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reacocard
May 9th, 2007, 10:50 PM
Hi, I'm writing an English paper on DRM, but I'm kinda stuck, so I thought I'd come here for inspiration. It's my final for this year, so I want to do really well.

I'd like anyone interested to state your opinion on DRM, and to explain why you take that stance.

Thanks in advance,
Aren

Lord Illidan
May 9th, 2007, 10:54 PM
www.defectivebydesign.org

Personally, I am against DRM...

1. I like the freedom to make copies of my music for personal use.
2. I want to play it on whatever player I wish, and encode it to whatever format I wish.

DoctorMO
May 9th, 2007, 11:01 PM
DRM is a way for the manufacturer to control a product after it's been sold against the wishes of the customer. to me it is immoral and against the laws that should be.

TheTruth34
May 9th, 2007, 11:02 PM
www.defectivebydesign.org

Personally, I am against DRM...

1. I like the freedom to make copies of my music for personal use.
2. I want to play it on whatever player I wish, and encode it to whatever format I wish.

^^^^^

JNowka
May 9th, 2007, 11:07 PM
I am against DRM, describing why would be a very long a time consuming process. To keep it short,
1) I don't like others considering me a thief
2) I don't like others controlling my stuff
3) I don't like the direction that DRM is taking.

To find more on the direction that DRM is taking please follow this link (http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/can-you-trust.html):

aysiu
May 9th, 2007, 11:08 PM
Mark Shuttleworth himself has blogged about this:
Note to content owners: DRM doesn’t work (http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/96)

reacocard
May 9th, 2007, 11:09 PM
Wow, three replies in less than 15 minutes! EDIT: two more while writing this post!


DRM is a way for the manufacturer to control a product after it's been sold

I couldn't agree more. I may use this in the paper, if you don't mind.

goumples
May 9th, 2007, 11:10 PM
DRM really stands for digital restrictions management, as it restricts how people play the music that they paid for.. DRM is a product of greed as far as I'm concerned.

reacocard
May 9th, 2007, 11:11 PM
I am against DRM, describing why would be a very long a time consuming process. To keep it short,
1) I don't like others considering me a thief
2) I don't like others controlling my stuff
3) I don't like the direction that DRM is taking.

To find more on the direction that DRM is taking please follow this link (http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/can-you-trust.html):


Mark Shuttleworth himself has blogged about this:
Note to content owners: DRM doesn’t work (http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/96)

Awesome links, thanks a lot!

PartisanEntity
May 9th, 2007, 11:15 PM
Modern DRM is too intrusive. It takes too much control of what you can or cannot do on your computer.

DRM has existed since the days you needed a licence key to use an application. But at least that is a method that is static, you enter the licence key or you don't.

Modern DRM actually monitors all the processes, has internal keys, can prevent you from launching an application or viewing a file.

It's like buying a car or a home with a policeman sitting in it at all times watching what you are doing and telling you want you can, cannot or must do, who wants that?

DoctorMO
May 9th, 2007, 11:18 PM
I couldn't agree more. I may use this in the paper, if you don't mind.

I don't mind; DRM is also a way for the producer to enforce their own brand of justice which last time I checked was the preserve of the courts, maffia and corrupt governments. There are no checks, no balances, no judge or jury. instead every judgement is pre-decided by the corporation and then every action taken after that is taken without the ability of appeal.

This is poison to the very nature of the way we as a peoples conduct business. all this bother because it's information services and because once information is out it's can't really be controlled so you have to make people and long standing social structures suffer in order to extort more money.

I have to wonder what they did thousands of years ago when someone figured out a new way to bind axe heads. I wonder if he patented the idea that lead to mankind's extinction in the next winter.

ssam
May 9th, 2007, 11:21 PM
if an artist wants to make up silly rules about under what conditions i can listen to their music then they are every welcome to.

if i write some source code (as i occasionally do) then i can choose some conditions (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html) for what people can do with it.

now if you dont agree with the conditions then don't buy the music, download the software.

i find there is a lot of good music with good terms at magnatune (http://www.magnatune.com/).

===

there is also the other issue of DRM making it technically impossible to exercise you fair usage rights. thats quite a bad thing.

Mateo
May 9th, 2007, 11:21 PM
I think it is a wildly overblown topic. DRM exists where? iTunes... er I can't even think of any other place where it exists. So why is it talked about so much? Vastly overrated issue, sprung on, in my opinion, by the alarmist tendancy in people.

DoctorMO
May 9th, 2007, 11:27 PM
now if you dont agree with the conditions then don't buy the music, download the software.

That wouldn't be a problem if the artist relied on the law to enforce their stupid rules, because the police don't like enforcing stupid rules.

Look at the GPL, some very odd rules about what you can and can not do with the software, but do we use the software to enforce copyright law? no, we use the courts to enforce copyright law as we should.

rai4shu2
May 9th, 2007, 11:30 PM
DRM is too immature to be feasible. The latest crack to HDDVD was possible because modders could remove a surface-mounted chip from their xbox without too much trouble to the equipment. Now, if Microsoft had rigged the chip with serious anti-tamper devices and self-destruct mechanisms :D that wouldn't have been hacked so easily.

JNowka
May 9th, 2007, 11:38 PM
Oh one more thing,

4)When looking at Vista, I like to have a fast, stable, reliable system. Not an OS that is going to shut itself down when it gets to paranoid, eat up my memory and cpu cycles, and force me to get the best hardware possible in order to get any performance what so ever.

reacocard
May 9th, 2007, 11:58 PM
I think it is a wildly overblown topic. DRM exists where? iTunes... er I can't even think of any other place where it exists.

It's on most DVDs, in the form of CSS. This is why dvdcss is needed for playing most DVDs under Ubuntu. So, because of DRM, we, normally law-abiding users, must install illegal software to watch our legally purchased DVDs on our legally purchased computers. :-x

Adamant1988
May 10th, 2007, 12:00 AM
DRM is a lot of money being poured into the most fruitless research ever, seriously. Look at it this way:

If I were allowed to share my music with my friends, family, peers on the net, etc. more people might develop the same love for bands like Linkin Park and such that I have. I'm willing to bet that if I spend $30 on a Linkin Park t-shirt both the record label and the band are seeing more money from me than they would have otherwise, if I had only bought the CD. Options exist, and these companies need to be exploring them.


Just IMAGINE what could be done on a freely shareable platform operating system! If you GAVE AWAY the operating system an entire ecosystem can be built on top of that, goods and services can be sold for it, etc. Look at Red Hat, Canonical, and any other Linux distributor. , they GIVE away the operating system. The real question, though, is how money can be made in a DRM free world, or even a Free software world.

I think once a proven model for success in a DRM free world exists, we'll see the need for it, and it's use steadily decline. The companies creating it will either disappear or go elsewhere, hopefully.

Celegorm
May 10th, 2007, 12:02 AM
I am personally against DRM. All it does is inconvenience innocent customers without actually preventing any of the people who really want to pirate from doing so.

Here's one of the more interesting articles I found while looking into DRM: http://preview.baens-universe.com/articles/salvos6

deepwave
May 10th, 2007, 12:49 AM
I share my computer security prof's opinion on DRM: DRM makers are fighting a pointless battle.

It makes no sense from a technical implementation stand point. It makes no sense from a theoretical cryptographic view. And it makes absolutely no sense from an economic stand point.

I would wager, that DRM is the music/film distribution industry of trying to live the physical media and non-sharing days, in an Internet era.

juxtaposed
May 10th, 2007, 01:10 AM
if an artist wants to make up silly rules about under what conditions i can listen to their music then they are every welcome to.

The artist doesn't decide to put DRM on their music. It's the record companies.

DRM is bad. It doesn't affect people who pirate things at all (there are plently of crackers ready to crack anything that is restrictive in any way). People arn't going to buy music (or anything) if they don't end up actually owning it. How would you like it if you bought a car and the seller told you that you could only drive it in the city, you wern't allowed to change the parts, etc?

goumples
May 10th, 2007, 01:25 AM
DRM is bad. It doesn't affect people who pirate things at all (there are plenty of crackers ready to crack anything that is restrictive in any way). People aren't going to buy music (or anything) if they don't end up actually owning it. How would you like it if you bought a car and the seller told you that you could only drive it in the city, you weren't allowed to change the parts, etc?

Nice analogy. I wont buy anything that I can do as I please with.

Kvark
May 10th, 2007, 01:32 AM
The DRM makers are working on intentionally making their products less useful. And as mentioned it's only paying customers that get DRM since pirates don't put DRM on the ripped movies/music. Shooting at all the friendlies and missing all the enemies is a complete failure. I guess it is a good thing for open source that propriarity competitors are making their products less useful and annoying their customers at the same time.

On the other hand DRM can be used to turn GPL'd softare into propriarity, a trick called Tivoization (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tivoization). Hand out the source code to comply with the GPL but use DRM to render the source code useless by preventing modified versions from running. It's legal since they handed out the source code, it is however illegal to crack their DRM so they got the law on their side.

jcconnor
May 10th, 2007, 02:09 AM
I think it is a wildly overblown topic. DRM exists where? iTunes... er I can't even think of any other place where it exists. So why is it talked about so much? Vastly overrated issue, sprung on, in my opinion, by the alarmist tendancy in people.

If you ever used a computer to copy a legally purchased DVD you effectively circumvented a protection scheme and are a criminal in the US according to the DMCA. If you purchased music from Yahoo Music Store, MSN Music store, iTunes, or any of the other RIAA supported music stores (except, Jamendo, e-music, magnatunes, a few others) then burned those to a CD and then re-ripped them back so you could put them on your player that didn't recognize that particular brand of DRM, you effectively bypassed a copy protection mechanism and have committed a criminal act in the US according to the DMCA.

That is why it is talked about so much. It effectively forces people that would otherwise be law abiding citizens to do illegal acts in order to (1) make backup copies of their media files, (2) use their legally purchased media files in the way that they choose.

Loss of personal liberty is generally something that happens slowly and insidiously. I'm surprised by your approach. As a supporter of Linux and an advocate of free and open software (as in speech) we should all support efforts to eliminate DRM.

As to the OP's question - Gizmodo.com has a raft of articles on the issue and their attempt to boycott RIAA supported music to try to eliminate DRM.

B. Gates
May 10th, 2007, 02:36 AM
I hate DRM on Music.

I hate DRM on Movies.

However... I like Steam, and Steam is a balanced form of DRM. You need Steam to run Steam games, but as far as DRM measures are concerned, there's a lot going for it. It helps that Steam hosts some of the best games to come out for the PC, as well as being incredibly easy to purchase and download games. It has the advantage that you don't need to keep track of physical media, or worry about discs being damaged/broken. Just log into your Steam account and download away.

Steam was more controversial in its beginning, but I think things have mellowed out quite a bit considering it's large catalogue and improvements since the old days. It's the one form of DRM (necessary DRM) which I see as pratical, and not too imposing on the user.

euler_fan
May 10th, 2007, 04:37 AM
I see a major difference between what is currently in place with DRM and what could be described as digital certificates of authenticity. I make an analogy to a book. I buy a book. I can read it wherever and whenever I want. I can sell it if I want--I just can't copy it and sell it (although I could burn copies of pages I use frequently to avoid damaging the book, etc). While they are hard to fake in the first place (and usually not worth it), it is also usually taken for granted that the copy in my hand is authentic.

I want the same kinds of rights for my music and DVD's. I bought it. I should be able to sell it if I want (or give it away), enjoy it when and where I want, an basically do anything with it I could do with a physical book.

DoctorMO
May 10th, 2007, 05:15 AM
I suggested a digital receipt, that is both non obtrusive contained in the container and has a second part with the people you bought it from. you can do what ever you want with the music because it's not encrypted. if you gave it to someone else they wouldn't have a receipt unless you told the people holding the other half of the receipt who would then issue a new one and invalidate your one. a single right to ownership would then still exist without being obtrusive.

Add a couple of tools for managing your collections and an easy way for the police to check if you have bought, paid, been given as gifts or sold as second hand all the digital media you have. firmly placing enforcement and punishment in the hands of the proper authorities.

They should also call an amnesty so people can register their ill gotten gains for a low price, lets face it music isn't worth £1 a song, it's worth 20p if that, and films are worth about £2/£3 each. as soon as you make it a fair deal most people are honest. sometimes it's worth using the carrot instead of the stick.

But all this technically would be challenging and would require a fair few new laws to work without violating buying habit data protection etc.

And I'd also recommend a few cultural laws which protect people from sharing in digital media that is culturaly important. so say a disney film 'Aladdin' you can hardly throw someone in jail for having a copy of it because it's a cultural artefact already a mainstay of the culture. this means that highly sucsessful brands and products would become free once they have become ingrained in the culture. this is to protect our culture from becoming a bought and paid for service 'In order to enjoy this life, you must buy again all the things your parents know' this is something i don't see any government moving towards.

Tundro Walker
May 10th, 2007, 07:01 AM
This is sort of off-topic, but some-what relevant...

http://www.itl.nist.gov/div898/handbook/pri/section5/pri56.htm

http://www.isixsigma.com/library/content/c020311a.asp

The two links I've provided talk about Genichi Taguchi, and "Taguchi Methods", mainly the concepts of Robust Design.

Taguchi was a statistician who was melded his statistical knowledge with business, and produced some pretty cutting edge ideas. The main idea, Robust Design, involves making products that will pass fault-testing in extraordinary circumstances they might be used in, and if they pass that, then obviously they'll work under optimal conditions. Then, all you do is fine-tune the optimal condition variables.

EG: if you're making tires, you'd design and test them under extreme conditions, like extremes of heat & cold, extremes of weather, ice, snow, rain, etc. If they perform well under those conditions, then obviously they'll work great under a nice sunny day.

However, he had another concept where engineers designing a product can basically skip over implementations by using Robust Design and fault-testing. In essence, they plan, design, test, etc, etc so much, that they totally skip over iterations of a product. This is best explained with an example (one I believe coming from one of his books), which uses a grid as such...

D 1 2 3 4 5 ..
C 1 2 3 4 5 ..
B 1 2 3 4 5 ..
A 1 2 3 4 5 ..

EG: We're engineers, and we're producing copy machines. Each machine we engineer is represented by the letters. So "A" is 1st generation. "B" is 2nd generation, and so on. We create version "A" and sell it. Folks complain about something. We make a revision, and sell version "A.1". More problems are found, so we fix them and sell version "A.2". We make a few more improvements, enough so that it's a step above "A", now 2nd generation "B". Again, problems are found, so we fix them and make "B.1". Wash, rinse, repeat. This is the typical corporate industry today.

Taguchi's idea was that if you plan/design using Robust Design, extreme fault tolerance, statistical Noise/Output testing, etc, you can not only find issues that would cause a revision 1, 2, 3, etc to roll out before you even roll-out the 1st product, but you could test & re-design the product so much that you could skip whole generations.

So, for instance, we use Taguchi's methods to engineer a copy machine. In doing such, we plan/design/test before we even produce one, and thus skip over to A.5, which we roll-out and sell, bypassing a whole slew of recalls and problems that customers might have. While we had to spend more on the preliminary plan/design/test phase, we ended up saving tons on the back-end of the process because we didn't have to handle defective product returns/replacements. But, while "A.3" was good, and worked, we do more plan/design/test and find more improvements using current technology. However, in that plan/design/test, we not only weed out problems, but we totally skip over version "B" right to "C", because we found out during testing that if we totally alter a certain design aspect of the machine, we can have it print twice as long on the same ink cartridge, and it the parts used will hardly ever wear out for the life of the machine. So, we end up going from "A.3" to producing "C.4". Our Taguchi design helped us skip a generation of copy machines, and work all the kinks out before we moved on to production.

Now then, most everyone would say "holy cow! that's sounds fantastic! why aren't more businesses doing that?" Because, after World War 2, Demming and other Statistician / Business design folks went over to Japan to help them rebuild their industry base. Here in America, we slipped into the 70's and 80's, where the management style changed from "total quality" to "just ship it with some defects...people will lower their expectations". More companies in Japan utilized statisticians to measure and correct their work from the top down, while more American businesses gave it up, instead relying on fluffy "motivational" bs and cutting costs here and there to show a profit while shipping defective products. As more and more CO's were getting paid bonuses for "turning things around", they pushed more for quick turn-around on profit. So, they got rid of expensive statisticians, who helped produce quality products and advance the industry by leaps and bounds using things like Taguchi Design philisophy. Instead, they focused on slowing down product design change, trying to maximize profits on current designs, and then make very minor changes (A.1, A.2, A.3) to sell the same product again for full price.

The internet and the web have helped turn some things around, since online collaboration has helped "engineers" of all types get in touch with each other, regardless of where they live, who they work for, what they do, etc. This has catapulted design into the fast lane, and its forced some American companies to sink or swim by trying to keep up.

Now, how this relates to DRM...as Mark Shuttleworth pointed out in his blog, some companies want to keep innovation at a snails pace, because they're either lazy, or because they're greedy (most likely both), and want to keep cashing in on minor improvements. The same is true with Net Neutrality, where the cable/fiber companies want to cash in more on their current cable/fiber by throttling how much bandwidth you have, or by segregating the internet out into sub-networks, and charging you for "roaming" to different ones, much like Telecom's do with wireless cell phone calls.

But, the digital age is tossing a lot of this on its ear. Open Source folks can collaborate and utilize a Taguchi style approach to crank out some totally great software, which under-mines someone's businesses that was trying to crank out a half-assed piece of software hoping to cash in on the "updates", "bug fixes", and other things that wouldn't be a factor if they had better design and planning from the start (or, the Blizzard games school of thought, where they would simply accept when something is a piece of crap and not try to sell it to the public to try to turn a profit on a failed idea.)

The internet and the digital age has already catapulted computers and such pretty far in just the past 20 years. And, personally, I'd like to see technology stay in the fast lane that it's on. I don't want businesses trying to throttle it back into the slow lane just so they can make more money on less work/change. That's why I'm a big supporter of Open Source, Linux/Ubuntu, etc. They challenge businesses to stay competitive. Likewise, while I don't support the ethical choice, I do realize that folks stealing copies of movies, software, etc, are also forcing businesses to stay competetive.
If the movie & music industry don't figure out a solution other than greedy DRM, more folks will just resort to hacking and stealing the content.

As a side note about suing folks, I remember as a kid I used to tape-record songs I liked off the radio so I could hear them later. Apparently I was a criminal in the making back then without even knowing it. I personally feel as long as someone isn't making a profit off of your content, be it software, music, etc, they can do whatever they want once they've bought a copy of it. And I feel that includes making copies of it. The music and movie industry are cranking out so much garbage these days just to turn a quick buck, I find it hardly worth even seeing or hearing much of it anyways. But, if enough folks pressure them, maybe they'll scale back and focus on quality over quantity.

dspari1
May 10th, 2007, 07:05 AM
Hi, I'm writing an English paper on DRM, but I'm kinda stuck, so I thought I'd come here for inspiration. It's my final for this year, so I want to do really well.

I'd like anyone interested to state your opinion on DRM, and to explain why you take that stance.

Thanks in advance,
Aren

The manufactures want to find a way to prevent piracy, and consumers don't like it for the reason that it is too restrictive to use. It's a controversial issue, and it's very hard to find a middle ground.

reacocard
May 10th, 2007, 03:09 PM
Thanks for all the replies everyone, you've been really helpful!

koshatnik
May 10th, 2007, 03:40 PM
The manufactures want to find a way to prevent piracy, and consumers don't like it for the reason that it is too restrictive to use. It's a controversial issue, and it's very hard to find a middle ground.

The problem is, they are punishing the wrong people.

Also, DRM is more about locking consumers into a business model and very little to do with anti-piracy measures. Its so simple to circumvent DRM its not even funny, so as an antipiracy measure it is utterly pointless. All it does is annoy Joe Smoe who buys a track from iTwonk for his Creative and then finds that Apple have decided to punish him for not purchasing one of their crappy ipods by not allowing him to listen to that track on a his player. Way to go.

Meanwhile, Ebil Chinese Marketeer is still churning out 6m copies of Butch Cop 3 and selling them for 50p on his market stall. If Hollywood and the music industry were really that serious about piracy, they would invest in more effective and robust policing and prosecution methods, rather than taking the lazy opportunistic and idiotic route of just bashing the consumer around the head with the stick of greed.

super breadfish
May 10th, 2007, 04:15 PM
DRM isn't about Piracy. At least not in the way a lot of people would think The music industry isn't stupid. The movie industry isn't stupid. The game industry isn't stupid either. They all know piracy is unstoppable, it can be reduced, but never eliminated entirely. There will always be someone out there with enough determination and/or knowledge to crack whatever copy protection is used. Trying to stop piracy is like banging your head against the wall.

Now, they don't shout this from the rooftops, that would be suicide. But they know, and so they came up with DRM.

They can't stop piracy, so they use DRM to force law abiding consumer to buy their content more than once, thus recouping lost profit due to piracy. Look at say, Xbox Live. Microsoft now sells films and television shows over their Live service. I'm not sure how much they charge, but that's not the bit that matters. What's important is that any content bought from Live is stuck to your Xbox. Want to watch it on a TV in another room? Oh dear you better buy the DVD. Or perhaps your going on holiday and want it on your iPod for the journey? Over to iTunes to purchase the same thing again.
Coupled with the all the other lock-in tactics and it's like all the music and film industry's birthdays have come at once. DRM free EMI downloads from iTunes are naff all use if you have a device that only supports MP3. Sure, you could convert them, but presented with it a lot of consumers would happily rebuy it in MP3. Video especially, as I can't see Johnny iPod getting his head round video conversion.

It's only because of people like us, who see DRM for what it really is, that this hasn't gone completely Big Brother and instead DRM is starting to slip. Frustration and protest have kept the beast in it's cage. Don't think Apple and EMi are doing you a favour, they've just noticed their little plan has (perhaps temporarily) come unstuck.

jcconnor
May 10th, 2007, 06:48 PM
This is sort of off-topic, but some-what relevant...

As a side note about suing folks, I remember as a kid I used to tape-record songs I liked off the radio so I could hear them later. Apparently I was a criminal in the making back then without even knowing it.

Actually, in the US, that fell under fair use provisions and was considered legal use. In fact, copying albums to tape was considered fair use (akin the one posters argument using a hard copy book analogy). So, early on, the US courts viewed albums, tapes, 8 tracks, etc. much like hard copy media and let the fair use provisions of copyright law govern them.

It wasn't until digital media hit that the laws were changed, primarily through the DCMA, to make what was traditional fair use an illegal activity.

And the copying of electronic media for fair use uses (backups, putting the media on computers and players) only becomes an illegal activity if a copy protection / DRM scheme is circumvented to allow that "fair use". So a CD that is copied to a hard drive for listening / back-up purposes is fair use. Ripping a song with DRM (or a DVD with CSS encryption) to a hard drive and bypassing the DRM to listen/play/back it up is illegal.

davahmet
May 10th, 2007, 08:19 PM
Since the early 70s, Sony vs. Betamax has been a festering sore to the media industry because it asserted definitively that time-shifting media was indeed fair use when the device used had a primary purpose of legal use. That is, Sony v. Betamax validated the argument that even if a device (a VCR in that case) coiuld be used for illegal activity, since it had a primarily legal use, the device could not be barred from use in the U.S. on the grounds of potential piracy.

The media industry has sought to overturn Sony a number of times, and on failing this, has lobbied for legislation that would undermine the validity of the decision. DCMA is an example of such an industry-driven legislation that is counter to the public best interest. DRM is a another, along with just being a short-sight attempt to enforce an industry's wishes by leveraging a combination of technology and legislation.

The truly sad part of this is when other companies outside of the media industry fall in line, effectively sacrificing the best interests of their market to appease the demands of the media industry. We saw this with DVD hardware vendors, with music player vendors, and most recently, with Microsoft's inclusion of DRM software overhead in Vista that serves no other function but to cripple the user's media experience unless said user can prove themselves innocent of potential piracy allegations. So much for the assumption of innocence. What is worse is when these companies and the media industry campaign to convince the public that DRM is really in the best interest of the consumer, kind of like when Microsoft declared the Windows Genuine Advantage check was for the user's benefit.

starcraft.man
May 10th, 2007, 08:39 PM
I'm against DRM simply because it doesn't work. There is a simple premise that no amount of DRM/code can ever overcome. DRM /encryption (like AACS) has to be coded and made from a select group of people with only so much information and intelligence amongst them. Say AACS (HD DVD encryption for those not knowing) was made (I don't know the exact numbers, I just use these as an example) by a group of 2000 people over 5 years. When it is released into the public, it is hammered on by millions and millions of tech savy users, and while it took 2000 people all that time to make the encryption, it takes only one to find the weakest link and break it, and the odds of finding one person in millions that can do it is VERY high.

So, thats the basic premise that I think backers of DRM fail to take into account, no system can ever offer complete protection from piracy unless they put a hard line right into your brain, cuz even if you can't break the encryption theres nothing preventing you from putting a bloody camera in front of your screen.

There are other reasons to not like it:
- It punishes average users who are less informed and have incompatability issues with hardware (see HDCP with AACS for more on that)
- Hackers ALWAYS break the DRM, because they are determined.
- People simply want the easiest solution, if the DRM becomes so hard to work that piracy is easier, than people will pirate because it has become easier.

Anyway, as you can see I am strongly opposed. Just for an example of someone not using DRM and making money, look at Johnathan Coulton.

prizrak
May 10th, 2007, 09:27 PM
I think that DRM/TPM as TECHNOLOGY itself can be quite useful and is a great idea in many ways. However I think that it's not used for good things right now. I can see using something like software signing to make sure your system doesn't run any random content, especially in business systems.

jcconnor
May 10th, 2007, 09:39 PM
Since the early 70s, Sony vs. Betamax has been a festering sore to the media industry because it asserted definitively that time-shifting media was indeed fair use when the device used had a primary purpose of legal use. That is, Sony v. Betamax validated the argument that even if a device (a VCR in that case) coiuld be used for illegal activity, since it had a primarily legal use, the device could not be barred from use in the U.S. on the grounds of potential piracy.

The media industry has sought to overturn Sony a number of times, and on failing this, has lobbied for legislation that would undermine the validity of the decision. DCMA is an example of such an industry-driven legislation that is counter to the public best interest. DRM is a another, along with just being a short-sight attempt to enforce an industry's wishes by leveraging a combination of technology and legislation.


I thought that was MPAA vs. Sony but your overall argument is dead-on!!:)

John

steven8
May 11th, 2007, 09:23 AM
I think that DRM/TPM as TECHNOLOGY itself can be quite useful and is a great idea in many ways. However I think that it's not used for good things right now. I can see using something like software signing to make sure your system doesn't run any random content, especially in business systems.

That's basically what Linus said, in that DRM as a technology could be used for kernel signing to ensure the kernels authenticity.

eriqk
May 11th, 2007, 04:40 PM
DRM is a way for the greedy to keep control over the distribution of cultural expression, and to lock it away to the people to whom this cultural expression belongs (ie All Of Us).
I think it was someone from Universal who basically admitted that DRM has nothing to do with piracy and everything with control of distribution (read: money).

DRM "as a technology" for stuff like kernel signing isn't DRM because it doesn't pertain to content as such. That's why I think it shouldn't be included in this discussion.

Groet, Erik

ComplexNumber
May 11th, 2007, 06:29 PM
some guy in the industry wants DRM(ie Digital Restrictions Management. there are no ifs or buts - this is exactly what it is. period!) renamed to DCE(Digital Consumer Enablement *cough*).
http://blog.wired.com/business/2007/05/hbos_exec_dont_.html

:rolleyes:

Mateo
May 11th, 2007, 06:30 PM
It's on most DVDs, in the form of CSS. This is why dvdcss is needed for playing most DVDs under Ubuntu. So, because of DRM, we, normally law-abiding users, must install illegal software to watch our legally purchased DVDs on our legally purchased computers. :-x

So what's the problem? It's never stopped either of us from watching out DVDs, so what's the big deal?

Mateo
May 11th, 2007, 06:32 PM
By the way, are cable boxes considered DRM? I can get on the anti-DRM bandwagon if so. Because I hate that the cable boxes prevent you from using an external DVR, or from using PIP features, etc.

reacocard
May 12th, 2007, 03:49 PM
So what's the problem? It's never stopped either of us from watching out DVDs, so what's the big deal?

By that argument, you could say that Fairplay DRM on iTunes songs has never stopped us from playing them either. It's not the fact that it's easy to get around, it's that fact that it's there, and requires illegal (at least in the US) methods to allow us to play it where we want to play it.

lakersforce
May 12th, 2007, 05:08 PM
So what's the problem? It's never stopped either of us from watching out DVDs, so what's the big deal?

The big deal is you are making a huge group of people actions criminal.

HotFoot
May 18th, 2007, 11:22 PM
I've tried to create a thread discussing this topic over at Tom's Hardware, but so far the reception has been pretty cool. I posted links to a few articles worth reading there. If anyone cares to take a look and continue the discussion here that'd be great.

http://forumz.tomshardware.com/community/AACS-cracked-locked-thread-CPU-formz-ftopict20173.html

Cheers,

HotFoot

SunnyRabbiera
May 18th, 2007, 11:46 PM
Really DRM is crud, I can sort of understand why it was proposed but treating everone like a criminal... big nono.
I can understand record industries and the big wig movie companies wanting to protect thier products, i can understand them wanting to protect thier investments... but I dont understand the matter they have to treat us all like criminals.
This is why I like itunes like services, if these companies want to make money take advantage of the digital market instead of incriminating it.
Really i think all these big companies if they really want money create more itunes like services.

HotFoot
May 19th, 2007, 12:29 AM
Really DRM is crud, I can sort of understand why it was proposed but treating everone like a criminal... big nono.
I can understand record industries and the big wig movie companies wanting to protect thier products, i can understand them wanting to protect thier investments... but I dont understand the matter they have to treat us all like criminals.
This is why I like itunes like services, if these companies want to make money take advantage of the digital market instead of incriminating it.
Really i think all these big companies if they really want money create more itunes like services.

iTunes is a step in the right direction. I know before it launched that I was really hoping companies would set up ways to bypass all the physical media and just give us the digital content.

However, iTunes suffers from the DRM problems that we're talking about. Even with EMI's offer of DRM-free music (I applaud this), iTunes is still a proprietary format. Maybe that's another issue. Standard DRM-laced iTunes music is a problem. You might buy a song thinking you can keep using it as long as you want, but you only get three copies. That means that when your iPod (good luck using another player of your CHOICE) needs replacing, or your computer needs to be swapped for something newer and better, you will be reducing the number of times you have left to copy music you own. You still end up having to buy the same content many times over if you want to retain it in your library over an extended period of time. I hope the EMI DRM-free content now available won't have this limitation.

reacocard
May 19th, 2007, 12:42 AM
... I hope the EMI DRM-free content now available won't have this limitation.

It won't, that's what DRM-free means. If it had limitations, it wouldn't be DRM-free. You'll be able to do anything with the files that you normally could with ones ripped from a CD.

(edit: Did I just repeat myself three times?)

HotFoot
May 19th, 2007, 12:50 AM
The point is that, as far as I understand, the files you'll get from iTunes will still be their format, which isn't interoperable with other media players. If they've gone with a format that's more compatible, like mp3 or ogg, then that's great.

I realised it was silly to write about the possibility of not being allowed more than 3 copies of DRM-free music as soon as I hit the post button. Sorry about that.

SunnyRabbiera
May 19th, 2007, 01:09 AM
iTunes is a step in the right direction. I know before it launched that I was really hoping companies would set up ways to bypass all the physical media and just give us the digital content.

However, iTunes suffers from the DRM problems that we're talking about. Even with EMI's offer of DRM-free music (I applaud this), iTunes is still a proprietary format. Maybe that's another issue. Standard DRM-laced iTunes music is a problem. You might buy a song thinking you can keep using it as long as you want, but you only get three copies. That means that when your iPod (good luck using another player of your CHOICE) needs replacing, or your computer needs to be swapped for something newer and better, you will be reducing the number of times you have left to copy music you own. You still end up having to buy the same content many times over if you want to retain it in your library over an extended period of time. I hope the EMI DRM-free content now available won't have this limitation.

Well itunes is definately a lot better then most when handling DRM, EMI's move was wonderful, now to get others into the fold...

reacocard
May 19th, 2007, 01:17 AM
The point is that, as far as I understand, the files you'll get from iTunes will still be their format, which isn't interoperable with other media players. If they've gone with a format that's more compatible, like mp3 or ogg, then that's great.

I realised it was silly to write about the possibility of not being allowed more than 3 copies of DRM-free music as soon as I hit the post button. Sorry about that.

Actually, AAC is a rather open format, especially compared to WMA. It doesn't have support in the player market, but playing it back under Linux can be done and is perfectly legal. I'm actually rather surprised there isn't more support for it.

AAC hits transparency at about 160kbps (same as ogg), thus 256kbps (the bitrate of the new DRM-free stuff) is far above any discernible quality loss and transcoding it to mp3 or ogg should sound just fine.

Spike-X
May 19th, 2007, 02:06 AM
If I were allowed to share my music with my friends, family, peers on the net, etc. more people might develop the same love for bands like Linkin Park and such that I have.

You want to give your family and friends Linkin Park music?

What the hell did they do to you?

HotFoot
May 22nd, 2007, 05:43 PM
Thanks, reacocard, for the insight.

ITunes is sounding better to me now. I think the DRM-free music was supposed to be at 192 kbps, but that's still above the 160 plateau you mentioned. Since the music I'd buy is DRM-free, I would be able to rip it to mp3/ogg for playback on my Jukebox. Otherwise, knowing that AAC playback on my Linux media centre is totally legal is nice to know.

Now, it seems there's no way for me to install iTunes on Ubuntu. If that's wrong then I would like to know. Otherwise, am I able to buy the music without software that I may not be able to run? Is there an open-source alternative?

forrestcupp
May 22nd, 2007, 05:55 PM
Thanks, reacocard, for the insight.

ITunes is sounding better to me now. I think the DRM-free music was supposed to be at 192 kbps, but that's still above the 160 plateau you mentioned. Since the music I'd buy is DRM-free, I would be able to rip it to mp3/ogg for playback on my Jukebox. Otherwise, knowing that AAC playback on my Linux media centre is totally legal is nice to know.

Now, it seems there's no way for me to install iTunes on Ubuntu. If that's wrong then I would like to know. Otherwise, am I able to buy the music without software that I may not be able to run? Is there an open-source alternative?

You can't install iTunes in Linux, and there is no other way to buy music from them. But one thing to watch out for is that Amazon is soon opening a downloadable music store with DRM free music including EMI's stuff. It will be in mp3 format. Hopefully it will be completely web based, and not software based so we can buy from them in Linux. They should offer the same DRM free stuff that iTunes has and possibly more.

HotFoot
May 22nd, 2007, 06:05 PM
I'll be watching for Amazon's progress, then. For now, I've been sticking with werkshop.com. I've also been thinking of doing more browsing among the independent artists.