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ventaYesterday I had one of those moments where I realise I have a very specific opinion on something - but no real justification for it, and no clear idea where I got it from.
So, you, my dear self-selecting sample of guinea pigs, have the opportunity to prove me right. Or wrong. But I'm not going to tell you which is which. I'd hate to bias my otherwise-scientific survey.
I'm asking here about portable mp3 players (or mp3-a-likes). If you use your computer to play mp3s at you at home, or have some form of mp3 monster in the car, that's not what I meant.
[Poll #442057]
So, you, my dear self-selecting sample of guinea pigs, have the opportunity to prove me right. Or wrong. But I'm not going to tell you which is which. I'd hate to bias my otherwise-scientific survey.
I'm asking here about portable mp3 players (or mp3-a-likes). If you use your computer to play mp3s at you at home, or have some form of mp3 monster in the car, that's not what I meant.
[Poll #442057]
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Date: 2005-02-22 10:43 am (UTC)And there's that whole Digital Restriction Management thing which means I won't be buying Apple any time soon.
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Date: 2005-02-22 10:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-02-22 11:05 am (UTC)aliter: It's software designed to prevent you from using digital content in ways not approved by the copyright holder of that content.
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Date: 2005-02-22 11:06 am (UTC)You can apparently buy some non-DRM tracks from iTunes, but I personally am not going to support a company which has such a huge investment in selling me restricted music while treating me like a criminal.
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Date: 2005-02-22 11:25 am (UTC)I don't entirely agree. Current implementations of DRM (by which I mean both the standards and the software which works with them) are terrible technically, ethically and probably legally. The biggest single problem is that DRM typically prevents (or rather, tries to prevent) many kinds of fair use. The second biggest problem is that if you have a bit of cunning and a screwdriver, no DRM technology on earth can prevent you from copying content illegally. So current DRM technology inconveniences the average user quite heavily, and the committed pirate not at all.
The fact that specific DRM technologies are being used by cynical corporations to lock customers (and their disposable income) into one provider is a property of IT in general rather than DRM in particular, and the usual issues all apply.
Where DRM stands out compared with other IT is that the rights holders want to make it as physically difficult as possible to specifically act to breach their licenses, and current DRM standards are driven solely by rights holders. The upshot of this is that they want to own the physical data channel all the way from microphone to eardrum, which is rather akin to a diamond merchant asserting that in order to prevent jewel heists, he demands the right to keep the entire population in handcuffs at all times. And that they have to pay for their own handcuffs, which furthermore must be of a design on which he holds several key patents. Criminals, of course, own their own boltcutters.
On the plus side, many users are quite willing to moderate their illegal activities, and are also quite willing to hand over a certain amount of money to artists, provided that the user considers the amount to be reasonable for what they get. As such, a lot of the principles of DRM are quite useful. For example: informing the user of the license under which they are acquiring content; enforcing that license in the absence of specific action by the user to breach it; associating with the content itself a means of paying for a license for that content; and standards which recognise common types of fair use and permit it in the absence of specific action by the rights holder to prevent it.
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Date: 2005-02-22 11:36 am (UTC)To go back to your example with the diamond merchant, the attitude of many people seems to be "well, I have to wear these handcuffs, but I have boltcutters so it's OK", which ignores the encroaching legislation to make boltcutters themselves illegal.
I really can't see a situation where a DRM solution is (a) better than a non-DRM solution and (b) not outweighed by the downsides and abuses of DRM.
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Date: 2005-02-22 01:02 pm (UTC)Because of what DRM is - namely a rights description language coupled with semantics for media software to enforce the restrictions expressed using the language, and some kind of encryption to obfuscate the content so that non-compliant software has to work its ass off to get a look-in. I'm fairly confident that's the industry-standard definition.
Displaying the license of a piece of software as a click-through thing was standard practice before DRM
However, it wasn't standard practice for movie or audio clips, and the license was not encoded using a semantic markup which user agents could understand and implement - it is solely up to the user to work out for himself whether or not he is abiding by the terms of the license, which is ridiculous when you consider that most such licenses are (a) very wordy and (b) almost identical.
It is a principle of DRM because the licensing restrictions are precisely the information conveyed by the rights language. Whether a particular agent actually displays them is of course a slightly different matter.
Having terms and conditions on mp3 download sites still happens
Those TaC statements aren't associated with the content, they're associated with the site. This means that they don't travel with the content, an issue which has become a serious drawback in the last few years now that file sharing is a significant reality. DRM typically associates the rights (or means of acquiring them) with the content in some kind of container.
There are various ways of providing metadata with content (such as a URL field in an mp3 or Ogg Vorbis file)
That doesn't provide a very rich rights-description markup, and there are 0 media players which will check the specified URL and, if it indicates that the content may not be played without permission, ask the user whether they wish to buy that permission. There is of course the "copyright" bit in mp3, which again is not a terribly rich language, which is generally ignored, and which if it wasn't trivially ignorable would in fact be DRM (of a very rudimentary kind).
There are projects like Creative Commons to encourage common types of fair use without DRM.
Creative Commons really isn't very useful for people who want to make money by selling content, because the most restrictive license it offers still allows licensees to redistribute the entire thing with no royalty payments. If you believe that people should not be permitted to make money by charging royalties for the use of IP, then that's a perfectly respectable belief to hold, but to assert that a solution based on that belief can solve current IP issues is very optimistic indeed.
Ultimately, CC is not about "fair use" in the current legal definition of the term, it defines a new set of things and asserts axiomatically that these are the things which CC will consider to be fair. It then does so.
DRM does a similar thing, where the content provider defines what is fair use, and permits that through granted rights. The allowed rights are typically more restrictive than the current legal definition of "fair use", which is why current use of DRM is more evil than CC, but that is not an essential property of a rights-restricted object. The principle is that the content provider gets to say what they are prepared to allow, and the user must abide by that in order to stay within the system. As you point out, this principle is also present in CC, so it is not unique to DRM, but it certainly is one of the primary motivations of DRM. What would be nice would be a rights language in which well-known kinds of fair use were easily expressed and protected. This is a function of who it is that gets to defined the language, provider or consumer.
no subject
Date: 2005-02-22 01:02 pm (UTC)I really can't see a situation where a DRM solution is (a) better than a non-DRM solution and (b) not outweighed by the downsides and abuses of DRM.
A hypothetical situation, or one likely to happen in the next few years? If you mean the latter, then I reiterate my original comment that current DRM standards and implementations suck. They're currently just a blunt tool for enforcement of copyright restrictions, not a means to inform users of their rights and responsibilities as defined in law.
If the former, then consider a rights description language which is open, unencumbered by patent, and which copyright owners can attach to a piece of content in order to unambiguously inform content users what they can and can't do. So far, we have Creative Commons licensing, which you seem to support. Now extend the language to describe a more complete set of everyday copyright situations, ("you may play this game free either three times for for two hours, whichever happens first, then here's the URL at which to cough up your dough to keep playing"), rather than only those consistent with a particular ideology, and implement it in software so that your user agent pops up a dialog saying "you are about to commit a copyright infringement. Continue? [Make it legal] [Abort] [Continue] [Always break the law for this content]". Of course the latter two options will be greyed out if you're fool enough to use hardware owned by The Man, or if you compiled with LAW_ABIDING_CITIZEN=true, but that's your lookout.
What's your objection?
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Date: 2005-02-24 11:57 pm (UTC)is compatible with
As long as people feel the need to enforce DRM through encryption, they're not going to make it easier for people to circumvent that encryption. I have absolutely no problem with a standardised form of informing users about copyright, so long as they're free to ignore that without the horrendous hacks that it would take to enforce it, like the NGSCB "copyright chip".
Also, the problem with enforceable DRM is that it contradicts fair use legislation. DVD ripping software manufactured in the US might try to stop a Norwegian user ripping a region 2 DVD there, even though it's legal to do so (but illegal IIRC in England, which is the same DVD region).
I'm not opposed to standardised electronic ways of conveying copyright information to the user, I'm just opposed to things which introduce massive complication, insecurity (such as Windows Media Player's DRM code being used to introduce viruses to your computer) and violation of fair use, which will do nothing to stop piracy and everything to harm legitimate users.
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Date: 2005-02-22 12:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-02-22 01:07 pm (UTC)Let's not forget monkey-boy Ballmer calling all iPod owners thieves.
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Date: 2005-02-22 01:09 pm (UTC)Does iPod play .wav files? If so, then 40GB of legally-acquired content represents only about 80-100 audio CDs. That's not much.
Furthermore, an iPod is a portable USB hard disk (and indeed I use my non-iPod player for carting large files about the place). If a court ever rules that nobody needs as much as 40GB of digital storage for legal purposes, then I will happily call that judge a fuckwit.
This is not to say that the case in question won't be ruled by a fuckwit, merely that when the government becomes sufficiently fuckwitted, we are entitled to start ignoring their dumbass opinions.
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Date: 2005-02-22 01:12 pm (UTC)...but anyway, I reckon I'm not far off the target market for the iPod and I easily own 40 Gb worth of music when encoded at a relatively low bitrate (128 CBR/joint stereo).
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Date: 2005-02-22 01:18 pm (UTC)(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2005-02-22 05:50 pm (UTC)The court doesn't have to rule that "nobody needs as much as 40GB of digital storage space for legal purposes," since that will very rarely be what is brought before the court. On the other hand, an action can and probably will be brought stating that Apple has made a good deal of profit by producing and popularizing a technology that allows a large degree of copyright infringement. Any action will likely seek damages based upon those profits.
The legal standard (either common law or statutory) isn't "does the device have a practical, legal, non-infringing purpose, regardless of whether that is the most common use?" The fact that you use your player for carrying about large files does not make Apple safe from liability. (For one thing, if that were the main purpose for an IPod, you'd not ship it with built in functionality for playing music.)
On the other hand, ITunes does form a line of defense against such charges, because it's a vehicle by which an awful lot of non-infringing use occurs, and can be characterized as a good-faith effort to get around the problem. I would be very surprised to find that in any RIAA/Apple litigation, ITunes is not used as a defence both against DMCA attacks or other theories of liability.
Again, if anyone wants to put forward evidence that the majority--or even a substantial minority--of IPod owners actually have rights to all the music on their players, they're welcome to do so. To my knowledge, no party in the debate has made that case, and "well, I have pretty much all legal music on my machine" is not a compelling argument in front of a judge, whether
It's interesting that someone mentioned Creative Commons. There's one reason that Creative Commons works: it's very rarely used to protect information that is worth litigating. Running a Lexis search today, I found absolutely no cases using the words "creative commons", which leads me to believe litigation with it is quite rare. My (quite reasonable) guess is because anything put under a Creative Commons license--whichever license--is fundamentally public domain, because the license isn't used to protect anything worth protecting.
no subject
Date: 2005-02-22 09:28 pm (UTC)It was of course not a legal argument, it was an argument which suggests that at the point where the law is no longer useful or desirable, one should (and in general folks inevitably will) break that law.
On the other hand, an action can and probably will be brought stating that Apple has made a good deal of profit by producing and popularizing a technology that allows a large degree of copyright infringement.
It will of course have to establish far more than that, since other technologies which fit the description you give include cassette recorders, VCRs, PCs and photocopiers, none of which have been successfully prosecuted by content owners.
I would certainly be interested to see such a case, in a morbid way, because it would prove a fascinating contest between those who wish to protect the American recording industry, against those who wish to avoid penalizing an American manufacturer of the putatively infringing device, to the benefit of foreign manufacturers of competing devices. This would be a marked difference from the Sony Betamax case, which was American corporations wailing on a foreigner and which therefore had to be dragged all the way to the Supreme Court.
On the other hand, ITunes does form a line of defense against such charges, because it's a vehicle by which an awful lot of non-infringing use occurs
As is ripping ones own CDs to mp3 format.
The point against which I particularly rail is not that there might be a case against Apple at all, but the idea that "iPods are massive in size", and that a smaller but otherwise identical device might somehow be non-infringing. Since this second post suggests that argument won't be a mainstay of the case, the judge may be spared the difficult choice between ruling against the RIAA (who have friends in high places) or playing the fool for them.
I do of course have the advantage over condign that I am not professionally obliged to show respect for the law if and when it lacks common sense, so I can call as I see rather than acting as though legal process always makes sense.
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Date: 2005-02-22 09:39 pm (UTC)I agree with this bit.
The one case I can think of where there could be commercial harm done by infringement of a CC license is if the CC no-derivative-works condition is applied to some work which the author himself modifies (or re-licenses to someone else who modifies) and sells the modified version commercially. If company X then comes along, modifies the CC-licensed original and starts selling their own modification, then I would have thought that the author could probably proceed exactly as in any other case of plagiarism. But who knows, maybe that CC original would scupper his chances.
(no subject)
From:Creative Commons
Date: 2005-02-22 11:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-02-23 12:41 am (UTC)It may be that the owners of the copier may simply be playing it safe, and sanctioning a limit which is artificially low, on the grounds that "5 pages" is known to be safe, where "50 pages" might be dubious. And it may be that the number of pages has no legal bearing at all, but issuing the instruction at least counts as a gesture of good faith.
no subject
Date: 2005-02-22 01:15 pm (UTC)On this specific subject, 40GB of songs downloaded from iTunes is about 10000 tracks. At current iTunes prices of $1 a track, that's a fair whack of money, even if you've already filled half your iPod by putting a few hundred compressed CDs on it.
Several online music services have tried to make themselves sound very promising by suggesting that punters will fill their iPods with downloaded music. I don't believe it, and their shareholders shouldn't either.
no subject
Date: 2005-02-22 01:25 pm (UTC)Apart for a very small fraction (50 Meg? Other people have requested me to provide) every track is one I have personally ripped. In some cases, I've done so from "pseudo-CDs" (ie. copy protected CDs), and in many cases, they're from CDs that I don't own, but have lurked in my house long enough for me to get my grubby little fingers on them.
I'll concede that I may qualify as one of the "very few".
Now mp3 has entered general awareness, people would easilly acquire a large mp3 collection from their own personal CDs: 200 CDs turns into 12 Gig quite easilly, and seems a "reasonable" size for a CD collection. Things like iTunes (and indirectly DRM) are what interrupt this "legal" conversion process, with customers fishing into a much larger pool for short-lived play lists.
no subject
Date: 2005-02-22 01:31 pm (UTC)(Please nobody do that joke).
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Date: 2005-02-22 06:32 pm (UTC)Sadly, in Australia that doesn't help, as it's illegal to rip stuff even if you own the CD (same applies to taping). As the iTMS is not available here yet, this means that almost every iPod in the country is being used illegaly - the only content that's legally available is non-DRM'd tracks either [sold directly or released for free] by individual artists.
no subject
Date: 2005-02-22 01:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-02-22 09:22 pm (UTC)I also believe that Ogg Vorbis is significantly better supported on portable music players than FairTunes AAC, going by this list ;)