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The Day Against DRM
Posted by
kdawson
on Tue Oct 03, 2006 04:17 PM
from the you-have-nothing-to-lose-but-your-chains dept.
from the you-have-nothing-to-lose-but-your-chains dept.
Qubit writes, "DefectiveByDesign.org, a campaign by the Free Software Foundation, is making Oct 3rd a Day Against DRM: 'Defeating DRM is all about awareness. The direct actions that we have taken are all about this. Today we are asking you to let the people around you know that DRM is bad for our society. Let's create space for the debate. Do we want handcuffs and locks on art and knowledge? As our friends at Disney recognize, if there is this debate, we will have won.'" Bayboy adds an article from eWeek mentioning that members of DefectiveByDesign.org are going to descend on flagship Apple stores in New York and London to protest the company's embrace of DRM. And Another AC writes, "In honor of the Day Against DRM, DreamHost has released a new service called Files Forever (for Dreamhost customers only during beta) This seems to be basically an iTunes Music Store that anybody can sell any sort of files through... as long as they have no DRM. Dreamhost handles all the payment processing and stores the file forever, offering unlimited re-downloads to end users who buy files through the service. When somebody buys a file they're even allowed to 'loan' it to others for free!"
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pr0n (Score:5, Funny)
As a master debater, I can say that I do enjoy handcuffs and locks on at least *some* of the art. That is, if you call pr0n "art".
Re:pr0n (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:pr0n (Score:5, Funny)
To (probably mis-) quote Dr. Cox (Scrubs), "If you got rid of all the porn on the Internet, there'd probably only be one site left and I'm pretty sure it would be called 'Bring back the porn'".
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Thanks, but I kicked myself after hitting "Submit" as I forgot the best part of any Dr. Cox quote: "Look Newbie..."
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>
>That depends a good deal on what you call prOn.
I may not know art when I see it, but I know what I like!
Very useful... (Score:2, Insightful)
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Over the span of the day today, they have completely revamped their site, added new services, and bolstered existing plans (birthday celebration).
The service itself (Files Forever) looks to be a VERY interesting service, which if it works as planned - is bound to garner a lot of interest and hopefully popularity.
As you can tell from my sig, I'm a big fan of DreamHost. This is just one of many things
october 3rd (Score:2, Informative)
Great... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Too late. (Score:2, Informative)
Why Apple? (Score:5, Insightful)
My guess, it's all about location and convenience, rather than actually going after some of the really bad DRM offenders. Apple just happens to be the one unfortunate enough to have stores that are visually appealing and easily recognizable to consumers.
The intentions here may be good, but the execution is nearly at hypocritical levels.
Re:Why Apple? (Score:5, Insightful)
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As someone at one of the big companies (Universal?) said, "once consumers know about DRM, w
Re:Why Apple? (Score:4, Insightful)
Interesting counter-argument, but in doing so, they are implying that the worst offender is also the most popular one. So, while public is busy watching these guys go after Apple, who's watching what's going on with Microsoft or Sony? Anything that takes the spotlight away from the really bad offenders only helps them accomplish their goals more covertly.
By making Apple the sole poster-boy of DRM, the "Day against DRM" is not really changing anything. People everywhere are still going to buy their DRM infected media from other sources without another thought. And come November 17th, people will still line the streets for the Sony PS3, blissfully unaware of the DRM nastiness hidden inside, just as long as they get their instant gratification out of the brief "cool factor" period.
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I hones
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There's a very good reason for this.
How many people own iPods? How many people have used the iTunes music store? Lots. Even people who don't have iPods know what they are, and lots are probably planning to buy one.
Now, how many people have Sony music players with Sony's DRM? Anyone? Anyone? Offhand, I couldn't even
The only way is through economics. (Score:5, Insightful)
There is a very good possibility that in the near future, people will start changing their music players, like the new MS Zune. When this happens on a mass scale, and people have to re-buy their music, there will be a huge number of pissed off people, and people will finally realize why DRM is bad. Until something threatens people's wallets, no one's going to care.
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What I'm saying is that people are used to buying CDs once, and using it in whatever way they like. With CD's, you don't re-buy the music, unless you're being careless and damage the CD. When they realize the artificial restrictions on DRM'ed files, I would hope that people will get angry and just stop buying DRM'ed products
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> When this happens on a mass scale, and people have to re-buy their music, there will be a huge number of pissed off people, and people will finally realize why DRM is bad.
Excellent point.
Ideally, then, we would end up with dozens of incompatible DRM schemes in the marketplace, overwhelming the public with obstacles and confusion.
Thus, each time a new and incompatible DRM scheme is introduced, it will help to cause the collapse of all of them.
Here's a case where the failure of the industry to converge o
I'm not all that impressed.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Until Apple did this and proved the business model was really viable, the only other real visible options for people were illegal downloads of MP3s (of sometimes dubious encoding quality) from p2p networks like Napster.
It seems obvious to me that somewhere in the development process, Apple did some bargaining for rights of the end-users of the music
Microsoft's "Fairplay" DRM and its upcoming use in devices like the Zune seem like a much more worthy target of attack. Fairplay is used by practically all the music services BUT Apple - and is getting more and more restrictive in every update to Windows Media Player that's released. Unlike Apple, MS seems to think it's ok to keep "turning the screws" to lock it down beyond what early adopters were told the rules were.
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You know it's possible, just possible, that Apple could not love their DRM, but also not love laws being placed on them that would force them to adhere to someone else's particular standards of interoperability. In fact, I could imagine reasons why Apple could dislike DRM but also, once saddled with the responsibility, also not wish to support it on non-Apple stores and non-Apple devices.
Consider this: I'd bet that if someone else tried to program an alternate iTMS interface (besides iTunes), Apple would
burn them (Score:2)
Would some one please explain... (Score:5, Interesting)
Would some one please explain what exactly it wrong with DRM? If you have a problem with concept of copyrights in general, then I can understand. But is there anyone out there that is cool with copyrights, but thinks DRM is bad?
I'm not trying to be an apologist for the corporations. I know they don't care about the art or the artist, only money. That's given. But do they not have a right to protect their intellectual property? Are the detractors of DRM against the concept of intellectual property altogether?
The way I see it is there is nothing wrong with the concept of DRM, only with the abuse of DRM. Is this a "slippery slope" argument?
I'm serious in my plea here. Someone please fill me in on what I am missing!
Re:Would some one please explain... (Score:4, Interesting)
The trouble is, for even daring to suggest that DRM has its place, and that file sharing copyrighted material is illegal, you can expect to be criticised, insulted, and generally modded down to oblivion. Thats the current slashdot philosophy. All companies are evil (unless they are somehow connected to linux), everyone who is caught coopying files illegally is absolutely 100% innocent, and anyone who disagrees is some evil, stupid luddite.
Welcome to slashdot. Not a friendly place for the creators of digital content.
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I guess people like you dont think that JRR tolkein deserved a single penny for writing his books? you think that Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, iain Banks, George Lucas, gene roddenberry, all these people should have become plumbers instead. increasingly, everything that we create is becoming reproduceable in digital form. You seem to think that nobody that creates anything that can be digital work should be paid. how quaint.
I guess you dont understand the concept of fixed and marginal costs, or bas
Re:Would some one please explain... (Score:5, Insightful)
care less about drm on music since the most I do is listen to the radio. The issue is that people only want fair
use of the product they bought. They want to be able to play it a unlimited amount of times in the device of their
choosing. Say for instance I want to listen to some tunes and I can only get it in MS DRM protected files which don't work in my car stereo or on my linux machine, you see now we got a problem.
You cannot technically DRM protect content in a way which will allow legal fair use for the purchaser of the product.....period.
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This is probably true, but the example you gave is not a good one. Being able to play content on multiple different players is not fair use. See for example:
http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use _Overview/chapter9/9-a.html [stanford.edu]
"In its most general sense, a fair use is any copying of copyrighted material done for a limited and 'transformative' purpose such as to comment upo
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No, it isn't! The copyright owner does not in general have any say over how you use the work. That includes playing it on any player you want to. No, they don't get a say in that. Yes, you can have more fun with the copyrighted work than the owner wanted to allow you. That isn't "fair use", i
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use [wikipedia.org]
http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html [copyright.gov]
Fair use gives you some rights over copyrighted material even if the author does not want you to have it. DRM prevents you from exercising your legal rights.
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And it can't be. That's the whole point of fair use: it protects uses that are fair, given the circumstances involved. It is impossible to say that making backup copies, for example, is a fair use. In some circumstances it might be. In others, it might not be. A court is capable of looking at the facts and making a decision. And other courts might disagree given the same facts, it's such an infamously nebulous concept. This is routine. But no DRM
Re:Would some one please explain... (Score:5, Informative)
Here's the problem: copyrights are a limited monopoly offered by the government as one half of a bargain with creators. The other half of the bargain lies in the creator's agreement that the protected content will become available to the public domain when the copyright term expires.
DRM allows publishers to evade their half of the copyright bargain. In particular, the DMCA anti-circumvention law in the US is unconstitutional because it does not require publishers to disable their DRM protection, or arrange for it to disable itself, upon the expiration of copyright protection. That means that the DMCA explicitly sanctions perpetual copyright protection... a clear violation of both the letter and intent of the Constitution's clause that authorizes that protection in the first place. With a combination of traditional copyright law and hypothetical DRM technology that remains unbreakable after copyright expiration, a publisher will enjoy an unlimited monopoly at the public's expense.
But do they not have a right to protect their intellectual property? Are the detractors of DRM against the concept of intellectual property altogether?
Some are against the whole concept of IP, but not being an ideologue, I can't speak for them. I do, however, believe that publishers and creators should have to choose between self-enforced protection (DRM) and government-enforced protection (copyright law). They should not be able to leverage both at the same time, because the two legal concepts of DRM and the "copyright bargain" are diametrically opposed to each other.
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But you forget: copyrights are limited in scope. For example, it is not an infringement of copyright to rent a DVD you own to someone else. If DRM interferes with this, it's no different than DRM interfering with something that wouldn't infringe copyright simply because the copyright has expired. The main limitation we're concerned with is fair use, because literally any use, under the right circumstances, is a fair one. (And conversely, n
Re:Would some one please explain... (Score:5, Interesting)
In practice, DRM implementations usually make it difficult to play/view/... the content, except with proprietary and secret tools, while doing nothing to stop copying the content without authorization (unlawful use). To play/view/... the content, you are usually required to use proprietary and secret tools (locking you into using some vendor's products), and reverse-engineering the format (e.g. to create a player for a platform not supported by the official player) is a criminal offense. Also, DRM implementations sometimes involve yielding control of (part of) your computer to another organization, sometimes going as far as allowing said organization to cause your hardware to self-destruct (e.g. Blu-ray players).
The fundamental problem of DRM is that "trying to make bits uncopyable is like trying to make water not wet." When you have a song/movie/ebook/... in a file on your computer, or even when you can only access it by streaming it from the Net, you can make copies of it, burn it on CDs, give it to your friends, etc. The only way you can be prevented from doing so is by taking your control of your computer away from you. Alternatively, vendors could let you copy the files at will, but restrict access to the actual content (e.g. through encryption). However, once your computer has enough data to decrypt the content once, you could save that data, share it with your friends, etc. Again, the only way you can be prevented from doing this is by taking away your control over your computer.
It's absolutely out of the question that DRM could go together with open source software. OSS means that you're allowed read and modify the source code to the software. This makes it very easy for you to find the DRM code and change it, so that restrictions are not enforced. It would make DRM trivial to break, defeating its purpose. Sure, it's illegal (under the DMCA/EUCD/...), but so are speeding and copying works that you don't hold the copyright to; that doesn't prevent these things from happening.
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Re:Would some one please explain... (Score:5, Insightful)
(1) DRM never expires. Ideally, copyright is a legal device used to enrich society, to encourage artists to create works based on the understanding that they will be able to profit from said works for a limited amount of time. After this time period expires, the creative works get released into the public domain. Unfortunately, DRM'd files don't do this- the music you bought on iTunes in 2003 will still be restricted in 3003.
(2) DRM will never work correctly without overly restrictive government controls. For example, let's assume that "Brand New Hyper DVD" format is completely uncrackable- the disks can never, EVER be decrypted and copied digitally. So what? Take your camcorder, aim it at the screen, and press record. Voila! Brand new copy without DRM. The only way to stop this would be to force all electronics manufacturers to include complicated measures to insure that they can't be used in this manner- but as we all know the next "DVD Jon" would show up in less than 2 days and crack these measures. The only way to fight this from a corporate/government standpoint would be to force all electronics capable of being used in this kind of pirating scheme to "phone home" on a regular basis to update their DRM software, and to BAN all older electronics without this "feature". See where this is going? Do you want to live in this society?
(3) DRM effectively turns your computer into a police snitch, working AGAINST you rather than for you. Just look at the Sony rootkit fiasco for an obvious example, or read up on the DMCA or broadcast flags or... you get the point.
(4) DRM adds an extra degree of complexity to playback, which constitutes another failure mode. A computer crash can often reduce a DRM'd music library to binary junk unless the user has been meticulous enough to save the mountain of data necessary to identify his/her computer as "the authorized playback device" of said music. Want to switch to a different computer, or swap out some hardware? Good luck- this will probably be interpreted as a "new computer" and your music won't play. Want to play your music on another device like your car stereo or your portable music player? You'd better hope the music vendor was "gracious" enough to bless you with that kind of "privilege".
(5) My fears of a world where DRM has taken over can best be summed up by the following short story. [gnu.org] I'm TERRIFIED that this is exactly the type of world we will wake up to in, say, 2020 if things keep going the way they are...
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Re:Would some one please explain... (Score:5, Informative)
I love copyright. I disagree with some of the details of implementation (In my dream world copyright would last 14 years with an optional 14 year renewal), but I love the core idea. A government granted short term monopoly seems like a good way to encourage creation.
However, I loathe DRM. A few highlights:
DRM makes media players more expensive: Adding DRM support to hardware or software isn't free. Implementating a device without DRM support would be cheaper that implementing one with. You, the consumer, pay more for a device that intentionally does less.
DRM must be combined with draconian laws to be effective: "Trying to make bits uncopyable is like trying to make water not wet." (Bruce Schneier) You've given me the data and the software or hardware to play the data. All the pieces are in my hands. DRM must be breakable. So to make it effective, you need laws that make it illegal to distribute implementations that break DRM. This means source code that breaks DRM must be illegal. As source code is a form of speech, we have laws that try to limit free speech to protect a business model. That's never acceptable in my book.
DRM is about making things you purchase distrust you: This is inherent to the system. This is morally repugnant. Your DVD player assumes you're trying to make bootleg copies, so it applies MacroVision to the output. The new video game you installed assumes you're trying to play a bootleg copy, so it installs low-level drivers into your system to monitor what you do. I paid money for these things, why do they serve an external company more than me?
DRM must infringe on fair use: The only DRM system that doesn't infringe on fair use is Microsoft's "Please don't make illegal copies" label printed on the CDs of some of their products. Fair use is subtle and non-obvious, no piece of electronics or software can be perfectly correct. If you err on the side of freedom, you are also creating a loophole for illegal use. You can either give people the ability to legally sample short segements of high definition video for review purposes or you can make it harder to make bootleg copies. You can give people the ability to legally format shift movies and music or you can make it harder to spread copies online.
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In other news... (Score:2)
Hundred's of people called "Adam" have apparently been drowned by having their heads plunged into water coolers in offices around Australia.
Detective Ron Steele mentioned:
"It's either an incredible statistical anomaly, or we have a even more incredibly prolific serial attacker in our midst!".
The killer left no clues, except this, the only connecting factor in this attack has been this sign [defectivebydesign.org], carefully placed by each water cool
DMCA, not DRM is the problem (Score:5, Insightful)
There are those who claim that DRM cannot work without legislation, but I don't think that's completely true. Yes, for music and video content you can work around DRM, but it is often difficult and the quality of the result may be inferior. And for games and software, DRM can work in theory. The new proposals for Trusted Computing could also strengthen DRM without requiring legislation.
We should work to oppose this kind of legislation as it expands into more countries, and eventually work to roll it back in the places where it has been passed. Perhaps more technically effective DRM will make it easier to remove the legislative crutch.
Civil disobedience (Score:3, Insightful)
we should have a day against DMCA, not a day against DRM.
There's an even bigger problem with people blindly obeying silly laws without questioning their legitimacy. In most parts of the world, people simply ignore crappy laws they don't deem just. Yes, they get thrown in jails by those in power every now and then; but it's rather rare, because effectively, you can't jail 20% or more of the population: who would pay taxes then? In a democracy, civil disobedience shouldn't be needed; but do we really stil
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Same reasons you'd buy a book (Score:5, Interesting)
Same reasons you'd buy a book, rather than scan one you borrowed from the library:
- You want a non-infringing copy. (You CAN still be sued for copying outside fair use, you know.)
- You want to reward the creator and distribution channel (either out of principle or to promote creation of more stuff you like).
- It's convenient.
Content producers in a number of media have experimented with copy inhibition technologies and generally found them unnecessary and often counter-productive to good business results. Why should music be different?
(The current rash of "piracy" is, IMHO, primarily a reaction to broken distribution and pricing policies, and recording companies will do a lot better once {if?} they get over it.)
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What is your point? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're trying to assert that most people would pirate music rather than paying for it, unless they physically prevented from doing so by their own property, then you are wrong. Contrary to the RIAA's twisted statistics, piracy is not decreasing sales. At the peak of napster's popularity sales at the register were rising, not falling. The falling numbers the RIAA liked to quote were wholesale numbers. This can be traced to the stores streamlining their inventory and stocking systems as a result of the internet. At that time, music stores near colleges did have falling sales, but so did book stores near colleges, and both correlate strongly to increases in internet sales of the same item. Subsequently, the decrease in sales that have been seen, are largely in the "oldies" adult market - and yet if you look at the statistics for what types of music is being pirated, it is clear piracy is not to blame for that. The threat of piracy is overblown, and unsubstantiated.
So no, most people are not selfish assholes, just you. But hey, congratulations! It is the minority of people like you that have given the RIAA leverage to strip away the fair-use right of the rest of the people in this country, and bias the laws in favor of further consolidation of the market. You sure stuck it to The Man.
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