But since the lights went out I’ve never been the same

[venta]

Yesterday 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]

Comments

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

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?

[diffrentcolours]

I'm not sure that your definition of DRM as

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

is compatible with

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.

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.