Report: Studios want interoperable DRM
Most of the largest motion picture studios are backing a plan that would create interoperability among digital rights management schemes.
TechCrunch is reporting that Sony Pictures is behind the plan that has the support of most of the top film companies--other than those backed by Walt Disney. A Sony spokesman could not be reached for comment Tuesday evening.
According to Michael Arrington, the plan calls for "a set of policy decisions and a software and services framework that will allow interoperability of various formats and DRM schemes that are currently splintering the market."
The plan also calls for a neutral party to manage a central registry where users would register their devices. Movies purchased from participating services would then play on devices from participating manufacturers.
OK, while acknowledging I haven't heard all the details, the plan at this point sounds complicated and it also calls for competitors to cooperate. This is not an easy thing in Hollywood.
I'm always skeptical of any proposition that requires the studios to agree on standards. Hollywood should also learn from the music industry and abandon DRM now. Consumers have already rendered a verdict on DRM: death.
Greg Sandoval covers media and digital entertainment for CNET News. He is a former reporter for The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. E-mail Greg.
I'm sure it'll never happen.
For every DRM, there is an equal and opposite Crack. Hey...that should be a theorem!
One does all these things to make it more difficult for those who want to steal. Nothing is ever 100%.
Gotta admit I don't actually care all that much for myself, personally-- all the media I consume is Creative Commons licensed with just about no exceptions. For others though, we will not let the greed of the media industry keep people from using what we feel is the best operating system that currently exists, and the community will stop at just about nothing to provide a way around things that impede progress.
The only right way to do DRM, if there /is/ a right way, is to know when to stop. You have your little application, you use completely self contained code to do the DRM, but if someone is determined enough to waste their time recording their audio and video out, let them. That's not the majority of the population, and it doesn't preserve the code in such things as DVD menus and special features, nor does it preserve subtitles. Seriously, the entire OS doesn't have to be conspiring against the user at every turn just to have generally effective DRM. As long as people think it does, you'll have millions of nerds powered by righteous indignation hacking through each and every scheme employed by the industry.
The creation of this standard portends that the content owners will be able to get together on an interoperable DRM schema for everyone.
As hard drive space gets cheaper than plastic media, more and more consumers will want to simply download content. Having a standard DRM scheme is a step in the right direction.
The analoge resolution limit is an artifical limitation on what you can view.
Of course, this is Sony so they probably just want to silently install more root-kits.
2) No special features on ripped DVD's
3) Ripped copies will be supplanted by tomorrow's better technology/HD/HD Audio
4) Sounds like they are trying to combat iTunes as a media outlet. Point -- Apple makes easy to consume media by combining Hardware and Software with high standards and high customer service. No other hardware/software company has been able to duplicate this, NOT EVEN THE MOVIE / RECORD STUDIOS. Vertical product lines just don't exist other than Apple, at least currently. Until someone can successfully duplicate the Apple model, there will still be a majority of users consuming media from iTunes, period. The only way to compete is to remove DRM completely (Amazon is now climbing up in music sales).
Amazon is not even 1/3rd as big as Apple in the music space without using DRM and their number are not climbing and whomever told you that is misrepresenting the facts.
Meanwhile DRM continues to be the prevailing model in Video and Apple, Microsoft and Adobe are all making big strides to roll out new DRM technology this year to address this demand. Sony, however, is hardly the company to be tasked with leading this "interopability fiasco" given their history.
And need I mention we already have several other efforts in this area like CORAL which have failed miserably.
Christopher Levy
clevy@buydrm.com
http://thedrmblog.com
Incidentally, to the DRM shill up there, a question: You tout iTunes as a DRM success, and yet the FairPlay DRM is trivial to break, using iTunes itself and zero hacking skills. I can, right now, take any iTMS track and convert to .mp3 without even breaking a sweat, and with nothing more than iTunes and a free WAV-MP# conversion app to do it. Furthermore, you tout DRM as growing, and yet EMI (among numerous other entities) have ditched it entirely.
Funny thing is, any music store that is trying to compete with iTunes (err, good luck with that) usually tries touting its lack of DRM as a selling point.
All that DRM does is get in the way. Even Apple was smart enough to make the DRM obstacle a small one at best.
Thanks for the shill comment but seriously it's not about what you think you can do with an iTunes track after you bought it. Apple doesn't care. The point is that you, like Millions of other consumers out there, bought the track with DRM and it wasn't an issue for you. You didn't not buy it because it had DRM on it. You Paid MONEY for it and then downloaded it. That's my point.
EMI is a company whose time is very limited in the business sense. They have made every desperate attempt they could to stay in business including "dropping DRM." I have some news for you apparently.... it didn't help. Their DRM Free offering on iTunes is outsold 10-1 by their DRM-enabled offering. Ditching DRM didn't save EMI. DRM was never an issue to EMI and now they know this.
Touting DRM as a selling point, and then actually selling DRM-Free music in a way that makes you a boatload of money and profitable are completely seperate events. Nobody selling music without DRM is even in the same zipcode as iTunes and never will be because DRM is and was never an issue for iTunes users.
Your last statement is a complete contradiction of itself. Apple's DRM is technologically nearly identical to Microsoft's. There is only one difference. Apple's DRM is the only DRM that works on iTunes/iPods. Again this hasn't prevented them from becoming the #1 Music Retailer in the world USING DRM.
DRM is not the issue. Apple NOT Licensing FairPlay Is.
That is it.
It doesn't stop piracy on any scale. The big media companies are on their way down, and in their panic they grabbed the anchor known as DRM and refuse to let go as they sink faster.
Which is fine with me, the quality of music and movies will go way up without the interference of these greedy scum bags.
It's also a great way to enable new business models previously not available in the digital media marketplace.
Alot of emotion in your statements but very few facts. That is pretty typical of a freeloader. Sure you just get everything you want all the time anywhere and "the big media companies" foot the bill right? Gee I wonder why they want to make money? How would that be useful to them?
Where will you get all your free media when they go out of business or "down" as you call it.
-
by ludyte
August 27, 2008 7:39 PM PDT
- Umm, you mean a scheme that uses a device bound certificate to sign a rights meta data file for each DRM'ed track on the player, and a rights language sufficiently expressive to allow limited sharing, previews, play counts and expiration dates? Maybe even a scheme that, because it uses a technology as ubiquitous as SSL certificates ( with some extensions ) to broker trust that it could in theory be easily supported across platforms, vendors, providers, and media types?
-
Reply to this comment
-
See all 23 Comments >>Penguinisto is right, you could mean Plays for Sure if Microsoft were willing to license the keys to providers running on a platform other than Windows and if they hadn't undermined the technology by stabbing their partners in the back when they released the iPod killer we all know as Zune.
The technology isn't all that challenging. Existing DRM implementations have been rather dumb because they rely on a shared secret. As long as there is a shared secret the scheme will be broken.
One thing about this article is true is that as long as their are greedy media giants there will be a call for DRM. And as the player becomes less and less defined it is going to be harder and harder for them to take the Macrovision type of approach. The market is ripe for a trust provider capable of handling the challenge of delivering signed codecs to a variety of platforms.