Jeremy Allison On Why DRM Will Never Work 366
eldavojohn writes "At the ZDNet site, Jeremy Allison (a well-known employee of the Google corporation) goes on a hilarious rant against Digital Rights Management. He compares the access restriction technology with underwear gnomes & Star Trek while ending with: 'Believing in a DRM business model is like joining Star Fleet security, putting on your red shirt, and volunteering to beam down to the new unexplored planet with Kirk, Spock and McCoy. Someone will be coming back from that mission, it's just not likely to be the security guard. Always a true engineer, Scotty had the good sense to stay safely on board the ship.'"
As I'm sure all Slashdot readers will recall (Score:5, Funny)
Re:As I'm sure all Slashdot readers will recall (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, it always seemed so unfair that he only got to enjoy some nekid flesh, when he could have gone on a wild prostitute sex and killing spree and be treated exactly the same.
I think we all agree, on shore leave from Enterprise - just go for it!
Cos, hey. Kirk has your back and he's got fucking proton torpedo's and an itchy trigger finger.
monk.e.boy
Re:As I'm sure all Slashdot readers will recall (Score:5, Informative)
<PEDANTIC;>
Actually, Luke Skywalker had the proton torpedos. Kirk had photon torpedos.
</PEDANTIC;>
Re:As I'm sure all Slashdot readers will recall (Score:5, Funny)
Shit. I've been found out.
Here, take my fake geek card and my thick glasses. I'll see myself out.
monk.e.boy
Re:As I'm sure all Slashdot readers will recall (Score:5, Funny)
Shit. I've been found out.
Here, take my fake geek card and my thick glasses. I'll see myself out.
monk.e.boy
Hmmm, humility. The Force is strong with this one.
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I resign (Score:5, Funny)
So I will hand in my nerd license and resign.
Re:I resign (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I resign (Score:5, Funny)
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Or maybe the Star Trek references were lowest common demoninator enough to get modded "hilarious" rather than "off-topic".
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Re:I resign (Score:5, Insightful)
It wasn't supposed to be comedy. If anything, see it as some kind of science infotainment show. Meant to give you some insight without boring you.
Ye cannae change the laws of Physics (Score:3, Funny)
The whole premise is based on changing the laws of physics.
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You misunderstand the "Laws of Physics" (Score:2)
More precisely, the "Laws of Physics" are the mathematics of the currently-best theoretical models in Physics. Those models vary all the time, and so
Nah, they just made some s**t up (Score:3, Funny)
DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
Customer goes and pays $10 dollars for his album and notices the can't play it on any machine except the ones approved by the company that sold the album and he can't backup the album in case it breaks so he has to buy it all over again if it does.
The pirate on the other hand happily buys a cheap cd for $1, goes online and downloads the album, burns it to cd and now has a cd that can be played on any machine and be backupped easily.
The basic idea of successfully selling anything is to provide better service then you can get for free.
When it comes to music/movies/games bought online I propose that you let people download the items as many times they want at high speeds. This means that it will be alot faster/comfier then doing it illegally through the relatively slow pirate networks.
I'm currently enjoying this to a great extent with games I've bought through EA. After a format or whatever I just need to tell the EA downloader to download the game for me instead of me having to hunt down the bloody cd that is forgotten in some bookcase somewhere.
I think downloaded music/movies should do it similarly so I easily can move my collection between computers without any fuzz at all making all my movies/music basically immortal. Good service at a good price is better then pirating.
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But what happens when EA decides that they no longer want to offer the EA downloader service? This is my primary concern with these kinds of services, and why I still purchase all of my software at retail outlets.
Hmm, that raises another ques
Why DRM will never work (Score:5, Informative)
The first part has been explained time and again at
But it all would not happen if the receiver at least had some kind of benefit from the encryption. If it's only that his neighbor can't "steal" his pay-tv, some would already welcome the "feature". But that's not even the case. I should be kinda thankful that the content industry has been selfish enough so far to make DRM a tool that only they benefit from, with no gain whatsoever for the receipient.
Hard to market something that gives you a decisive advantage over your business partner.
All together Now!! (Score:3, Funny)
Simple math (Score:4, Interesting)
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Hilarity ensues... (Score:4, Funny)
He compares the access restriction technology with underwear gnomes
Step 1 : Make an underpants gnomes reference
Step 2 : ???
Step 3 : Hilarity
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> Step 2 : ???
> Step 3 : Hilarity
Perhaps he thinks underpants gnomes references will help his career.
I.e., in Soviet Russia, underpants gnomes references make you!
Hey, it's not just some unknown Google employee (Score:5, Informative)
Oh, never mind it was Zonk.
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DRM the new normal (Score:2, Insightful)
Why is this new or interesting? (Score:2)
Whether his motive was pure is irrelevant to the fact that Jobs has begun moving the industry away from DRM, so why is the opinion of somebody else who has little stake in it worth noting now?
Meanwhile, aboard the Enterprise... (Score:5, Funny)
Kirk: Uhura, can you patch into their signal?
Uhura: I'm trying, sir, but they're using some sort of signal encryption...
Kirk: Mr. Spock, analysis.
Spock [leaning over viewer]: It appears to be a primitive form of encryption, Captain. It will only take me a few moments to break it.
Uhura: Sir, we're getting a signal from the alien ship.
Kirk: On audio, Lieutenant.
Voice: This is the RIAA vessel Enforcer ordering you to cease and desist your efforts to break our encryption. Our signals belong to us and you have not paid the appropriate fees to access them. Cease immediately or we will be forced to beam our lawyers aboard your ship!
"Engineers should refuse to create DRM systems..." (Score:4, Interesting)
For example, consider the ICCP code of ethics: [iccp.org]
"2.5: Integrity: One will not knowingly lay claims to competence one does not demonstrably possess."
It seems to me that an engineer who, knowing that it is impossible to create a DRM system that does what it is supposed to do, nevertheless accepts an assignment to create one, is implicitly claiming competence he or she does not possess and is in violation of this point.
"2.7: Accountability:
"3.4: Statements: One shall not make false or exaggerated statements as to the state of affairs existing or expected regarding any aspect of information technology or the use of computers."
Re:"Engineers should refuse to create DRM systems. (Score:4, Insightful)
All software can be hacked. All software has bugs. People just have an expectation that it performs at a certain level. Should everybody working on operating systems be deemed incompetent because there are still security issues?
Re:"Engineers should refuse to create DRM systems. (Score:2)
Full disclosure: I read this too quickly at first and found myself wondering why the Insane Clown Posse had a code of ethics.
Re:"Engineers should refuse to create DRM systems. (Score:2)
They also said it was impossible to land a man on the moon...
Why DRM Will Never Work (Score:2, Insightful)
Google! Google! Google! (Score:5, Insightful)
"a Google employee goes on"
A "Google employee"? Really? He has a name... it's Jeremy Allison. You know, the same Jeremy Allison that was described as "The legendary Jeremy Allison (of Samba fame)" when he resigned from Novell [slashdot.org].
Hell, he was still Jeremy Allison only a couple of months ago when he wrote an advice piece [slashdot.org] for young programmers.
Now? He's a Google employee.
Yeesh.
Pointless sentence... (Score:2)
I think it's pretty safe to say that by the time that sentence pops up, ALL less technical readers have given up trying to read the article.
dear media middlemen: (Score:5, Insightful)
while not actually tested with a nuclear strike, their system has been tested by another form of damage: your DRM. we are happy to report that the Internet is still flexible and redundant. it has survived your DRM, and has successfully routed around the damage
please make note of your coming extinction. the internet as media distribution system is infinitely superior to your schemes, and is not yours to control. some of you apparently are not aware of this reality. you should try to be
the aztec and incan ruling classes were not happy at the arrival of new technology and unseen phenomena like the gun, the cannon, heavy metal swords, heavy metal shields, the horse, syphilis, and smallpox. the arrival was unplanned and overwhelming. but however unhappy they were at the arrival of such things, it did not change the fact that it spelled their quick and certain doom
so it is with you, dear media middlemen
all the best,
media consumers
xoxoxoxoxox
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I disagree: rights management can be made to work. (Score:5, Insightful)
1. The medium on which the data is shipped to the customer must not be readable on any standardised hardware which is sold with an interface to plug into a PC. (See also: Sega Dreamcast GD-ROM).
- This immediately eliminates the percentage of the hacker world whose expertise doesn't stretch as far as "taking a hardware player to pieces and following paths".
- It implies that the design of the player is encumbered with so many patents that even if you did build such a drive, you'd have a hard time selling it in much of the world.
2. The device which plays the data has no output except for a built-in screen. Rationale: You can't trust anything you plug into the device. (See also: Portable travel DVD players).
- This prevents anyone from exploiting possible issues in any security which may be attached to output data.
- For best results, and to minimise the impact of the analogue hole, the screen should be sized such that lining up a camera is very difficult and even if you did it would be impossible to get very good results.
There's only one minor issue. I've just invented the Sony PSP, which we all know has been a runaway success as a media player and movie releases tend to hit the PSP first. </sarcasm>
Sure DRM has downfalls... (Score:2)
But creating a blanket statement like "DRM won't work" is wholly false.
Non-DRM content is very important to have and DRM content will never encompass the entire market, that is true. But there is a market for DRM content. I'm sure most people here have been to a cafe or bar with the Jukebox sitting in the corner. The reason this gets used is because sometimes consumers are willing to only listen and not own the music they wish to listen to for a much discounted price. In the Jukebox example you never actua
Re:Sure DRM has downfalls... (Score:4, Insightful)
The bigger issue (Score:5, Insightful)
After reading the article (which is akin to blasphemy here on /. ), he hits upon a real concern about DRM: The effort to turn the US into a risky "IP economy", relying on DRM to protect our interests while outsourcing actual manufacturing and labor to cheaper countries.
The Pollyanna dream that western countries will be able to sit on ivory towers as "idea centers" while trying to sell DRM'ed Intellectual Property to newly affluent laborers in sovereign China and India is extremely misguided. Especially when these places are used to cheaper (and often better/unhindered) knockoff copies of movies/music/games already.
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I come from a place that completely lost its manufacturing base,
and the results aren't pretty.
As my brother says of the new service economy, "never mind, we'll
all sell each other haircuts over the Internet."
Jeremy.
Public-key cryptography? (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe he just worded that wrong, but if you can derive the secret key like that, you're messing up. Maybe he meant that messages can be encrypted and sent with the public key, and decrypted with the secret key.
who believes in DRMlithium keys .. (Score:2)
"DRM is
A clear and concice description of exactly what DRM is designed to do, if there ever was one. The hilarious bit is where DRM proponents sell it as secure, to either the media vendors or the enduser, for as Allison points the end-
Outsourcing your manufacturing base (Score:4, Insightful)
And yet, that is exactly what is happening.
Eben Moglen said once that the wealth of nations in the 21st century will not be measured by how much steel they make or how well they make it, they will be measured by how much software they make and how well they make it. Presumably he was talking about software which had some purpose, not Quake.
Government Fantasy World (Score:2)
Not a fantasy world. It's just that people in positions of authority are unbelievably ignorant. Like trying to truly fathom the trillions upon trillions of stars in the universe, we cannot hope to appreciate how fantastically, utterly ignorant they are.
To this day, there is a surprising number of people in our government who sit in important policy making positions who do not -- in fact, cannot
It Doesn't Need To Work (Score:3, Insightful)
While I watched, two things struck me. First, that the committee members (some of whom sit on the all-powerful Judiciary Committee) invariably said, with a conviction typically reserved for occasions where one is required to place one's right hand on the bible, that they were very strong believers in intellectual property protection. The silence in the room seemed to suggest that the issue was a black and white one, somewhat akin to being against flag burning, or safe streets and neighbourhoods, or fighting terrorism, and the act of making such statements conferred patriotic bonus points on those who stood up to do so.
Second, despite the fact that all of the panel members (the IT heads of various universities) unanimously agreed (and went on at length to describe the reasons) that technological solutions could offer no guarantees of success, they were pressed upon by more than one committee member as to why they weren't placing a greater emphasis on technological solutions, given that it did offer at least some measure of success, even if it was temporary. After a series of "yes buts", the committee and the panel members agreed to agree that a coordinated technological/enforcement solution in conjunction with an education/policy-based approach was the ideal solution.
That last bit reminded me of what typically occurs in communities where crime is a problem and someone comes up with a New and Improved approach. The enforcement approach hasn't worked, but the police are asked to implement a crackdown. After enough heads are hit or enough people are arrested, the New and Improved solution is gradually put into effect and everyone feels good. It's worth remembering that people who vote typically vote for "law and order" candidates, and elected candidates who concentrate on law and order issues stay elected, irrespective of whether their actions have results, positive or otherwise. The scenario isn't unlike George Bush and his recent surge. The military approach hasn't worked, so the solution? More troops.
It would be satisfying if simplistic to state that DRM is a technological solution that's doomed to failure. You can be sure that the issue of DRM is discussed in boardrooms of media companies, in government, and in the board rooms of any technology company that has an interest in the matter. At those levels, the issue becomes a political one, and people are held accountable for what they do or don't do. Put another way, everyone needs to be seen doing something, even if that something has prior art in the form of a Dilbert cartoon.
So if DRM isn't working, the solution will ultimately be more DRM. Followed by a phased in New and Improved approach that, surprise, most likely won't involve DRM. In that regard, we can say that Steve Jobs may be the only smart guy in the room.
Only in Canada, eh? (Score:3, Funny)
Claiming that [DRM] can ever be made secure ... is like believing you can create a secure bank vault by drawing chalk lines on the pavement, piling the money inside and asking customers to "respect these boundaries".
That might work in Canada. How do you get a bunch of Canadians out of a swimming pool? "Excuse me, would everyone please get out of the pool?"
The analog hole (Score:5, Insightful)
There will always be an analog hole. There are only two things they can do about that. One is to degrade the analog quality. But this also degrades the user experience. That ultimately can't work. They can certainly go as far as making sure no analog connections exist between the playback source and the display. But to see it, you have to have a display. And that's a hole right there. The other thing they can do is restrict the ability to capture from the analog hole. But this ends up crippling devices that inherintly have to be analog, such as a camera. Watermarks are their best bet, but these have to be very subtle to avoid destroying the user experience. And the more subtle they are, the harder it is to make technology that can detect it in a variety of cases, and fit into a cheap consumer digital video camera made in China.
The real cause of the problem is not that content comes to us digitally. That's actually an advantage for the content providers. It's the fact that once a copy has leaked into the pirate world, stripped of its DRM encumbrance, there is no further loss of quality as there once was when everything was in analog.
Back when everything was analog, people put up with horrible quality just to get a movie cheap, or see one before they were otherwise allowed to for some reason. The fact that even today people try to sneak cameras into theaters to copy a major motion picture shows just how low a quality a lot people are willing to accept. Sure, some people today want their pirated copy to be perfect original digital reproduction. But the mass level of piracy will be quite happy with just the one generation of analog lossage that we have today.
The focus on stopping piracy needs to be at the distribution, not at the original capture. It only takes one leak and it's all over the internet. DRM would have to be 100% perfect to make a dent in piracy. It simply cannot do that. It won't work.
What DRM will do, however, is stop casual copying. It can prevent someone from making a copy for a neighbor. Now the neighbor will have to go to the internet to get a "real pirate copy". It will also cause people to have to buy more copies than they wanted, to be able to play on a variety of devices, of the most intrusive of DRM comes into being. But that is what the content producers are really wanting in the end, which would drive up sales because of this deprivation of fair use. That is ultimately what DRM can work for, and is what the content producers want.
DRM will also cripple many ways people can even play or watch the content they legally buy (or would legally buy if they knew they could play it). The number of such people affected is still small, and may well remain small (e.g. die hard BSD/Linux users). Because these people are affected, some of them will (and most of the rest will support) find ways to crack the DRM directly. So basically, DRM itself creates motives to crack DRM even among those willing to pay for everything they have (e.g. are not tha freeloader minority). So DRM will always be under attack. And big corporations have continually shown they are unable to make perfect technology, especially that involving encryption.
DRM will fail. But the prospect is that it could take as much as 20 years for big corporate executives to realize this. They are slow learners (as the internet itself has shown on a massive scale).
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Also correct in that it has to be stopped at the distribution level. Nobody really cares if you buy a DVD and make a copy of it for yourself. What they care about is you make a copy for the rest of the Internet-using folks on the planet. What scares content
Great quote! (Score:3, Insightful)
This is what happens when technology moves faster than the wealthy and powerful move.
A rant? Yeah ... and an extremely stupid one too (Score:3)
First off ... or course DRM can work. You know it, I know it. You just need to start with the *hardware*, and make sure that people who buy a computer cannot gain access to OS internals without first having to hack the hardware. And that's no cakewalk. Just remember that it took the resources of an MIT computing lab to hack the hardware of the XBox (see this link http://www.xenatera.com/bunnie/proj/anatak/xboxmod .html [xenatera.com]. Lesson learned: solder the BIOS chip on the motherboard for maximum security.}
That's called "trusted hardware". Really, does nobody remember Microsoft's Palladium scheme to make Windows work with "trusted hrdware"?
If the entertainment industry needed anyone to make the case that "trusted hardware" is really really necessary to protect their precious content, then this is it. What will your friendly neighbourhood lawmaker say when the RIAA / MPAA wave this rant under their noses and say:
"Told you so ... it's either mandatory Palladium and Trusted Hardware or we're dead. Now think of what that will mean in terms of your campaign contributions.
So here's the deal. We don't need you to actually outlaw non-compliant computer hardware, just to make "trusted hardware" and Microsoft's Palladium the standard for *all* Government applications. And make it mandatory for anything connected to the Internet that handles financial transactions, especially including anything that accesses Ebay or can order airline tickets on-line. That's all we ask.
The department of Home Security ought to like that, all banks and credit-card companies ought to like that, and we will bring out our content *only* for trusted hardware. We'll even throw in a 5-year price reduction on content for Trusted Computers. What's not to like eh?".
Crowing about how Joe Schmuck will be able to crack any DRM to illegally copy videos, songs or whatever is of a depth of stupidity that I never thought possible. Much as I respect Jeremy Allison for his work on Samba, there are some people in the Open Source software development that I would gladly do without. For example when they spout this sort of idiocy. Let him go back to writing code instead of trying his had at prose.
And doesn't he realise that with his rant he is indirectly positioning MS Windows as the *only* platform that the content industry can trust to protect it's content behind DRM?
Seriously ... doesn't he realise how close we have come {and the danger still isn't passed} of having "trusted hardware" shoved down our collective throats? Palladium anyone? Think that can't happen anymore??? Think again. Just look at Wikipedia and read up on trusted computing {http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_Computing [wikipedia.org]}. It's not dead yet.
Re:A rant? Yeah ... and an extremely stupid one to (Score:3)
You have no sense of history. Remember the "Clipper Chip" ? People were frightned of that
for the same reasons you list here, and now all phones must come with an embedded Clipper
chip. Oh wait.....
You want to live in fear and think you can hide from a scary future by not talking about it.
I refuse to live in fear.
If the only way Windows will win is by being legislated, then I'm happy to be on the losing side.
Jeremy.
DRM works (Score:3, Insightful)
DRM is not implemented to end piracy, or prevent it. There is precious little that can stop that.
It is implemented to keep Joe Blow from handing out freebies to his Toms, Dicks and Harrys.
And that's all.
It keeps copying from being a *trivial* operation, and forces him to associate with absolute criminals if he wishes to get something for free. Most folks don't want to do that. Many don't make it past all the porn popups, in fact.
So DRM works, but should always be simple enough and unobtrusive. Anything more is a liability.
Trying to design a "watertight and unbreakable" DRM, of the kind discussed in this article, is the perfect way to end that balance and hoist content providers by their own petard. (c.f.: Starforce, Sony rootkit)
So that's the kind of thing engineers should be saying "no" to, for the sake of their own company's continued profitability.
--
Toro
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Who's Manny?
Re:This is going to get all kinds of responses, bu (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is going to get all kinds of responses, bu (Score:5, Insightful)
Granted, there are disadvantages; rather than getting the show on demand, I have to wait until they schedule a "push". But generally the show is "pushed" before it is available through on-demand channels anyway, so that's not a big deal.
Re:This is going to get all kinds of responses, bu (Score:5, Insightful)
But, in the end, everyone will see it for the profiteering racket that it really is.
Correction (Score:4, Interesting)
DRM does nothing to prevent someone from copying the content.
This issue is about society and the rights of citizens, not about one person.
It has become very clear, that people will pay for content, even when that content can be had for free.
iTune has sold over 2.5Billion tracks, all of which can be found for free.
The people selling to the market ned to provide it convienantly, and at the price the MARKET is willing to pay, not what they want the market to pay.
Re:Correction (Score:5, Insightful)
>>iTune has sold over 2.5Billion tracks, all of which can be found for free.
The question is will enough people be willing to pay for it to make it a viable business model. The big problem is that there is an entire generation of college kids that think everything digital is free for the taking unless it is properly secured, and if it is not properly secured then it is basically an invitation to take it.
Most college kids don't have the money to spend on something anyway so it doesn't affect the business model much now, but if they keep this attitude as they grow older and replace the people willing to pay, then there will be a problem.
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The movie industry would be a different situation though. If people were not willing to pay even the $1 rental rate they can get now, then the quality of movies will suffer. Production values will be crap. Most movies will
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Now that they are a "star", they get more money and do a lot less work.
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If they dealership manages to sell the car for $40k after months of trying, that's still not car theft or thievery, that's business.
Car theft? Give me a break. It's simply a matter of the consumer demonstrating the product wasn't worth that price to them - no more, no less.
Re:Correction (Score:5, Interesting)
Not that you need an example, but here I go anyway. I have been downloading Southpark for years (I don't have cable, and Southpark isn't worth $100/month). iTunes started offering it, which is great because I value my time and think that $2 is money well spent. HOWEVER, I can't watch the episodes on my stinking TV! With P2P I could just burn them to a CD and watch the AVI on my $25 DVD player. So now I'm left with the situation where I can buy the episode for $2 and watch it on my monitor, or download it for free and watch it anywhere I like. Not to mention that the free version is higher-quality!
Tell me how restricting the paying customer is a sound business strategy?
Re:Correction (Score:5, Insightful)
Legality and morality are entirely different and people should care less about the former and more about the latter. If you're an American, think of it this way: Signing the Declaration of Independence was an act of treason. Now, downloading digital content isn't as noble as throwing off an oppresive empire in the hopes of starting a country based on freedom, but to assume something is bad because "it's illegal" is shortsighted.
Personally, I feel that downloading content without compensating the creator (in the way they ask) is immoral. I generate content for a living and I expect to be paid for it. It would be hypocritical not to extend the same courtesy to others. If something is simply illegal and not immoral I don't have a problem breaking that law.
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I visited a friend of mine a few days back, and he'd just bought a song off iTunes while simultaneously downloading it through a bittorrent network. He was slightly upset, to say the least, when he not only got the song faster over P2P, but it was also better quality (192 kbps vs 128 kbps from iTunes - the difference was clearly noticeable just by listening to the songs). He played the two songs back to back over and over again, getting angrier and angrier,
Re:Correction (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Correction (Score:5, Insightful)
That's simply not true at all. I have yet to meet a non-geek who thinks "it's locked therefore it must be wrong." This weekend I was asked these two questions from two different family members: "why do I get this error message on my PC trying to watch a DVD?" and "why can't I copy my iTunes music to my cell phone?"
All their experiences in the physical world have taught them that if they buy something, it's theirs. This is no different: they both assumed that because they bought the products that they had the right to use them. They see only that "the computer" is giving them error messages. They've never heard of DRM. They have zero assumption that they're doing anything wrong (which is good because they're not.) Yet the products are refusing to cooperate.
In this case, DRM itself is instilling the "mentality" of "this is a stupid computer bug I have to get around." At no point does "right vs wrong" enter into the thought process.
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Thanks for trying to divert attention from the root problem, but they are not sharing anything. In both cases they bought the material through legitimate sources (iTMS and Best Buy.) Their opinion on the question of "is sharing right or wrong?" is completely irrelevant.
And not that I know
Re:Correction (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, but 40 years ago there was an entire generation of college kids that thought love and sex and drugs and rock and roll were free to be taken and shared, and now that generation packs mega churches and votes for George W. Bush. People change as they age.
I don't think it's appropriate to claim that a generation "has no honor" and thus will not use an honor-based system. Even if it is partially true at one point in time, it can change.
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The whole point of the article is that since DRM by its very nature can always be broken, it's impossible to "properly secure" content.
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Exactly. It is all marketing, and they deserve every dime if they can convince people that their water is better and get them to pay for it.
The record industry is the same. They have convinced quite a bit of people to demand their particular artists instead of the huge supply of legitamely free music available.
The difference is that some people have been convinced that yes, the re
Re:This is going to get all kinds of responses, bu (Score:4, Insightful)
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You mean the fact that media companies won't make their products easily available to the public to download at a reasonable price?
"For DRM to "work", it's not necessary that it make piracy impossible, only that it reduce it to sufficiently low levels that the production of the work is still profitable."
But it can't work, because only one person has to crack the DRM on a file and put it on the Net, and the rest of the w
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Please. That justification for leeching didn't work when you were five, and it doesn't work now.
But it can't work, because only one person has to crack the DRM on a file and put it on the Net, and the rest of the world's population can download it.
Yes, the world *can* download it. But for that possibility to negate the goal of the DRM: enough people have to *know* that they can
Re:This is going to get all kinds of responses, bu (Score:5, Insightful)
Let me tell you a quick story about a friend of mine. It was the Summer of 01 or 02, and he bought a CD. Like he used to do. He didn't know much about the 'net and he didn't download songs, he went to his local store and bought CDs. Simply because he didn't want to deal with P2P, considered it a hassle and didn't even want to look into it. What for? He bought a CD every few months, who cared that they costed 20 bucks? He can afford that.
He slipped his brand new CD into his car-hifi and
To say the least, he was pissed. He came to me and asked me what to do. Now, I didn't have any idea how to copy the "protected" CD to a CDR so he could play it in his car, but I knew that there are services where he could download what he bought. Funny enough, that was legal here back then, he had the "right" to "own" that music by buying that CD.
So he went and installed some P2P software. Was surprised how easy it is and within a few hours he had his CD on the computer, burning it to a CDR that works in his car was trivial.
From then on, he started using P2P more often and buy CDs less often, if he only found one good song on the disc, which is pretty much common today.
Conclusio: DRM was what turned him into one of those pesky pirates. He didn't (and still doesn't) care about the 20 bucks such a CD would cost him. What he does care about, though, is that the content works the way HE wants it. He doesn't want to distribute it, or remix it, or anything else the content industry fears so much. He just wants to listen to it. He just wants it to "work" as intended. That's his primary goal when it comes to content, being able to use it the way it's meant to be used.
He didn't care about DRM until this moment when his CD didn't work anymore as expected. They don't want me to copy? Cool with me. Don't wanna copy anyway. But what he wants is to be able to use his content. Such is the vicious cycle. DRM is deemed necessary because of the consumer actions caused by DRM.
Re:This is going to get all kinds of responses, bu (Score:4, Interesting)
When I buy a TV set, I have additional value compared to a stolen one or one that "fell off a truck". When the TV fails, I can claim warranty. I can go to the dealer or to the manufacturer and trade my faulty product against a good one. With other "hardware", you get other benefits. Often you have access to various services (support, installation, in case of computerhardware drivers...) or other added goodies that you simply would not have when you steal it.
With content it is exactly reverse. The stolen content has a bigger "value" than one bought. The value of content is determined by its usefulness. And you can't argue that content is worth more when it is restricted to one medium, impossible to shift and bound to malfunction when used with certain display devices that the manufacturer of the content doesn't approve. It doesn't even have the same "value" as content that allows me to shift freely and display in any way I deem appropriate.
So stolen content is "worth more" than content bought.
And that's the big fallacy of the industry. Not only do people save money by stealing it (which would be the same for stolen "hardware"), they actually get content that is more valuable than when they went and bought it.
And here's the big problem. It's not that people wouldn't buy content, despite it being overpriced IMO. What makes them copyers is that copying increases content value. Not in terms of its price, but its usefulness is vastly increased by removing restrictions.
Engineering, Not Ethics (Score:5, Insightful)
Which would be a good point if all Mr. Allison was saying was "DRM is evil". However, that isn't his point. What he is saying is that it can't work, it's never going to work, and that trying build a business model (or an economy) found on DRM is a deeply irrational act.
The problem is that for DRM to work you have to hand the customer the encrypted data, the encryption algorithm and the encryption key. If you don't the DRMed work cannot be accessed. However, if you do, they have everything they need to circumvent the DRM.
But if the DRM has a fundamental logical flow, then the problem is DRM. That's the point.
A lot of people would agree with that. The two main approaches offered seem to be either move to a gift economy, or indoctrinate school kids to believe that copyright infringement is a Great Evil on a par with Rape, Murder, Genocide, and Britney Spears. Personally, I can see problems with both those strategies.
In the meantime, DRM still isn't going to work any time soon, and any exec who proposes spending serious money on it wants his arse kicking. Not for Being Evil, but for Being Stupid.
Re:Engineering, Not Ethics (Score:4, Insightful)
OK, let's look at your analogy. The car is the plaintext, the lock is the encryption algorithm, the key is the encryption key. If your car had a DRM lock, it would have the key selloptaped to the car door, along with a notice saying "driving this car without permission is very, very illegal".
I think any manufacturer that made car locks like that might well get some complaints.
The trouble is that with DRM the key has to be sellotaped to the car door. What you're doing is giving people cars, trying to disguise the keys taped to the door, and telling them they can't go for a drive unless you say so. It might even work, for a little while at least, but once people catch on to the fact that the key has to be there somewhere, you;re going to start seeing an awful lot of unauthorised driving. If your business model depends on people only driving when you say so, then you're in trouble at this point.
Successful ones may be based on data. Unsuccessful business models may be based on anything, including editorial positions and wishful thinking. I don't see any data to suggest that DRM is enabling any successful business models. On the other hand the ease with which HD-DVD DRM is being cracked at the moment suggests that the opposite may well be true
Just because the media companies have a lot of money, that doesn't mean they owe it to DRM. I think this is a wishful thinking model, and I think its doomed to failure.
Re:This is going to get all kinds of responses, bu (Score:2)
That's an assertion with no evidence backing it up.
If it *is* a sucky situation, surely the problem isn't DRM but the economic structures in place that requires DRM to be used.
What are these "economic structures?" Until HBO, people asserted that advertising was a necessary prerequisite to television. Until the new free newspapers, people thought that "economic structures" demanded that daily newspaper
Re:This is going to get all kinds of responses, bu (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:This is going to get all kinds of responses, bu (Score:2)
Re:This is going to get all kinds of responses, bu (Score:2)
A problem I've had with the whole issue of DRM is that it tends to be used to attempt to take away consumer rights/abilities that have been well established, whether the music or video industry (referred to collectively as "The Industries" from hereon) approves or not. For example, if I purchase a CD why should I be prevented from making a copy for my own personal use?
Despite what The Industries hope to accomplish with DRM, I think that it will lead to the death of any future formats. This, in turn, will
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Unfortunately, there was one tiny flaw in this plan. And I sincerely hope I d
Re:Yes, I know (Score:5, Interesting)
1. I know a secret
2. I want to tell you the secret
3. I don't want you to tell anyone else the secret
4. I don't trust you
Perhaps you can see now why there's no solution to that scenario.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Can you name one piece of mainstream software which can only be used by those who paid for it?
"Instead, encourage DRM that works."
There is no DRM that works. The only kind of DRM that comes close to working is something like Steam, which provides real benefits to the users (e.g. download to any computer, auto-patching, easy purchasing)... and I believe that's been cracked for those who don't want to pay for
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That's not the same thing
it as a "Hilareous rant", as it wasn't funny and not a rant
described it as "musings on DRM and Star Trek".
But hey, this is
Jeremy.