The idea sounds very nice until you stop for a second and think about what it takes to implement it. How are you going to stop all the bad pirates from continuing to use their non-watermarking rippers? Uh-oh...
Re:serial-number watermarks on CD Digital Audio (Score:2)
What they have in mind, I think, is proprietary hardware, each with its own key, that puts the watermark on the copy. All other copying hardware is to be outlawed. Then, and only then, does it become possible to prove that a certain copy originated from the machine of a specific Joe user.
I find it INappropriate. (Score:2)
I see a problem here:
The Super MP3 will come with a tracking signature -- a digital fingerprint -- that will identify the PC that made it.
And if the user is attempting to put out anonymous speech on an MP3 his anonymity is destroyed. Very handy for identifying, prosecuting, and executing dissidents, along with anyone who encodes a tape of their voice for distribution on the Internet.
I bet every totalitarian regime in the world is already drooling.
Of course if this "user serial number" is installed by software you just need to hack the software to change it - or clone someone else's. Setting an individual serial number on open-source encoders will be on the honor system, right? And pirates will honor the rules, and not subvert the unique-ID generator, right? Or are we going to have no open-source encoders for this flashy new format? Even if we have object-only encoders there are ways to subvert them (which I won't even start to describe here thanks to the DMCA.)
Re:I find it appropriate (Score:2)
That's the scary part to me.
-- Brian
Re:I find it appropriate (Score:2)
That means that:
The OS would have to know the serial number of the computer so it could make it available to the ripper application to embed in the file. Any OS or ripper that failed to cooperate would be illegal?
The government would have a registry that maps every computer serial number to a single person. When you sell the computer, you'd have to notify the government. What happens if you are caught using an unregistered computer?
As I said, scary.
-- Brian
Re:I find it appropriate (Score:2)
Most likely they will go after Bob because they can prove he is doing something that is not allowed by copyright. You could always claim Bob broke into your house and copied your music without your permission.
Anyway if the RIAA is starting to consider sensible things like this is is a great relief. But people here should show their support by indicating they will fully support lawful prosecution of copyright violators and not act like a bunch of children, which will just make them go back to their earlier stance which is going to outlaw all non-MicroSoft systems eventually.
Re:I find it appropriate (Score:2)
You pay a tariff on all recordable media which is then given to the RIAA companies to compensate them for their "losses" due to this.
Minidisc player (Score:2)
More like mp3PRO (Score:3, Informative)
SuperMP3 is already here. It's called Ogg Vorbis.
From the brief description in the article (MP3 based, Thomson Multimedia involved), SuperMP3 seems to be an mp3PRO file [mp3prozone.com] with a watermark embedded in the sound. The mp3PRO technology uses MP3 coding of low frequencies and then spectral band replication followed by dynamic re-equalization of high frequencies to provide a subjective quality at 64 kbps to 80 kbps similar to MP3 at about 112 to 144 kbps. The similar competing mp3+v [plusv.org] technology replaces spectral band replication with a simple white-noise generator to achieve similar gains.
Re:Piracy Police (Score:3, Insightful)
If you can control what people see and hear and USE then you can control it... but guess what.. they cant.
Think trade secrets (Score:2)
If one of my MP3's shows up on somebody else's system, is sombody going to make me justify the exchange?
I imagine that the contracts will follow trade secret law. You must make every reasonable effort to safeguard your personal Super MP3 collection. Otherwise, the labels have every right to sue your for copyright and/or trade secret infringement.
Re:Piracy Police (Score:5, Interesting)
Moreover, this system will have to have a way of collecting information, and storing it as part of the DRMP3 (Suggestion for an acronym for SuperMP3's). Do they think that no one is going to figure out how to modify them to change the owner? So suddenly someone who dislikes me manufactures a bunch of Britney Spears DRMP3's with my name attached and dumps them on the web. Now, not only do I have to prove that I'm not the one releasing them, worse, I have to try and prove that I really never bought one of her CDs, to the world at large, to rebuild my little bit of reputation.
Re:Piracy Police (Score:2)
That's what public key cryptography is for. The only way this system could work is if each consumer has a private key attached to his PC, and if all mp3 software available was PKI aware.
If the record companies were a bit less finicky, and were content to know who originally downloaded a song from an RIAA-approved online music service, that part could be got round.
In general, I really, really like the idea of putting identifying markers into media files rather than programming computers to preemptively constrict the user's freedom of action, but in the end it sort of comes down to putting technical and legal restrictions in place. Identifying markers could simply be less onerous.
Re:Piracy Police (Score:2)
Umm... why would one of your squishy MP3's show up on someone else's system? If it is, then one of two things probably happened: he really did steal it, or you gave it to him, in which case, that's what this is intended to prevent.
Honestly, I don't see anyone really using this to encode music. What this will be good for is downloading music directly from a record company. I have an account, pay my 25 cents, and download a song that has been pre-encoded with something that associates the song with me, and giving me a disincentive to give it away.
Re:How do we distance ourselves from the thieves (Score:2, Interesting)
Actually.. there are a number of arguments for them existing quite nicely together. First, and strongest, the provisions assuring personal digital copies under the Audio Home Recording Act. There are a few other as well, may favorite being a neat corner that hasn't been explored much. If a copyright holder wields their copyrights in an anti-competative manor they lose the monoply distrobution right that copyright law grants (i.e. you get a monopoly on the item, if you turn that into an industry monopoly, we step on you). Given that the record industry has been slapped by the FTC for price fixing at least twice in the past ten years or so, it could be said that they really don't have right to copyright protection currently.
These types of arguments do make a reasonable argument for consumer rights and advocacy, but are still stealing and don't fall under the purview of fair use.
Until we can argue against DRM without bringing up these types of arguments, redefining fair use to what we'd like it to be, then we as a downloading, file sharing community will have a hard time being taken seriously, let alone winning the argument.
VCRs can be used to infringe as can cassete tapes. I can kill you with a butter knife, a fork, a pencil, or a rock. You can quickly bypass the ignition key on quite a few models of car using a skate key. A photocopier has potential infringement in it's very name. Yet none of these things are outlawed. Why? Because they have uses that are legal. I feel fairly safe in guessing that the amount of legal p2p activity is in the same ballpark as the amount of legal use of the copy function in a dual-deck GoVideo vcr. The courts have already said that these facts do not warrent a ban on VCRs so why am I still having to defend my ability to make copies of my music?
Re:How do we distance ourselves from the thieves (Score:2)
Buying 12 cds doesn't excuse the fact that you stole 1.
Just like rescuing 12 kittens from the local pound wouldn't excuse me for the 1 I drowned in my bathtub.
They don't have to accept "p2p is good for the industry" as an argument.
The poster has a point. I'm just surprised he hasn't been modded into oblivion for playing devil's advocate.
Re:How do we distance ourselves from the thieves (Score:2)
For example, without copyrights we had, let's imagine, 5% of a, and 100% of b. Let's further say that after the first copyright laws were passed, the numbers became 25% of a, and 90% of b.
(N.B. these numbers are all pretty damn arbitrary!)
Since the old total was 105, and the new total was 115, this means that the public would benefit more from _THAT_ copyright law than if they didn't have it.
On the other hand, what if right now, we're at 75% of a, and 25% of b? With a total of 100, this means that not only are we worse off than we were with some different copyright law, but we are actually worse off than we would be with NO law.
While the realities are not so easily quantified, if copying 1 cd did somehow result in an overall public benefit, then honestly, we want to encourage it! 'Cos the system isn't there to prevent people from doing something, it's there to leave them better off than they would be without it.
Re:Although you may be right (Score:2)
Is listening to the radio "stealing music"? After all I don't pay for it and I mute it during commercials.
I sometimes tape stuff of the radio. Is that "stealing music" too?
Copyright violation (which this action maybe at worst) is not stealing. Depriving someone else of profits is not stealing (or is driving a fuel efficient car "stealing" from oil companies?).
If you think of file sharing as promotion (which is how record companies think of radio or MTV) then it's a great way for artists to be exposed to new listeners. Think how much music is being produced and how long playlists on a particular radio station are. There are probably less than 500 songs played on the radio any given week.
What if I don't like any of the crap that record companies put on the radio. Where do I go to hear music I may like?
The record companies somehow became total control freaks. They want to pick the music for me, then decide when I can listen to it, using what devices and in what order.
I want to control my own music. If the radio and MTV become a wasteland of stuff that doesn't interest me, fine. But don't expect me to pay for it. I'll go directly to the artists and buy my music there (I've been doing that more and more - since most of my favorite artists have their own websites). And to find new music I use the Net - news groups, etc and I use gnutella to sample stuff (althought most artists I like have samples directly on their sites).
If RIAA DRMs their precious "content" they can keep it, I'm not going to buy it.
Re:DRM not that bad! (Score:2)
Re:DRM not that bad! (Score:2)
>>>>>>>>
By violating the rights of the consumer. The end does not justify the means (funny how that phrase has fallen out of common use these days...).