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.
Homework Help (Score:2, Interesting)
:)
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.
The future? (Score:5, Interesting)
You can use our current drug policies as a guide to the future of DRM...
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.
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.
Look at this Position statement on DRM (Score:2, Interesting)
Our position on the DRM. [musicrebellion.com]
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.
Why DRM in the first place? (Score:1, Interesting)
DRM for personal info (Score:2, Interesting)
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.
Ideally... (Score:1, Interesting)
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.
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.
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.
Strong Police State Required (Score:2, Interesting)
The JungleBoy
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.
We'll return to the 19th century (Score:2, Interesting)
An essay (Score:3, Interesting)
Not impossible ... (Score:0, Interesting)
I do, however agree with the last paragraph. Respect needs to be shown on both sides. And besides, lowering the price of copyrighted material will take some of the incentive away from piracy.
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.
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...
orwellian nightmareRe:DRM - no avoiding it (Score:1, Interesting)
I assert that perhaps the "revolution" is a complete upheaval in intellectual property law and therefore economics as a whole. IP law is fundamentally hostile to civil liberties. I would prefer that the American media industries lay everyone off and the US GNP drop like a rock due to a sudden decrease in fresh media exports than have the Federal government criminalize most computer users just to protect Jack Valenti's job. They shouldn't be allowed to arrest everyone!! This is exactly what George Orwell was worried about.
When do you think the last time Hillary Rosen paid for a CD was, anyway? It is time to demand a drastic and unpleasant change in order to safeguard our civil rights.
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!
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.
Re:The future? (Score:1, Interesting)
Pretending that Divx failed because of DRM is awfully haughty. It was a single retailer spec that had terrible player and think software support, for example. (Virtually all of it's hollywood support was derived from not the pay-for-play model, but because Divx rightfully pointed out that CSS was maldesigned.)
Maybe I'm just cynical, but I fully expect to see a DVD2 (or DVD-HD) spec that supports Divx-like features and is broadly adopted.
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.
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.
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!
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.
One Possibility (Score:1, Interesting)
20 years from now it will be discovered that this post was the final inspiration for a couple quiet college students to change the world by bringing lawforge.org online leeding to DRMs demise.
Powered by sourceforge, lawforge took an amazing open source software collaboration system and turned it into the worlds most amazing instrument of true "for the people, by the people" democracy.
Within months of going online the system included
e-lobbying facilities and a foundry for connecting
lawforge crafted bills with elected officials to sponsor them. Harvard's OpenLaw immediately started a close collaboration with the site
providing a vast wealth of real legal expertise.
In 2004 riaa and the mpaa were both ruled to have
used many of their copywrites in an anticompetitive manner and lost the ability to
claim infringment. Napster immediately reverted
to its original, subscription free operation, and
music sales reached an all time peak.
This coincided nicely with a few high profile DRM cases (the berkely e-textbook riot, and the problems the senate had with its new tablet computer and e-legislation system). Couple that with growing consumer unrest (mostly due to a new active license authentication scheme deployed by microsoft) and increasing awareness in the business world that the only companies seeing ROI on DRM products were those selling them, the mood was set and the first bill crafted by lawforge
easily passed the house, senate, and was signed into law.
The Consumer Digital Rights Act of 2004 had many
effects, most of which, like the growth of the
VHS tape industry surprised media industries by
actually resulting in increased sales and new
revenue streams while protecting "common sense"
rights of consumers.
The rules governing click through licensing and opt-in systems are notable, but the major
impacts for geeks are the severe restrictions
placed on copy-control hardware and software.
In an almost mirror opposite of a bill proposed in
2001 (the sssca) CDRA mandates open standards and
interfaces for all enduser data in hardware and
software systems, including purchased data such
as audio/visual data or databases. The CDRA also enshrines the right to reverse engineer and recognizes code, be it object or source (just translations afterall) as protected speech. The economic boom resulting from the increased interoperability
and connectedness of systems is record breaking.
Even the DRM companies fair well, changing strategy and becoming security companies marketing an extra layer of protection to corporations and government for their sensitive data.
And all because a couple geeks somewhere realized
it would be a neat hack to redirect and transmogrify all the geek bickering about proposed new laws into actually creating new laws they support which protect them.
It's time to escape the legislative fire fighting
mode and spew out some good hacks to create a
manageable system.
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.
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.
Look at DRI in the past... (Score:2, Interesting)
I believe the past is the key to the future on DRI. From the introduction of the 8-bit home PC, copy protection has been around in the form of bad sectors, encrypted or altered-format disks, etc.
Judging from the 'cracking' and "0-day warez" BBS sites that sprang up like toad stools, my thought is that it didn't work. Everyone that wanted a copy of some IP (illegally) could get it. Often, with features the original didn't have, like trainers and immortality modes.
Not even the mighty FBI could stop the kids. Of course, today, they'd be known as "terrorist cells" traced by demand for soda, pizza, and bandwidth.
In those glory days of 2400bps-14400bps modems, it was a single company doing everything they could in-house to keep their released programs safe. As any then-15-year-old hacker could tell you, it was fairly easy to break once you had a clue what was going on. The programs were closed-source, of course, and nobody was available from Electronic Arts or Sierra to leak how the protection worked. But it didn't matter. Often, all was necessary was finding a conditional jump in assembly code and either removing it or (my favorite) reversing the logic of the jump.
DRI will require a standard API across the board. It must be a fairly open standard, one implemented by many different companies different ways to achieve exactly the same spec. Of course, there will be licensing and NDA's to use the spec. But, de facto, it will be open.
Everyone who makes any program, anywhere in the world which must interface with DRI information must be trusted not to give away the milk cow. This could be intentional, by creating a program or chip that disregards DRI entirely. Or, a simple coding error or hardware misdesign could achieve the same effect. Lest we forget, it was a poor implementation of the DVD CSS that was ultimately attacked- by a kid.
We live in a world where we can't even get a 100% working closed-source OS from a single company. What will a multi-company, multinational hodgepodge of laws, DRI tech, and various unscrupulous coders bring? It would have to be mandated and codified by bureaucrats who couldn't begin to keep up with the inventive attacks of _kids_, let alone professional thieves. It will at best be fingers in the dike from the outset; and come crashing down with the first torrents of demand from the public at large.
And we can't jail all the kids.