Linux and DRM? 88
xgyro asks: "In light of the recent agreement between MS and Disney, and many calling for 2004 to be the 'Year of the Linux Desktop' does Linux have comparable DRM system to allow for distribution of protected content? Linus Torvalds has already endorsed DRM on the Linux platform. Possibly by coincidence, this company has announced a product that seems to provide for some possibilities. Will other companies follow suite? As a employee of a large content provider, what current options are out there for groups that want to deploy protected content on Linux?"
Nope. (Score:5, Interesting)
Encryption Framework for Enterprises (Score:2, Interesting)
drm rant (Score:4, Interesting)
<rant> microsoft has been trying to get customers to convert over to a subscription plan for their software and no one is doing it. why not? because no one wants to pay more, rely on a vendor more and give up ownership... and for what? there are no real benefits.
business people get a hard-on for subscription services that work because they make more money than other types... but the thing they don't realize is that subscription services that succeed do so because consumer want them and are willing to pay for the service. the current state is "let's make everything a service and try to convince consumers to pay for it".
no matter how powerful corporations become they are still at the mercy of consumers' money. assuming the majority of Joe Consumers aren't stupid enough to pay more money for less in exchange for some crap stamp of approval by the bastards who are charging you, DRM will never take off. of course, that won't keep business folks from trying, because all they have to do is wave (people with internet access * media per consumer * viewings per day) in front of a VC and say "if we could just capture 0.01% of that I can forecast 1000000% sustained growth". of course the problem is that the only way for DRM to succeed is for their to be no choice, because no one would choose to pay less for more. </rant>
The Right to Read (Score:5, Interesting)
For Dan Halbert, the road to Tycho began in college--when Lissa Lenz asked to borrow his computer. Hers had broken down, and unless she could borrow another, she would fail her midterm project. There was no one she dared ask, except Dan.
This put Dan in a dilemma. He had to help her--but if he lent her his computer, she might read his books. Aside from the fact that you could go to prison for many years for letting someone else read your books, the very idea shocked him at first. Like everyone, he had been taught since elementary school that sharing books was nasty and wrong--something that only pirates would do.
And there wasn't much chance that the SPA--the Software Protection Authority--would fail to catch him. In his software class, Dan had learned that each book had a copyright monitor that reported when and where it was read, and by whom, to Central Licensing. (They used this information to catch reading pirates, but also to sell personal interest profiles to retailers.) The next time his computer was networked, Central Licensing would find out. He, as computer owner, would receive the harshest punishment--for not taking pains to prevent the crime.
Of course, Lissa did not necessarily intend to read his books. She might want the computer only to write her midterm. But Dan knew she came from a middle-class family and could hardly afford the tuition, let alone her reading fees. Reading his books might be the only way she could graduate. He understood this situation; he himself had had to borrow to pay for all the research papers he read. (10% of those fees went to the researchers who wrote the papers; since Dan aimed for an academic career, he could hope that his own research papers, if frequently referenced, would bring in enough to repay this loan.)
Later on, Dan would learn there was a time when anyone could go to the library and read journal articles, and even books, without having to pay. There were independent scholars who read thousands of pages without government library grants. But in the 1990s, both commercial and nonprofit journal publishers had begun charging fees for access. By 2047, libraries offering free public access to scholarly literature were a dim memory.
There were ways, of course, to get around the SPA and Central Licensing. They were themselves illegal. Dan had had a classmate in software, Frank Martucci, who had obtained an illicit debugging tool, and used it to skip over the copyright monitor code when reading books. But he had told too many friends about it, and one of them turned him in to the SPA for a reward (students deep in debt were easily tempted into betrayal). In 2047, Frank was in prison, not for pirate reading, but for possessing a debugger.
Dan would later learn that there was a time when anyone could have debugging tools. There were even free debugging tools available on CD or downloadable over the net. But ordinary users started using them to bypass copyright monitors, and eventually a judge ruled that this had become their principal use in actual practice. This meant they were illegal; the debuggers' developers were sent to prison.
Programmers still needed debugging tools, of course, but debugger vendors in 2047 distributed numbered copies only, and only to officially licensed and bonded programmers. The debugger Dan used in software class was kept behind a special firewall so that it could be used only for class exercises.
It was also possible to bypass the copyright monitors by installing a modified system kernel. Dan would eventually find out about the free kernels, even entire free operating systems, that had existed around the turn of the century. But not only were they illegal, like d
Re:Broken business model (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh... it'll play them. They just won't be DRM'd when it does.
Ever buy a Disney movie? I've got a two year old... and Disney wants to shove 13 previews down your throat before you can watch the main attraction.
So... the first thing I do with a Disney DVD is rip the movie and burn it to another DVD. Insert and play... without the previews.
If anything, they are contributing to the problem of privacy... because I now have a Disney DVD that is of no use to me (the original) and I'm tempted to sell the damn thing.
Believe me, MS DRM will be cracked... and you'll be able to watch it on your Linux box... and paying for it will be your choice.
All because of the bad choices they have made.
P.S. None of this is meant to condone illegal behavior. Nor is it meant to condone bad behavior on the Corp's part.
I'll ask Santa and the Easter Bunny ... (Score:5, Interesting)
No, Virgina, there is no such thing as protected content. That was only a bedtime story told to CEO's and recording execs to help them sleep at night.
Re:Keep Linux DRM free (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Broken business model (Score:2, Interesting)
If you strip out the ads does that make the resulting re-burn a "derived work"? I guess it depends on if the DVD as a whole is under CR, or if it contains multiple parts each under CR?
All you need is Love, errr, Copyright Law (Score:3, Interesting)
Oh yeah, THAT'S ironclad protection.
Ask the record companies how much protection that's given them. Better yet, ask Sharman Networks. You'll either get a hearty laugh, or a "No Comment".
Re:No need for DRM (Score:3, Interesting)
Quite. But that's not what the question was. Disney will be releasing films online with Microsoft DRM whether we like it or not, and the submitter wants to know if it will be possible to watch them on a linux box. Many other film companies may well follow suit.
If there is no DRM support on linux, then Microsoft will have extended it's monopoly to digital film distribution. Which is bad, even if you and me have no intention of ever buying DRMed content.
Of course slashdot is obviously the last place to ask such a question, because all you get is tons of people ranting about how evil DRM is. Well, so is war, famine, and pestilence.
So, rant aside, I believe the issue is that the DRM in question is proprietary, and won't be available on linux until someone cracks it, like CSS.
Re:drm rant (Score:3, Interesting)
And how long do you think it'll take the content distributors to figure this out and make it so?
Even if it was only 3 or 4 big media companies who got together on it, that would be a large majority of the content only available in DRM "enhanced" format.
The masses will grumble about having to upgrade their DVD/CD players, but the producers will subsidize that (" trade in your old machine and get a brand new one for only $20..") and it's a done deal.
The riteous indignation that we see here representsonly a small percentage of the population. There's lots of 'sheep' out there who will buy whatever they are told to buy, and won't question it.