3G phones: Send Anywhere, But Not Anything 134
glengyron writes "The Sydney Morning Herald is reporting the success of an Australian company in developing Digital Rights Management for the next generation of mobile phones. Imagine if you could only forward email once, or not at all: these are the kind of restrictions being built into the next generaion of mobile phones. Read the article here. ODRL? Orwellian Digital Rights Language."
yawn, information wants to be free . (Score:2, Insightful)
yeah australia is one of the big players in the... (Score:2, Insightful)
imagine (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't have to imagine it -- I've used Lotus Notes. They've had that feature at least 2 versions ~6 years. It's an important feature in the corporate world. get over it.
Re:imagine (Score:2, Insightful)
I mind a company cutting out ablities of a product and calling THAT a feature.
GET THE NAME RIGHT! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This could be a Good Thing (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:This could be a Good Thing (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree. But they could also be abused and, honestly, do _WE_ really need them?
This is one scenario where laws and DRM are not needed. If you send a snapshot to a friend and ask them not to forward it to anyone and they do it anyway...that's not a bloody friend and you would be wise to avoid sending them anything sensitive again.
In a perfect world, I'd be thrilled to agree. But in the world I live in, large bodies of people whose job it is to make money have a nasty habit of adopting an "embrace and extend" attitude towards technologies that could potentially benefit most of us. Maybe I'm overly cynical or paranoid or maybe I just read
I hope I didn't come off sarcastic because I don't mean to be. You make a great argument for the legitimacy of this technology and I agree with it. I just worry about the potential vectors for abuse by those who don't have the best interests of their customers in mind.
--K.
Re:Take it a step further (Score:1, Insightful)
-Is just a phone, with no games, web access (peh), text messaging or 16.3 million ring tones.
-Has a nice big display that is not bright blue.
-Is small, but still large enough for me to know it's in my pocket.
-Has a menu system that makes any sense (the Audiovox 8100 is a good example of BAD).
-Comes with a plug-in charger and not a desktop annoyance.
Re:Disney has something to teach RIAA (Score:4, Insightful)
Not only with timely manner, but also with an affordable price. That's the most important part for the music industry to learn.
What a phone is designed and good for (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hello...? (Score:4, Insightful)
The important distinction between what is legal and what is possible... As a musician, I can undertand the appeal of a DRM language that would allow me to specify, for instance, that a recording can be forwarded arbitrarily, but only listened to once at each site.
As an engineer, I understand that methods for enforcing this kind of contract are either overly intrusive or ineffective. Suggestions are welcome, except from the "we-listen-and-decide-how-much-it's-worth" crowd, since this crowd seems to decide - conveniently enough - that a recording is worth listening to only if it's free (the whole "I-wouldn't-buy-the-album-anyways" argument).
I am intentionally playing devil's advocate here. Please offer me reassurance that the honor system can work in cyberspace, as it does at (for instance) traffic lights...
Does this mean they can... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:This could be a Good Thing (Score:4, Insightful)
Ok, lets take one instance (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I can see it now... (Score:2, Insightful)
What DRM wants to do is protect people who make their living creating content ( like music and images ) and allow them to make a living at what they do. If they choose to open up the content to the world, then that should be their choice.
The challenge to telco's and content creators is to price this stuff and facilitate the distribution of the content so that you WANT to share it and you don't feel fiscally raped every time you do want to share it.
Re:proper definition of "DRM" (Score:3, Insightful)
The rest of the world refers to DRM as Digital Rights Management. Spending your energy to try and get people to assign a different meaning is like trying to get people to use words like "womyn" and "freedom fries". It's wasted energy