Webcasters Call Bunk on SoundExchange DRM Ploy 109
RadioFan writes "The settlement between webcasters and SoundExchange is starting to come apart at the seams, because everyone is realizing that SoundExchange wants to force DRM on Net Radio. DiMA, one of the largest Net Radio lobbyists, has fired back at Sound Exchange, calling them out for leveraging high royalty fees to push through DRM requirements that they failed to obtain in Congress via broadcast flag and anti-recording legislation. Was this whole thing a ruse to get DRM on net radio?"
they can keep their music, i want no part of it. (Score:1, Interesting)
where i do not need ever consider these lobbyists and thier ilk.
pop music must die.
Re:they can keep their music, i want no part of it (Score:1)
Net Radio? What net radio? (Score:4, Insightful)
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How Could You Implement This 'Solution'? (Score:5, Insightful)
How in the hell could DRM prevent this?
But, then again, look at what I'm criticizing! I challenge anyone to list one technology or product that DRM has successfully 'worked' on (in that it prevents piracy). This is laughable and brings the phrase "defective by design" to whole new levels I never thought possible. Not only will it be defective, use cycles and memory on your machine but it will probably make the quality worse. Bravo, DRM, bravo.
Nothing I've found on this lays out the implementation so here's my prediction. SoundExchange wants the minimum offer/DRM model in place. Then they can prove it's possible to still streamrip. Then where does that put the web radio sites? At the mercy of SoundExchange, of course, because they implemented something that didn't satisfy a contract.
Re:How Could You Implement This 'Solution'? (Score:5, Insightful)
And similar tools exist on Linux to capture the ALSA buffers. There's absolutely no way to prevent 'streamripping' with any DRM. The broadcast has to be decoded at the time of play -- there's no way around it. For that matter, these same techniques work with any DRM.
The bottom line here is that DRM schemes are inherently broken and can't be fixed. So let's just get rid of all DRM and be done with it, 'k Mafiaa?
Re:How Could You Implement This 'Solution'? (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe the PTO should treat DRM the same as they (supposedly) treat perpetual motion machines, and refuse to assign patents or trademarks on DRM technology because it's physically impossible to implement a working system?
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Why wouldn't you want DRM to be patented? The more its patented the less it can be used, thats the whole basis of IP reform.
Two reasons. First, if there's no way to patent it, it becomes harder for a company to make a profit off of it, and less likely large companies will be dumping money into it. Second, if it's not patented, then if you develop an opensource version of it, they can't sue you for patent infringement, although they still might be able to do something with the DMCA. If we could eliminate the DMCA, and make DRM unpatentable, we'd be a lot closer to having all this nonsense with the Mafiaa cleared up.
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Seriously, though, how does this make any sense at all? Lets suppose that your conjecture is implemented, and DRM is ineligible for patents. Companies would still be able to make money off of it because what would have previously been patented would now become a trade secret. The padlock is well understood, yet I think there are still companies making money off of padlock sales. And your extrapolation that if its ineli
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Companies would still be able to make money off of it because what would have previously been patented would now become a trade secret. The padlock is well understood, yet I think there are still companies making money off of padlock sales.
On your first point, once the DRM implementation has been reverse engineered (which is currently illegal thanks to the DMCA), a open source implementation can be created. If the underlying algorithm isn't covered by patent (and the name by trademark), then there's nothing the company can do to prevent you from distributing your version of the DRM for free, and furthermore, without the DMCA there's nothing they can do if you want to distribute a "broken" version that bypasses authorization checks and just
You're way off base. (Score:2)
DRM is an encryption scheme where the recipient is also considered one of the attackers--you HAVE to give the key to the recipient to unlock the media but attempt to tell the recipient how to use the file, which is not technically feasable. An open-source version will simply tell the attacker/recipient how to use the key to unlock the media even faster!
If the source-code is revealed, it ceases to be DRM, because the encrypted key is visible and any protection on
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The problem is that DRM is a technological "solution" to a sociological "problem". Usually, that sort of fix doesn't work out so well.
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I wish. If the government made everything that couldn't actually work illegal or unpatentable, it'd implode upon itself.
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What they want is a cash cow. Something where if a user complies the user pays a lot of money to them. If the user does not comply and has no money the user goes ignored if the user does not comply (or with tight enough demands even if the user does) then they have an airtight case pre-made, just fill in the blank and confiscate any equipment said user mig
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Ever heard of running an OS under virtualization? There's nothing to prevent Vista from under VMware, QEMU, XEN, Parallels, etc. As long as the emulator makes Vista 'think' it has DRM-capable hardware, then you'll have no problems capturing anything coming out of the sound card when running under a non-DRM-restricting OS.
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I can practically guarentee that they'll ask to "search" your vehicle.
On the topic of DRM, I can't think of any particular reason that it should work. Heck, the closest thing anyone could possibly get to "real" DRM is if they did something like Terminal Man...
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And similar tools exist on Linux to capture the ALSA buffers. There's absolutely no way to prevent 'streamripping' with any DRM. The broadcast has to be decoded at the time of play -- there's no way around it. For that matter, these same techniques work with any DRM.
The bottom line here is that DRM schemes are inherently broken and can't be fixed. So let's just get rid of all DRM and be done with it, 'k Mafiaa?
DRM schemes are not "inherently broken" -- they work just fine for the majority of their t
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But don't forget that DRM also suffers from the "broke once, broken everywhere" problem. If only one smart person figures out how to break DRM, he or she can publish his or her findings. A few others will use those findings to develop a tool. Many people will then use the tool to rip and republish the media in other
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I just don't understand why they care so much about online streams; they're often lower quality than common radio signals. Why aren't they clamoring to stop people from streamripping ordinary radio stations? Are they secretly devising DRM'd radios with encrypted ratio broadcasts? If they aren't applying the same tactics to analog broadcasts, the whole endeavor is poi
Re:How Could You Implement This 'Solution'? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Surely you're not insinuating that the other songs on the albums aren't worth listening to?!?
*Smacks face like McCauley Culkin*
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There is also a HUGE amount of over-the-air terrestrial radio that is booming - on the AM dial - thanks largely to Rush Limbaugh.
And there is always WFMU in Jersey City - listener supported, not low power, and not NPR.
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Re:How Could You Implement This 'Solution'? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Pandora and Live365 both stop streamripping as any reasonable person understands it. Obviously blocking any possible "recording" isn't possible and it's FUD to suggest that that's what at issue.
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Well, you supply your own answer in the very next sentence-
"It wouldn't stop someone with a little know how to circumvent"
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The "analog" equipment (Score:1)
With "proper" DRM in the receptor/trans
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DRM would effectively limit SOME features (Score:2)
And before anyone suggests it, there is no way to blindly separate a stream accurately into individual s
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Consider DRM which works only with cooperating drivers that disable recording during play of protected content. Yes you still have the analog hole, but it's no longer *convenient* to record shows. Requires another machine/device and less than stellar quality.
Re:How Could You Implement This 'Solution'? (Score:4, Informative)
How in the hell could DRM prevent this?
They accomplish this through these restrictions:
1. They stop you from specifically being able to play a particular song or artist. Instead they'll create a station that you can customize based on genre, that will from time to time randomly play a song from the artist you chose.
2. You can't programatically find out what's playing. The radio player itself is flash-based, no handy Shoutcast stream tags here.
3. Even if you and a friend listen to the same custom station at the same time, both will be randomly playing through a different part of that station's universe --> no predictability.
4. You have limited ability to skip songs (something like 7 per hour).
5. You can't go back and listen to a song that's already played (fully or partially).
6. You can't restart a song that's just started playing.
7. You can't tell what going to play next.
Aside from these restrictions, it's actually a pretty cool idea and I listen to Pandora from time to time, but the music license effectively makes it so that there's simply no viable way to record the songs you want unless you're willing to sit there for hours, manually chopping up and labeling audio.
Does it matter (Score:5, Interesting)
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I wish I could remember who and where it happened to. but ti wasn't more then a few years ago that it happened.
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Not that I'm thinking of moving there, but how is Russia for immigration anyway? You'd have to learn the language of course, but other than that it seems like a fairly decent place to live. It's not
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Not that I'm thinking of moving there, but how is Russia for immigration anyway? You'd have to learn the language of course, but other than that it seems like a fairly decent place to live. It's not like you'll have your head sawed off or be blown up by suicide bombers, like in other parts of the world. And it doesn't seem like they're terribly restrictive with freedom, from what little I've heard, unlike places like China.
Wouldn't it be ironic if people started moving to Russia in search of freedom?
No, it would be stupid.
Russia has real problems with organised crime (lots of it in the Kermlin), political and journalistic critics of the government end up dead (even if they are not in Russia). "Russia's population is actually decreasing because of catastrophic health problems" (Jared Diamond's words not mine). A quick look at this Human Rights Watch [hrw.org] report is not exactly heartwarming.
As for the "no terrorism" claim, note that the overwhelming group in Chechnya [wikipedia.org] are Sunni Muslims (the Afgan Taliban gove
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Maybe in a couple of decades things will be better there. But I shudder to think of what the USA will be lik
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Normal Russian citizens living in Moscow or wherever don't have the same problems.
You can't have clicked on all the links otherwise you would have noticed that the link "and in this one" links to the MOSCOW theatre hostage crisis [wikipedia.org] - it is always the capitals that are in most danger.
But I shudder to think of what the USA will be like in a couple of decades if things continue as they are now. Hopefully Americans will finally grow a brain at the voting booth.
You're definitely right there, just remember that because things are better in the US than most of the world now, is no reason to get complacent and let those standards go simply because "no where else does this".
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You're right, sorry about that. That's a good point about capitals.
How about Ukraine, or some other eastern European countries? Do they have the same level of internet/copyright freedom Russia has (i.e. being able to put up just about any website you want without worrying about corporations or government hara
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Rippers (Score:5, Informative)
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And trying to restrict people from being able to time-shit radio is also pointless.
Never heard of that particular practice. Perhaps it goes with this product [atechflash.com].
Motives are simple (Score:5, Insightful)
Net radio gives opportunities to unknown/independent artists to reach potential fans, and this simply does not serve the interests of the "big five" (or is it "big three" now?) record companies who are responsible for all the crappy music, cross-fading and talking over we get on commercial, FM radio these days.
So, sure, they want to introduce DRM to net radio, as well as crippling fees that only allow big companies (like AOL, for example) to play. Anything to wring a few more dollars out of unsuspecting music fans and prolong their control over the choices available to us.
Re:Motives are simple (Score:4, Interesting)
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These "performance royalties" are collected for all songs played, regardless of their origin and the wishes of the artist. Any artist may apply to SoundExchange to receive the royalties collected on their behalf, less a "handling fee." It is not optional.
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You may not have noticed, but the performance royalty groups are trying to go after terrestrial radio stations now too. It's possible that they never liked radio's "free ride".
Link [hollywoodreporter.com]
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Thanks for the information. I will look in to it further.
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Already done for Clear Channel (Score:5, Informative)
So...I'd say it's already here.
Re:Already done for Clear Channel (Score:5, Insightful)
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Not showing artist/title is annoying, but I can put up with it... but it actively prevents me from pursuing
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Sounds like a good move to me. After all, if it's a ClearChannel station, it must not be worth listening to.
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After all this garbage...I've gotten to the point where I only listen to non-US stations. Not only do I get out of my comfort zone...get to hear what others are hearing out the country & don't have to worry about this DRM BS.
Plus...music is music...so the same songs I would hear in the US...if a station were to play them at all...sounds the same. The same formats we used to listen to year
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No DRM there, yet.
Ubj nobhg... (Score:2)
Re:How about... (Score:5, Funny)
We just encrypt everything with Rot13? It benchmarks favourably in terms of security with such industry standards as CSS and WMA, both of which are broken.
I reply - even better, we have the DMCA already on the books; so legally ROT13 is just as secure as any other protection mechanism, if you break it, you can be sued. This is the case, I propose DRM move to Double-ROT13. ROT13 is an old method, and like DES moving to TripleDES (3DES), ROT13 should update to 2ROT13 for increased security AND performance - even better, it works out of the box on existing players - zero compatibility problems, no need to worry about whiny users with old or new technology.
What about advertising? (Score:2)
Was this whole thing a ruse to get DRM on net radi (Score:4, Insightful)
Slashdot is lagged to shit (Score:1)
Its barely worth clicking on the comments links when they take over a minute to load up. Not to mention 1 minute plus if you want to view some thread or individual comment.
Time Shifting (not just a good idea, it's the law) (Score:1)
Time shifting is the recording of programming to a storage medium to be viewed or listened to at a time more convenient to the consumer. Typically, this refers to TV programming but can also refer to radio shows via podcasts. Time Shifting [wikipedia.org]
What tools would you use to "time shift" a webcast but a stream-ripper? Therefore, eliminating the stream-rippers effectively rewrites the law.
Give it time. Even if th
Re:Time Shifting (not just a good idea, it's the l (Score:2)
Yeah, because it as really pushed all those lawsuits concerning DVD backup and format shifting. Oh, right...it hasn't. Thing is, not enough people know enough to care, and so few streaming media outlets provide enough quallity to matter. The general population doesn't care, and the audio geeks don't want it (96kb streams, that is). Not that it would matter, they would just buy a patch to the law for audio. They've alre
GPLv3 For Music (Score:1)
So I am thinking, the independent musicians of the world need something like a EULA, something that would get around the "$ound Exchange" compulsory license.
Is it possible? Would it have to be wrapped in a 'software program'?
A Workable Solution (Score:1)
Internet Radio (and Radio) broadcasters should just STOP playing music that's owned (or controlled) by the RIAA. Let all those other performers and artists that have just been dying for air time to get their 15 minutes of fame. There's bound to be some other good music out there that the RIAA-scum-sucking-dirt-bags don't have their vampire-teeth stuck into.
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Might be a side effect of the new Discussion 2 thing, listed on the main article page.
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/07/19/171622 8 [slashdot.org]
Hope it doesn't screw up the low-bandwidth and no-CSS setups (which I use... the regular view makes my eyes crazy).