In short, Doctorow argues that the copyright industry’s fight isn’t against copying, but against general-purpose computers. As more and more devices we buy are general-purpose hardware devices with custom software designed to make that hardware do certain things out of the box, that custom software that drives the device is also custom-izable software that lets the hardware be recoded and repurposed to do completely different things.

Shortly, we’ll see basically every industry trying to crack down on the freedom to tinker, to keep the products they sold us in the same state as they were before we owned them. This is exactly where we’re headed if the current trends continue.

The problem is that many people don’t understand what a general-purpose computer is. Legislators still think in terms of hardware: A cassette player can only play a cassette. Therefore, a music player today must only play music.

That’s wrong of course. A music player today can be recoded to play, stream, receive, remix, or do other things with music. Or, for that matter, it could probably be recoded to become a networked earthquake early-warning sensor instead, if its microphone was sensitive enough to sense the low-frequency sounds that forebode earthquakes.

This idea — that an off-the-shelf entertainment device can be repurposed to become an earthquake early-warning sensor with just the copying of a file — is mind-boggling to today’s legislators. It is just so far out it doesn’t reflect sunlight any more. And it is with this mindset that they legislate that breaking any DRM — repurposing devices that you own — should be punishable with jail time.

This is the reason that I keep reminding the world why we need to ban DRM altogether. It is corporations writing their own laws restricting your property.

But it goes beyond that. Let’s return to the concept of the general-purpose computer. In the mindset of today’s oldish legislators, if you want to kill the possibility of broadcasting music from a music player, you remove some piece from that device. Just like you would remove a “stream” button from a keyboard.

But as we know, it doesn’t work like that. If you want to prevent a general-purpose computer from running a certain type of code, you have to add something to it. You have to add code that prevents it from running this type of code, which it has been designed to do, after all.

And this is where it gets interesting. Since you own the general-purpose computer, you can run any code on it — including code that removes the code preventing you from running some types of code. These instructions that kill the DRM restrictions, seen from the device’s point of view, is just any kind of code that the device will execute happily.

And so protection for the removal of the DRM code is built in next, like Sony did with its criminal rootkit in 2005 (which is why Sony is on my permanent blacklist). So then that code is removed first by the person owning the device, followed by the DRM code.

The general-purpose computer is, by its very definition, a device where DRM will never work.

The major problem is that legislators don’t understand this. They don’t understand that you need to add something to the device to make it less functional, and that this something can easily be removed by an end-user to restore full functionality again. So we get an endless nightmare where legislators mandate more code, more laws, more code, and yet more laws to try to add restricting code to our general-purpose devices, code that we can easily remove.

We need to shift the viewpoint and narrative on this story — we need to make legislators understand the concept of a general-purpose computer, and that by definition, you can’t restrict it from running code. We need a Freedom to Code at the citizen level, at the same constitutional level as Freedom of Speech, even if it goes against corporate interests. No, scratch that: especially when it goes against corporate interests.

Of course, one might argue that a general freedom to code would also be a freedom to code those pesky DRM restrictions. That is true on a philosophical level. The fight here, however, is to get an understanding of the general-purpose computer on a conceptual level into legislatures.

Source: Doctorow’s Omen Shows Why We Need To Ban DRM

Therefore, to begin with, a ban on DRM can be seen as a form of consumer protection.

Second, it doesn’t matter if Parliament writes laws — which is its job — if corporations can rewrite those laws at their own leisure with the help of technology. It is also Parliament’s job to make sure that writing laws remains Parliament’s job, and in particular, that it doesn’t bend over to the wishes of a special interest.

But while these two points are important, the third is the most important of all. Libertarians, in particular, have asked me why an open and honest goods declaration and a legal right to circumvent DRM isn’t enough. If people want to buy DRM-defective goods which are clearly declared to be so, and corporations want to sell them, then what is the problem?

Let me illustrate by drawing parallels — as I often do — to the shift in attitude that followed the rise of the Greens 40 years ago.

A few years ago, the European Union banned lead. As in “banned lead, period”. You can find the stamp “RoHS” on many electronics products, which is short for “Reduction of Hazardous Substances”. As the solder needed to create circuit boards in all our electronics was a mixture of molten lead and tin, every piece of electronics manufacture on the planet needed to be retooled, recalibrated, reinvented. It was a huge undertaking, as the replacement lead-free solder had different operating temperatures, which in turn put new stresses on the boards and long-term stability, and so on.

So let’s ask the same question. If a technically savvy corporation argues that it is sound engineering and profitable business to use lead in electronics (which it is), and people want to buy the electronics that contain lead, then what is the problem?

It is exactly the same problem as with DRM.

As a politician, I have other concerns than sound engineering and profitable businesses. It is my job — it is my damn responsibility — to take a larger view and look ahead, decades ahead, generations ahead. I fully support the ban on lead for this reason. And it is the same reason that I support a ban on DRM.

It is toxic. DRM is toxic. Just like lead. And needs to be banned for exactly the same reasons.

DRM poisons the free flow, analysis, remix, and usage of information. It requires a very specific set of conditions to operate, conditions that won’t exist five or ten years into the future. (Have you tried playing a five-year-old DRM-defective game?) It poisons the information ecosystem.

As the free exchange of TICKs — Tools, Ideas, Culture, and Knowledge — is essential to the industries, citizens and social life of the next generation, I fully support banning a practice that outright poisons the ecosystem where this exchange needs to thrive.

The Greens supported banning freon in their early days and banning lead recently, despite both substances being good engineering, good business, and attrative end-user products. This is the way it should be, and this is why I support banning DRM. There are other concerns that take precedence in lawmaking than short-term profits.

Source: DRM Needs To Be Banned Because It’s Toxic

The phrase above has been written a few dozen times here on TorrentFreak, and it’s now supported by an academic report.

Researchers from Rice and Duke University looked into the effect of digital restrictions on music piracy. In their paper “Music Downloads and the Flip Side of Digital Rights Management Protection” they conclude that DRM doesn’t prevent piracy at all. Quite the opposite.

“Only the legal users pay the price and suffer from the restrictions. Illegal users are not affected because the pirated product does not have DRM restrictions,” the researchers write in their report.

Ditching DRM and other restrictions would actually reduce piracy according to the analytical model developed by the researchers.

“In many cases, DRM restrictions prevent legal users from doing something as normal as making backup copies of their music. Because of these inconveniences, some consumers choose to pirate,” DinahVernik, assistant professor of marketing at Rice’s Jones Graduate School of Business says.

So without DRM, more people would be buying music. And aside from this direct effect, the researchers predict that DRM-free music will increase competition between retailers, which then results in lower prices.

“Removal of these restrictions makes the product more convenient to use and intensifies competition with the traditional format (CDs), which has no DRM restrictions,” says Vernik. “This increased competition results in decreased prices for both downloadable and CD music and makes it more likely that consumers will move from stealing music to buying legal downloads.”

Since the paper has yet to be published we can’t review all aspects of the analytical model. But unlike the researchers suggest, their findings are hardly surprising as the effect they describe has already unfolded in real life..

Even the most dedicated copyright protectionists concluded a long time ago that music DRM is a thing of the past. Most notably, IFPI said two years ago that stripping DRM would “significantly boost download sales.”

And indeed, those who look around will find that there’s hardly any music being sold with classic DRM in place. Even the RIAA admitted that DRM is an endangered species, probably because what the researchers report today is rather accurate.

The late Steve Jobs already knew this a long time ago. “DRMs haven’t worked, and may never work, to halt music piracy,” he said back in 2007.

Source: Eureka! Ditching DRM Decreases Piracy

He was referring to the DRM present in certain versions of The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings, the hot new title from CD Projekt. His calculations revealed the following:

* With SecuROM: 41 sec game launch, 16 sec savegame, 16-43 fps
* Without SecuROM: 9 sec game launch, 8 sec savegame, 24-73 fps

Although the performance hit is dramatic, only retail versions of the game are affected since Steam versions and those from GOG.com are supplied DRM-free.

“I bought the game from Amazon,” said our concerned reader. “I am an idiot, apparently.”

However, after listening to complaints like these around the web, today CD Projekt will release a patch which will remove DRM from all versions of the game.

“Our goal is to make our fans and customers happy and to reward them for buying our game and DRM schemes does not support our philosophy as they might create obstacles for users of legally bought copies,” reports CD Projekt’s Adam Badowski, refreshingly.

“Our approach to countering piracy is to incorporate superior value in the legal version. This means it has to be superior in every respect: less troublesome to use and install, with full support, and with access to additional content and services. So, we felt keeping the DRM would mainly hurt our legitimate users.”

Interestingly, TorrentFreak had already been in contact with CD Projekt who told us their main concern was avoiding a pre-release situation, something they achieved.

“Nowadays most PC games are available for download with a working crack at least couple of days before official release,” Agnieszka Szostak of CD Projekt told us. “We’re happy we were able to avoid it with our game.”

While CD Projekt’s approach to DRM in this instance is to be commended, and piracy can indeed be deterred by making it more worthwhile to get the official copy, this announcement should perhaps not be read in isolation.

As reported last year, CD Projekt already warned that DRM aside, they might take another and even more controversial approach to dealing with piracy.

“Of course we’re not happy when people are pirating our games, so we are signing with legal firms and torrent sneaking companies,” CD Projekt co-founder Marcin Iwinski explained at the time.

“In quite a few big countries, when people are downloading [The Witcher 2] illegally they can expect a letter from a legal firm saying, ‘Hey, you downloaded it illegally and right now you have to pay a fine’,” Iwinski added.

A couple of weeks ago TorrentFreak heard rumors that a pre-released but uncracked version of a Witcher 2 torrent on The Pirate Bay had been put there as “a trap”. Our investigations didn’t show any evidence to back up that claim. So, along with a link to the company’s earlier statements about getting law firms involved, we contacted CD Projekt and asked them outright – is this torrent a trap and do you still intend to go ahead with tracking illegal file-sharers?

We received no answer on the first question, but we did on the second.

“Yes we will track illegal file-sharing hoping people will find the game good enough to actually change their mind and be willing to pay for it,” Agnieszka Szostak told us.

If CD Projekt do indeed go ahead with their threats, this will be the second time that a Witcher title has been involved in these so-called “pay-up-or-else” schemes. In 2008, large numbers of Internet users started receiving letters from notorious file-sharing lawyers Davenport Lyons in the UK demanding cash settlements. Among those letters were demands for payment on an Atari game with a familiar title – The Witcher.

We asked CD Projekt if that scheme had been successful. We received no response.

Source: Witcher 2 DRM Dumped, But CD Projekt Is Watching Torrents

The paradox above has gone unnoticed by many copyright holders who don’t appear to realize that in many instances DRM does them and their customers more harm than good. However, that doesn’t mean that DRM is inherently evil. There are examples of how DRM could work, at least, if executed successfully.

Garry Newman, the creator of the popular game Garry’s Mod which allows Steam users to alter the appearance of Source engine based games, has come up with such an elegant form of DRM. Yesterday he tweeted whether any people were “unable to shade polygon normals,” an issue that seemed to be quite common among a certain group of players.

The Google search Newman linked to in the tweet indeed suggested that the problem was fairly common. However, affected users who thought that the tweet meant that their problems would be fixed soon were wrong. The ‘bug’ is actually a feature that was put in the game as an anti-piracy measure, a form of DRM really.

After getting a few responses to his call for bug reports, Garry’s Mod’s creator Newman tweeted the following:

Although this appears to be nothing more than a gimmick, the type of thinking that goes behind it is definitely a step in the right direction compared to the more invasive types of DRM we’ve seen in recent years. It doesn’t affect legitimate players who were willing to spend the $9.99 on the game, but it’ll send a clear message to those who pirated it.

Newman doesn’t think the new ‘feature’ will result in many additional sales, but hopes the people who bought the game can appreciate it.

We have to agree that tackling a piracy issue in this way doesn’t leave users with much to complain about (that is, if no people got the message by ‘accident’). However, we wonder if it was a good idea to permaban those who were caught from the game’s forums. Giving people the opportunity to correct their mistakes and continue to participate in the community might have been and even more sensible and educational approach.

The bottom line is that instead of adding restrictions to regular customers, DRM fares much better when it’s framed in the opposite way. Offer people who bought the game legitimately the best experience possible, at the least better than that of people who pirate the game. At the end of the day DRM is nothing more than an acronym, which by itself doesn’t have to be all that evil.

And let’s be honest, those damned pirates deserve to be pranked every now and then! Or to put it in Newman’s words: “You can’t stop pirates.. but you can troll them.”

Source: Garry’s Mod Creator Trolls Pirates With Prank DRM

Set on a moon under siege by humans determined to exploit its resources, this science fiction epic has been in the planning for many years and was even delayed as Cameron waited until the technology became available to realize his dream.

When the movie goes on full release this week the wait will finally be over, but some lucky individuals have already been enjoying advance previews. Unfortunately the same cannot be said of some who hoped to witness the 3D version of the movie in Germany yesterday, as instead of technology enabling a jaw-dropping extra-dimensional experience, it brought the whole thing to a standstill.

According to a report, 3D digital versions of the movie were delivered to certain cinemas but a problem with their encryption meant that they could not be watched at all the theaters.

The complex DRM system, which involves several certificates and server-delivered time-sensitive keys for hard drives and projectors, failed in a way consistent with the movie’s epic status. Unfortunately, after working for several hours cinema workers failed to decrypt 150 gigabytes of data, which resulted in at least one location reverting back to the 2D version.

DRM strikes again, this time in 3D.

“We regret the failures and the associated discomfort, but we are confident that we will be able to play the premiere both in 2D and in 3D,” Oliver Fock, general manager of CineStar group said in a comment to the fiasco. And indeed, according to the latest reports the problems have been fixed just in time for the public premiere.

Source: DRM Fiasco Ruins James Cameron’s Avatar 3D Preview

Cory Doctorow, blogger, author and columnist, is not shy of technology or the Internet. His last book, Little Brother, covered the internet, RFID, terrorism and even the Pirate Party. Doctorow also served as the European Director for the EFF and co-founded the ORG. When it comes to DRM, he knows his stuff, and he also knows that DRM doesn’t work

So, when he wanted to release an audio version of his new book ‘Makers’ without DRM, it seemed a fairly simple prospect. The publishers, Random House Audio, were amenable to it. The problem was one of distribution. There are two major players in this area, Audible and Apple. Unlike the publishers, they are not so keen on the ‘no DRM’ position.

Audible, writes Doctorow in Publishers Weekly, turned them down flat when it came to a DRM-free version of Little Brother last year. Since they’re the only retailer on the iTunes music store, that locked out an huge market. When it came time for ‘Makers,’ this time they said yes. Apple, however, said No. audiobooks have to have DRM.

Doesn’t matter what the author or publisher wants, Apple wants DRM, so it’s DRM or nothing.

The backup plan then was just to sell via Audible. The problem then, writes Doctorow, is that while the files might not contain DRM, they come with an End User Licensing Agreement (EULA), which effectively does the same thing – DRM by contract.

DRM might be be gone from music as apple proudly proclaimed early this year, but it’s still alive and kicking. Often not because of the artist or the publisher wants it, but because it’s a store requirement. Indeed, Mr Doctorow is very happy with his publisher, telling TorrentFreak “Random House Audio has been remarkably flexible and committed to letting me sell my audiobooks without DRM and I’m incredibly grateful to them and to my editor, Amy Metsch, for all their hard work.”

Now for Apple and Audible to similarly be flexible and hard working, after all, they didn’t create the work, they’re just selling it.

Source: Apple Says Audiobooks Must Have DRM

“As the law is today, you can not have a media center without breaking the law,” he told TorrentFreak.

“When I think of a media center it is a place where you have all your movies, pictures and music together. You can only do that by having a digital copy of the movie.”

Henrik told us that he had taken this action to draw attention to laws which allow him to copy DVDs for his own personal use, but forbid him to remove the DRM in order to do so. In his confession he asked Antipiratgruppen for a response by December 1st, indicating if they are prepared to take action against him.

The group has announced that Henrik will indeed get a response, but didn’t tell him directly, instead preferring to comment via the press.

“It is a political matter, and we have sent it to the Association of Danish Videodistributors so they can consider it. But Henrik Andersen will get a reply by 1st December,” said Antipiratgruppen lawyer Thomas Schlüter to Comon.

Schlüter went on to say that proving this type of infringement is usually impossible.

“Unless people confess, then it’s impossible to prove that they have broken copy protection. We can not break down the door to people’s homes and explore what they have available on their media server,” he said.

Poul Dylov, director for Warner Bros Denmark and chairman at the Association of Danish Videodistributors, said they will have a meeting next week to decide whether to report the matter to the police.

Dylov added they have not previously encountered a similar event, and consider the confession to be a media event, an assessment with which Henrik agrees.

“Of course, until now the film industry has not met the intentions of the law and as the culture minister will not force the film industry [to allow copying by removing DRM] by changing the law, then there must indeed be an awareness of the problem through the media,” he explains.

“But the whole problem lies in a sense with the Minster of Culture who does not follow its own interpretation of the law and the intentions of it. This gives the film industry an easy ride to the detriment of consumers,” he added.

All will be revealed here, on or before December 1st.

Source: Anti-Piracy Group Responds to Media, Not DRM Breaker

“I’ve started this because i don’t want to be a criminal,” Henrik told TorrentFreak.

“As the law is today, you can not have a media center without breaking the law. When I think of a media center it is a place where you have all your movies, pictures and music together. You can only do that by having a digital copy of the movie.”

“In my media center I have digital copies of my legally purchased DVD movies,” he writes in his confession. “Overall, I suppose I’ve made digital copies of approx. 100 films and 10 seasons of TV series,” he added.

On the surface this should be fine, since Danish copyright law allows for the private, non-commercial copying of purchased DVDs.

12.–(1) Anyone is entitled to make or have made, for private purposes, single copies of works which have been made public if this is not done for commercial purposes. Such copies must not be used for any other purpose.

Unfortunately the law does not allow for the circumvention of the DRM on the disks in order to do so.

75.c –(1) It is not permitted to circumvent effective technological measures without the consent of the rights holder.

“Since the above copying is a violation of Danish law, I would therefore like to declare myself in violation of section 75 of the copyright law,” Henrik told Antipiratgruppen.

While previously acknowledging this catch 22 situation, Denmark’s Ministry of Culture felt that the situation would shortly rectify itself.

“…it is expected that in future copy protection will be designed in such a way that it will be possible to take one or more copies for personal use, and this is certainly the intention of the law,” they wrote.

However, as Henrik points out, while this might be the government’s plan, the movie industry has failed to live up to this vision, hence his intended piracy martyrdom to draw attention to the issue.

“As the culture minister sees no reason to change the law, she must, in my opinion, not understand the problem, therefore I choose to confess to you, to see whether you are prepared to get the legislation tested in court,” says Henrik as he concludes his confession.

Henrik has given Antipiratgruppen until December 1st to respond. Even given a prosecution on a plate, it’s extremely unlikely they will take him up on his offer.

Source: DRM Breaker Reports Himself To Anti-Piracy Group

In reality however, DRM simply amounts to an annoyance for legitimate customers, while those people who weren’t planning to buy but pirate, have plenty of ways to hack or crack the copy protection schemes. Luckily more content providers have started to realize this. But not all of them.

Meet Austin Meyer, the brain behind X-Plane flight simulator and CEO of the software company that develops the game. Meyer is someone who values input from the people who buy his products, and after he received several complaints about the DVD that had to be in the drive in order to play X-Plane, he came up with a brilliant solution.

For a measly $29 the company decided to sell optional USB-drives with a copy of the DVD that can be used instead of the DVD itself. “The keys are only $29, so I am making this affordable,” Meyer commented in a press-release.

We can of course dispute the cheapness of a $29 DRM-tool, but what’s even more interesting is how Meyer responded to some of the questions reporter Dave Duck posed when he tried to find out more about the companies motivations in charging its customers for DRM on a USB drive.

“The usb key is designed to STOP that annoyance by freeing up the drive, WITHOUT requiring anyone to lie, cheat, or steal,” Meyer wrote in one of his replies.

But he structurally ignored the biggest question asked by the reporter. “Given the wide availability of X-Plane torrents, doesn’t this sort of scheme just piss off loyal customers AND fail to stop pirates?”

Indeed, like any other program X-Plane has been pirated and the software is widely available on BitTorrent sites without any DRM. The new DRM on a drive does nothing to change this situation, and is just an extra charge for DRM that only affects legitimate customers.

Like many other software manufacturers Meyer fails to see the problem, and frankly he doesn’t even seem to care whether the DRM works or not. When the reporter asked him about the effectiveness of X-Plane’s copy protection he got the following reply:

“Holy shit you are an idiot where did I ever say, imply, or ever so much as HINT that ANYTHING actually WORKS????????????????????????????????????”

As a true gentleman the CEO refused to elaborate any further on how he turned a failed DRM scheme into something that will cost legitimate customers even more money. “I’m just filtering your email now you aren’t worth talking to,” Meyers wrote in his last reply.

We wonder whether if he treats all of his customers similarly?

Source: DRM On a USB Drive: Now Just $29

“DRM serves all sorts of pro-consumer purposes,” he said at the time, without going into detail about the alleged benefits.

However, in the year that followed the numbers of consumers calling for DRM-free music increased and more labels and music services started to offer music without digital restrictions. Still, the RIAA was not convinced that there could be a future without it, and predicted a comeback for DRM last year.

Quite the opposite happened. Although DRM is still present in the majority of the legal music stores, most of the big players have decided to ditch it. Most importantly Apple announced in early 2009 that all music sold via the iTunes store would be free of DRM. This time even the RIAA doesn’t believe that it can be resurrected.

Jonathan Lamy, chief spokesperson for the RIAA declared DRM dead, when he was asked about the RIAA’s view on DRM for an upcoming SCMagazine article. “DRM is dead, isn’t it?” Lamy said, referring to the DRM-less iTunes store and other online outfits that now offer music without restrictions.

Update July 20: Yes, it seemed to good to be true and it is. We just learned the the RIAA never used the word dead in its reply to the reporter. Lamy told TorrentFreak that he only said that there is almost no DRM on (downloaded) music anymore nowadays. In other (our) words: it’s an endangered species, not extinct.

When the most vocal forefighters of DRM say so, it must be for real. Although this is the first time that the RIAA have actually said on record that DRM is dead, other players in the music industry have seen the light before them. Most notable IFPI, who said earlier this year that stripping DRM would “significantly boost download sales.”

In this we have to agree with them. All DRM has ever done is annoy consumers who actually paid for their music. No single piece of DRM has ever stopped anyone from pirating music, it’s quite the opposite as the music industry now realizes.

Source: DRM is ****, RIAA Says

To resolve the issue Mark contacted Nuance’s support. To his surprise however, they didn’t want to help him straight away, instead asking him to take pictures of the CD in order to prove that the company owned a legitimate copy.

“I couldn’t believe my ears,” Mark told TorrentFreak. “After arguing with support for a while on how ridiculous it was, I still had to have the license within the day. To make a long story short I finally got them to unlock 2 licenses after 2 days of repeated calls and sending the picture of the CD multiple times.”

Upset at how he was treated by customer support, Mark decided to send an email to Nuance’s CEO Paul Ricci to inform him that alienating customers like this is not going to help him sell more products. The picture of the CDs that Mark had to supply was also sent to Ricci.

Dear Mr Ricci,

Our company has been using your product for nearly a decade. We have estimated that it is safe to say we have spent $3000 over the years on your product. We are by far not the biggest customer but in today’s economy we think every customer counts. We recently bought several PaperPort 11 licenses which we have used. We have upgraded our computers and the procedure is to uninstall paper port (While online) in order to free a license for the new computer. Sadly this did not work. My efforts at consulting with your technical support department were very time consuming, confusing, and ultimately pointless. To my surprise, they wanted me to take a PICTURE of the CDs we have. As an IT professional, I found this archaic exercise in futility to be absolutely appalling. Not only do your anti-piracy methods completely fail (There is no known anti-piracy method that works to this day, anything can be downloaded) but they cost me; the legitimate customer time and frustration. Attached is the picture I had to send in. This is to let you know that we are completely disgusted with your company’s procedures, and are no longer going to do any business with Nuance.

Just to let you know, being a computer engineer, I can guarantee you these statistics:

Pirates Stopped = 0
Legitimate Customers totally alienated = Thousands.

You may want to take a look at your stock trends of late, Mr. Ricci. Perhaps this poor customer service MIGHT explain some of that.

Ricci received the email in good order, and passed it on to the chief marketeer at Nuance, who wrote back to Mark. “I appreciate your note and will use it as a flashpoint for us to reevaluate this processes that you have correctly pointed out as archaic,” was his reply, and he offered some free copies of PaperPort, PDF and OmniPage “as a gesture of goodwill.”

Nuance has clearly recognized that they made a mistake and although it’s probably too late for some customers, we hope they’ve learned from it. Mark said that in hindsight his email to Ricci might have been a little bit over the top. But, it did make them realize that they were making a mistake, asking people to take pictures of their CDs.

“I was very upset and under a lot of pressure. My job is to solve problems in the quickest amount of time.. and taking pictures of CD’s or sticking them in a copier isn’t something anyone should ever have to do with their software,” Mark said.

“It just doesn’t make sense.”

Source: How To Turn Customers Into Pirates

There were mixed opinions on the news. Some thought that it was great that there was an increased potential for a flood of cracked iPhone software, but a significant number of people expressed concerns that software developers would shy away from the format if they couldn’t guarantee a revenue stream.

Of course, the piracy/anti-piracy cat-and-mouse game was inevitable and today a new DRM system has been launched by Ripdev, promising to thwart those pesky iPhone pirates.

iPhone developer Ripdev says that its new ‘Kali Anti-Piracy’ system has been in development for some months now and today sees its official ‘beta’ launch. Ripdev acknowledges it has become trivial now for anyone to become a “cool hax0r” by cracking iPhone app DRM and distributing the results worldwide, but believes that with Kali, it has the answer.

According to Ripdev, the Kali system is a server-side service which can take any App Store application and place it inside another protection wrapper which, Ripdev claim, will prevent it from being pirated. Claimed to be fully compliant with the Apple iPhone SDK, Ripdev says that Kali-protected apps meet Apple’s approval process. The company adds that it has been protecting its own software (such as Kate, i2Reader Pro, iPref and Installer) with it for months and no-one has yet cracked any of them.

There is a one-off charge for developers to start using the system. If they sell their app for $9.99 or less it’s $100. Over $9.99 and it goes up to $300. Ripdev are also taking additional ‘royalties’ for each copy protected with Kali (in order to “keep the hackers on their toes”) of between 1% and 5% of the developer’s 70% cut.

Ripdev also has a message for would-be pirates;

“Expect more and more apps to be much, much harder to crack in the near future. ;)”

The trouble is that sounds awfully like a challenge. I’d put money on that being taken up. Quickly.

Source: New iPhone App DRM Claims to Thwart Pirates

The DRM in question involves a certificate with a hardcoded date – January 28 2009 – as its time to expire. Now that this certificate has expired the game will not load, giving the following error message.

[installpath]\Gears of War\Binaries\wargame-g4wlive.exe: You cannot run the game with modified executable code. Please reinstall the game

Of course, reinstallation does nothing, as the certificate has still expired. Of greater interest is why there is a certificate with expiration date in the game at all, especially as it’s expired just 15 months after the games release.

After this was pointed out on Epic’s forums, joeGraf, a ‘super moderator’ (and presumably staff member of Epic) stated that they are now aware of this, and “are working with Microsoft to get it resolved.” Just what form that resolution will take is also not clear; be it an updated certificate with later date, an open ended certificate, or removing such certificates. If a new dated certificate is issued, then it can only be expected that we will have the same problems again when it too expires.

This may also raise a question mark over other ‘Games for Windows’ titles released since Gears of War – which include Crysis and Grand Theft Auto IV – over their inclusion of such certificates, but only time will tell.

In the meantime, those of you that wish to play can do so by setting your system date back to January 27 or earlier. Also, in between playing, remember you can drop the FTC a line and tell them about this experience with DRM.

DRM only usually punishes legitimate purchasers, so this screw up with Gears of War is quite unique. We’ve just discovered that the pirated ‘razor1911′ release is also affected, meaning that it’s taken down every copy available. Great work. It must be well hidden if the usually alert crackers didn’t spot it, begging the question “how many more games have an expiration date?”

Source: DRM Jams the Gears of War: Crysis and GTA IV Next?

The story is the same everywhere; DRM has been a hindrance to those who encounter it on original product. However, it is not a hindrance to those that obtain their media via torrents and other peer-to-peer methods, since the files traded on the net don’t contain DRM. These versions are free from restrictions, and that is one of the reasons why Spore was pirated so often.

With DRM having gotten such bad press in general, and probably after receiving lots of complaints, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has decided to learn more about it. It has announced a town hall meeting, to take place at the University of Washington Law School, in Seattle. The meeting, which will take place in late March, will also be webcast online.

More unusually, to those who have experienced government meetings on these sorts of topics, they’re adopting a very open policy. Not only are they accepting submissions for consideration, but the panelists are not set. In fact, they’re openly accepting requests from those wishing to be panelists, saying they’ll be selecting based on qualifications and the various perspectives. The deadline for responses on both of these is January 30th though, so TorrentFreak readers eager to get involved had better not hang around.

The FTC has discussed DRM before. In 2006, as part of a conference titled “Protecting Consumers in the Next Tech-ade”, there was a panel discussion into DRM and its impact on consumers. Some argued it was good for consumers, allowing them to pay a reduced price for limited access – such as a book someone would only read once (clearly someone hadn’t heard about libraries). Others pointed to a study saying people would pay more for products without DRM, highlighting the fact that prior to DRM, they didn’t have to pay more. Quote of that event though, was Microsoft’s Andrew Moss, who said “What [DRM] is intended to do is give people choices”. Unfortunately, where DRM is concerned, that choice is usually centered around the decision to pirate rather than buy.

The agenda for the new meeting indicates that it will not be plain sailing for those touting DRM. It mentions the burdens on consumers, before it mentions any benefits. That alone should set warning bells ringing in the offices of DRM manufacturers up and down the country. It may be that 2009 will bring the technological change many have hoped for, with common sense finally triumphing over corruption, and giving consumers what they want, not the scraps that copyright owners want to toss them.

Source: DRM Troubles Lead to FTC Discussion

EA has downplayed this, naturally. In comments to video game developer site Gamasutra, EA’s Mariam Sughayer said “Stepping aside from the whole issue of DRM, people need to recognize that every BitTorrent download doesn’t represent a successful copy of a game, let alone a lost sale. We’ve talked to people that made several unsuccessful attempts to download the game and ended up with incomplete, slow, buggy or unusable code. In one case, a file identified as Spore contained a virus. To say that every download represents a successful copy of the game –- or that there’s been more than 500K copies downloaded — that’s just not true.”

Of course, it should be pointed out that when TorrentFreak computed the download figures previously, the basis was only a few torrents, all known to be working and virus free, and similarly with figure earlier. TorrentFreak is not new at this, and we know how to tell the difference between an incomplete, a virused, buggy, or even encrypted with a password, and one that would work if downloaded. To attempt to spin it otherwise is rude and condescending, and shows how hard EA is attempting to salvage the reputation of itself, and Spore.

When we suggested a few weeks ago that the DRM was the cause of the high rate of downloads, we said it only hurt legitimate purchasers (and those that steal it) and we are not alone. A class action lawsuit was filed in northern California on September 22nd, targeting EA for the use of SecuROM. The lawsuit asks for damages based on the secret installation of a program, which can adversely affect your system, without telling you. It’s basically the Sony Rootkit debate again.

The lawyer that filed this case, Alan Himmelfarb, told TorrentFreak “People have an absolute right to control what does and what does not get put onto their computers. When companies resort to secret, undisclosed installations – for whatever purpose – they cross a line. Our lawsuit is the result in this case. First there was Sony with its Rootkit. Then there was Ubisoft with Starforce. Now we have EA with SecuROM. In each case, corporate executives failed to see anything wrong with installing a secret, uninstallable, administrative level program directly into the heart of the command center of the computer, so that they could control how you use your computer. So that they could decide what programs you could run, and what hardware you could have installed. All without asking. All without any attempt to obtain your consent. It is simply wrong, and we will continue to bring similar actions against any company that acts as if they obtain ownership rights to a consumer’s computer simply because someone plays their game or listens to their music.”

Thanks to DRM, Spore may well be the most downloaded game of all time, if not now, then in the next month. However, EA sees the facts a bit differently. On their support page dealing with DRM and Spore, they describe why they went with SecuROM

Q: Why are Maxis and EA implementing this new authentication process?
A: This solution serves to protect our software from piracy.

Yeah, it’s worked REALLY well.

Source: EA Downplays Spore’s DRM Triggered Piracy Record

Thus far, these attempts haven’t been particularly successful. ISPs worldwide are refusing to cooperate, mainly because they feel such actions violate the privacy of their customers. In addition, last week the Belgian ISP Scarlet – previously ordered to stop illegal file-sharing on its network – told the court that it is simply impossible for it to do so.

Nevertheless, Sony’s John McMahon said in his keynote speech at the Broadband World Forum, that he would like ISPs and copyright owners to cooperate in order to reduce piracy. According to McMahon, the entertainment industry is losing more than two billion dollars a year because of piracy, but he believes this number can be reduced significantly with the help of ISPs.

Interestingly, McMahon also said that customer frustration with DRM is one of the main reasons why people turn to file-sharing networks, instead of legal alternatives. Sony recognizes, but at the same time ignores these signals from their customers, as they are not planning to get rid of DRM. Instead, they are investing in a new and improved DRM, the Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE).

Source: Sony Urges ISPs to Cooperate Against Piracy

The problem with DRM is that it doesn’t do what it’s supposed to do. The only people who are negatively affected are honest customers, since pirates will get their DRM-free version off BitTorrent anyway. In fact, DRM seems to produce an increase in downloads over legitimate sales, with the ‘Spore’ fiasco as a recent example.

Public reaction to DRM is not favorable, and has been growing worse (such as when a DRM-based service closes). Even though some retailers have started to sell their goods without DRM, others have not, or have released products selling stuff ONLY in DRM encumbered formats. A prime example of without DRM is Amazon, with its music, and an example of with DRM is Amazon and their Kindle ebook reader. Kindle ebooks are sold complete with DRM, locking the books to a single system. This applies to all Kindle ebooks sold via Amazon.

One of the Kindle e-books looks a little out of place with DRM though. A member of the US-based Students for Free Culture organization informed TorrentFreak that the book Free Culture, by Creative Commons founder Lawrence Lessig, is available through the service. The book deals with the rise of the copyright situation in the US, and how laws in other areas were changed to keep pace with advances in technology, sometimes making obsolete decades, or centuries of precedent.

The fact that this book is available in a DRM format might not seem all that important, except that the book itself spells out what is wrong with DRM. The book is available as a 100% free download on the book’s official site. However, short of violating the DMCA by circumventing the DRM, it is hard to put the pdf version of the book on the Kindle, exemplifying the problem. Most ironically, though, is that the subtitle of the book is “How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity”, so the book has become its own example.

Prof. Lessig will be giving a keynote speech at SFC’s “Free Culture 08” on October 11th.

Source: Lessig’s ‘Free Culture’ Now Available with DRM

The idea behind DRM is that it will stop people from pirating the game, but in reality, it often has the opposite effect. As Forbes points out, many commenters on various BitTorrent sites now legitimize downloading this game because the official copies include some heavy and intrusive DRM.

“You have the power to make this the most pirated game ever, to give corporate bastards a virtual punch in the face,” deathkitten writes in a comment on The Pirate Bay. He or she is spot on. Spore has been the most downloaded torrent on The Pirate Bay for over a week, which is unique for a game.

Since September 2nd when Spore first appeared on BitTorrent, it has been downloaded a little over 500,000 times across various BitTorrent sites according to our most recent statistics. This download rate exceeds that of any other pirated game in history, and in a week or two from now it will be the most pirated game ever on BitTorrent.

As a comparison, Crysis, one of the best-selling PC games of this year has only been downloaded 420,000 times since it was released in November 2007. The Sims 2 currently holds the record for the most pirate downloads. There are no accurate stats for this game, since it was released long before we started tracking downloads, but we estimate that approximately 1 million copies have been downloaded.

Of course the record breaking number of Spore downloads can’t be attributed solely to DRM, but it sure helped. That’s not all, it also contributed to making Spore one of the worst rated games on Amazon. Out of the 2,219 reviews, 2,018 awarded the game with just 1 star, all because of the strict DRM.

DRM doesn’t stop people from pirating a game, on the contrary. It only hurts legitimate customers since the DRM is removed from the pirate version. The same is true for music, movies and books. Let’s hope EA and other media moguls will learn their lesson.

Source: Spore: Most Pirated Game Ever Thanks to DRM

Thankfully, Lenslok isn’t the latest horrible idea in anti-piracy technology – in fact, it was first introduced more than 20 years ago. Developed by inventor John Frost, the device had a lens which carried around a dozen grooves which sent light though it at varying angles, ‘unscrambling’ seemingly random graphical blocks underneath it to reveal a secret ‘continue’ code.

These days, DRM is often applied a little more stealthily but never has it been as complex for the legitimate user as it was with Lenslok.

Rather than explain the full process of using the Lenslok, here is a scan of the original instructions that came with the device:

The first game to use the Lenslok DRM was the ZX Spectrum version of the hugely successful wireframe-3D shoot ‘em up, ‘Elite‘. But of course, we’re talking about DRM here so yes, you guessed it, it caused lots of problems for the legitimate users. As each version of the Lenslok device was unique to the game it sought to protect, sending out the incorrect Lenslok device to around 500 buyers of ‘Elite’ wasn’t the best move made by the publisher, ‘Firebird‘. None of these people could play the game, but probably had an interesting experience for a few hours trying to work out how to use the prism. With no Internet forums to voice their anger, there were many complaints in the computer magazines of the day.

The final nail in the Lenslok coffin was its inability to work with anything other than a tiny portable TV, as the on-screen input window would otherwise be bigger than the device itself, rendering it useless.

Although Lenslok is now (thankfully) dead and buried, those people running a ZX Spectrum emulator might still come across its evil work when playing games such as ACE, Art Studio, Elite, Jewels of Darkness, Price of Magik, Tomahawk or TT Racer.

So, the choice is to either pick up a Lenslok off eBay for next to nothing, or run a digital emulation of it – a sure sign of the times.

Source: Crazy Video Game DRM Prism, 1980′s Style

December is traditionally the month when a lot DVD-screeners are sent out to the Oscar voters, and also the time when a lot of these screeners leak. Unfortunately for some, there are pirates among the members of this elite group of movie industry insiders, and measures have to be taken to make it harder to leak the films.

One of the measures is watermarking where the DVD-screeners all get a unique, hidden watermark, so potential leaks can be traced back to the source. Another, perhaps even more effective preventive measure that was used by some studios is the SV-300, a custom-made DVD player that’s been in use since 2004.

The player is developed by Cinea, a division of Dolby Laboratories, and it is used to play encrypted disks that will only play on this particular player. The SV-300 makes it nearly impossible to copy and leak a screener, but surprisingly, the developer decided to phase out the machine because of the negative feedback from the Academy members. It turns out that the Oscar voters don’t like the DRM-machine because it hurts their viewing pleasure:

The machine operating the S-View software that scored few points for being user-friendly in its brief run. Its user base complained of the impracticality of having to lug the machine around on vacation during the holiday season, the height of the screening period.

So what they basically say is: “We don’t like DRM”. I can’t agree more of course, but it is kind of ironic that they tend to get more aggressive in imposing DRM on their customers because they are afraid of piracy, while they abandon this effective anti-piracy player because the DRM doesn’t allow them to watch the screeners on vacation.

Don’t think that the industry insiders are unaware of this, hypocritical as they are, they try to talk it right with some strange arguments. Industry insiders now say that Oscar screeners are not considered a primary contributor to movie piracy. This is strange because only 4 years ago Hollywood lobbied for a total ban of Oscar screeners.

I guess it’s all different when your personal viewing pleasure is at stake.

Source: Movie Industry: DRM Is For Customers, Not For Members

TorrentFreak – What brought this law to your attention

Florian B̦sch РBoingBoing, through slashdot

TorrentFreak – The law wasn’t publicized at all?

Florian Bösch – It was, but it’s… a convoluted topic, and I don’t care about politics. There’s a trail of press releases and actions that accompany the passing of this law. It just didn’t gain any mainstream attention. Don’t know if it did now, I certainly hope so. You see I didn’t really know I cared that much about all of this, but somehow the news hit me and I knew it did.

TorrentFreak – Have you contacted your representatives in either council?

Florian Bösch – I didn’t contact the representatives in the councils no. Two reasons mainly, I don’t think it’ll help anything (with exception of two all voted for this law, no abstains), and I was pretty busy of late. (I have a day job too, one with deadlines) It’s a bit controversial, I work as a programmer for a company that sells DRM technology and services.

TorrentFreak – I would think that would put you in support of this law

Florian Bösch – I’m not. I think it’s a bad law, for the industry as well. See I think the DRM industry does just fine, it doesn’t require laws to protect it. They’ll make a shoddy product that will not be able to compete with actually free content once that becomes commonplace. And the cynicism of the industry is somewhat ungraspable for me.

TorrentFreak – This 50,000 signature rejection, is it common knowledge, or is it something brought up on rare occasions?

Florian Bösch – It is a very commonly known that it’s possible.

TorrentFreak – is it utilised often?

Florian Bösch – Yeah it’s usage is commonplace. Usually parties hold it up as a Damocles sword for discussions, at any time there’s 1-3 referendums running. It’s a bit rare that it’s started by people with no backing and clue how to do it.

TorrentFreak – How has this drive been met by the general citizenry?

Florian Bösch – I don’t know actually. I started last Friday (November 31st), spent the weekend doing the website, buried myself in mailing around and talking to people to do something, organized stuff.

TorrentFreak – What’s the response been like so far?

Florian Bösch – By the people who come to the mailing list and to the IRC channel, I’d say thankful and concerned. By people who worked on that law openly hostile (such as here). They basically think this law is the best we can manage, and the next one will be worse, so if we now abolish it, we will have to fight again, and it’s not sure it’s going to be better. (or the worst happens and the people vote for this law)

TorrentFreak – According to that thread, you believe DRM will soon be impossible to circumvent?

Florian Bösch – So hard it won’t matter, yes, I think that. See the DRM as you know it is already the past. That’s kiddie stuff, the future is polymorphic DRM that changes algorithm and inner working with every content item, because on it will be some bytecode that executes on a secure VM. Whilst it certainly won’t be uncircumventable, it will just be hard to keep open.

TorrentFreak – Yet, there’s the possibility that it will become undesirable

Florian Bösch – Yes, actually I think it’s inevitable this becomes undesirable, but I rather see it happen sooner then later.

TorrentFreak – More and more are going away from DRM and copy protection, and some of the best arguments came from a company called StarDock when they released the game GalCiv2 – that the only person it hurts and inconveniences are the legitimate consumers.

Florian Bösch – I don’t think that’s true. It hurts the whole content industry.

TorrentFreak – How so?

Florian Bösch – See we set-up music services for say mobile network operators. to do that you need players on mobile phones. To get content from the labels you need to prove that you do effective DRM. Then you have to explain to your client what he can and cannot do with DRM. It’s always funny when you get to the point where they absolutely want ripping to CD of your music, but insist that everything must be quite protected. Plain content on iPods (you got to support iPods) so the company I work for has this really good DRM, and your non-techie customers rip it apart with their real world business cases. Not that I mind, it’s just ironic. Then there’s the nature of obscurity. It permeates the whole system, you have to keep track of device IDs and userIDs and public keys and do the right dance against some piece of patented software to be privileged just to hand out a download url. I mean, something essentially simple, handing out a file, has become a huge and complex task.

TorrentFreak – So its log jamming itself, and that’s part of what is the problem with these laws, it not only hurts the consumers, but also the industries its intended to protect?

Florian B̦sch РExactly. it encourages the industry to more of that when it should do less. DRM in your business case is not quite yet the kiss of death, but it feels quite familiar.

TorrentFreak – How many signatures have you collected so far?

Florian Bösch – Embarrassingly few. we keep track here. It’s a lot more probably, but who knows.

TorrentFreak – and the signatures all have to be verified by the canton government?

Florian Bösch – By the municipality of the signatory; there’s about 1000 municipalities in Switzerland. The trouble is we should collect on the order of 2000 signatures a day. Those all have to go to the municipalities first and then be collected centrally; it’s a huge task. I think the important thing that happens isn’t so much the signatures as that people are talking more about this now then before. I’m happy I could help with that at least, and It’s a very interesting experience to go trough the signature collecting thing, I’ll write a tutorial/howto about it so more people can do it.

TorrentFreak – How do you plan on ‘expanding’ the campaign over the next few weeks?

Florian Bösch – I have no idea honestly. I try to make a breeding ground for like-minded and get them to talk to each other, and I hope we can form a network of action to have more local effect. I do just one thing, I express that I’m not happy with this law, and I thought I was not alone, and others might join in.

TorrentFreak – A laudable aim. Thank you for your time.

More information on the campaign can be found at http://no-dmca.ch

Source: Behind The Scenes of the Swiss DMCA Fight

We’re happy to (finally) announce the winning designs. If you’d like to wear one of these high quality shirts, just click on your favorite design.

1.

The winning design titled “The Content of This T-Shirt Could Not Be Displayed” is from Mark Lindhout. In little over a week this design received 1608 votes. Congratulations with your $250 prize Mark!

With 888 votes Adam Cooke ended in second place with his “DRM, It Just Doesn’t Work” design. Congratulations with your $100 prize Adam! This shirt is available in black and white.

2.

The third place is again for Mark Lindhout, this time for “DRM, No one Admitted”. This one received 838 votes. You’re a lucky guy Mark, another $50 is coming your way.

3.

The T-Shirts can be ordered at Beautiful Crime. They are sold for 12 UK pounds ($24) and will be shipped worldwide. The designs are screenprinted on 100% copyright free cotton.

We don’t make any money from this so don’t order a tee just to support us. Setting up the screens is expensive and premium quality shirts are not cheap either, that’s why the price is higher than we initially aimed for ($15). If you want to print your own shirt you can contact us for the source files for the shirts.

We hope you’ll all buy a shirt to show that DRM is not the way to go. If you have further questions you can send me an email.

Source: Anti-DRM T-Shirt Design Contest: The Winners are…

After the voting round the winning designs will be optimized for printing and will be sold for approximately $15, more details on this later. If you can’t wait, feel free to copy these images, and print your own T-shirt!

We don’t plan to make any profit, but if we do we will donate the money to charity.

1. Magic Numbers

2. Bear

3. Outdated

4. Puma

5. Wall

6. Error

7. Protection

8. DRM-Hurts

9. Shot

10. Rekrd

11. Anti-DRM1

12. No-Music

13. Killing-Joy

14. AACS

15. String

16. No-DRM

17. Lock

18. Anti-DRM2

19. Doesn’t Work

20. Anti-DRM3

21. Stop-DRM

22. My-Media

23. ADRM

24. Dear Me

25. Disturbed

26. Dove

27. Unlock

28. Collapse

29. Negotiate

30. No-Thx

31. Don’t Rip

32. Globe

33. Free-DRM

34. Back

35. Discriminate

36. Suffer

37. Block

38. DRM-MPAA

39. Outside

40. Dont Ruin

41. Squad

42. Martin

43. Own

44. Handicap

45. Dog

46. Not-Allowed

47. Meet DRM

Voting Round Closed!

The Winners Will be Announced Soon

Source: Anti-DRM T-Shirt Designs: Vote Now

Prizes

No contest without prizes of course.

1st place: $250

3rd place: $50

Guidelines:

Submission Deadline: May 31, 2007

After the deadline has passed, all submissions will be posted on TorrentFreak and the readers will vote for the best design. The winning designs will go into print and will be sold for $15.

We don’t plan to make any profit, but if we do we will donate the money to charity.

Source: Anti-DRM T-Shirt Design Contest

McArdle wanted to take an in-depth look at piracy today, and how it will evolve. “despite all the media frenzy on the piracy crackdowns, there’s been very little attention to the topic itself. At the very best, news reporters regurgitated the contents of an industry press release. There was nothing of substance, which is where this documentary fits in: we wanted to cover the issue in-depth,” we read on the documentary website.

McArdle interviewed several people including: a member of a scene release group, Susan Harper from Microsoft Canada, Michael Geist, Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa, Graham Henderson from the CRIA, and many others.

Shooting this documentary made McArdle realize that the piracy issue is not as black and white as many people believe. “This is such an incredibly complicated issue, and the scope of it goes really beyond pinning the blame on just one thing or whatnot”, he said, in an interview.

You can watch the documentary on Google Video (1 & 2), but I recommend to download the DVD. Not only does not only have better video quality, but it also includes many extras, such as commentary form the director, and several easter eggs worth watching.

The official documentary website is over here, and don’t forget to donate if you like what you see.

Source: Piracy Documentary: On Piracy & the Future of Media

Lincoff sent us a copy of this open letter he wrote to Apple CEO Steve Jobs and RIAA Chairman Mitch Bainwol, in which he suggests an alternative business model that could work for all parties.

Mr. Jobs says that DRM cannot effectively protect recorded music when it is transmitted digitally. He is right. The music industry’s many experiments with DRM have all met with effective technological countermeasures. Moreover, news of each successful hack quickly found its way to everyone who cared. There is no reason to believe that the results will be different next time, or ever.

For his part, Mr. Bainwol insists that DRM is essential to the music industry’s survival in the digital age.

The problem is that the Internet is fundamentally incompatible with the music industry’s traditional sales-based revenue model. Through the Internet, the market for sale of individual recordings can be saturated in a moment’s time and without payment of any royalties to songwriters, music publishers, recording artists or record labels. Neither law, nor technology, nor moral suasion will change this fact.

Mr. Jobs suggests, and I agree, that DRM should be abandoned as a tool for the protection of recorded music. However, before Mr. Jobs can implement his DRM-free utopia, the music industry must have a viable alternative business model by which it can continue to thrive. Mr. Jobs has not suggested one. Mr. Bainwol denies that one is needed; intending, instead, to continue efforts to preserve the industry’s sales-based revenue model. In any event, in the absence of an alternative business model suited for digital transmissions of recorded music, Mr. Bainwol cannot even begin to discuss the possible elimination of DRM.

I propose such an alternative in the attached White Paper (mirror).

Mine is a comprehensive approach to rights licensing and rights management that does not depend on the efficacy of exclusionary DRM technology for its success. A solution that simultaneously protects the integrity of copyright, promotes technological innovation, facilitates the growth of all manner of licensed digital audio services (including P2P), and meets consumer demand. In the aggregate, music industry rights holders would do no less well financially under my proposal than they do now under the system that my proposal would replace.

With this alternative business model in hand (which includes a plan for its implementation), there can be no further justification for the music industry’s failure to respond constructively to the changed circumstances imposed on it by emergence of the global digital communications network.

The paper (pdf and html) that is discussed in this letter is titled: “Fixing What’s Badly Broken: A Proposal to Maximize the Licensed Availability of Recorded Music for Digital Transmissions and to Make the Music Industry Whole Again as the Digital Music Marketplace Develops”

It starts with a very detailed and accurate analysis of the current situation, and then discusses the proposed license based revenue model.

The proposal is a great read, and one of the most comprehensive and realistic alternative I’ve seen so far. Let us know what you think.

Source: How To Get Rid of DRM Effectively: Open Letter To Steve Jobs and The RIAA

Windows DRM has been completely left behind in the portable media player market. The iPod can’t play content restricted (read: infected) by Microsoft’s little virus, and neither can Microsoft’s very own Zune! So, the only consumers who’ll be able to watch videos they have purchased from the BitTorrent Video Store away from their computers will be those who own Creative, Dell, Archos or any one of the other compatible devices. This is, assuming the content from the store will be protected with Janus, Microsoft’s Windows DRM for portable devices. If it isn’t, it won’t play on any portable device at all.

In September of this year Ashwin Navin, the co-founder of BitTorrent Inc said that his company foresees a future without DRM. Although, even then, the company had said that they would use DRM, Navin also made it clear that it would only be in the early stages. Let’s hope the POA hasn’t changed.

Navin made his standpoint on DRM quite clear when he said that “the bottom line is that DRM is bad for the content provider and it’s bad for the consumer.” About foreseeing a future without DRM, he said that he thinks “the future will not be marked by digital rights management. It will be marked by advertising-supported content that’s clear of DRM.” The inventor of BitTorrent, Bram Cohen too says that the company is “very concerned about the usability problems DRM introduces,” and that they are “educating [their] content partners about the lost commercial opportunity.”

To be fair, BitTorrent Inc is only walking down the path of limiting consumers’ rights because it is being forced to. The company is clearly against DRM. According to Cohen, it is the only way they have been able to strike deals with content creators. He says this is “at the insistence of [their] content partners.”

Source: BitTorrent Video Store to be Infected with Windows DRM

Goldberg said this at the Digital Music Forum West conference in LA, and added that people who say that digital music can be protected are trying to sell nonsense.

Goldberg is convinced that not the pirates, but the honest customers will be hurt by the mass implementation of DRM. The DRM powered “a la carte download model” is a failure according to Goldberg, it only serves to dissuade consumers from buying music legally and instead keeps unauthorized peer-to-peer services in business. And apparently even the MPAA agrees (a little bit).

Yahoo Music manager Goldberg will try to proof his point by releasing Jesse McCartney’s latest album with and without DRM, for the same price. That should be an easy choice.

Source: DRM is like a Speed Bump… on a Highway

There is clearly a need for inter-compatible DRM and Hunt seems to see it. He went on to say, “content protection is going to be critical to enabling the full potential of the digital home network. If devices don’t support content protection, the limits placed on users will undoubtedly frustrate them.” Notice how he still stands firm behind DRM. However, be agreed that “the consumer, if he or she has already purchased licensed material, should certainly be able to transfer that content to any other new or old device.”

Hunt also mentioned that the MPAA is currently working with 3 content protection standard bodies DLNA, DVB and the Coral Consortium to solve these interoperability problems. They are also trying to develop standardised logos and certificates that will help the consumer identify interoperable products. It is worth noting that all three of the bodies are working independently of each other, so we don’t really know what the outcome’s going to be.

It’s nice to see a slight change in the MPAA’s stance. DRM is a necessary evil. You have to agree that it’s not going anywhere, especially in relation to “mainstream” content. The mere fact that they are trying to build an inter-operable standard is a step forward in the right direction. Apple’s FairPlay is possibly the best example of DRM that doesn’t get in the way. Let’s hope the MPAA follow in Apple’s footsteps and come up with an even better solution, however unlikely it may be.

Source: MPAA: Piracy is the outcome of DRM complications

We can make a difference! Here are ten things you can do…

What is DRM?

Defective by Design

Source: Anti DRM Day

Ashwin Navin, president and co-founder of BitTorrent told IDG News Service:

The bottom line is that DRM is bad for the content provider and it’s bad for the consumer, and the reason it’s being used today is because we’re in the very early stages of a new product cycle for the entertainment industry and they want to walk before they run.

I think the future will not be marked by digital rights management. It will be marked by advertising-supported content that’s clear of DRM, because the content publisher wants it to be as widely distributed as possible and consumed over as many platforms as possible. And we hope to be part of that evolution, and to drive that evolution wherever we can.

In response to the question ‘Why DRM is bad for content providers Navin said:

The reason it’s bad for content providers is because typically a DRM ties a user to one hardware platform, so if I buy my all my music on iTunes, I can’t take that content to another hardware environment or another operating platform. There are a certain number of consumers who will be turned off by that, especially people who fear that they may invest in a lot of purchases on one platform today and be frustrated later when they try to switch to another platform, and be turned off with the whole experience. Or some users might not invest in any new content today because they’re not sure if they want to have an iPod for the rest of their life.

Source: BitTorrent Inc Foresees a Future Without DRM

They’d rather sue them. But enormous and continuing opposition from the music monopolies notwithstanding, the indies and p2p networks survive, meaning music lovers have for years been able to satisfy their unyielding passion and thirst for music, entertainment, and information.

Now Froggie Would A Wooing Go takes on a new meaning. Something called SpiralFrog is lurching in with Big Four Organized Music cartel founder-member Vivendi Universal to offer (you guessed it) a, “secure environment where music lovers can satisfy their unyielding passion and thirst for music, entertainment, and information”.

“Secure” means users won’t be terrorized and/or sued by the RIAA or any of the dozens of other Big Four ‘trade’ organizations such as the IFPI, BPI, CIRA, ARIA, and so on and etc

The Frog will force users to sit through brain-dead advertisements before they can download, and the songs will polluted with Microsoft WMA DRM (Digital Restriction Management) so they won’t play on Apple iPods which isn’t, of course, anything new.

Naturally, sharing will be strictly forbidden. Froggers will also have to allow alien anti-p2p software into their computers to stop them from making copies of tunes they download, share them or burn them.

They’ll also have to re-qualify by checking in at the Frog’s site every month. If they don’t, access will be cut off.

Significantly, former RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) and IFPI (International Federation of Phonographic Industry) boss Jay Berman is at the top of the Frog directors list. He’s the ‘Berman’ in Berman Rosen Global Strategies with protege Hilary Rosen, another ex-RIAA boss, as the Rosen.

And to further digress, “Jay Berman was also on the board of Loudeye, owner of Overpeer the spoofing company that planted spoofed recordings on the web to the annoyance of music consumers and the amusement of unauthorised sites who increased their value as traffic increased to cope,” a p2pnet reader commented, also pointing out, “Unfortunately cheating music consumers with fake recordings wasn’t a long term business propostion with Overpeer recently closed down.”

Anyway, “Offering young consumers an easy-to-use alternative to pirated music sites will be compelling,” states Frog ceo Robin Kent. The target audience is people between aged 13 to 34, “an advertiser’s dream,” as he states it.

Older users can, presumably, go fish.

Warner Music, EMI and Sony BMG, the other three members of the Big Four cartel, will be watching keenly.

Will significant numbers of the hundreds of millions of people who currently steer well clear of the paltry, over-priced corporate offerings, preferring the p2p networks and indie sites, now switch to the Frog site?

Not a hope.

Interestingly, Kazaa is expected to introduce a free-with-advertising service, “when it reintroduces itself as a licensed, legitimate distribution business,” says The New York Times.

Sharman Networks recently achieved its ambition of years by ‘settling’ with the cartels and as p2pnet said, “the deal with the Big Four also means Kazaa will be resuscitated“.

SpiralFrog hops into North America in December, and into the UK close to the start of 2007.

p2pnet

Source: SpiralFrog to offer “free” downloads

Buffy is among movies and TV shows AOL hopes to peddle for between $10 and $20 each through its new video site.

“The offerings also mark the latest experiments in online distribution as studios and TV networks try everything from showing programs for free on their Web sites to selling already-aired episodes for $1.99 each through Apple Computer Inc.’s iTunes Music Store, Google Inc.’s video store and others.” says the Associated Press.

“Although users will own the titles, meaning viewing won’t be automatically disabled after a day or two, the movies can be played on only a limited number of Windows-based personal computers or portable devices that support Microsoft Corp.’s Windows Media Player technology,” says AP.

“Limits vary, but they are about four devices for movies and 10 for television shows,” and, “For now, movies may not be burned onto DVDs, a restriction that so far has limited the appeal of movie downloads,” says AP.

p2pnet

Source: AOL to sell movies and TV-shows online

Welcome to TorrentPod, the official podcast of TorrentFreak.com. Join your host Charlie as he delves into this weeks latest news, and talks about Copyright Law.

Enjoy, and feel free to leave a (audio) comment if you have something to say to Charlie, or if you want to comment on the show in general. There’s more good stuff from Charlie over at pod2peer.com.

You can listen to the show using the on-site player, download the mp3 directly, or grab the .torrent.

[audio:http://media.switchpod.com/users/pod2peer/TorrentPod002.mp3]

Source: TorrentPod Episode 2

With that in mind, tomorrow Giest launches 30 Days of DRM page and an associated wiki which will, “seek to provide a starting point for the kinds of protections politicians and policy makers should be contemplating,” at the same time forming a compilation of DRM policy issues.

While there was much to criticize about Bill C-60, the last attempt at copyright reform in Canada, “given continuing pressure from the copyright lobby and American government, the Conservatives’ bill may be, “far more extreme in its approach,” says Geist, stressing that anti-circumvention provisions which grant legal protection to technological protection measures (TPMs) are likely to be the most contentious issues.

“In plainer English, traditional copyright law grants creators a basket of exclusive rights in their work.”

“TPMs or digital locks (such as anti-copying technologies on CDs) effectively provide a second layer of protection by making it difficult for most people to copy works in digital format. Anti-circumvention legislation creates a third layer of protection by making it an infringement to simply pick or break the digital lock (in fact, it even goes further by making it an infringement to make available tools or devices that can be used to pick the digital lock).”

Under the DMCA, it’s an infringement to circumvent a TPM, “even if the intended use of the underlying work would not constitute traditional copyright infringement,” Geist emphasises.

The House of Commons reconvenes in a month and to highlight exceptions and limitations that should be included if a Canadian DMCA is introduced, starting tomorrow, each day for the next 30 days Geist will post a new provision focusing broadly on marketplace concerns, public protection, and fair circumvention,” .

“We should be working on a positive copyright agenda that includes an expanded fair dealing provision, reform to the statutory damages provision, the elimination of crown copyright, and protection from DRM,” he states.

“Instead, given the strength of the copyright lobby, we may need protection from the next copyright bill.”

The 30 Days of DRM page and the associated wiki will, “seek to provide a starting point for the kinds of protections politicians and policy makers should be contemplating,” Geist states.

Stay tuned.

p2pnet

Source: 30 Days of DRM

Although Grokster caved and accepted the judgment, paying a substantial amount to MGM, Streamcast hasn’t given up. The case is now being heard in US District Court in L.A. (Source: Hollywood Reporter.com)

The new “inducement test” is being hotly debated by entertainment and technology lawyers in and out of court. Even if StreamCast loses, attorney Charles Baker will seek to block damages by asserting the affirmative defense of copyright misuse. “The motion picture companies, record labels and publishers have for years colluded to limit the distribution of digital content”, pointing out the unfavorable licensing contracts that indie labels and others not associated with the majors are forced to accept.

Baker says, “The fight is far from over”, as the Supreme Court, in its ruling, invited anyone to take the case to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Has anything changed in the real world of p2p? Yes, quite a lot.

The Hollywood Reporter, ESQ., invited RIAA general counsel Steven Marks, Universal Music Group eLabs president Larry Kenswil, and EFF’s Fred Von Lohmann to take part in a “spirited” roundtable discussion on the court ruling, filesharing, and digital distribution.

Kenswil believes that rather than shaking up the music industry, the Supreme Court’s ruling brought stability to the industry, setting rules about what people can do with copyrighted material. Von Lohmann disagrees. Except for the “inducement test”, the court failed to clarify the basic rules, pointing out that it’s still unclear whether a technology that has substantial non-infringing uses can be held responsible if people misuse the technology.

Both Marks and Kenswil believe that the inducement test has “nudged” technology companies to approach the labels and studios, looking for ways to work together, in effect taking the position that any technology not approved and sanctioned by the cartels is illegal. This, they claim, doesn’t stifle technological innovation, but encourages it (as long as the cartels can control it). Von Lohmann rightly puts them in their place and tells them they’re putting “the cart before the horse” when it comes to encouraging innovation.

The cartels claim the Betamax precedent doesn’t exist, as concerns the Supremes’ decision , or that if it does exist, it can be ignored because they want to work with “legitimate services”, which has already “enhanced” the market, citing the growth (haha!) of the legitimate digital market year to year.

Did we miss something here? As all parties acknowledge, free p2p has increased monthly since the original Napster case. They also acknowledge that the cartels will always have to compete with free p2p, although Universal’s Kenswil claims Napster had nothing to do with the “billions of dollars now being spent on digital music” and the technology behind it. He calls that idea “preposterous”. I guess he should know because it was the RIAA which shut Napster down, coerced it into joining the “legitimate” marketplace, which then turned Napster the useless piece of p2p crap it is today. He wouldn’t want to admit that billions were wasted in that arena.

On the other hand, while the rate of shared music files has slowed down – but still moving in an upward direction – in comparison to just a few years ago, film and TV filesharing has risen dramatically, constituting the bulk of files being shared around the world.

On the lawsuits in general, this roundtable had some obvious observations and a few surprises for the reader:

Marks: “I don’t think we’ve ever targeted technology or technology services.”

What’s that?

Didn’t the cartels sue Grokster, Streamcast, and Kazaa? Aren’t they trying to make a case against XM’s Inno? Didn’t they try to influence (read blackmail) the Swedish and U.S. governments into closing down Pirate Bay, ultimately failing – an endeavor which in turn gave birth to more filesharers and the creation of numerous political “Pirate Parties” in several countries, including Sweden and the U.S.?

Marks: “We’ve targeted companies who were, in our view, facilitating copyright infringement.”

Ah, so that’s how they blackmailed Bram Cohn. Okay, I get it now. As long as they can control the technology, everything’s kosher. If they can’t control it, in their view it’s illegal. Gotcha. First, threaten to sue the pants off the inventor of the most popular filesharing software. When he capitulates to your demands, pay him off with a house, a car, lifetime education for his kids, health insurance for the family, a seven-figure salary, and an exclusive contract (compulsory gag order/non-disclosure codicil included) .

Don’t forget to go after the users of the software, either.

Marks: “We very reluctantly began filing cases against individual users. But we think that both of those efforts have borne through. [The problem of piracy is now one] that is exemplified more by a hard-core group of users than it is by a continuing growth of users.”

LOL! That’s very funny because every statistical survey of file sharing has continually shown that more and more people are sharing files every day.

As Eric Garland, CEO of Big Champagne – the main analyst of p2p facts and figures – tells in a separate Hollywood Reporter interview, at any one time there are 10 million people sharing files on free p2p networks.

That’s roughly ten times as many as when Napster was in its heyday. And the numbers are going up, not down.

The lesson, according to the view of the cartels and their interpretation of the Grokster ruling is, if you have – or want to create – a filesharing program, go to the cartels first and ask for permission to innovate. Then you’ll get a sweet deal like Bram did. If you don’t you’ll be viewed as a thief and sued.

Marks: “Eradicating every last act of piracy is something we understand is futile, and has never been an objective of the industry.”

Really? So what’s with the 19,000 + lawsuits then? The ones you have no proof of copyright infringement? The ones, which will cost the industry billions of dollars and millions of customers? The ones you’ll ultimately lose because public awareness of and disgust for these frivolous cases and their waste of tax payer money will do more to turn people away from “legal” product than any p2p program ever could? What about these lawsuits? Are they just symbolic token lawsuits to grab headlines before they’re lost or thrown out of court? Hmmm?

I think it’s so cute they still consider free filesharing as “piracy” when nothing has been stolen, no money or services have been exchanged , ergo, no profit , no theft – and there’s no proof that a shared file equals a lost sale.

On the other hand, entertainment cartel practice of colluding to fix prices, bribe radio stations, arrest customers and plant spyware into computers everywhere is considered business as usual.

The cartels have never been able to prove that a file shared is equal to a lost sale or rental. In fact, several court cases have either been dropped by the cartels or thrown out exactly because they can’t prove it. And at the same time, the music and film industries are reporting record profits.

Big Champagne, the most-noteworthy and respected compiler of free p2p statistics, the place where even the MPAA and RIAA go to for reliable information, has continually shown that free p2p has increased, despite the thousands of unlawful lawsuits filed against innocent people. But no-one can show that money is lost due to free p2p.

The entertainment industry is stuck in, and unwilling to leave, the past. The future is here. The future is now. The future is free p2p.

Free p2p doesn’t have to be seen as something negative or evil. It can also be a useful tool for the cartels.

For decades the Nielsen TV ratings system has decided the rates advertisers must pay.

The Nielsen ratings system is based only on overnight results in certain markets, whereas free p2p is immediate and virtually open-ended time-wise, and isn’t tied to age or gender demographics. Instead of calculating viewers per capita or by region, they can see exactly how many times a file was downloaded and use this info to help in setting advertising rates. There’s no reason why the Nielsen system can’t work with the Big Champagne system. There will always be people who either first watch a program on TV with ads and then download it, or vice verse. The two sets of statistics, taking this knowledge into account, can be used to create a better and more accurate picture.

True, when files are shared ads are edited out. But looking at the total worldwide viewership, instead of just measly overnight ratings, including the statistics from p2p networks will give a much better idea of how many people are interested in a program, which can be used to calculate ad rates.

Too many times a good program is cancelled because of either low ratings (Star Trek: Enterprise) or because of pressure from political or religious groups (The Book of Daniel). Both of these shows were extremely popular on p2p networks, but were canceled due to outdated ratings systems and the extreme-right activist groups. Ad revenue was lost, but not because of free p2p.

Even though more people might be downloading a program, that doesn’t mean they won’t watch it on TV as well, just as downloading a film doesn’t mean a DVD or cinema ticket won’t be purchased. But a new way of calculating ad revenue can be created using all the tools available.

I don’t know how this can be done, but I believe it can be done to satisfy networks and advertisers, without losing viewers. Keeping these shows on the air will increase the numbers of broadcast viewers, whether they have access to a computer or not. And p2p will be the cause of this increase.

Has anything changed in p2p since MGM v. Grokster? Yes, most definitely.

There are more and more files and file sharers and file sharing networks than ever before. This, despite , or as a result of , the backward-thinking cartels and their ridiculous claims of losing money, as well as the thousands of lawsuits being illegally and immorally brought against innocent people.

And as mentioned cinema tickets, and CD and DVD sales and rentals have increased.

Will the cartels change with the times? Probably not. As long as they can continue influencing political parties and the lamescream media; as long as they can control the distribution of “product” and the technology behind the distribution; and as long as there are lawyers willing to make a buck off the backs of innocent people, the entertainment industry will lag behind real innovation.

But free p2p is here to stay.

p2pnet

Source: The Past and Future of Filesharing

Guba recently signed a deal with Warner Bros. to spread DRM loaded movies and TV-shows online.

According to the press release “GUBA is filtering movies and TV shows using a proprietary technology, codenamed “Johnny.” Johnny analyzes video in digitized form and generates a unique fingerprint for each video. Once Johnny has scanned a video, that video is blocked from illegal file trading or distribution on GUBA’s site”.

The MPAA responded:

“Providing consumers legitimate ways to get movie and television programming online is essential to our industry,” said Chairman and CEO of MPAA, Dan Glickman. Collaborating with GUBA has given us an opportunity to test new technology that will help ensure consumers can freely share videos without being exposed to illegal programming, which could lead to copyright infringement.”

Source: MPAA & Guba to use Johnny

The Pig and the Box is about a pig who finds a magic box that can replicate anything you put into it. The pig becomes so protective of it, and so suspicious of anyone that wants to use it, that he makes people take their copied items home in special buckets that act as… well, they’re basically DRM. It’s like a fable, except the moral of the story is very modern in tone.

link!

related to this:

Files are not for sharing
The Corruptibles
Don’t copy that floppy

Source: The Pig and the Box

According to an article in Variety Apple CEO Steve Jobs wants the movies to be $9.99, but the Studio’s are giving him a hard time:

Studios have resisted Jobs’ initial insistence that feature films be priced at the easy-to-remember $9.99. After all, library titles are typically sold to Wal-Mart and Best Buy significantly cheaper than new releases. Studios now are trying to convince Apple to sell similar content at multiple price points, something the company has never done.

the article continues:

Also complicating the deals: The studios are working out terms with a host of other distributors, including Amazon, Movielink and BitTorrent, in part to make sure that one company does not dominate. It seems that none of the studios wants to be first in making a deal with Apple. Disney would be the logical leader, but even they are cautious, fearing it will look like in-house synergy rather than a business decision.

And the rumors go on, there are “insiders” suggesting that the movie store wil be “BitTorrent powered, and that people can earn credits if they share bandwidth. This could go through the torrent client that will be included in OS X 10.5 “Leopard”.

Last month it was announced that BitTorrent users could save for free goodies from the Itunes store, if they help to distribute software updates.

Source: Apple’s Movie Download Store

The pirate party has three issues on its agenda, one of these is to reform copyright law:

The official aim of the copyright system has always been to find a balance between the interests of publishers and consumers, in order to promote culture being created and spread. Today that balance has been completely lost, to a point where the copyright laws severely restrict the very thing they are supposed to promote. The Pirate Party wants to restore the balance in the copyright legislation.

All non-commercial copying and use should be completely free. File sharing and p2p networking should be encouraged rather than criminalized. Culture and knowledge are good things, that increase in value the more they are shared. The Internet could become the greatest public library ever created.

The monopoly for the copyright holder to exploit an aesthetic work commercially should be limited to five years after publication. Today’s copyright terms are simply absurd. Nobody needs to make money seventy years after he is dead. No film studio or record company bases its investment decisions on the off-chance that the product would be of interest to anyone a hundred years in the future. The commercial life of cultural works is staggeringly short in today’s world. If you haven’t made your money back in the first one or two years, you never will. A five years copyright term for commercial use is more than enough. Non-commercial use should be free from day one.

We also want a complete ban on DRM technologies, and on contract clauses that aim to restrict the consumers’ legal rights in this area. There is no point in restoring balance and reason to the legislation, if at the same time we continue to allow the big media companies to both write and enforce their own arbitrary laws.

You can read more, and join the party over here

Source: US Pirate Party

They will advertise with the popular slogan: “Have it your way”. However, it’s doubtful if DRM will be “an option”.

Earlier this year Fox and ABC started to offer TV streams, but that’s clearly not the solution. People demand high quality, cheap, DRM free content, whenever and wherever they want.

Selling downloadable TV-episodes is the first step in the transformation of TV. Offering the episodes for free, supported by micro-ads is the second.

Gillian Smith, media director at Burger King, said:

“We know our customers spend a lot of time on MySpace. The important thing for us as an advertiser was to make sure we were providing content that resembles entertainment more than advertising.”

The 24 downloads will be available on Myspace next week

Source: Burger King & Myspace to Sell “24″ downloads

BitTorrent spokeswoman Lily Lin confirmed to TorrentFreak

Our MPAA arrangement is strictly about taking down links to infringing content from our search engine, nothing more, nothing less.

As we said, sites like Mininova, Torrentz.com, Torrentportal and Torrentspy have the exact same policy.

Today however, BitTorrent.org changed the design of the frontpage, listing free (and legal) TV-Shows and Game Trials.

The recent deal with Warner is also advertised. Hollywood blockbusters (and DRM?), coming soon on BitTorrent.

But, the pirates can still find their favorite pirated movies, since most of the torrents indexed by BitTorrent.com are still copyrighted. Just try a search for terms like “dvdrip“, and “dvdscr” you will see that there’s a lot of pirated content available. Legal on the outside, pirate heaven on the inside.

Source: BitTorrent.org’s Legal Mask

The Azureus team aims to improve the user experience and make sharing and finding content easier and more interactive.

Azureus founder told Slyck:

“We’re addressing probably the number one complaint we hear about Azureus: ‘ok, I installed the thing, where do I find some good content for it? We are offering high quality and easy to find content, easy to interact with and share, legal to download, guaranteed availability , it is much more than just search.”

The question is: Is this really a step forward or will it only hurt Azureus?

Personally I think it’s a bad one. Azureus is already bloated with features that most users don’t use, this will probably be another one. And where to find torrents? I think a search box will do, like most other clients have.

However, Azureus sees the commercial possibilities for these new features. A lot of companies are struggling to implement BitTorrent into their distribution chain, and if it works out, Azureus could provide this for them. But then another question pops up… What about DRM? According to Slyck that option remains open for now. Although the Azureus team doesn’t like DRM, they can’t promise that their content layer stays DRM free.

“No DRM if we can get away without it, we all hate DRM ourselves.”

Let’s wait and see (and hope for the best). I will certainly hope that they will at least still release a version of Azureus without the content layer in the future.

Azureus will present their ideas and demonstrate this new feature at OnHollywood 2006, May 2 – 4 in Hollywood.

Source: Azureus is taking a huge step

“Fans who share music are not thieves or pirates,” they state unequivocally. “Sharing music has been happening for decades.”

A lot of artist joined together and formed a coalition, among them:
Barenaked Ladies, Avril Lavigne, Sarah McLachlan, Chantal Kreviazuk, Sum 41, Stars, Raine Maida (Our Lady Peace), Dave Bidini (Rheostatics), Billy Talent, John K. Samson (Weakerthans), Broken Social Scene, Sloan, Andrew Cash and Bob Wiseman.

Viva la revolucion

The key principles of the CMCC are clear (press release)

Suing Our Fans is Destructive and Hypocritical
Artists do not want to sue music fans. The labels have been suing our fans against artists’ will, and laws enabling these suits cannot be justified in artists’ names

Digital Locks are Risky and Counterproductive
Artists do not support using digital locks to increase the labels’ control over the distribution, use and enjoyment of music or laws that prohibit circumvention of such technological measures. Consumers should be able to transfer the music they buy to other formats under a right of fair use, without having to pay twice.

Cultural Policy Should Support Actual Canadian Artists
The vast majority of new Canadian music is not promoted by major labels, which focus mostly on foreign artists. The government should use other policy tools to support actual Canadian artists and a thriving musical and cultural scene.”

All wise words. Finally

Michael Geist, the Canada Research Chair of Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa responds:

No one should underestimate the importance of this development. After today, House of Commons committee hearings on copyright must include representation from the CMCC. Policy makers and politicians must take the time to consult with the artists themselves. Most importantly, government ministers will no longer be able to make policies in the artists’ name, when those policies represent the views of lobbyists, not artists.

more on this

Source: Don’t treat our fans as thieves, let them share music!

the entire concept of the show is for fans to share with all of their friends using any means they wanted, so DRM would be counterproductive.

This is not the first time CocaCola is involved in a free TV-show. They’re also sponsoring the comedy “marcus hates his job“, created by the makers of the popular “the scene” show.

Stageside

Source: Coca-Cola Promotes P2P-TV

Today, legal implementations of BitTorrent are not new anymore. The BBC, Sky and NTL are using BitTorrent to spread movies and TV-shows. The MPAA signed an agreement with BitTorrent to fight “illegal” filesharing. Allpeers, a BitTorrent extension for the popular browser Firefox just received a huge sum of money. BitTorrent inc. is even opening its own online video store.

The legal opportunities are endless. People might want to focus on that instead of blaming a tool for things that might be illegal somewhere.

Like Sacha Wunsch-Vincent, an OECD economist in its IT division states

“Peer-to-peer technology will be among the essential components of everyday communication … chilling its legal use is like being against the steam engine in the 19th century,” said .

Even Adrian Strain, a spokesman for the music industry’s lobbying group, the IFPI said

“Everyone agrees that P2P is a fantastic technology but we will have to see whether it can be successfully converted into a legitimate and commercially viable business model,”.

So stop suing and get to work!

Source: Filesharing is Great Business

“The surprise vote caused outrage among record companies and film producers, who say illegal peer-to-peer (P2P) copying costs their industries millions of euros every year,” says the BBC. “It was an embarrassing defeat for the government, which had planned to introduce large fines and possible jail terms of up to three years for internet pirates.

“Seventeen year old Aziz Ridouan became so angry at the number of people already being taken to court that he started up his own pressure group.

“Today, the Audiosurfers Association has 6,000 members. It campaigns for a change in the law and helps defend those being prosecuted.”
Socialist MP Patrick Bloche, who helped draft the amendment, argues, “Rather than outlawing, punishing, and paradoxically maintaining to a certain extent an illegal system. Let’s make a different choice: authorising peer-to-peer downloading, but in return, putting in place a system allowing artists to be paid.”

Then the Big Four, Vivendi Universal (France), EMI, (Britain), Sony BMG (Japan, Germany) and Warner Music (US) pulled their well-worn trick of mobilising contracted performers such Johnny Hallyday, “to protest, arguing that revenue from a global licence wouldn’t compensate for the millions they say they risk losing through falling CD sales,” says the story.

Nonetheless, “The MPs’ vote in December sent the government scuttling off to redraft its bill,” says the BBC. “It has since spent two months in consultations with artists, industry representatives and internet users to try to reach a compromise. More than 13,000 musicians signed a petition in favour of the global licence. A website set up to encourage a debate on P2P copying was inundated with replies.”

France’s latest plan still rejects global licensing, “although it agrees that private copying should be allowed,” and, “The sanctions for illegal copying have been reduced considerably, with fines beginning at 38 euros (£26, about $46) ) for small-scale piracy.”

Meanwhile, people in France aren’t entitled to make personal copies of DVDs, even if they don’t distribute them, France’s highest court, the Cour de Cassation in Paris, has ruled, overturning an earlier decision by a lower court.

P2Pnet.net

Source: Record labels want to Kill French Filesharing law

Going to the movies is not what it used to be. Security at the studio-owned theatres is heavy, it’s not a trip to be taken lightly. But if you want to see the film everyone is talking about without waiting a year for the home release, you have little choice. When you enter the lobby the first thing you see are long ranks of tiny, thumbprint activated lockers. This is where you must leave all of your electronics, your personal server and peripherals, even your watch, and you had better not be wearing smart spectacles or contacts. As you enter the security zone you’re scanned for anything you may have forgotten. Cochlea and optical implants must be capable of responding with a coded RF identification signal to indicate their systems are secure and cannot record. People with older models, or models implanted abroad where such interrogation is illegal, are turned away. Perhaps they would like to see one of the older releases? Once through the scanner you must submit to a biometric ID test – this is where the known bloggers, hackers and spoilers are ejected. Finally there is the non-disclosure agreement to be signed – these days most moviegoers choose to sign via the MPAAs annual subscription, just trying to take some of the hassle out of visiting the cinema. Finally you get to see the film. In the auditorium the audience is constantly scanned by an AI looking for suspicious activity, so don’t rummage in your pockets for too long. It’s strange that all this effort to protect the movie industry has done so little to improve the movies.

You don’t really own your home computer, or even the data you keep on it. Oh, you paid for it, just like you paid for the fibre-optic Internet connection that it can’t function without, but now it squats under your TV using your electricity and does more work for the content industry than for you. The nightly security patches it downloads for itself don’t secure your computer against attackers, they secure the system and software against you. TV-on-demand seemed like a dream come true when you first opted in and upgraded all your hardware, but the slowly encroaching charges are becoming a disincentive to turn on at all. Sometimes the last episode of a series makes up 50% of the cost of the whole season.

The Internet is not what it used to be. It’s expanded, naturally, the technology giving everyone mobile PCs with vast ad-hoc networking capabilities, it’s faster, more efficient, and more available, but it’s also more restrictive. Since the ISPs were made responsible for the content they deliver their filtering has become neurotic. Anti-terror, piracy, plagiarism and libel filters search every request and response for signs of illegal activity, always erring on the side of caution. Wikipedia’s index has been decimated. Popular blogs like Boing Boing now have more lawyers involved than contributors (the one’s that have survived that is). Even if you managed to get something illegal through the filters your operating system’s regularly updated self-check mechanisms would eventually root it out, or report you to the authorities, usually both.

These days it seems like every time you turn on one of your gadgets you have to fight with its DRM to get it to do what you want. The home movie of your daughter opening her birthday presents is ruined by a patch of grey fog that shifts with every movement of the camera, tracking sluggishly to keep the TV screen in the background obscured. From the codes embedded in TV’s update pattern your camera had decided the show was not licensed for this form of reproduction and blocked it. You wish you had thought to turn it off at the time, but squinting into the camera’s tiny screen it hadn’t looked so bad.

Even once recorded, your own media is not safe. Everything is stored on your home PC, trapped in the solid-state drive’s proprietary filing system. Once there, the only reasonable way to transfer it is to another trusted drive from the same vendor – the DRM won’t recognise any other brand of mass storage device. In the meantime the PC constantly searches your files looking for illegal material. A recent security patch has destroyed the last video of your father. According to the email report you received that same morning the latest video and photographic scanning protocols had decided something seen in the footage resembled a new government building, the appearance of which is now classified. You know for sure that there is no such building in the footage, it was all filmed in the old man’s living room. But there’s no way for you to prove that with the offending shots turned to grey fog.

You just don’t see physical media anymore. Too easily duplicated, their security too easily cracked, they’ve been dropped in favour of heavily encrypted and vendor-locked streaming media. You don’t ‘own’ copies of any music or movies these days, instead your monthly subscriptions grant you only the right to temporarily buffer a few seconds of the distributor’s authorised files while you watch or listen. Ultimately, that was the reason ad-hoc networking protocols and mobile PC technologies were pushed so hard, not because the customers wanted them but because the music and movie industries needed them to replace the vulnerable duplication method normally needed for such mobile media.

Read on

Source: What if the bad guys win?