Sun's Open Source DRM 274
DigDuality writes "Wired has an interesting look at Sun's proposed 'Open Source DRM'. From the article: 'Its goal is to promulgate an open-source architecture for digital rights management that would cut across devices, regardless of the manufacturer, and assign rights to individuals rather than gadgets [...] If DReaM works, consumers will be able to access their purchased songs through a number of providers, and using a wide variety of devices." Slashdot took a first look at Sun's DReaM last August.
weird perspective for a conflict... and wrong! (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm kind of surprised Sun gets it wrong this time. DRM and its insult/harm to the consuming demographic has almost nothing to do with its technological underpinnings and mostly everything to do with customers' collective perception of the disdain by the industry.
It's already enough of a pain to use unencumbered technology. Thankfully (I guess) I'm part of the tech-savvy crowd, I've done all of (okay most...) my research and homework on HDTV, mp3's and ripping, copy protected CDs not to buy (a tip of the hat to Amazon for flagging copy protected CDs) but it's a constant gauntlet we run.
But have you helped and worked with people who are trying to get their home wired and set up and continued running? It's a nightmare, and I'm not even talking about DRM yet. Even if the first (two) generations of HD DVD roll out unencumbered, they're going to be a royal pain... but with DRM, commercial or open source, forget about it!
From the article:
This is a red herring -- Jacobs merely describes the battle for rolling out DRM. The strongest resistance will come from the user community and I don't even think it's likely to be fierce, it's likely to be passive. Mass consumers will look at the wall of technology, the rules, the configurations, the expense, and will quietly resist the new technology and DRM by simply staying with the already-good-enough media they have.
The article tries to compare this "fix" to the old saw about incompatibilities between browsers. This is NOT the same thing, this is about transparent and without paranoia product use and the "fix" fails the sniff test.
If the industry: RIAA, etc, don't figure this out in time an entire generation of new technology for entertainment runs the risk of dying on the Ethernet vine.
Re:weird perspective for a conflict... and wrong! (Score:4, Interesting)
This is so correct. My favorite media player is my modified Xbox because it works. I have no real need to pirate anything, but having your current library of videos available "on demand" is great, the added bonus of my daughter not being able to scratch her $40 a pop and up disney DVDs. DRM may kill this system, which means I will not be getting new content.
-nB
Re:weird perspective for a conflict... and wrong! (Score:5, Interesting)
I just thought of what the media people would do if they were in another service industry. Lets take for example, running water. Lets pretend that Sony gets into the water business.
If they were in the running water business, they would probably be in other businesses as well. Like Sony does content, hardware, etc. So you could get a Sony sink and faucet with your Sony water.
The difference is that you would have to use your Sony sink, or Sony licensed sink to drink your Sony water. The Sony water would then have to be protected so that a Panasonic sink would not be able to dispense of the Sony water. How would they do that?
DRM. Yes, they would add a poison to the water, at great expense and danger to the public. The water would kill you in seconds of ingestion without the aid of a Sony sink to remove the poison.
Of course, you could license the rights to drink Sony's poisoned water, but all of the fittings would be nonstandard. You would have to get special tools to work on the sink. Oh, and Sony water would never just go through PVC or copper pipe. The Sony water would need an end to end transport system.
Re:weird perspective for a conflict... and wrong! (Score:2)
Re:weird perspective for a conflict... and wrong! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:weird perspective for a conflict... and wrong! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:weird perspective for a conflict... and wrong! (Score:5, Insightful)
The alternative is NO DRM, that's very easy: I buy and I can do whatever I want with it (no, I haven't said "put it on the internet") There is no DRM without problems to the customers: the CD that is not playing in the car, the song you can't put on your mp3 player or the game that won't play in three years on the new Windows (and yes, I still play Monkey Island, that would be impossible with DRM)
The DRM is wrong. If you don't trust me, your customer giving my money, I'm not buying.
Re:weird perspective for a conflict... and wrong! (Score:3, Insightful)
So how about DRM that let's YOU do whatever you want with it? (Except put it on the internet, which you implied you weren't going to do anyway.)
To my mind a "perfect" DRM system would do just that. A movie would "know" who bought it, and that person could do whatever they want with it, including loaning it to a friend, and transferring title to it, that is selling it. No restrictions on putting it on your compute
Re:weird perspective for a conflict... and wrong! (Score:2)
Re:weird perspective for a conflict... and wrong! (Score:2)
Re:weird perspective for a conflict... and wrong! (Score:5, Insightful)
Fine. Go put locks on YOUR front door, and post as many security guards and cameras around as you like. But if you're selling to me, your guards and cameras have no business being around once I pay. Stores have cameras to protect the property in the store; they don't attach a mini-camera to see what you do with products you buy.
Or, would you like Ford to put a camera on your car, to check that you don't install third party parts? Perhaps Sony would like to visit once a month to see that you haven't modded your PS2? AT&T might like to stop by and make sure you're not putting any unapproved devices on your phone line. DirecTV knows you didn't buy satellite service from them, so they'd like to take a peek and make sure you didn't buy a black market receiver off ebay.
There's got to be a limit to this, and that's at the point of sale. It doesn't matter if you trust the buyer. If you find they violated the copyright, go sue them later. That's the remedy the law provides, and it is perfectly adequate.
Which brings up the problem that people seem to buy the claim that copying is currently a significant economic loss. Just about every non-??AA study I've heard suggests it is negligible, or encourages sales. That's not to say there isn't the right to enforce existing laws, but that there's no demonstrated need for additional protections. So this sort of lock is not only improper, it is entirely unnecessary. How much lower would DVD prices be, if casual copying were completely eliminated? How many more movies would be made per year, if only CSS were uncrackable? Which studios have closed shop, because the VCR and the Internet destroyed their revenue stream? If enforcement of existing laws is adequate, and there is no gain from stricter laws, why should anyone favor more rules?
Think of speeding, maybe. It's not that it doesn't happen, or that it doesn't have negative effects when it does happen. It's just that it's silly to put a lot of additional effort into cracking down on it when we would gain little benefit. Why don't we put a speed governor in every car sold? I tend to think it's because there are some circumstances where it's better to let the driver make a judgment than to strictly enforce the law, but as much as I dislike the idea, I have no solid reasons. But arguing for DRM is a lot like saying every car must have a speed governor.
Another comment is that "we're probably going to need to do it ourselves" doesn't apply to this any more than to Microsoft or Apple. It sounds like Sun is thinking of a closed-source project where applications would be reviewed by a committee rather than by a single company. This is probably good if you're a company; you never want to have to trust your product to a single competitor. But it's no more open to the average developer than the DVD CCA is.
As a separate issue, how would an Open Source DRM system work? If I'm able to decrypt a file once, I'm able to save it in an unencumbered format. It's fundamentally different than encryption; PGP, for example, isn't designed to prevent you from posting every email you get to a web page. Current schemes assume that the recipient of the keys can be trusted to use them for only the intended purpose. This seems to be based on an assumption that a hacker can't see the code or key (because they're using a microcontroller that has a hardware Code Protect feature), that a network protocol can't be emulated (for cases where a key must be retrieved from a server), or that it's too much of a pain to bother (presumably what Windows Media and Fairplay must do). These are all essentially security through obscurity, and I don't see how that can work in an Open Source environment.
Ownership... - what you do with YOUR goods (Score:2)
Correction- it's NOW my property. (Score:2)
Of course I meant "it's NOW my property". Sorry
Re:weird perspective for a conflict... and wrong! (Score:4, Insightful)
So how about DRM that let's YOU do whatever you want with it? (Except put it on the internet, which you implied you weren't going to do anyway.)
To my mind a "perfect" DRM system would do just that.
It does not exist. It cannot exist. It is a physical and logical impossibility.
The general ability to make noninfringing use fundamentally means the ability to create general software and independantly independant products capable of reading the raw unrestricted data and manipulating it in any new and innovative way and creating general unrestricted output. Innovative uses and innovative products are BY DEFINITION impossible to define in advance.
So either explain why a blind person should go to prison for using a text-to-speech converter on a DRM'd e-book and explain why a programmer should go to prison for distributing that text-to-speech converter to blind people, or quit saying that all you want is some physically impossible magic fairy dust DRM that allows people to do whatever noninfringing things.
In one sense, this is what Apple does with iTMS music, in that I can put a purchased song on any number of iPods that I've registered as mine.
Completely false. iTunes is completely locked down and PROHIBITS EVERYTHING, everything other than playing the files using the predefinded and restricted software on the predefined and restricted players in the predefined and restricted manner.
They cannot be played on any other mp3 player. They cannot be played in WinAmp or any other music software. They cannot be run through any visulization software. They cannot be played backwards. They cannot be linked up with a lyrics text file for synchronized playback/lyrics display. You can't do ANYTHING except play it in the most basic manner, and only on a restricted Apple iPod or in the restricted Apple PC player.
You claim you want a "perfect" DRM system would let people whatever they want (except put it on the internet), but in fact what you are defending is DRM that prohibits everything, and which says that blind people go to prison for text-to-speeching an e-book and which says that programmers go to prison for supplying that product for blind people.
I'm sorry, but there is no magic fairy dust DRM system that you say you want. It does not and cannot exist. You either need to give up on DRM enforcment, or you need to exterminate the free market and prohibit innovative products and prohibit interoperable products and you need to say that blind people go to prison for playing e-books and that people who supply software for blind people also go to prison. That's what DRM enforcment means - that if the supplied e-book software didn't already have a text-to-speech feature that those blind people and those programmers are criminal for circumventing the DRM itself.
I think it's only rational to recognize that, unfortunately, we DO need locks on the front door.
Fine, put all the locks on the front door you like. However once I BUY THE HOUSE, it is absolutely absurd to suggest that I should go to prison for "picking the lock" and ripping the the entire door off MY house so I can move my piano into my livingroom.
Why are so many people so keen on destroying traditional copyright, to instead replace it with DRM and imprisoning innocent noninfringing people? This is entirely new and it is entirely invalid and entirely unacceptable and entirely baseless.
Yes to copyright, no to horribly broken DRM laws.
DRM never worked... all we've done is create a broken law criminalizing innocent people in a horribly misguided attempt to get DRM to kinda-sorta work.
-
Re:weird perspective for a conflict... and wrong! (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, I know about other mp3 players and all the other BS, but the point you completely missed is that they set it up so that a song will play on any number of pods that it "knows" are my pods. As such, a system could also be designed such that a song could play on my s
Re:weird perspective for a conflict... and wrong! (Score:3, Insightful)
It does so only in the sense that you can have any color car, so long as it's black.
In order to obstruct you at all from posting on the internet, DRM must obstruct you from doing "what you want" in general. To be even the least bit effective DRM must obstruct anything ne
Re:weird perspective for a conflict... and wrong! (Score:2)
Re:weird perspective for a conflict... and wrong! (Score:2, Funny)
Re:weird perspective for a conflict... and wrong! (Score:5, Insightful)
DRM should be outlawed since it allows copyright holders to violate copyright law by preventing a work from ever becoming public domain. Period.
Please MOD this response UP! (Score:2)
Re:weird perspective for a conflict... and wrong! (Score:3, Insightful)
I do not think anything in copyright law states preventing a work from becoming public domain is illegal.
Copyright law is an -extra protection-.
The government agrees to help prevent others from copying your works for a limited period of time. If you have some other way of preventing others from copying your work it is not illegal.
For example, I can put on a limited public performance of a song and prevent people from recording it. This happens
Re:weird perspective for a conflict... and wrong! (Score:2)
The alternative is paying for the service as if it were a service and not an end product.
People pay good money every month for TV and radio service. With TV you have the options of free OTH broadcasts that are supported via advertising or "by the help of people like you"
Re:weird perspective for a conflict... and wrong! (Score:2)
Re:weird perspective for a conflict... and wrong! (Score:2)
Elementary (Score:2, Insightful)
Information cannot be controlled, but the business-model for content providers requires that information be controlled. So what do they do? They reach out at something they CAN control. Namely, you.
DRM is there to control YOU. It is there to decide what actions you will and will not take with your hardware. By controlling you, they prevent you
Re:weird perspective for a conflict... and wrong! (Score:4, Insightful)
If DRM were used as you read, that would certainly make an argument for the validation of DRM. However, the people you speak of on this site that oppose DRM do so because it's not about piracy and lost moneys - it's about control. Taking control out of the hands of the consumer and putting control into the hands of the corporation.
Originally, control of distribution was about as far as things went. But with technology, media companies see the ability to control the media (and the devices that play such media) through the entire lifecycle of the device or media. Creation to destruction - media corporations watching everything you do, every time you do it.
In this understanding, DRM is inherantly (sp?) evil. Sun hopping on board - even with "open source" as a moniker, makes Sun still a player on the evil stage of control. Open source control of my legally purchased media is still control and is still - to it's very core concept - wrong.
Re:weird perspective for a conflict... and wrong! (Score:4, Insightful)
For once, someone actually is begging the question on /. The assumption here is that DRM significantly deters piracy. This claim is far from obviously true, and I have never seen any solid evidence to support it. However, it is known that people who use media encumbered by DRM if anything have a worse experience than those who use unencumbered media (including pirates). Definitely providing value to the customers is a better idea (and a sounder business decision) than possibly putting a small dent in piracy while inconveniencing legitimate customers.
Consideration (Score:3, Insightful)
It becomes similar to trade secrets: if it is ever cracked or leaked (the activity of which being illegal), it falls into the public domain.
Alternative to DRM (Score:2)
We've see the evidence [slashdot.org]. It appears that piracy has near enough a zero effect on sales.
This makes sense when you realise that people have x amount of disposable income to spend on such items as CDs and DVDs; in such a context, file sharing acts a little like radio play. The advertising effect appears to roughly cancel out the displacement effect. More precisely, for older and wealthier people, they are drawn to buy more when they have more information upon which to make their purc
The wrong approach. (Score:2)
What if we approach the idea from a different perspective? What if we could setup things so that people wouldn't want to share those files in the first place? And, incidentally, so you could play them on any device you own?
Here's how. I buy a song from a iTMS-like store and i
Are you serious? (Score:2)
Are you serious? I don't know about anyone else, but that kind of customer-hostile activity would make me more likely to obtain an unlicensed copy via murky channels, not less.
Re:Are you serious? (Score:2)
The real question (Score:5, Funny)
Interesting! (Score:5, Interesting)
a) no one wants, or
b) have already been made.
Just because it's open source doesn't make it "right," or even useful. DRM is all about the content provider being able to dictate what your computer is capable, and incapable of doing; if you really do want your computer use restricted by commercial companies (not even necessarily within your own country), then yeah, maybe this might be a good idea.
Re:Interesting! (Score:2)
a) no one wants, or
b) have already been made.
You mean you're not reading Slashdot on a Sun NC?
Re:Interesting! (Score:2, Informative)
I'm also interested in pushing the technology offsite to see if it the latest incaranation of the server software can really operate in that environment, i.e. on the big, bad Internet.
This is the kind of DRM I could support (Score:5, Interesting)
I purchase the -right- to listen to a song.
Once purchased, I can replace it if I lose it.
Once purchased, I can listen to it on any new form of playback that comes along.
---
I doubt it will be supported since it undercuts the dream by the media creators that we pay every single time we play a song- and we rebuy it for each new playback device.
Re:This is the kind of DRM I could support (Score:4)
Re:This is the kind of DRM I could support (Score:2)
If you want things to be better, I'd support this. It's fairer than what we have now, and if it fails then all that will happen is media giants will conclude that harsh DRM is accepted by people.
Re:This is the kind of DRM I could support (Score:2)
OMG!!! Ponies!!!!
Re:This is the kind of DRM I could support (Score:2)
Re:This is the kind of DRM I could support (Score:2)
I violently disagree with Riaa and with extension of the protected copyright period but I do think creators deserve to be compensated for creating.
Re:This is the kind of DRM I could support (Score:2)
Riaa represents useless overhead on creators.
DRM represents a way for creators to sell their creations.
If everyone was honest, we wouldn't need locks on anything.
Re:This is the kind of DRM I could support (Score:2)
I purchase the -right- to listen to a song.
Once purchased, I can replace it if I lose it.
Once purchased, I can listen to it on any new form of playback that comes along.
Thats called a service.
Right now you can purchase services like this for movies (pay cable TV movies, pay-per-view, etc) and music with cable/satellite service.
Cable is close with their "on demand" service, but we simply want more. We want to be able to hear Men Without Hats, "The Safety Dance" NOW. Not wh
Re:This is the kind of DRM I could support (Score:2)
Ironic (Score:2, Insightful)
Just me.
Not GPL v3 then... (Score:5, Insightful)
I guess DRM is not going to go away anytime soon, so it would be better that
the implementation is open-sourced. However, a high-quality open-sourced
DRM mechanism is less likely to have the "holes" which the Hymn project,
for example, rely on...
Anyway, it's probably doomed anyway... can you see Apple or Microsoft using it?
Erm, no.
Re:Not GPL v3 then... (Score:2)
Oh the irony
-nB
Assign rights to individuals rather than gadgets (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Assign rights to individuals rather than gadget (Score:5, Informative)
No, laws NEVER, I repeat, NEVER assign rights to individuals. Rights should be protected by laws, from encroachments by the respective government or other individuals, but can not be "assigned".
Re:Assign rights to individuals rather than gadget (Score:2)
Re:Assign rights to individuals rather than gadget (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Assign rights to individuals rather than gadget (Score:3, Insightful)
so what rights do i get as an aetheist? my only creators are my Mum and Dad!
Wake up Sun! (Score:4, Interesting)
Java... NO (not on set top boxes that is)
JXTA... NO
SunRay... NO (only a few universities / corps)
Liberty Alliance... NO
OpenLook... NO
JINI... NO
I'll throw in a few non-consumer things, just to be a dick:
SBus, JavaOS/JavaStation, etc.
Sun's history is littered with failured "standards".
Re:Wake up Sun! (Score:2, Offtopic)
Re:Wake up Sun! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Wake up Sun! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Wake up Sun! (Score:2)
I guess Sun's success was NFS. Even with its faults, its handy and works "good enough".
SPARC appears dead. Java has landed in the middleware arena. Solaris is OK, but so is BSD, Linux, etc. (No flamewars please).
The best products they sell now under $10k are Opterons that run either Windows, Linux, or Solaris. Its a good business decision to sell such a niche product, eh? They would be in tough shape if other companies offered such products.
Re:Wake up Sun! (Score:2, Insightful)
JXTA... NO
SunRay... NO (only a few universities / corps)
Liberty Alliance... NO
OpenLook... NO
JINI... NO
As others have said, Java is all over the place. It's certainly on my cell phone, so I think you're very wrong there as for Java being some kind of failure.
Sun stopped pushing OpenLook something like 11 or 12 years ago when they came out with CDE. Why are we talking about something that old?
As for the SunRays being limited to universities and corporations, well who
Damned if you do, damned if you don't (Score:5, Interesting)
Open source support for DRM - con: DRM can only be successful with widespread software support. By supporting DRM, you make it easier for DRM to be successful.
Open source boycott of DRM - con: DRM can probably gain widespread software support even without open-source software support, so a boycott is likely to only have the effect of alienating open-source software to end-users.
If open-source platforms were significantly more popular, then supporting DRM probably wouldn't be a good idea. But because open-source platforms don't have significant mindshare among the general public, it's more difficult to resist, as the only effect resisting will have is negative.
Would be nice, but.. (Score:4, Insightful)
There is no way for restrictions such as those desired by the 'rights holders' to be enforced absent proprietary binary-only programs doing it for them. And even those usually are defeated, as well. The scheme MS used to call Palladium, where the restrictions extend right to the hardware, is the only way it can ever work even close to their satisfaction. And quite frankly, I hope that never happens, becuase that is the end of any hope of ever overcoming the MS monopoly.
Re:Would be nice, but.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Perhaps it will turn out that DRM is the same way. Has anyone read any serious research into DRM strategies and algorithms? Does this turn out to be the case that it must be closed to be secure? Isn't it really just a key distribution question?
Re:Would be nice, but.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Open Source Encryption is fine, since only the people with the keys can do anything useful to the data stream, an attacker is still in trouble.
With DRM, the attacker and the valid user can be one and the same. That's a lot harder to protect.
Re:Would be nice, but.. (Score:2)
I think that, probably, an open source DRM system would have to be a 'User can play it' / 'User can't play it' system.
Which is fine. If it's open source, I can tweak it to spit out the decrypted data for me to pipe where I like. I'll pay for online content if I can then go and do what I please with it.
Like transcode it to 320x240 and watch it on my PDA. Or burn it to a DVD for archival purposes. Or - and damn you if you can't take it - put it up on eMule and let it self redistribute to people wh
Re:Would be nice, but.. (Score:2)
Correct, that's all open source DRM can do. How does that mesh with what the content providers want? (e.g. You stream it to LAME and toss the MP3 up on BitTorrent is likely something that providers don't want. How do you stop that with OSS? Once the data stream is decrypted, the DRM is gone)
Re:Would be nice, but.. (Score:2)
What DRM boils down to is, "someone other than me has control over my content, and is telling me what I can and cannot do with it." Somehow, the DRM system has to lock up the content until I request the key, and in order to be secure, the key must be kept secure until I request it. So, yes, it's just a key distribution question.
However, DRM will never be, and can never be, fair to the cons
Re:Would be nice, but.. (Score:2)
Encryption does not impose any restrictions upon you after decryption. When you know the algorithm and have the key, nothing can stop you from decrypting a message and saving it somewhere else, unencrypted. But this is exactly what a DRM system must prevent.
I admit I haven't read Sun's proposal yet, but I believe that this is a problem that is not solvable. Any DRM system must maintain central control over production or playback (or both). If anyone could develop a playback device that will play back all c
Re:Would be nice, but.. (Score:3, Informative)
If anything, an open source DRM system should be
I'm not convinced either, but I'm not writing it off out of hand yet. OTOH, I do have my doubts about Sun's ability to deliver.
Re:Would be nice, but.. (Score:2)
Hush! Don't spill the beans on this yet. Let them get this accepted by the industry and keep the modified code a secret.
Technical description? (Score:3, Interesting)
Totally confusing.
Re:Technical description? (Score:2, Informative)
Depending on what you're trying to "protect" opens (Score:2, Insightful)
Middlemanhandling (Score:5, Insightful)
If we actually do something that violates a law or agreement with you, then by all means prosecute/sue us. Or stay out of the business if it's too risky for you. Just stop selling me yet another copy of _Dark Side of the Moon_ just because you made my last player obsolete.
Re:Middlemanhandling (Score:2)
Re:Middlemanhandling (Score:2)
Besides, I've never signed or otherwise agreed to any contract or license whenever I've bought any recording. The music business might have decided I've got only a license, but they've also decided musicians and listeners ar
Re:Middlemanhandling (Score:2)
Exactly. You never entered into any sort of arrangement that would give you the right to do "anything I please" with the recording. You have Fair Use rights, which do not include "anything I please", and never did, DRM or no DRM. This is Copyright 101.
Re:Middlemanhandling (Score:2)
DRM as described in the story summary, and as likewise used by the recording industry, further restricts our rights. That's wrong.
Here's an absurd, by not necessarily impossible scenario: I use a CD I bought to prop up
Re:Middlemanhandling (Score:2)
You do not have a constitutional right to do whatever you please with someone else's property (i.e. the recording). Once again, you do have Fair Use rights, which are not the same.
I use a CD I bought to prop up a wobbly table leg. Later the record label's parent company markets leg proppers of their own, marketed under the same brand as the CD. They try to stop me from my "unlicensed" propping.
That is among the stupidest things I have ever heard. Us
Re:Middlemanhandling (Score:2)
Actually he has entered into an agreement. Unfortunately, in all but 2 states it's going to be the default contract of sale defined by the Uniform Commercial Code. That means by default you have the rights granted under copyright law as regards making additional copies, plus the rights granted by the UCC as regards use of the copy you bought. This is one thing the copyright cartels try fiercely to avoid dealing with, with their copyright-law and "you only have a license" rhetoric, because there's a lot of U
Re:Middlemanhandling (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Sadly, DRM is needed (Score:2)
No it isn't.
Imagine if your friends were able to hit the play Lecuna Coil's latest or first or second album by pressing a button on their car, home, or portable player?
Do you think they would still waste their time making copies of the stuff when all they want to do is listen to it when you want to listen to it.
I predict that artists that use oil and canvas will soon have to DRM their paint if more people had this mentality.
Re:Sadly, DRM is needed (Score:2)
see, there's the thing. it has - it's just a question of for whom.
artists make most of their money on things other than albu
Re:Sadly, DRM is needed (Score:2)
Yeah! They should ban not buying DVDs of new releases - the content producer makes the DVD expecting us to buy it, and then we say "Nooo, I don't think its cheap enough", and the police man hears you "You're buying that DVD sonny, shopkeeper, take his credit card off of him". Better yet - just tax everybody and send
Re:Sadly, DRM is needed (Score:2)
There is nothing harmful to the movie maker when the fans never buy the DVD, but just make a digital copy off of digital cable TV. When the company licensed the movie to the TV station they did so knowing that people would make copies (and accounting for it). The customers' right to make copies of what's on TV has bee
DRM Dilemma & a solution (Score:5, Insightful)
The problems I have seen so far with DRM are:
1) Heavyhandedness of DRM schemes
2) Shitty implimentation that causes serious problems on users' computers (eg Sony Rootkit)
3) Inconsistant quality of the DRM scheme itself, which leads to...
4) Easy to crack DRM that is useless.
5) Consumers don't understand that DRM is restricting their rights because,...
6)
7) Small business people can't afford to set up and maintain a good DRM system
8) Large business people don't understand DRM
I think all 8 of these points could be solved with an open-source (or free) software solution. DRM needs to be fair. Not burdonsome.
I have a feeling that Sun's DRM scheme won't use a GPL or any other widely accepted open-source license. Thats the real issue here people!
How? (Score:2)
Re:DRM Dilemma & a solution (Score:2)
"Trusted computing" means that I don't control my machine, as only approved components and programs can be allowed to access protected data. I don't see how open source could spread if the document formats (think .doc) would contain D
I sure hope Sun's got a trademark on that name (Score:2)
I'm so confused... (Score:2)
DRM and Open Source (Score:3, Interesting)
For a legitimate customer, DRM isn't bad as long as they have the choice to play it however they would like. I would argue that part of the reason why Linux user's hate DRM is that it doesn't trust the user, and it is hard to get the content to play on Linux. DRM becomes burdensome when it starts to become inconvient. People really wouldn't care about DRM if it wouldn't interfer with their convience. Sadly, I think that one of the only ways to insure convience is from trusted computing. Or if you could tie a copy of the music to a piece of hardware and then have each song downloaded per that piece of hardware.
However, with all that said, an Open Source DRM is not bad, per se, if it allows consumer choice. If you can port your songs to wherever you want and listen to them without a losing quality would you use it? Also, by it being Open Source it will allow per review and you won't have to worry about the Sony Root Kit crap that went on. If you look at it, the whole filetrading fest that happened in the late 90's created the need for content providers to require DRM. Playing devil's advocate, I seriously doubt that anyone artist that is the target of heavy downloading, is going to be against DRM (with some notiable exceptions).
The way I see it, DRM should be implemented in such a way as to balance consumer choice AND protect the rights of artist. As long as there is piracy there will be need for it. But, any artist that is refusing to take a risk of piracy is an artist that shouldn't be in business (as all businesses have risks).
Do I like DRM? No. But do see the logical need for it.
c'mon (Score:2, Funny)
DOA thanks to MS and the **AA (Score:4, Insightful)
1. Content originators view any exposure to to their content as a potential profit and any exposure not paid for as theft.
2. Content originator associations see #1 as an absolute beyond question on the level of religious dogma. This has risen to the level of holy effrontery [bigger-picture.co.uk].
3. Content originator associations view all possible viewers of content as possible non-paying viewers of content and hence as possible theives of content.
DRM has been essentially linked with the concept that we the people are the enemies of those who bring us our entertainment and we exist to be milked for money and nothing more. As a longtime writer who's given away his works for free, I keep in mind that sometimes being a content originator isn't about making money but about doing something more ephemeral for myself. In the clash of absolutes, an inflexible wall has been erected and we are up against it. DRM open source or otherwise is a dead issue, no sale.
Quick point (Score:3, Interesting)
By this I mean, somebody deliberately seeds the project with a hidden loophole, waits for it to be released and used and then when at critical mass, makes the loop-hole known. Just personally speaking I'd be tempted - and if you can recruit a couple of other like-minded people to assist in reviewing the 99.99% you want them to..
For the MANY of you who are frothing at the mouth- (Score:2)
So-o-o-o...would you rather have a nice little Microsoft/Intel closed source and proprietary system, performing at the whims of the industry masters who control it, or an open-source solution with predetermined abilities, intents and uses?
I know how I'm voting! Hint - it isn't with the wonderful folks who (tried to) bring you Palladium.
Could there be a pro-consumer benefit to DRM? (Score:2)
Open source DRM cannot work (Score:2)
if (rightsholders criteria are satisfied)
{
play the content
}
else
{
do not play the content
}
If the DRM code is open source, then anyone could reverse the logic. I really don't understand where they're going with this.
Re:Open Source, DRM and Sun in the same post (Score:2)
Re:Open Source, DRM and Sun in the same post (Score:2)
Why? When everyone is standing up for their rights on the subject I never hear them arguing for THEIR responsibilities.
Re:Why Reinvent the Wheel? (Score:2)