MetaFilter posts tagged with DRM

Didactic DRM

nicolas léonard sadi carnot — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 06:50:06 -0800

Game Dev Tycoon was released yesterday; simultaneously, the makers Greenheart Games uploaded a slightly different version of the game to torrent sites.

Free Culture Foundation explore arguments for and against DRM in HTML5

Faintdreams — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 03:39:41 -0800

The three most pervasive arguments for DRM in HTML debunked by Freeculture.org " A handful of myths have become common defenses of the W3C’s plan for “Encrypted Media Extensions” (EME), a Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) scheme for HTML5, the next version of the markup language upon which the Web is built." The entire article is quite short, and worth a read but see the extended description for a TL:DR summary - Statement 1: DRM doesn’t work; that it exists to protect creators, but since it is easily cracked and can be worked around, it is largely ineffective and irrelevant Response 1: DRM is not about protecting copyright. That is a straw man. DRM is about limiting the functionality of devices and selling features back in the form of services. Statement 2: DRM in HTML5 is a necessary compromise to finally bring an end to the proliferation of proprietary, platform-specific browser plugins such as Adobe Flash Player and Micrisoft Silverlight Response 2: DRM in HTML5 doesn’t obviate proprietary, platform-specific browser plug-ins; it encourages them. Statement 3: The web needs DRM in HTML5 in order for Hollywood and other media giants to finally start giving the Web priority over delivering media over traditional means Response 3: The Web doesn’t need big media; big media needs the Web.

I can't let you do that, Dave.

Mezentian — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 18:57:56 -0800

Web standards body W3C is considering a proposal to add Digital Rights Management to the next version of the HTML5 standard. Internet pioneer Tim Berners-Lee is fine with this. Others, like Cory Doctorow, have a different point of view, claiming it will have far-reaching effects that are "incompatible with the W3C's most important policies". Others have called it "impractical and unethical".

Reticulating Splines

backseatpilot — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 10:46:31 -0800

SimCity, arguably the best known simulation game ever, is back after a decade with a new iteration of the franchise. Is it any good? We may have to wait for an answer until someone can actually log on to the game. EA decided to include always-on DRM for the game, "for the benefit of the gamer", claiming that much of the simulation work had to be done server-side due to the social nature of the game. Ars Technica posts their first impressions - We waited ten years for this?

"Your app's anti-piracy module, it's not working"

flex — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 13:40:05 -0800

An iOS application developer has come up with an extreme way of fighting software piracy—by auto-posting "confessions" to its users' Twitter accounts. "...Enfour, the maker of a variety of dictionary apps, is auto-posting tweets to users' accounts to shame them for being pirates. But the auto-tweeting seems to be affecting a huge portion of its paid user base, not just those who actually stole the apps." Follow-up. A personal account: Can’t spell “pirate” without “-irate”: on DRM and punishing the customer

Enfour has since launched a “crucial maintenance release” to iTunes, and the issue has seemingly been resolved... I found Enfour’s accusation especially insulting given the price I paid for the software—US$55. That is to say, the iOS version of the Oxford Dictionary of English costs the equivalent of a dense printed-and-bound volume of the very same. Worse, I grumblingly upgraded from the 3G to the 4S a year ago explicitly to purchase this expensive dictionary software (in fact, it was the very first purchase I made in iTunes once I was home from the AT&T store). I have frequently taken to Twitter to manufacture arguments over the cost of Enfour’s Oxford application, always defending my purchase. ...I remember seeing the app’s request pop up, and I’d simply assumed the dictionary had added some sort of social networking functionality, something like “share this crazy new word with your friends!” or whatever. (Enfour’s software integrates very nicely with another app, the excellent Terminology, which does indeed include a “Twitter” button along with each definition.) At no point did Enfour disclose its intention to “post to Twitter on [my] behalf,” however. The request seemed perfectly innocuous. One user did deny Enfour this permission request, and he discovered that Oxford booted him from the software entirely. This is to say, he could not use Enfour’s Oxford at all unless he granted the dictionary permission to humiliate him publicly. Enfour has since admitted there was a “glitch” that caused “false positives” in the software. What’s especially harrowing, though, is that Enfour apparently mined the data in the iPhone itself in an effort to determine, not whether Enfour’s own software is pirated, but whether any software on the iOS device is pirated. This is ominous news for anyone with a jailbroken phone; for my own part, my device is perfectly legal (to a fault), but I do have a copy of TestFlight, a type of software that allows me to test beta builds of developers’ apps.

Outlawed by Amazon DRM

AceRock — Mon, 22 Oct 2012 13:40:05 -0800

Outlawed by Amazon DRM: A couple of days ago, my friend Linn sent me an e-mail, very frustrated: Amazon just closed her account and wiped her Kindle. Without notice. Without explanation. Leaving her without recourse. [via] Obligatory: How to strip Amazon Kindle DRM and backup your Kindle purchases.

The Man, the author, his reader & her e-book

Wordshore — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 07:11:35 -0800

The American Library Association fires the latest response in its tussle with publishers over e-books in public libraries, while in England, a government review of e-books in public libraries is announced.

when woz cries

kliuless — Tue, 29 May 2012 10:10:46 -0800

Apple's Crystal Prison and the Future of Open Platforms (via) Steve Wozniack made a public call for Apple to open its platforms for those who wish to tinker, tweak and innovate with their internals. cf. Smartphones Reignite the OS Wars previously...

Free at Last

bove — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 12:31:10 -0800

Tor/Forge, the Science Fiction and Fantasy subsidiary of Macmillan, has announced that it is going DRM free on all of its ebooks. Mefi's own Charles Stross shares a presentation he recently made to executives at Macmillan that may have partially influenced this decision. Stross had previously predicted that publishers would need to go DRM free to prevent Amazon from gaining too much power in the ebook market.

Monopsonies and Monopolies

Chocolate Pickle — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 18:44:58 -0800

Why book publishers will give up on Digital Rights Management. Short answer: because they are more afraid of Amazon becoming a monopsony than they are of consumer piracy. I don't know if he's right, but it's an interesting discussion of the immediate future in book publishing, and the way the Kindle has changed everything.

The beginning of the end?

cupcake1337 — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 16:56:47 -0800

Jim Gaffigan is following in the footsteps of Louis CK and Aziz Ansari and has released his new special as a $5 stream, or DRM-free download. Is it possible for this model to be economically viable to other comics? According to this article, Gaffigan had to invest about $240,000 to produce the special and make in available online. Previously, previously.

Dangerously Delicious, DRM Free

paradoxflow — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 11:12:17 -0800

In the wake of Louis C.K.'s tremendously successful experiment (previously 1, 2), Aziz Ansari of Parks and Recreation fame has released his own self-produced comedy special, "Dangerously Delicious," straight to fans and DRM free.

Don’t make me steal

Artw — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 00:05:15 -0800

Don't Make Me Steal - a Digital Media Consumption Manifesto.

Free Miles Vorkosigan!

asterix — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 16:34:23 -0800

Cryoburn, the latest installment in Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan series, is out in hardcover. Hard copies of the book also contain a CD with the text of the book... and most of the rest of the books in the series, along with a number of speeches, interviews, and essays. In keeping with Baen Books' approach to DRM and publishing (previously), the entire thing is available for free online.

HDCP master key is valid, encryption is now "only token protection"

filthy light thief — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 12:41:40 -0800

High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP) is currently the most common form of digital transmission protection for high definition digital multimedia, requiring an unbroken chain of licensed products for content to play back for TV systems and computers. A possible "master key" was posted online earlier this week, and created quite a stir around the potential of this leak or reverse engineering. Intel, who developed the initial specification, has confirmed the validity of the "master key", but instead of coming up with a new protection scheme, will use "legal remedies, particularly under the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act)." In essence, the threat of legal action, rather than cryptography, is [Intel and the media companies] real tool against unapproved uses of digital content. Media copy protection has been around, and circumvented, for quite a while. Content Scrambling System (CSS) is a relatively weak form of protection found on most DVDs, introduced in 1996 and the first tool to descramble the content was released in late 1999 by the Russian warez group DoD, though it couldn't copy all discs. A different group, including then 15-year-old "DVD Jon" (Jon Johansen), were also working towards the same goal at the same time. A few weeks after the first DVD ripper was released, Johansen's group shared their code with the Linux community, as there was no software to play DVDs on Linux. When the DeCSS code was released to the public, numerous lawsuits were filed including the first test of the controversial Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), cease and desist letters were sent to users who posted the code, and a lot of DeCSS artwork (covered bunches previously). Round 2: Advanced Access Content System (AACS), a more complex encryption specification, was publicly released in April 2005. In December 2006, a HD-DVD backup tool was posted in an online forum. The program author's stated intent was to be able to play movies he bought on his non-HDCP HD monitor. Processing keys are the new DeCSS code, complete with Digg user revolt. The cat-and-mouse game of AACS revocations and media key blocks being discovered continues. Round 3: BD+, which has a virtual machine as an intermediary between the disc and the player. The closed-source software company SlySoft were the first to crack BD+, resulting in a tug-of-war between BD+ revisions and SlySoft updates. Unlike the previously covered specifications, HDCP is a transmission encryption, not a storage encryption. Instead of protecting the content of a disc, it ensures that all steps from the disc, digital TV, or streaming movie make it to the display through authorized components, preventing the content from being captured in the process. Though weaknesses in HDCP have been known for a while, there has not been a (publicly discussed) attempt to break HDCP. First mentioned on Twitter by "Intel Global PR," the new Twitter account sent out a single link to an anonymous post on Pastebin. In an online discussion, one of the HDCP flaw researchers commented that he thought it was probably the work of reverse engineering, as the master key is only known by a few individuals at the licensing authority, not manufacturers who would receive individual keys for products. Before the validity of the key was confirmed, Ed Felten posted a good write-up on Freedom To Tinker, where he summarized the potential impact by saying:

The impact of HDCP's failure on consumers will probably be minor. The main practical effect of HDCP has been to create one more way in which your electronics could fail to work properly with your TV. This is unlikely to change. Mainstream electronics makers will probably continue to take HDCP licenses and to use HDCP as they are now. There might be some differences at the margin, where manufacturers feel they can take a few more liberties to make things work for their customers.

There are already manufacturers "at the margin" who make HDCP filters that allow incomplete HDCP chains. Some obtain HDMI receiver chips that should have been reserved for other products, while others might find other ways to copy single HDCP keys. With the master key in the wild, the doors are wide open for new products from the margins.

Build it and they will come

Artw — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 10:20:02 -0800

PC Gamer: Do you have a good sense of piracy rates with Steam games?
Gabe Newell: They’re low enough that we don’t really spend any time on it.
Gabe Newell on Steam, piracy and DRM, part of PC Gamer's Valve Week.

Public Libraries Offer DRM-free Music Downloads

morganannie — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 11:17:29 -0800

Free music downloads without committing piracy! Freegal is a new service that libraries around the country are now offering to library card holders (up to 20 per week per library card). Freegal offers DRM-free mp3 downloads with no third-party application involved from Sony’s massive music catalog. Some say libraries who use this service are subsidizing public music purchases. Others love it.

Warden threw a party in the county jail.

griphus — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 10:43:53 -0800

Has DRM just been dealt a crippling blow? "Today [the US Copyright Office has] designated six classes of works. Persons who circumvent access controls in order to engage in noninfringing uses of works in these six classes will not be subject to the statutory prohibition against circumvention."

Still can't believe the glass box beat the Steely Dan in the quarter-finals

yerfatma — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 10:18:58 -0800

The Glass Box versus The Commonplace Book: Steven Berlin Johnson returns to his old school to talk about two possible models for the future of text online and whether the Internet really does encourage echo chambers.

The price is write

fearfulsymmetry — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 03:26:23 -0800

Cory Doctorow gives a talk at Bloomsbury on book pricing in the internet age (47min video)

Ya—er, ahem

Rory Marinich — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 20:30:25 -0800

The developers of erotic game maker Cross Days use DRM to humiliate would-be pirates

Step 1. Make an utterly fantastic game. Step 3. Profit!

straight — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 09:24:08 -0800

2D BOY made around $100,000 in a week. That’s $50,000 each for writing a blog post about a game they finished a year ago. By letting people pay whatever they wanted. 2D Boy stirred up a lot of discussion (previously) about game piracy when they used online scoreboard data to estimate an 82% piracy rate for their fantastic indie game World of Goo (previously). For World of Goo's first birthday, they decided to try the Radiohead model and let people buy the game for any price they choose. Now they've released extensive data about the results. Short version? "A huge success," even though the most commonly chosen price was only a penny. Don't miss the excellent analysis in the Rock Paper Shotgun article (that first link), including the comments where one reader has created a chart showing that the bottom 40% of the downloads account for 1.5% of the profit and the top 30% of the downloads account for 83% of the profit.

Batman dies in cloud of poison gas – unless you actually buy the game

joeclark — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 09:24:41 -0800

DRM as a cloud of poison gas. Run an illegally-downloaded prerelease version of the video game Batman: Arkham Asylum and Batman always dies in a vat of poison gas. Run the legit version once it gets released and (apparently) there won’t even be any poison gas. (Game developers: “[Y]ou have encountered... a hook in the copy protection, to catch out people who try and download cracked versions of the game for free. It’s not a bug in the game’s code, it’s a bug in your moral code.”)

canada copyright zombies

tamarack — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 09:44:37 -0800

Canada's Bill C-61 is being zombified as talks begin this week in Vancouver to attempt a dialogue on public opinion. But it's okay, cause they're using twitter this time. [Links]
Fair Copyright for Canada, courtesy of Michael Geist.
Search Engine on TVO (and older podcasts on cbc

1984

batboy — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 13:02:30 -0800

Kindle goes all 1984 on Orwell Unbelievably, amazon.com has deleted all copies of 1984 and Animal Farm from the Kindle and other ebook platforms.. How could they not see the irony?