Sun Microsystems, weighing in on the fractious issue of protecting copyrighted digital content, on Sunday announced a project it calls the Open Media Commons initiative aimed at creating an open-source, royalty-free digital-rights management standard.
Hmm, interesting. WIl be interesting to see what becomes of it.
The thing is, surely an open source DRM system would make it very easy to hack the files?
I agree, but at the same time hacks would, in theory, be spotted and patched quicker
When it comes to avoiding crackers, closed source is an illusion. Any cracker worth anything would be able to disassemble the binaries and find out what they need to know. These cracks often take the form of binary patches anyway. There is no security-through-obscurity if people can get their hands on the binary code.
It appears they are using the old philosophy of cryptography. A truly secure cryptographic algorhithm can be known publicly but the fact the attacker dosn’t have the keys destroys all hope of breaking it.
This OS DRM sounds weird, but it may be a good idea. Maybe I could legally play next-generation DVDs on Linux?
If you’re worried about an open DRM system being cracked then surely you must be oblivious to the fact that every single closed one so far gas fared no better.
At least were this to be widely adopted, free, open source OSes would be legally able to use DRM’d media…
Well yes, obviously every other DRM system has shown that it i sindeed possible to crack non-open source systems. I ‘m just don’t think all the executives would be overly happy with an open-source system since it would lead to the hacking being quicker and easier.
Yeah, taken on it’s own I could see them having issues with it, but if you have a situation where big name vendors like Red Hat were to have “blessed” (read signed) versions of a media player that works with a TPM, then only those official versions would be able to access the media without a heck of a lot of work.
Funny how if you add “Open Source” to it, much of the pro open source crowd suddenly reverses directions and say DRM is ok.
I don’t quite understand why some few guys are desperately trying to push controversial DRM technology on us while most of us are opposed to DRM and definitely don’t want to pay for it. Something is wrong here.
The RIAA and MPAA want DRM, and short of legislation, you are not going stop them.
I would have to agree. I can’t say that I have heard a single other group express interest in DRM beside the RIAA, MPAA, and associated entities(ie ones who make money off of the DRMed wares, MS/Apple/Sony/Etc). Most of the non-criticisms I have read have pondered possible uses for it in legitamite business, but have fallen short of declaring interest in pursuing it if it wasn’t being forced on us by the media production houses. It is a little disappointing to see an open source entity endorsing DRM, it will only serve to legitize the idea of trusted computing.
True, the computer companies, I am sure, don’t want it, its yet another piece of technology they must support – that confuses end users BUT with that being said DRM isn’t just a media control technology, you can use it for other things.
As for the so-called “no one wants it”, as outlined by the original poster of the thread – the average user doesn’t even know what DRM is! as long as they can sync up their iTunes to their iPod, play a dvd, and carry on like usual, they don’t even need to know what DRM is and I doubt the would even hit the circumstances/senario’s where by they would trip over the restrictions of DRM.
Indeed…I certainly don’t see the need for any DRM. I think Solaris is an amazing OS and recent Sun branded workstations are great. But I think digital rights management is at best an oxymoron. I think one has every right to modify any file on his computer and communicate with anyone he likes. I would not simply pay anything that would try to prevent that.
“The thing is, surely an open source DRM system would make it very easy to hack the files?”
Huh? Where did you get this idea?
Are open source encryption mechanisms easier to crack than closed source ones?
Is apache insecure compared to IIS?
Would you rather put OpenBSD or Windows on a server you want to be secure?
Digital Rights Management – whose rights?
There is no place for this on your PC. Most people feel they are powerless. Quite the opposite is true; if nobody bought into DRM, it and the formats and specifications they foist upon us would disappear very very quickly.
I cannot quite understand people complaining about DRM. It’s not Microsoft or Intel or Apple or Sun to want DRM. They could care less.
It’s music/movie industry which wants a strong DRM support before entering digital market with their cannons. It’s just that simple.
Of course, no sane HW/OS producer will reject industry money (and we’re talking about billions bucks, if you consider that soon INternet will replace std TV technology) to defend a few customers.
Entertainment industry wants u not to be able to burn your music more than X times; wants u not to be able to see your favourite movie whenever u want but only if you can pay one more time; and so on…
Stop bashing Apple or MS or Intel or AMD: it’s not their fault. They’re just committed not to let others to get their quota of money. And once industry realized that Linux/BSDs communities were not going to implement DRM unless they were forced, they just switched from SW-only DRM to HW-enforced.
Now, if your favourite OS won’t implement DRMs, you will simply not able to watch movies or play music. That’s all. Not a good move to stay out, I guess.
But keep in mind one thing: it’s not Microsoft to lead the dance here… it’s Warner Bros or MGM or whatever… they have the bucks everyone else want.
Stop bashing Apple or MS or Intel or AMD
Why? Don’t they deserve it? Oh, its not their fault.. they’re just poor companies out to make a buck. Don’t blame them for their lack of ethics. This is just business as usual. Excuses, excuses, excuses..
Y’know what? There are no excuses. If you can’t be as ethical as GNU and the FSF then you’re wrong, period.
We take no prisoners.
There is more to DRM than audio and video. Erwin Tenhumberg points out it would work great with OpenOffice.org.
http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/dancer?entry=open_source_drm_proje…
User-directed DRM is a good thing. At your option, you can DRM your hard drive (in case of theft) or e-mails (to prevent unwanted disclosure). Some businesses (think lawyers) and organizations (think hospitals) would find this invaluable.
There is more to DRM than audio and video. Erwin Tenhumberg points out it would work great with OpenOffice.org.
Yes, of course I agree. But I would doubt that so money would have been invested to protect your Word documents. Of course, once you protect some contents, it’s clever to think to protect all of them but I think the real driving force behind this is entertainment industry which hopes to put a x10 in their closing balance in next years.
If you group Music, Movies, Games and porn contents, you have grouped billions of dollars in revenues. And that could be just a tip if you imagine (for example) 1 billion people which could be “mostly connected” in next few years.
I agree, there’s more and DRM can be useful too. And that’s why I stated in my previous post that pressure should be directed to contents producers and not HW / SW vendors.
Or you can do it the old fashond way and manually encrypt your documents and files as I do.
Finally someone does something good for Open Source. There been lot of complains about Linux and other Open Source projects lacking DRM support. If Sun can sell this idea to big content making companies(music or movie industry) we might have DRM support for free.
Those whose hate DRM better start making bunkers because average people don’t give shit about DRM. They will buy it as long as things work and they will. Movie and music industry will use somekind a DRM because otherwise some jerks would just copy stuff. So thanks to few idiots we are point where there is no trust. Atleast now it would be possible to have it in every system, since it wouldn’t have any license fees.
Open- or closed- DRM is not something that consumers need or should have foisted upon them.
Don’t be fooled by the development of ‘open’ DRM standards. It is a nice way of placating those too lazy to think about the implications. Legitimisation and brainwashing is far more subtle than you think.
As an example, think of the widely accepted term “Intellectual Property”, which is a recent invention yet widely accepted (by those too weak willed to resist the ‘Jedi Mind Tricks’ of paid media). See Eben Moglen’s writings
http://emoglen.law.columbia.edu/ on this subject and patents – discussions which are relevant to DRM although not directly related.
You have to accept DRM as much as we had to accept DVD Region Codes – not at all. Big business needs to survive and to do that each and every one of you has to stop breaking copyright (whether its Windows, ripping DVDs, or music) – but that doesn’t mean we all have to passively lie down and accept the tyrrany of DRM.
Open- or closed- DRM is not something that consumers need or should have foisted upon them.[…]
I’m afraid this has nothing to do with brainwashing. The whole DRM concept has nothing ethical but this is not the point, after all.
Instead of asking / hoping an HW vendor or OS producers won’t implement DRM (which is not sane), spend your time in asking your contents provider not to “protect” their contents. Because that’s the key point.
DRM is not something imposed by God. You can have DRM in your system and yet play unprotected contents without restrictions. Thinking that HW / OS producers should not implement DRM and forgetting that ARTISTS accept that because they will get much more money from that is somewhat ingenue (I’m talking about music / movies only because those are real people behind this thing…).
So let’s not blame the wrong ones. Industry wants DRM, artists want DRM and HW / SW producers will give them what they want. If you’re willing to ask for some ethical playing ask contents producers who have final word about what you will see or not.
Again, I’m not an Unix/Linux/BSD user but I think it wouldn’t be clever to strip DRM support out because that will make your system handicapped.
All in all, who’s to blame more: people building weapons or people using such weapons to kill others? Force content producers to make their contents widely available. Don’t buy those protected MP3s but just buy MP3s from “ethical” records. It’s that simple and, if widespread, will be far more effective than bitching on forums against something which will happen.
” Don’t be fooled by the development of ‘open’ DRM standards. It is a nice way of placating those too lazy to think about the implications. Legitimisation and brainwashing is far more subtle than you think. ”
Brainwashing is indeed more subtle than you think, the problem is: it’s you that’s been brainwashed. A lot of people look down at you when you say you’re not into copying music, or that you prefer buying your music. People look down on you when you say you actually buy your software, now tell me, isn’t it normal to pay for stuff people worked on? you like to get your paycheck every month, not? Why does your work deserve payment, where-as people who make their living depending in intelectual property does not? If people instead of copying, just didn’t use the software, or didn’t use the music, the prices would lower you know. Now companies earn more money because they can higher their prices for no reason, for example: 1/3 of microsofts products installed are illegal. Now microsoft can ask 400€ for it’s office. So this 2/3 that actually buys it, has to pay way more than the thing is worth it. Should microsoft lower the prices? to a reasonable price (around 50€?) No because if it got that 1/3th back, it would still loose money. You see, it’s actually the people using illegal stuff that give other people control over them. Because they are doing something illegal, and even immoral, if you don’t wanna buy the piece of junk use a competitor, or don’t use it at all. That’s the only way to drop charges.
the pair could bring the DRM industry and its instigators to their knees.
all it would need is for the BBC to open its libary of content encoded in HD Dirac, and the world would go beserk.
I for one don’t want it and I know a whole lot of others opposed to it.
Sure we aren’t you Big name Video produced marketed to the whole crap canned artists but they are the minority. The world needs education with regards to DRM. Unfortunately the West will roll over and swallow it but at least cultures from Asia see the value in sharing IP and the benefits to their communities from it.
Maybe I will be buying Chinese computers some time in the distant DRM future.
If I was a CTO or business administrator, I would be all for DRM enabled workstations for the users on the network. No to limited risk of intranet users using media that is not being paid for means much less risk of a failed BSA audit or MPAA/RIAA lawsuit.
Since I’m not a CTO, just an end user, I have absolutely no use for DRM, and do not want it. If it was an OPTION, then that’d be fine.
I could also understand if you were a concerned parent and didn’t want your kid hosting a massive mp3 / unreleased movie archive over bittorrent, DRM would probably be a good thing as well. (doesn’t apply to me either.)
Content creators should have rights. I don’t think DRM is the best way to protect their works as it is far too restrictive for the end user, but I do think they have the right (and sometimes the obligation) to do something.
What would really be nice is if someone in the OSS sphere could come up with something innovative that would allow them to acceptably curb piracy (or at least curb it enough to satisfy their legal obligation to persue copyright violators,) while still allowing end users the freedom they should have under the laws and ideas of fair use.
DRM takes away rights from paying people.
People who copy pirate will still do this (not from original, but from DRM free copy).
This mean less people will pay. More people will pirate.
DRM can bring more money to authors in short term. But there is no way to grow.
I want to mention a few things about DRM:
1) DRM is a framework for imposing restrictions on the use and distribution of digital media.
2) DRM can be used to impose weak restrictions (i.e. you can freely modify and redistribute this media within the United States) or strong restrictions (i.e. you pay to download a song that will play exactly once and then becomes unusable).
3) DRM can be used to provide cheaper (but more restricted) access to media.
4) DRM enables the same sorts of transactions that you (even those who strongly oppose DRM) willingly make with regard to physical goods (like leasing a car) for digital media as well.
5) Take a good hard look at what you actually own… things you can can honestly say are assets. The vast majority of people in this world own more liabilities (debts, mortgages/loans, subscriptions, rentals, depreciating stuff, etc.) than assets. Assets are exceedingly expensive, and to consider the media you consume (paid or otherwise) to be a personal asset is inconsistent with the way everything else in the world works.
6) Take a good hard look at the free software economy… can you imagine the actual fair market value of the software products, development infrastructure, skilled labor, and community service/support that it encompasses if it were all licensed in the spirit of 1990’s shrink-wrap software? Free software has injected so much wealth into the global economy relative to other humanitarian efforts that RMS should receive a Nobel Prize. Then again, most free software (GPL for example) cannot be considered a true asset even if you possess the bits.
So how does it naturally make sense to expect to be able to capture digital bits from a media service (paid or otherwise) and be able to copy, modify, and redistribute this media with near impunity?
I think we have forgotten that content creators have a choice, too. They can give their media away (i.e. Creative Commons), they can protect them by copyright and FBI warning screens (and hope that the public doesn’t massively disobey the law), or they can use DRM to provide media on their terms. As much as we like a free lunch, there is rarely such a thing.
We need to keep in mind that media pricing, DRM or otherwise, will always be subject to consumer demand. Media is awfully expensive these days, and this is most definitely related (although not linearly) to people using digital technologies to disobey copyright law. Perhaps if the content creators had a way to make sure that their rights were being enforced, then DVDs would be $5 apiece and most people would be happy.
Lastly, I applaud Sun’s commitment to driving an OSS DRM standard. If you read the other DRM piece on arstechnica, you should understand why this is absolutely necessary for the continued viability of free software as a media platform.
Or more concisely, it is (almost) completely unreasonable to say, “I refuse to consume any DRM media,” although it is completely reasonable to say, “I refuse to consume media with abusive DRM restrictions.” Then it is up to you to decide what is abusive.
For example, what if I distributed a hilarious animated commentary on American politics, protected by DRM policies modeled after the GPL? That is, you can download this video and freely copy, modify, and redistribute it so long as you share your critically acclaimed bonus scene entitled “Laura Bush: The Wild Years.” I think the current conception of DRM frameworks would only allow for modification in the sense that you could contribute your mod to the original author who would make it widely available. So, it wouldn’t be exactly like GPL, but close.
Of course, I would only do this if I knew that DRM client technologies were ubiquitous on free software platforms… hence the importance of Sun’s initiative.
Television (or make that entertainment), the drug of the nation. I’t getting rather too intrusive for me … I’ll switch to some other stuff, thank you very much. This cartel can cease to exist as far as i’m concerned.
“Sun said that its Project DReaM includes a piece of software known as an API that Sun said makes it easier to build and manage video streams delivered over networks.”
In the same press release, Sun said that its Project DReaM includes a oft-touted, yet rarely used feature known as a CLUE that Sun said journalists should get before delivering their steaming piles over networks.
That’s it for now. Tune in tomorrow for the next daily dose of wisdom as written by morons! <cue theme music, fade to black>
Great they united the attack vectors.