August 29th, 2005
Is This the End of Fair Use?
By David Johnston
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews
There has been a lot of fuss on the internet recently about a new partnership between Intel and Microsoft which may mean the end of fair use for consumers. I’ve written before about Microsoft’s new HDCP which will force everyone to upgrade their monitors to view some video content, but the plot has thickened. New Intel chipsets which will be part of the VIIV package will sport hardware DRM features as well as software DRM features in new Microsoft OS’s. Something called the Secure Premium Content Module, or SPCM, will be able to decode media supporting Microsoft’s new DRM features. If your media doesn’t support these new DRM standards, your PC will now “nicely” convert into compliant DRM-encrypted files. Now, of course, the music and movie industries will support Microsoft’s DRM features in new media. This is what they’ve been wanting all along anway.
This all means that “pay per view/listen” will really be able to take off. In fact, you most likely won’t be able to make copies of media you buy in the store. You will not be able to freely rip music from CD’s you own to back up or anything of the sort (legally at least) because this will qualify as breaking the DRM. So, while making fair-use copies is and has always been legal, you won’t be able to exercise that right because of other laws making it illegal to break DRM protection schemes. Note that this will also make it illegal to play DRM-protected content on anything other than a Microsoft OS since Microsoft is the only company with a license to legally decode the content. Say goodbye to listening to music or watching movies on anything other than a Windows platform (unless you don’t mind breaking the law).
Sources: The Inquirer and Hardware Analysis
I know that previous DRM schemes have been cracked fairly easily, but this has several things going for it. The first is that the DRM is embedded in your hardware. The second is that this is not a first attempt at DRM protection. The industry has already invented CD’s which are practically (if not entirely) impossible to copy. Has anyone here tried and successfully copied their Sacred play CD (it’s a computer game)? Anyway, the point is that they’re getting better at this. Just as software gets better as bugs are worked out, so does DRM. The last thing which will help ensure the success of this scheme is the amount of money supporting it. It is being backed by Intel and Microsoft and most likely it’s also being backed by the RIAA and MPAA.
I think this is a terrible thing, but I do have to wonder how much of this is happening as a result of illegal activities such as P2P filesharing which have abused unprotected content and become so popular and commonplace that it has gotten major attention. It’s easy for these companies to defend DRM when you see all of the blatantly illegal activity on P2P networks. Being in a college environment, I’m surrounded by many of the worst offenders and I can’t really blame them. So, in some ways what goes around has now come around to the consumer.
PS: Does anyone know what this will mean if AMD or third-party chipset manufacturers chooses not to support these DRM standards? It seems like it could be quite a mess.
Joe says:
This is a nice lot of doomsaying, however, wherever the market is, the money and profits will flow. There is very little market for DRM burdened hardware and software. Sure, iTunes works okay, but this is because there are still alternatives. If everyone was stuck with Fairplay, the uproar would be so strong that no one would use intel chips. If windows were the only OS to support the only industry standard of DRM, microsoft would get nailed by the courts.
In this ridiculous hypothetical situation that is slightly realistic in that it is logically possible, if improbable, that it will occur, AMD’s sales would soar due to the lack of DRM, open source and linux would only continue to grow, and an even larger community of users that completely ignore the industry’s growing attempts at controlling our computer use would flourish.
Coders and hackers would crack all the DRM by any means possible, whether it required reverse engineering or not, and at some point the courts would step in to limit the entertainment and software industries in order to preserve the law as the deciding factor on what goes or stays, not the anarchy of the internet.
See? We can all weave little tales of ‘what if’ by overanalyzing the stupid ideas coming out into the news.
August 29th, 2005 at 9:05 pm
Tom says:
I’ll continue to break the law in order to exercise what I believe is fair use.
If THEY manage to punish or other wise deter me I’ll probably never drop another penny on music, movies, or games.
I’ve got a stack of books I need to get to anyway!
:)
August 30th, 2005 at 4:50 am
Inglix the Mad says:
Realistically, locks are for honest people. The only way for this to work, and I do mean the ONLY way, would be to have the content priced so low that it would be a penny or two per use. Does anyone here remember Divx, no not the Internet format, the Circuit City Failure that was the competitor to DVD. The movies were cheaper, but the fair use rights were gone.
Now, for this to make them money, the computer would have to be connected to the internet. It’s either that or there would be no way to charge the user, just like the Circuit City phone model. This, like the Circuit City fallacy, will prove to be it’s downfall. Many people who owned Divx players cracked a loopback plug for the phone connection if I remember proper.
Long run, short run, the music/movie industries get what they want, and when music/movies still fail to draw people in, well gosh they’ll be pulling their hair out for ideas, and maybe even, gasp, giving stuff away. Case in point, I haven’t bought a major artist CD in years because I think most music sucks, although I have botten some indie and euro stuff. I also have gone to just one movie this year, Hitchhiker, the rest I might deign to rent, but otherwise, forget it.
August 30th, 2005 at 6:13 am
Blake says:
Wow you missed the boat on these details. SPCM isn’t the monster you make it out to be. It doesn’t touch your personal content.
August 30th, 2005 at 10:23 am
Scott says:
Sounds like an excellent reason to be investigating migration to Linux.
August 30th, 2005 at 12:01 pm
David Johnston says:
I didn’t say the SPCM did the converting. That’d done by the EF Platform Driver.
August 30th, 2005 at 12:14 pm
David Johnston says:
Quote from the Inquirer on the EF Platform Driver:
“The concept is collectively called EF, and the one key to this all is something called the EF platform driver. It does a bunch of neato things, it will use all the horsepower the CPUs can throw at it, and a lot more. The first thing is that it will transcode content on the fly, and is officially stated as ‘Transcodes content that’s not supported by Digital Media Adaptor into a supported format’. Sounds cool, except the, and I mean the supported format right now is .WMV. It also can do the same for bandwidth, basically it transrates on the fly. No abject evil here, it is a good idea in every way.”
I just didn’t include that in the article because it would further complicate and lengthen it. If people really want to know the specifics, the Inquirer article is very thorough.
August 30th, 2005 at 12:26 pm
Lockergnome's Tech News Watch says:
Is This the End of Fair Use?
By David Johnston, Contributing Writer, RealTechNews There has been a lot of fuss on the internet recently about a new partnership between Intel and Microsoft which may mean the end of fair use for consumers. I’ve written before about Microsoft’s new…
August 30th, 2005 at 5:03 pm
curio says:
I don’t watch dvd’s or cd’s on my computer it is to uncomfortable to sit there before the computer screeen and gaze.I don’t burn music cd’s either because they don’t play on my cd player.I am still upset over the move to control what you can and cannot do with a system that you paid hard earned cash for,I think it is totally unfair to the consumer,I won’t be upgrading to Vista any time soon for just that reason,Microsoft had a loyal and dedicated user untill they sold out to the money hungry establishment,I don’t think this move is a wise one for microsoft they could loose it all over this one,the customer deserves better from someone like Bill Gates that could with his power be truly inovative instead of destructive.The hollywood pack will not support microsoft in the beginning or the end of this,they will just gloat and brag on how they over powerd Microsoft,I never thought microsoft would bow to the few and forsake the wrights of the people.Fair use will survive one way or another,someone will come up with a smart interface that will work around this hardware menace created by this unneeded extream.
August 31st, 2005 at 3:47 am
Mel Haney says:
Yada-da, yada-da, yada-da. . . Assuming (and I do not agree) that this scenario played out as writen, Intel would perish along with Microsoft, while Apple would become (excuse the cliche) the apple of my eye.
Not gonna’ happen!
August 31st, 2005 at 4:54 am
John Howard Oxley says:
The standard objection given to the idea that ‘home’ users convert to Linux is that they already have Windows and it is “good enough” for them. Heavy-handed DRM like this will be a powerful motivator for change.
Then consider the ‘unpaid’ benefit businesses get by having people practicing on Windows at home, for free, in terms of overall improved OS use — all of a sudden this freebie is gone, as the home people are using Linux.
Then the business people look at the TCOs of Linux, and see that one of the major barriers, retraining costs, is substantially reduced….
It would be indeed heartwarming if Microsoft received its just reward for this. I think the computer literate probably do not fully appreciate how beneficient Microsoft appears to the ‘average’ user, nor does Microsoft appreciate at all the implications of suddenly ceasing to appear beneficial — and fair use certainly could be the spark that does it.
August 31st, 2005 at 8:20 am
Jon Berg says:
I’ve seen these delusional fantasies before - I remember a “Hard Edge” column in Computer Shopper when I was in College about how there were plans to seal computers so that the consumer couldn’t go in and tamper with them… Yeah right! Everyone has an Achilles heel but I don’t think making extremely bad business moves is Microsoft’s. Think what you will, the market makes the billionaire only if the billionaire makes it for the market and eliminating fair use is definitely not in the interest of the market and therefore not in the interest of Microsoft - they don’t own the planet people, they can’t even afford to buy the Supreme Court so forget about it.
August 31st, 2005 at 7:10 pm
Alice says:
As one of the writers of the Hard Edge, I can’t remember if Bill or I covered the sealad computer, but I do remember writing a lot at the the time about how most people are frightened of opening their computers, and as PCs became more like stereos or TVs, where you just attach things to them, the sealed concept is a non issue for the bulk of consumers. Today, that’s even more true, since USB nad firewrire have created what I call the “Hydra” effect. I have so many devices attached to my PC, it’s a like an octopus or Hydra with so many cables and hubs and so on. I rarely open it up anymore now that extranal drives are so handy to use. But that’s a hardware issue not a DRM issue.
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