UK Parliament Questioning DRM 107
Lasting News has a story about a UK parliamentary report on DRM issues. According to BBC News, the All Party Parliamentary Internet Group has expressed its concerns about the over protection caused by DRM. This report is insisting on the need for information. Both consumers and DRM makers should informed of UK copyrights' legal context. According to this report, consumers should be aware about how they are able (or not) to switch from one gadget to another media player. The report also raises fresh concerns about copy protection software implemented by some DRM makers that could be sued under current UK laws.
Lasting News (Score:5, Insightful)
Lasting News doesn't deserve a link. Their story basically does what Slashdot does, which is to link to other articles, summarise them, and provide a quote. They add nothing. To link to them contributes to this annoying aggregation spam [slashdot.org] which makes researching a topic through Google a tedious process of weeding out shit like this.
The usual response to this is that they "deserve credit for the find", which is bullshit too. For one, it's most likely not a find at all, but an article noticed in an RSS feed. And anyway, who cares about "the find"? Most of the "this is a cool site" links that we've been seeing lately come from Digg. Do those (lazy) submitters start their submissions with "Digg has a story on..."?
My Fear of DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
I installed it but then actually read through everything--EULA & all. I was pretty disturbed. It sounded less & less like I was paying for music
Many of my friends depend on that little application for their music. Should iTunes decide to stop working for whatever reason, there wouldn't be much that the user could do. I would be worried about Apple facing RIAA lawsuits for selling music too cheap and then simply patching iTunes to charge every user another dime before they can listen to each track again. After all, didn't Apple just pull the $1 price out of their ass?
It's about time a government questions DRM & I would think it's about time consumers (on a mass scale) start questioning DRM. I told my friend about how DRM works with iTunes and she completely didn't understand so I told her to open an iTunes file with Windows Media Player
DRM is supposed to be used as a tool that prevents users from sharing files or copying iPods to hard drives on the go. I think that DRM has a dual purpose though, one that may end up hurting consumers because a lot of them clearly don't understand what they've signed up for. If you have iTunes, I recommend burning all your music to CD in case that magical day happens when the company that owns your access program changes its mind
I still buy the archaic media on a physical disc. Why? Because I own that and it's not going anywhere. If they start putting DRM on CDs, I'm going to take my 1100 discs worth of ripped CDs (100% legal) and place a 300GB hard disk copy of it in a safe deposit box in a freaking bank. We pay for the rights to listen to that music. Technology has enabled us to listen to that music at home, in the car, while jogging or almost anytime we wish. I predict we're entering an age where the right to listen to the music is no longer sold--simply a temporary access fee with no ownership entailed.
Digital Rights Management, indeed!
Land of the Free? (Score:5, Insightful)
Errr you know that bit about throwing off the yoke of tyranny in 1776.... Whose goverment would you _really_ want at the moment?
Re:My Fear of DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
It has always been so - indeed, you say as much later on ("We pay for the rights to listen to that music"). When you buy a CD, you are purchasing a licence which grants you the right to listen to the music contained on that CD, nothing more. Fair use legislation in the USA may give you additional rights (I am English and am not fully versed in US copyright law), but in essence, you are only afforded the right to listen.
Of course, in the real world, the practicality of enforcing such restrictions is limited, so people are generally allowed to do certain things, but they do not necessarily have any basis in law. Indeed, in the UK, the seemingly innocent act of format-shifting (i.e. ripping one's vinyl to the computer and burning a CD, or ripping one's CDs to the computer and putting them on the iPod) is, the record companies and royalties collection organisations would certainly like to have you believe, illegal. In reality, no-one cares but them.
Truth is that all DRM is doing is enforcing restrictions that have always been there, but that have hitherto been unenforceable, and that's where DRM falls down - digital, binary, cold and emotionless as it is, it sees only wrong and right. There are no shades of grey, but it is the great expanse of grey in which we find the "rights" to which we believe we are entitled, and which we have been afforded because it is rare that the law is followed to the letter. At least over here, the key term is "reasonableness", a term of which computers have no understanding and which no algorithm can replace.
Oh well. One day we will look back on the glory days of the 20th century when information really was more-or-less free.
iqu
It's sad (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:My Fear of DRM (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:My Fear of DRM (Score:3, Insightful)
I could've sworn you got a CD as well as a license!
Re:My Fear of DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
No, you are not. No license is required to listen to music, read a book or watch a performance.
A license is only needed to copy works covered by copyright. The publisher of the CD is the only one who requires a license.
When you buy a CD you are, very simply, acquiring a piece of property.
Do not license music; buy it!
KFG
The laws would be changed to benefit DRM vendors.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Read the article carefully: "The report also raises fresh concerns about copy protection software implemented by some DRM makers that could be sued under current UK laws.".
It means that the DRM vendors are liable under CURRENT laws. Hence those laws which can be used to sue DRM vendors will be changed to prevent them from being sued.
This has got no altruistic intentions. This is just to warn the DRM vendors that they have an unpatched law that can potentially be used to sue them. In the next session, that law will be "patched" by MPs who would have been "educated" by the DRM vendors in Niôe, Barbados, Phuket, etc., such that DRM vendors cannot be sued.
Consumer rights be damned: They ain't paying for the trips ya know...
I for one welcome our Trip-Traveling-DRM-owned-MP overlords.
Re:My Fear of DRM (Score:3, Insightful)
You're right, this phrase is corporate-speak for 'taking away consumer rights' in the same way that 'Document Retention Policy' outlines how to destroy sensitive documents. If you look at what 'Rights Management' means in the stock photo world, some photos you purchase an unlimited license to do with what you want (though the pricing is tiered based on the resolution of the file), but the lion's share of good photos are very limited in what you can do with them. I therefore agree with your prediction that we'll be paying for licenses to use music in limited ways. That way they can 'tier' access, like less money for shorter periods. The difference between the music model and the stock photo world is that they use laws to prevent you from breaking your license instead of using software programs, yet they still seem to make money.
Re:My Fear of DRM (Score:3, Insightful)
How's that, exactly?
In the US, at least, fair use is an affirmative defence, rather than a right. But I don't see how buying from any particular content provider denies you that legal option.
Whether making copies of iTMS-sourced music violates other laws, such as the DMCA, is a different question. Perhaps the single most insidious thing about that particular piece of legislation is that it does seem to provide Big Media(TM) with a means of making fair use illegal by the back door.
Woah! Cynicism! (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh, please stop over-dramatising.
The MPs proposed a series of constructive changes, and the fact that one poor choice of wording reflected into your eyes off your tinfoil hat doesn't mean they shouldn't be given credit for trying to do the right thing. I'm sure Big Media would like them to do what you say, but right now, it doesn't look like things are going their way very much.
Some of us spent considerable time writing a submission to the Gowers review. Having proposed several of these moves in my own submission, I, for one, am gratified to see that others appear to have agreed, and something good may come of it.
Looking at Australia, which conducted a similar but smaller-scale review a few months earlier than the UK, changes have now been announced that clearly are improvements in previously daft copyright laws. This looks like a first step in the UK going the same way. Why must you attack out of pure cynicism those who seem to be trying to do a good thing, rather than supporting them and being grateful that the world may become a nicer place to live because of their actions?
Re:My Fear of DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
No. Sorry. Wrong.
When you buy a CD containing music, or a DVD containing a movie. Or a book containing a novel, you buy two things;
Both of which are your property for you to do as you wish with, aslong as that what you wish is inside of applicable law.
There are things you can't do with these items, even though you own them. Because you're constrained by law. For example, you can't hit your neighbour over the head with the book, because there's laws against that. And you can't have a public performance of the music on the CD, because copyright-law prevents that.
2 different views of "rights" (Score:3, Insightful)
I think you hit the nail on the head. What the law says is that you have every right except for those that have been specifically prohibited. What the MPAA/RIAA wants (and wants you to think already exists) is a system where you have only the rights that they specifically assign to you. When I exchange my money for a CD or DVD, they cannot dictate what I do with it any more than I can dictate to them what they do with my money (as long as no laws are broken, in either case). It is a purchase, not a license agreement (did you sign a contract when you bought that CD?). Software is a slightly different case since some claim the click-through EULA is a contract, but even that is not entirely certain. Of course, IANAL (thank God).