Is DRM Intrinsically Distasteful? 631
jelton writes "If digital media was available for sale at a reasonable price, but subject to a DRM scheme that allowed full legitimate usage (format shifting, time shifting, playback on different devices, etc.) and only blocked illicit usage (illegal copying), would you support the usage of such a DRM scheme? Especially if it meant a wealth of readily available compatible devices? In other words, if you object to DRM schemes, is your objection based on principled or practical concerns?"
Again with the car analogies (Score:3, Informative)
There might be an upside to any one of those restrictions (in carjackings, for example, or police chases). But what about the problems such restrictions cause? Injured/cardiac arrest/stroke and in your car? Can't rush yourself to the hospital if you're limited to the maximum posted limit? Neither could someone else necessarily drive you.
Captcha: 'paralyze'. How appropriate to the subject matter...
Re:And defeated by changing the date. (Score:5, Informative)
Um, that's exactly what they're doing.
It's called, in that lovely NewSpeak way, a "secure clock," and it runs independently of the time-of-day clock that you're allowed to set. The "secure clock" is updated only by (more NewSpeak) "trusted" system components, and is used by defective (nee "protected") media to enforce expiration dates.
You really don't want to look deeper into this Sausage Factory -- it's revolting on more levels than you can possibly imagine.
Schwab
Re:a fantastic analogy (Score:4, Informative)
Oh, please. In the US, there are untold millions of firearms in private posession. Only a miniscule fraction of those are every use to do "something bad," and most of those are used by someone who stole it or has it illegally. As a ratio, many more people do "something bad" in their disregard for the copyrights of the artists that they claim to respect. We have untold millions of people who've ripped off their entertainment - and that's a significantly different scenario. Incidentally: if you "do something bad" with a gun, it's likely off to jail with you. If you do it frequently or badly enough, it's a lifetime there, or the end of your life. You certainly don't get to go legally owning another one once you've done your felony time.
Not really a good analogy, and not at all fantastic. The firearms industry is one of the most heavily regulated in the country. Manufacturers, dealers, repair shops, owners, shippers, airlines - they all have a myriad of laws, regs, and practices they must follow to stay legal. I'm guessing that's not part of you world, or you'd know that.
Re:a fantastic analogy (Score:1, Informative)
Just so's ya know.. (Score:2, Informative)
Unless you personally know 60 million people.
Re:No, any DRM scheme is wrong (Score:3, Informative)
First, the why: US Copyright Law was heavily architected and influenced by a couple notable figures. The first librarian and an influential publisher of (pirated) books, Benjamin Franklin. The exemplar of libertarian "smallest government intrusion possible" politics, Thomas Jefferson. They both felt that it was the government's responsibility to encourage the sharing of inventions and expressions, not discourage it, but recognized that the best way to entice an author out of their mousehole was to give them some minor form of protection.
Second, the how: US Copyright Law has enshrined a system of "common sense" provisions instead of a set of crisp delineations. A specific codification of allowed and disallowed behaviors is exactly why the Bill of Rights was so controversial at the time: it seems to be listing the few things you can DO, instead of the few things the government could impose. Copyright Law is instead written such that there are several vague categories of defense (called the Fair Use defenses), and it's not a set of rules written such that any technology could possibly solve with 100% True Positive and 0% False Positive success. It takes thinking, and communication, and trust, and social contracts as well as legal contracts, to decide if a work infringes or does not infringe. And all this is by design.
You're Wrong About Vista's Audio Lockdown (Score:1, Informative)
Vista works great right now with unsigned unprotected 24bit 192khz multichannel audio files.
Vista HAS to provide a method for protecting audio/video content or we will not see PC DVR's, HD content on PC's etc...
I don't like DRM either but don't spread around the FUD paste please!
Re:Both. (Score:2, Informative)
Probably half of us could not, even if allowed hours to root through our attic for dusty old equipment.
5 1/4", yes, 3 1/2", yes.
Both drives are still mounted, and yes, they both work.
However... 5 1/2".... I am not really sure what that is.... You sure 50% of us are supposed to have that?
The question is inadequate (Score:2, Informative)
Remember the cassette tapes? Copying them was a loss of quality...and then the pirates got really good tape decks, and made more. When it came to 8-tracks, trying to keep all the recorders off the market found that these machines, too, were found on the black market. Then CDs. Most of you are young enough to remember all the attempts to make DVDs only work one way, and only from the original.
This is paralleled by the floppy market where a certain sector is damaged (and, in theory un-copyable) to keep people from making illegal copies. Pirates made copies.
Now we're told that all this money is being invested in making motherboards that won't play video without a decoder in the screen...won't output unless there's a decoder in the speakers...and when we buy music, two months later it disappears in a puff of logic, so we'll buy more. I don't cotton to that new world, with a live, grabbing hand in my pocket all day. It's a primary reason I run Linux, after all.
What the music barons need to do is find someone to sell-out to. Just get out of the market- they're not needed anymore, and there's no chance they're going to make billions-per-year on the backs of artists who have to take day jobs.
And don't get me started on how they've destroyed the music; Disco lasted (arguably) four years...for some reason, that was too much. However, Rap starts it's 16th year soon, and that's just not quite enough! No chance of a blind artist (Stevie Wonder, Ray Charles), or ecclectic artists like we had before- the barons feel the need for money, and won't dare risking a single dollar on anything that might rock the boat.
No encryption is permanent. People have GOT to stop telling them different. It's time, like the carpetbaggers, the lamplighters, and the foremen in the buggywhip factory, it's time for them to get other jobs. What they're doing to the music industry is just plain wrong.
Instead, *people* should make the music; "producing" is pretty much some time with Audacity and burning a CD. Venues have opened up for these people in the places the music is played; bars, dances, that kinda thing. When a band has recognition....on it's on merits...it will grow. And they'll get a large share of the box-office when they play in person. That's already happening now, in larger towns.
The music business is one with a bright future behind it. But it's days of free-flowing profits is coming to a middle....and they should continue to the end, without losing their shirts. Cause nothing else is gonna change.