Sun and the open-source DRM

[gray-squirrel]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/tech_sunmicrosystems_drm_dc



It's probably not news to many of us, but at least now I can consider this to be official.

Sun actually backing DRM makes things quite interesting. Hopefully, their involvement will keep fair use issues from being put on the back burner.

Now, I'll just watch to see what the manufacturers of MP3 players and similar devices decide to support.

[KingBahamut]

While a step in an odd direction, its premature to assess that this will affect the portable devices and what they will and will not support. DRM hasnt become so large of an issue yet for the retail market to see any major impact.

And it will probably take a larger amount of time for it to become an issue on the retail level.

[endy]

I, for one, will not buy any DRM encumbered devices. I prefer to decide how I use the things I buy and take exception to being treated like a criminal. IMHO not having full control on my own DVDs on my own DVD player is bad enough (the way you can't skip the intro etc).

[KingBahamut]

You know, that does kind of annoy me....not that ive ever spoken out against it.

[xequence]

I hate DRM and everything like it! They are trying to manage your rights? That just doesent make much sense. You pay too much for a song then you are expected to do with it whatever they want. If apple doesent want music from the store owned by real on your apple mp3 player, they stop it. It is just more control corporate people have over you...

If only OGG was what everyone used instead of mp3. Every encoder, mp3 player, P2P network... But you could still use mp3, aac, wma, etc if you really wanted o.O

[blastus]

It's really the music and entertainment industry pushing for DRM, inparticular the music industry. Because of them we (Canadians) pay levies on blank recordable media. They don't give a rats *** about the fact that CD-Rs and CD-RWs can be used for something other than storing music. I haven't bought a music CD for like over 10 years, nor do I buy music online, nor have I pirated any music, nor do I intend on ever buying a music CD ever again. I say down with the music and entertainment industry and their DRM garbage! The only thing I've bought are movie DVDs. I don't mind not being able to copy those but, in the future, I hope that PCs will still be allowed to play movie DVDs on Linux. But with Microsoft, DRM and patents and crap who knows.

Although the music industry is the primary pusher of DRM, some corporations are pushing for it to retain more control over their data from leaking to the outside. They can't even control their own data and they expect DRM to solve their problems? Yeah right.

Of course Microsoft is also pushing DRM with their Next-Generation Secure Computing Base (NGSCB.) It was previously called Palladium but they changed the name because Palladium was apparently a statue in the ancient city of Troy that was supposed to guard the city but a simple trojan-horse style attack knocked down the statue and the city fell! Microsoft also changed the name because of the negative publicity about Palladium and DRM. Apparently they are banking on people not making the association been NGSCB and Palladium and DRM. NGSCB will only serve Microsoft and provide them with more and more control over the computers on which their software runs. The scary thing is the demonic alliance between Microsoft and Intel on all this; the "Fritz" chip and all kinds of nasty stuff. I wouldn't be surprised if, in the future, your computer will have to contact the mothership (a.k.a. a Microsoft server) if you want to do anything with it--including running Linux.

Like someone else said "Microsoft has such a nice slogan. 'Where do you want to go today?' But in truth Microsoft couldn't care less where you want to go. All they care about is inflating their revenue at your expense. They'll tell you where to go. And you will go along with it. You can go easy or you can go hard..."

The problem is is that we as a society are too apathetic to these kinds of things. We just accept them as a fact of life and keep supporting the very things that we depise. Most people probably could care less about DRM. All they want to know is how much this or that costs and then they fork over the cash to Microsoft without second thought. If we really think about the issues and really care about preserving freedom of choice in computing, we should not support such things as NGSCB.

[nocturn]

Open Source DRM is an oxymoron.

Open Source is about Freedom of information and sharing, DRM is about secrecy and obscurity.

The current slope that the Entertainment industry is in is caused by their own hands.
It is caused by the generally low quality of their offer and their failure to adopt the new reality that the Internet brought (as they tried to kill the CD, they tried to kill the audio-cassette).
They anger their own customers by making them pay the price for having the products that they legally bought crippled to prevent others from copying them or to prevent the legal owner to skip commercials.

The best thing about DRM so far is that every single scheme is broken faster then the first media hit the stores.

[poofyhairguy]

The best thing about DRM so far is that every single scheme is broken faster then the first media hit the stores.

Took a while for DVDs to go down.....

[rolfotto]

I also will not buy DRM enabled machines - it in essence takes control from you, the user and owner of said hardware, and puts it in the hands of 3rd parties.

The implications go beyond piracy. I could see issues on windows machines where data suddenly is held hostage because somebody got in through a backdoor (perhaps one provided by government mandate http://www.eff.org/news/archives/2005_08.php#003876 - how long will backdoors remain secret? Perhaps as long as Windows all 1s passkeys.......) and declared that certain files are DRM protected and whatnot.

But no one wants DRM enabled machines - things like this are slipped in unnoticed by the regular consumer until it's too late - take regional coding on DVDs.

The next generation of HD-DVDs will be much worse if MPAA gets its way and manufactures are only to glad to jump in bed with them so the MPAA member companies support the new format.

That along with the DMCA pretty much allow the consumer to be pretty much fscked in the future.

I can only hope that the internet will someday allow artists/authors/creativetypes to make enough money that they blow off the MPAA/RIAA distribution channels as unnecessary.