DRM: yesterday, today and tomorrow

[diogen]

There is hard to find a topic where opinions (consumers vs. copyright holders) are further from what normally is called consensus, than DRM.
It applies to movies, audio, software, games, etc - anything that is sold today in a digital format.

My first encounter with DRM goes back to the 80's.
It was a set of a dozen or so 5.25" floppies holding the installer of Lahey Fortran compiler, IIRC.
It was around $1K and sold at a rate of few hundred a month. Hence, it justified manual treatment against unauthorized copying.

The first floppy disc had a bad sector(s). Norton Utilities would clearly show it.
When you run the installer, it would check whether a certain sector was bad and if not, the installer would quit with a cryptic error.
Obviously, when making a regular copy of the disc, the bad sector won't be there and the installer wouldn't work.

The rest of the story can be guessed. The first disc got corrupted. No internet, no email.
The company claimed we have an illegal copy and refused to get into any further discussions.
Somebody decided to have a look at the backup copy. Found a .5K file that would return 0 or 1 at the start of the installation.
Replaced it with another one (with the same name) that would always return 1 and the problem was solved.
We were never short in Fortran compilers ever since - every PC had its own (working!) copy...:)

There is hardly any doubt that DRM will go away (eventually). For essentially two reasons
- working DRM is hard and expensive, aka raises the price of the product
- even when effective, DRM tends to have a negative effect on sales since they make only honest consumers suffer from using it.

The "copyright infringement business" started, I believe, with Napster as the intersection of internet, digital audio (CDs), computers and MP3 codec.
Ever since a digital audio/video product was either hacked (e.g. DVD) or a financial disaster (SACD, DVD-A).
Being hackable almost became the pre-requisite for a chance to have commercial success!

The latest DRM flavours - Cinavia, UltraViolet, etc. - haven't changed the landscape much if at all...

Please share your stories/thoughts/ideas on the topic.

Diogen.

PS This thread was started to make neuron2's life easier...:) He's having a hard time pruning the Cinavia thread from off topic posts.
Let this be the thread for generic DRM discussion.

[Ch3vr0n]

Afaik: DRM is something that actively PREVENTS copying. Cinavia doesnt prevent copying AT ALL. You can copy a cinavia infected disc just fine. It'll only surface on playback on a cinavia detecting device as such it's not a DRM.

UltraViolet definitely isn't a DRM method, its a way of streaming video files like you can already do on ur own.

[Asmodian]

Once mobile devices, or that kind of technology, really takes over DRM might be very standard. I can see ultra-violet or something similar really working once the internet becomes even more ubiquitous and a 1080p video download feels like a mp3 did in 2000.

Audible has taken over the audio book market, as far as I know, and I think it is because that DRM experience is easier. You log into your account and can download all your books to that device. The files don't use always online DRM and are small enough you can download and store them on the device so you do not have choppy playback due to streaming. Quality is only OK but most seem happy with it. If DRM'ed online video was as easy it might work as a business model.

[Blue_MiSfit]

The new focus is on DRM of adaptive streaming packages. Widevine (recently acquired by Google) is a big player in this space.

Starting as a hobbyist, and having moved into the professional space, I see the need for DRM. The idea of making high quality streams available for recording in the clear is untenable to any media executive.

We all know that any DRM system can be broken, but this requires dedicated effort. I think the goal of most DRM systems in this market are to prevent casual users from recording streamed content that they are temporarily licensed for. This doesn't seem unreasonable to me.

[LoRd_MuldeR]

The new focus is on DRM of adaptive streaming packages. Widevine (recently acquired by Google) is a big player in this space.

Starting as a hobbyist, and having moved into the professional space, I see the need for DRM. The idea of making high quality streams available for recording in the clear is untenable to any media executive.

We all know that any DRM system can be broken, but this requires dedicated effort. I think the goal of most DRM systems in this market are to prevent casual users from recording streamed content that they are temporarily licensed for. This doesn't seem unreasonable to me.

I have absolutely no problem with DRM for rented content. However, if I pay the "full" price, I want to get a physical disc or at least a fully self-contained and DRM-free download.

Problem is that nowadays there is a strong tendency to an "everything is a service" mentality. Even if you pay the "full" price for, e.g., a movie, you only get a license to access the DRM-infected stream as often as you want - as long as the provider happens to still be willing to operate their service (for the specific platform you are on). It's easy to see, why studios etc. prefer that idea. Though, it's not quite acceptable to me, as an end user.

Same mess with video games. Nowadays most titles will need permanent access to the game server, even if you play "single player" mode. If I want to play Duke 3D from 1996 today, I can simply load up my DOS emulator. Will I still be able to play one of those "requires permanent internet connection" games in 15+ years? Will those companies even exist then? I'm not so sure.

(With people being more and more unable to archive stuff "offline" for as long as they wish, we are moving closer to what has been forecasted in a specific book I read in school and which happens to have the same year in its title that I was born)

[diogen]

DRM is about control.
As long as the "right" balance is found between imposed restrictions and price, I think no one would mind.

Digital audio tracks are mostly DRM-less.
I don't think RIAA is in its best financial shape ever, but it hasn't killed them (what we were told for 10 years now).

I think Netflix is OK. Reasonable variety of supported devices. If you watch just one movie a week it will cost you $2/movie.
They use Silverlight now and plan to move (http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/15/netflix-silverlight-html5/) to HTML5. I haven't seen attempts to record Netflix streams. Probably because they do it right...

But selling physical discs and then telling the buyer you don't really own the content - you've licensed it, won't work, I think.

I don't think it can get much worse than the legitimate Blu-ray playback.
Were you have to have the player constantly updated if you want to continue watching new titles.

And Cinavia, where your home made video might go silent because Avatar is playing in the background... This sh!t will never fly...

Diogen.

[Brazil2]

(With people being more and more unable to archive stuff "offline" for as long as they wish, we are moving closer to what has been forecasted in a specific book I read in school and which happens to have the same year in its title that I was born)
And that's why the big companies are fighting to cross the finish line first because the winner will become the real Big Brother for a long while.


But selling physical discs and then telling the buyer you don't really own the content - you've licensed it, won't work, I think.
It's always been like that, even with normal books. The content always belongs to the author and the copyright holders, you only own the support whatever it is made of.

[diogen]

It's always been like that, even with normal books.Not quite.
The author owns the content, have no problem with that.
But I can read it any way I want: in bed, on a couch, on a train, etc.
DVD/BD playback rules are far from it...
UltraViolet definitely isn't a DRM method...
Of course it is (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UltraViolet_(system)).

Diogen.

[ChiDragon]

I haven't seen attempts to record Netflix streams. Probably because they do it right...

I have; all over other boards.

[Chetwood]

We all know that any DRM system can be broken, but this requires dedicated effort. I think the goal of most DRM systems in this market are to prevent casual users from recording streamed content that they are temporarily licensed for.
Yeah, that's what the content producers keep telling themselves to rationalize shelling out big bucks to DRM companies on schemes that just won't work. Cause as we all know, the casual users simply get the stuff that has been cleaned from DRM by the dedicated users.

It's always been like that, even with normal books.
No, it's not. As has already been said, I can do whatever I want with the book I bought but I cannot sell my copy of Starcraft 2. The true purpose of DRM (http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130325/11132122455/true-purpose-drm-to-let-copyright-holders-have-veto-right-new-technologies.shtml) is control and thus must be fought on all fronts (http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2013/mar/12/tim-berners-lee-drm-cory-doctorow).

[Ghitulescu]

The purpose of ANY marketing tool (including monopoly, patents and so on) is to control. DRM is just another tool. The digitisation was also a by-product of this tendency, as digital streams could be better protected from unauthorised use than analogue (it all started with satellite PayTV).

I understand the need of DRM (not that I agree with): if one makes an intellectual effort, he could remember how was the music listened in the Dark Age (unless he were a nobleman he wouldn't). Later on, he could enjoy the music of bands only live, where he had to pay for each audition.

The possibility of buying "canned music" was actually a breakthrough in this field: one could pay once and listen many times. That would hypothetically incur losses amounting to n-1 times the price.

The studios want this situation back. The consumers not (acquired rights).

[kypec]

In the past ("Dark Age") the artist had to travel many miles in order to get his performance to wide audience and earn his money. Today, his performance can be available to millions of listeners in a couple of seconds immediately after it has been posted on the internet. The price of such performance for single listener should be far lower than that of a real live performance yet this is still very often not true - and this is something only publishers and artists can change.

[Ghitulescu]

And here EXACTLY is where the problem is:

a lazy artist does a single recording, then distribute it widely, and cash it every time, because of DRM. It might be a masterpiece, but it's not enough. Rembrandt had to work each time a new masterpiece had to be created.

Mutatis mutandis, you can do the same: go at work only the first day then demand to have the payment paid every month from now on, year after year. Surely every employer would love this :)

[diogen]

Having lost their DVD-ripping case (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/03/stop-innovating-please-kaleidescape-loses-dvd-ripping-case/), Kaleidescape had no chances left to introduce anything similar with BD optical discs.

So it went the download route (http://www.electronista.com/articles/13/05/02/films.downloadable.to.kaleidescape.servers.at.blu.ray.quality/). The files run in the 20-50GB sizes and are claimed to be the equivalent of BD in quality (http://www.engadget.com/2013/05/02/kaleidescape-store-launches-blu-ray-quality-downloads-ultraviolet/?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=Feed_Classic&utm_campaign=Engadget), both, audio and video.

And everything is wrapped into the UltraViolet DRM (not that Kaleidescape was anti-DRM before)...

Diogen.

[diogen]

Today marks the birthday of the next hidef standard from BDA
http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20150805005853/en/Blu-ray-Disc-Association-Commence-Licensing-Ultra-HD#.VcJbIPlVhBc
http://venturebeat.com/2015/08/05/forget-4k-streaming-ultra-hd-blu-ray-licensing-begins-on-august-24/
So, Bill Gates was wrong: BD was NOT the last disc standard...:)

It has been discussed for a while.
Obviously, a new format calls for a new DRM scheme (would be shocking if it didn't)
http://www.extremetech.com/computing/205593-ultra-hd-blu-ray-standard-finalized-4k-support-hdr-digital-bridge-sharing

We'll have to wait until the holiday season to get first hand experience with the new DRM...

In the meantime, will work on getting used to sit 5 feet from a 100" screen to justify 4K content...:)

[Ghitulescu]

The standards for CD and DVD were laid down before DMCA, although some "improvements" have occurred since.

Ripping a CD(-DA) is very simple compared to that of a BD. In the first, practically a single hurdle has to be passed - the reading correctness (once the TOC could be reliably retrieved).
A BD has to be unlocked, decrypted and analysed.

The tools for CD are still available legally (one author was forced to remove the possibility to read the correct TOC in order to comply with). In Germany DVDShrink is allowed, provided it doesn't deCSS - and there is such a version available. But all the BD tools (and almost all DVD ones) are available only as downloads from exotic countries with no extradition agreements.
Like with SACD, the ripping will stop once there is no computer drive to read them and the existing standalones are subjected to strict rules.

This is why they chose digital over analogue 30 years ago.

[diogen]

If you believe Cory Doctorow (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cory_Doctorow) and in his anti-DRM crusade, then DRM actually has NO future
http://hackaday.com/2015/08/08/corey-doctorow-rails-against-the-effect-of-drm-and-the-dmca/

If nothing else you can't help but envy his optimism...:)

[Ghitulescu]

DRM will have no chance in a perfect world.

We are living in a perfect world, so I can't really wait for DRM to fail :) :) :)

[diogen]

Today is the 10th anniversary since one of the DRM champions - Sony - went a bit too far
http://www.engadget.com/2015/10/29/sony-cd-rootkit-anniversary/

I believe many of their hacking problems in recent memory were triggered by that event.
Just like Adobe's - by their "assistance" to prosecute Sklyarov
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Elcom_Ltd.