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Microsoft

Microsoft's Janus DRM Software Officially Unveiled 570

hype7 writes "News.com.com is reporting the official unveiling of Microsoft's new DRM system, internally dubbed 'Janus'. Interestingly enough, a wide variety of companies including AOL, Dell, Disney, Napster and Freescale, a subsidiary of Motorola, have all signed on to the technology. Whilst some content providers and producers are keen, it remains to be seen what consumers will think - 'the new digital rights management tools include features that would protect content that is streamed around a home network, or even block data pathways potentially deemed 'unsafe,' such as the traditional analog outputs on a high-definition TV set. That's a feature that has been sought by movie studios in advance of the move to digital television.' I love the quotes from the MS rep - 'This release of technology really enables all kinds of new scenarios that are emerging now,' said Jason Reindorp, a group manager in Microsoft's Windows digital media unit. 'We're taking quite a holistic view.' It's good to see Microsoft taking a holistic view of preventing the consumer doing what they want with their paid for content, and protecting us from unsafe data pathways."
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Microsoft's Janus DRM Software Officially Unveiled

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  • Janus (Score:5, Interesting)

    by sydb ( 176695 ) * <michael@NospAm.wd21.co.uk> on Monday May 03, 2004 @05:17PM (#9044956)
    from the faces-inclined-in-many-directions dept.

    Janus [pantheon.org] looks in two directions, not many; thus the pejorative usage indicating that the abusee is "two-faced". And quite appropriate; the face MS Janus presents to the music
    commercialisation industry is of security and protection, while one of restriction and control gazes down on the unwashed masses.

    Notably, Janus is the god of gates and doors but not windows; what can this mean for Microsoft's next operating system release? Certainly it will be more opaque than current offerings. Perhaps we also have a clue as to the MS Doors Startup Sound - "Waiting for the Sun"? But Microsoft's wait is over. Perhaps it's really "The End"?

    Such opportunity for dismal wordplay!
  • Great quote (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Mr. Sketch ( 111112 ) * <<moc.liamg> <ta> <hcteks.retsim>> on Monday May 03, 2004 @05:18PM (#9044978)
    Microsoft is betting that the steady release of new content protection technology will help its audio and video formats become standard ways of distributing digital music and films, in turn, keeping people purchasing and using the Windows operating system and associated products.
  • by Space cowboy ( 13680 ) * on Monday May 03, 2004 @05:19PM (#9044984) Journal

    It's also of course one of the founding principles of capitalism - to harness an individuals greed (or, more politely, desire for improved returns). The thing is that here we have a conflict of greed. One the one hand, we have the **AA and their cohorts trying to control the distribution and use of their material, on the other we have the consumers trying to maximise how they can use the material that they feel they own (irrespective of licencing agreements) because they've paid for it.

    There was an article in New Scientist a while back about how even a very young child can appreciate fair play - if the child repeatedly gets given back only 4 sweets when they hand over 5 to the researcher, they quickly feel hard-done-by. Even lower primates have the same sense of 'fair play'. When we purchase a DVD or CD, we expect to be able to use it however we want, make coasters out of DVD's if that's what floats our boat. We resist limits on what we can do with something when we consider it 'ours' by right of payment. This is obviously a very basic and primitive response, but by that very nature will be very hard to eradicate...

    The upshot of all this of course will be that the OSS scene will become more and more 'free' in the sense that arbitrary limits on what you can do with data (DVD, CD, whatever) are far less likely than in the controlled (mainly MS, but others too) closed-source environments.

    Thank [insert random deity] for Linux and GNU, a tradition that has brought us to the point where we at least *have* a choice on what to do. Consider the alternative - without the rallying cry of the GPL and Linux, we'd be choosing between a fragmented unix market (and only Irix can really do justice to multimedia, IMHO), Apple or Windows. 99% of people would be using Windows and bemoaning that they had no real alternative. I guess we dodged that one, at least presupposing that there will be ways around the DRM imposed on the unfortunate windows users. We do have a far larger pool of talent to pull ideas from than the manufacturers though, so there is yet hope.

    Simon
  • by michael path ( 94586 ) * on Monday May 03, 2004 @05:20PM (#9045005) Homepage Journal
    Ok, not yet. But, as with anything DRM, give it a couple months after getting out of this concept phase.

    I will say I'm rather surprised at the laundry list of those onboard, including AOL, Dell, and Napster.

    At the risk of sounding lame, I'm in favor of anything that brings me music and movies in the medium of my choice - instead of having to wait for mail, drive to store, whathaveyou. If it means a lame DRM implementation, so it goes. It won't remain unhacked for long - if for no other reason that Microsoft is behind it, and people would love to show it vulnerable.
  • by Scareduck ( 177470 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @05:22PM (#9045027) Homepage Journal
    I had a discussion with a friend who was head editor at a well-known comic book publisher, as well as a screenwriter. His opinion is that copyright is some kind of absolute, and by extension, fair use isn't.

    Many such must exist in screenland.

  • by GPLDAN ( 732269 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @05:23PM (#9045046)
    What happens to a DVD player that can output a standard VGA signal? Will we see the encryption of every type of signal, to prevent going to buy a simple hardware MPEG encoder? Maybe I'm just not getting it, but what is preventing people fom simply using legacy output methods to encode their stuff?
  • Hmm (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 03, 2004 @05:23PM (#9045055)
    I can't help but think a lot of the people bitching are just people who don't like the fact that piracy and such are threatened by DRM.

    Forgive me, but I'm not going to run around crying "The end of computing! The end of computing!" There's this thing called a free market, and if people don't like not being able to do certain things, they'll just not purchase the product and move onto something else. It's in the best interests of these companies to please customers. The DRM is just to prevent illegal casual copying. If you're not doing anything wrong, what's the problem? And if you don't like not being able to make a backup of something, don't buy the product, or go to a competitor who lets you, or bitch publically, or whatever.

    It's not the "end of computing" where we'll need the permission of "conglomerates" to use anything. Lay off the post-apocalyptic RPGs.
  • Retroriggers (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Didion Sprague ( 615213 ) * on Monday May 03, 2004 @05:23PM (#9045056)
    It's like a movie: teams of retroriggers with dusty snapcases and old computers descend upon sleek new media and crack it open with forbidden circuitboards from the 1990s.

    No, the *end* of everything is when the old stuff is forbidden -- when the government decides to take Jack Valenti's advice (he hasn't given it yet, but he will -- before he retires) and ban all computer equipment made before 2004. Then the only people left are the retroriggers.

  • Money speaks volumes (Score:5, Interesting)

    by elrick_the_brave ( 160509 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @05:27PM (#9045102)
    What makes the difference is speaking with your money. So once this stuff gets out.. start talking to your family and friends. Educate them on fair use and what these limits may mean. Ask them to get information from the people they are buying things from. Imagine a Dell sales person spending an extra 30 minutes explaining the concept to someone who is expecting certain rights. This rapidly becomes uneconomical for Dell to support. Ultimately it becomes your time and effort vs theirs.

    Personally, I check every CD I want to buy by asking the clerk if it has 'protection' on it. If they cannot answer I ask to see the manager and so on. As a consumer you have a right to information and to know. If they cannot tell you, ask follow up and an answer. If they choose not to, let them know you will be filing a complaint with the Better Business Bureau in your area. Let them know that you will be filing a complaint with the exact companies that sell them the CDs to state that the distributor is not informing customers appropriately. Be the person who disturbs the ant-hill.

    Change happens when it becomes unprofitable to do something (and someone can't blame a hacker or a pirate).
  • Re:Janus (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Laebshade ( 643478 ) <laebshade@gmail.com> on Monday May 03, 2004 @05:33PM (#9045170)
    'We're taking quite a holistic view.'
    When I first read that I thought he said holocaustic view. That would explain all this nazism of controlling in how we view content.
  • by Azureflare ( 645778 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @05:35PM (#9045200)
    You can be assured I will never, ever buy a motherboard with DRM bios in it.

    To quote appropriately for this situation: Those who give up freedom for security deserve neither.

    I will not give up my freedoms. Those media corporations can go to hell. I've got almost all the media I'd ever want right now anyway.

    Sure, there might be some DVDs I want later. That's what Hollywood Video/Blockbuster is for.

    And, whoever said media was all there was to computing? I'm not going to go to DRM bios just so those media corporations can feel secure in the knowledge that I'm not copying DVDs or distributing their copyrighted content. I don't do that anyway.

    So, screw you Media Giants, I don't need you and your stinkin' DRM!

  • Re:Hmm (Score:5, Interesting)

    by garcia ( 6573 ) * on Monday May 03, 2004 @05:35PM (#9045201)
    I'm not a moron like the rest of the Slashbots. I understand that 98+% of the world doesn't give one flying fuck about Fair Use, freedom of choice, or anything.

    All they care about is whether or not Survivor goes to season 12 and if the Bachelor/ette decide to get married for real on live TV.

    But that's of no issue. Just because THEY don't care and don't understand the issues doesn't mean that I don't. It doesn't mean that I am not happy to educate anyone and everyone no matter how paranoid they believe me to be.

    It will never make sense to many but if I can get just a few people to understand perhaps the world will not blow up before our eyes.
  • by LostCluster ( 625375 ) * on Monday May 03, 2004 @05:36PM (#9045211)
    If you think that by running Linux you are somehow going to escape this you're wrong. The possibilities that computer HARDWARE will only work with DRM enabled BIOS's is coming. Nevermind the fact that if you want to be connected to the rest of the world you will have to have a DRM'd computer with a DRM'd BIOS in order to do so.

    Maybe the latest and greatest ATI or nVidia card might require DRM-BIOS to work, but somebody somewhere will keep making non-DRM hardware... and somebody somewhere will keep supplying the content for that. By making content that can only be played on DRMed systems, companies are going to be betting their whole empire on the publuc accepting it... I doubt they'll be that dumb.

    "Unbreakable" DRM will always be for niche applications. I don't even consider the present music services DRM as unbreakable because they all let you make at least one analog CD through the front door. Once you do that, the music is yours to fold, spindle, and mutliate with no further restrictions.
  • You're forgetting one simple word, apathy. Consumers as a whole will take what they are given, not what they need or want (I'm talking on a particular market, the US market, it is different in other places). Slap Microsoft's sticker on it and say it's secure, and an awful lot of people will flock to it. If that fails, well, every new cheap Dell PC you buy will be "more secure for the web" or some other gibberish like that. People not in the know WILL scoop that up and will prove market demand, irregardless of the fact that Dell will be selling only DRM enabled systems. Once one distributor gets some money in from it, everyone will be doing it. The question is, who's going to give the option of enabling and disabling said features? I think you can disable the features in the new Phoenix BIOSes but I could be mistaken. Wonder if the likes of Dell, HP, Gateway, or IBM will do the same? I can definately see a time when the cheap consumer PC will be fully locked down with DRM while the hobbiest or professional that needs to get something done will have to buy relatively high-end parts to get anything done. Then again, there is always MRBIOS (if they're still around). Anyways, enough ranting. I've got to get some work done today. :)

    CliffH

  • Re:Janus (Score:5, Interesting)

    by kilgortrout ( 674919 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @05:38PM (#9045247)
    This is really ironic. Janus is the Roman god of portals(gates and doors) and was commonly placed at Roman doors. Janus had two faces, one to look out for evil doers as a guard and the other to look in to safeguard the residents from harm. In true MS fashion, MS is using this mythological figure in just the opposite way. Here, Janus looks into the home to spy on the residents and make sure they don't use digital media "improperly" and looks out to safeguard the interests of the outsider industries coming into the home with their digital media.
  • by tmacd ( 761305 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @05:39PM (#9045248) Homepage
    Y'know, I used to think that, and that it would never work.

    After I don't know how many times I've thought, "That's ridiculous, that would only work if they ([Got Congress to outlaw software that broke DRM]|[Got congress to mandate all A/D converters respect watermarks]|[Got Congress to outlaw general purpose computers]), only to see a member of Congress propose the very same thing a few months later, I'm convinced that it still will never work, but that our lives could sure become screwy as a consequence...
  • by swb ( 14022 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @05:45PM (#9045312)
    I have an HD set (Sony GWIII), HD cable (Sci Atlanta 3250). The SA3250 will output downconverted versions of HD channels, but they don't look any better than their digital channel versions, and in some cases worse since the 3250 makes some icky choices about letter/pillarboxing 16:9 content.

    Why would you even bother blocking downconverts via DRM? They look just "OK", you almost never get access to a 5.1 sound track you can do much with besides listen to (some complicated HTPC setups excluded).

    Besides, it seems to be a nod to fairness to allow the next level "below" as an allowed copying medium if they're going to get persnickety with the "best" current medium.
  • by mgpeter ( 132079 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @05:45PM (#9045313) Homepage
    With all of this Digital Rights Management in the U.S. being developed I cannot help but think of how the content producers have acquired the "RIGHT" to add access control to works ??

    I just looked over the Copyright laws (www.copyright.gov) and I cannot find any laws that permit the copyright holder to impose their own controls on the actual product. All I could find are laws that allow the Producer the rights to either reproduce, distribute, perform the work publicly or make derivative works.

    There is no basis for the ability to control how the works should be viewed, heard, etc. It only covers who has the right of redistribution, etc. In fact copyright laws actually give certain rights of redistribution to the purchasers of copyrighted material, such as fair use.

    Also, fair use is only applied if you want to redistribute the work (part of the work) or make a derivative work to the object in question. What you do with the content you purchased in your own home, as long as you do not redistribute or make a derivative work that you plan to distribute, is perfectly legal (or was anyway).

    To put technological limits on how I use works that I purchase is beyond the scope of Copyright and is therefore (or should be) outlawed.

    Am I way off base with my thinking in this matter ??
  • by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 03, 2004 @05:47PM (#9045347)
    Copyrights still expire. When that happens when copyrighted works fall into the public domain?

    This seems to be at direct odds with DRM. Is there any consideration of expiration of copyrights for this in the usage restriction laws?
  • by Flyboy Connor ( 741764 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @05:49PM (#9045364)
    I have bought CDs for all music I listen to. I bought all DVDs I watch. I bought all computer programs I use.

    Lately, I found the copy protection on especially games gives troubles when playing the game on my computer. When that happens, I download a cracked version that works fine. For the next game that comes along which I want to play, especially from a company which gave me problems before, chances are I'll go for the cracked version immediately.

    The region encoding for DVDs doesn't give me any problems now. I have two DVD players, both of which are region free. I have heard, though, that there is a new region encoding which will cause DVDs not to work on my players. But what the hell, I have broadband and it is easy to download them, so I'll do just that.

    Music never gave me problems. But now this DRM thingy is coming along. That seems to mean I can't play CDs anymore on my computer, right? Tough. I'll have to stop buying CDs. And if the cracked version works, I know where to get it.

    It seems that I am the ideal customer of the entertainment industry. I am willing to buy everything, and I buy a lot. So the question is: what are they gaining by driving me to get stuff illegally?

  • by da_anarchist ( 548175 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @05:51PM (#9045390)
    Does anybody get it? Intellectual property has virtually no "variable costs". It does not cost Apple diddly for the bandwidth to provide a 4 MB iTunes download. The only costs with IP are the "fixed costs" to develop it in the first place. This is unparalelled in human history! For the first time, information can be deployed for almost nothing. Sadly, all this DRM bullshit will destroy the greatest thing about computing today - that is, perfect and practically free copying. They're trying to apply the old business models of good A costs x amount to produce, therefore Megacorp will sell it for amount x + a dollars. Economically, DRM removes the ability for anyone technically inclined to copy IP without paying the content provider, or to put it another way, it introduces an artifical "variable cost". I can only hope that groups like the EFF can raise enough hell to get Joe Sixpack interested in the loss of what could have been a new paradigm as significant as the Industrial Revolution.
  • by eille-la ( 600064 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @05:51PM (#9045393)
    Which of these the governements around the world will choose?
    Free market is a neat thing, but when it makes corporation more powerful than the governement, it look like a bad thing.
    Why do you americans think the free of free market is the meaning of real liberty?
    Why not reconsider what should be sold and what not? The internet and the digital medias now makes the distribution of them an all differant thing.
    Do we want the corporations to become richer, or we want the population having a real liberty in their own country?
    Cash earned for working make people happy. Accumulation of this cash makes everyone but you, less happy.
    There is no more good arguments to support capitalism when we see what is happening now.

    Its not paranoia, when you consider that this is the beginning of what corporation can do with the technologies.
  • by RetroGeek ( 206522 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @05:56PM (#9045436) Homepage
    Why are companies always trying to push this shit on to the consumer?

    Because of your next words.

    People need to learn

    Most people DON'T learn. Here on /. we are effectively activists. The population as a whole has NO idea what all this means. Ask your average user what mp3 is and you will be told something about stealing music. Nevermind that it is just a compression format.

    Because of the mainstream media "mp3" == "stealing music" to most people.

    Tell them that there is a way to prevent this, and they will say "Good!", and they will buy it, because "it stops stealing". Give it a name, such as "DRM" and that gives them an easily identifiable label to look for.

    Later, when they want to time-shift a show, or save it for later viewing, THAT is when they will find out. But too late.
  • Bingo. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by poptones ( 653660 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @06:05PM (#9045538) Journal
    It's already happening. The only new US release I've bought in years came from one of the Creative Commons websites, and I don't doubt I'll be buying more. I downloaded the songs from usenet, liked them so much I went looking for the artist's website, then was pleasantly surprised to find the release offered on Magnatune. [magnatune.com] For eight bucks I "upgraded" my 192kbps MP3s to FLAC and contributed four bucks to the artist - likely a lot more than he would have received from Sony or EMI.

    I don't really have issues with people posting older music, but if we would practice what we preach we could get a lot more attention for "good" artists rather than continuing to post and share mainstream pop releases. And look at the other discussion here recently on "gaming engines" - "machinima" is destined to become more realistic, the day when we have "klans" competing through releases of original movies on usenet and irc is coming... and their move into "popular culture" will surely not be far behind.

  • by mgpeter ( 132079 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @06:07PM (#9045578) Homepage
    So the fact that copyright law doesn't give anyone the "right" to restrict usage doesn't mean they can't do it. You don't need an explicit right to do everything.

    It does mean that they can not restrict usage! The whole idea of copyright is that the consumer has all rights to the product, except for what the copyright law has given the producer (i.e. redistribution) What the major Corporations have done is that they changed the scope of Copyright in that they believe that all the rights are theirs (not the consumers) EXCEPT what is written in the Copyright Laws.



    Copyright was established to promote the science and arts by giving certain rights to the authors for a limited time to sell their works. No provision was given for physical limits on works, thus the law should be defaulted on the side of the PUBLIC, not the creator.



    Also the Rolls Royce analagy is a straw-dog argument. I am not justifying anyone to go out and steal intellectual property. I am however saying it is wrong for any Industry to bypass the Current laws in order to control the public, such as adding encrypted keys to a DVD just to view said works.



    Copyright is for a limited time (for now anyway) and the creation of DRM nullifies Copyright in its current form.

  • by wyseguy ( 513173 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @06:09PM (#9045609) Homepage

    I can speak from experience here. I work at a small 4 year University. We have Microsoft's open license here. Every full-time employee has the opportunity to get a free copy of anything in the Microsoft catalog for their home use. This deal has our IT head so blinded against anything beside Microsoft that we have started a program for computer security with no classes offered in Linux or Unix. Even modest attempts to get applications like Dreamweaver taught for basic web design courses are met with open hostility bordering on outright hatred. Every attempt I've done to open the administrations eyes to a more inclusive software policy has been shut down. Even when faced with facts (like web browser polls from Netcraft), they maintain their myopic position. I guess its what one should expect when even non-technical people can see (and mention) that our IT head is hopelessly out of his depth.

  • by The Lynxpro ( 657990 ) <<lynxpro> <at> <gmail.com>> on Monday May 03, 2004 @06:11PM (#9045644)
    The assertion that AOL is truly interested in Janus is severely lacking in scope. AOL is only interested in ensuring that they aren't locked out of a system that might become the preferred commercial method (of content providers) of distributing music and movies online. AOL has no interest in propping up a Microsoft technology that only strengthens Microsoft if there isn't a decent back-end for AOL.

    Let's look at the facts. AOL is a partner in MusicNet with Real Networks and EMI, but AOL prefers Apple's iTunes, not only because it is the most popular online music distribution system, but also because it isn't Microsoft.

    AOL signed an agreement with Microsoft back in the late 90s that AOL email could be downloaded to Microsoft Outlook. It never materialized.

    AOL paid lip-service to instant messaging interoperability but has not made AIM or ICQ directly able to send and receive to MSN Messenger. At the same time, AOL partnered with Apple to ensure that iChat was based upon the AIM client.

    AOL is still interested in Netscape although they have no full-time employees working on Mozilla. That was a Time Warner executive decision to cut the development team to "save" monies earmarked for salaries. If Time Warner loses interest and sells AOL back to Steve Case, this will be reversed.

    On the Time Warner side of the business, they have no interest in Janus for music purposes since Time Warner sold off Warner Music Group to Edgar Bronfman's group. Perhaps they still have a minority stake (as does all historical sales done by Warner Communications, like the Atari Inc. divestiture of 1984) but that's about it. Bronfman will make any type of decision independently of what AOL or Time Warner proper wishes.

    The bottom line is that AOL may be included in the press release, but for the most part, this is round-file material. It is only a survival option if Microsoft gets the upper hand in media.

  • by IamTheRealMike ( 537420 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @06:13PM (#9045668)
    Because fair use is a gaping hole that many (most?) people would exploit to get free stuff.

    I've never ever heard anyone talk about fair use outside of Slashdot, period. For most people it just isn't a big deal.

    Making a DRM system that works with fair use but still protects artists is really hard, probably impossible. Apples DRM sort of gets there by being weak and easily exploited, but I'm not sure that's really an answer. It's a solution by being half-arsed.

    It makes me wonder if the whole system of copyright is rather broken, to be frank. But I don't know of a better way, so I can't really criticize too much.

  • they really don't care so much about analog paths, as those will fade into obscurity in the next decade or so. No, they want to protect data pathways, and your current digital/optical sound channel isn't so much a problem. You see, you have an dvd player now, but in two years from now you will buy a new one. Except you will notice that all the new ones have the new JANUS digital outputs. You'll have an option to run your JANUS output in 'BLAH' mode, where it will work with your current amp, or you can turn on 'WOW' mode, which will require a new AMP. Eventually you will buy a new amp. And trust me when I say that this new amp will only work in the new JANUS-WOW mode. At that point, you will no longer own your data paths, and the whole time Microsoft never lifted a finger to force you to move. They will use the classic marketing ploys to lure us into the new tehnology. They will make JANUS-WOW an industry standard. They will offer us features beyond our imagination, and stop making as much content that works on non-WOW hardware siteing that the new content just doesn't work as well on the old platforms. The combination will force the market and we will have little choice. We can keep our neglected hardware or switch to the new. one way or the other, RIAA and MPAA win. you are no longer playing their content on a non-secure box. 10 years isn't a long time to wait for technology like that to catch on. mark my words, this senario will happen.

    But all is not lost. We will continue to find holes. We will develop the tools we need to get the information we want access to. They will not beable to stop us, because in the end, if they can read it, we can read it too. you are not owned. fight on brothers!

    no more mookie stank, ughm-kay?

    also, what will the peope do when they have no were else to look? look at the list of companies that are in on this thing!
  • What about backups? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by guard952 ( 768434 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @06:22PM (#9045783)
    Most people I know (myself included) claim to use digital copying to retain backups (albeit lossy) or media stored on CDs & DVDs. I couldn't count the number of CDs or DVDs that simply can't be listened to due to scratches from lending to friends or kids playing with.

    Now, if there was a service where I could return my damaged disk to be replaced with a new (undamaged) disk, our 'backup' arguement would go out the window. I would still be copying media to my PC because it's so much easier to select all CDs by my favourite artist or load up a playlist than playing track one by one and changing disks in between. Not to mention transferring media between different PCs in different rooms of the house.
  • by malchus842 ( 741252 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @06:23PM (#9045794)

    I am sure that there are some /. posters who think they have some absolute right to use content any way they want, but I'm not one of them.

    Where my concern comes is that DRM can be made very invasive and there exists a non-null probability that DRM will become so restrictive that no material that lacks DRM signatures will be able to be used. And I can just see the argument for making equipment without DRM illegal. It follows the slippery slope we're going down now.

    I don't download music, I don't RIP CD's and share them with friends, I don't copy software. But I'll be damned if I will put up with DRM monitoring/control of everything I do.

    So long as I can legally buy non-DRM equipment, and play non-DRM content, no problem. But I fear the day is coming when THAT will be illegal.
  • by shaitand ( 626655 ) * on Monday May 03, 2004 @06:25PM (#9045813) Journal
    If I've said it once, I've said it a million times, two actions will do a great deal toward solving all this nonsense.

    1. Toss out the DMCA in it's entirity, this law made quite a few legitimate things illegal, everything illegitimate which is covered under the DMCA was illegal under existing copyright or other laws.

    2. Give those filing for copyright a choice, either they can file and hold copyright, thus giving them protection under the law OR they can choose not to go the copyright route and go the default route. That route being your work is immediately in the public domain. If they go the default route then they can impose vigilante technical measures all day long.

    However they MAY NOT use vigilante tatics if they wish to hold a copyright and any attempt to protect a copyrighted work outside the legal system results in the work immediately becoming part of the public domain.

    This is good for a number of reasons, not the least of which is reminding everyone of the spirit in which copyright was first created and that the default is not copyright, but everything in the public domain. Those who first wrote the laws didn't think they needed to put this in there, it was self evident at the time.
  • by symbolic ( 11752 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @06:33PM (#9045900)

    After all, weren't they, for the longest time, advocating the end-user security benefits of Palladium, when in fact, they were referring to the security of those wanting to restrict and otherwise impede the fair use of their intellectual property?
  • by Simonetta ( 207550 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @06:38PM (#9045948)
    I get the feeling that the people who are doing the whole DRM thing don't quite understand the long term results of their efforts. I suspect that they are simply running on auto-pilot to develop technology to prevent people from consuming media product, which, you gotta admit, is ironic considering that the people who are paying for all this DRM research make their money from people consuming media product.

    DRM could be analogous to the old fairy tale of killing the goose that laid golden eggs. Basically DRM chokes off distibution networks for media product, especially when it gets legally mandated into consumer electronics. And even more so when it gets legally mandated at different levels for different types of media product. After a few times of getting burned by disks that don't play or appear not to work correctly due to hidden DRM, people will be less willing to rent or buy media product.
    DRM can be seen as a way of artifically saturating a media channel. Which isn't good because the media channels are already saturated. The only one that isn't is the latest media channel: P2P. And it's already illegal.
    I read recently (I think it was Variety or Premier magazine) that there will be 60, yes 60, block buster movies released this summer (from early May to late August) that cost over 100 million dollars each in production costs. Add to this another 20 million in advertising and promotion costs per movie and we are looking at a seriously saturated marketplace. Even at present the movie business just breaks even on worldwide box office and only makes profit on DVD sales and rentals (roughly about 30% of box office) and ancilliary distibution (TV, airlines, VCR sales, hotel rentals, ect...). Check the numbers on Box Office Mojo. [boxofficemojo.com] At least half of the movies don't make their production costs back in box office. Plus we all know that something like 80% of the records released don't make any money for the 'artist' or the record company. The RIAA companies use this as an excuse to charge the same price for every record regardless of the quality or demand.

    Anyway, there is a GLUT of media product now. The media companies should be researching an 'anti-DRM' instead of DRM. They should be trying to come up with new ways to get people to copy and share media product on their PCs instead of trying to stop people from doing this.

    Since all the media product is owned by only four or five corporations anyway, it doesn't matter if any individual product is generating a pay-per-view or listen income stream. They're getting all the money from all the product anyway. So it is in their best interests to get more and more people to just consume more and more media product. DRM is counter-productive because it is shutting down the last multimedia channel that isn't saturated, that is, the internet PC, before it has a chance to fully develop its income-generating potential.
  • by Tough Love ( 215404 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @06:44PM (#9046006)
    here. [ghs.com]
    "The Titanic sank because it filled up with water pouring in through a single hole in the hull. The lesson that was learned from this disaster is that ships should be divided into many watertight compartments. When the hull is breached and water starts pouring in, all of the watertight compartments are sealed so that only the compartment with the hole fills up with water. The ship stays afloat."

    Way wrong. The Titanic was compartmentalized, however the long gash in the hull flooded too many compartments.

    I wonder how much of the rest of their web site is pure BS?
  • Re:Discussion Rules (Score:2, Interesting)

    by thayner ( 130464 ) <thayner@r[ ]com ['cn.' in gap]> on Monday May 03, 2004 @06:46PM (#9046026) Homepage
    If you don't think turning off your access to content that's not DRMed is not the next stage, you're not cynical enough.
  • by mcc ( 14761 ) <amcclure@purdue.edu> on Monday May 03, 2004 @06:50PM (#9046090) Homepage
    JUST RELEASED, AND ALREADY HACKED!!!! Ok, not yet. But, as with anything DRM, give it a couple months after getting out of this concept phase.

    Here's a better way of looking at this. This hasn't been fully released yet, and it has already been "hacked", in the sense that the NSA already has gotten their plants and bugs inside Microsoft* to steal and relay to them all of the plans for how this system will be used and implemented as well as all the keys that make it work.

    (Clarification: That's the neat thing about "trusted computing" from their perspective-- it would mean every system in the world would be "trustable", but that trust would have a single point of failure: Microsoft's guarded private cryptographic keys for Janus/Palladium. So all you have to get a copy of those keys and you can do anything you want...)

    * Further clarification: I base my belief in the existence on said plants on the simple observation that if the NSA doesn't have plants inside Microsoft, then they're completely incompetent.
  • by Dcnjoe60 ( 682885 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @07:07PM (#9046241)
    The courts have already decided that it is legal to copy music off the airwaves. Assuming these "new" Janus devices will have a headphone jack (kind of hard to go jogging and listen to music without it), just plug one of those FM broadcast things like an iRock into the headphone jack.

    At that point, all you need do is record to your tape deck or computer the captured broadcast signal. I may take a little longer and the quality may not be exactly the same (but then again, neither are MP3s), but that's a small price to pay.

    Now some may argue (incorrectly) that you don't have the right to broadcast the music without a license, but the FCC says you can on low power devices. So you have the FCC saying you can broadcast and the courts saying you can record the broadcast. Case closed.

  • by DunbarTheInept ( 764 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @07:19PM (#9046329) Homepage
    While I understand the problem, and I see that some technology to make it hard to get the material for free is needed before big studios will embrace digital distribution, DRM technology is not a good way to do it. The problem with DRM is that it ends up requiring that EVERY layer of the software, from the gui where you click a play button, all the way down to the firmware burned into the chips, be secret, or it will get broken through. And *that* means that it will be illegal to spread technical knowlege about *anything* that could be related to playing that movie. It would be like the CSS fisaco, but worse. In order to be allowed to view that movie, not only will you have to have an approved playback software tool, but you'll have to have an approved OS to put it on, as well as an approved firmware suite in all of the hardware involved. And every level of that is going to be locked up behind DMCA walls. It will put a legal barrier up preventing ever using open source systems to look at any sort of media.

    Songs, Movies, Television - all of it is going to be distributed on computer in the future, and if it uses the current crop of DRM technology, then it will be a world where nothing open-source is allowed to participate, because open-source tools are not legally compatable with the way DRM works, and DRM invades ALL levels of the technology, from hardware up to end-user-tool - so the option to just give in and use a closed app for the media, but still use open-source for everything else, won't really be an option either.

    The media cartels love it because it means nobody else can learn the technology but them, which keeps new competition from cropping up. and Microsoft loves it because it will become another thing they can lie about claiming open source is incapable of (as opposed to the truth that it's being legally dissallowed from) doing. - and the evidence will make it look like they're right to the average non-techie person.

  • What mess? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Verminator ( 559609 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @10:13PM (#9047576)
    Look at the mess apple's DRM has caused because so few portable MP3 players support it.

    How exactly did Apple's DRM cause "a mess" if "so few" players support it? Wouldn't that very fact render their DRM irrelevant? Apple has produced another "whole widget" with the iTunes Music Store and iPod which works flawlessly. How is this a mess?

    I would assert that you preceive the situation to be a mess because a vocal minority snivels about "overpriced" Apple hardware, and that it isn't fair that the iTMS won't work with their $74.00 Lucky Best MP3 player.

    ...we need a standardized DRM format to allow content-providers to be able to set their own terms. Janus looks like the closest thing to that... as much as I like apple, the iTunes DRM is too closed.

    Yes, Microsoft is famous for letting "content-providers" and developers pretty much write their own ticket. No strings attached there. No sir. Not that Apple should be trusted completely either (Newton).

  • Re:New powers (Score:2, Interesting)

    by tehdaemon ( 753808 ) on Tuesday May 04, 2004 @12:24AM (#9048386)
    Like, say, copyright does not apply to copy-protected works? I think that would work.
  • by ahfoo ( 223186 ) on Tuesday May 04, 2004 @03:23AM (#9049055) Journal
    Follow the money.
    Look at the history of Microsoft doublespeak. It's no secret that Microsoft has been the single largest beneficiary of software "piracy" in history. This kind of doublespeak is core to Microsoft's business.
    Now consider this, Microsoft Corporation has distanced itself from media investments. If they were so sure they were going to secure digital media, wouldn't they be buying movie studios and record labels? They could afford to buy some of the biggest in cash.
    Certainly that strategy has some problems though, not the least of them is anti-trust. Well, now imagine you were in that situation. You can't join them, so what should you do? Beat them.
    How to beat them? Easy, same ol' doublespeak game. Say you're going to fight "piracy," but actually enable the hell out of it by simple incompetence. You guarantee all your media partners that you've got the unbeatable secret solution just like you did with all your softwre partners before. Of course they believe you because they're greedy.
    So you roll it out and presto, there's holes in it and suddenly these huge media collections you've given the public access to are owned. The public cheers again and your competitors in media, ie Sony, Time Warner etc take a hard, hard hit.
    It's the same ol' game. And nobody is going to complain because why should they?
  • Re:I don't get it (Score:3, Interesting)

    by nevets ( 39138 ) on Tuesday May 04, 2004 @04:12AM (#9049184) Homepage Journal
    I believe most of us don't think we "own" the content, but at least we should have some freedom to do what we want with it, but this does not include giving it to other people who have not bought it themselves. OK, some on /. think that all software should be free, etc, etc. But really, what we want is the ability to buy software, and if there's something wrong with it, be able to fix it ourselves. Most people are not able to do that, but a lot of programmers can (if given source). There has been several times that I would use a vendors product, figure out what was wrong with it, know how to fix it if I had the source, but since I didn't, I was stuck waiting for the patch, which may never happen.

    for example distributing binaries without source

    This was RMS way of using the same laws that he hated, to do something that he wanted. And that was for all software to be free. I don't personally agree with RMS. My favorite license is the LGPL. I don't care if the code you write is free or not, but the code that I give you should keep all the modifications open. I don't even care if you add an API to your close source, but if you fix a bug in my code, I would like that given to all those you give my code to as well.

    Now, for this DRM crap! I've been in Germany for several months and have bought several DVDs in German so that I can practice the language (X-Men2, Matrix, Der Herr der Ringe, etc). I went home for a week (USA) and was very disappointed that I couldn't watch these on my DVD player. Now I have to order a DVD player from Japan or something to get a region free player. I've spent over 20 Euros ($24) on some of these DVDs and I can't watch them on my own DVD player. Luckly, Linux can, so for now, I have the ability to watch these. Funny thing too, is that an acquaintance of mine told me that if I were to get a Pirated version of those movies, I would be able to play them on my machine. So, this is what the DRM gives us, legal copies can't be played, but if I were to buy an illegal copy, that would work. This is like those laws that only hurt the ones that obey them, but the criminals still do what they want.

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