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May
15
Microsoft DRM Metldown Redux
Category: DRM, M$, Music, Others' Blogs | 
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As I mentioned here, Micro$oft has provided yet another example of why digital restrictions management does nothing but hurt legitimate consumers. To remind you, this is when Microsoft turned off the servers for its ironically named “playsforsure” DRM system. These songs, which consumers would told, would play for sure on any digital media player containing the proper logo, will no longer play once August comes around and Microsoft turns off the servers which validate you as a non-criminal. I hope there’s a huge outcry that forces them to un-DRM all these songs and sounds the ultimate death knell for DRM.
Mark Pilmgim, Python hacker and author, wrote a piece about this in his blog in which he explains the situation to his father. Here are my favorite quotes.
Bruce Schneier, a famous cryptologist — or at least as famous a cryptologist as cryptologists are likely to get in this century — once described attempts to make digital bits uncopyable as “trying to make water not wet.”
To their credit, if that’s the right word, you can now purchase some music from the iTunes store that is unencrypted and plays anywhere. Apple calls these songs “iTunes Plus”, because it sounds so much better than calling everything else “iTunes Minus.”
To demonstrate the awesomeness of their developer platform, Microsoft opened their own online store, MSN Music, so they could compete directly with their business partners who also offered “PlaysForSure”-compatible music downloads. Because there’s nothing end users love more than fake choices.
At that point — transferring the music files they have “purchased” to another drive or a new computer — the Microsoft music player running on the victim’s PC (like iTunes, but all Microsoft-y instead of Apple-y) will make a call to Microsoft’s validation servers to verify that the music files were legitimately purchased. This call will fail, since the servers are not responding, since Microsoft has intentionally turned them off. The Microsoft music player will then conclude, incorrectly but steadfastly, that the music files were downloaded illegally and that the victim is a filthy pirate, and it will refuse to play them. In this case, the left hand knows exactly what the right hand is doing: they’re both giving you the finger.
Also, he mention that the Electronic Frontier Foundation, of which I’m a member, has posted a letter to Microsoft calling them on this move.
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Apr
27
Another example of DRM being hurtful
Category: DRM, M$ | Leave a Comment
The Free Software Foundation’s Defective by Design is reporting that MSN Music is shutting down, leaving anyone who bought music legally left with music they can no longer listen to. This will have two outcomes and neither of which is what the music labels really want. Some people will decide they got left holding the bomb with one second left for doing the right thing and paying for music. They will decide to download music without paying from now on. They will reason that if they ever buy music again they won’t know if it will cease working. Or they will being to take note of places like Amie Street and Amazon.com that sell DRM-free music.
Tsk, Tsk Microsoft!
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Jan
10
iPod Shuffle
Category: DRM, Linux, Music | 2 Comments
For years I had been saying that I would not buy an iPod product. After all, they sell music in the iTunes music store with DRM on it. All of my music on my Linux computer is in the OGG format and it can’t be played with iPods. However, when it came time to buy an audio player I did a bit of research. It had to be something I could buy at the local Best Buy because I had a coupon and gift card. Of the players sold at Best Buy, the players which supported OGG were, ironically, not well supported on Linux. In fact, the best supported and integrated player in Linux was the iPod. That’s important to me since I use my Linux computer for serving my main audio needs. All of my podcasts come in through Rhythmbox. The second requirement I had is that it had to be of the same form factor as the 2nd Generation iPod Shuffle so that it could use it at the gym clipped onto my shirt or shorts and not weigh me down at all. I used to work out with an iPaq in my pocket and it was not very comfortable at all.
First I installed gtkpod onto my computer. Then I plugged the Shuffle into Mario, my main Linux computer, and Rhythmbox promptly crashed. I tried a few different combinations such as plugging in the iPod first or starting Rhythmbox first. Then I ran gtkpod and realized that something was not setup correctly on the file system of the Shuffle. So I plugged it into my Windows computer and ran iTunes and the first little setup wizard. I named it 1UPMUSHROOM to go along with my Mario theme.
After that everything worked perfectly. So even though everyone was scared that with the latest updates, iPods wouldn’t work with Linux, the gtkpod people got it working - at least it worked for me with an iPod I just bought from the store. I’ve been enjoying it for the past week or so and am able to listen to my podcasts at the gym instead of those stupid radio programs they usually play.
Blogged with Flock
Tags: iPod, gtkPod, Mario, Rhythmbox
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Jan
1
This year I decided to mainly support technological causes. I donated to the Free Software Foundation and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. I think that rms and the rest over at the FSF are really doing a lot of great work to preserve our freedoms. I especially like the Defective by Design campaign they’ve been running. So this year they get the lion’s share of my money.
The EFF has been doing a lot of work with other things I care about such as opposing the broadcast flag and overall protecting our electronic and Internet freedoms.
Finally, I donated to NPR because I enjoy their programming every day and I thought it was time to help keep them afloat. This was especially urgent as Congress has recently been reducing the mount of funding they give to public broadcasting, a real shame.
I was going to donate to the Gnome foundation this year, but after their blunder with their support of OOXML and other moves that seem to legitimize Microsoft’s shady actions, I decided to withhold any funds from them this year. There are only two ways to vote in the Free Software world, with programming talent and with money. They get neither from me for 2008.
Blogged with Flock
Tags: FSF, Free Software Foundation, EFF, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Defective by Design, NPR, National Public Radio, donations, charitable contributions
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Nov
8
Another example of the perils of DRM
Category: DRM, tv | Leave a Comment
Time and again I’ve warned my readers of the perils of DRM. (Specifically here and here). That’s why I don’t buy music on iTunes and have given all of my digital music patronage to Amazon.com. Even my wife, who’s not as into FOSS and all that as I am, has become disgusted as she’s understood what DRM means for her - regular Jane Consumer.
I’m not the only one who’s made these claims. Yet others say, “you guys are just using that as an excuse to malign DRM. It’s necessary for protecting content from piracy and you just want to pirate stuff.” Oh yeah? Well, are you prepared to give up your rights to expect your paid content to work when you come back to it in the future?
Then I read this on Download Squad via a link on Digg:
…Major League Baseball has deactivated a DRM license server used to verify your worthiness to play back video of games you purchased online. …MLB’s new content and old content are managed by different license authentication servers. After making the switch, MLB has arbitrarily decided it has no intention of honoring its earlier commitments to fans who purchased downloaded games under the old system, thereby rendering many fans shut-out. …MLB is completely unapologetic to fans who’ve lost their purchased content to the horrors of DRM death.
“Shame on you Major League Baseball, this is fraud. We’ve warned Download Squad readers that buying DRM “protected” media is a crap-shoot, but when issuing those warnings we were mostly concerned about smaller media sales outlets going out-of-business in an ever evolving digital media landscape. This goes so far beyond those fears, with an active and profitable business making a clear and informed decision to yank the DRM rug out from under your purchased content.Is it any wonder non-drm downloads via P2P are so popular? …it’s …about “freedom”, the freedom to do what you wish with the content you’ve collected. If consumers aren’t given options which allow them to get their content free as in freedom, they’ll take that content free as in beer.
Fans shafted as Major League Baseball revokes DRM licenses - Download Squad
So, basically, these people paid money to download these baseball video clips and now they can no longer watch them. Why should they get punished in the same way as people who did not pay for these clips? Is this ethical? I don’t think so!
I’ve had my own experience with content dying on me. When I was in college I decided to buy some songs off of the new Napster. Then my computer died. When I tried to renegotiate the DRM a few months ago, it said that I can no longer listen to that music because they no longer have a contract with Napster. What kind of BS is that? This is not the kind of world I want to live in. If you agree, you should join me in boycotting all content with DRM! If you want digital music, buy CDs or buy it on Amazon.com. (If you want more indie music there’s also DRM free music at Magnatunes)
Blogged with Flock
Tags: Baseball, MLB, DRM Revocation, Napster
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Sep
26
HEY RIAA, all you needed to do was offer DRM-free music!
Category: DRM, Internet, Music | Leave a Comment
I’ve already spent around $11 on Amazon.com’s MP3 download store. Why? Because they are selling MP3s of my favorite artists without any digital restrictions management (DRM). This is what has been keeping both my wife and I away from iTunes. Oh yeah, and the songs are cheaper than iTunes! It appears that all of the day’s Top downloads are $0.89 and the rest are $0.99. On iTunes the DRM-free songs are $1.89 or something like that. Looks like Apple’s going to need to do a price drop or there’s going the be a mass exodus to Amazon.com.
Also, they are MP3s, not AACs, so I can use the music on any computer or portable device and not just the iPod!
Here’s the music freedom and the hope that the rest of the music companies will join in!
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Sep
15
Why the TV and Movie Companies have it so wrong
Category: Computers, DRM, Movies, tv | Leave a Comment
Let’s pretend I’m Joe College-Grad Consumer and I’m trying to evaluate how I should obtain my video content. I’m interested in watching shows as they come out - not later when they’re on box sets. Let’s see, I could buy my content on iTunes, Amazon Unbox, or some other such service. If I buy my content on iTunes I can watch it via iTunes or via my iPod. So if I have Linux, Haiku OS, or some other uncommon operating system I can’t watch it. Amazon does them one better and not even Mac users can watch it. If I have some other video jukebox than an iPod, I can’t watch my videos on the go. If I buy it via Amazon, I can’t even put it on my iPod. Both are riddled with DRM so if they decided to stop providing the service, I’m stuck with videos I can’t convert over to some new device. If I want to burn it to DVD to watch on my DVD player, I can’t. Oh yeah, and for some stupid reason, if I don’t live in the USA I can’t watch it until months or even years later.
Now let’s take a look at unauthorized video sources such as bit torrent. I can watch this video on any operating system from Linux to Windows to Mac to Haiku OS and any other OS with the appropriate codecs. I can put the video on anything from a Creative Video player to an iPod video. I can burn it to DVD and watch it this way. I can watch it anywhere in the world. Yet, this is free! Oh yeah, and these videos can be used for Fair Use reasons because their lack of digital restrictions management allows me to embed them into reports, projects, etc
So where did economics breaks down? Isn’t capitalism supposed to work that the more money you pay for something, the more value you get? Shouldn’t the videos I pay money for have MORE freedoms than the ones I can download? Quality used to be a problem, but now that people have HD tuner cards, I don’t even get better quality when I pay for something.
Video content producers need to get their stuff into order if they don’t want to get the point where no one will be willing to pay for their content. For me, that means videos without DRM. Don’t worry, I won’t share it with anyone. I just want to be able to watch it whenever and however I want and one whatever OS or portable player I want.
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Aug
17
That was fast!
Category: DRM, Movies, News | Leave a Comment
Ars Technica is reporting that Netflix is promising that they will be working very hard to get Macintoshes supported. Looks like they read my letter and now they have my brother covered. Now they need to work on Linux support. And drop the DRM because I guess they ignored my paragraph on how it’s BS and it’s broken. I’m waiting…
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Aug
16
An Open Letter to Netflix
Category: DRM, Linux, M$, Movies | 2 Comments
I am not an unreasonable man and I full understand your need to focus on making your “watch now” feature debut available exclusively to Windows users. After all, they do make up about 90% of computer users. However, I do have some problems with this as a long time plan.
First of all, it does require me to use Internet Explorer. This is extremely shortsighted. What about those of us who use Firefox? My wife was excited about “watch now” until she found out that IE was required and said, “f&ck that!” So you should open up this service to other browsers.
Second, I use Linux as my main computer and my brother uses a macintosh for his main laptop. This effectively cuts us off from using this service. Sure, Linux and Mac users make up a combined 6% or so of the total computer user population, but these are fast growing categories and you risk alienating us from this service. Dell is now selling consumer computers with Linux preinstalled and Apple sales have been picked up, boosted by the iPod and iPhone.
I understand what your excuse will be - we need to use DRM to ensure that people will not copy the videos. The only secure DRM we were able to find was licensed from Microsoft. However, a quick search on Google will show you that people have already broken it. Then you will change it and they will break it again. You’re on the losing side of an never ending battle.
Shipping costs some amount of money so I can see that the more customers you get using the online services, the more profits go to Netflix. In the end you want everyone to do this instead of ordering DVDs. If you want to be successful at this you’re going to need to support all of the major platforms and browsers.
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May
2
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
Category: Computers, DRM, Internet, Technology | 2 Comments
What a beautiful hex number!
Check this page out to see what it may mean.
The Free Speech Flag…..just check out the hex that represents these colours.
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