In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Roy Schestowitz
<newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote
on Wed, 26 Sep 2007 11:29:43 +0100
<2430807.EuVbOBllb9@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
> Who pays the DRM man?
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
> | Microsoft - and all its DRM buddies - continue to claim up
> | to this very day that DRM won't affect the consumer too much,
> | "given that cost (..) is most heavily influenced by volume".
> | However, behind closed doors the bird is singing quite another
> | song. The following is taken from a presentation at the
> | WinHEC 2005. Read this and shiver.
> `----
>
> http://thebeezspeaks.blogspot.com/2007/09/who-pays-drm-man.html
An interesting subpoint, but I have a far more fundamental
issue. Software and digital music are inherently
duplicable [*], for little more than the cost of the
electricity going into the duplicator (and since a burn
might take all of a few minutes, that works out to be a
few millicents above the cost of the media at the most).
Given that logic, the cost to the consumer of a song is
near zero -- and one might have to feel sorry for the
artists, especially if a song proves popular. However,
with a perfect DRM system, the consumer will pay a *lot*
more -- the retail price is apparently $19.99 or so for
the better songs. (Better, admittedly, being in the eye
of the beholder.)
The good news: a perfect DRM system is probably
unattainable, even given good enough security for a
private encryption key at the other end. Consumers won't
accept it, as far as I can tell from the news reports
and posts here.
As for costs of encryption -- best I can tell you
personally there is that my admittedly very crude
measurements and outdated equipment suggests it will sap
roughly 50% bandwidth throughput. In other words, the
difference between
cp /over/here /net/remote/over/there
(where /net/remote is NFS-mounted)
and
scp /over/here user@remote:/over/there
is the latter copies at half speed, roughly speaking.
I'll have to redo my tests, admittedly, at some point,
as I now have newer equipment; if my router becomes a
throttle point instead of my CPU things will be more
even.
The board design commentary is interesting, given that
one could presumably desolder the VPU and replace it with
another variant that doesn't encrypt. This is harder
than merely removing a socketed chip, of course, but not
impossible, given enough incentive (and patience and
a willing vendor!).
As for development costs -- I'm not sure how high that
is, mostly because encryption software is near-standard
anyway. However, that software may not be quite robust
enough -- most PCs after all place unencrypted data into
the system buss! -- to satisfy the needs stipulated in
this paper. And of course any costs will be passed on
to the consumer, to protect those poor starving record
moguls^H^H^H^H^H^Hartists.
And then there's al Qaeda to consider. After all, he
might do something evil, mean, and nasty, like distributing
Whitney Houston records for free. Can't be too careful...
>
>
> Related:
>
> Microsoft Tells Apple To Stop Complaining About DRM
>
> http://www.podcastingnews.com/2007/04/13/microsoft-apple-drm/
>
>
> Microsoft launches 'PlayReady' DRM system
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
> | Although digital rights management (DRM) is popular with content
> | creators, it has attracted criticism. Sony was widely attacked after
> | using a rootkit-like application to hide content protection on some
> | music CDs, and earlier this month Apple CEO Steve Jobs called on
> | the music industry to drop its use of DRM.
> `----
>
> http://news.com.com/2100-1039_3-6158553.html?part=rss&tag=2547-1_3-0-20&subj=news
>
And yet Steve Wozniak doesn't like free software? Now I'm confused.
Make up your minds, Apple...
>
> Golden Rant : Microsoft DRM's gone too far
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
> | Microsoft appears to have hit the wrong button on its critical
> | Windows XP download service late last month, pretty well forcing
> | every XP user to upgrade to Windows Media Player (WiMP) 11 if
> | they (like me and many others) have the automatic download/install
> | option enabled for critical updates.
> `----
>
> http://securityblog.itproportal.com/?p=712
>
>
> DRM in Windows Vista
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
> | Windows Vista includes an array of "features" that you don't want.
> | These features will make your computer less reliable and less secure.
> | They'll make your computer less stable and run slower. They will
> | cause technical support problems. They may even require you to
> | upgrade some of your peripheral hardware and existing software.
> | And these features won't do anything useful. In fact, they're
> | working against you. They're digital rights management (DRM)
> | features built into Vista at the behest of the entertainment
> | industry.
> |
> | And you don't get to refuse them.
> `----
>
> http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/02/drm_in_windows.html
>
Oh no? I'm not using Vista. I don't plan on using Vista.
I REFUSE TO USE VISTA! So much for that notion.
Granted, this could get into an interesting tug of war;
on the one side, every Vista user who can listen to,
say, Metallica's Greatest Hits. On the other side,
every Linux user denied access to Microsoft's latest and
greatest DRM software -- and to the plethora of vicious
Windows attackers, Sony among them (if only inadvertantly
-- whoops, we distributed a rootkit that can be easily
adapted to some rather tasty, if nasty, hacks).
>
> Music industry meeting could change the Zune
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
> | Bryan Lee, corporate vice present for Microsoft's entertainment
> | business, told me today that the meeting was set up as part of the
> | deal struck between Microsoft and music business honchos, who are
> | always wary of piracy... The meeting was supposed to take place "some
> | time after the holidays," he said. It also talks about the future
> | of the zune.
> `----
>
> http://blogs.chron.com/techblog/archives/2007/01/music_industry_meeting_could_change_the_zune.html
> http://tinyurl.com/y7z5wl
>
That's assuming the Zune has much of a future. Duh, what were
its sales figures, again?
Judging from Google results:
Zune: maybe 1-1.5 million, on a good day
iPod: over 100 million
Yeah. Color me unimpressed.
>
> A Legitimate Reason to Hate the Zune (And Microsoft Too)
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
> | Here's the situation: Microsoft has agreed to pay a portion of
> | the profits from the sales of the Zune to a record company
> | (Universal) because the Zune will undoubtedly be used to
> | store unpurchased songs.
> |
> | [...]
> |
> | Here it is important to remember a few simple things. The
> | money goes to the Universal, not to the artists.
> |
> | [...]
> |
> | Microsoft's move sets a bad precedent and turns all consumers into
> | thieves without evidence.
> `----
>
> http://www.applematters.com/index.php/section/comments/a-legitimate-reason-to-hate-the-zune-and-microsoft-too/
>
This problem is clearly not limited to the Zune.
>
> Universal to seek money for each iPod sold
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
> | "It would be a nice idea. We have a negotiation coming up not too
> | far. I don't see why we wouldn't do that... but maybe not in the
> | same way," Morris said. His "same way" comment is a reference tot
> | he Zune, which Universal already gets $1 from after signing a deal
> | with Microsoft.
> `----
>
> http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061128-8309.html
>
Case in point. Ew.
>
> Microsoft says Zune executive will leave company
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
> | Bryan Lee, corporate vice president at Microsoft's entertainment
> | and devices division, also played a key role in shaping the Xbox
> | game console business and the introduction of its Internet
> | Protocol television software.
> `----
>
> http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9595_22-6155200.html
[*] strictly speaking, in a digital setting the distortion
is taken all up front (assuming enough error correction
logic and sufficiently sensitive equipment) -- this
distortion is in various forms, the most obvious ones
being quantization and sampling artifacts. In an
analog setting the signal degrades in a more or less
uniform fashion, as the copies propagate through a
copy tree; the leaves of the tree will be the most
distorted.
--
#191, ewill3@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Windows Vista. Now in nine exciting editions. Try them all!
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