Commerce Dep't to Hold Public Workshop on DRM 139
ttyp writes: "The United States Department of Commerce Technology Administration (TA) announced a public workshop on digital entertainment and rights management. They're taking public comments here according to the announcement, but they sure have hidden it well. Can anybody find the form? The deadline is July 11!!"
From the document (Score:5, Insightful)
"Topics to be addressed at the workshop include:
[rtrif] The effectiveness of efforts to pursue technical standards or solutions that are designed to provide a more predictable and secure environment for digital transmission of copyright material;"
Let's see, so far the efforts that content providers have created to secure content include:
Macrovision - prevents authorized and unauthorized copying of video content, also adds signal detioration--status: hardware cracks exist, may be negated by content providers abandoning it due to its inability to do anything of value
CSS - DVD's digital protection--status: cracked by Norwegian linux users
SDMI - Watermaking/digital music protection--status: cracked by a professor, stalled in deployment by its creators
'secure' cds - prevents pcs from ripping cds, causes macs to expolode--status: cracked, felt tip marker
[rtrif] Major obstacles facing an open commercial exchange of digital content;
The industry itself seems to be the major obstacle.
[rtrif] What a future framework for success might entail;
A lessening of the current insane and ridicuously long copyright laws in the United States; abolition of the music industry in its current form
Or, value added content, or value priced content using a working protection scheme
[rtrif] Current consumer attitude towards online entertainment.
Gimme, gimme, gimme.
Re:National Medal of Technology (Score:2, Insightful)
The rest of the world (businessmen, congressmen, your manager, your neighbor Joe) all see a successful, huge company, the richest man in the world, and products that have shiny boxes.
Completely Unnecessary (Score:5, Insightful)
Great. Once again our "elected" officials are fellating the monied interests and giving them exactly what they want, regardless of whether or not it's actually necessary. And I can think of few things less necessary that government-mandated copy protection.
I can't begin to describe how infuriating it is to sit and watch this happen. Every time there's an "open" discussion of the issues surrounding digital copying. there is always an unstated assumption that it is something that must be stopped/controlled/regulated/quashed, and how best that can be accomplished. The very idea that, "The Sky Is Not, In Fact, Falling," is never brought up.
Let us be clear: Everyone agrees that artists should be rewarded for their good work. The dissent centers around whether copyright is any longer the best way to provide that reward. I contend that it isn't. First off, it doesn't scale. When there are only a handful of people with a printing press, it is reasonable to expect them to be cognizant of each other's "property" and avoid infringement. However, every computer is the equivalent of a printing press. With hundreds of millions of presses out there, all turning out copyrighted works (by the Berne Convention, everything is copyrighted upon creation), it is mathematically impossible to be aware of and avoid infringement of every other article.
Second, these legislative initiatives are being pushed because the respective industries claim to be losing money to unsanctioned copying (incorrectly referred to as "piracy"). However, these figures are complete fabrications, since they are attempts to measure events that never happened. No independent study of the effects of unsanctioned copying has ever been done. Heck, the industry's own claims have never been subjected to even the most rudimentary critical analysis. And yet these "reports" are being taken as gospel. The story is being repeated so many times, people are starting to believe it's true.
Third, the idea that solution is to "clamp down" is, at best, extremely suspect. Consider the dawn of the automobile, when society had known nothing but the horse and buggy. Automobiles were loud, smelly, and moved far more quickly than their organic counterparts. It is easy to see how the initial reaction would be to "clamp down" on automobiles: To pass laws prohibiting them from travelling faster than 30 miles/hour (somewhat below the top speed of a horse); to mandate that engines have governors to physically prevent them from going faster than 30 MPH; to require radio tamper switches to report if anyone attempts to defeat the governor; and to authorize and provide for police on every street corner to monitor the speed of automobiles, and incarcerate anyone caught exceeding the established limit. Though some would claim it impossible, you could, in fact, incur the financial and social costs and make such a system work.
One of those solutions is much less costly and much less destructive to the social fabric we've struggled to create and grown to enjoy.
We now find ourselves at a similar crossroads, where a new technology is upsetting the old order. "Solutions" are being discussed. And the idea of raising the speed limit is being assiduously kept off the agenda. One is forced to wonder why.
Schwab
DRM vs. Free Society (Score:4, Insightful)
I believe that it is fundamental aspect of a free society that people can break laws as they see fit and suffer the consequences. After all, this is one of the few remaining options for ordinary people to overturn "bad" laws. Wherever our ability to break the law is removed we will have transfered absolute, nearly unaccountable power to the people and organizations who write the laws. This is particularly disturbing when the people behind such schemes are not even elected, ie: Microsoft and Palladium.
Most slashdot readers probably understand the importance of this principle to democracy, but I wonder how many lawmakers do. We should bring this to their attention, because although we will likely win the war over DRM, there will be numerous other techologies of a similiar nature appearing on the horizon shortly.
Read The Notice of Public Workshop FIRST! (Score:4, Insightful)
Strictly speaking, the primary goal of both is to substantially change some fundamental underpinnings of how data is transferred from point A to point B and perhaps back. The problem (as has been discussed to death here on
Many of us are a bit paranoid about it as well we should be. The term "Digital Revolution" may even conjure up a new meaning for a few of us if this keeps up. Please comment in person, in writing, or via email to anybody and everybody you can concerning this because OUR GOVERNMENT HAS SOLD US OUT! It's as simple as that. They even put it in writing. It's a done deal and anyone who thinks differently should really look at what's been happening.
Same old story. It's been gathering steam for quite a while and now it may be rolling too fast to stop.
Secure, Broadband, Economy? Hmmm, sort of sounds like something my t.v. cable company should be scheming with, not the Feds and certainly not in collusion with what they blatantly refer to as the major stakeholders. I don't want to say too much here as it may get misconstrued as a threat to national security (chuckle...), but this is utter bullshit. In theory, you can get your voice heard if you contact your Government representative. Beyond that this may require a MOVEMENT, a SIT-IN, a DEMONSTRATION, or something perhaps even more substantial.
IMHO, we will all see the internet become a place where even the most trivial activity will eventually be monitored, archived, and we will all be operating under an OS with the Federal seal of approval. This is not a good thing.
I specifically said we will all see this happen as it will not take too long in the making if nothing is done to put it in check.
I'm Mad As Hell and I'm Not Going To Take It Anymore!
Re:My Vote.. (Score:3, Insightful)
CD Recordable became popular because it was almost universaly interchangable. Sony MD is much less useful as they have a Data format and a Audio format that is not interchangable. I also voted against this format. I went CDRW in a CD/MP3 player instead. It was worth the wait. CD'r has left Sony MD's in the dust. Compact Flash can do the same thing to the SD card. Be sure to vote!
Re:That's the big issue, isn't it? (Score:3, Insightful)
In a perfect world, we'd just send artists money directly. All sorts. Musicians, authors, actors, CowboyNeal..
I can't offer a perfect world, but I've repeatedly offered a way of sending money directly to artists. www.radsfans.net [radsfans.net] is an example and I suspect others will pop up soon.
If you look at the typical online tip (of whatever sort) you might get as a musician compared to what you'd end up with from a RIAA-member-pressed CD being sold, this might make financial sense. I wish I had a huge, silly dot com budget to promote the idea all over college campuses, but I don't, and the idea of paying for something -- even voluntarily, for something you like -- isn't as appealing as "free" (as in beer).
If anyone wants to try e-gold, send me an acct.# and I will click you a bit of it (not much, though). Hopefully, you'll find it useful. Perhaps the idea of musicians online getting tips right now will also help "our side" in the broader "DRM" issue, too. I hope so.
JMR
I speak only for Jim Ray, userid notwithstanding.
Re:Here's The Comment I Just Sent (Score:5, Insightful)
That goal cannot be achieved technically for the same reason that DRM cannot be achieved technically. Information is policy neutral, the only means of attaching a policy to information is through secure hardware which does not exist in mass producable form (as the advocates of the Clipper chip discovered).
I have not yet written a submission, if I do it will probably be on the following lines:
At present DRM technologies are subject to a technical equivalent of Gresham's law, the bad schemes drive out the good. Nobody has a scheme that can provide for perfect security.
The real purpose of the DVD zone scheme is to allow artificial price differentials between markets to be preserved. While this is repeatedly denied these denials are not credible.
Re:My Vote.. (Score:3, Insightful)
You missed the point. The new stuff is a downgrade, not an upgrade. It's memory. For more than the price of a 128 MEG compact flash card, I can get a slower more expensive 64 MEG SD card. In a pinch I can't use the card in my camera because it's a diffrent format. Use the faster cheaper more flexible and compatible format in your product and you have a much better chance of selling me your product. The SD format is not making faster higher capacity memory cards. They are making slower cards at a higher price that do not support all common file formats and will not work in my USB card reader/writer. (which supports 3 of the six formats) In short it cost more, does less, works slower, and is not interchangable. Show me an upgrade in that. If you think that is an upgrade, I will love to sell you my external floppy drive from my old tandy M100. It's single sided, with 2 sectors per track. It will not work with 1.4 meg floppies. If interested in this secure storage solution, drop me a line. Buying a card that will not store an MP3 or JPEG but encodes it into something else is not useful for me. Check out the reviews of the 20 Gig Nomad MP3 Jukebox. Check out it's number one complaint. It takes way too long to upload MP3's into it because it supports DRM and changes the file format. Now if it would just be a USB data drive to the PC without the DRM junk, they could sell a bunch of them because they would be more useful and would be much faster. By not supporting odball formats at higher prices is to encourage manufactures to drop the pricey hard to sell stuff for faster more featured stuff at better prices. Think about it, would you like to upload your data using a common USB card reader/writer, or would you like to have to upload the stuff at 19.2K baud. Think about it next time you download your digital camera. (You have tried to download a RS 232 serial megapixel camera haven't you? I upgraded and gave my old camera away for free. No more 20 minute downloads per 8 MEG for me. Don't even consider a 64 Meg transfer in a slow serial format!)
Don't consider using anything with less capacity and slower speeds at higher prices.
That is why I am not considering those models of GPS. It uses a format I refuse to support for the reasons listed. May the format die a quick death. The sooner it dies, the sooner we can get faster higher capacity compact flash at cheaper prices. There is economy in scale. Fracturing the memory market into 6+ formats makes all the specialty items expensive. I want far away from the market fragmentation.