EFF Asks FTC To Demand 'Truth In Labeling' For DRM (techdirt.com) 122
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Techdirt: Interesting move by Cory Doctorow and the EFF in sending some letters to the FTC making a strong case that DRM requires some "truth in labeling" details in order to make sure people know what they're buying. The argument is pretty straightforward (PDF): "The legal force behind DRM makes the issue of advance notice especially pressing. It's bad enough when a product is designed to prevent its owner from engaging in lawful, legitimate, desirable conduct -- but when the owner is legally prohibited from reconfiguring the product to enable that conduct, it's vital that they be informed of this restriction before they make a purchase, so that they might make an informed decision. Though many companies sell products with DRM encumbrances, few provide notice of these encumbrances. Of those that do, fewer still enumerate the restrictions in plain, prominent language. Of the few who do so, none mention the ability of the manufacturer to change the rules of the game after the fact, by updating the DRM through non-negotiable updates that remove functionality that was present at the time of purchase." In a separate letter (PDF) from EFF, along with a number of other consumer interest groups, but also content creators like Baen Books, Humble Bundle and McSweeney's, they suggest some ways that a labeling notice might work.
classy actions (Score:5, Insightful)
We need a complaint mechanism with teeth for false representation and tortutious interference,
Re:classy actions (Score:5, Interesting)
How about making post-sale non-negotiable contract changes illegal?
And no, it is not as simple as me just getting a refund if I deny the new EULA.
I know cases where people buy new hardware of even take vacation time to play a game. If the game then is updated post-sale with a license that the person don't want to accept then he/she is still screwed.
The case is similar for business software. I you have built a sever farm with the intent of running a software with a known license it should not be acceptable for the software vendor to just who up with a new license.
An EULA that you have to click through to install that weren't available for reading at the store when you purchased the software should not be enforceable.
Re:classy actions (Score:4, Informative)
Vacations are (mostly) for enjoying yourself.
Some people go skiing, some people go mountain climbing, some people go bake their brains on a beach, some go and stare at 'art' (classic and modern) all day, some play computer games.
Who are you to judge how someone spends their time away from work?
Re: (Score:3)
These are called "incidental losses", losses you incur because the product is defective or unfit for purpose. The EULA usually says you can't claim them, but such clauses are illegal in many countries (including the UK) where the law very clearly says that you can.
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Clauses that cannot be enforced should be illegal, and punishable by law. They serve give the impression that you have less rights than you have. Most people are not lawyers, so even if they read the agreement it cannot reasonably be assumed they know which clause are not applicable. It is not reasonable that consumers seek legal advice before purchasing a DVD or a video game.
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... and tortutious interference,
"You're honor, their DRM is interfering with my torture."
"You're honor that can't be right, DRM is torture!"
"Agreed, case dismissed."
Misleading? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Own it (snicker) on DVD!"
Re:Misleading? (Score:5, Funny)
"License it for viewing, in our licensed player, by yourself, and only yourself, on DVD today, for very small values of today, and only if you're in a country we like!", doesn't really have the same ring to it.
Re:Misleading? (Score:4, Insightful)
I recently bought the boxed set of Stargate SG-1. Everything was fine until I got to Season 6, which had some copy protection that meant that about 4 minutes into each episode it would jump back to the menu. I found a bunch of documentation about the company responsible and their approach works by putting out-of-range indexes into some of the header fields in the stream. Most players simply ignore these values, but it crashed mine. I'd be very happy if almost-DVD-but-violates-the-spec-and-may-randomly-break-because-we-hate-paying-customers disks had to be labelled differently to DVDs.
Oh, and the worst part about this: the only way that I could watch Season 6 was to rip the DVDs. Great job with 'copy protection' guys!
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In the US, DVDs and Blu-Ray disks often have FBI warnings about piracy, which are displayed if and only if the disk is legitimate, since anyone ripping it and distributing unlicensed copies will remove the crap before the content.
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Makes for a good jingle though.
Re:Misleading? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think "own" means what you think it means :-). If there were no government, you would "own" something until someone with a bigger club comes around. If there is a government obeying the rule of law, you "own" something until your ownership is removed by due legal process. Expropriation is limited in scope and requires renumeration (U.S.C. 5th amendment: "Nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."), so ownership is more than a temporary lease, but it is certainly no unlimited perpetual right. Hint: there's not an awful lot of those :).
In Dutch law, ownership is defined as the maximal rights that one can enjoy on a good. Not "full" or "unrestricted" rights, but "maximal".
(and yes, if you start breaking the law, either by refusing to pay taxes or in some other way, you will find that a lot of your rights are quite relative, including ownership, freedom of movement and ultimately freedom from physical abuse)
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Libertarianism isn't anarchy, but they have this delusion that if there were no government, everybody would just get along and be happy and nobody would ever form a powerful gang and begin stealing from others... warlords don't exist to them... and they have no idea how dictatorships come about.
You REALLY are unaware of Libertarian ideas if you believe that.
Libertarians are under the delusion that an armed population, with a substantial fraction of them willing to shoot a bully or (in the case of a gang att
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Libertarians are under the delusion that an armed population, with a substantial fraction of them willing to shoot a bully or (in the case of a gang attack) take as many as possible down before one of them gets them, tends to make bullies and gangsters back down, or at least go find somebody who isn't alert enough to get his gun out in time.
The irony of that statement is that there's a technical term for a self-organized group of people working at a common cause for the (alleged) benefit of all. That term is "government".
The problem with Libertarianism is that inside every small government, there's a big government trying to get out.
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Libertarians are under the delusion that an armed population, with a substantial fraction of them willing to shoot a bully or (in the case of a gang attack) take as many as possible down before one of them gets them, tends to make bullies and gangsters back down, or at least go find somebody who isn't alert enough to get his gun out in time.
The irony of that statement is that there's a technical term for a self-organized group of people working at a common cause for the (alleged) benefit of all. That term is "government".
The problem with Libertarianism is that inside every small government, there's a big government trying to get out.
That and that for every beneign government you get 10 dictators and warlords + thousands of dead.
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Which is why we try very hard to get benign governments. That's far more important than limiting the power of the government.
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Sorry, not a native speaker... but isn't renumeration simply the nominalization of renumerate?
N before M except when it's cash (Score:2)
The difference is that M comes before N in one and after in the other. "Renumeration" is N-M, as in "NuMber". "Remuneration" is M-N, as in "MoNey".
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Heh, thanks, I guess it makes sense if it has the same root as money...
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Sorry, not a native speaker... but isn't renumeration simply the nominalization of renumerate?
He was pointing out that renumerate and remunerate are two different words. Renumerate means to re-assign numerical labels. Remunerate means to provide compensation.
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It's an easy thing to confuse. After all, we do count money!
Now if the numbers weren't all so darned small.
Except for the payables, of course.
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I don't think "own" means what you think it means :-). If there were no government, you would "own" something until someone with a bigger club comes around. If there is a government obeying the rule of law, you "own" something until your ownership is removed by due legal process. Expropriation is limited in scope and requires renumeration (U.S.C. 5th amendment: "Nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."), so ownership is more than a temporary lease, but it is certainly no unlimited perpetual right. Hint: there's not an awful lot of those :).
I'm pretty sure own doesn't mean what you think it does either.
Own implies permanency, a once off payment for a non-limited time. For limited use or possession we have specific words for them like "lease", "rent" or "hire".
A car is a prime example, when I lease a car I gain exclusive access to that car for a limited time as defined by the lease. When I own a car, I have that car for as long as I want to own it for.
For the ownership of my car to be revoked, circumstances need to be exceptional. BMW
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By defining "own" a thing that doesn't exist, you reduced the expressive power of language. That has negative utility.
In other words: even if you're right, that's a totally fuckwitted thing to do.
"Own" has meaning that is independent of whether or not you having permanently secured the asset from all possible attacks.
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Not all countries have eminent domain laws.
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"Own it (snicker) on DVD!"
Take a photo. Document the purchase.
Then hit them with a DMCA notification together with the proof of you being the owner.
Then sue them for fraud when they say that you aren't the owner.
Probably no profit since only large companies are allowed to do bullshit like that.
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I'd love to see someone sue for false advertising on that.
How big would their sales be if they read "LICENSE IT (for limited purposes) ON DVD TODAY!!!"
Relief for when a company goes out of business (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd like to see the government provide relief from DRM-related laws when a company goes out of business, drops support for a product, or when the (ever lengthening) copyright term expires. In fact, I'd like to see that in order be able to assert copyright over an encumbered work that the rights holder must have on deposit with the Library of Congress all necessary software/devices/documentation/etc. to ensure that the Library of Congress can remove the encumbrances for all US citizens when it becomes appropriate under the law (e.g., the work is abandoned or its copyright term expires). The way things are going now, we are going to end up with an entire generation of creative works which will be under a, for all practical purposes, perpetual copyright. Sure the technology will eventually advance to the point that today's DRM will be breakable like a child's toy, but the cases will still have to be fought in court. The perversion of copyright needs to be fixed properly instead of leaving it as a battle for future generations.
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The perversion of copyright needs to be fixed properly instead of leaving it as a battle for future generations.
While I completely agree with everything you stated in your post, your last sentence makes me chuckle. Even though I agree with it as well. But is there anything that the US government doesn't kick the can for future generations to have to worry about? For the most part, very few things get resolved these days before they become a major crisis. Social Security has been within 20 year of bankruptcy for decades. It keeps getting band-aid fixes and was getting a lot of lip service for a while. Heath care refor
Re:Relief for when a company goes out of business (Score:4, Insightful)
The current near-perpetual extensions of copyright isn't 'kicking the can for future generations'. It's granting virtually eternal copyright by redefining 'lifetime' in corporate terms.
And corporations have an unlimited lifetime. Yes, they do:
- If successful, they persist forever.
- If failed, they sell their property to another.
- If the purchaser fails, they repeat. Ad Infinitum.
Perhaps corporate copyright should be limited to the initial originator or purchaser, and any transfers then be limited to reasonable terms. 7-20 years. No extensions. Further sales inherit the limit.
But copyright is so broken it's criminal. Despite the problems, we have greater problems in American to solve, such as the open disdain for and circumvention of law at all levels, in every area.
Life of a corporation is 25 years (Score:2)
The current near-perpetual extensions of copyright isn't 'kicking the can for future generations'. It's granting virtually eternal copyright by redefining 'lifetime' in corporate terms.
In the U.S. copyright statute, the effective lifetime of a corporation is 25 years after a work is first published.
Prior to
Re: (Score:2)
And if the property is sold to a subsidiary?
Let's not study the usual solution for corporations of making the most minimal modification and claiming a new copyright, which is surely not supposed to happen, but the government can hardly keep up, and will grant despite no significant change.
It's a racket. All I can ask is that it be reasonable, and for a corporation 'reasonable' isn't anything like what I would like it to be. 'Fair' no longer seems to be a concept in law.
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I think you are misunderstanding. If a corporation is the author of the work, the term is a flat, fixed 25 years from date of first publishing. No trickery works to extend that. Selling it, or the rights, to a different corporation does not change the first date of publication.
But, of course no works are authored by corporations. Instead, corporations pay people to author things and transfer copyright rights to the corporation. That means that the individual terms apply to the work.
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But, of course no works are authored by corporations.
A corporation is considered the author of "a work prepared by an employee within the scope of his or her employment" (17 USC 101). This "scope of his or her employment" is for the courts to decide based on several factors [wikipedia.org], though the statute does list situations in which works commissioned by the client of a contractor are deemed made for hire: "as a contribution to a collective work, as a part of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, as a translation, as a supplementary work, as a compilation, as an
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But copyright is so broken it's criminal. Despite the problems, we have greater problems in American to solve, such as the open disdain for and circumvention of law at all levels, in every area.
The latter problem is intimately related to, and follows from, the former (and similarly broken laws). Fixing copyright law will actually help to fix the open disdain for law in general.
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I think we're largely setup for perpetual copyright anymore now that so much of the economy is based on intellectual property and it can be duplicated so easily.
I think IP owners like DRM at least as much for its eventual obsolescence as for its resistance to casual copying. They know that they can comfortably license content with DRM knowing that the distributor and/or their DRM regime will eventually go out of business or become obsolete and that all they have to do is re-license it to the next distribut
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DRM Money (Score:2, Interesting)
I want DRM'd money to spend on DRM products.
So I can control what the company is allowed to spend it on, after I give it to them in exchange for the goods/services.
The "decided after X months not to let you keep the money after all" is going to be a killer feature.
Chargebacks (Score:2)
I want DRM'd money to spend on DRM products.
That already exists. Credit card payments are subject to chargeback [creditcards.com], and PayPal payments are subject to PayPal's purchase protection policy [paypal.com]. Both give the buyer several months to report a seller who refuses to correct issues with a product that is not as described.
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Both give the buyer several months to report a seller who refuses to correct issues with a product that is not as described.
Several months? In order to be useful, the right needs to last for life + 70 years.
Not going to work... (Score:1)
.... the human mind didn't evolve to make rational decisions, especially not regarding technology. Technically any literate person would not want to license cultural works like games, the source code for videogames should theoretically be held by a library in escrow and copyright terms should never be beyond the lifetime of the game (5-10 years) so that it goes public domain. The whole of IP law is corrupt and the masses are too ignorant and illiterate to defend themselves because human mind simply doesn'
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beyond the lifetime of the game (5-10 years)
I've owned games longer than 5 years that I've never played - I'll eventually catch up. There is at least one game that is almost 20 years old that I intend to play but haven't. Unfortunately, there's still no way to give the publisher any money for that game, because the current rights-holder refuses to sell it and it's been out of print for at least 15 years. In fact, the game (The Neverhood) was a commercial failure, and they probably still haven't made back their investment. But I didn't have the mo
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As you point out however, there is often no way to pay for a piece of media after a few years anyway so even if you want to pay for it you can't...
So the only legal way for you to acquire that 20 year old game is to wait another 70 years or more and then hope that a copy still exists anywhere, on media thats still readable, and any hardware still exists thats capable of playing it.
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So the only legal way for you to acquire that 20 year old game is to wait another 70 years or more
No - resale is perfectly legal. And I can find it used for ~$38. However, I already have a large backlog of games to play. I'm waiting out to see if GoG gets rights to it and can release it. Even if the original artists don't get compensated this way, at least the rights-holder gets the message that this is a game people will still pay for (there is a nearly 7,000 strong wishlist vote on GoG now).
The Neverhood doesn't even run correctly on XP, since it requires 8-bit color and palette changes and is not
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So the only legal way for you to acquire that 20 year old game is to wait another 70 years or more
No - resale is perfectly legal.
That would imply that someone else has to give up their own copy so that you can have the ability to play it. That is an unreasonable restriction when digital copies are trivial to make and no one could possibly claim to be harmed by the existence of additional copies of an out-of-print game.
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That is an unreasonable restriction when digital copies are trivial to make and no one could possibly claim to be harmed by the existence of additional copies of an out-of-print game.
There's been a bit of a renaissance of out of print games coming back from beyond. The harm is that you would prevent it from being made available again at all.
I used to have a license for Beyond Earth (Score:1)
Then they patched in "telemetry" that required a new EULA consent form. They stole the game from me with an update.
"Content Creators" ??? (Score:4, Insightful)
The company names listed are not what I would call "content creators", since technically their business is built around capitalizing on the distribution of content that OTHER people have created.
I wouldn't have minded this (Score:5, Interesting)
To be fair I knew I was taking a risk. The game was already discounted for clearance. But it still would have been nice to have a big read label with something like "DRM. No Internet, No Worky" instead of a vague sentence in print best read with IBM's scanning electron microscope.
Digital Restrictions Malware (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
"Buy the [physical media]" would be almost OK compared to "Own it today on DVD" which actually implies you get some rights.
Copy = physical object in which a work is fixed (Score:2)
Of course, it could be argued that the content is physically stored on the physical disk.
This in fact is the view that the U.S. copyright statute takes: a "copy" or "phonorecord" is defined as a physical object in which a work of authorship is fixed.
Truth in labelling? (Score:3)
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"This work contains technological protection measures that may interfere with fair use".
Short, sweet and to the point. I like it!
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I think it's brilliant. If they were forced to be totally honest, and write "future upgrades may remove this functionality" on all major functionality, like it truly is, they wouldn't sell a single unit
After Sony removed the "Other OS" functionality for the PS3 how many PS3 and PS4's have they sold? I'm pretty sure it's more than none.
"Requires Uplay" (Score:1)
I may use Steam unironically, but I draw the line at having to sign up for DRM that sits on top of DRM.
Verizon Wireless should merit special attention. (Score:4, Interesting)
Verizon is notorious for locking phones on their network, preventing updates and general intransigence in the face of crumbling Android security.
The FTC should make an example of Verizon - key escrow that opens for any phone that reaches six months without a security patch.
Verizon has demonstrated that control is more important than security. The public should demonstrate, through the regulatory actions of the FTC, that security is more important than profits.
unlock: GSM versus bootloader (Score:2)
An "unlocked" Verizon phone is allowed on a GSM network. It most certainly maintains a locked bootloader (and the stable of unwanted applications [NFL tracking being the most annoying]). All this bloat updates in Google play and otherwise uses up data unless they are explicitly disabled in a swindle to inflate your data usage.
Attempts to unlock the bootloader with the OEM (HTC, Motorola, etc.) are all met with the reply "this device is not eligible for bootloader unlock."
For unsupported phones, Verizon shou
Unlock != Root (Score:2)
> You do realize that at least in the U.S. once you reach the end of your
> contract period (or, for prepaid services, after certain other conditions
> are met) the carrier is required to unlock the phone at your request.
Unlock == allow the phone to be transferred to another (compatable) carrier's network, and subscribe to phone/data service from that other carrier
Root == take full control of your phone, allowing you to remove bundled crapware, or even install an alternate OS like Cyanogen Mod.
This is already a huge compromise (Score:1)
DRM out to be outlawed. Using DRM is proof of mens rea to commit fraud.
If it can't be outlawed, then it should only be allowed on Public Domains works (i.e. the publisher has to give up copyright if they're so disappointed with its protections that they prefer to rely on tech instead -- choose copyright vs DRM -- sort of like the choice between patent and trade secret).
If it can't be limited to PD, then it ought to have mandatory labeling, like cigarettes.
What EFF is asking for here, is already a huge compr
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sort of like the choice between patent and trade secret
Some aspects of a single product are patented; other aspects are trade secrets. For example, MPEG-4 AVC in general is patented, but specific techniques used to improve encoding quality or decoding efficiency are trade secrets.
Goverments should not allow it in the first place (Score:1)
Why should the government even allow bypassing of consumer rights under the guise of "licensing" in the first place?
I know, rhetorical question and I can get the best government I can buy when I CAN buy them, but from a naive perspective the entire concept of DRM is a slap in the face of society.
I still play the games I bought in the 90s. Some may require OS tweaking to run on modern soft/hard-ware, but I CAN try to run them. All those new games on Steam, though? If Steam servers go down for whatever reason
What's the matter? (Score:2)
Didn't you read and click 'Accept' on that license and terms of use agreement when you started your John Deere this morning?
Awesome. (Score:2)
I really hope this gets some serious traction. The only way manufacturers will stop their blatant abuse is if they have to admit to it up front, so customers can be informed enough to vote with their wallets.
More general issue: pre-crime (Score:2)
This is all part of a much more general issue: restriction and even legal prosecution of "pre-crime activities".
- You get DRM-encumbered products, because manufacturers are afraid you might copy the product. Copying is an action that has many uses; piracy is only one of many possibilities.
- The DMCA prohibits circumvention of protective measures, because...why? The circumvention isn't the problem, nor are most of the reasons you might circumvent something. It's all about the relatively rare edge cases that
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If you're driving, and you don't wear a seat belt, you're more likely to lose control of your vehicle in a minor accident. I approve of laws that aren't onerous and increase the safety of one-ton-plus objects moving at over 10 m/s.
DRM as a contract (Score:3)
If I purchase some media, and it's not the usual sort of first-sale doctrine that you'd expect from a book purchase, then it needs to be clearly labeled. If there is DRM in place that prevents you from transferring ownership, that needs to be made abundantly clear before purchase.
A CD that I can buy for $12, and sell back to a used CD shop for $3 is potentially a better deal than a cloud-only music purchase of the same album for $10. To accurately compare the two purchases, we need to know what we're agreeing to before hand.
Sadly, I doubt any modern judge in the US would rule in favor of a consumer who failed to completely understand the 30 page EULA he was given.
I recommend when Caveat Emptor (buyer beware) was usually said with a hint of irony.
Uncrackable DRM (Score:2)
SGX, on the
How about warning that terms of EULA can change... (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Absolutely.
But you could construct a case where e.g. a radio device is subject to operate in different frequencies based on the country it is used in. (Like ANY wifi adapter.)
While the operating frequencies might be configurable (SDR), a DRMed Firmware may limit your access to this setting and thus prevent you from setting it to use a channel where it can be operated legally. Or less academically worded: Thanks to DRM you need to buy a new device when moving abroad. The ability to select different channel r