MS DRM Version 2 - Cracked 348
As the title says: Microsoft Digital Rights Management Version 2 has been cracked. The Register has the story, including a link to a downloadable zip file which contains source code, explanation and a small DOS utility. Grab it while you can. You can also read the explanation directly here, and you can also find it with Google.
Well, of course (Score:5, Interesting)
"Information wants to be free."
There's a lot of bored but bright minds out there, and putting mountains up in their way just BEGS them to be climbed. As the old adage goes, Why do people climb mountains? well, there's actually 2 reasons, 1) because they're there.. 2) they're in the way of where you're trying to go..
*yawn* nice try MS, better luck next time eh?
What I don't get is why not use some proven technologies to get this done right? secure key-based encryption, rotating key servers, etc?
The obligatory correction (Score:4, Informative)
[anu.edu.au]
http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/II/IW
Re:Well, of course (Score:2)
Re: Well, of course (Score:5, Interesting)
Thus continueth the cycle:
1. A few people pirate software/music.
2. Corperations get pissed at piracy.
3. Corperation spends millions on development of an anti-piracy scheme.
4. Corperation has to raise prices to compensate.
5. Scheme gets cracked within DAYS of release.
6. More people pirate because prices are higher.
7. Goto 1.
Information doesn't *want* to be anything (Score:5, Interesting)
But people often want information -- want it to be free, or secure, or copyrighted, or burned, or locked away for the greater good. People want the latest news, the biased studies, the most accurate statistics. They want each other's secrets, their inventions, their inspirations, their dirty laundry . They want to be the first in the know, the winner in the argument, the smartest in the class. They want to be told what to think, to make others think like themselves, and to be the first with a new idea.
People in the Western world are conditioned to believe that with a little applied brain power, they can be anything they want. So they insist that information should be free, despite omnipresent evidence to the contrary. They ignore the fact that library books cost ten cents per day late, that a reliable Internet connection costs fifteen dollars a month, and that university tuition costs four thousand dollars a year.
Knowledge is power. The right kind of information is all that's needed to upend governments, bankrupt companies, exile citizens, and execute prisoners. It can turn a housewife into a millionaire, a CEO into an inmate, and a celebrity into a punch line. A poor man will kill for money, but a rich man will kill for secrecy. The patent office is filled with millions upon millions of facts which are worth anywhere from pennies to princedoms to the right people.
Information doesn't want to be anything. Information just is, which makes it an asset, which makes it vulnerable to the economic laws of supply and demand. So if your information is about Linux, it's probably worth nothing at all, save your reputation as a programmer. But if your information is about, say, Microsoft Office... in that case, it's worth whatever Bill Gates can get you to pay.
But I *like* the pathetic fallacy! (Score:5, Insightful)
"Water seeks its level." - no, sufficient quantities of water tend to be arranged by the force of gravity over time such that its open surface is roughly equidistant from the center of gravity
"Opposite electrical charges are attracted to each other." - no, there is a force on any two objects of opposite electrical charge each toward the other
"Information wants to be free." - no, it is difficult for one party to limit the distribution of information to only those parties it approves of
The common quotes are shorter and more digestable, literal truth is not relevant compared to effective communication.
On the other hand, the literal expressions are more likely to be left alone by those who don't understand them.
Re:Information doesn't *want* to be anything (Score:2)
The anthropomorphism is accurate. Once information starts to pass from one person to another, it is very difficult to stop the spread. How many movies are based upon the plot mechanism of a murderer having to kill more and more people to keep his secret? Keeping secrets is a very difficult business, because INFORMATION WANTS TO BE FREE!!
Re:you don't *want* anything (Score:2)
Information doesn't want anything.
People don't want to be free.
People don't want anything.
They are just bags of fluid, with chemicals moving around in the brain. Ascribing a motivation like 'want' is unwarranted.
What is your point? This is a poetic statement, a metaphor, not a scientific equation.
Re:Information doesn't *want* to be anything (Score:3, Insightful)
The notion that "information wants to be free" is a rather interesting case study of anthropomorphism gone horribly wrong. Information doesn't want anything.
You're nitpicking. Would you so angrily jump down the throat of someone who suggested that water wants to run downhill? Would you attempt to correct me what I suggest that the software I'm working on wants a 256 megabytes of RAM? Most people are perfectly capable of recognizing that anthropomorphism is not literal.
No, information doesn't want to be free. But information damn well tends toward being free. People fundamentally like sharing information. We tend to tell others things we find interesting. We spend a great deal of effort inventing tools to help share information with each other. Writing, printing, movable type, telegraphs, telephones, email, usenet, web pages.
Once you've given me a piece of information, you would be hard pressed to stop me from sharing it as I see fit. We've had to build complex legal systems of copyrights and trade secrets for the sole purpose of stopping information from spreading. In the absence of this legal system, information would tend spread. People spend huge amounts of effort developing encryption, copy restriction mechanisms, and similar mechanisms to stop information from being shared. It's always easier to make a technology that always shares information that a technology that can restrict the sharing of information.
Human beings like sharing information. Stopping this free spread of information is very difficult. No, information doesn't literally want to be free, but the behavior of normal people tends to spread information. "Information wants to be free" seems to me to be a reasonable way of summarizing the situation.
Re:Well, of course (Score:2, Insightful)
It's one thing if you want to send a message from a source to a destination in such a way that only the destination has the key, and the message is protected from third parties. There's lots of good, solid math explaining various types of ways to do that. But that's not what DRM is. DRM (or ANY name you wish to give the plague known as 'copy protection') is you want to send a message from a source to a destination in such a way that you give a key to anyone who asks, and you don't care about whether the message is protected at all *but* you want to make absolutely damn sure no one can manufacture keys but you.. well, that's just silly, since the point is to keep the way that the key works secret *from someone who has a copy of **and uses** the key*. That just doesn't work; the key can always, in some way, be disassembled. Yes, the DRM such far (CSS and such) were cracked because the people who designed them made mistakes and left their systems vulnerable to various attacks. But how would 'proven technology' possibly help with that? Even if there weren't the kind of bugs that led to DeCSS being possible, in the end your untrusted party still has a copy of both the key and the message and can watch the two working together in as close detail as they wish..
Anyway, how on earth are you supposed to get a 'proven technology' based on security through obscurity? In my book the definition of a 'proven' encryption technology is that many people know how it works and have examined its algorithm, and none have found a crack. But in the case of something like CSS or microsoft DRM, if you tell someone what your encryption scheme is, you've already lost.. so how can you possibly have any kind of publicly scrutinized 'proven technology' used?
When will they learn?!? (Score:4, Insightful)
Corps: 0, Hackers:...shit, I lost count.
SealBeater
Re:When will they learn?!? (Score:5, Funny)
Regards,
Slak
Re:When will they learn?!? (Score:2)
Wasn't it later determined that the Titanic sank because they forgot to adequately shield a heat exhaust vent, which led to a chain reaction that sunk the boat?
The way I see it, as long as you have some Jeff Goldblum-type with an Apple laptop, no computer system is safe.
The problem with this is that the RIAA types want to use encryption to enforce a scheme that users generally think of as unfair, especially since it gives them fewer rights than they have enjoyed in the past. The sooner they stop shoring up the crumbling edifice of trying to extend monopoly on physical distribution to a monopoly on digital distribution, the sooner they can find a way to do business which won't piss off the majority of their customers. I don't have any problems buying and paying for music in order to listen to it, but I expect certain rights with what I purchase, and I also expect that increases in technology should result in lower prices. Music CD's are not significantly cheaper than when I first saw them for sale in the mid-80's. This is total gravy for the music industry and I'm getting really tired of paying it, especially since I buy a lot of music.
You can get blank CD's 2-3 for a dollar, tell me again why a music CD costs $17? If $14 of that went to the artists, I wouldn't even mind that, but from what I understand only about a buck or two goes to the geniuses that actually create the product, the rest is skimmed off by middlemen whose jobs mostly involves perpetuating their jobs.
to no end (Score:4, Insightful)
But, know what? It's their property. If they want to fuck up their distribution channels, fuck em. I can do without "so-called" modern music anyway. I go see live bands locally, get lit, and have a great time and I didn't need to buy a fucking copy-protected by the DMCA CD or cassette or anything. These guys are out there trying to make a living, maybe you should check em out. And if you catch them after the show, you might can convince them that they should distribute their songs on CD's for cheap and ask them (ask them) about how they feel about MP3's and music-sharing in general. Of course, they might not agree with you (or myself), but they have that *right* to do so.
So, I encourage, nay I *challenge* each and every one of you who would boycott MS or the RIAA to pick up a local newspaper and see what's going on in y our town this weekend. Chances are, there's a band or two actually worth checking out, and hey, it's not like you're going to meet chicks sitting behind your monitor.
Oh, and on-topic: Rock on Beale! I'm encouraged to see that grassroots hactivism coming alive!
Re:to no end (Score:5, Insightful)
No it's not. That's the whole point - US copyright does not create property rights. The actions of the copyright holders in shifting the terminology of the debate to the language of property rights means they've already almost won. After all, who agrees with stealing? But if they don't own it (and they don't - you paid for it), it ain't stealing...
Re:to no end (Score:3, Interesting)
I used to agree with this, but now I'll have to differ on this point. Here come the flames...
How do you define property? Quite simply, it's the right, given to you by law and society, not nature, to control something. It's my house because I can decide who can enter in and who cannot. It's my car because I can decide that, if you drive it, you're commiting a crime. I control those things.
The control is completely artificial. It's been decided in our culture that people should have a right to control these things they call "possessions." There have been plenty of cultures in which the right to control was out of the hands of the people.
Now, I will admit that it is much easier to understand possession as it relates to physical things than as it relates to ideas or art. However, our current system has defined the control of the latter as property, and we accept it.
Removing control of my house from me is stealing. Likewise, removing control of my artistic works is also stealing.
Re:to no end (Score:5, Funny)
Chicks, take this as a warning: stay home this weekend.
Re:to no end (Score:2)
Hmmm. That's funny. I've met a few women over the net, while nothing's stuck so far, they weren't utter instant failures either, and they've all been better than the women I've met at live music venues. In fact, come to think of it, I don't know that (in spite of seeing literally hundreds of live shows) that I've ever actually met and developed a relationship with a woman from a bar.
On the other hand, I fully support the idea that it is time to seriously boycott all RIAA-affiliated music companies, the MPAA, and television (on general principle). The world is bigger than that and plenty of classical music, world music, and alternative music is available that does not need to be bypassed during a boycott. Not so easy with film, but there is always used VHS. And the library-- mine has movies in addition to books (which make great movie substitutes).
Re:to no end (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:to no end (Score:2)
Copyright was meant to *promote* not meant to *inhibit*. It was not meant as an essentially permanent hedge for questionable constitutional and monopolistic manipulations.
Believe me, I don't expect the record company execs to understand this, let alone act within the spirit of the notion as it was originally proposed and written. But I do expect our own legislators to rap the collective heads of these executive fuckers and wake them up to the essential *spirit* of the law. A spirit, I would add, that transcends any temporary monetary gains for fat cat record exectives like Hilary Rosen or the ultra-ultra fat-cat film geriatric named Jack "America was great under Jack Kennedy" Valenti.
Copyright is not about money. It's about the promotion of art. Remember this. This should be the mantra. Someone should paint this slogan on Hilary's office door.
Copyright was never about money.
Copyright was never about money.
It's all about *promotion*. And the founders took this "promotion" to be integral to a diverse society.
In fact, I'm quite sure Jefferson would be disgusted by the actions of the music and film industries. Disgusted, too, by their abohorrent actions in light of the recent terrorist attacks -- attempting (if you recall) to attach their legislative riders to the bottoms of the recently passed terrorist legislation. It's disgusting and demeaning and proves that these fucking record executives will stop at nothing -- literally -- to keep their golf club memberships, Lexus', and summer homes in the Hamptons.
Good news (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Good news (Score:2)
I don't thinks many 56k'ers download digital music
Re:Good news (Score:2, Insightful)
It will work for a while but for how long?
Here's the article just in case you can't reach it (Score:3, Redundant)
By Thomas C Greene in Washington
Posted: 19/10/2001 at 09:19 GMT
An anonymous coder named 'Beale Screamer' claims to have broken the Version-2 Microsoft digital rights management (DRM) scheme, and has produced the source code and a DOS utility to un-protect
The author's zipped file contains a lengthy description of the MS DRM weaknesses, a philosophical tract explaining why he thinks it necessary to crack, the source code, and the command-line utility.
The alias Beale Screamer, incidentally, derives from the lines of 'Howard Beale' in the movie 'Network', we're told. "Just yell to the publishers 'I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!'"
The motive here is said to be an assertion of fair use and a check against the abuse of copyright for purposes of consumer extortion.
A DRM scheme "used to give the consumer more possibilities than existed before," Screamer tells us. "I think the idea of limited time, full-length previews, or time-limited Internet-based rentals is excellent. If DRM was only used for this, in order to give us more options than we previously had, I would not have taken the effort to break the scheme. What is bad is the use of DRM to restrict the traditional form of music sale. When I buy a piece of music (not rent it, and not preview it), I expect (and demand!) my traditional fair use rights to the material. I should be able to take that content, copy it onto all my computers at home, my laptop, my portable MP3 player....basically anything I use to listen to the music that I have purchased."
Well said; a tremendous amount of thought and effort has obviously gone into all this, and we have to wonder who this crusader is. A university connection seems all but certain. We've got a few feelers out, and hope very much that he'll submit to an interview soon.
Re:Of course, this is also copyright infringement. (Score:2)
You're a little behind the times.
MS has had a "DRM"-ed ebook reader (their own proprietary format, of course) for quite some time.
And yes, it's already been cracked - not by exploiting any weakness (if anybody bothered to look) in the method itself, but by accessing Windows' debugging API (which gives full access to the data segments after the text has been decrypted.)
Be careful out there! (Score:4, Interesting)
Not only can MS revoke the certs used, it looks like they can also screw your system if you use tricks like this....
WARNING!!!!! I have just learned that the new Microsoft Media Player EULA includes a clause that says they can *automatically* modify the software on your system, without any confirmation from you required! In other words, they can disable your software, or force an upgrade so that FreeMe won't work, just because they feel like it. Be careful out there!
Re:Be careful out there! (Score:5, Interesting)
Now WHY would it want to do that? Is it part of a security scheme?
If it tell ZoneAlarm to not allow Internet access to WMP, am I in violation of DMCA? Is ZoneAlarm a circumvention tool?
Re:Be careful out there! (Score:5, Interesting)
Believe it or not, yes there is! Take a look at this e-mail I got. Fell free to check the sources:
<old Inbox digging>
>> Well, personally I did stay away from Windows 2000 not because of product
>> activation keys, but because I do not and will not support dangerous
>> organizations like Scientology, and cannot entrust a system which
>> includes their Diskeeper disk maintenance software with any sensitive data.
>>
> WHAAAAAT???? Scientology makes software included in Windows?????
Yes, they do, unfortunately.
> Where did you get that information from?
Well, this has been in the technical press in Europe for months in 1999 and 2000 and it was part of a boycott campaign against Windows 2000 for this very reason. These are not rumours, but proven facts.
Major parts of the disk maintenance software in Microsofts Windows 2000 are written by Executive Software, a software company led by and heavily influenced by very "high" Scientologists. They even talk (or talked - I havent visited them recently) about this on their web-site.
Offical German government and church authorities asked Microsoft to remove this code or open it up so that it could be checked for possibly included malware, but Microsoft refused to do this and just said they could not understand the problem and that this would be a form of religious discrimination...
Meanwhile Microsoft has published patch instructions (at least here in Germany) how to remove this component from Windows 2000, but I am afraid I can no longer trust them.
PS. If you speak German, I suggest to check ct magazine at www.heise.de. They have backlogs of all their articles available, and you should be able to find the issue discussed in all details and with names, dates, and cites in there. Otherwise, a search engine like www.google.com might help to point you to similar info in English.
</old Inbox digging>
Shocking! (Score:5, Funny)
Anonymous M$ exec1: We're hacked? Again?
M$ techie: No, we're not hacked. The MDRM v2 is hacked. We... (is interrupted)
Anonymous M$ exec2: We're hacked! Didn't the hacker read our last bulletin on that? It's wrong to post exploits we don't know about. It's almost against the law! Or rather, it should be!
Anonymous M$ exec1:Good idea. I'll give our lawyers a call! I'm sure its in the DCMA somewhere. Thats why we invented it, remember?
/Smuffe
Re:Shocking! (Score:4, Funny)
microsoft didnt invent the DMCA, that would have actually required INNOVATION. The music and movie industries invented it, MS is just embracing and extending.
Re:Shocking! (Score:2)
MS are known for aggressively going after software pirates. However they do not habitually go in for some of the stoopid lawsuits beloved by other CEOs, possibly because they are often the subject of stoopid suits themselves.
In particular I don't think that MS is likely to start behaving like the SDMI consortium. Hack our code! - oh wait we will sue you if you publish the results! - oh wait it is not a good idea to threaten lawsuits against crypto profs! - please can we withdraw? what we can't get the suit dismissed?
Everyone in the DRM industry knows that every scheme is breakable. Long before the recording industry started to get hurt, software piracy cost the software industry megabucks.
If enough people will pay $1000 for a copy of MS Exchange rather than go to the inconvenience of ripping it off for MS to make the profits it does there will be enough people who purchase CDs for $12 rather than rip it off for the record labels to be profitable.
Wow this guy is great.... (Score:4, Redundant)
He's done a very thourough job of reverse-engineering too. Read his README file, very interesting... some quotes:
"One very important effect of this scheme is that Microsoft fully controls who gets to write modules that interact with the basic Microsoft media modules. Without a certified public key (and the corresponding private key) it is impossible to write a compatible DLL that interfaces with their code. Since Microsoft controls the issuing of certified public keys, they also have complete control over who is allowed to make compatible and competing products. Microsoft's reputation for being generous to competitors is well-known, so this effectively gives Microsoft a technically guaranteed monopoly power."
And his 'Messages' at the bottom:
"Microsoft: You guys have put together a pretty good piece of software. Really. The only real technical flaw is that licenses can't be examined for their restrictions once they are obtained. My real beef is with the media publishers' use of this software, not the technology itself. However, it's easy to see where software bloat and inefficiency comes from when this code is examined: every main DLL has a separate copy of the elliptic curve and other basic crypto routines, and parameters passed back and forth between modules are encrypted giving unnecessary overhead, not to mention all the checks of the code integrity, checks for a debugger running, code encryption and decryption. Perhaps you felt this was necessary for the "security through obscurity" aspect, but I've got to tell you that this really doesn't make a bit of difference. Make lean and mean code, because the obscurity doesn't work as well as you think it does.
Justice Department: Maybe this should really be addressed to the state officials, since it looks like the current U.S. administration doesn't care too much about monopoly powers being abused. But for whoever is interested, there is a very serious anti-competitive measure in this software. In particular, for various modules of the software to be used, you must supply a certified public key for communication. Guess who controls the certification of public keys? Microsoft. So if someone wants to make a competing product, which integrates well with the Windows OS, you will need to get Microsoft's permission and obtain a certificate from them. I don't know what their policy is on this, so don't know if this power will be abused or not. However, it has the potential for being a weapon Microsoft can use to knock out any competition to their products."
Well said.
I agree, very impressive! (Score:5, Insightful)
All of that would've worked except that the code that actually USES the keys has to know where they're located and THAT code's location is static (lol). The author simply used THAT code to pull the keys for the decryption - I love it. I'll bet some poor schmuck MSFT techie is smacking his head going "Dammit!" right about now.
I'm not sure how Microsoft could've stopped this - obviously their bulletproof EULA didn't work (lol). At some point in the code something has to know how to pull the needed keys and I cannot imagine how they would've been able to shift the code that does the calling in every copy of Windows - something has to be static somewhere or at least the code to find the location does
Since Microsoft used code to detect debuggers I have to wonder how he did this - hacked the debugger too? Hack the code to stop the detection of the debugger? Or decompile the code in some fashion and step through it? (shiver)
If this was the creation of a single individual or even a team it's damned impressive! I hope that The Reg gets it's wish for some sort of an interview granted and that this person or team of persons releases more insightful cracks. This was pretty sweet IMO, my hat's off to this effort!
Just like deCSS (Score:4, Offtopic)
However, at the moment two little differences are apparent:
1. This doesn't allow you to decode
2. The author has remained anonymous! No DMCA prosecutions here, assuming she has covered her tracks properly.
It could be . . . (Score:3, Insightful)
> Don't worry. Some people, for whatever reason, use the male form all
> the time.
Several years ago, I took a class from Halmos (Yes, *that* Halmos, though I did
n't realize who he was at the time. It set in years later when a graduate class
stopped cold at a mention of taking his class).
Anyway, in the middle of his first lecture, he suddenly went on a detour about l
anguage, adjectives, and the like. He noted that some languages have the male a
nd female gender, some have male, female, and neutral, and that some have a pron
oun for uknown gender. And I quote rather directly, "English is one of those la
nguages. The pronoun is 'he'. So you will excuse me if I do not say 'he or she
'."
He then proceed mid-sentence on set theory.
In the enlish language, "he" does not imply gender unless the context shows othe
rwise. It is used for both the male and unknown pronoun. "She," on the other h
and, does indicate gender.
So for those of you wondering why some of us always use "he" in the unknown or g
eneral case, it could very well be because we're speaking English, rather than e
ngaging in an Orwellian campaign to change the way people think by modifying the
language.
hawk
Re:It could be . . . (Score:2)
> So for those of you wondering why some of us
> always use "he" in the unknown or general
> case, it could very well be because we're
> speaking English, rather than engaging in an
> Orwellian campaign to change the way people
> think by modifying the language.
Absolutely right!
I however switch to a deliberate misuse of the English pronouns whenever I think:
a) it will be funny
or
b) it might challenge preconceptions.
Banzai! I win twice today!
(It is particularly entertaining when reading Babelfish translations from German out loud - people are usually 'it').
Digital Rights Management? (Score:5, Insightful)
I was excited to get a sony mp3 player as a gift last year. Until I realized that it used a proprietary format, atrac3. It will only allow me to load a particular piece of music 4 times. I've even loaded the music I make on it, but I am still subjected to this limitation. HELLO, it's my music, I made it,I own the copyright.
Digital Rights Management is there only to help support the massive amount of proffit that the recording industry is used to making. Well, I have a message for these people: The days of the $20 CD are long gone. Charge a fair amount of money for your product, and people will buy it. If you continue sticking it to the customer, they will break your systems and get it for free. Evolve or die. It's that simple.
http://www.assasins.net
Re:Digital Rights Management? (Score:2, Insightful)
So many laws and lawyers and schemes and provisions to hold back the dam!
Boys oughta just step aside and let the information river flow freely; some people might lose their 'free lunch', but the rest of the world will finally realize the promise that was the internet.
DRM impossible (Score:2, Insightful)
Secondly, effective DRM requires a central authority and encryption method which the media available locally will nearly always exceed the bandwidth. (HDTV today, UHDTV tomarrow...all on 1 ghz? probably not)
Re:DRM impossible (Score:2)
No, that is not the problem. Encryption, when used to keep third party eavesdroppers without the key from understanding your communications, works just fine.
The problem is that DRM tries to keep the intended recipient, who must have the key (in a hidden form), from sharing the information. That is another problem and it is one that encryption is not good for.
A mirror for the zip (Score:5, Informative)
Re:A mirror for the zip (Score:2, Interesting)
The same reason that I wanted DeCSS.zip, even though I don't own a DVD drive. To fight the power, if only in a little way, and make sure that this genie never gets put back into the bottle.
Fair use: a birth right? (Score:5, Insightful)
the following: is fair use a birth right or simply a result of the sale
contract?
If it's the latter, there's nothing we can do but informing people and
refusing to buy products with fscked up sale contracts (limiting fair use).
Maybe fair use is nothing more than a tradition and something we've grown
used to. And not "right", by all means. Is the limitation in copyright
(which it is) written in the books of law?
Re:Fair use: a birth right? (Score:5, Informative)
Sec. 107. Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use
Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include -
(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether
such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit
educational purposes;
(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;
(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in
relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or
value of the copyrighted work. The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors.
The rest of fair use comes from tradition. What is codified here, we need to fight to protect. What rights we assert from tradition, we need to fight harder to codify.
Re:Fair use: a birth right? (Score:3, Informative)
Let me explain.
Copyright places a restriction on speech -- specifically, the right to repeat and build upon other people's speech. However, the First Amendment, passed after the original Constitution, outlaws the suppression of speech. It is a general principle of law that if a new law is passed that contradicts an older law, then that new law is considered to have superceeded or struck down the old law.
So, the courts were faced with a dilemma. Either the First Amendment had outlawed the granting of copyrights, or some interpretation needed to be found that would allow the two to coexist. This led to the concept of "fair use" -- which essentially restricts copyright holders to controlling commercial use of their works. This is consistant with the doctrine that commercial speech may be less protected then expressive or non-commercial speech.
So fair use serves a very important Constitutional role -- it is the doctrine that allows copyright to coexist with the First Amendment. It is NOT merely a statutory grant.
Re:Fair use: a birth right? (Score:2)
> During a (anti-)DMCA presentation at school, the smartest question I got was the following: is fair use a birth right or simply a result of the sale contract?
Perhaps more to the point, is copyright a birthright, or simply the result of a legislative process that (supposedly) has the public's best interests as a guide?
Re:Fair use: a birth right? (Score:3, Insightful)
The problems began when someone figured out how to share a copyrighted work with 16 million people at once... the fair use section of the copyright law makes no mention of scale, because it never occurred to anyone that you might be able to saturate the market with unlimited perfect copies while also charging $0.00 per copy.
Of course it's not only possible, but easy and convenient. The root problem is, copyright enforcement and fair use of digital material are now mutually exclusive concepts. It's no longer possible to have both.
So to answer your question, it's part of the law itself, and could conceivably be amended, repealed or restricted with new legislation. The holder of a copyright binds himself to the fair use doctrine when he applies for the copyright, not the purchaser when he agrees to an EULA or buys a work. 'Fair use' is not a right enumerated in the Constitution, though some may argue (convincingly IMHO) that perhaps it ought to be.
Re:Fair use: a birth right? (Score:2)
Before answering this question, you must first answer the question, "Is copyright a birth right, or simply the result of government fiat?".
The free market governs the price of physical property by natural law; when I have this block of cheese, you cannot simultaneously have it. Therefore, if you want it, you must give me something which I value more, and you value less, than the block of cheese. Great system, and it is a natural byproduct of the laws of physics.
Intellectual property does not follow these natural laws. Therefore, copyright is itself a fiat of government. Given that, everything regarding IP rights is a fiat of government and subject to the desires of the governed. There is no natural law regarding any part of IP law, including "fair use".
Re:Fair use: a birth right? (Score:3, Interesting)
If fair use is a result of the sale contract, then they can take it away from us... but they won't. What kind of twisted record store is going to make me sign a contract (necessary to override the implicit contract of copyright law rights) before I walk out with a CD?
Repeat after me:
If you open the box, and see a piece of paper claiming that you have forfeited some rights, throw that piece of paper away. It is not a contract.
If you start up a piece of software that you have completely paid for (e.g. there is no continuing online service), and you are supposed to click through some dreaded EULA before it will install, then unless you're in one of the damned UCITA states, ignore that EULA. It is not a contract.
If someone wants to take away your rights, they need to do it with an actual contract, which can be read and agreed to by you before you give them your money!
The current practice of deceiving people out of their rights with unenforceable legalese-sounding claims should be considered fraud. Can anyone out there afford to buy a congressman and get this looked into?
Disclaimer: IANAL, and I suspect that the violations of corporate perogative above may be dangerous even if not violations of law. Don't blame me if you listen to some random Slashdot user and end up as the next Dimitri.
Not that useful (Score:4, Informative)
Of course, Linux users don't even have to worry about this.
How this could be useful (Score:4, Interesting)
Would it be possible for someone to use this work to create a fix for these people?
Re:How this could be useful (Score:2)
IF YOU DON'T WANT TO LOSE IT, THEN BACK IT UP. ESPECIALLY IF IT'S ON A WINDOWS BOX.
Pure genius, if you ask me...
Nice timing (Score:3, Funny)
What a wonderfully timed response to Microsoft's recent complaint about releasing sample code [slashdot.org]!
RTFPPINZ ! (Score:5, Funny)
DRM is dangerously counterproductive. (Score:4, Interesting)
The larger issue here is this desperate attempt to cling to a ridiculously outdated and inefficient method of securing profit in return for desirable intellectual production.
Put in simple terms, DRM hurts our economy. Very, very badly.
Economic growth comes from improvements of efficiency, clearing out the dead wood and finding a use for it elsewhere. Following the analogy, DRM is better systems of stakes and cables holding the dead wood from being carted off.
There is a whole ridiculous, unproductive structure built around milking every penny out of copyrighted works. This is justified essentially by accusing every citizen of the stupidest kind of miserliness, unwilling to give a dime to make they're favorite movie studio make another next year, but willing to pay a dollar as long as you don't let them into the theater otherwise.
Yes, there are people out there like that, but I don't believe they're the majority for a second!
The tools [buskpay.com] are out there, and could be supported and working everywhere in weeks if people want them to be. Don't like the details of that system? Propose another. It's not rocket science: donation doesn't need real-time verification, so it's an easy problem, as long as we agree on some system.
Once people get in the habit of freely parting with their pocket change for things that they'd gladly pay much more for, copyright will be a ridiculous anachronism, and we can finally get on with reaping the benefits of the information age.
Re:DRM is dangerously counterproductive. (Score:2)
You claim that copying in an analogue format is sufficient for fair use rights exercises.
That's fine and well, but analog formats are slowly being phased out and replaced with digital ones. When all the analogue equipment is gone, what will you use to exercise your right, then?
Re:DRM is dangerously counterproductive. (Score:2)
You mention cheap cameras and audio recorders, which I took to mean analogue. I know of no cheap digital equipment.
You state that it would be horribly expensive and impractical for digital cameras and audio recorders to have digital rights management in them that recognizes recordings and prevents copying. I point you to iObjects [iobjects.com] whose DadioOS is used in HipZip, and plays
Re:Oh, please! (Score:2)
Monty Python, the Argument Sketch. We're going round and round without accomplishing much.
Devices that are equipped with microphones only record mp3 in monoaural at low bitrate. Nokia phones, as covered here earlier, only allow files to transfer off the device in DRM protected format, even if you imported them in mp3, and you are the owner of the file.
Minidisc suffers the same problem, where you can digitally import the file, but only export it via analogue even if you're the owner and creator of the file.
It's not so much that they refuse to allow you to record it, but that once you've recorded it, it's recorded with lousy quality even though the device is capable of better, or that the device refuses export of the file.
Here we are arguing about devices and the useless measures that artificially limit their capabilities, when the focus is the bad legislation and heavy handed lawyer threats that have inspired these limits on the devices. We're talking about the tool used in a hypothetical crime rather than talking about the badly written law that defines the crime.
I agree that there are no existing video cameras that recognize copyrighted material when I point the camera at a television, but don't rule out that such a thing could exist in the future. If we strike out against the bad legislation that inspires this, technologists won't have to spend time divising such recording equipment.
Have you read the draft of the SSSCA, that legislates all digital devices must have digital rights management incorporated?
Re:DRM is dangerously counterproductive. (Score:2)
The evidence that your proposed donation system won't work is in the very records of donations to the site you advertise (www.buskware.org). A measly $5.60 has been collected for this tool which you purport can take the place of conventional payment schemes. If people are so willing to pay for things they find useful but do not have to pay for, why isn't buskware.org raking in the money ?
Re:DRM is dangerously counterproductive. (Score:2)
And I do believe that the majority of people are MORE THAN WILLING to download MP3s of songs they have never purchased. I believe that lots of people are buying CD burners ONLY to burn verbatim copies of their friends' CDs, or to burn discs full of songs they downloaded off Napster (songs which they never bought), and that almost all CD-R media sold goes towards this purpose. I believe that the "people are willing to pay for it if you give them a chance" hyperbole here is nothing more than hyperbole, spouted off by people who more often than not also possess MP3s/CDs to which they have no claim of fair use.
I say this because the vast majority of people I know with computers do this as well, or are always asking their friends to do it for them. And before you charge me with having particularly dishonest acquaintances, I challenge you to take a good, honest look around at the people you know - are you really trying to say that the majority of them own all the CDs containing the songs in their MP3 collection ? I doubt it.
I also believe that most - perhaps the majority - of people would be more than willing to steal *real*, physical goods, if there was no fear of repercussion and if there was no way they could be caught or identified (as is the case with MP3s and the like now). Look at all the apparently normal people who engage in looting in times when the police obviously would not be able to do anything about it. I'm specifically thinking of situations like the LA riots, where lots of normal people (and lots of thugs, also, to be sure), looted everything in sight wherever they could do so freely. This is why we have locks on our doors. This is why we have security systems and surveillance. Would you have this "dead wood" cleared as well ? Do you have equal confidence that the store in the mall would be in business a month from now if they just put all their merchandise out in an empty store, fielded queries through videoconferencing to a remote site, and just put out a donation box for payments, with no security at all ?
Come on, the record studios aren't stupid, despite what many would like to believe. There are some extremely smart, well-educated, and business-and-tech-savvy people in their ranks, and they are all charged with the responsibility of making good business decisions for their (rightfully) self-interested companies. If there really was evidence that most people were willing to pay for music then there is no way they would waste time trying to implement rights management. If there really was evidence that they could make as much money by pure electronic distribution, sans rights management, they would do it in a second. The very need to implement these schemes points to the fallacies in your assumption that the majority of people are willing to engage in a donation system, or even that the majority of people are willing to pay for things they could easily steal for free.
As for your claims that "DRM hurts our economy...very badly", well I have to basically leave that since you provide no evidence - just faith - that the absence of DRM would HELP the economy. I can't see how preventing people from illegally distributing and copying music and software they don't own can possibly HELP the economy.
The music industry is overvalued (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem is that the major premises have gone away. The internet allows easy promotion and distribution. The cost of decent caliber recording equipment has come down and many independent sound studios exist that cater to home-town artists. MP3s and Ogg Vorbis reduces the manufacturing requirements to a computer and compression software. If a CD is requested, the cost to burn a CD is less than a couple of dollars, including the shipping.
The music industry as we have known it is based on premises that no longer are based in real world technical or logistical limitations. They realize that the only way to continue their existance is to artificially constrain access to their product. If they do not, they will continue to lose potential business to the artists who choose to publish themselves and to the businesses who cater to them.
The US constitution grants patents and copyrights to promote science and the useful arts. If they are using copyright law to limit the spread of good music by closing down distribution and manufacturing channels that are more efficient than their own methods, then they are doing so illegaly. I don't see how it is possible to promote a useful art by constraining its difusion.
Re:DRM is dangerously counterproductive. (Score:5, Interesting)
Really? Consider this:
Suppose I produce $50,000 worth of code in a year. My employer hands me a fat check. After taxes and living expenses, I have about $10,000.
Scenario 1: I purchase 588 compact discs (at $17 each, for $10,000) of RIAA-approved content.
- Some artists get $600 to spend on tax, living expenses, guitars, and syntheziers.
- The music seller gets about $2500 or so. He buys food with it.
- A CD pressing factory gets about $1000. They buy fancy chemicals and mastering equipment with it.
- Hilary Rosen and her friends get about $4100 to spend on hookers and booze Congresscritters, to pass more laws to restrict my freedom.
Scenario 2: I download the music "for free".Now... explain to me again why paying $17 per CD is good for overall economic growth?
Microsoft's advanced crytpography techniques.. (Score:3, Informative)
Microsoft has decided to use the non-alphanumeric character '*'
instead of '/', and '!' instead of '+' in some places, and in other
places they replace '/' with '@' and '!' with '%'. This means that
any software dealing with these strings cannot use a standard Base64
decoder, but must use a custom-build decoder.
Another Addition to the Collection (Score:3, Funny)
D
Copyright Regulation (Score:4, Interesting)
"One final quote from Vaidhyanathan, this time talking directly about
the DMCA:
This law has one major provision that upends more than 200 years
of democratic copyright law. It forbids the "cracking" of
electronic gates that protect works - even those portions of works
that might be in the public domain or subject to fair use. It puts
the power to regulate copying in the hands of engineers and the
companies that employ them.
"
As it happens, this is an "autoemployed" engineer using the power that the U.S.A. laws have given engineers to regulate the use of this copirighted material, in this case allowing access to it
Ironic...
*reading the "Philosophy" text file* (Score:2)
I can only hope that someone in the mainstream media picks up on this aspect... in a perfect world, the NY Times would publish it as an Op-Ed column.
What's all the fuss about? (Score:4, Funny)
Sometimes you people are too complicated.
Another zip mirror (Score:2, Informative)
shut up man
Happy Day! (Score:2)
FRANKIE YANKOVIC - BEER BARREL POLKA.WMA
Roll out the barrel... We'll have a barrel of fun...
Zip file mirror (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.furinkan.net/mirror/657.zip [furinkan.net]
I hope he/she is smart (Score:2)
I sincerely hope they don't find him, because if they do, how easy would it be for microsofts $$$?
I am very impressed with this efford, keep up the good work and for the love of god please don't make us wear "free Beale Screamer" t-shits....
Open Source DRM? Shareware Music? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Open Source DRM? Shareware Music? (Score:2)
If they can make a furby talk english [afu.com] they can also hack this...
I also think that most people that love music or the band will buy their music, and the people that pirate it would never have bought it in the first place, so why spend millions of dollars on some kind of encryption that will be hacked in a few weeks (at most) anyway?
Re:Open Source DRM? Shareware Music? (Score:2)
short of that, there must be a system, and if there is a system to it that has multiple keys, someone will hack it...
plus it isn't really encryption, he's talking about a way to add noise to the music, it will prob. be possible to create an application that just filters out the noise in some way...
Re:Open Source DRM? Shareware Music? (Score:2, Insightful)
2) if people are downloading your stuff that means you might actually be good
3) if you are good and people are downloading your stuff, some people will want to buy your stuff and go to your concerts
4) if people dont know about you they wont purchase anything from you
so how do you want it?
(thanks to napster/gnutella/iuma.com/mp3.com I have found MANY new up and coming artists, and have bought their stuff... stuff I wouldnt have bought if I hadnt heard of them...
Re:Open Source DRM? Shareware Music? (Score:2, Funny)
As an artist you don't need money. You're doing this for the love of music. All the kids who dream of being rich rock stars aren't real musicians. Real musicians starve. Besides the music isn't yours. Once you burn a CD and sell it, it's theirs. They can buy one CD from you and share is with 10,000 of their closest friends over the internet. If you're lucky you'll sell it to enough people to pay back the cost of the PC and the CD burner. Then you'll have to worry about the rent, food and musical instruments.
Re:Open Source DRM? Shareware Music? (Score:2, Insightful)
On a more philosophical note, you're complaining about the possibility of having your stuff found on Gnutella, and then you're out however much money the downloader's theoretically not spending on you anymore. I can't speak for anyone but myself, but personally, getting me to like your music is the absolute best thing you could possibly do. If I download your music and like it, you can be sure that eventually I'm going to buy it. I don't listen to radio or watch MTV, so how do I find new music? Online. Through file-sharing systems. But I like owning CDs. I like the tangible feel of them. Maybe I won't purchase the album I downloaded, but you can bet I'll purchase the next one. If I like you enough, I tend to become rather completist, too. I'll end up with every last EP you've ever put out, just because I'm that obsessive about it.
Now without your songs ending up on my hard drive, how am I going to know you even exist? Your argument is based on an assumption that if I download your music, I'll never give you any money. That's just not true.
MSDRM sounds like the work of... (Score:5, Funny)
I'm just gonna stick with Windows 98 First Edition for now hehehehe
Another mirror (Score:2, Informative)
rc6.org mirror [rc6.org]
YAM (Yet Another Mirror) (Score:2, Interesting)
For link-wary: http://lookingglass.akardam.net/mirrored/msdrmv2-
What's the point to cracking WMA ? (Score:2, Interesting)
Does anyone think this is useful? Yes, M$ has the right to sell whatever fucked up version of protected audio there is, and publishers have the right to *ATTEMPT* to market this crap. We have the right to refuse to buy it, and show them it won't sell. But what purpose does this crack have? Yes, I guess it shows that besides not being popular, it's also no secure... but won't people just use this to go rip protected .WMA files now?
Hmm, I guess actually this ties in pretty closely with some points announced in microsoft's argument against "full-disclosure". Some would argue unless this stuff is widely deployed (the crack that is), then the music publishers won't ever beleieve it's been "broken", since theoretically breaking something doesnt pose much of a financial risk.
But you still have the equivelent of the "script-kiddy" mentality at work here. How many people do you think are downloading this right now, so they can go get the latest Christina Aguilera album online, then crack it and "release" it to their l33t w4rez group? *sigh*
Soooo, (Score:2)
(ya, ya, Digital Rights Management... wait a sec, People have Rights, how the #$%^&* do digits/bits/code get Rights?)
Ok, wait just a fscking minute here, a brief recap for those who missed it:
1) Court says "Code is not free speech", correct?
2) Code, on paper (analog), or compiled or not is in 'digital' form, is still not free speech. (yes/no?)
3) if code is not free speech, and free speech is a *human* right, someone explain to me how the phrase/buzzword "Digital Rights" came to be accepted.
Apologies for the lateral thinking and leaps of logic. Sorta like "here, look at the shiny object in my left hand...smack with the right".
When it comes to the "Battle of the Bits" 'we' are winning, but in the arena (no, not q3 arena) of Law and Language, 'we' are losing (or loosing as the incorrect/common use goes).
Two outta 3 ain't bad, but we only got the one win, arugh.
IMOFWIW.
Moose
You idiots! Why did you do this /NOW/? (Score:4, Insightful)
You have a DRM technology that is OBVIOUSLY crackable (as all are), and a stupid industry that has just decided that they should use this technology, but hasn't yet implemented it in many places yet.
Do you:
A) crack it NOW and therefore allow the industry to quickly switch to a "better" scheme because it's not implemented yet
-or-
B) wait until it's in use everywhere and THEN crack it once it's too late for them to switch back?
What do you think would have happened if CSS was cracked after the first 2 DVDs were released? They would have changed the scheme really quickly.
HAVE PATIENCE. WAIT until THEY CANNOT SWITCH BACK, and then hack to your hearts desire.
Argh. This just puts more ammo in the pockets of the industries to give us MORE RESTRICTIONS instead of a stupid scheme that doesn't really hamper things a lot and can be cracked AFTER they commit.
Argh. Sorry needed to vent.
Australian Mirror of De-DRM tool "FreeMe" (Score:2, Informative)
http://whirlpool.net.au/mirror/freeme.zip
Simon
Well I tried it.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Well as I'm working on stuff based around the MS DRM platform right now (look just shut up ok?), I was interested to see if it would work. From the comments here it looks like no-one tried it yet.
Guess what. It doesn't work. At all. I generated a whole bunch of protected files, with varying license rules, and it couldn't work with any of them.
Still, the technical documentation was a nice read.
It's bound to be cracked at some stage, this just isn't it. Even microsoft themselves say that there are ways to get around it, unfuck for example.
Personal gratulations to Beale. (Score:2, Insightful)
Hello there Beale Screamer. I just want to take this opportunity to congratulate you on your recent work, which was great. Keep up the good work, and stay low.
eloj bows.
mirror (Score:2)
http://www.geocities.com/placebic/2001-10-19-wmacr ack.html
Slashdot could have been first with the story: (Score:4, Interesting)
But:
* 2001-10-18 23:08:39 Microsoft Digital Rights Management broken? (articles,news) (rejected)
Yeah, I'm the person who spotted this on sci.crypt and got it mirrored on www.cryptome.org.
If Slashdot would have published my story last night then they'd have been breaking the news rather than chasing after the register. Sigh.
Excellent! (Score:3, Funny)
Oh, wait, I don't have any! Oh well.
Re:Nice (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Nice (Score:3, Insightful)
plan your vacations carefully, until we get that law struck from the books.
Re:Nice (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Nice (Score:5, Informative)
>since I don't give a fuck about the DCMA, I'll be downloading too.
In the US, yes... the Reg resides in the UK and the EU "Council Directive 91/250/EEC of 14 May 1991 on the legal protection of computer programs" states the following:
Article 6 Decompilation
1. The authorization of the rightholder shall not be required where reproduction of the code and translation of its form within the meaning of Article 4 (a) and (b) are indispensable to obtain the information necessary to achieve the interoperability of an independently created computer program with other programs...
By putting it on its own server Reg is pretty much trolling Microsofts legal department. Way to go!
JK
Re:Slashdotted already (Score:3)
Get the zip at http://www.club-foot.co.uk/booty/657.zip [club-foot.co.uk] (90-ish Kb download).
Re:irresponsible (Score:5, Funny)
Cries of "fair use" do not render valid laws and copyrights obsolete. Just because DRM is easily circumvented [iglou.com] is no excuse to ignore Microsoft's intellectual property [iglou.com].
Re:irresponsible (Score:2)
Fair use is a valid law. 17 USC 107.
The DMCA that bars you from exercising it by hiding the work you own behind anything encrypted, is law, but it is not valid- it is bought, overbroad, and unconstitutional. I'm only waiting for the day when it will be recognized as such by the judiciary.
Cries of fair use do not render copyright obsolete, fair use coexists with copyright. Fair use does not coexist with sledgehammer-like copyright enforcement tactics, as fair use is the first thing to get trampled on.
Hackers! You are condemned! (Score:2, Redundant)
Microsoft forces with your hands in
the air. Sling your keyboard across your
back muzzle towards the ground. Remove
your ethernet cable and expel any disks.
Doing this is your only chance of survival.
Re:Is it any surprise? (Score:2)
It never ceases to amaze me that people who produce programs the primary use of which is piracy (e.g. RAR, CDRWin, ACE, NewsBin, et al) insist on trying to not only collect shareware fees but include intrusive copy protections as well. And they're shocked, shocked I say, that the programs get cracked. Rather amusing, really.
Not, it won't (Score:5, Informative)
This is how all the SafeDisc unwrappers and the like work. They get all their info from the very files SafeDisc uses, extracts the necessary info, and then unwraps the
The reason why encryption is normally secure is it assumes two trusted parites. If I send something encrypted to you, it is assumed that you have the necessary means to decrypt it and that is what I want you to do. For example suppose you and I regularly encrypt our stuff with a semetric encryption algroithm like Blowfish. We both have a key that we use to talk to eachother. We both know this key, but nobody else does. In that way we can lock the data so that only we are able to unlock it. Well this only works because I WANT you to be able to decrypt the data. Well with copy protection the idea is they DON'T want you to be able to see the data, so they encrypt it. Problem is, your processor needs it decrypted. That means they HAVE to give you the key to decrypt it. They can hide it and obfuscate it, but it has to be there, otherwise it doesn't do any good. Well, that means you can find it, and use it to unlock the data they sent you.
Re:No more secrets (Score:3, Insightful)
Microsoft didn't use their own crypto. Read Technical - they used DES, RC4, SHA-1, and ECC, all tried and tested algorithms, although we don't know about their implimentations.
The only 'innovations' they had were a bad MAC algorithm and a broken BASE64 implimentation.
That said, it doesn't matter what crypto they use. It's being implimented on so-called "trusted" software, on an untrusted OS using untrusted hardware in an untrusted environment, with key material in the same location as the ciphertext. A recipe for disaster.
OTOH, s/crypto/cryptosystems, and you're makin' sense. The closed culture (i.e. "you customer, me sales") isn't suited to cryptosystem or cipher design.
Even Microsoft doesn't trust Microsoft for protocol design - which is why they used Kerberos.