DRM will not be legislated
-- > extremist consumer activists are hurting their cause by > conjuring up farfetched scenarios that expose them as kooks. > (That last point certainly applies to those here who continue to > predict that the government will take away general purpose > computing capabilities, allow only "approved" software to run, > and ban the use of Perl and Python without a license. Try > visiting the real world sometime!) Jack Valenti, President and CEO of the MPAA predicts the U.S. government will ban technologies that permit unrestricted copying. This of course would include such piracy tools as "cp", let alone such dangerously powerful hacker tools as Perl. If we are going to have life in prison for hackers, we certainly need to do something about Perl. Here in the real world, someone has done jail time for the heinious act of breaking rot 13, (actually xor with a short constant string, which is a slight generalization of the rot 13 algorithm) and anti terrorist legislation has just been passed that would have given him life, supposing that some actual harm had supposedly resulted from this major breakthrough. If our masters propose to put someone in jail for life for breaking rot 13, why not life for unauthorized possession of tools capable of writing programs that could break rot 13? --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG gClgqCOWiiYJmyo26JtGJfKmzOMw+edaV6tboz6a 27u1VUjI7/WkzuwYfackYJmmMV4qwifjviHltUQwY
Re: DRM will not be legislated
Read a great article on Slashdot about the recent DRM workshop, http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/07/18/1219257, by "al3x": As the talks began, I was brimming with the enthusiasm and anger of an "activist," overjoyed at shaking hands with the legendary Richard Stallman, thrilled with the turnout of the New Yorkers for Fair Use. My enthusiasm and solidarity, however, was to be short lived Comments from the RIAA's Mitch Glazier that there is "balance in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act" (DMCA), drew cries and disgusted laughter from the peanut gallery, who at that point had already been informed that any public comments could be submitted online. Even those in support of Fair Use and similar ideas began to be frustrated with the constant background commentary and ill-conceived outbursts of the New Yorkers for Fair Use and, to my dismay, Richard Stallman, who proved to be as socially awkward as his critics and fans alike report. Perhaps such behavior is entertaining in a Linux User Group meeting or academic debate, but fellow activists hissed at Stallman and the New Yorkers, suggesting that their constant interjections weren't helping. And indeed, as discussion progressed, I felt that my representatives were not Stallman and NY Fair Use crowd, nor Graham Spencer from DigitalConsumer.org, whose three comments were timid and without impact. No, I found my voice through Rob Reid, Founder and Chairman of Listen.com, whose realistic thinking and positive suggestions were echoed by Johnathan Potter, Executive Director of DiMA, and backed up on the technical front by Tom Patton of Phillips. Reid argued that piracy was simply a reality of the content industry landscape, and that it was the job of content producers and the tech industry to offer consumers something "better than free." "We charge $10 a month for our service, and the competition is beating us by $10 a month. We've got to give customers a better experience than the P2P file-sharing networks," Reid suggested. As the rare individual who gave up piracy when I gave up RIAA music and MPAA movies, opting instead for a legal and consumer-friendly Emusic.com account, I found myself clapping in approval. Reading this and the other comments on the meeting, a few facts come through: that the content companies are much more worried about closing the "analog hole" than mandating traditional DRM software systems; that the prospects for any legislation on these issues are uncertain given the tremendous consumer opposition; and that extremist consumer activists are hurting their cause by conjuring up farfetched scenarios that expose them as kooks. (That last point certainly applies to those here who continue to predict that the government will take away general purpose computing capabilities, allow only "approved" software to run, and ban the use of Perl and Python without a license. Try visiting the real world sometime!) It is also good to see that the voices of sanity are being more and more recognized, like the Listen.com executive above. The cyber liberty community must come out strongly against piracy of content and support experiments which encourage people to pay for what they download. It is no longer tenable to claim that intellectual property is obsolete or evil, or to point to the complaints of a few musicians as justification for ignoring the creative rights of an entire industry. There is still a very good chance that we can have a future where people will happily pay for legal content instead of making do with bootleg pirate recordings, and that this can happen without legislation and without hurting consumer choice. Such an outcome would be the best for all concerned: for consumers, for tech companies, for artists and for content licensees. Anything else will be a disaster for one or more of these groups, which will ultimately hurt everyone. Let's hope the EFF is listening to the kinds of clear-sighted commentary quoted above.
Re: DRM will not be legislated
AARG! Anonymous wrote: >David Wagner wrote: >> The Hollings bill was interesting not for its success or failure, but >> for what it reveals the content companies' agenda. > >The CBDTPA, available in text form at >http://www.politechbot.com/docs/cbdtpa/hollings.s2048.032102.html, >does not explicitly call for legislating DRM. What's your point? If you think the CBDTPA wasn't about legislating DRM or something like it, we must be from different planets. I'll elaborate. CBDTPA delegated power to the FCC to specify standards that all digital devices would have to implement. It is not at all surprising that CBDTPA was drafted to allow the FCC great freedom in choosing the technical details as necessary to achieve the bill's objectives. It is equally clear that supporters of the bill were pushing for some mandatory "Fritz chip", do-not-copy bit, Macrovision protection, copy protection, or other DRM-like technical measure. This issue is not going away quietly.
Re: DRM will not be legislated
David Wagner wrote: > You argue that it would be irrational for content companies to push to > have DRM mandated. This is something we could debate at length, but we > don't need to: rational or not, we already have evidence that content > companies have pushed, and *are* pushing, for some kind of mandated DRM. > > The Hollings bill was interesting not for its success or failure, but > for what it reveals the content companies' agenda. It seems plausible > that its supporters will be back next year with a "compromise" bill -- > plausible enough that we'd better be prepared for such a circumstance. The CBDTPA, available in text form at http://www.politechbot.com/docs/cbdtpa/hollings.s2048.032102.html, does not explicitly call for legislating DRM. In fact the bill is not very clear about what exactly it does require. Generally it calls for standards that satisfy subsections (d) and (e) of section 3. But (d) is just a list of generic good features: "(A) reliable; (B) renewable; (C) resistant to attack; (D) readily implemented; (E) modular; (F) applicable in multiple technology platforms; (G) extensible; (H) upgradable; (I) not cost prohibitive; and (2) any software portion of such standards is based on open source code." There's nothing in there about DRM or the analog hole specifically. In fact the only phrase in this list which would not be applicable to any generic software project is "resistant to attack". And (e) (misprinted as (c) in the document) is a consumer protection provision, calling for support of fair use and home taping of over the air broadcasts. Neither (d) nor (e) describes what exactly the CBDTPA is supposed to do. To understand what the technical standards are supposed to protect we have to look at section 2 of the bill, "Findings", which lays out the piracy problem as Hollings sees it and calls for government regulation and mandates for solutions. But even here, the wording is ambiguous and does not clearly call for mandating DRM. The structure of this section consists of a list of statements, followed by the phrase, "A solution to this problem is technologically feasible but will require government action, including a mandate to ensure its swift and ubiquitous adoption." This phrase appears at points 12, 15 and 19. The points leading up to #12 refer to the problems of over the air broadcasts being unencrypted, in contrast with pay cable and satellite systems. The points leading up to #15 talk about closing the analog hole. And the points leading up to #19 discuss file sharing and piracy. DRM is mentioned in point 5, in terms of it not working well, then the concept is discussed again in points 20-23, which are the last. None of these comments are followed by the magic phrase about requiring a government mandate. So if you look closely at how these points are laid out, and which ones get the call for government action, it appears that the main concerns which the CBDTPA is intended to address are (1) over the air broadcasts (via the BPDG standard); (2) closing the analog hole (via HDCP and similar); and (3) piracy via file sharing and P2P systems, which the media companies would undoubtedly like to see shut down but where they are unlikely to succeed. Although DRM is mentioned, there is no clear call to mandate support for DRM technology, particularly anything similar to Palladium or the TCPA, which is what we have been discussing. As pointed out earlier, this is logical, as legislating the TCPA would be both massively infeasible and also ultimately unhelpful to the goals of the content companies. They know they won't be able to use TCPA to shut down file sharing. The only way they could approach it using such a tool would be to have a law requiring a government stamp of approval on every piece of software that runs. Surely it will be clear to all reasonable men what a a non-starter that idea is.
Re: DRM will not be legislated
> David Wagner wrote: > > Anonymous wrote: > > > Legislation of DRM is not in the cards, [...] > > > > Care to support this claim? (the Hollings bill and the DMCA requirement > > for Macrovision in every VCR come to mind as evidence to the contrary) > > To reiterate and lay out the points explicitly: [... list partially truncated, retaining one illustrative point ...] > - Neither the content nor technology companies have incentive to support >legislation, as they still must convince people that paying for >content is superior to pirating it. Legislating DRM will not help >them in this battle, as piracy will still be an alternative. You argue that it would be irrational for content companies to push to have DRM mandated. This is something we could debate at length, but we don't need to: rational or not, we already have evidence that content companies have pushed, and *are* pushing, for some kind of mandated DRM. The Hollings bill was interesting not for its success or failure, but for what it reveals the content companies' agenda. It seems plausible that its supporters will be back next year with a "compromise" bill -- plausible enough that we'd better be prepared for such a circumstance. As for Macrovision, your suggested distinction between DRM and watermarking is too confusing for me to follow. By any definition I'm familiar with, Macrovision is DRM. Sure, one might say that Macrovision uses watermarking internally as a means to achieve its goals, but that's besides the point. DRM refers to *what* security policy a system enforces, not how it enforces them. A system can both use watermarking and be a DRM system -- the two are not incompatible. As for whether TCPA or Palladium will ever be mandated, that's anyone's guess, and I don't think anyone knows for sure. Given this, hadn't we better plan for the possibility that it becomes mandated?
Re: DRM will not be legislated
David Wagner wrote: > Anonymous wrote: > > Legislation of DRM is not in the cards, [...] > > Care to support this claim? (the Hollings bill and the DMCA requirement > for Macrovision in every VCR come to mind as evidence to the contrary) The line you quoted was the summary from a message which described the detailed reasoning that supported the claim. To reiterate and lay out the points explicitly: - Legislating DRM would be extremely expensive in the current environment as it would require phasing out all computers presently in use. This provides a huge practical burden and barrier for any legislation along these lines. - Some have opposed voluntary DRM because they believe that it would reduce the barrier above. Once DRM systems are voluntarily installed in a substantial number of systems, it would be a relatively small step to mandate them in all systems. - But this is false reasoning; if DRM is so successful as to be present in a substantial number of systems, it is not necessary to legislate it. - Further, even if it is legislated, that will not stop piracy. No practical DRM system will prevent people from running arbitrary 3rd party software (despite absurd arguments by fanatics that the government seeks to remove Turing complete computing capabilities from the population). - Neither the content nor technology companies have incentive to support legislation, as they still must convince people that paying for content is superior to pirating it. Legislating DRM will not help them in this battle, as piracy will still be an alternative. - What would help them legislatively is some kind of enforced watermarking technology, so that the initial "ripping" of content is impossible (this also requires closing the analog hole). Only by intervening at this first step can they hope to break the piracy chain, and this is the real purpose of the Hollings bill. See also the recent work by the BPDG. But this is not DRM in the sense we are discussing it here. Those were the points made earlier in support of the summary statement quoted above. As far as the Hollings bill in particular, the most notable aspect of it was the tremendous opposition from virtually every sector of the economy. The Hollings bill was not just a failure, it was a massive, DOA, stinking heap of failure which had not even the slightest chance of success. If anything, the failure of the Hollings bill fully supports the thesis that legislation of DRM is not going to happen. As for Macrovision, this is an example of "watermarking" technology and as mentioned above, it does make sense to legislate along these lines (although it is questionable whether it can work in the long run - Macrovision defeaters are widely available). It represents an attempt to close the analog hole. The point is that this is not a simple-minded or unreflective analysis. We are looking specifically at the kind of DRM enabled by the TCPA. This means the ability to run content viewing software that imposes DRM rules which might limit the number of views, or require pay per view, or require data to be deleted if it is copied elsewhere, etc. The point of TCPA and Palladium is for the remote content provider to be assured that the software it is talking to across the net is a trusted piece of software which will enforce the rules. It is this kind of DRM to which the analysis above is directed. This DRM does not prevent piracy using any of the techniques available today, or via exploiting bugs and flaws in future technology. It does not and can not prevent people from running file sharing programs and making pirated content available on the Internet (at least without crippling computers to the point where necessary business functionality is lost, which would mean sending the country into a deep depression and making it an obsolete competitor on world markets, i.e. it won't happen). This kind of DRM can nevertheless succeed on a voluntary basis by providing good quality for good value, in conjunction with technological and legal attacks on P2P systems such as are in their infancy now. All of these arguments have been made in the past few weeks on this list. Hopefully reiterating them in one place will be helpful to those who have overlooked them in the past.
Re: DRM will not be legislated
Anonymous wrote: >Legislation of DRM is not in the cards, [...] Care to support this claim? (the Hollings bill and the DMCA requirement for Macrovision in every VCR come to mind as evidence to the contrary)
Re: DRM will not be legislated
On Mon, 8 Jul 2002 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Voluntary DRM can never stop piracy. With voluntary DRM, people > can break once on one machine, then run the latest Napster > replacement on the every machine on the internet in non DRM mode, > and copy that file that was ripped on one machine, to every > machine. Obviously. But if the "content" is on a private net hooked into private boxes, putting the data onto the public web becomes a touch more difficult. > Voluntary DRM is only useful to the content industry as a stepping > stone to compulsory DRM Only in some executive's wet dream. And they've got enough problems dealing with their accounting division right now :-) > Voluntary DRM is only useful to the industry to reach the point > where they can say "Only copyright pirates, terrorists, drug > trafficers, child pornographers, tax evaders, and money launderers > need to run their machines in non DRM mode." And if they can't deliver enough product to make DRM worth while, they never get that far do they. If the economics works, they don't need laws, and if the economics don't work, they won't get laws. When the big boys figure out how to deliver their stuff with better quality and more "coolness" than P2P, they'll make plenty of money. Shit, we might even convince them it's worth while running fiber to every home on the planet. If they don't, they're toast anyway. Teenagers can wait all day and night for a few songs, but the rest of us don't have time to waste on it. With enough bandwidth, DRM becomes irrelevant. The recorded past isn't where the cash is, the instantaneous *now* is where the money gets collected. Someday they'll figure it out, but I suspect it'll be a teenager that hits 'em over the head with the 2x4. Patience, persistence, truth, Dr. mike
Re: DRM will not be legislated
-- On 9 Jul 2002 at 1:01, Anonymous wrote: > If DRM hardware and software are widely available, they reason, > it will be that much easier to get legislation passed to make > them mandatory. [] > > This argument makes superficial sense, but it ultimately > contradicts itself on one major point: if DRM is so successful > and widely used as would be necessary for its mandate to be > low-cost, then there is no need to require it! Voluntary DRM can never stop piracy. With voluntary DRM, people can break once on one machine, then run the latest Napster replacement on the every machine on the internet in non DRM mode, and copy that file that was ripped on one machine, to every machine. Voluntary DRM is only useful to the content industry as a stepping stone to compulsory DRM Voluntary DRM is only useful to the industry to reach the point where they can say "Only copyright pirates, terrorists, drug trafficers, child pornographers, tax evaders, and money launderers need to run their machines in non DRM mode." --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG 7lDwxyaNMRyW/fnz+MbZtTkvvLQYa1vgZGkK9sHP 2Efd0J6T+9nNeRMcg3Djz42yiJGtYagAGVb1mkkkE
Re: DRM will not be legislated
On Monday, July 8, 2002, at 04:01 PM, Anonymous wrote: > be available. A substantial number of consumers will voluntarily adopt > DRM if it lets them have a Napster-style system of music on demand, > with wide variety and convenient downloads, as long as the songs are not > too expensive. I doubt it. Napster was popular because people like FREE STUFF! There were services in Tower Records as long ago as 10 years ago, and repeated efforts since, which allowed a patron to pick a set of songs and have them recorded onto a customized CD. Cost was comparable to a CD. They all failed. People who were heavy users of Napster, collecting thousands of songs (or more), will not be too interested in a system which charges them a 50 cents or a dollar per song. And casual users just won't bother. I expect something like this will happen, but it doesn't significantly alter the main issue. Oh, and it little or nothing to do with DRM circuitry. Most of those who download songs will be doing so to put on to their MP3 players, their iPods, their own CD-Rs. While the latest Pentium 5 and Opteron machines may or may not have DRM circuitry, it's likely that the very target market for downloaded music will be using older machines for many years to come. --Tim May "The State is the great fiction by which everyone seeks to live at the expense of everyone else." --Frederic Bastiat
DRM will not be legislated
Several people have suggested that DRM software is not bad in and of itself. So long as it is used voluntarily, it is not infringing on anyone's freedom. In fact they will even agree that voluntary DRM can be a good thing; it increases people's options and can provide a mechanism where content producers can get paid. However they oppose DRM anyway, even voluntary DRM. The reason is because they see it as the first step towards mandated DRM. If DRM hardware and software are widely available, they reason, it will be that much easier to get legislation passed to make them mandatory. Most people will already have systems which comply with the laws, so there will be no great costs involved in requiring the systems. In contrast, if no one had DRM hardware and software installed, then mandating it would be politically impossible, requiring virtually every computer in use to be junked or at least to go through an expensive upgrade. The costs of such a transition would be enormous, and legislation to mandate DRM would never succeed. This argument makes superficial sense, but it ultimately contradicts itself on one major point: if DRM is so successful and widely used as would be necessary for its mandate to be low-cost, then there is no need to require it! Opponents of the legislation need only point out that consumers are voluntarily adopting the technology and that the marketplace is working to solve the problem for the record labels and other content companies. In fact, there is very little incentive to push for mandating DRM features on the part of any of the participants in the dispute: content companies or technology companies. What they really need to do is to make DRM become popular as the only way to have a variety of good, legal content be available. A substantial number of consumers will voluntarily adopt DRM if it lets them have a Napster-style system of music on demand, with wide variety and convenient downloads, as long as the songs are not too expensive. The advantages of having a legal system that is immune to the woes of the P2P world (constant shutdowns of popular systems due to lawsuits, the problem of bogus data, etc.) will amply justify a modest fee for the download. It seems clear that this is the direction the record labels want to pursue, and the only problem is that right now, if they make downloads available without DRM restrictions, they will go right into the pirate networks. With DRM they have more control over how the data is used, there will be less piracy, and therefore they can charge less per song. Legislating the DRM is of no value in this scenario, because people will still be able to use P2P and other software for piracy, whether they have software that can support DRM or not. (We will neglect the plainly absurd argument that the computational infrastructure of the entire nation will be changed so that only "authorized" or "approved" software can run.) The record labels still must pursuade people that DRM is worth having, and the way they will do so is by making their data available at a reasonable price, while continuing their technological and legal attacks on P2P networks. Legislating DRM will not substantially help with any of these subgoals. The one exception where legislation might be helpful would be for "closing the analog hole", requirements to detect watermarked data and not process it. If all systems could be designed so that they recognized watermarks in music and video and refused to play them, then that would cut down on piracy. But this is not DRM per se, it is really an orthogonal technology. One can oppose efforts to legislatively close the analog hole while still supporting voluntary use of DRM software and hardware. Ultimately, DRM must succeed as a value proposition for the end user. Legislation to require DRM-observant software and hardware in all computers will not establish this value. By itself, such legislation will not stop piracy and file sharing. The only way to stop file sharing is with massively intrusive legislation that would practically shut down the net and most businesses as well. Such a course is impossible outside of the raving fantasies of the paranoid. Given the reality of ongoing file sharing, DRM must succeed by offering good value and the guarantees of high quality that are not available in a black market. Legislation of DRM is not in the cards, and this remote, hypothetical possibility should not stop us from supporting voluntary DRM systems.
