Scoble: Digital Rights Management | The Coffeehouse

LCARS
Hello World!!

After looking at this post here: http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=125369

I started wondering about all this digital rights management.

You have shown us a lot of very cool videos.
Any chance of you doing a video with the people responsible for the output content protection in Vista?

W3bbo
The Master of Baiters

LCARS wrote:
Any chance of you doing a video with the people responsible for the output content protection in Vista?

...and invite Richard Stallman when you do! Big Smile

(P.S. bring lots of rotten tomatoes)

IanD

Hmm two plugs in one day.
I recorded an interview with Marcus Mattihias from Microsoft and Bob Weber (a DRM expert) about DRM and some of the forms of DRM in Vista a couple of weeks ago for the Windows Media Center Show.
I should have it out in a few weeks, I will post a link when it goes out

Ian
The Windows Media Center Show

billh
call -141

::: drools :::

I think you should make it something like a scene out of the movie Fantastic Voyage. Mock-up the chips/circuits as a roomful of larger-than-life models, and pretend to shrink Robert down to the size of a speck of dust, and have him travel through the processor/bus/circuits and show us how this all works on a really low level.

Or, shrink him down to a tiny speck of dust, and then have some evil video pirates try to hijack the bus or patch into the circuitry, but then have him wield a sword with the words "RIAA" on one side and "MPAA" on the other side of the blade, and smite them all.

W3bbo
The Master of Baiters

billh wrote:
Or, shrink him down to a tiny speck of dust, and then have some evil video pirates try to hijack the bus or patch into the circuitry, but then have him wield a sword with the words "RIAA" on one side and "MPAA" on the other side of the blade, and smite them all.

...only to be bitten back by another individual carrying an even bigger sword with the words "Fair-Use Lawsuit" on the side Wink

DoomBringer
Doom!

You know, DRM is one of the hardest problems I can think of that faces the industry today. How do you enable fair use and make the content providers happy? Most people just out and out hate any kind of DRM, but since content providers are demanding it (they have rights too), it is something that is becoming a necessity.

How would you, in the most technical details possible, make DRM work? For example, encrypt the media contents and require licenses with the key in them?

Cairo
I want my waffle sundae, give me my carbs!

"To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;"

Does DRM meet the "limited time" requirement? Does it meet the "promote the progress" requirement? If not, why should it have the force of law behind it (e.g., the DMCA)?

DoomBringer
Doom!

Cairo wrote:

"To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;"

Does DRM meet the "limited time" requirement? Does it meet the "promote the progress" requirement? If not, why should it have the force of law behind it (e.g., the DMCA)?

I'm not an expert in legalese, but DRM can be done so that media that is no longer covered by copyright can be mucked about with abandon. My biggest concern there is that copyrights last far, far too long, due to Disney's continual efforts to expand it. (Mickey Mouse is nearly too old for copyrights to still apply...) Copyrights ought to only last 50 years at most, maybe.
The "promote" clause is hard to define. The way I understand it is that an author or inventor should not be afraid of rampant piracy or abuse of their materials so they can profit from their labors. I'd say DRM can help with that, a bit. How much can be disputed.

Cairo
I want my waffle sundae, give me my carbs!

I think the original 14-year limit on copyrights would be just fine. Life plus 70 years is simply stupid. But 50 years is too long as well.

Karim
Trapped in a world he never made!

billh wrote:

I think you should make it something like a scene out of the movie Fantastic Voyage. Mock-up the chips/circuits as a roomful of larger-than-life models, and pretend to shrink Robert down to the size of a speck of dust, and have him travel through the processor/bus/circuits and show us how this all works on a really low level.

[Scoble and Raquel Welch walk though a cavernous black room. Scoble is wearing a baggy "clean room" jumpsuit, while Raquel's is much more form-fitting. Huge arcs of lightning shoot across the room, from the one wall to another.]

Scoble: So where are we now?

Raquel: Well we're actually deep inside the backplane interface of the ASIC quad channel output buffer. You're seeing differential signaling nanosecond clock timing pulses using low-voltage postive emitter coupled logic gates.

Scoble: Yeah but what are those big scary lightning bolt things?

Raquel: Those... are the differential signaling nanosecond clock timing pulses.

Scoble: Oh.

Raquel: Of course, I say "low-voltage," but at our current size, the amperage would be quite deadly.

Scoble: So are these like bits from a high def movie or something?

Raquel: Uh, no... how much do you know about complementary metal oxide semiconductors?

Scoble: Not a lot, really. Aren't these bolts, like, flying really close to us?

Raquel: We're perfectly safe. To get hit by one, you'd have to do something stupid, like stick your arm up in the air --

[Raquel sticks her arm up in the air to demonstrate, and one of the electrical arcs zaps her]

Scoble: Oh my God. Raquel? Raquel?