What's The Future of DRM? 374
Cdgod asks: "I am working on a thesis regarding DRM (Digital Rights Management). I would like to get it published and instead of having the regular recycled net material, I would like to hear opinions and thoughts on how it should and could work. Think 20 years in the future, how can you see your world with DRM in place? Will it cost you a few pennies every time you look for the time on your watch? Are you limited to only coping that CD 3 times before it is locked forever? Can you think of uses where DRM will actually give the user more rights? Try to think outside the current models in place, such as video on demand, purchasing music online, and DRM e-books. And yes, I will be arguing that the current laws are not taking the user's point of view, but of the large media companies." My personal thoughts on Digital Rights Management (copy protection, for laymen) is that as long as it interferes with the user's use of the material, it's not worthwhile. Most of the current solutions which have been proposed seem more like draconian measures that will be forced down our throats...whether we like it or not.
here's an idea: (Score:5, Funny)
How about if DRM in the future prevents the use of ideas from my /. comments becoming part of someone's thesis? See if you can spot the watermark in here somewhere :)
A letter from 2020 (Score:5, Informative)
To me, this seemed like a pretty plausible outcome of DRM.
Also (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, once it's deleted, it will allow the user to recover valuable hard drive space.
Laws can be evaluated (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Also (Score:3, Insightful)
What is "Digital Rights"?
Is it my right that I need to know, and get to choose what is installed on my hard drives?
I'd love to see laws that protect our hard drives from being installed spywares, marketing softwares, junks that is vastly inferior to the competition and I don't want to use (e.g. MSN Messanger) and propaganda materials (Software channels, AOL portal links, etc.)
I think I have the "Digital Right" to manage my hard disk space, every byte of which I bought with my own money. Same goes for RAM. I DO hope laws will be passed soon that respect my rights.
Homework Help (Score:2, Interesting)
:)
Privacy of Personal Info (Score:3, Insightful)
One thing DRM might do is enable me to share my personal information privately with one entity, without fear that the entity could share it with others. (That is, if DRM could work.)
That might be good, but I'm much happier with the world we live in now!
Re:Privacy of Personal Info (Score:3, Insightful)
That's what "information wants to be free" means..you can't prevent that sort of thing by doing something to the information itself.
You have to trust the person you give it to.
Of course, if what you're trying to keep private is being sold on CDs down at the record store, there's no way to control every single person who gets it. That's why DRM for that purpose is and always will be a laughable failure.
Re:Privacy of Personal Info (Score:2)
Re:Privacy of Personal Info (Score:2)
DRM would stop the 2nd party from doing that, in theory.
I am not supporting DRM, just explaining that it could theoretically be useful for the above scenario. The social desirability of DRM is a whole nother issue. (I am opposed to DRM)
Re:Privacy of Personal Info (Score:3, Insightful)
Public key encryption would prevent 3rd parties from eavesdropping, but would NOT stop the 2nd party (the receiver) from sharing the unencrypted data with others whom the first party does not want the information to be shared with.
Unless, of course, DRM is taken to the extreme.
What would be the extreme, you ask?
To insure that only the purchasing individual receives the content, it would be necessary for each individual to receive their own, unique content stream that cannot be interpreted by any other individual, i.e.
This would insure that e-magazine articles that I read would be useless to anyone else.This would insure the kind of lock-down that RIAA and MPAA would love to have, the kind of lock-down on identification and use that mass marketers would love to have, and the kind of lock-down that any authoritarian government would love to have.
Granted, it's extreme and practically unimplementable - yet.
I think that in the long run people will find the restrictions too cumbersome on their everyday lives and freedom of expression. As in, "whaddya mean I hafta to send in a credit card number to authorize a MS Passport so that my mother-in-law can properly play the home movie that I just sent to her over the internet?"
I think you'll find tension between content purveyors and the public at large for some years to come. You won't have to pay to look at your watch - money, that is. But expect your watch dial to include payment options in the form of advertising that you are forced to endure.
P.S. You gotta love the cute use of words. This "Digital Rights Management" is certifiably fluffy. Better to call it that than something I would propose as more accurate, such as "Content Use Restriction", or CUR:)
DRM - no avoiding it (Score:3, Interesting)
As far as DRM goes - I do view it a little like software proection. There's always someone on the outside who is a better coder than the group on the inside and can break it.
Re:DRM - no avoiding it (Score:5, Interesting)
As for other types of content, the original is almost always better and more economical than the copy, i.e.: the latest paperback instead of a giant text file, or a signed/numbered print instead of a JPEG.
The point is, the ability to steal content will always be there. Wether or not it gets stolen depends on several factors: is it worth stealing? Is it worth the price if purchased? Does it "feel" like stealing at all? Notice DRM wasn't mentioned. That was on purpose.
Re:DRM - no avoiding it (Score:2)
Section #4
"The hackers have access to the same tools that you had while making the game. They have the compilers, dissemblers, debuggers, and utilities that you have, and a few that you don't. And they are smart people - they are probably more familiar with the Assembly output of an optimized C++ file than you are."
I've seen warez rips where the whole package format for the game has been changed, a CD or two of content removed, and bugs fixed. All with only the binaries. I doubt many people here could do that... trace through the object code well enough to make large-scale changes in the program.
I've also seen very clever protection removed from games, where subtle checks take place in the middle of the game and patch the game to crash at a later time, if the check failed.
It is easier to break than to protect, but that's usually because you have unlimited tries when breaking and only one chance to get it right when protecting.
The future? (Score:5, Interesting)
You can use our current drug policies as a guide to the future of DRM...
Re:The future? (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't think so. Lawmakers who support the draconian DRM measures will be voted out of office, and they will be replaced with more citizen friendly policies.
Laws that are passed which overstep the rights of citizens will be repealed by courts.
Users will choose not to purchase and use DRM protected media. (Remember DIVX?)
Savvy users will break the DRM Schemes and post the cracks to the net effectively destroying the technology.
DRM won't work. It has no benefits to end users, no one wants it and everyone will resist it. Its a bad idea, plain and simple.
Take care,
Brian
--
100% Linux Based Web Hosting: http://www.assortedinternet.com/hosting/ [assortedinternet.com]
Re:The future? (Score:2, Interesting)
Either you don't live in the US, or this is your fist foray into public in several years.
No lawmaker has suffered because of the DMCA.
More DMCA-like laws are on the way.
DIVX failed because there were alternatives still on the market. The industry has learned from this, and future initiatives will include the exclusion of non DRM protects alternatives from the market place.
Future cracking schemes will be relegated to obscurity by laws such as the DMCA (ses DeCSS).
Have a nice day.
Re:The future? (Score:3, Insightful)
I share at least some of your skepticism about U.S. law makers. The mere fact that there are even a few law makers that think that the SSSCA is a good idea, should make all of us pause and think about the safety of our society.
However, I don't personally think that laws like the SSSCA will shield the entertainment industry from a serious turn of affairs. Laws like the SSSCA make it harder and harder to copy copyrighted works, but that is a small part of the battle. A much larger concern, especially for the music industry, is how easy it is to create and distribute the material. Right now, to get your music, movie, book, or whatever into the hands of the American consumer you have to sell your soul to the devil, but that is changing.
Slashdot is an excellent example of how the Internet is leveling the playing field. A couple of punk kids from Michigan have created a site that is more widely read than many very expensive publishing industry ventures. Journalists have been the first to switch over to the web, but it won't be too long before novelists, musicians, and even movie producers also start to take a look at the powerful distribution method that is the Internet.
Heck, I have already read two novels that were released on the Internet because the writers couldn't find a publisher. One of them was even pretty good :). And there is literally an entire world of music written by artists that want you to download their music. Even movies aren't really that safe. In ten years every teenage kid is going to have enough computer power to create and render realistic digital movies, and he or she will probably have enough bandwidth to consider sharing their work as well.
The high costs of distribution (and in the case of movies the high cost of creation) is what has created the necessity for the big production houses with their massive investments, and disgustingly large margins. But it is getting easier and easier to distribute and promote your art over the Internet.
How much longer are we really going to need the entertainment companies? Your guess is as good as mine, but I can guarantee that the harder they squeeze the faster we will find a way to reward the artists, novelists, musicians, and actors directly, without their help.
Re:The future? (Score:2, Insightful)
Citizen-friendly lawmakers? How far did Nader get in the last election? The "mainstream" parties will continue into the forseeable future, with no real differences between them. Corporate interest will be bought and paid for regardless of the party in power.
Laws repealed by courts? Maybe, but don't count on it given how the DeCSS case went. Even if the Supreme Court does strike them down, I wouldn't put it past the conglomerates and Congress to amend the Constitution, if that's what's required to control "free" speech.
Users choose not to purchase? You're assuming there will be an alternative (DIVX vs DVD). It will soon be the only choice.
Of course users will break the technology. And they'll keep it to themselves because they'll go to JAIL if they don't!
But you are partially right: DRM has no benefits to end users, and no one wants it. But resist it? Not likely. The quiet 99% will swallow what the industry & government tell them, and the other 1% will either keep their mouths shut or be prosecuted.
Lovely.
Darren Best
Re:The future? (Score:2)
Re:The future? (Score:3, Insightful)
Note that there may well be positive feedback going on here.
The only solution? (Score:3, Interesting)
Why can't politicians run for elections without donations? If all politicians are stripped off their election donations, we still have a level playing field. They should be paid with TAXDOLLARS, not bribe money.
There is NO valid reason why corporations should contribute. How they're going to survive should be totally dependant on economics, not laws. Governments should not interfere how business is done, well, maybe except anticompetition laws. That's why we should let DRM have its own life, and do nothing with it legally.
How, then, can companies protect their works? Good question. More protections. But they shouldn't depend on laws. There had always been a competition between protectors and crackers. They were doing it purely technically. Which was all good - if you cracked my protection, I'll strengthen it. Only the sucker would want the laws to stand by them, to "outlaw" the crackers - even if they don't steal.
I mean, if you leave your door wide-open, how can you accuse somebody of entering your house to take some notes and then tell his friend what he saw in your house? It should be all legal.
And with corporate (minority) interest out of the question, majority interests will be served better.
Re:The future? (Score:2)
Really? In my life, I have known very few people that did not use drugs.
I use caffeine and ethanol on a regular basis, and occasionally acetylsalicylic acid, pseudoephedrine, phenylpropanolamine, and others.
Nicotine is still a popular drug, and use of powerful hormones like melatonin are not uncommon.
Aside from the non-prescription drugs most of us use, don't forget all the people taking Prozak, Valium, drugs for cholesterol, drugs for blood pressure, drugs for adjusting other bodily processes, and of course, drugs to slow down our active kids...
Then we have the people using CERTAIN drugs... Is this what you were talking about?
past present and future (Score:2)
The drug analogy is false. Intoxicated and adicted people obnox their neighbors. Obnoxious people get put in jail. People who create software and music are productive and useful. No society that quashed productive activities has lasted very long. All societies have had laws and mores regarding intoxication. Even the most primative societies have strict rules on time and place.
Freedom of speech and publication are better analogies. After all, free software will continue to flourish given the right to publish code. It is impossible to keep people from saying and writting what they believe, as they can conceal themselves and publish anonymously. Drug useres can not conceal themsleves forever and the substances they depend on for their recreation have no legitimate uses besides medical perscription. There is no substitute for free speech in a viable society. There are many better ways to entertain yourself than intoxication.
Drug use is a thing to put into the past.
Re:past present and future (Score:2)
Quite a chilling statement. This clearly isn't true, otherwise you, twit, wouldn't be posting to /.
If someone is smoking dope and harassing people, there are already laws against harassment. People shouldn't be penalised for using something if there are uses for it which do not infringe on the rights of others.
Fundamental issues (Score:5, Informative)
On the other hand, the introduction of pure hardware schemes that retain the cyphertext of the protected material until it is transformed (within a tamper-proof sanctioned device) into perceivable media (image on screen, sound from speakers) would have a chance of real effectiveness. Now this would represent a profound change to the way we normally think about computing devices and about the freedom we have to put together systems of any type using whatever basic parts can be found. Such work would still be possible of course, but DRM-protected media would be unusable without the presence of secure tamper-proof decoding hardware.
The need for such hardware (which, by the way, is not sci-fi: check Intel's work on secure digital interfaces for digital flat-screen displays) implies a controllable market, since some organization would have the power to issue or not issue licenses and keys to manufacturers.
No more open PCs, no more independent musicians (Score:3, Interesting)
Eventually, after enough hacking of the systems, PCs will be required to be tamper-proof, DRM enabled, no end-user access to raw bit streams, etc. The SSSCA could pass, and the certified systems required by the act could include such requirements.
And the DRM system will likely prevent playing of unauthenticated content. Ostensibly to stop people from making analog recordings of music with a microphone, but it would also make independant music production impossible. The legally mandated system could require that in order for a piece of music to play, it would need to be signed with a valid key - and only the RIAA could license such keys. Onle would then need an RIAA license to make music.
Division by zero (Score:2, Interesting)
, so to speak. IMO, most of what we're currently seeing in the realm of DRM won't stand the test of time.
Why? Okay, let's start with the idea that in order to have a truly "strong" DRM system, you have to tack on strong encryption. Thus far, most systems proposed have failed this critical test. Please, no flames about the DMCA, because let's be realistic: the vast majority of people (meaning aside from a few "example cases") will never be "found out" for copying songs over networks, etc.
Second, all it takes is a little oppression for a lot of people (mainstream folks, not just geeks) to get really angry. We're already used to voting with our dollars anyhow; this will probably severely curtail heinous attempts at nasty DRM in the future. As long as a freer, easier (or just as easy) solution exists, the company or group providing it will win out.
I'm a little groggy at the moment (sorry, coding too long), so this may not be my most intelligent and coherent post ever. But I'm sure you get the idea. Thanks.
Encryption is being mis-used. (Score:3, Insightful)
This is the most fundamental failing of DRM, and why (in it's current form,) it will never work.
At it's most basic level, encryption (weak or strong) is designed to allow person A to send something to person B without anyone else (person C) being able to view it.
It is not designed to allow person A to decide when and how person B can view it, or whether person B can send it to someone else.
These are two VERY different goals. In the first example, once person B has the data, s/he can view it any time they want, rewrite or mangle, or even send it to someone else (with or without encryption.)
If the goal of DRM is to prevent person B copying the content, then there is no technical way of doing it.
To quote Bruce Schneier, trying to make bits not copyable is like trying to make water not wet. Encrypting the data will not alter this fact.
The problem is, nobody has come up with a way to make bits uncopyable - and the people who believe that encryption will do this simply don't understand encryption.
Ever read Fahrenheit 451? (Score:5, Insightful)
Huh? (Score:3, Funny)
You came to slashdot to avoid recycled net material?
That's courage.
How to make money without DRM... (Score:4, Insightful)
A thing I've noticed in my personal use of Emusic is that I've discovered music by a lot of obscure bands I never heard of that I like. I mean since I'm paying for it anyhow it's worth it to me to download a whole album by some band I've never heard of. I can just delete it when I don't want it. Why go buy the new album from some big name band for $15+ when I can download music for free?
Trying to impose pay-per-use technology on music is just going to turn people off to it. If you want proof of people's reaction to this, just look at DivX. People like to own things, and they hate having to deal with complex rights mangement architectures. The only way you could find a DRM that would be really appealing to people would be one that's transparent, but by it's nature it can't be transparent because it has to stop me from doing something forbidden by the publisher.
If The big RIAA labels opened up their collections to me and charged me like $15-20/month to download all I want, I'd be all over that. But if they had some goofy DRM technology on the music, I wouldn't touch it with a 10 foot pole.
You stingy leach :) (Score:2)
The big audio conglomerates would want to charge huge per song fees like $12 per file, or some obnoxiously high rate such as $250+/month for a limited number of downloads.
In reality though- with functioning peer sharing networks as an alternative, no one would subscribe to such a system unless it were really cheap, such as $5/month for unlimited downloads with high quality files, fast transfers, and a comprehensive selection.
Do you see why they havent gone that route? You cannot be a useless fat layer if noone will feed you.
Right to deny rights (Score:2, Funny)
Hey! are you reading my comments?? Stop it! They are mine!
And don't you dare using my idea's in your own comments!
DRM will stifle innovation (Score:5, Insightful)
People will collaborate less and will have learned that it's 'wrong' to pass along data or information of any kind. This kind of mentality will manifest itself in an atmosphere where it's considered morally and ethically wrong to try to do things without doing them in the approved (legal or corporate) manner. I don't see a lot of technical or scientific innovation coming from people who have this mindset.
The Dark Ages was a fairly direct result of the Catholic Church's desire to control information, in their case, religious doctrine. The crusades brutally crushed scientific, philosophical, and mathmatic progress in the middle east. Human progress came to a virtual halt for several centuries.
This is the same thing. Instead of a rich, powerful church, we have a oligarchy of rich, powerful corporations who beleive it is in their best interest to control information of any kind, be it entertainment, scientific data, math, or any kind of production algorithm. The future is grim indeed if these companies get their way.
The renaissance, the richest period of exploration and innovation in human history happened when the controls imposed by the Catholic church started to break down and both religous and scientific information began to flow freely.
Freedom of Information == Human Progress and Advancement
Proprietary Information == Fear, Paranoia, Superstition, and Human Misery
My letter to my Congresscritter about SSSCA (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.freesql.org/sssca.htm
Re:DRM will stifle innovation (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the real outcome would be that the US gets marginalized. If we stifle the very openness and sharing that now occurs, and that keeps the US at the head of the pack in science, industry, military technologies, etc., other nations (europe perhaps, or Japan) will pass us by.
The Dark Ages only occurred because the Church was a universal influence, and so retarded every nation. If the US imposes such restrictions on ourselves alone, we'll be passed by - Americans will go abroad to do research, start companies, etc.
Hopefully saner heads will prevail in the end. I sure hope so.
Re:DRM will stifle innovation (Score:2, Informative)
Sigh. Well, at least you capitalized "Church". What people don't seem to understand is that the Church was the keeper of written language for the West throughout the Dark Ages. Not only was the Church single-handedly responsible for Western literacy, it created most of the knowlege supposedly kept secret. What do you think the first book ever printed was? An issue of Scientific American? Ever hear of Descartes? The Church as an institution paid room and board to people that did nothing but sit around and think, and then published their findings. The pioneers of DRM aren't even content providers, just weasles looking to score off the providers' agents' paranoid ideas that everyone who enjoys their art must pay.
We'll return to the 19th century (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:DRM will stifle innovation (Score:3, Informative)
This is a common (and old-fashioned) view, but recent scholarship suggests that it isn't really true. The Renaissance was a period of increased exploration and scholarship, but it wasn't particularly exciting technologically. In a real sense, it was a response to the great technological strides that were made in the late Middle Ages- widespread use of water power, the introduction of gunpowder weapons, deep-water capable ships and navigating techniques, and printing using movable metal type.
The changes in political, social, and economic situation that was characteristic of the Rennaisance depended heavily on those Medaeval technologies, but it didn't add to them very much. It was gunpowder weapons that allowed kings to consolidate centralized power, and to resist the church. It was printing that encouraged scholarship and free thought. It was water power that overturned the old fashioned industries and led to the great rise in cities. It was developments in navigation that led to over seas exploration. Those things were the cause of the Renaissance, not its effect.
That's not to say that the Renaissance is necessarily a bad model. To a substantial extent, the Renaissance was a social and political response to technological developments that overturned the basis for existing society. There was a strong backlash from entrenched powers who wanted to fight against the new technological developments and keep the existing system that was opposed by others who tried to establish a new system. To a great extent technological progress was slowed simply because the existing technologies hadn't been fully assimilated yet; it took a while to integrate everything into society. I personally wonder if there isn't going to be a similar backlash and slowing of innovation sometime soon for similar reasons.
[Note: I'm also ignoring the exceptionally Eurocentric tone of the above (a number of those technologies were actually imported from China rather than independently developed in Europe, so obviously somebody's innovation wasn't being choked off) because one can reasonably argue that treating Europe separately makes sense. After all, the DRM won't necessarily be world-wide, so looking at how moves to stifle innovation in one place affect that place can be accurate even if they are centered on one culture.]
I think it may come down to respect (Score:2, Insightful)
When I listen to music, read a great essay, hit a good webpage or what have you. I want the artist/author/composer/creator to know that I liked thier work, and if it's a means for them to earn money I'd like to see that they get some, be it a tip jar, banner ad, or just paypaling them a few bucks.
The system where an artist creates a work and then gets less than 5% of the final sale price back from the publisher is wrong. The publishers and promoters should work for the artists not the other way around.
DRM Increases Throughput (Devil's Advocate) (Score:3, Interesting)
Initially, it will be more expensive for people to listen to music or read books, because instead of buying cd's or books, you buy the right to hear the song or the right read the book.
People will pay what they feel the material is worth. If I think that listening to a Wu Tang Clan is worth 3 cents, and they want 8, I won't pay. In terms of the market, this makes the market more efficient and provides some feedback to the artists. It also makes it possible to bundle in things like advertising to offset the cost (advertising is more valuable in this case because they know who they are marketing to.)
In the future, people will be able to pay for whatever they want, and the number of choices available to them will reflect the value they percieve in the service.
It should only preserve rights (Score:2, Informative)
Newer DVD Rom drives now have a region lock. This can be disabled of course. Newer discs can check your player for the initial region it was set to, and disable it, forcing a full reset. The next generation of players will require that the player will disallow all playback of protected discs until the player is returned to the manufacturer to be reset. Naturally the manufacturers are against this, but the MPAA has a monopoly . How can they refuse.
DVD phase 3 goes even further. It is a requirement that all DVD compatible equipment have a GPS receiver built in, and a mobile telephone connection. This will call the local anti-piracy organisation if it detects a non-permitted disc. By eliminating codes for older players, the industry hopes to slowly migrate people to more restrictive products.
Leaked documents suggest that they will soon be incorporating technology to allow a limit to the number of viewers. This will mean that when you buy a DVD, it will lock itself to the first player it is used on, and will only permit a maximum number of people to watch it at any time. Do you have a larhge family? You'll need to buy a licence for more people. Eventually the entire world will be controlled by corporations. We are working to prevent this, but the power of the media giants is too great.
Re:It should only preserve rights (Score:2)
As for region locking... that's still a software issue. Many DVD ROM drives already lock after a certain number of region changes.. and have to be returned to manufacturer. Of course, you just get new firmware, and a flash utility, and voila.. no more problem.
As for discs that check.. this is easily circumvented; you simply have a DVD player mod that, rather than make it automatically switch regions, lets you choose the region you want on powerup. Many already do this.
Do you have links to this DVD phase 3 stuff? Becuase all the stuff about locking to a certian player.. you are describing DivX...
Huh? (Score:4, Insightful)
No.
Look at this Position statement on DRM (Score:2, Interesting)
Our position on the DRM. [musicrebellion.com]
Future of DRM in two words: (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Future of DRM in two words: (Score:2)
Between the 12 year olds on one hand and the screaming Libertarians on the other
draconian (Score:2)
is it possible to have something you feels is a 'draconian measure' shoved down your throat, and like it?
You just gave me an awful picture. (Score:2)
Don't do that.
How often will I have to pay for Star Wars? (Score:3, Funny)
I bought the wide screen version..
I bought the THX videos
I bought the Laser discs
I bought the DVDs
I bought the Super DVDs
I bought the holo cube
I bought the
Re:How often will I have to pay for Star Wars? (Score:2)
Sure, that's why I am allowed to replicate them to materials I bought myself, or???
Regards, Marc
The only scheme that works (Score:4, Interesting)
Microsoft's WPA scheme is similar to this, but since it's only a one time verification and gives the user time before he has to set it up, it is vurnerable to tampering.
Portable Devices (Score:4, Informative)
It's in the portable market where DRM will sink or swim. Right now, very few portables fully implement SDMI or anything else. All but a few lack the secure clock required to prevent people from beating dates by rollback.
The ones that do implement clocks or real security are proprietary and have low market share, like Sony's WMA-wrapped ATRAC3 devices.
Impossible. (Score:2)
At some point the bits that build the information are decrypted and pristine, and therefore can be trapped and copied at will. Without infringing on users rights - or introducing a system that is far too open to abuse [microsoft.com] - there is no real way of ensuring that digital data is not captured/copied or otherwise used in a way that doesn't violate current copyright unless you're willing to infringe on the fair use rights of paying customers. Unfortuneately, this is a case where there is no middle ground to speak of nor does there seem to be a high ground. The position of power is and will stay with the public, not the content producers. Therefore - unless we become a corporate police state - the media creators will have to bend to the will of the public. (Did I just say that? Ech. I have to put the Katz filter on again
That said, we're left with 3 choices to compensate content producers:
1) Have content producers sponsored by other entities (which opens a whole new can of worms)
2) Grants to users - and therefore more taxes to pay for it.
3) Direct payment to the content producers - maybe a link prceeding or embeded in the content.
Guess which one I'm leaning towards...
Soko
Not more rights exactly.. (Score:2)
Of course, most of the uses center around improving my cataloging of songs that I didn't rip from CD myself, so maybe the DRM people wouldn't be so excited about that...
If and only if... (Score:4, Insightful)
However, DRM in my opinion, is only useful if it meets the following conditions:
Is transparent to the user.
Requires no processor overhead.
Is secure. (increasingly difficult, arguably impossible) If the DRM is circumventable it's pointless.
It's cheap, and doesn't raise the cost of the medium. If it's costing more to protect it than it's saving, it doesn't belong there.
It must allow at least one copy to be made.
All in all, that's a very tall order. So I doubt any time within the next ten years these things will be realized. Until then, consumers will continue to scream bloody murder.
DRM for personal info (Score:2, Interesting)
The problem (Score:2)
Media companies really want to stop unauthorized use of their copyrighted material. Copying a CD and giving it to someone else is illegal. Copying a CD or creating a compilation for your own personal use is legitimate. The problem is allowing the legal copies while preventing the illegal ones. And it's a very difficult one to solve. It's much easier to simply prevent all copies whatsoever.
Anyone who thinks that "fair use" means giving away copies of music or books is a thief and an idiot. Remember this: if you stop paying for your media, they will stop selling it to you.
Legislating against nature (Score:5, Insightful)
Imagining a world where successful DRM laws exist is no different than imagining the world if the ocean had been held to the King's edict.
I could be wrong. I suppose if all hardware manufacturing was nationalized, borders were sealed, and prisons were cleared of drug users (to make room for copyright offenders), it may be possible to put digital media genie back in the bottle.
If it is possible to have successful DRM, I guess imagining the future would be like imagining the present if the printing press had been outlawed by the Monks who were put out of business by it.
Re:Legislating against nature (Score:3, Insightful)
Imagining a world where successful DRM laws exist is no different than imagining the world if the ocean had been held to the King's edict.
Maybe a closer analogy would be Japan's outlawing of firearms which actually worked. Until the US navy turned up with guns accurate at a range far longer than any Japanese weapons.
Re:Legislating against nature (off-topic) (Score:3, Informative)
I think that Col. Klink is actually confusing Xerxes with King Canute (or Knud).
Canute's courtiers, during their profuse brown-nosing, claimed that Canute was "So great, he could command the tides of the sea to go back". He made his point in return by having his throne carried to the seashore, and he sat on it as the tide came in, commanding the waves to advance no further. The point being that kings, while `great' in the minds of men, were nothing in the face of God's power. Were Canute an atheist, he would no doubt have done the same thing, only citing the "power of nature".
This reminds me of a headline from The Onion book: "World's Largest Metaphor Hit By Iceberg".
The real future of DRM... (Score:2, Insightful)
Look to the models that currently work . . . (Score:3, Interesting)
The advantage of cable TV is the subscription model. It's better for the consumer, because their cost-per-use tends to be lower. And it's better for the content producer, because their revenue is steady, reasonably predictable, and not subject to spikes and canyons in usage. Lesson learned: consumers vastly prefer to pay a subscription fee for a huge library of content from which they can pick and choose. Compare this to pay TV or video-on-demand, the revenues for which lag pathetically behind a the regular cable TV subscription base.
The advantage of video rental is, well, obvious. People who are not willing to pay $20 to own a copy of a movie may be perfectly willing to pay $3 to rent it for a few days. Lesson learned: cost-per-unit for "ownership" of content is too high for most people, if they're unfamiliar with the content in question.
Both modes of commerce are subject to piracy. However, the effect of piracy is mitigated by the fact that the copies which are made tend to be of lower quality compared to the original. Case in point: I'll tape every single episode of the Sopranos, but I'm still willing to shell out cash to own the Special Edition DVDs so that I can watch them in widescreen. Lesson learned: people like the freedom of making copies, but they're still willing to pay for a higher fidelity / more contentful version.
I think the real solution to DRM can be found in a subscription-based broadcast-on-demand model, which allows people to easily create (analog quality) copies to store locally on their machine or carry with them in their personal music player. People who want digital quality simply need to either a) buy the CD, or b) be connected to the network.
Now, this might not be very satisfactory in the short term -- your Rio-like device would be restricted to tape-quality music. But there's a great deal of push already to expand the country's broadband and wireless infrastructure -- in another 20 years it would probably be perfectly feasible for your personal digital music player to store nothing more than a playlist, wirelessly streaming the music as you go.
I think everyone wins under this model -- what little revenue companies lose from file trading would be more than compensated for by the subscription base, and consumers would have the choice and flexibility that they crave.
Unified royalty (Score:5, Insightful)
In the end, DRM management will hinder, not help, even those who seek to profit from their creative works. The petty steps needed to make use of copyrighted material under DRM will ultimately have to give way to yet another system I see as the ultimate answer. Such a system will have to be a broad subscription based scheme, where instead of paying specifically for each creative work, you end up paying a general rate, and then have access to all those works. The authors and publishers then earn from that based on the proportion of how much their works are used. Even a random sampling of 5% of usage would give a fairly accurate measure of proportion for the various works to determine how much each author and publisher is paid.
Take a look at some of the big MP3 collectors. There are some people with over 100 gigabytes of downloaded music. At the statutory wholesale publisher rates paid through HFA, this comes to over US$100,000. The retail value of such collections could be US$1,000,000. And it would take months just to listen to everything once. But these are people who would not go buy all that at $12/CD. They aren't downloading it to be able to listen to it all, but for the stud factor of having an awesome jukebox. Eventually we will reach a point where we can have any creative work delivered in real time whenever we want, and even mobile at some point. We'll be paying for delivery of content, not the scale of the choices. Many of the downloads now are to achieve scale of choices, and that will be greater as bandwidths and storage leaps allow, but eventually it might not be needed (except for those unwilling to pay a dime).
Imagine paying a rate about the same as cable TV or internet access that lets you listen to any music you want, any time you want, anywhere you want. Whether you listen to the same 5 tunes over and over, or jump around among 100 genres, your rate would be about the same since it would be based on what is delivered, and at most you could listen to about 43,200 minutes a month (there might be a lower price for listening to less). Once this kind of service is available, there won't be much value in actually storing the music. As long as the pricing structure is based on fixed time, rather than how many different tunes you have access to but rarely listen to, it will beat not only most piracy, but also recorded media sales (why buy 1000 CDs if you typically listen to about 20 of them?).
It might still take another decade for the music industry to get a clue and try to build it this way. Last mile bandwidth is not there yet, especially mobile, for everyone. And then it might take a few more years for the motion picture industry to "get it", too. But eventually it will have to happen. DRM will then simply be a yes or no question.
The system won't be totally perfect. There will be those unwilling to subscribe at all, and will still steal music. There may be privacy issues regarding what we listen to. Some of this can be addressed by legislation (whether we agree that it should or not). Some of this can be addressed by the open market. And some of this can be addressed by technology. The delivery is certain to be encrypted. The ability to decrypt it is certain to be isolated to hardware like portable players and sound cards in your computer (the software would just be shuttling an encrypted data stream through, and hence open source operating systems won't be a risk). Time window based encryption would prevent storing the data for later playback (and this defeat delayed leakage to non-payers). Interim technology could allow doing a combination of storing encrypted streams with live delivery of a time window based key (and the hardware still does the work).
Given this, storage of music by consumers won't be needed, and thus DRM will be moot. This is still a few years off, but mark my word, it is coming as soon as entertainment executives figure it out for themselves.
Idealy... (Score:2, Insightful)
1) I have a real problem with the current protection scheme on cds and dvds (computer or audio/video, games it doesn't matter). The problem is that current laws seem to say that when you purchase this media that you are entitled to the actual physical disk and whatever media is included on it. So if you buy a game and it becomes damaged then you're out the money you paid for that game. I believe that this hurts the user and saves the company, as in these licenses suck. I personally feel that the physical disk should not have anything to do with this when you purchase something and that you are entitled to the media. Hence you should be allowed to make backups of everything you own that is software related. Currently somethings work under this (you can make copies of cds on tape as long as you don't sell them, and roms are legal as long as you own the game although I believe emulators are not *shrugs shoulders*), however dvds don't and in the future more stuff should be going to dvd. Of course if I want to illegally make copies I can (theres all kinds of stuff out there to do this) but you should see my point that I should not have to illegally do anything to something I own.
2) Streaming media will probably end up a rental or subscription fee which I'm not sure if I have a good argument against at this moment. I mean its hard to argue with video stores and thats how I see most of that going.
3) E-books have proven to be just a bad idea anyway. Nobody (apologies to those who are e-book fans) seems to care all that much when titles are still printed paper. Eventally I'd imagine that the publishers in time will start to only release large amounts (not just some Steven King book) of books to e-book, forcing people to switch. However, if I have a friend and I recommend and own a book, I'll let them borrow it. Will e-books work the same? Can you trade materials as long as you don't sell them. I have a feeling this is going to be an ugly fight.
4)Software subscription (ala Microsoft) is not going to work even if forced. Look I love linux but I know its currently not ready for the masses. However Microsoft's idea of a Microsoft Bill (like a cable or telephone bill) is just alittle to ambitious and I'd imagine that this is going to hurt them. On a side note, if Microsoft benefits from its monopoly then how can they justifiably argue that distributing copies of pirated windows hurts them?
Media protection is definitly going to become an interesting topic of discussion over the next 20 years or so. I wonder if we'll start to see different licenses as we do in the computer world (digital media is nowhere near as old as computer software... with the first cases being cds about 10-15 years ago). Will some publishers allow a GPL type license, who knows... all I know is that these laws have to stop because ultimately the user gets hurt.
ps - I think its funny if a company gains enough market share to be called a monopoly then the govt claim them to be detrimental to competetion. But if a bunch of companies (collusion) gain up to start a board (hmm... sony, sharp, etc and dvd technology) that regulates what you can and can not do with something and what companies can and cannot do with something (why don't we see any legal open source dvd plays? because the damn license fees cost a fortune for css) then thats legal. Well... maybe us users should start the coalition for user rights (sort of like a union) to keep a say in what rights the company and the users have.
ok, i'm done... oh my bad about posting this twice, I screwed up the first time.
Where will DRM go? (Score:2, Insightful)
One DRM will continue to advance. Artists and others who wish to produce media/works deserve to be compensated if they wish. The question becomes how we handle this. In my ideal world...
-- Non-encrypted formats will continue to exist for those who choose to distribute this way.
-- EncrypteOf the top of my head...
One DRM will continue to advance. Artists and others who wish to produce media/works deserve to be compensated if they wish. The question becomes how we handle this. In my ideal world...
-- Non-encrypted formats will continue to exist for those who choose to distribute this way.
-- Encrypted formats will be built for new media (video/audio/stills) that is difficult to crack (nothing is impossible). These formats will require the use of an authentication for an individual using their hardware of choice along with some type of smart card along with a password/pin. The item will be usable for some number of times/length of time. This will be some small payment amount, similar to micro payments.
-- We will get some type of "key" downloaded onto the hardware. This key can be transferred to someone else WITHOUT cost. If I purchase an old Beatles song and decide a month later that I don't want it, I should be able to "give" this to my co-worker. We easily connect our hardware devices together and I "give" him my key. No longer can I play the work. Perhaps he even "buys" the song for half price and I can then repurchase if I wish.
-- Patents/copyrights will have their length shortened. Perhaps we need to develop different lengths for different media. Movies are copyrighted for 5 yrs. Music, 3 yrs. These are just ideas, personally I am not sure what lengths I'd like.
-- Items that lose their copyright/patent will be released into the public deomain. Once in the public domain, anyone can distribute/reformat/alter the works, though they cannot be resold commercially without some compensation to the author. Perhaps the reuse should be 10% of the cost of current media?
-- What if I could "rent" a song, say the new CD from Brittany Spears for my son for 3 months. Suppose if cost $2. I could drop this onto an MP3 player for him, or perhaps it would be automatically burned on my Sony DRM machine (that cost $200) onto a CD that would work for 3 months. I'd do it. He'd be tired of it after that. What if I could "reactivate" that CD next year for $1 for another 3 or 6 months. It's still be worth it.
-- Relatively few of us actually copy CDs for others. Once (if in the real world) media companies recognize this, they will start to actually develop programs that people will use (and want to use). My time is more valuable and I'd tell a friend to buy his own copy.
Don't forget the following when exmaining DRM
-- It must be convenient to be successful. If it is difficult for me to use, I will not use it and commerically it will not succeed. If my mom can purchase a music CD (online, download, etc) easily and it costs $1 to listen to 10 times, or for a week, and it is a simple button push, she'll do it. If it requires efforts to use or circumvent, she won't use it.
-- The economy of defeating the encryption must be below that of using it. I've downloaded movies (that are in theaters) from the Internet and viewed them. They suck. The quality is so far below that of renting from Blockbuster or going to see the movie, it's not worth the cost. Audio is different, but there will be some economy of scale that works.
-- No encrpytion is foolproof
-- 90% (or so) of people will be defeated by minimal encrpytion
-- 1% (or so) of people will never be defeated by ANY encrpytion
-- 9% (or so) of people will take advantage of the work of the 1% to defeat encryption.
These are some quick thoughts, and I really welcome feedback. If DRM is really to move forward (not just get implemented), everyone has to have realistic discussion of the rights of everyone, artists, consumers, and companies.
Back to basics (Score:4, Insightful)
Originally intended to provide a public benefit -- to encourage and promote the widespread availability of information -- copyright law has been distorted to the point where it allows a powerful few organizations to control vast seas information, allowing access only those who can pay fees that are often unreasonable. Gone, too, are the days when we could realistically expect copyrighted material to be contributed to the public domain after a reasonable period of time. Our national concept of "copyright" is a perversion.
Before we legislate "rights management" into hardware, we ought to ask why we have these "rights" anyway. And if the answer isn't solely to promote the public good, we should do away with them.
Quite a few thoughts (Score:4, Insightful)
I've said it before and I'll say it again: it's not draconian if you have a choice, and you do have a choice in the matter based on your wallet.
Don't like the DRM measures coming forth on CDs? Don't buy the CDs. Don't even listen to the music. While some pop bands are obviously a profit-centered venture, most artists actually *do* want you to listen to their music; measures taken to stop this listening will not only hurt the labels in the pocketbooks, but also get the artists themselves to argue against whatever measures are being taken to reduce public listening.
Also, let me just say that paying "a few pennies every time you look for the time on your watch" is X-Fileish and activistic to the extreme. Obviously this is not going to happen. Do you think high-level executives in the government and military personnel (to cite recent events) would ever warrant this?
For that matter, I'm a firm believer that the subscription plans in place now (like cell phone bills) will eventually be dwindled to nothing based on current competition. There are only so many minutes a cell phone company can provide in a month. After a while you hit limits, and gradually the costs erode to practically nothing (similar to water and electricity, communication will eventually become publically-owned).
Re:Quite a few thoughts (Score:2)
listen to music,
watch movies,
access the Internet,
program a computer,
or do any of the other things you do with computing and consumer electronics devices you will only be able to do so with a device that implements DRM. That is the sense in which DRM will be "forced down our throats
Strong Police State Required (Score:2, Interesting)
The JungleBoy
DRM forced Hardware, OS and software. (Score:2)
People need to realize, that their computer is the same as their checkbook, credit cards, journal, diary, love letters, children's pictures, private thoughts. The data is ours, and mine ours alone...
DRM gives companies control over you and your hardware. They must have control not for the loss of revenue but for the increase in revenue for the future. The future is a data oriented future, you will have smart hardware in every appliance in your life. This data be it multimedia or logging is worth money.
If all these draconian laws are passed, I can see a day where your shopping trip to the grocery store is logged, and when your home control computer sees you have the making for a bomb (Kitty litter, plant supplies, etc) the Police are notified.
Remember the old saying, "Don't copy that floppy?" They didn't have control over your hardware. In the future, You Can't copy that floppy, You cant even view it. (That will be 19.99 thank you)
An essay (Score:3, Interesting)
Inspirational, even... (Score:2)
Neato. One might be able to write a "Canticle for Leibowitz" style book with this as the main idea...
Impacts of DRM (Score:2, Interesting)
1. it presumes guilt - "we know you're going to steal this, so we need to impenetrably lock it down." I, for one, don't appreciate their assumption that I am a thief.
2. it ignores the Constitutional limits on copyright - the Constitution grants copyright for a "limited time"; without key escrow, so that the content can be opened to the public domain after the "limited time" expires, the copyright holder effectively has permanent copyright.
3. it leads to the "death of information" - information (art, music, literature, etc.) that is strongly protected by technical means with non-escrowed keys will disappear from the world much more quickly than otherwise, which steals from us all.
My pet future (Score:2)
Any DRM system is only as strong as the authority behind it, I'd argue that in the modern world no authority can be strong enough to maintain a global DRM, so any authority that tries will be underminded. Try to enforce a DRM, your whole system will fail.
So we're left with the alternative, various DRMs enforced by various people in various places, but ultiamtly people just do whatever they can get away with. And its orbiting data vaults, strong crypto, spread spectrum, sterographied hell for anyone who tries to stop them.
The question I want to know is, what would happen if we threw the whole idea of 'copyright' out the window? You can copy anything you want, and sell it.
Existing publishing industries would definitly be screwed by lean mean bootleggers in 10 seconds, but after that, what would really change? People would still enjoy music, perhaps they'd simply try and really connect with preformers rather then forming a fake relationship with them though their publishers.. Live music might return to emmance as the primary way people get their rythm fix. Donno..
One way or another, ultimatly no copyrights is the future.. What else is possible? A transgalactic mind reading RIAA? Space is big, we'll be living there, how are you going to deal with that?
Maybe this time will be looked back on as the 'age of intellectual property'.. It's only been an issue since sheet music, handy digital technology may make it a non-issue soon.. It'd form a nice little era..
Benefits (Score:4, Interesting)
The real thing I see coming out of a DRM future is foo-on-demand. Think of a song? Type in the name and get an instant download, at high quality, high bandwidth, with the lyrics and all supplimental info, with all the ID3 tags intact and correct (a few cents for a single play, maybe a dollar for unlimited plays). Missed Enterprise? Download any episode of any tv show, again, fast, painless, legal. Maybe even free for the version with commercials embedded in it, a buck or so for a commericial-free version. Ditto for movies, books, games, software, or really just about anything that can be digitally transmitted. Pay a few dollars to watch some movie, widescreen, in DVD quality, and then if you want a few more to download the entire Collector's Edition DVD, so you can burn it yourself. Of course, all of this assumes that the FLAs are will ing to allow all this, but...
One Underlining Problem (Score:2, Interesting)
Yes, I see the need for copyrights and the need for money to go to authors/performers, but with this thing we call the internet, WE the consumer can have a more drastic effect on music and music tastes. As an amature musician, is sickens me to see how little moeny in the sales of CD's/albums actually goes to the writer/performer. It is on the order of 2% post-cost, depending on fronted money and contract.
What I think is happening is that the huge record corporations forsee a possible future, a future where THEY dont exist! These laws they are trying to force-feed down our throats, through careful manupulation of our govenment and senators and laws, ways to keep their corporations around and consuming our money.
Here is what I'm talking about, a possible future: You, the listener, go to a music review/posting site, reviewed by 'critics' and rated by the fans, maybe even a comment-style feedback. Here bands/music/concerts/genres are reviewed. This is your first stop for music, hear about a band. Next you take the link to their website(paid for by the band). Here you get a 'taste' of their music in whatever form: mp3, realaudio, newmusicform_2.0, whatever. So you decide that these guys dont totally suck so you purchase their music and download it digitially. Say it costs $10, where does that money go? TO THE BAND, minus the upkeep for website and hosting.
So, where is the big music corporation? NOWHERE! They arent needed to front the money for a 100k CD production run to reach every record store in the world, they arent needed to pay for play-time on radio or MTV, they dont take 90% of the money! Sure, radio and tv are the 2 largest ways to get music out and heard, but probably not for long.
I only listen to the radio in the car on the way to work(and until I can afford a new cd-player for my own music). Radio is horrible, all that overplayed crap. Most people I know hate the 'traditional' popular music radio, MTV? there is no music there anymore and it only spouts what music the corporations want YOU to buy.
What Im trying to say is that the possibility in the future(or now, we have the technology) is for the consumer to filter what gets pushed as 'good' and for the artist to get the money, not the corporation. This is what I see as the downfall of music in the late 20th century. Maybe a movement like this will spawn a new wave of music and genres like the early 20th century spawned.
More random thoughts: Now, I HATE buying CD's they are expensive $10-20, and most of the procedes go to Sony or BMG, not the artist. With the system I proposed, there is no large upfront capitol need to reach 1million listeners, the internet is extremely cheap way to reach so many people, and here the huge amound of money people spend on music goes to the performers/writers, the ones that actually DO the work, and deserver the cash. This is my 2cents, not really related exactly, but I think it needed to be said. Please pick this apart I want some feedback.
DOWN WITH CORPORATE CONTROL OF MUSIC!
Good DRM wouldn't suck (Score:2, Insightful)
The question is, can anyone put together a DRM system which will work, for all values of the word 'work'? In other words, a portable system for digital rights management which can be used for all [relevant] types of media, on all [relevant] types of device, which does not incur any [significant] additional cost to anyone.
With all that said, I think that it is clear that DRM will always be defeatable. The issue is making it undefeatable *enough*. There is literally no way to prevent people from copying media unless you control all parts of the work stream. That means the content creation, signing, storage, and playback all have to be controlled by whoever ultimately owns the rights. But if you can make it so that, for example, the only place you can get the unencrypted digital information is at the speakers, and make it expensive enough to get the data out, it will discourage 99% of the people.
This is why the RIAA is so concerned about mp3 music; It sounds fantastic (at high enough bitrates, or with VBRE), has no DRM, and is easy to get your hands on. A friend of mine (grin) has downloaded some 14 CDs worth of music which he likes in the last week and a half, from USENET's alt.binaries hierarchy alone. If he liked, he could also get similar quantities from FTP sites, lists of which are maintained by bots on various Irc channels. Oh, and that's mp3s, not CDDA, naturally, so figure about 9 or 10:1 since most of them are 160 or 192 Kbps.
We're all familiar with the bad side of DRM, mainly that you can't copy your data, which prevents you from listening to it with any decent quality on a range of equipment, and that if you lose the key, you're in trouble. Certainly those two issues need to be addressed in any successful DRM scheme.
But what we [geeks] at large tend to forget is that DRM could be a good thing. DRM is coming whether we like it or not, much like splitting the atom, or the use of fossil fuels, or even irrigation - All three of those things have caused harm to people and the environment that will take decades if not centuries to repair, if we begin now. But all of those things can be used for good, and so can DRM.
For instance, a scheme like Circuit Sh!tty's Divx (Not DivX ;-)) could actually be good for customers, but it fell short of the mark in every way. First of all, they can keep records of what you watch, when you watch it. Second of all, the quality was poor. Third, it only worked on their players.
I cannot personally envision a DRM scheme which will be successful which will not involve the first of those issues. You cannot come up with a serious DRM scheme which is not easy to break without central management. For portable devices with only analog output, you can check rights when music is transferred to the device. Everything else either is now connected to the 'net, or soon will be, so this is not a serious limitation.
As for the privacy issues resulting from a central server, I don't see any true resolution to that one for the paranoid. If you were truly given to flights of fancy, you might project a future which had (among the other currently existing classes) two groups of people; Those whose lives are transparent, and those whose are opaque. The opaques will use only open source software, hardware, and so on, which doesn't do any reporting; They will have their privacy and thus their freedom, but will miss out on quite a bit of innovation. The transparent people will be tools of the media and government, much like they are now :) Their minds will be precisely targeted by advertisers and states which know exactly what they want, and when they want it, what they like, what they are doing... Terrifying, really.
I do not, however, see that as a real possibilty. What I would like to see (In the US anyway; I hope the rest of you get something like this too) is federal law requiring that any records pertaining to you be opened to you at no charge so you can see just what they are collecting. In addition, you should be able to find out who else has access to this information, and who is looking at it. You can then choose who to do business with it based on their privacy policies. In other words, any file with your name on it should be provided to you at no cost. Restricting access to such records to internet or walk-in only is reasonable, as anyone can go into a library and use a computer.
We, the people of the world tend to forget that collectively, we are the ones with the power. Any time you get enough people to group together, you can make things happen. I don't have advice on how to educate the "common man" on DRM issues, but I assure you that it will become an important part of how all of us live our lives, hopefully in a very transparent manner. Of course, in that transparency lies the inherent danger of DRM, so there needs to be some method of oversight.
Information wants to be free. (Score:2)
Information, having no physical manifestation, follows essentally the same laws as entropy. It will continue to expand and find ways of copying itself until it is evenly distributed throught the world.
DRM is essentially impossible for the same reason that entropy can not be stopped. Of course, there will be limited successes, but they will be short lived. Encryption will protect a CD at least *once*. But after the key has been used to open the CD, the music is free to be copied away to less restrictive mediums. The same is true for physical attempts at protecting the data. Perhaps a very special CD can be created with a very delicate film that only can withstand being pelted by laser light a few times before it degrades, but all one has to do is copy the data on that CD away during one of those first few times and, again, it can be copied to a less restrictive medium.
There is really only one way of creating any sort of "real" DRM: legally. You would have to create laws that literally control each and every human being on the planet. You would have to create laws that ban and criminalize outright any legacy CD-burners, hard drives, floppy disks, MD's, zip disks, etc and present the market with your own special versions that fail *physically* after the third burn (And it must be a complete and total *physical* failure. The drive must be incapable of continuing. If you create drives that simply set a flag when it's time to stop buring it won't be long until someone creates a patch to unset said flag).
Unfortunatly, even going the legal route will only lead to temporary DRM. Once information is freed from it's cage, ways will be found to copy it. It may not be easy to make ne copies at first, but ways will be found.
The end result of all this, if you are trying to make good guesses about the future, is that one of these days, somone will begin to question what exactly "Digital Rights" really are. Can the "rights" to ideas really be bought and sold? Do people even *have* rights to thier own ideas? It may seem like a given, this day and age, to say that a particular artists song belongs to him (ok, technically, belongs to his master at the RIAA, but that is a whole different rant), but in the future we may not feel the same way, who knows.
Someday, we will have to, as a nation, perhaps as a would, rethink a lot of our business models we use to create our economy. Right now we are dealing with the digital realm of this battle, but it won't be too much longer before the first rudamentary "molecular copiers" will start to emerge, capabel of making nearly perfect copies of anything from Nike shoes to dollar bills. If there isn' some serious thought put into what exactly we plan to do when the revolution comes, we will be in serious trouble.
User-Friendly DRM? (Score:2, Interesting)
1. "First Sale" rules would apply. If I purchase (well, license) something, I should be able to sell it at any time.
2. Multiple media and devices would be covered. I don't want to have to purchase the CD, then buy MP3's for each of my portable devices and my home MP3 server! Buying the item once would entitle me to use it on any of the devices that I own, *at any time*, without restriction (or further payment).
3. Replacement data or media would be the producer's liability. If the item in question --either a physical product like a CD/DVD, or a set of MP3/MPEG files -- is lost or destroyed, the content producer would be obligated to provide replacements in a timely manner and at no charge.
4. Handle "life-issues". People cohabitate or get married. Households can split up. Children may enter the situation, and then leave ~18 years later. Any consumer-friendly DRM would have to take all kinds of real-world situations into account.
5. Right of return. Regardless of the reason for dissatisfaction, a consumer should be able to return a copy-protected item with no hassles. The rules would have to different for various kinds of media: spending four hours with a computer game is not the same as spending four hours watching a movie. But if it can't be pirated, then there's no reason to refuse returns!
As to what will _really_ happen in the future, I think that the media companies are going to screw consumers until legislation or legal action stops them. And then they'll choose another angle and start the consumer-rights erosion again.
Think IP Rights Management... (Score:2, Insightful)
Asking about "digital" rights management, is short-sighted as the rights management issue will extend beyond the digital realm with the introduction of nanotech. Consider:
Given time, you could probably think of many more.
In such a future, revolt would be a holy duty (Score:3, Interesting)
What happens when that scarcity is made a relic of the past?
Folks like R. Buckminster Fuller thought about that. As a matter of fact, he believed that we've already eliminated most of physical want through industry, and it's just a few folks who want to continue to reap the personal benefits of a hierarchical society that keep anyone poor. I don't entirely agree with him, but an alchemical nanotech future would certainly threaten the hierarchy of the simple protection of life.
Would hierarchy nod its head and vacate its throne? Who knows.
We don't know if this future is even possible- but past experience has shown that whatever we humans dream tends to happen. It just takes time.
Re:In such a future, revolt would be a holy duty (Score:2)
-- Shamus
You there smoking mother nature, up against the wall!
A few ideas. (Score:3, Interesting)
Now.. DRM will be an important part of media delivery in the future... but the thing that will make DRM work is not a better DRM solution... it's the content itself, and the price we pay for it.
You see, as long as a CD costs me $20, I'm going to try for mp3 instead. It's not because I can't afford to spend any money.. but given that I can get it for free, the cost of the associated extra hard-drives to store my growing music collection on, plus the internet fees to get it, are still far cheaper than what it costs me to buy a CD.
If, on the other hand, I could just pay Music Company X $20/month and be able to stream *any song* from their *entire library of recorded music* whenever I wanted.. I might just go for that. It needs to be cheap enough that it's not worth my time to pirate the music.
The same goes for video. Well.. actually.. it's almost true of video now. DivX is great.. but DVD's are surprisingly cheap, and hence, DVD piracy is not really an issue. Oh sure, people rip DVD's and download divx (or whatever) over the net... but I doubt it's currently affecting DVD sales to any measurable degree. DVD is a large increase in quality over the online versions... and it's very convenient.
Books as well. I won't pay for an E-book yet; because I can't lay in bed and read it comfortably. Real books still present some value that a digital copy just doesn't have yet. IN the future, however, if I could pick up my little book-like electronic reader, log-on to it with my finger, and pick which book I want to read, I would again be willing to happily pay a subscription fee to read books.
Now some thoughs regarding online music delivery.
I should be able to pay a monthly fee that entitles me to listen to X different tracks a month (spread out over different categories if they like.. this is just the basic idea). Now.. I should also be able to pay some small 'extra' fee and 'purchase' a title. This means I can listen to it anytime I want from anywhere I want, from now on, and it won't count towards my monthly subscription. Of course, it would be fair to have some hard limits relating to simple bandwidth use as well... as a separate issue from music titles.
Basically, in a nutshell, media delivery companies have to make paying them for the media more convenient than pirating it. They can either do that by exerting legal pressure (going to jail for pirating one song is not convenient).. but more realistically, they'll have to simply make more available the way we want it.
I don't worry (too much) about DRM (Score:3)
I used to worry about it more, but the more I think about it, the more I'm confident that every so-called "rights-management" scheme will be cracked or compromised. If not that, someone will reproduce the material in a non-protected form (imagine a group of 1000 people on the internet each re-typing pages out of e-books, for instance).
I was just reading again about some of the cracked e-book readers, like the one that XOR'd each byte with each letter of the string "encrypted". In other words, XOR each letter with the same single byte. A 7-bit key. That literally made me laugh out loud. To think that shit like that is covered by the DMCA! Why did they even waste the money writing it?
If it makes them feel good, fine, go ahead and put in the DRM stuff. I just won't buy it. If I really want it, I'll get a cracked copy of whatever it is, or hope that an un-crippled variation is sold from some other company. Though I MIGHT buy the occasional DRM stuff just to try and crack it (and then get rid of it on eBay if they'll still allow that).
It'll be just like the copy interference they used to do on computer software. I remember when I was in lower school, trying to crack Apple II copy limitations on the games that I bought (didn't need to crack them on the games I copied from friends, somebody else already did it). I just tried programs that worked with one of the many techniques they used, throw in a little knowledge of ProDOS and DOS (remember those?) directory structure, plus a disk editor, and no problem. It never occured to me then that this was actually something that was supposed to keep me out! I thought it was just the way things were, like the insides of the toaster happen to be held in with screws and I had to use the right screwdriver to take them out.
I can just imagine the young people of tomorrow playing with a copy-crippled CD, coming up with ways to get around it. Maybe it will even encourage more people to learn about hardware and software (Hey Mom! I made a couple LFSR's out of 74HC-series logic, connected it to the digital output and I decoded the CD! Listen! ... Oh that's nice dear. Have you finished your pre-algebra homework?)
So, bring on the DRM!
Modern intellectual property concepts killed music (Score:4, Insightful)
Fast forward to the 80's and 90's through today. Hardly anybody plays an instrument. It is virtually impossible to make a living as a working musician. DJ's and CD's are vastly preferred to live bands. A small pool of incredibly-successful performers -- performance corporations, really -- dominate the airwaves and the music stores. A mere million-seller is a disappointment. Great musicians can't find work, and play their music as part-time hobbies.
What changed? A few things.
1. Powerful music publishers and distributors now control the industry more tightly than did the old Hollywood studio system.
2. Changes in IP laws have essentially eliminated the concept of 'public domain,' except for very old music, making some of the cornerstones of music illegal unless license fees are paid: theme-and-variations, quoting material from other songs (a fundamental jazz technique), quoting lyrics, and performing or adapting music written by others. It's hard and expensive to follow today's complex licensing and performance rules. Why bother? Buy Musak.
3. The industry's stranglehold on performance and publication has generated enough profits to allow manipulation of public taste. At this point, a public has been molded that doesn't want to hear a local band playing at a bar, but instead demands concerts with superstars, light shows, pyrotechnics and other special effects, performing exactly what was heard on MTV, preferably using lipsynching to ensure that no differences exist. This is *not* intrinsically the way public taste would have developed without guidance by the industry.
This is a complex issue, and obviously many other aspects of our lives and cultures have changed dramatically since WWII. However, the death of musicmaking as a core feature of USA life is a tragedy, and I'm convinced that neverending copyrights and powerful publishers take major responsibility. They claim to help performers, but instead they have contributed to the destruction of music as a profession and the elimination of all but mass-produced music in the lives of most of us.
10/20/100 years down the road... (Score:2, Interesting)
Now, jump forward another 10 years. Some of the businesses have died, or "shifted focus," etc. Since the content they produced could not be kept, duplicated, converted to the latest mpg9 format--because of DRM--it can't be found. If found, it can't be "played". It's lost.
Think about the implications of this for historians 100 years down the road trying to play a DRM-controlled song from a company that has been out of business 90 years.
Without the ability to personally archive songs/movies/etc and convert to new mediums/compression formats/etc, content will be lost. Especially on something that isn't "commercially valuable."
A simple example: No video footage of one of the Super Bowls exist today. Even though 2 major networks filmed it, neither one kept the footage for whatever reason. The average person didn't have a VCR back then to make personal copies. Lost through negligence.
The only reason we haven't seen so much of it in the past is because we used dead trees. Pick up a 200-year old book. Yep, you can still read it. Now, pick up an 8" floppy disk that is 20 years old that had an etext copy of that book on it. Can you read it? Nope, even though the text of the book is on the disk, it can't be read. That's a physical problem (since there aren't any more 8" drives around). Now, throw the complexity of DRM onto that 8" disk. If you found a drive that could read it, you still couldn't because of the DRM. With a software/firmware solution, it just magnifies the potential problems an hundredfold.
Only so many "popular" movies will be converted to DVD. How many thousands will be left behind in VHS-land. Twenty years from now, will a VHS player be legal, and/or functional? Will the VHS tape itself have deteriorated? Will DVD even still be around?
Do you want access to our society's music/books/movies/culture to depend on a specific business or technology? If so, the longevity of that content is cut down to years, rather than centuries.
The destruction of the library and Alexandria was a major blow to the intellectual world for centuries to come. All it would take in the future is an economic downturn!
My vision of DRM (Score:2)
I would love to see a future where DRM divides media into "pools" of content and creates connetions between pools.
For example, Paying $X fee adds a movie to my pool. It doesn't matter if I go see it in a theater, or on video, or streaming from a website...i forever have the right to watch that movie whenever and whereever I choose. I see this adding value because it creates a huge market for alternate formats.
Let's say I'm offended by foul language. The studio may not see the value in marketting a movie below an R rating. However, on the other side of things...if some small company wants to create a PG version of the movie, they can't because they don't own the rights. Under the pool system, I pay the fee to add the movie to my pool, and then I go get it from whoever I want. That may be the studio's distribution company releasing the R-rated version on DVD, or it may be that small company's PG version on VCD.
Content pools also need to cover all media forms. If I pay into a pool for a song, that should give me the rights to the video, the lyrics, the songsheet, etc. Studio wants to release bonus footage for a movie already out? That's fine except everyone already in the content pool for that movie thanks to previous purchase automatically gets access.
Pools also need to overlap based on real-world relationships. I should be allowed to cross into other pools. For example, it is logical that if my sister owns a CD, I could listen to it. I technically have access through her. So my content pool would also include the ability to access anything in the content pools of my friends and family. The only difference is that it would not extent to anyone who had me listed as friends or family. IE, I can "borrow" a song that my friend purchased, but a non-mutual friend could not then "borrow" that same song from me. Or perhaps they could, but they would have to have an additional "extra generation" fee to be paid.
Content pools should also be linked topically to provide additional value. For example, purchasing the pool of an extire favorite series, like Simpsons or Star Trek. Or even larger, a Sci-Fi or Animation pool to inclusely give me access to everything at once. Considering how there are not addtional costs, it makes sense for companies to offer wholesale licensing to their entire collection. Media distribution and mass production are completely separate. Yes I'll have to pay for the CD, but if I can do it myself, I can save myself some money. If there's a market to release it in vinyl, someone can do that.
The key to this whole paradigm is separating content from format. There needs to be companies that make money from producing content and other companies that make money from distributing content and NOT BOTH. If I found a better way to distribute things, I should be allowed to walk out tomorrow and make a company to do it. I don't have to worry about licensing, that burden is on the user. Someone comes across my media, they whip over to the DRM warehouse, at it to their pool, and then enjoy my version.
- JoeShmoe
We should start by calling it what it is (Score:2)
If DRM gets in the way... (Score:2)
...of my being able to access something easily, I'll find a way to live without it.
Just about everyone I know who was using the early generations of copy protected PC software stopped using it after a short time when it got too difficult to use. Soft bits, writing to special floppy tracks... all those schemes turned out to be a major pain in the butt. I had some software rendered unusable because I had a hardware failure that required replacing the floppy drive. Another time I found myself unable to move some software from one computer to another even though such an activity was allowed by going through a de-installation procedure which re-enabled the installation procedure on the distribution floppies. They never thought about the case where your hard disk crashes and you are unable to properly de-install the software.
I predict that no ``content provider'' will be offering anything so compelling that users will bend-over backwards, turn around three times, and buy special hardware in order to use some software, music, etc., etc. that's protected using any of the DRM schemes that I've heard about.
Going back to one example in the main post: If anyone attempts to charge us for looking at my watch, someone will invent the wrist sundial and people will buy it. Maybe the fact that no one's currently charging us for the time of day explains why we can't get it from vendors. :-)
The Rise of Public Media (Score:3, Interesting)
Right now, public radio is (IMHO) by far the best thing on the radio. At this point it's pretty much self-funding. Public TV is perhaps further behind, but there are some things it does really well. Expanding similar models to new media and new audiences does not seem impossible at all.
It's hard -- an imagined Public Music wouldn't have Britney Spears no matter what. There's something monopolistic about celebrity. OTOH, in a more efficient production, the preferences of smaller number of people can still produce great stuff with the resources available.
If you imagine that just 2-3% of the population subscribed to some sort of Public Music, and payed about as much as they otherwise would have on music, how many musicians could they support? Since the music produces was unencumbered, there would be better grassroots marketing than the RIAA could do, even if Public Music didn't have the money to give radio stations kick backs.
DRM Issues (Score:3, Insightful)
Technical Issues:
Most DRM suffer from a fatal flaw. They trust the client (hardware, software or individual) to manage rights properly. For example, CSS counts on the DVD player to keep both the CSS algorhithm and the encryption keys secret. Any such system will be cracked eventually. Once cracked, the only way to keep it from being worthless is to legally enforce totalitarian control over information distribution.
For DRM to function as advertised, there needs to be a server in place to handle authentication and authorization of clients. Few DRM systems are set up this way (Two examples: Automated Cable TV Pay-Per-View systems and Circuit City's Divx system being one example).
Social Issues:
People don't like to have rights taken away. If they've been able to do something before, and they're told they aren't allowed to anymore, they get upset. DRM systems will not be accepted if they're being used to remove rights.
Similarly, if there is are two competing systems, and one uses DRM to make things more restrictive than the other system, it will greatly hurt acceptance. For example, DVDs and Divx disks were in direct competition. Both use DRM, but DVD's DRM system is much less intrusive than Divx's was. The only advantage Divx offered was slightly better prices (at least when first introduced). Most people are willing to pay a little bit extra to not have to worry about making phone calls and expiration dates.
Let's look at a successful DRM system. Most cable companies allow you to purchase pay-per-view events through the cable box, this is a DRM system. You hit a couple of buttons, your cable box contacts the server, the server verifies that you are allowed to view pay-per-view, charges your next bill, and sends your cable box the key to access the particular show you requested.
While the system isn't perfect, it shows the halmarks of what I consider to be requirements for a successful DRM system:
* It allows you to do something you otherwise couldn't do (watch almost new movies or events without leaving your sofa).
* All critical security issues are handled on the server side (yes, except for channel lockout, I said it wasn't perfect)
* It's easy to use (12:00 flashers can even order pay-per-view)
* It makes use of an existing business arrangement, so there are not financial or contractual issues to iron out
* It makes use of an existing data connection, so there are no privacy issues to iron out (they already know who you are and what you're watching)
I think we are going to see more and more DRM systems in the near future. Assuming that most civil liberties stand in most countries (at least most of those with a consumer market), I think most DRM systems will fail, badly. The few that survive will have many of the same things going for it that pay-per-view has now.
DRMs effect on public libraries (Score:2)
Furthermore, libraries might then be forced into paying for a license for only popular works. For example, a mass distributor could license Steven King or an Encyclopedia for 10 cents per viewing, while the small-press distributor with a more obscure sci-fi book or specific non-fiction book would cost 20 cents. Libraries would be more likely to cary only what's popular. What's missing then?
This is especially sad when it comes to the children's department. When I was a kid I learned what makes up the world from books in the library. The first book I can remember picking up was a computer book when I was 10. If that book hadn't been in the library, I probably wouldn't be a highly skilled software engineer right now. I feel bad for children that might face a library with a very limited book selection.
The problem of course lies in the flawed Digital Millenium Copyright Act, which (thanks to millions of dollars worth of lobbyting power) confuses copyright with copyprotection.
no future (Score:2)
Fundamentally I do not believe in "Digital Rights" in terms commonly used which is a supposed "right" to block the free flow of information and require others to do the same. I believe in freedom.
Authentication, not copy prevention (Score:3, Interesting)
The real future is in authenticity. Just look at the satire mp3s on the net that get attributed to Weird Al Yankovic, that he never wrote. How do you know that this song you downloaded is really by him? How do you know it's not? How do you know that it wasn't modified to delete an explative, delete a line one person didn't like, add in a new stanza in order to defame the artist, etc? You don't. There is no way to prove that the movie you're watching really is an unedited copy of The Godfather. You can't be sure that your copy of Eminem's latest CD isn't the Lovey-Dovey-Censorship-Agency's "modified for familes" edition.
What would you be willing to pay for a method to prove that yes, this song is the artist's original? Or that this movie has not been edited for television? $15 a CD, I doubt. But 50 cents a song? $1? I'll let the economists figure that one out.
What we need is to expand watermarking and key-based signatures (NOT encryption, signatures) to make it easier to confirm that a given piece of work is authentic. Instead of CDDB being a clearing house for stealing people's information about their CDs, make it (or something like it) into a low-cost subscription service with public keys. When you play an mp3, the track info for is is confirmed against the key (which you can download permanently) to check that the file has not been modified. If it passes, you know that this is a "genuine, authentic *insert work here*". If it fails, you know that chances are it is not. If you care, you'll go and find a real one. If you don't care, that's your perogative.
Notice that nowhere in there is there any copy-prevention mechanism. None. Copy prevention is alien to any digital system, and is inherently weak, defeatable, and in the end futile. Authentication, however, is a booming industry, and is of legitimate value to the society.
Protecting against lies is in EVERYONE's interest. Preventing copying is in no one's interest, not even copyright holders.
Re:How could we see the world with DRM in place? (Score:2, Insightful)
Subscriptions to web sites and software will be seen as the norm, and probably the same thing. The idea of a static "page" will be obsolete by 20 years, replaced by audio, video, applications, etc.
TV will have merged with the net by then, probalby broadband wireless everywhere, with the terrabyte links at home still comming over your private SONET connection to Microsoft/AT&T DigitalMedia corp.
Think of it as pay-per-view and subscription everywhere, wheter it's music, movies, or software. It's gonna suck big time.
Re:How could we see the world with DRM in place? (Score:2)
Re:How could we see the world with DRM in place? (Score:4, Insightful)
The founders' response was a compromise between the natural rights and the best interests of the people. They allowed useful, novel ideas such as machines to be patented, or writings and art to be copyrighted, granting a monopoly for a limited time. The key here is the "limited times" clause. By making sure that works would eventually enter the public domain, the founders gave inventors, artists, and publishers a compelling reason to fully disclose their inventions and publish their works: monopoly profits. In exchange for the protection of patents and copyrights, the owners agreed to release all claims on the works after a period of time.
This compromise was a stroke of genius, as it balanced the need to provide incentives to creators and distributors of ideas to maximize their production with the natural rights of the people. Unfortunately, the founders left it up to Congress to define what the "limited times" clause meant. The Supreme Court has ruled that this clause allows Congress to set any non-infinite period without violating the Constitution. The Court cannot set a maximum period on its own authority because that would violate the separation of powers between legislative and judicial branches.
The problem with current DRM schemes, the DMCA, and the SSSCA is that they completely ignore the natural rights of the people. Intellectual "property" corporations like publishers, movie studios, and conglomerates (AOL Time Warner, Viacom) have spent the last two centuries trying to indoctrinate people with the belief that intellectual property is a natural right. The repeated extensions of copyright terms during the 20th century suggests they are winning.
However, a DRM system consistent with the framers' intent would be beneficial to everyone. Digital media technologies have undermined the balance between natural rights and maximizing available content. Current DRM systems and supporting legislation go too far in the opposite direction, undermining the peoples' natural rights.
What we need is a DRM system that works to maintain the framers' compromise, rather than benefitting either side. It should ensure that fair uses are permitted, that works enter the public domain when their copyright expires, and that creators are given the necessary returns from their work to ensure a vital public discourse.
This suggests that legitimate DRMs must codify ideas like limiting the number of serial copies (copies of copies of...) that may be made, but must also codify the right to view at any time after purchase, the right to transfer ownership to another person, etc. The Congress has thus far failed to strike this balance because they have not been educated about its importance.
DRMs do not have to be totally secure; that is unnecessary and probably impossible. However, they do need to be sufficiently secure that the cost of circumventing them is prohibitive. (Should circumvention tools be legal or illegal? I'm not sure.) I believe such a level of security is attainable and sufficient in the general case, because people value their time.
This is as far as I've been able to get, but I think it's a good starting point for a reasoned, non-kneejerk discussion of copyrights and intellectual "property" in the digital age. I look forward to reading comments and followups to these ideas. DRMs need not be the end of the world.
That *is* the future (Score:2)
Of course, I recently switched to Slack because there's a deeper part of me that doesn't trust something so automatic...