# I'm so sick of this "protection" of content



## AbMagFab (Feb 5, 2001)

I mean please, the vast majority of us simply want to watch TV when and where we want, and move programs around to different TV's, and possibly archive to a PC to save disk space.

Big deal.

How about CableLabs and everyone else involved stop this nonsense and let Tivo (and MSoft and anyone else) develop reasonable protections and encryption to allow this?

Frankly, anyone who wants to break the encryption and do illegal things will do it no matter what, so by preventing companies from transfering digital content in a secure enough way, they are doing nothing to stop pirates, and everything to cripple good consumers.

Enough already. Give it up CableLabs, and MPAA, and everyone else who is trying to make my digital viewing more cumbersome then it has to be. I want freedom of viewing what I want, where I want, when I want. Let companies like Tivo provide this functionality, with reasonable security, and then back off.


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## hookbill (Dec 14, 2001)

+1 :up:


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

Unfortunately, the fact that you're sick of content owners (through their distribution channels) working to protect their assets (and regardless of whether you personally agree with the efficacy of the measures they decide to pursue/advocate/support) won't have much impact on them doing so.


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## monkeydust (Dec 12, 2004)

Yeah, right after a show airs, there's a ton of torrents for it out there all over the place. Why punish legit uses of the content by Tivo owners when the genie is already out of the bottle?


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## sleepeeg3 (Jul 22, 2006)

I agree.


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## MScottC (Sep 11, 2004)

Because those of us in the Media/Entertainment Industry have a right to make a living, and we have a right to protect our work product. Everyday I walk the streets of NYC and I see bootleg DVDs, and everyday I see new versions of napster and bittorrents etc., etc., are days when I know we who create this material have every right to protect our product. I dare ask you, how many of you would give away your work product on a daily basis, no questions asked? There are multiple models of how our media is distributed. But anytime someone steal our product, you steal from the people who pay for that material to be created, and you steal from the people who do the creating.

So please don't blame us for hindering your usage of what we create, blame the cretins who take advantage of the technology to rip us all off.


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## jim _h (Nov 25, 2006)

MScottC - I agree with you but only up to a point. What you are saying comes very close to asserting that you have a right to make a profit from your work. No one has such a right. You also have some rights with regard to preventing your work being copied, but those rights have limits. 

If I'm a sculptor and one of my works is in a city park, I can't prevent you from photographing it (although this has been tried, I believe, in Chicago). If I record music and you buy it, I can't prevent you from lending out the CD, or playing it for a roomful of people.

Groups like the RIAA seem to be claiming that if they're not making enough money, something is wrong and the laws need to be changed until their business model works.


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## SeanC (Dec 30, 2003)

Content providers won't be happy until they can make you pay for thinking about their work.


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## infinitespecter (Jul 23, 2004)

MScottC said:


> Because those of us in the Media/Entertainment Industry have a right to make a living, and we have a right to protect our work product. Everyday I walk the streets of NYC and I see bootleg DVDs, and everyday I see new versions of napster and bittorrents etc., etc., are days when I know we who create this material have every right to protect our product. I dare ask you, how many of you would give away your work product on a daily basis, no questions asked? There are multiple models of how our media is distributed. But anytime someone steal our product, you steal from the people who pay for that material to be created, and you steal from the people who do the creating.
> 
> So please don't blame us for hindering your usage of what we create, blame the cretins who take advantage of the technology to rip us all off.


You seem to be missing the point. You say that you see bootleggers selling DVDs along with new file sharing protocols online and that you have a right to defend it, because they are "stealing" from you (they aren't). You say that you have a set of business models that you use to distribute your media.

However, you neglect to account for the fact that all of these "protections" do NOTHING to stop any of the things you've mentioned. Nothing at all. If someone wants to copy media, they will find a way, and all the protection in the world means nothing. All you accomplish is pissing off the people who would honestly purchase media and turn them to piracy.

Beyond that, it should be clear that the distribution models your industry uses are woefully out of date and simply aren't working either. Instead, your industry lashes out and the very notion that they could be wrong and are a massive part of the problem themselves.


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## btwyx (Jan 16, 2003)

Personally I agree. Content protection only inconveniences law abiding people. Working for a company which works with content providers, professionally I have to take notice of such things.

The arguement that you find bootlegged DVDs on your street corner only proves the point, it provides no protection against nefarious people. It gave you no protection at all, it just annoyed your legitimate users.


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## btwyx (Jan 16, 2003)

One of the really annoying things about the laws in this country is they seek to prevent me from viewing content I've legitimately bought.

I can buy DVDs from overseas, either while I'm in the country where they are legitimatey distributed, or legally, by mail order from there. The laws in this country seek to prevent me from having a DVD player which can play these DVDs.

I purchased it, I should be able to play it.


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## mercurial (Oct 17, 2002)

Worse- they're encouraging law abiding folks who'd likely be happy with the standard options to consider using hacks to get around it that will likely enable them to do things that they'd not have done with the content before that the providers really don't want.


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## ncsercs (May 5, 2001)

SeanC said:


> Content providers won't be happy until they can make you pay for thinking about their work.


+1


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## samo (Oct 7, 1999)

> I can buy DVDs from overseas, either while I'm in the country where they are legitimatey distributed, or legally, by mail order from there. The laws in this country seek to prevent me from having a DVD player which can play these DVDs.


Not a very good example. You can legitimately purchase multi-zone player in a same country you bought your DVD or get it by mail-order. It may cost a bit more, but it is not illegal for you to have one.


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## btwyx (Jan 16, 2003)

samo said:


> Not a very good example. You can legitimately purchase multi-zone player in a same country you bought your DVD or get it by mail-order. It may cost a bit more, but it is not illegal for you to have one.


I was under the impression I should not be able to obtain a multi-zone player in the US, and its possession is questionable as well. Can you buy one in the US? As far as I know the DCMA attempts to make illegal any device which can cirumvent copy protections, so just possession of such a player is questionable.

There's a big difference between importing a disc and importing a player, especially when the player make be legally questionable, but the disc is not.

You own a DVD player, you buy a DVD, it won't play. That's the situation which is just wrong.


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## Adam1115 (Dec 15, 2003)

In defense of cablelabs, the LAST TiVo HD-DVRs encryption was VERY easy to break, and equally easy to yank pure digital HD content to your PC and burn perfect DVD's.

Also TiVo2Go's encryption/DRM was also broken...

So them making sure THAT problem has been solved seems reasonable to me...


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## Bodshal (Jan 4, 2005)

MScottC said:


> Everyday I walk the streets of NYC and I see bootleg DVDs, and everyday I see new versions of napster and bittorrents etc., etc.


And you call the police every time, right?

Chris.


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## sthor (Oct 1, 2006)

MScottC said:


> Because those of us in the Media/Entertainment Industry have a right to make a living, and we have a right to protect our work product. Everyday I walk the streets of NYC and I see bootleg DVDs, and everyday I see new versions of napster and bittorrents etc., etc., are days when I know we who create this material have every right to protect our product. I dare ask you, how many of you would give away your work product on a daily basis, no questions asked? There are multiple models of how our media is distributed. But anytime someone steal our product, you steal from the people who pay for that material to be created, and you steal from the people who do the creating.
> 
> So please don't blame us for hindering your usage of what we create, blame the cretins who take advantage of the technology to rip us all off.


I weep for all the poor in Hollywood. The devastation is staggering.


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## Phantom Gremlin (Jun 20, 2002)

sthor said:


> I weep for all the poor in Hollywood. The devastation is staggering.


(Not responding directly to this quote. I realise it's sarcastic).

I'll start weeping for all the poor in Hollywood once the "bleeding heart liberals" start bleeding a little for the US Constitution they're helping to trash because of their obscene greed.

The Constitution says

_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_

For a (biased) perspective on how Copyright has evolved, you can read 
http://blogcritics.org/archives/2006/10/18/145809.php

So, my tax dollars, and everyone else's, have helped keep movies like _Casablanca_ out of the public domain for well over 60 years. But that's not good enough. Hollywood's idea of "limited" is apparently of a duration approximating the heat death of the universe.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_death

With the contempt that Hollywood demonstrates for ordinary Americans, isn't it natural that ordinary Americans demonstrate contempt for Hollywood?


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## btl-a4 (Dec 28, 2005)

Adam1115 said:


> In defense of cablelabs, the LAST TiVo HD-DVRs encryption was VERY easy to break, and equally easy to yank pure digital HD content to your PC and burn perfect DVD's.
> 
> Also TiVo2Go's encryption/DRM was also broken...
> 
> So them making sure THAT problem has been solved seems reasonable to me...


Except for the new encryption will be broken inside a month. DRM will not work. Any encryption they create will be broken. Encryption just makes it a pain to watch or listen to what you buy, or recieve over the air/cable.

All encryption does to me is make me not purchase. I was at the music store about to purchase a CD last week, read the label that it was encrypted, so I put it back on the shelf and bought a different CD.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

jim _h said:


> MScottC - I agree with you but only up to a point. What you are saying comes very close to asserting that you have a right to make a profit from your work. No one has such a right. You also have some rights with regard to preventing your work being copied, but those rights have limits.


I think you misunderstood Scott's point. The point was that the creator of a work has the right to set a price and expect everyone who wants the work to pay that price or to do without the work.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

infinitespecter said:


> However, you neglect to account for the fact that all of these "protections" do NOTHING to stop any of the things you've mentioned.


No. Not everyone is a geek, nor is everyone so transgressive by nature.



> Beyond that, it should be clear that the distribution models your industry uses are woefully out of date and simply aren't working either. Instead, your industry lashes out and the very notion that they could be wrong and are a massive part of the problem themselves.


I think you're over-emotionalizing the issue, and casting whatever the industry says in a negative light solely because it serves your anti-copyright protection argument. So let's bring it back to reality: What distribution model would you suggest be applied to give full control over who enjoys copyrighted material back to the owner of that material? Because, in the end, that's what this comes down to. You, as a viewer, have absolutely no rights to copyrighted material whatsoever except that which is granted to you by the owner of the material. You never have. You never will, as long as this country resists communism.


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## MScottC (Sep 11, 2004)

jim _h said:


> MScottC - I agree with you but only up to a point. What you are saying comes very close to asserting that you have a right to make a profit from your work. No one has such a right. You also have some rights with regard to preventing your work being copied, but those rights have limits.
> 
> If I'm a sculptor and one of my works is in a city park, I can't prevent you from photographing it (although this has been tried, I believe, in Chicago). If I record music and you buy it, I can't prevent you from lending out the CD, or playing it for a roomful of people.
> 
> Groups like the RIAA seem to be claiming that if they're not making enough money, something is wrong and the laws need to be changed until their business model works.


Those of us who create absolutely have a right to profit from our work, are we supposed to entertain you for free? Do you do what you do to contribute to society for free? Am I entitled to free medical benefits, free housing, free cars? 
We create with the notion that there will be some sale of it, which allows the buyer some rights. In the case of that statue, it gives the city, or the patron, the right to display that statue wherever they want. It may include the right to make miniature versions of it for souvenir sales, etc. It rarely includes the right to make other fullsize replicas. The same is true with media. The license you get allows for certian "fair usage" methods. A VCR or TiVo recording for your home use, timeshifting, etc. is fine. I don't have an issue with that. Or even a copy to protect your original CD/DVD etc, is also fine. When however you buy a CD, DVD, etc. or digitize a show and then do mass distribution to others who should be buying their own copy, without the creator getting his fair share, then you are nothing more than a petty thief.

Just because it goes on, doesn't mean it's correct. Murders happen every day. That doesn't mean I have the right to take your life.

I want you to be able to watch your show when YOU want to. But again, the sad part is, because of the illegal mass distribution, those of us who want to simply timeshift or make protection copies have a much harder time of it.

For those of you "weeping for the Hollywood wealthy" or however you put it, Only the tip of the iceberg are wealthy. The rest of us are working stiffs who put in hours and hours at our craft. Look at the credits on movies, TV shows often have similar amounts of folks involved. All of us work as hard as any of you to make a living. We depend on the Hollywood (or otherwise) Corporations to protect their assets so they can pay us.


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## MichaelK (Jan 10, 2002)

btwyx said:


> Personally I agree. Content protection only inconveniences law abiding people. Working for a company which works with content providers, professionally I have to take notice of such things.
> 
> The arguement that you find bootlegged DVDs on your street corner only proves the point, it provides no protection against nefarious people. It gave you no protection at all, it just annoyed your legitimate users.


Exactly- ask a locksmith- they'll tell you locks only keep the honest people out....

True thieves kick the door in, break a window, or even use a chainsaw to cut a hole in your wall.

Funny thing that that content providers dont seem to get is that a $12 deadbolt stops 99% as many people as a $100 deadbolt.

-Most people see a lock- any lock- and wont try to get in.
-A small amount will kick the door down regardless of the lock in it. 
-An even smaller amount wont want to kick the door down but will look at the lock and try to break into an easy lock but will walk away from a harder one.

I'd love to see a study (doubt you'll ever see the results publically unless the EFF does it)- but I'd suspect that making a lock strong enough to stop the third group pisses off an equal or greater amount of the first group with it's hoops so you gain nothing.


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## MichaelK (Jan 10, 2002)

btwyx said:


> One of the really annoying things about the laws in this country is they seek to prevent me from viewing content I've legitimately bought.
> 
> I can buy DVDs from overseas, either while I'm in the country where they are legitimatey distributed, or legally, by mail order from there. The laws in this country seek to prevent me from having a DVD player which can play these DVDs.
> 
> I purchased it, I should be able to play it.


there's a strange thing with content - sometimes the content people want to act like we have been granted a license to use stuff with certain restrictions. Other times they want to act like we physically own the media that the content is on.

Which is it?

If I am buying a license to listen to a song personally then I should be able to put that song on any media I want and if I scratch the CD I should be able to get another copy of the song somehow and keep listening to it ...


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## MichaelK (Jan 10, 2002)

Adam1115 said:


> ...
> 
> Also TiVo2Go's encryption/DRM was also broken...
> 
> ...


is that true?

I was under the impression that hacks in earlier hardware (series2 not 2.5) could turn OFF encryption. And that a flaw in MS directshow allows you to strip the tivo encryption. BUT (and this is the crux) that the encrytion itself is fine and not been broken.

Cablelabs has basically already determined that the S3 hardware is secure enough not to get hacked. If Tivo keeps content away from MS directshow (maybe by creating a new system in Vista/ViiV that is secure and then only permitting the content to be transferred to those PC's) then I dont see an issue.

Despite the fact I think highly secure DRM is so onerous that it will piss of legit users, I completely agree it's within the content owners rights to do whatever they want with their content.

But things get muddy when there are third parties involved deciding what's good enough and all- like the current craziness with cablelabs . Cablelabs isn't a content provider and they are putting restrictions on third parties.


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## MScottC (Sep 11, 2004)

MichaelK said:


> there's a strange thing with content - sometimes the content people want to act like we have been granted a license to use stuff with certain restrictions. Other times they want to act like we physically own the media that the content is on.
> 
> Which is it?
> 
> If I am buying a license to listen to a song personally then I should be able to put that song on any media I want and if I scratch the CD I should be able to get another copy of the song somehow and keep listening to it ...


Very good question. If a book you own burns, are you entitled to a new copy?

I do believe that most license agreements allow for making a protection copy for your own use. What they don't allow for is making copies for distribution to others.

And yes, tho it isn't often discussed, there is a physical difference between the media and the content. In older technologies, they were very hard to separate. Prior to Photography, it was difficult if not impossible to separate a painting from its canvas. Now, you can take a picture and spread that image around the world at hardly any cost. Prior to consumer digital media, it was virtually impossible for someone to copy multiple copies of of music without the quality of that recording degrading. Having to suffer with poorer quality audio was the price you paid for a "free copy" of a record album. In this day and age, there is no quality compromise for a "fee copy." The Content is now very easy to separate from the Media, and this has created a whole new situation, where the creators of content have had to resort to other methods to protect the content they create.

And as I've kept saying, if you don't let the creators protect their content, they can't make a living, and therefore will have no impetus to create your entertainment.


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## MScottC (Sep 11, 2004)

For the record, I also do agree that certian copy protection schemes do hurt those of us who are legit consumers. I want MRV and more importantly TTG along with my eSata drive working. I refuse to buy music via iTunes as I don't feel I have a good secure copy to use and listen to should my current iTunes/iPod system fail. I don't feel the DRM schemes allow for me to make protective copies to use on PCs or other audio devices I may own in the future. For that reason, I purchace CDs, copy the music on to my own PC and create a backup copy on another harddrive. But that music doesn't leave my household's possesion.

Indeed in some ways, the DRM folks have gone too far and this does hurt all of us.


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## MsRoboto (Oct 12, 2003)

There you go. I think that's the point. We want to watch / listen to items that we have legally procured however and wherever we want. The old thinking is just wrong. The technology has evolved and so must the media distribution companies. This is an opportunity to be the first to embrace the technologies and take advantage of NEW ways to deliver content and make money.

We have more devices now and want to take the music or programs with us in a convenient way. We want to watch them when we want to watch them. We don't need big brother telling us that we can't.


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## MScottC (Sep 11, 2004)

MsRoboto said:


> There you go. I think that's the point. We want to watch / listen to items that we have legally procured however and wherever we want. The old thinking is just wrong. The technology has evolved and so must the media distribution companies. This is an opportunity to be the first to embrace the technologies and take advantage of NEW ways to deliver content and make money.
> 
> We have more devices now and want to take the music or programs with us in a convenient way. We want to watch them when we want to watch them. We don't need big brother telling us that we can't.


But unfortunately the world doesn't work well on the "Honor System." If content creators could trust everyone to pay for what they want to consume, there would be no issue. But since others make a living by profiting off our work, by distributing what we create, without giving us our fair share, we have to have some method in place to protect our livings. The trick is to find that fine line that protects all the legit parties while hampering the illegitimate ones.


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## etsolow (Feb 8, 2001)

MScottC said:


> The trick is to find that fine line that protects all the legit parties while hampering the illegitimate ones.


That is the trick... and currently the CableLabs and MPAAs of the world are WAY over that line.


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## Adam1115 (Dec 15, 2003)

MichaelK said:


> is that true?
> 
> I was under the impression that hacks in earlier hardware (series2 not 2.5) could turn OFF encryption. And that a flaw in MS directshow allows you to strip the tivo encryption. BUT (and this is the crux) that the encrytion itself is fine and not been broken.


No, both have been broken.

On ANY of TiVo's DVRs, encryption can be turned off allowing you to freely do as you wish. On Series 2.5 in requires a minor hardware mod (replacing prom). They "prom" hack may very well work on the Series3, time will tell. There is also great speculation that a software hack IS available for Series2.5, but hasn't been released to prevent TiVo from discovering the hole.

But, the bigger point is, YES, TiVo2Go's encryption HAS been defeated. We aren't really allowed to go into details here, but there ARE programs that will strip off the encryption. (TRUST me. We can't go into the 'how' on this forum.) You can also MRV shows straight to your PC and fool your TiVo into thinking it's transferring to another TiVo. Let's not jump all over cable labs for being unreasonable when there ARE serious flaws in TiVo's DRM!


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## Jiffylush (Oct 31, 2006)

There are flaws in any DRM, TiVo should only be required to make it so difficult to break that most people won't try it.


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## TAsunder (Aug 6, 2003)

The point you are missing, MScottC, is that the reaction of disabling TTG/MRV serves no legitimate interest. It would be like exterminating all gophers in montana if Iran launched a nuke at Israel.


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## routerman (Sep 16, 2006)

MScottC said:


> For that reason, I purchace CDs, copy the music on to my own PC and create a backup copy on another harddrive. But that music doesn't leave my household's possesion.
> 
> Indeed in some ways, the DRM folks have gone too far and this does hurt all of us.


As I understand the DMCA, you are actually breaking the law. The only content that should be on a device (computer, iPod, Zen,etc...) would be free content such as podcasts or music purchased from a legitimate music download site.

I believe in paying those who created the content to profit from their work, I also believe in fair use of the content I purchase. I have numerous CDs that are identical to LPs I bought in the 70s and 80s. Why should I have to purchase another copy of the song/album to put on my iPod or Zen? To the average consumer, this sounds like greed on the part of record companies.


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## acvthree (Jan 17, 2004)

MScottC said:


> Those of us who create absolutely have a right to profit from our work, are we supposed to entertain you for free? Do you do what you do to contribute to society for free? Am I entitled to free medical benefits, free housing, free cars?
> 
> This is truely an amazing statement to me.
> 
> ...


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## MichaelK (Jan 10, 2002)

MScottC said:


> ...
> And as I've kept saying, if you don't let the creators protect their content, they can't make a living, and therefore will have no impetus to create your entertainment.


totally agreed.



MScottC said:


> Very good question. If a book you own burns, are you entitled to a new copy?
> 
> I do believe that most license agreements allow for making a protection copy for your own use. What they don't allow for is making copies for distribution to others.
> 
> ...


yup- now there is a mess- they have decided to lock the content to the media essentially. It can be impossible to creat back up copies with these new systems- so if I scratch my a blueray disk will they give me another copy?

Years ago Disney actually did just that- you used to be able to register your disney dvd's and then if they got scratched you could send it in and they would give you another for some S&H fee. I think that's one solution. Disney bailed on that years ago though- I wonder if it was because it became so easy to copy DVD's...

Are any of the HD DVD or Bluray people doing a similar thing?

The book is an interesting concept- but again I could photocopy the whole thing if I wanted to make a backup (I think- right?). Also the problem is newer media is a lot less resilient in practice. I can rip a page in a book and tape it together, I can spill my coffer on it and still make out the words but put a scratch on a disk and you're toast. I've never rendered a book worthless in my entire lifetime and aside from my house burning down there aren't many scenarios in my mind of how i could destroy my library. But in the relatively short period of time that DVD's have existed my family has created a few coasters by accident.


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## MichaelK (Jan 10, 2002)

MScottC said:


> But unfortunately the world doesn't work well on the "Honor System." If content creators could trust everyone to pay for what they want to consume, there would be no issue. But since others make a living by profiting off our work, by distributing what we create, without giving us our fair share, we have to have some method in place to protect our livings. The trick is to find that fine line that protects all the legit parties while hampering the illegitimate ones.


or I would argue - the wisest approach (from a business perspective) is the model that stops the honest people from going hog wild but doesn't deter them from buying. (e.g the 12 dollar dead bolt). Macrovision is a good example of that in the analog world- it stops most people from copying to/from VHS. Some folks who legitiamately want to backup their VHS collections to DVD (or vice versa) know to buy a "video stabilizer" on ebay so they can do so. The real pirates selling DVD's on the street corners generally are way more sophisticated anyway and will do whatever they want (half the time you can buy "screeners" from some guy that sat tin the back row of the movie with a camcorder- no encryption is going to stop those theives)


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## MichaelK (Jan 10, 2002)

Adam1115 said:


> No, both have been broken.
> 
> On ANY of TiVo's DVRs, encryption can be turned off allowing you to freely do as you wish. On Series 2.5 in requires a minor hardware mod (replacing prom). They "prom" hack may very well work on the Series3, time will tell. There is also great speculation that a software hack IS available for Series2.5, but hasn't been released to prevent TiVo from discovering the hole.
> 
> But, the bigger point is, YES, TiVo2Go's encryption HAS been defeated. We aren't really allowed to go into details here, but there ARE programs that will strip off the encryption. (TRUST me. We can't go into the 'how' on this forum.) You can also MRV shows straight to your PC and fool your TiVo into thinking it's transferring to another TiVo. Let's not jump all over cable labs for being unreasonable when there ARE serious flaws in TiVo's DRM!


i know we are treading a line but I think there is a difference between the encryption being broken and being turned off (with or without a hardware mod) or being stripped by some flawed directshow filter from MS.

SOunds like the encryption itself might be broken though if things can strip it off- but without going into details- are those things just the directshow exploits that I am aware of (or their derivitives) or are you sayign there is some converter out there that totally unralted to directshow or it's filters can take a tivo encryted program and make it unencrypted? if it IS (big IF) just the directshow exploit then that is easy enough to fix- tweak the encryption so there is a flag to not permit movement beyond other s3's or vista/Viiv pc's.

Again nothing is going to stop the pro's from cutting a hole in your wall with a chainsaw while you are on vacation. I would place wholesale selling of modded prom chips in that class. If there is someone selling those online then I'm sure they will be dealt with just the sam as DBS pirates. There's nothing you can do to stop that from happening except deal with it at that time.


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## MichaelK (Jan 10, 2002)

Jiffylush said:


> There are flaws in any DRM, TiVo should only be required to make it so difficult to break that most people won't try it.


exactly.

the $12 dead bolt is sufficient...


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## MichaelK (Jan 10, 2002)

routerman said:


> As I understand the DMCA, you are actually breaking the law. The only content that should be on a device (computer, iPod, Zen,etc...) would be free content such as podcasts or music purchased from a legitimate music download site.
> 
> I believe in paying those who created the content to profit from their work, I also believe in fair use of the content I purchase. I have numerous CDs that are identical to LPs I bought in the 70s and 80s. Why should I have to purchase another copy of the song/album to put on my iPod or Zen? To the average consumer, this sounds like greed on the part of record companies.


I'm no lawyer but I'm fairly sure the DMCA permits backup copies all your want. The end user isn't even in trouble for possesing the technology to creat backup copies for his/her own use. But There's some nebulous wording about the providers of such backup technologies that makes it complex.

So backup copies on a computer or other drive are fine- but to be honest I'm unsure if it's techically legal to move that content for playback on antoehr device like an ipod or zen or whatever. I wonder...

The example of the LP's -> CD's and VHS -> DVD does create a keejerk reaction to me of greed. But to be honest I see the other side too that a CD is "better" then an LP or cassette and that a DVD is "better" then a vhs tape. But like I said it really gets my shorts in a bunch when you need to buy a new DVD becasue you scratched the old one- that's straight DVD->DVD and you are buying the same content twice. Right now, today, that's no longer an issue becasue I can make a copy that is the same, but when DVD's first came out that wasn't possible- and the same holds true for these newer things.


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## Rucker (Sep 21, 2006)

With DRM, we're talking about artificially creating scarcity for a good. Digital goods can be reproduced for near zero cost. A copy of an album is not the same as a copy of an automobile or a copy of a sculpture and totally different rules should apply. Remember that traditional economics is about distribution of limited resources. What happens when a resource is no longer limited? As a society we need to answer that question. I hope the answer isn't to allow permanent artificial monopolies.

I believe businesses should take this into account and not rely on the government to enforce their artificially created monopolies (and by extension dead weight losses in the economy). Bands, for example, should make their money playing live music and selling t-shirts etc (which is actually what happens for the vast majority of bands afaik). For video/film and other products, it may be more complicated, and may require new ways of thinking and doing things.

Lessig's "Some Like It Hot" article points out that "piracy" is not a new phenomenon, so you may find it interesting to see how the tables have turned on "intellectual property" positions.


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## MScottC (Sep 11, 2004)

acvthree said:


> MScottC said:
> 
> 
> > Those of us who create absolutely have a right to profit from our work, are we supposed to entertain you for free? Do you do what you do to contribute to society for free? Am I entitled to free medical benefits, free housing, free cars?
> ...


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## etsolow (Feb 8, 2001)

MScottC said:


> Those of us who create absolutely have a *right to profit* from our work, are we supposed to entertain you for free?





MScottC said:


> I stand by my statement... Everybody in this country, and in every capitalist country has the right to make a living, the *right to try to profit* from their endeavors.... no one ensures success at those endeavors, but as long as you put in an effort,you are entitled to the fair chance of making a living.


You changed your statement. The right to TRY to profit is very different from the right to PROFIT. (Emphasis mine.)

E


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## MScottC (Sep 11, 2004)

etsolow said:


> You changed your statement. The right to TRY to profit is very different from the right to PROFIT. (Emphasis mine.)
> 
> E


And our right to try to profit is NO different than anyone else.


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## etsolow (Feb 8, 2001)

MScottC said:


> And our right to try to profit is NO different than anyone else.


And the potential to fail to make a profit should be present too, when you stick with an outdated business model that doesn't make sense any more. But instead, the content providers lobby for new laws that artificially allow them to continue making their huge profits, when it is no longer deserved and can't stand up on its own in a free market. Old economics obviously don't work with new digital products, and ridiculously over-restrictive DRM is the only way content providers have to cling to the old way.


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## MScottC (Sep 11, 2004)

etsolow said:


> And the potential to fail to make a profit should be present too, when you stick with an outdated business model that doesn't make sense any more. But instead, the content providers lobby for new laws that artificially allow them to continue making their huge profits, when it is no longer deserved and can't stand up on its own in a free market. Old economics obviously don't work with new digital products, and ridiculously over-restrictive DRM is the only way content providers have to cling to the old way.


I don't disagree. As I said, it is a fine line. I do disagree when people feel they have a right to steal, and distribute that which does not belong to them.


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## sommerfeld (Feb 26, 2006)

MScottC said:


> Those of us who create absolutely have a right to profit from our work...


You must be using some definition of "right" inconsistent with the way it is used in law.

No. Nobody has a *right* to profit in any field of business; you must also convince potential customers that you have something worth buying at a price above the cost of production.

Content producers able to figure out a business model which lets them profit without burdening their content with fragile, flaky, and customer-alienating DRM will be at a significant competitive advantage -- their product will be more valuable to customers, and their production costs will be reduced because they won't have to fund the engineering of DRM systems. What's more, they won't find themselves liable for unintended systems damage caused by poorly engineered DRM malware, and they won't be poisoned by the attitude that their customers are all potential thieves.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

> ask a locksmith- they'll tell you locks only keep the honest people out....


[SARCASM]And so we shouldn't have locks on the doors of our homes. [/SARCASM] 

With no specific malice towards the author of the statement I quoted, that's really how ridiculous this thread has gotten



> -Most people see a lock- any lock- and wont try to get in.


This is the crux of the matter. Content providers need to apply enough copy protection so that it isn't "easy" to download a piece of software to "unlock" the content.


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## AbMagFab (Feb 5, 2001)

All copy protection scheme's will be broken within 60-90 days of them being released. Either through brute force, or through bribing the people that created it.

Nothing at all will ever stop, or even slow down bootlegging. Period. It's that simple.

Except - cheaper prices for the original. People sell bootlegs because, surprise, people buy them. Why? Because it's cheaper and more convenient. Why is the original more expensive and less convenient? Partly because of the amount of money put into digital protection.

The music industry has been screaming about MP3's and protection for years, and it turned out to be the best thing that happened to them. iTunes encryption is broken within hours of a new release, and frankly copying to/from a CD is always available as a poor-man's version.

This protection of digital video is crazy. And the above poster is right - it's basically forcing people who are capable, but otherwise not interested in hacking their Tivo's (or other boxes) into hacking them, simply to get the convenience of watching what they want, when they want, where they want.

How about instead, let Tivo (and others) distribute content around the house, with reasonable protection to prevent the casual hacker, and be done with it. Anything more costs lots of money, and accomplishes nothing, and even makes people hack their boxes who wouldn't normally, so it's really *increasing* the people who hack, and the demand for hacks.

Once the video industry realizes bootleggers are a part of life that will never go away, things will be better. Perhaps they should focus on the economy of bootleggers, instead of the technology.


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## timdorr (Sep 16, 2003)

MScottC said:


> I don't disagree. As I said, it is a fine line. I do disagree when people feel they have a right to steal, and distribute that which does not belong to them.


I don't think anyone's asking to steal or distribute content. They just want to watch it in another room of their house, or on their laptops while they're at work. Why is this not reasonable to the content owners?

I think TTG and MRV are really the only things people want turned on that apply to this debate, and we've started dragging in distribution and theft, when those don't apply to those features at all. As it is right now, there's nothing stopping me from recording an HD movie from HBO and dragging the S3 over to a friend's house to watch it there. So, to me at least, it seems like adding in MRV or TTG doesn't make the content any less secure.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

TAsunder said:


> The point you are missing, MScottC, is that the reaction of disabling TTG/MRV serves no legitimate interest.


I believe you're absolutely wrong.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

MichaelK said:


> I'm no lawyer but I'm fairly sure the DMCA permits backup copies all your want.


Myth. Recognized libraries have that right, not individuals.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

Rucker said:


> With DRM, we're talking about artificially creating scarcity for a good.


No. The scarcity exists at the outset, before the content owner decides to offer the content for sale. DRM seeks to maintain a level of scarcity, i.e., so that there are only as many copies as the content owner sold.


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## AbMagFab (Feb 5, 2001)

bicker said:


> Myth. Recognized libraries have that right, not individuals.


We don't need to go there, but DMCA and Fair Use have never been tested on an individual case. We have two potentially conflicting laws/rights that haven't been tested yet for indivuduals.

Fair Use allows content consumers the right to make backup copies of almost anything they have legally purchased, for their own use. Further, it lets them even distribute portions of that content for critique and comment.

DMCA gives content owners the right to protect their content against unauthorized distribution.

Interesting - one gives rights to the indivuduals, the other to the companies. It's not too hard to figure out when each was written.

In any case, the DMCA folks aren't planning to attack individuals who back up DVD's to their hard drive for their own use, since they don't want to go head-to-head against fair use. They are sticking to the Napsters and Bootleggers. Makes sense.

However some of us would love this challenge to happen, so DMCA can finally be modified/struck down, and they can try again.


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## Adam1115 (Dec 15, 2003)

What's interesting to me is how convinced everyone is that Cablelabs is going to deny TTG and MRV!

How do you know it WON'T get approved? Maybe TIVO felt the DRM wasn't good enough and wanted to cross their t's and dot their I's before taking it in to get it approved?


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## etsolow (Feb 8, 2001)

Adam1115 said:


> What's interesting to me is how convinced everyone is that Cablelabs is going to deny TTG and MRV!
> 
> How do you know it WON'T get approved? Maybe TIVO felt the DRM wasn't good enough and wanted to cross their t's and dot their I's before taking it in to get it approved?


I don't know if they'll deny TTG and MRV or not... I just don't think they should have any say in the matter. We should have had TTG and MRV and eSATA at launch!


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## Rucker (Sep 21, 2006)

bicker said:


> No. The scarcity exists at the outset, before the content owner decides to offer the content for sale. DRM seeks to maintain a level of scarcity, i.e., so that there are only as many copies as the content owner sold.


Exactly. DRM artificially creates a scarce product. You seem to be arguing that the product is scarce before it becomes a product.


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## dorksquad (Nov 27, 2006)

bicker said:


> You, as a viewer, have absolutely no rights to copyrighted material whatsoever except that which is granted to you by the owner of the material. You never have. You never will, as long as this country resists communism.


I think I have I the right to whistle copyrighted music, make parodies of copyrighted movies, read a book repeatedly, etc. whether the artist wants me to have those rights or not. I thought copyright only reserved for the artist the right to control *copying* of their content (hence the name). Perhaps this is actually what you meant. Or perhaps I am a communist and didn't realize it!


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## MichaelK (Jan 10, 2002)

Rucker said:


> With DRM, we're talking about artificially creating scarcity for a good. Digital goods can be reproduced for near zero cost. A copy of an album is not the same as a copy of an automobile or a copy of a sculpture and totally different rules should apply. Remember that traditional economics is about distribution of limited resources. What happens when a resource is no longer limited? As a society we need to answer that question. I hope the answer isn't to allow permanent artificial monopolies.
> 
> I believe businesses should take this into account and not rely on the government to enforce their artificially created monopolies (and by extension dead weight losses in the economy). Bands, for example, should make their money playing live music and selling t-shirts etc (which is actually what happens for the vast majority of bands afaik). For video/film and other products, it may be more complicated, and may require new ways of thinking and doing things.
> 
> Lessig's "Some Like It Hot" article points out that "piracy" is not a new phenomenon, so you may find it interesting to see how the tables have turned on "intellectual property" positions.


Since when are capitalist businesses required to factor cost into their pricing structure? That isn't going to happen without regulation.

The content providers seem to say that their price is all about the production of the content or the value of the content and not related to the media the content is on. I have no problem with that but then dont tie the content to a particular bit of media that I happened to buy at the store on one particular day.

DRM isn't making anythign more scarce- it's making unaurhtorized copies more scarce. If they wanted to inflate prices and increase demand they could just press half as many DVD's for the blockbustes and charge more for them and that's their right. But to be honest I think it has very little effect- the real pirates are stealing no matter what so the volume is only slightly effected one way or the other.


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## sommerfeld (Feb 26, 2006)

AbMagFab said:


> Perhaps they should focus on the economy of bootleggers, instead of the technology.


Exactly. Consider a direct subscription model..

- use venture funds to produce and distribute for free a few episodes of a new show - enough to get viewers hooked, and (just like many current story arc-based shows) ending in a blatant cliffhanger ending...

- "we'll release the next batch when we get <N> subscribers committed to pay <X> dollars each to fund season 2", where the proceeds from the sale is sufficient to (a) pay back venture funds (b) pay for production of next batch of episodes (c) make a modest profit (d) fund part of another show. Extra subscriptions above this point are pure gravy.

I bet Firefly would be on its third or fourth "season" by now with this business model, and I bet that Babylon 5 would have been assured of funding for all five seasons by the end of season 2.

You also get your fan base motivated to sell the show to their friends...


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## MichaelK (Jan 10, 2002)

bicker said:


> [SARCASM]And so we shouldn't have locks on the doors of our homes. [/SARCASM]
> 
> With no specific malice towards the author of the statement I quoted, that's really how ridiculous this thread has gotten
> 
> This is the crux of the matter. Content providers need to apply enough copy protection so that it isn't "easy" to download a piece of software to "unlock" the content.


No sarcasm required- I have locks- probably most of us do. Point is that the $12 lock stops just about as many people as the $100 super lock.

If someone want's in your house they will throw a brick through your window- plain and simple. You cant stop a professional who wants to rob you with locks- is my point.

I totally agree with you the crux of the matter is applying "enough" of a lock. I think (and maybe you would agree) that there is no reason to spend tons of time, money, and resources to attempt to come up with the "perfect DRM" since none exists.

I'm not sure why you think that's rediculous


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## MScottC (Sep 11, 2004)

TAsunder said:


> The point you are missing, MScottC, is that the reaction of disabling TTG/MRV serves no legitimate interest. It would be like exterminating all gophers in montana if Iran launched a nuke at Israel.


Actually, if you read my posts, I too am miffed at the absence of MRV/TTG. Moving media around in one's own home/household and making backups are things I definitely approve of. All I have been saying all along is that you can't blame just the media companies. You also have to hold the pirates, thiefs, bit torrent users, etc. accountable. They are the root cause of all the protection schemes (whether it's door locks, lojack, RFID tags at the store, or DRM) we are all subject to.


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## dt_dc (Jul 31, 2003)

MichaelK said:


> I totally agree with you the crux of the matter is applying "enough" of a lock. I think (and maybe you would agree) that there is no reason to spend tons of time, money, and resources to attempt to come up with the "perfect DRM" since none exists.


You don't need a "perfect" lock / car alarm / DRM / whatever ... it's not cost effective.

Just having a better one than your neighbor / other cars on the block / other distribution systems is usually where the effeciency lies.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

AbMagFab said:


> Fair Use allows content consumers the right to make backup copies of almost anything they have legally purchased, for their own use.


Like I said, that's a MYTH. Here's what Fair Use allows... this is a direct quote of the law itself, 17 USC 107:


United States Code said:


> Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include
> 
> 1. the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
> 2. the nature of the copyrighted work;
> ...


Absolutely *nothing* there about making personal backup copies.



> Further, it lets them even distribute portions of that content for critique and comment.


That's pretty-much *all* it allows.

Incidentally, your confusion regarding backup copies stems from Section 108 of the code. It allows, as I mentioned earlier, established libraries to make backup copies under certain circumstances.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

Rucker said:


> Exactly. DRM artificially creates a scarce product. You seem to be arguing that the product is scarce before it becomes a product.


The content exists before it becomes a product. DRM intends to help content owners control just how much of the content they offer for sale. As the owner, they absolutely should have the right to determine just how much of their property to make available for sale.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

dorksquad said:


> I think I have I the right to whistle copyrighted music, make parodies of copyrighted movies, read a book repeatedly, etc. whether the artist wants me to have those rights or not.


Copyright limits your rights in at least one of those respects. For example, while you can whistle the music to yourself, you cannot "perform the copyrighted work publicly". [17 USC 106 (2) and (4)]



> I thought copyright only reserved for the artist the right to control *copying* of their content (hence the name).


A lot of people have a very inadequate understanding of copyright protection. That lack of awareness fosters a general disrepsect for the rights of content owners, which is probably the main source of the conflict we're discussing in this thread.


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## Rucker (Sep 21, 2006)

MichaelK said:


> Since when are capitalist businesses required to factor cost into their pricing structure? That isn't going to happen without regulation.
> 
> The content providers seem to say that their price is all about the production of the content or the value of the content and not related to the media the content is on. I have no problem with that but then dont tie the content to a particular bit of media that I happened to buy at the store on one particular day.
> 
> DRM isn't making anythign more scarce- it's making unaurhtorized copies more scarce. If they wanted to inflate prices and increase demand they could just press half as many DVD's for the blockbustes and charge more for them and that's their right. But to be honest I think it has very little effect- the real pirates are stealing no matter what so the volume is only slightly effected one way or the other.


Businesses certainly take cost into consideration in their pricing. At one extreme, if the product costs more to make than you can charge, you'll (usually) either go out of business or stop making that product. If you're familiar with economics, you'll remember that in a free market, the price is determined by supply and demand. In a free market, for a product with near zero marginal cost, the price should be low. That's not what we see with, for example, music at itunes et al because the copyright grants the copyright holder a monopoly and allows them to raise the price beyond what a free market would bear. Copyright holders use DRM to (at least attempt) to maintain their supply restriction and keep their monopoly pricing.

I doubt the pirates you mention would bother trying to sell someone else's product if the legit product was priced according to free market principles.

This isn't about right or wrong or about preventing people from making money. It is about a particular business model and artificial economics.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

MichaelK said:


> Point is that the $12 lock stops just about as many people as the $100 super lock.


Not in my neighborhood. And not in the digital world either. The easier it is to pirate, the more people do it.



> If someone want's in your house they will throw a brick through your window- plain and simple. You cant stop a professional who wants to rob you with locks- is my point.


Yup, and so the purpose of DRM is to discourage the vast majority of people from transgressing copyright protection.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

Rucker said:


> Businesses certainly take cost into consideration in their pricing. At one extreme, if the product costs more to make than you can charge, you'll (usually) either go out of business or stop making that product.


Actually, I believe that is the primary consideration businesses apply with regard to product cost. In an ideal scenarios, as long as the price can be high enough to cover the cost, the cost have almost no bearing on the price.



Rucker said:


> If you're familiar with economics, you'll remember that in a free market, the price is determined by supply and demand. In a free market, for a product with near zero marginal cost, the price should be low.


Uh, you just contradicted yourself. The price is determined by *both* supply *and* demand. So regardless of the marginal cost, if demand is high, then the price shouldn't be low. (That missing link is why the rest of your logic falls apart.)



Rucker said:


> This isn't about right or wrong


Copyright is, at least in part, very much about right and wrong.


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## sommerfeld (Feb 26, 2006)

bicker said:


> Like I said, that's a MYTH. Here's what Fair Use allows... this is a direct quote of the law itself, 17 USC 107: Absolutely *nothing* there about making personal backup copies.


IANAL, but to my layman's interpretation, the four factors in question tend to break slightly in favor of allowing the creation of backup copies for personal use.

1) character of use: not for profit, not for redistribution, and generally not even for any "use" whatsoever except if something destroys the original.
2) nature of the work: generally neutral to slightly pro-copying (CD/DVD media, while generally robust, are still vulnerable to types of damage which would render the entire work unrecoverable).
3) amount copied: the whole thing, so leans against permitting the copy.
4) effect of the use on potential market: minimal, so pro-copying.

I'd weight it as a 2+epsilon factors in favor of permitting backup copies, one factor against.
Bonus points if you can establish that some significant fraction of the works you are backing up are likely to go out of print and thus become difficult to replace.


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## Redux (Oct 19, 2004)

bicker said:


> Absolutely *nothing* there about making personal backup copies.


You are the first person I have ever come across who tried to maintain that section 107 defines Fair Use in its entirety.

You have a basic misunderstanding.

Fair use, conceptually, is as old as law, older. You own what you own. Copyright is a recent (and very limited) idea. 107 (as do other sections) says, about this new idea, that it is not meant to interfere with Fair use, and it gives a few common sense examples, clearly not intended to be all inclusive.

The Betamax decisions and others have specifically described certain activities as consistent with Fair use and not forbidden by copyright. But it's not the exceptions to copyright that need to be defined, it's the other way around: you own what you own, absent specific restrictions as specifically defined by other law, such as copyright.


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## TAsunder (Aug 6, 2003)

MScottC said:


> Actually, if you read my posts, I too am miffed at the absence of MRV/TTG. Moving media around in one's own home/household and making backups are things I definitely approve of. All I have been saying all along is that you can't blame just the media companies. You also have to hold the pirates, thiefs, bit torrent users, etc. accountable. They are the root cause of all the protection schemes (whether it's door locks, lojack, RFID tags at the store, or DRM) we are all subject to.


This is where we differ. I believe you can blame the media companies. They are actually making matters worse by going to unreasonable extremes. The more difficult you make it for me to legitimately do things with my HD content, the more likely I am to seek out HD content on the internet illegally or build an HTPC and find ways around the protection. If they have their way, tivo would not even exist, and most or all of us would turn to an HTPC with far less restrictive practices.

The media companies should be embracing tivo and similar companies because they have a genuine interest in keeping things legal and keeping their own software relatively airtight. They should want more people to be using tivo and to make tivo as friendly as possible so that fewer people turn to the internet or hard-to-protect HTPC software.


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## TAsunder (Aug 6, 2003)

bicker said:


> Not in my neighborhood. And not in the digital world either. The easier it is to pirate, the more people do it.
> 
> Yup, and so the purpose of DRM is to discourage the vast majority of people from transgressing copyright protection.


How many people do you suppose who have series 1 or 2 tivos actually contribute to piracy? I would venture that the total number of tivo users who have contributed in a major way to piracy in the past 10 years does not even equal the number of people who use something other than tivos in a week. And I would further guess that the percentage of tivo series 1 and 2 users who actually attempt real piracy is much, much smaller than the % of other tv recording device users.

Your theory fails because the difficulty of place-shifting series 1 or 2 content outside of TivoToGo is significantly higher than other DVR software, because in other DVR software you have to do almost nothing. The same would be true of a series 3 tivo. The serious pirate organizations would have little or no motivation to use a series 3 tivo since they already have mechanisms for transferring HD content and those methods are far easier than the work that would be required to do the same with a series 3 tivo.

The only people you'd be stopping are the very narrowly defined group of people who are willing to spend x hours getting video out of their series 3 tivo, but not willing to spend 3x hours to do it. I don't know who those people are, certainly not me.


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## ah30k (Jan 9, 2006)

Rucker said:


> If you're familiar with economics, you'll remember that in a free market, the price is determined by supply and demand. In a free market, for a product with near zero marginal cost, the price should be low.


As already mentioned, you are misapplying economic theory. A little bit of knowledge is dangerous. I am not an economist, but know enough to do more research before spouting that businesses should price at marginal costs. At best, for competitive environments marginal pricing is a pricing scheme to get you through rough times and lose no more than going out of business totally. It is more appropriatly used for maximizing social benefit in pricing utilities.


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## Rucker (Sep 21, 2006)

bicker said:


> Actually, I believe that is the primary consideration businesses apply with regard to product cost. In an ideal scenarios, as long as the price can be high enough to cover the cost, the cost have almost no bearing on the price.
> 
> Uh, you just contradicted yourself. The price is determined by *both* supply *and* demand. So regardless of the marginal cost, if demand is high, then the price shouldn't be low. (That missing link is why the rest of your logic falls apart.)
> 
> Copyright is, at least in part, very much about right and wrong.


No, I'm not contradicting myself. Are you familiar with macroeconomics? It doesn't sound like you are. Are you familiar with dead weight losses? Law of demand? Law of supply? Marginal costs?


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## Rucker (Sep 21, 2006)

ah30k said:


> As already mentioned, you are misapplying economic theory. A little bit of knowledge is dangerous. I am not an economist, but know enough to do more research before spouting that businesses should price at marginal costs. At best, for competitive environments marginal pricing is a pricing scheme to get you through rough times and lose no more than going out of business totally. It is more appropriatly used for maximizing social benefit in pricing utilities.


Good job of ignoring bits of my post. Recall that I said IN A FREE MARKET. Since you seem to think you're familiar with economic theory, please explain how supply IN A FREE MARKET is not related to marginal cost. Thanks.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

sommerfeld said:


> IANAL, but to my layman's interpretation, the four factors in question tend to break slightly in favor of allowing the creation of backup copies for personal use.


Sorry, but no. Again, Section 108 explicitly mentiones making backup copies. If there was any intention whatsoever to allow for backup copies for personal use, then that would be mentioned along with the provisions that allow for backup copies for libraries.

As you pointed out, there are four factors for Fair Use, and you must satisfy all four to qualify, and as you also pointed out:


> 3) amount copied: the whole thing, so leans *against permitting the copy*.


No, it doesn't "lean" again personal backups. Personal backups outright fail the test of Fair Use based on failure to satisfy this requirement.

This isn't a game. It's the law.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

Redux said:


> You are the first person I have ever come across who tried to maintain that section 107 defines Fair Use in its entirety.


You must not get out much.  Go to Wikipedia and enter "Fair Use". The doctrine only existed in the U.S. as common law until it was incorporated into the Copyright Act of 1976, 17 U.S.C. § 107​So I'm not the only one.



> Fair use, conceptually, is as old as law, older.


Until it was codified in the United States Code. Now the written law determines what is and is not Fair Use.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

TAsunder said:


> This is where we differ. I believe you can blame the media companies. They are actually making matters worse by going to unreasonable extremes.


Your characterization of the measures they're taking as "unreasonable" is a subjective evaluation, one that is not supported by the law or how it is administered in our society. In other words, people who want to violate a law don't get to determine whether the measures being used to try to prevent violation of the law are "extreme" or not.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

Rucker said:


> No, I'm not contradicting myself. Are you familiar with macroeconomics?


I taught macroeconomics.


> It doesn't sound like you are.


Rather, I do, and it upsets you. I can understand that.


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## vman41 (Jun 18, 2002)

ah30k said:


> As already mentioned, you are misapplying economic theory. A little bit of knowledge is dangerous. I am not an economist, but know enough to do more research before spouting that businesses should price at marginal costs.


The theory isn't that businesses should price at marginal costs, but that a freely operating market will drive out any businesses not pricing at marginal cost.


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## vman41 (Jun 18, 2002)

bicker said:


> Your characterization of the measures they're taking as "unreasonable" is a subjective evaluation, one that is not supported by the law or how it is administered in our society. In other words, people who want to violate a law don't get to determine whether the measures being used to try to prevent violation of the law are "extreme" or not.


The people whose lawful behavior is impeded should get a say whether a measure is extreme, however. I'm going to put a governor on your car that prevents speeds above 25 MPH because too many people are speeding on our residential roads.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

vman41 said:


> The theory isn't that businesses should price at marginal costs, but that a freely operating market will drive out any businesses not pricing at marginal cost.


That is true for commodities, not creative works. It applies to things for which any number of competing vendors can offer identical product/service with identical quality, with minimal barrier to market entry. Content is about as far as you can get from that. Folks don't consider programming from one production company *an alternative to* programming from another production company; or music from one record company *an alternative to* music from another record company; etc.



vman41 said:


> The people whose lawful behavior is impeded should get a say whether a measure is extreme, however.


There is no such right. Beyond that, behavior is not lawful if it violates the license granted by the sale of digital content. Furthermore, the buyer also has no right to dictate to the seller of digital content what they can and cannot include in the license they choose to grant. The buyer has no right to dictate terms and conditions, while the seller does have that right: The buyer's right is specifically to accept or reject the offer made by the seller.


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## Redux (Oct 19, 2004)

bicker said:


> Folks don't consider programming from one production company *an alternative to* programming from another production company


Consumers don't pick and choose among alternative entertainment products, then. And yet the fixation of the TV industry on ratings, and the art of scheduling movie & DVD releases to gain an edge against the competition, etc. Sounds like you know what you're talking about and the entertainment industry has a wrong-headed view. You should write a letter. I know someone who used to work for the assistant of a programming executive at UPN if you'd like an inside contact. Of course she works at the supermarket now, but I'm sure she still knows people who would be interested in getting their misconceptions straightened out by you.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

Redux said:


> Consumers don't pick and choose among alternative entertainment products, then. And yet the fixation of the TV industry on ratings, and the art of scheduling movie & DVD releases to gain an edge against the competition, etc. Sounds like you know what you're talking about and the entertainment industry has a wrong-headed view. You should write a letter. I know someone who used to work for the assistant of a programming executive at UPN if you'd like an inside contact. Of course she works at the supermarket now, but I'm sure she still knows people who would be interested in getting their misconceptions straightened out by you.


You're way off-base. Your extraneous sarcasm does nothing to releate the two concepts you've distorted. Folks really *don't* consider programming from one production company as an alternative to programming from another production company, and that has absolutely no impact on the value of ratings to networks.


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## ah30k (Jan 9, 2006)

Rucker said:


> Good job of ignoring bits of my post. Recall that I said IN A FREE MARKET. Since you seem to think you're familiar with economic theory, please explain how supply IN A FREE MARKET is not related to marginal cost. Thanks.


My response to you was to dispute your claim that marginal cost pricing should set the price of the creative works. This is simply not true and your spouting economic theory inappropriately will not make it true. In a free market the supply and demand will drive prices, it is that simple. It has nothing to do with marginal cost pricing. For commodities, the theory goes that if you try to price higher than marginal cost, someone will undercut you and steal your business. Therefore prices will trend towards the marginal cost of the second lowest cost producer. If you want to claim creative works are commodities, then we have a different argument. Also, as I clearly stated in my post, I am not an economist but am peripherally familiar with the theory. If you would like to correct my interpretation I am open to your input.


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## ah30k (Jan 9, 2006)

vman41 said:


> The theory isn't that businesses should price at marginal costs...


That is exactly what I said in my post so I'm not sure why you are correcting me.


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## TAsunder (Aug 6, 2003)

bicker said:


> Your characterization of the measures they're taking as "unreasonable" is a subjective evaluation, one that is not supported by the law or how it is administered in our society. In other words, people who want to violate a law don't get to determine whether the measures being used to try to prevent violation of the law are "extreme" or not.


Nice straw man argument. No one is suggesting that the people who want to break the law are being harmed. It's the people who do NOT want to break the law who are being harmed.

The law in our society can be unreasonable. What kind of gibberish are you writing here? A law can be unreasonable and still exist. It's not like some cartoon where a law that is unreasonable suddenly disappears with a poof noise.

Furthermore, the issues we are discussing have little to do with the law itself. It has to do with the contract that people are being forced to sign when using cable cards.


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## dt_dc (Jul 31, 2003)

bicker said:


> As you pointed out, there are four factors for Fair Use, and you must satisfy all four to qualify, and as you also pointed out:
> No, it doesn't "lean" again personal backups. Personal backups outright fail the test of Fair Use based on failure to satisfy this requirement.


They are factors to be considered ... not requirements that must be met (or not).

Recording OTA content by a VCR would "fail" this test as well ... people copy the entire work. Yet Recording OTA content by a VCR was deemed fair use.

In Fair Use cases, courts (generally) consider all four factors. They do not (generally) hinge the entire thing on meeting (or not meeting) one particular one ... although it does happen, but they are generally critized or overruled when they do.


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## TAsunder (Aug 6, 2003)

dt_dc said:


> Recording OTA content by a VCR would "fail" this test as well ... people copy the entire work. Yet Recording OTA content by a VCR was deemed fair use.


In fact, the wording of the decision is eerily similar to the situation of TTG and MRV.

Wikipedia Overview of the case


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## Rucker (Sep 21, 2006)

bicker said:


> I taught macroeconomics.Rather, I do, and it upsets you. I can understand that.


I am not at all upset that you claim to know macroeconomics. It does seem however, that you have a penchant for misreading my posts.


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## Rucker (Sep 21, 2006)

ah30k said:


> My response to you was to dispute your claim that marginal cost pricing should set the price of the creative works. This is simply not true and your spouting economic theory inappropriately will not make it true. In a free market the supply and demand will drive prices, it is that simple. It has nothing to do with marginal cost pricing. For commodities, the theory goes that if you try to price higher than marginal cost, someone will undercut you and steal your business. Therefore prices will trend towards the marginal cost of the second lowest cost producer. If you want to claim creative works are commodities, then we have a different argument. Also, as I clearly stated in my post, I am not an economist but am peripherally familiar with the theory. If you would like to correct my interpretation I am open to your input.


I think your problem is that you're assuming my statements about microeconomics apply directly to my statements about macroeconomics. When I said that businesses take costs into consideration, I did not mean that a business will choose marginal cost pricing.

When you say "supply and demand will drive prices... it has nothing to do with marginal cost pricing", you forget about the marginal cost pricing principle. However, when there is monopoly power at work, you can throw it out the window. Contrary to one post here, I haven't mysteriously forgotten about the law of demand. I do, however, believe that pop media/entertainment is a commodity.


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## ah30k (Jan 9, 2006)

Rucker said:


> When you say "supply and demand will drive prices... it has nothing to do with marginal cost pricing", you forget about the marginal cost pricing principle.


For fear of repeating myself, I am not forgetting marginal cost principle, I claim that it is irrelevant.



Rucker said:


> I do, however, believe that pop media/entertainment is a commodity.


So you don't mind if I choose all of your music and TV for you? After all, commodities are interchangeable.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

TAsunder said:


> Nice straw man argument. No one is suggesting that the people who want to break the law are being harmed. It's the people who do NOT want to break the law who are being harmed.


_N_o_ they're not -- that's my point. You *claim* you don't want the break the law -- that's not the same as not breaking the law. The law includes the contract between you and the seller of whatever you buy, and deliberately violating the terms and conditions of the same, whatever they may be, is transgressive, no matter what kind of pretty window-dressing you try to hide bethind.



> The law in our society can be unreasonable. What kind of gibberish are you writing here?


That's exactly what I was going to ask you. By definition, the law defines what is reasonable in our society. You can choose to FEEL whatever you want, even feel animosity towards a law, but that is your own subjective determination, only applicable within your own mind. Objectively, the law trumps your personal discretion. How convenient it would be if you can explain away any transgressive behavior you exhibit by declaring it "unreasonable".


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

dt_dc said:


> In Fair Use cases, courts (generally) consider all four factors. They do not (generally) hinge the entire thing on meeting (or not meeting) one particular one ... although it does happen, but they are generally critized or overruled when they do.


That's not correct. All four must be effectively satisfied.


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## Rucker (Sep 21, 2006)

ah30k said:


> For fear of repeating myself, I am not forgetting marginal cost principle, I claim that it is irrelevant.
> 
> So you don't mind if I choose all of your music and TV for you? After all, commodities are interchangeable.


Irrelevant in what way? It is not clear to me what you're saying. I'm assuming you think the ideal situation is that marginal cost pricing would not apply to entertainment? Am I correct?

So you don't mind if I choose your produce? After all, produce are commodities.


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## ah30k (Jan 9, 2006)

Rucker said:


> Irrelevant in what way? It is not clear to me what you're saying. I'm assuming you think the ideal situation is that marginal cost pricing would not apply to entertainment? Am I correct?
> 
> So you don't mind if I choose your produce? After all, produce are commodities.


I can't go through this again on why marginal cost pricing is not relevant. Yes you are correct, I claim it does not apply. Read my previous posts since I have been through this before.

Produce as a single product are not commodities, individual vegetables may be. Choosing between carrot brands is way different between choosing between carrots and peas. All produce do not have the same price across the board.

I'm losing patience arguing with you.


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## PPC1 (Sep 16, 2006)

bicker said:


> That's not correct. All four must be effectively satisfied.


This statement is patently false, at least according to both the majority and the dissent in the Supreme Court's "Betamax" case.

In his majority opinion, Justice Stevens stated: "[§ 107] identifies various factors that enable a Court to apply an equitable rule of reason analysis to particular claims of infringement. _Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc._ 464 U.S. 417, 448-449, 104 S.Ct. 774, 792 (U.S.Cal.,1984)

Steven's analysis in his majority opinion makes clear that the court is to weigh the four factors in determining whether a particular use is fair, and no single one is controlling. I can't find a nice pithy quote to sum it up for you, but read the text.

Justice Blackmun's disenting opinion states this explicitly:

"Nor did Congress provide definitive rules when it codified the fair use doctrine in the 1976 Act; it simply incorporated a list of factors to be considered: the purpose and character of the use, the nature of the copyrighted work, the amount and substantiality of the portion used, and, perhaps the most important, the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work (emphasis supplied). § 107. No particular weight, however, was assigned to any of these, and the list was not intended to be exclusive. The House and Senate Reports explain that § 107 does no more than give statutory recognition to the fair use doctrine; it was intended to restate the present judicial doctrine of fair use, not to change, narrow, or enlarge it in any way. 1976 House Report 66, U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 1976, p. 5680. See 1975 Senate Report 62; S.Rep. No. 93-983, p. 116 (1974); H.R.Rep. No. 83, 90th Cong., 1st Sess., 32 (1967); H.R.Rep. No. 2237, 89th Cong., 2d Sess., 61 (1966)."

Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc. 464 U.S. 417, 476, 104 S.Ct. 774, 806 (U.S.Cal.,1984)


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## BillyT2002 (Oct 19, 2002)

I'm just wondering how all of these rules are going to be applied when the "Star Trek"- like transport and replicator are developed.


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## TAsunder (Aug 6, 2003)

bicker said:


> _N_o_ they're not -- that's my point. You *claim* you don't want the break the law -- that's not the same as not breaking the law. The law includes the contract between you and the seller of whatever you buy, and deliberately violating the terms and conditions of the same, whatever they may be, is transgressive, no matter what kind of pretty window-dressing you try to hide bethind.


What are you babbling on about? Are you calling everyone who says they want MRV and TTG but not for piracy liars? Or are you making some preposterous point that because tivo signed a contract when working with cable cards that everything is suddenly perfectly reasonable and beyond criticism? I honestly have no idea what the heck you are talking about. Let me explain it to you in simple bullet points because you don't seem capable of understanding the point otherwise:

1. Tivo signed a contract saying that makes MRV and TTG and eSata disallowed
2. I am a user of Tivo and I want MRV and TTG
3. I find the contract unreasonable and overly restrictive

Which point are you disputing here? You are disputing 3 apparently. You believe it is not unreasonable. Then you go on to make some absolutely inane argument that because the law says it, it must be reasonable, therefore I am wrong.



> That's exactly what I was going to ask you. By definition, the law defines what is reasonable in our society. You can choose to FEEL whatever you want, even feel animosity towards a law, but that is your own subjective determination, only applicable within your own mind. Objectively, the law trumps your personal discretion. How convenient it would be if you can explain away any transgressive behavior you exhibit by declaring it "unreasonable".


I'm sorry but you are wandering off mentally in your posts now. Absolute nonsense. The law does not define what is reasonable, it defines what lawmakers believe should be allowed and disallowed, whether it is reasonable or not. There is no logical connection between reason and law, because laws are often subjective and based on emotions instead of reason. Reason and law are not necessarily related. By your preposterous logic, the prohibition amendment was reasonable. I don't know if you are trying to offer some sort of moral relativistic argument here, but I don't think anyone who isn't a moral relativist would agree that prohibition was reasonable. Prohibition was unreasonable from the get go, and because it was unreasonable, it was repealed. During the period where it was active, it was not reasonable.

Furthermore, many laws have been effectively repealed in the courts when the law was found to be unreasonable. From the numerous arguments you present here, you seem to believe there is no such thing as "case law" and perhaps even that the judicial branch does not exist at all.


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## dt_dc (Jul 31, 2003)

bicker said:


> That's not correct. All four must be effectively satisfied.


Sorry, but Congress disagrees with you:


> The statement of the fair use doctrine in section 107 offers some guidance to users in determining when the principles of the doctrine apply. However, the endless variety of situations and combinations of circumstances that can rise in particular cases precludes the formulation of exact rules in the statute. The bill endorses the purpose and general scope of the judicial doctrine of fair use, but there is no disposition to freeze the [464 U.S. 417, 449] doctrine in the statute, especially during a period of rapid technological change. Beyond a very broad statutory explanation of what fair use is and some of the criteria applicable to it, the courts must be free to adapt the doctrine to particular situations on a case-by-case basis.


As does (Edit) Justice Blackmun:


> Nor did Congress provide definitive rules when it codified the fair use doctrine in the 1976 Act; it simply incorporated a list of factors "to be considered": the "purpose and character of the use," the "nature of the copyrighted work," the "amount and substantiality of the portion used," and, perhaps the most important, the "effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work" (emphasis supplied). 107. No particular weight, however, was assigned to any of these, and the list was not intended to be exclusive. The House and Senate Reports explain that 107 does no more than give "statutory recognition" to the fair use doctrine; it was intended "to restate the present judicial doctrine of fair use, not to change, narrow, or enlarge it in any way."


The factors must be weighed in an "equitable rule of reason" balance along with whatever other factors the court may find applicable. They must be *considered* ... as the law explicitly states ... not "passed" or "met" or anything else of the kind.

Again, there are plenty of examples of uses that have been determined by the courts to be "Fair Use" that involve copying an entire work.

Opps, smeeked ... oh well.


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## dt_dc (Jul 31, 2003)

bicker said:


> That's not correct. All four must be effectively satisfied.


Another nice way to sum it up:
http://www.expertlaw.com/library/intellectual_property/fair_use.html



> As you may have inferred, fair use is not determined by a series of simple "yes or no" questions, but involves a relatively complex balancing test between the private interest of the copyright holder and the public interest.


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## PPC1 (Sep 16, 2006)

dt_dc said:


> As does the Suprese Court:


I don't disagree with the gist of your post (in fact, I made the exact point you made above), however, the quote you provide is from the Justice Blackmun's dissent. The majority opinion is not in conflict with this quoted portion of the dissent, but it is not fair to attibute your quote to "the Supreme Court"


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## dt_dc (Jul 31, 2003)

PPC1 said:


> I don't disagree with the gist of your post (in fact, I made the exact point you made above), however, the quote you provide is from the Justice Blackmun's dissent. The majority opinion is not in conflict with this quoted portion of the dissent, but it is not fair to attibute your quote to "the Supreme Court"


To be fair ... I attributed it to the "*Suprese* Court" 

Duly noted.


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## PPC1 (Sep 16, 2006)

bicker said:


> Like I said, that's a MYTH.


This goes too far. It is true that the Betamax decision did not hold that a consumer has a right under the fair use doctrine to make back up copies of all copywrited work. It merely addresses the issue of the use of a Betamax to "time shift" recorded television programs. But it is quite clear from the Betamax decision (and I am sure other cases), as well as from the text of § 107 that it is not intended to be an exhaustive list of all permitted fair use, and one can argue quite pursuasively that consumer production of back-up copies for their own private use of copywrited materials they have legally purchased is fair use.

Has there been a case that explicitly holds to the contrary? This is not a rhetorical question. There may be such a case, but I am not aware of it. Do you know if there has been such a case?


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## dt_dc (Jul 31, 2003)

PPC1 said:


> Has there been a case that explicitly holds to the contrary? This is not a rhetorical question. There may be such, but I am not aware of it. Do you know if there has been such a case?


MGM v. 321 Studios had the potential to address the issue ... but ... the company went under before the case got that far.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

TAsunder said:


> What are you babbling on about?


I'm sorry you're having so much trouble understanding this.



> Are you calling everyone who says they want MRV and TTG but not for piracy liars?


No.



> Or are you making some preposterous point that because tivo signed a contract when working with cable cards that everything is suddenly perfectly reasonable and beyond criticism?


No.

Now invest the time to read what I actually wrote.



> 3. I find the contract unreasonable and overly restrictive
> Which point are you disputing here?


You're confusing "unpalatable" with "unreasonable". You're implying, based solely on your dislike for something, that it is unequivocally wrong.



> I'm sorry but you are wandering off mentally in your posts now.


Not at all. I disagree with you, and it frustrates you not to have your unrebutted soap box. Get over it.



> By your preposterous logic, the prohibition amendment was reasonable.


By your preposterous logic, anything you decide to do is reasonable. Silly.


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## TAsunder (Aug 6, 2003)

bicker said:


> You're confusing "unpalatable" with "unreasonable". You're implying, based solely on your dislike for something, that it is unequivocally wrong.


No, I'm not implying any such thing. I am stating that it is unreasonable after providing several reasoned arguments. It's not just that I dislike the loss of MRV and TTG, it's that I dislike the loss of MRV and TTG because it is irrational. It is irrational because:

1. It is already in existence in Tivo Series 1 and 2, therefore if it presents a serious risk of piracy it should be disallowd there as well. There is no noticeable difference between the risk of piracy in S1/S2 and the risk of piracy in S3.

2. It presents minimal risk of piracy at best and its main use is to support basic tivo functionality. This seems to fall under the example of betamax in the supreme court case presented in this thread, because there is legitimate commercial, legal interest in TTG and MRV.

3. There is more benefit to allowing MRV and TTG if users who are disallowed it will turn to even less secure hardware/software to satiate their needs, because Tivo has demonstrated a sincere desire to keep content protected.

You have yet to offer any rational reason why TTG and MRV Should be disabled. When presented with points you simply draw back into abstract cliched statements. Your most "reasoned" argument is that allowing people to do more means opening holes to piracy. That is a blanket statement that offers no real insight into the case at hand, and directly contradicts case law that demonstrates the blanket rule to be patently false.

The rest of your arguments border on absurdity and involve abstracting the argument out to over simplified concepts of government, law, and intellectual property. It's almost as if you have no real counter argument and simply state that copyright law is infallible and not subject to interpretation. Both of which have repeatedly been demonstrated as false in this thread and in the history of our country.



> Not at all. I disagree with you, and it frustrates you not to have your unrebutted soap box. Get over it.
> 
> By your preposterous logic, anything you decide to do is reasonable. Silly.


No, it's not that you disagree with me, it's that you say "you are wrong" and then do not offer ANY objective reason except "you can't get what you want always". You claim to be a macroeconomics professor despite making obvious errors in assessing macroeconomics, you seem to claim legal expertise despite being proven incorrect by numerous direct quotes from the supreme court and laws. Are you simply arguing as a devil's advocate, or do you have a legitimate point somewhere?

Nice straw man at the end there too. How does that logically follow from what I wrote? It doesn't. However, assuming that the law is always reasonable DOES immediately imply that prohibition was reasonalbe. I notice you failed to respond to that.


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## mercurial (Oct 17, 2002)

The difference is, TTG/MRV with the S3 could allow the transfer and piracy of shows from DIGITAL channels (both the SD and HD variety) which would, theoretically, be of higher quality than those encoded from analog to digital on teh S1/S2 boxes. That's the argument I've heard. 

Now does it make a lot of sense? Are there other, likely better, ways to record at least HD broadcasts out there if you wanted to pirate them? Probably.


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## TAsunder (Aug 6, 2003)

mercurial said:


> The difference is, TTG/MRV with the S3 could allow the transfer and piracy of shows from DIGITAL channels (both the SD and HD variety) which would, theoretically, be of higher quality than those encoded from analog to digital on teh S1/S2 boxes. That's the argument I've heard.
> 
> Now does it make a lot of sense? Are there other, likely better, ways to record at least HD broadcasts out there if you wanted to pirate them? Probably.


I believe the reality is, when you come down to it, cable labs has little control over what tivo series 1 or 2 does. It is cable labs that objects to TTG and MRV, possibly due to some perceived problems with the content protection scheme of tivo, although more likely simply because Tivo is a direct competitor to most of those invested in cable labs.


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## Rucker (Sep 21, 2006)

ah30k said:


> I can't go through this again on why marginal cost pricing is not relevant. Yes you are correct, I claim it does not apply. Read my previous posts since I have been through this before.


Marginal cost is most definitely relevant to price when discussing supply and demand in a free market. Do you claim it is not relevant in all cases? If so, you've got quite an interesting idea and I'd love to hear you explain it. If not, please explain what those cases are.



ah30k said:


> Produce as a single product are not commodities, individual vegetables may be. Choosing between carrot brands is way different between choosing between carrots and peas. All produce do not have the same price across the board.
> 
> I'm losing patience arguing with you.


I too am losing patience. If you would explain your position, it would be a much more rewarding conversation.

Produce falls into multiple pools just like entertainment. I would not trust you to pick out my carrots, to take your example, just as I would not trust you to pick out my crime drama tv show. Or rather, I would trust you equally either way. If "CSI: Miami" wasn't available to me (or available at a higher cost), I'd have no problem watching "Law & Order" instead.

Music is the same. If I swapped X for Y (within the same pool), I wouldn't skip a beat. I believe, in general, people act the same way on a large scale.


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## Rucker (Sep 21, 2006)

BillyT2002 said:


> I'm just wondering how all of these rules are going to be applied when the "Star Trek"- like transport and replicator are developed.


You may want to look at discussions on post-scarcity economics if you're interested in that question.

Many people believe that pricing systems and market economies would break down. For those things to happen, you would have to assume governments would not (or would not be able to) support outmoded business models and grant artificial monopolies on goods, however.


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## Justin Thyme (Mar 29, 2005)

The facts that the Suprese Court was closely divided and that there are strong legal arguments in favor of reversal of betamax does not alter the reality that the public over the past 30 years has grown accustomed to the notion that they may make personal copies of television. Any initiiative- technical, judicial or legislative will face passive resistence on a massive scale. The activity will continue- only on a massive scale that funds criminal networks.

Pragmatics must be considered besides this debate on principles.

It appears to me that contrary to the public's expectation built up over 30 years that they have a "right" to own devices which make copies, the content owners are on a collision course, somehow believing they can progressively kill off the ability to perform such content copying.

VCRs and dvd recorders are legal. People naturally expect to do the same as they have, and will be able to tape HD shows just like they can analog shows. They will likewise have high demand for devices that do it with HD fidelity. That demand will inevitably generate devices that will inevitably land their manufacturers on the recieving end of an MPAA suit.

Maybe the courts will continue with the Betamax line of reasoning and maybe not. Regardless what they do, techniques for copying HD and digital cable will exist, and there will be high demand for them.

It's worse than the prohibition question because while not everyone drinks alcohol, nearly everyone watches TV and sees the need for timeshifting.

So from a practical perspective, even if the legal arguments of the content industry prevail exactly as they hope, the industry is going to fail to meet their objective of maximizing profits. They are framing the question in terms of false choices. Really there is no choice of stamping out copying. The question is whether the industry will offer customers a legitimate way of consuming their content in the modality of copying that the market will use with or without the industry's permission, and regardless what the law says. I am not alone in this belief in the resilience of underground markets to satisfy consumer demand. Microsoft itself warns of the dangers of promoting the Darknet through content industry insistence on models and mechanisms that act as strong disincentives for legal commerce.

I don't have much optimism that the content industry will not continue to be its own worst enemy. Who knows- maybe they can construct a seawall will effective against a tidal wave of demand. Maybe it won't be a tidal wave anyway, and people will pay 8 bucks for VOD so they can effectively playback at anytime. Perhaps the studios can't be blamed for trying the model most beneficial to them first. Only fools begin negotiation by stating their final acceptable position. After all, why give up without a fight and all that. Everything I say here is hypothetical- so maybe it won't go down the way I say at all.

Yeah, let's waste a decade figuring this all out, and fund technically sophisticated criminal networks while we do it. When copying prohibition is over, there will be some fine organizations to move on to other interesting activities.

What a wonderful world that would be.


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## ah30k (Jan 9, 2006)

Rucker said:


> Marginal cost is most definitely relevant to price when discussing supply and demand in a free market. Do you claim it is not relevant in all cases? If so, you've got quite an interesting idea and I'd love to hear you explain it. If not, please explain what those cases are.


Here we go again. Marginal cost pricing states that 1) in commodity markets a supplier will likely be undercut if it charges more than marginal costs or 2) to maximize social benefit monopoly suppliers such as utilities should price at marginal costs. My claim is that creative works fall under neither 1 (as discussed below) or 2. This leaves free market supply and demand to set pricing which, given appropriate supply/demand levels could and likely will product prices much higher than marginal cost. I never said marginal cost pricing never applied under any circumstance.

Edit: oh, and 3) if you are forced into pricing below MC by the market you might as well go out of business.



Rucker said:


> If "CSI: Miami" wasn't available to me (or available at a higher cost), I'd have no problem watching "Law & Order" instead.
> 
> Music is the same. If I swapped X for Y (within the same pool), I wouldn't skip a beat. I believe, in general, people act the same way on a large scale.


If media were a commodity within a category, you should never care if I totally removed all crime dramas except L&O. Any crime drama is equivalent to the next and you'd be happy with only one. On top of that, only a single episode of L&O for you, no need for different episodes, after all they are the same. I have a real hard time believing people have no preference for specific creative works over others. Why would sweeps week be so important to setting advertising rates if creative works were commodities? Despite people's irrational behaviour, gas is gas, coal is coal, oxygen is oxygen, commodity is commodity. One drama is NOT another drama.


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## TAsunder (Aug 6, 2003)

ah30k said:


> If media were a commodity within a category, you should never care if I totally removed all crime dramas except L&O. Any crime drama is equivalent to the next and you'd be happy with only one. I have a real hard time believing people have no preference for specific creative works over others. Why would sweeps week be so important to setting advertising rates if creative works were commodities? Despite people's irrational behaviour, gas is gas, coal is coal, oxygen is oxygen, commodity is commodity. One drama is NOT another drama.


That's not really true of gas either, to the consumer. If you remove all pumping stations except one way across town, I'd care. If you replaced my favorite gas station brands with citgo, I'd care. Maybe not as much as if you cancelled my favorite show, but it's still there.


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## ah30k (Jan 9, 2006)

TAsunder said:


> That's not really true of gas either, to the consumer. If you remove all pumping stations except one way across town, I'd care. If you replaced my favorite gas station brands with citgo, I'd care. Maybe not as much as if you cancelled my favorite show, but it's still there.


My analogy was to remove all brands except one, not all stations except one. As for replacing all brands, most experts agree that the technical difference between brands of gas is negligible.


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## TAsunder (Aug 6, 2003)

ah30k said:


> My analogy was to remove all brands except one, not all stations except one. As for replacing all brands, I said irrational behaviour aside.


It's not irrational to prefer certain gas "brands" because the company that sells the gas is part of the product being offered, as is the presentation itself. A poorly lit gas station is less desirable than a well-lit one to most people for somewhat rational reasons. By the time the gas is for sale to the consumer, many other factors are attached to the point that the gas itself is not the only factor in determining where people might shop.


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## ah30k (Jan 9, 2006)

OK, OK, you are all correct. Gas is no longer a commodity. Is that what you want to hear. In fact there are no commodities in the world at all. I don't know where the whole concept even started.

Its like I'm dealing with the RickyBobbys of the S3 forum.


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## TAsunder (Aug 6, 2003)

ah30k said:


> OK, OK, you are all correct. Gas is no longer a commodity. Is that what you want to hear. In fact there are no commodities in the world at all. I don't know where the whole concept even started.
> 
> Its like I'm dealing with the RickyBobbys of the S3 forum.


I'm not suggesting that. I agree gas is a commodity. But I'm not sure your example disproves that "crime shows" are a commodity. I think whether crime shows are a commodity depends on what happens among distributors and "manufacturers" and not what happens among consumers. Us consumers are kind of insulated from the actual commodity.

It's kind of cynical to think that TV shows are commodities to their creators and distributors. A bit too cynical, probably. But I've never been in a meeting where I could say for sure.


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## Rucker (Sep 21, 2006)

ah30k said:


> Here we go again. Marginal cost pricing states that 1) in commodity markets a supplier will likely be undercut if it charges more than marginal costs or 2) to maximize social benefit monopoly suppliers such as utilities should price at marginal costs. My claim is that creative works fall under neither 1 (as discussed below) or 2. This leaves free market supply and demand to set pricing which, given appropriate supply/demand levels could and likely will product prices much higher than marginal cost. I never said marginal cost pricing never applied under any circumstance.
> 
> Edit: oh, and 3) if you are forced into pricing below MC by the market you might as well go out of business.


You can't seem to post without attempting to berate someone, but I'll give you a pass and assume that's just your personality. Thank you for finally explaining your viewpoint. You're attributing ancillary concepts to the marginal cost pricing principle, but whatever. According to economic theory, a rational producer will produce any unit for which the marginal cost is below market cost. Only when there are other factors (monopoly power, for instance) will a producer be able to price higher than marginal cost pricing allows (over the long term of course). In a perfect market, the supply curve is the same as the marginal cost curve. So yes, marginal cost has a bearing on price. At the very least it should have a bearing on price which is what I stated. You've taken me way off course.

Am I reading this correctly -- you agree marginal cost should play a role in restraining monopoly power?

For reference, this is what you posted previously (post #75):


ah30k said:


> As already mentioned, you are misapplying economic theory. A little bit of knowledge is dangerous. I am not an economist, but know enough to do more research before spouting that businesses should price at marginal costs. At best, for competitive environments marginal pricing is a pricing scheme to get you through rough times and lose no more than going out of business totally. It is more appropriatly used for maximizing social benefit in pricing utilities.


I think it is clear who has the better understanding of economic theory.



ah30k said:


> If media were a commodity within a category, you should never care if I totally removed all crime dramas except L&O. Any crime drama is equivalent to the next and you'd be happy with only one. On top of that, only a single episode of L&O for you, no need for different episodes, after all they are the same. I have a real hard time believing people have no preference for specific creative works over others. Why would sweeps week be so important to setting advertising rates if creative works were commodities? Despite people's irrational behaviour, gas is gas, coal is coal, oxygen is oxygen, commodity is commodity. One drama is NOT another drama.


I am happy with any crime drama as long as it meets my standards. This is no different than picking out carrots. Certain carrots do not meet my standards, and I don't pick them. Having preference for a certain standard does not prove that the good in question is not a commodity.

It is interesting that you point out sweeps week. TAsunder raised the point that networks may treat programs as commodities, and I think that's likely to be true. From the network's perspective, they want a certain variety of programming to diversify and to build their brand; I suspect they view the channel as the product not the program (and not just in negotiations with cable/satellite providers). During sweeps week, and in general, they hope that instead of switching the channel, you just watch their crime drama. And if I recall correctly, sweeps data usually confirms that viewers will stay on that channel if it is showing a type of program they're interested in even if viewers usually watch a similar program on another network at that time. Don't networks often have similar programs on at the same time? Perhaps you can tell us why that is.


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## ah30k (Jan 9, 2006)

Rucker said:


> According to economic theory, a rational producer will produce any unit for which the marginal cost is below market cost.


Yes, or they will lose money on every sale. Agree. This sets the floor on pricing not the actual price that a product will sell for.


Rucker said:


> Only when there are other factors (monopoly power, for instance) will a producer be able to price higher than marginal cost pricing allows (over the long term of course).


This is where we fundamentally disagree. I claim that there are a multitude of reasons why everyday products command premiums over marginal cost. Media provides enjoyment to people and they are willing to pay for that enjoyment regardless of the marginal cost of producing it. If it costs 2 cents to produce and distribute a music track there may be people willing to pay 99 cents (sound familiar - iTunes). There are no magical 'other factors' here. No monopoly, no nothin, just people willing to pay more than cost. This is a real world example of Apple charging more than marginal cost. I can go on listing hundreds of examples where pricing is higher than marginal cost.



Rucker said:


> Am I reading this correctly -- you agree marginal cost should play a role in restraining monopoly power?


Yes, but how is this relevant to our discussion. Why do you keep bringing monopoly power up? We are talking about creative content.


Rucker said:


> I think it is clear who has the better understanding of economic theory.


Yes, and its not you.



Rucker said:


> Having preference for a certain standard does not prove that the good in question is not a commodity.


In economic discussions, commodities are homogeneous.



Rucker said:


> It is interesting that you point out sweeps week. TAsunder raised the point that networks may treat programs as commodities, and I think that's likely to be true. From the network's perspective, they want a certain variety of programming to diversify and to build their brand; I suspect they view the channel as the product not the program (and not just in negotiations with cable/satellite providers). During sweeps week, and in general, they hope that instead of switching the channel, you just watch their crime drama. And if I recall correctly, sweeps data usually confirms that viewers will stay on that channel if it is showing a type of program they're interested in even if viewers usually watch a similar program on another network at that time. Don't networks often have similar programs on at the same time? Perhaps you can tell us why that is.


I don't have the time to even argue this point any more. I will never be able to convince you of anything other than creative works being a commodity that should command no price higher than marginal costs.


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## PPC1 (Sep 16, 2006)

ah30k said:


> I claim that there are a multitude of reasons why everyday products command premiums over marginal cost.


What you are including in this statement is a variable for influences inconsistant with the assumption of a perfect market incorparted in economic theory as taught in econ 101. For example, transaction costs are assumend away. Lack of information on the part of any party to a transaction is assumed away. When you add these factors back in, then the equilibrium outcome will not necessary be the same as predicted by basic microeconomic models. Rucker is pretty much correct in his description of the predicted interaction between supply and demand, marginal revenue, and marginal cost *assuming* a perfect market. You are inserting into the equation factors inconsistant with the free market that the economic model Rucker describes assumes exists. I think this explains much of why you two are talking past each other.



ah30k said:


> If it costs 2 cents to produce and distribute a music track there may be people willing to pay 99 cents (sound familiar - iTunes). There are no magical 'other factors' here. No monopoly, no nothin, just people willing to pay more than cost.


I think there is somewhat of a monopoly (or perhaps an oligopoly) at work in the market for downloaded songs for an i-pod. There are limited number of sources to legally download songs onto your i-pod. One can quible with whether its a monompoly or not, granted, but I would not agree that the market is a "perfect market." Additionaly, one could also argue that the market has not yet reached equilibrium. Finally, you might not be fully factoring the true costs involved. There are a lot of fixed costs as well as variable costs associated with setting up the servers necesary to pump out the digital downloads to meet the quantity demanded. Once you have a server, there aren't much marginal costs to increase downloads, but only to a certain point. At some point, you reach the maximum downloads possible with the given infrastructure, and you have to upgrade your servers to pump out any more. Thus, the marginal costs curve may not be smooth-- it could be stair-stepped. All of this is not to say that you are incorrect in your discussion of the real world. It is just to say that economists ignore a million real world variables such that it is complicated to accurately compare real 
examples to ivory tower economic models.



ah30k said:


> In economic discussions, commodities are homogeneous.


More accurately, in economic discussions, commodities are most often assumed to be homogeneous. In practice, comodities have varying levels of homegeneity.


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## ah30k (Jan 9, 2006)

I give up. I can see that you are all correct in assuming that media are commodity and should be priced at marginal cost. 

Please do not respond or quote me again unless you can provide a single instance of any creative work being priced at marginal costs. I refuse to argue economic theory any more. 

I'm interested in a single instance of a creative work being priced by a corporation at marginal cost.


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## PPC1 (Sep 16, 2006)

ah30k said:


> I give up. I can see that you are all correct in assuming that media are commodity and should be priced at marginal cost.
> 
> Please do not respond or quote me again unless you can provide a single instance of any creative work being priced at marginal costs. I refuse to argue economic theory any more.
> 
> I'm interested in a single instance of a creative work being priced by a corporation at marginal cost.


I assume that you are in a huff over my post, since mine is the only one since your previous one. I don't see where my post would offend you though, unless you completely failed to understand my intent-- perhaps due to my poor writing. So let me be more blunt-- Your real world examples do not correlate to economic theory because economic theory assumes away all of the factors you correctly note exist in the real world. You are not incorrect in your observations of the real world. I personally agree with you that media is not a perfectly fungible, homogenous, commodity.


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## ah30k (Jan 9, 2006)

Im in a huff because Im tired of trying to convince people that marginal pricing should not apply to media. People keep trying to apply economic theory to say media creators should only be charging the penny or two of marginal cost of producing one more copy of the creation.

The more I try to dispute it, the more people chime in that I am wrong.

So I guess Im wrong.


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## Stormspace (Apr 13, 2004)

My only comment is that before iTunes singles were 1.49 to 2.50 each. The .99 price point is actually much lower than previous and in my opinion one of the reasons iTunes is doing so well. 

Also, Art will never be a commodity as it's value will always be subjective and thus impossible to predict. An artist isn't going to charge a percentage over his materials and time for his work. He's going to charge for the years of experience he has invested in producing the product with little regard for the expense of materials. 

Edit: He will also charge more if he is more popular. For musicians this means a better contract.


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## AbMagFab (Feb 5, 2001)

bicker said:


> Like I said, that's a MYTH. Here's what Fair Use allows... this is a direct quote of the law itself, 17 USC 107: Absolutely *nothing* there about making personal backup copies.
> 
> That's pretty-much *all* it allows.
> 
> Incidentally, your confusion regarding backup copies stems from Section 108 of the code. It allows, as I mentioned earlier, established libraries to make backup copies under certain circumstances.


Sorry - I meant that copyright law allows me to make personal backups for my own use. It's not a violation of the copyright, and has been upheld over and over again with VCR use, with casette use, and with Xerox's of (many) books.

As long as I'm not trying to violate the copyright or go beyond fair use, I'm fine.

DMCA goes beyond what copyright law allows, and if ever challenged for an individual making backups for themselves, would likely be struck down.


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## PPC1 (Sep 16, 2006)

ah30k said:


> Im in a huff because Im tired of trying to convince people that marginal pricing should not apply to media.


Well, I think you have pointed to a number of factors that are likely explanations of why the market for media does not behave as basic level one economic theory would predict. In other words, I think you hit on part of why pricing at the marginal cost does not occur in the market for media. I am in no way trying to convince you that marginal pricing should apply to the real world market for media.


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## TAsunder (Aug 6, 2003)

ah30k said:


> Im in a huff because Im tired of trying to convince people that marginal pricing should not apply to media. People keep trying to apply economic theory to say media creators should only be charging the penny or two of marginal cost of producing one more copy of the creation.


I don't recall anyone arguing that directly. More like, arguing that the distributors are using artificial means to protect their own treatment of the creation as a commodity. Although some people are apparently agreeing with this tactic by the distributors and somehow believe that it should be treated as a commodity.


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## Redux (Oct 19, 2004)

PPC1 said:


> I am in no way trying to convince you that marginal pricing should apply to the real world market for media.


The irony of this particular discussion (which as a student of humanity I have found fascinating) is that the three most vehement arguers have essentially similar positions on what they are arguing about.


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## PPC1 (Sep 16, 2006)

ah30k said:


> I'm interested in a single instance of a creative work being priced by a corporation at marginal cost.


I suspect the Bible might fit this, or any of a number of publications in the public domain, like the Illyiad, the Odessy, etc. But you also have to remember that in calculating marginal cost, economic theory would also include opportunity cost. In many entry level economics courses, they will discard that concept for the sake of simplicity. Consequently, you can't just look at the marginal cost in terms of the manufacturing process only to determine the equilibrium unit price. You have to look at the return on investment the publisher is giving up by commiting the investment into the publication of the work and include that in the cost. Perhaps Bicker can explain this better, but the concept is the difference between profit and rent. Here is a discussion that touches on the topic:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_rent


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## Justin Thyme (Mar 29, 2005)

It is interesting to see how well economic theory predicts what the correct moves are to make in markets that are facing fundamental transition. There are probably opportunities for some good papers, making a name for oneself and all that. What troubles me is that the question being dwelled by media executives seems to be- how much can I charge for a product that can be copied and distributed nearly indefinately at minimal expense? To my mind, the huge mistake is in not shifting the definition of what the product is. By rigidly adhering to the traditional notion that the product is the content, focus has logically marched along towards mechanisms for inducing artificial scarcity. That is fundamentally what is going on with DRM.

And iTunes' pay model for "the product" is pointed to as the trailblazer showing the way out. This is economics, so let's take a look at the numbers.

1.5 billion iTunes songs sold as of September 2006. Sounds very nice. Ok, at 3.5 minutes per song and 5MB/song, then that is 26 Petabytes of songs distributed.

Let's look the consumer demand as expressed by the immense black hole produced by the cheap hard drives in the iPods. As of 4Q2006, 65.6 million iPods have been sold. Even at an average capacity of 20GB, that is a 1,312 petabyte hole to fill. Does 26 PB still seem impressive?

In that light, iTunes has only filled 4% of that hole. So what else is taking up the 96% of the global iPod space? Ask any teenager- they know that the iPod is the most successful pirate device that has ever been invented. And it is being heralded as a champion of DRM, fighting piracy, a triumph of capitalism, etc etc. I am a little surprised that more economists aren't standing up and saying the emperor has no clothes.

The dynamics that the media companies are facing is that distribution and storage costs have fundamentally altered their businesses. It is a story that has rolled out progressively, starting first at text, then audio and finally towards Video as technology brings minimal cost of distribution within reach of everyone. There is a good body of data on what worked and what didn't, but I don't see a lot of educated minds making decisions at the studios.

I can recall sitting in meetings ages ago listening to seasoned publishing executives lecturing the technologists in the room how it would cost a fortune to populate the web with high quality content. The whole internet thing was a fad that made no economic sense. Even earlier, I recall them balking at putting their encyclopedias on CDROM, or online. The smirks could not be contained. But everyone will easily be able to copy our content! For example, Britannica was a 650million dollar business selling $1000 encyclopedias- they just had rung in a banner year for profits. It was hard to sell them even on the idea that they should provide a hedge against this new information distribution market reality. Yet their business was dust in 5 years and they were sold for pennies on the dollar.

Now the audio guys are feeling the heat but reacting in the same knee jerk ways.

It's a huge national problem because content creation is one of America's huge export businesses. And the thinking on this problem is horrifically troglodite, but unfortunately typical in the way entrenched bureaucracies deal with technological revolutions. Billy Mitchell predicted Pearl Harbor- he showed that Battleships were obsolete against air power in 1921. Yet the bureaucracy required the "Show Me" proof, and it took them 20 years to come around to Mitchell's way of thinking. Yet some never do, stubbornly clinging to old models. Douglas Haig even after WWI maintained that the machine gun was a much overrated weapon, and that tanks and aeroplanes would be found to be mere accessories to future struggles that would be determined by the horse. Seriously.

As I stated, the problem is that false choices are being presented to media executives. They have an opportunity to see that their product is not the content itself, but access to eyeballs.

Through inaction, they will likely self limit themselves to 5 or 10% of that market, but who knows. Maybe the Billy Mitchells in these organizations will prevail. It is concievable they can act now and work out the infrastructure they will need when video will be deliverred to homes in seconds for fractions of pennies, and consumers have storage capacities for 10s of thousands of shows. The real questions concern how to best develop the technical infrastructure in order to maximize profit from access to all those eyeballs.

Instead of this, the product to defend is seen as the content, and endless gargantuan plans for glorious DRM schemes to induce artificial scarcity are daily being hatched in boardrooms. The collective thinking here seems to harken back to WWI battles. Hey- maybe one will succeed if we just do it with more stuff, and more effort, relentlessly applying as industry after industry is destroyed.



BlackAdder said:


> *Melchett:* Good man! Now Field Marshall Haig has formulated a brillant new tactical plan, to ensure final victory in the field.
> *Blackadder:* Now, would this brillant plan invlove us climbing out of our trenches and walking very slowly towards the enemy?
> *Darling:* How could you possibly know that, Blackadder? It's classified information!:
> *Blackadder: * Because it's the same plan we used last time. And the seventeen times before that.
> ...


Tivo has the tanks. Sooner or later the studios through their proxies will give them a fair chance at demonstrating what they can do to reformulate the rules of battling the Darknet.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

TAsunder said:


> No, I'm not implying any such thing. I am stating that it is unreasonable after providing several reasoned arguments.


I disagree that the arguments are "reasoned". For example, you equate piracy of analog SD video with the piracy of digital HD video, as if there isn't a substantial difference. Also you impose your own subjective judgement of how "minimal" the risk of piracy is, rather than allowing the content owners the right to determine for themselves the extent of risk they consider "minimal" as it pertains to their property. It's a bit like telling my brother that my taking his eight year old son skydiving was only "minimally" risky... I'm just the uncle; that's not my call.

You also seem to imply now that how important the functionality is to make your TiVo valueable to you matters to the content owner. TiVo doesn't own the content. They're no better than the "uncle" in my example above. They don't get to determine what is and isn't to risky for content owned by people other than themselves.

You also seem to imply that a rational reason for what you're trying to advocate is the fact that, in the absence of TiVo providing what you want, some people will break the law other ways. If you consider that "reasoned" then we're clearly living on different planets, morality-wise.



> You have yet to offer any rational reason why TTG and MRV Should be disabled.


I don't need to. It's not my content, and the for the folks who do own the content, they don't owe you any explanations.



> You claim to be a macroeconomics professor despite making obvious errors in assessing macroeconomics


Actually, I didn't do either. You don't know what you're talking about, and you're trying to squirm your way through your own muck to defend your indefensible position.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

And that's really all it comes down to. Some people want to find justification for their bad behavior and refuse to acknowledge the rights of others to protect their own property against such bad behavior. In the end, that's all this comes down to -- people making a decision to respect the rights of others or to disrespect those rights for selfish satisfaction. Rationalize and equivocate all you want. 

Until the next whine...


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## PPC1 (Sep 16, 2006)

bicker said:


> And that's really all it comes down to. Some people want to find justification for their bad behavior and refuse to acknowledge the rights of others to protect their own property against such bad behavior. In the end, that's all this comes down to -- people making a decision to respect the rights of others or to disrespect those rights for selfish satisfaction. Rationalize and equivocate all you want.
> 
> Until the next whine...


That's it, Bicker. Poke the hornets' nest with a stick.

Poke...Poke....


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## AbMagFab (Feb 5, 2001)

bicker said:


> And that's really all it comes down to. Some people want to find justification for their bad behavior and refuse to acknowledge the rights of others to protect their own property against such bad behavior. In the end, that's all this comes down to -- people making a decision to respect the rights of others or to disrespect those rights for selfish satisfaction. Rationalize and equivocate all you want.
> 
> Until the next whine...


No, the point is that anyone who wants to violate copyrights will do so no matter what protection is put in place. As people have already posted, you can do something as simple as copy the HD signal through an SD port, for example, and have a beautiful picture (better than most people in the country would get on their own). Nothing will ever stop that.

And hacking to get the pure digital content will never be prevented. No matter what is put in place, it will be broken within weeks, if not hours. An ongoing example is the Apple iTunes encryption, which changes with every release, and is broken within hours of the release (simpler encryption, but you get the idea).

However in spending all this time and money on trying to prevent digital copying (which is impossible), you are actually preventing people who have no interest in vioating copyright from doing exciting things with the content - like watching it all over their house. So instead, many of us just don't bother watching it at all, resulting is less revenue for the content owner/creator.

It makes absolutely no sense. Let me summarize:
- Lots of money being spend on digital content protection
- Nothing will ever prevent people who are determined to violate copyright
- All these protections actually result in fewer sales/viewing of content for legitimate purposes due to the cumbersome restrictions
- People who would normally buy legitimate content sometimes are actually pushed towards the bootlegged content due to the cumbersome restrictions on the legitimate content

Ergo, all this money being spent is doing nothing to prevent bootlegging, is doing nothing but driving up costs for content, which drives even more people towards bootlegged content, which just continues the cycle.

The obvious answer is:
- Loosen up content restrictions for legitimate purposes
- Content becomes cheaper, immediately impacting bootleggers (less people want to buy their stuff)
- Spend all the leftover money finding and shutting down bootleggers

Simple. But instead, all you content owners can't see the forest for the trees, and are myred in the need to protect your digital content through technology. Pointless, and actually having the opposite effect.


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## JohnBrowning (Jul 15, 2004)

All the DRM cr&p is no different than gun control. Both hinder law-abiding citizens while doing nothing to prevent the illegitimate behavior of those who choose to bypass such controls.


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## TAsunder (Aug 6, 2003)

bicker said:


> I disagree that the arguments are "reasoned". For example, you equate piracy of analog SD video with the piracy of digital HD video, as if there isn't a substantial difference.


Do tell. What is the substantial difference? If 24 episode gets pirated in SD is that far less aggregious than if it gets pirated in HD? Do you honestly believe that the content owners make this distinction? Again, for the 100th time, the content owners want all piracy stopped. They do not want to ignore SD piracy and prevent HD piracy. It is cable labs that claims that there is a legitimate reason to block MRV, eSata, and TTG.



> Also you impose your own subjective judgement of how "minimal" the risk of piracy is, rather than allowing the content owners the right to determine for themselves the extent of risk they consider "minimal" as it pertains to their property. It's a bit like telling my brother that my taking his eight year old son skydiving was only "minimally" risky... I'm just the uncle; that's not my call.


No, the analogy is flawed. The content owners aren't assessing the risk of piracy by a tivo device. They in fact aren't doing squat. It's cable labs. Cable labs are simply disallowing it on the same flawed assumption you made earlier in this thread, that they should do whatever possible to disallow piracy, no matter the cost to Tivo or end users.

Furthermore, and you seem to have no concept of this whatsoever, it is not the content owners who are causing the trouble with tivo series 3. Let me put that in bold so you read it. *It is not the content owners who are causing trouble with tivo series 3.* It is cable labs. They may indirectly answer to content owners, but they are not themselves content owners.



> You also seem to imply now that how important the functionality is to make your TiVo valueable to you matters to the content owner. TiVo doesn't own the content. They're no better than the "uncle" in my example above. They don't get to determine what is and isn't to risky for content owned by people other than themselves.


No, I do not imply it matters to the content owner. I imply it matters to the law, case law, and to society's agreed upon ethics in the matter.



> You also seem to imply that a rational reason for what you're trying to advocate is the fact that, in the absence of TiVo providing what you want, some people will break the law other ways. If you consider that "reasoned" then we're clearly living on different planets, morality-wise.


No, again you present the straw man argument. It is not break the law with Tivo versus break the law with something else. Can you actually read? It is obey the law with tivo features, or turn to a less secure system that is far easier to compromise and probably end up breaking the law. Tivo has a vested interest in preventing piracy. If tivo becomes a dominant market force again, that is GOOD for content providers. If HTPCs with their infinite holes become a dominant market force, that is BAD for content providers. Got it yet?



> I don't need to. It's not my content, and the for the folks who do own the content, they don't owe you any explanations.


Yes, you do. If you come into a thread where people complain about MRV and TTG being disabled, you serve no purpose in this thread otherwise. If I complain that my city council member is making bad decisions, it is not a rational response to say, "those are his decisions, not yours". That makes no sense. I am not complaining that cable labs has the right to make a decision about MRV. I am complaining about the decision itself. You should learn the difference.



> Actually, I didn't do either. You don't know what you're talking about, and you're trying to squirm your way through your own muck to defend your indefensible position.


You claimed to have taught macro economics. Are you denying this? It's not hard to verify. Or are you simply making the distinction that you were never a professor of it, you simply taught it? And somehow act surprised that we assumed your claim was to be a professor of macro econ?

To be required to defend a position it must be attacked. You have offered nothing in the form of attack. All you have offered is repeating the situation and assuming that is an answer to a complaint. It is not.


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## toots (Feb 24, 2003)

Referring to someone who just wants to watch a show recorded in the living room, but played back in the bedroom, or someone who wants to copy the show to a laptop or iPod for that long flight, as a "pirate" reflects one thing above all else:

Broken business model.

No decent business model starts out with the attitude that your main consumers are your worst enemies.

Ultimately, the average consumer will gravitate toward content publishers who have a bit more respect for their consumers than that, regardless of what the law says they can and can't do.


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## dt_dc (Jul 31, 2003)

TAsunder said:


> If 24 episode gets pirated in SD is that far less aggregious than if it gets pirated in HD? Do you honestly believe that the content owners make this distinction? Again, for the 100th time, the content owners want all piracy stopped. They do not want to ignore SD piracy and prevent HD piracy. It is cable labs that claims that there is a legitimate reason to block MRV, eSata, and TTG.


CableLabs does not "block" MRV, eSATA, or TTG for analog content. CableLabs approval for digital outputs is ONLY needed for digital (encrypted) content.

But anyway, yes, content owners (and in some cases the law*) certainly distinguish between making (lossy) copies of analog sources and making lossless copies of digital sources (HD or SD, doesn't really matter).

* - See the Rio case and the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992


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## TAsunder (Aug 6, 2003)

dt_dc said:


> CableLabs does not "block" MRV, eSATA, or TTG for analog content. CableLabs approval for digital outputs is ONLY needed for digital (encrypted) content.
> 
> But anyway, yes, content owners (and in some cases the law*) certainly distinguish between making (lossy) copies of analog sources and making lossless copies of digital sources (HD or SD, doesn't really matter).
> 
> * - See the Rio case and the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992


It distinguishes but it does not make it a non-criminal act to distribute copies of an analog TV show in a lossy format. It's still a crime. Content owners care about lossy copies too.

Anyway are we to assume then that Tivo could eventually enable those features for cable content that does not require the cable card to decode, if they make no headroom?


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## toots (Feb 24, 2003)

Actually, content owners certainly object to lossy copies.

MPEG-2 is lossy. MP3 is lossy. Just about any format we're talking about is a lossy copy of the original. The fact that those lossy copies can themselves be copied without incurring additional loss does not detract from the fact that they're lossy.


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## dt_dc (Jul 31, 2003)

TAsunder said:


> Content owners care about lossy copies too.


Care ... yes. Never said they didn't care. However, they clearly _distinguish_ between the two and care (a little) less about copying from analog sources ...


TAsunder said:


> Anyway are we to assume then that Tivo could eventually enable those features for cable content that does not require the cable card to decode, if they make no headroom?


Yes. Tivo can allow TTG, MRV, eSATA, whatever for any content other than encrypted digital content w/o CableLabs 'approval' for a digital output. Ie, CableLabs has no say in TTG, MRV, or eSATA for (analog) channels or even unencrypted digital channels. It's only the digital outputs for encrypted digital channels that need CableLabs approval.


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## Justin Thyme (Mar 29, 2005)

Although content owners care about these copies being made, consumers still have their Betamax established right to make copies. Content owners and distributors are attempting to restrict this capacity during the transition to digital.


dt_dc said:


> However, they clearly _distinguish_ between the two and care *(a little)* less about copying from analog sources ...


What is in the minds of the studio execs is a matter of conjecture. The law cares "a little" but it is a nit, is it not?

Tivo may legally distribute in the home via TivoToGo and Multi Room viewing shows that are Over the Air HD content. As I recall, the fcc has stated that MVPDs are not permitted to downres OTA HD, nor encrypt it, nor put copy flags on these.

Bicker is making the case that there is some substantial difference about the nature of HD and digitial copying that is somehow relevant to the right of users to make copies of such content. This simply is not so- whether a show is analog or digitial, or whether it was SD or HD is not the substantial distinction.


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## classicsat (Feb 18, 2004)

jim _h said:


> If I record music and you buy it, I can't prevent you from lending out the CD, or playing it for a roomful of people.


No, but you can prevent it from being duplicated, or from playing on devices you don't see fit to protect your content.


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## dt_dc (Jul 31, 2003)

Justin Thyme said:


> Bicker is making the case that there is some substantial difference about the nature of HD and digitial copying that is somehow relevant to the right of users to make copies of such content. This simply is not so- whether a show is analog or digitial, or whether it was SD or HD is not the substantial distinction.


I am specifically not going near that. Whether (or not) the difference between "analog" and "digital" should (or should not) impact IP (copyright, trademark) law, policy, "fair use rights", etc. is the subject of many fine (and not so fine) legal review papers, policy analysis papers, WIPO presentations, etc. etc. etc. Thousands upon thousands of pages of analysis and debate so ... I really don't have anything to add to the subject that hasn't been said by someone, somewhere (far more eloquently than I probably could). Indeed, the analog / digital "difference" is a key driver for acts like the DMCA and similar laws worldwide ... and the policy debate continues worldwide ...


Justin Thyme said:


> What is in the minds of the studio execs is a matter of conjecture. The law cares "a little" but it is a nit, is it not?


I was specifically responding to TAsunder's assertions that content owners don't differentiate between analog and digital copying. What is in the "minds" of studio execs is certainly a matter of conjecture ...

However, what comes out of their policy / lobbying / legal efforts is not. Congressional testimony, lobbying efforts, regulatory efforts, legal briefs, US and world-wide efforts at IP policy reform and IP treaties ... I'm basing my comments on those, not trying to read any minds here.

Despite the "Analog Hole", "Analog Recovery Working Group", Macrovision, CGMS, Watermarkeing, etc. etc. etc.

The content owners (MPAA, RIAA, etc.) have shown repetitively that they differentiate between "analog" and "digital" copying and when push comes to shove ... digital copies of digital sources via digital inputs / outputs is what they really care (most) about. In the debates / lobbying / compromising / etc. over things like the DMCA, "Broadcast Flag", world-wide IP treaties, etc. the content owners have consistantly and repetively shown a penchant for giving up / negotiating away / not caring about analog protections in favor of further entrenching and strenthening protection for "digital" content.

Indeed, the content owners seem to be the ones that push this mantra of a "difference" between IP in the digital and analog realms the most ... as it serves as a handy justification / reason to update / reform IP policy for the "new" / "digital" / "technological" / "information" age ...


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## TAsunder (Aug 6, 2003)

My assertion was that they don't differentiate between SD and HD to the degree that they would consider MRV and TTG features to be a serious threat to HD while not being a threat to SD or not caring about the threat to SD. Maybe they differentiate between analog and digital, but certainly they are not solely concerned with perfect digital copies of media.

I wouldn't interpret their efforts that way anyway. HD Tivo and other technologies are new. The legal battles over analog have already been fought, tested, etc. Digital broadcasts and digital delviery of media is still quite new, and it is still changing, and content producers care "more" about it because they have the ability to put standards in place that they believe will stop people from making copies.

I'm not disputing, like some here may be, that they ought to put in protections. What I'm suggesting is that they are potentially hurting their own cause by being overly broad in the restrictions.


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## Justin Thyme (Mar 29, 2005)

dt_dc said:


> Whether (or not) the difference between "analog" and "digital" should (or should not) impact IP (copyright, trademark) law, policy, "fair use rights", etc. ...


I wasn't asserting generalities about digital IP versus analog IP.

Specificially, FCC regulations make a distinction between content which are non excludable public goods, in particular video content that is broadcast over the air, versus public goods that are excludable- such as a prime content channel that is not available OTA. Whether or not it is analog or digitial or SD or HD is a secondary characteristic. Whether or not they *should, * the FCC* is* carrying forward the same principle for digital as they have for analog.

Content owners are focusing on the ability to exclude consumption in order to drive up scarcity. This is in reaction to technology forces, specifically the plummeting cost of digital distribution and storage via optical nets/ high density hard drives which effectively are turning their products into public goods. Rather than analyse the phenomenon of the post scarcity world that BillyT2002 alluded to, they look at the early shock wave manifestations of it- the piracy- and understand the phenomenon as "the piracy bogeyman" that can effectively be fought in the courts and with DRM. The iPod numbers demonstrate what a charade that is. The way out is not to fight users copying your content, but counting on it. The way out is not by viewing the product as the show content or even the branded video channel that you charge consumers for access to. The product is the eyeballs of millions of viewers.

Of course, there is nothing new about giving away items at less than their marginal costs when the product that is sold is something else. Google is a search company but doesn't charge users for search as many of its precursors did. They have tremendous profitability because they have eyeballs and goodwill.

Yet distribution owners who are the gatekeepers to millions of eyeballs are marching down the same DRM path. They are attempting to exclude alternate forms of video consumption in order to keep demand for their traditional form of distribution secure. It is a war of attrition that will bleed them dry as it did Britannica, and pass them by as it did Lexus/Nexus in favor of Google. The fundamental forces facing the studios and MVPDs are inexorable. The question is not how to conquer those forces but to examine how they have alterred the competitive landscape, and how to develop new models that use the same forces in their favor to enhance profit. DRM is a likely component of such an answer, but not at all as an obstacle to generate higher demand from customers paying for content, but merely to insure the fidelity of the content package.

Text publishers became road kill in the face of the democratizing forces of cheap distribution in the form first of CD Roms, then of the net. Video producers today are facing the same challenge of a post scarcity economic transformation of their industry. Would there ever have been an Encarta had Britannica put out theirs first on CD? Would Wikipedia have been as successful if an advertising funded online Britannica was in place before them?

Ultimately the challenge that CD Rom publishers presented was not of illegal competitors publishing copyrighted content. For video, there's no evidence why it should be any different. Certainly, it may require 1 million per episode to produce serials in the US, but it's a fraction of that in Bollywood. Studio executives will be quick to laugh off the lower production standards of these alternate sources of content that virtually free global video distribution infrastructures make possible.

Sure the Video publishers and distributors can fritter away their opportunity by spending what little time they have on futile DRM schemes, and pointless legal and economic arguments supporting the same. The pirates aren't the ones that are going to kill them any more than was the case with text.

It's typical. One of the first CD content applications was DOS Microsoft Bookshelf and other early CDRom titles like hypercard stacks shared a burning issue that crippled content licensing deals. Take a guess what it was. The huge issue was virtually identical to those with MRV and TTG. It concerned what to do about the clipboard- that is, whether to allow digital copies of digital copyrighted content to bleed out to other applications, and whether the content was sufficiently encrypted that nefarious elements could not get in and steal the entire text of the publication.


dt_dc said:


> Indeed, the content owners seem to be the ones that push this mantra of a "difference" between IP in the digital and analog realms the most ... as it serves as a handy justification / reason to update / reform IP policy for the "new" / "digital" / "technological" / "information" age ...


Of course they do, as if IP policy was what killed Britannica.

Surely, it is a cunning plan.


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## GlobalMind (Nov 30, 2006)

This has been some rather interesting reading and, well, I thought I would toss my hat into the ring with a few thoughts.

First off, the generalized "who'll protect the artists" mantra really gets me going when I hear it from the industry execs and their trade orgs like the MPAA & RIAA. Bottom line they don't stand for artists they stand for the content OWNERS, i.e. themselves.

There's no question that it all rolls downhill and if they couldn't sell anything there wouldn't be many of the jobs the "normal" folks have. However, I haven't seen any studios close down and all those media folks are able to pay their on air/screen/stage talent millions every year.

I firmly believe that no media trade group has yet to put together any valid backing research which supports the notion that piracy is costing them what they claim. If anyone is getting hosed here it would likely be the support staff of such productions who are just as talented as the on screen talent at their own craft.

Regardless, to the point of making a profit. I do believe the accurate statement is that the artist or creator of a work has the right to decide if they would like to sell their work for profit. That's the nut of it right there IMHO. If the creator decides to attempt this venture, they aren't guaranteed any success, just like anyone else.

What I see from big media is claims in the past couple of years that:

* Fair use is a myth and does not exist

* Commerical skippng is either illegal or should be because it is THEIR content

* They deserve a royalty payment on any media or device which could at some point in time hold their content (one of the ones that REALLY sets me off)

All of these arguments are from an industry who refuses to change how they do business, and who believe that they are somehow entitled by to always profit and be protected in perpetuity.

Thus far all the industry has managed to do is alienate their customers, and treat everyone as a theif and pirate. Sorry but I am rather offended by this and honestly I don't believe they have any right to assert that claim on every person.

Oh I forgot Universal's latest claim that iPods are just repositories of stolen music and everyone knows it. I can't say how many folks I have heard say if they're paying royalties to media for their iPods then they'll consider it a blanket license to their entire catalogs.

Bottom line the media companies attempts at DRM have proven pathetic. They don't work, and they don't prevent the real issue. All they do is cause problems for legitimate fair use. 

K.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

Stormspace said:


> My only comment is that before iTunes singles were 1.49 to 2.50 each.


Though to be picky, a "single" actually had two songs on it. (45s, at least. I think CD "singles" actually sometimes had more than 2).


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## Justin Thyme (Mar 29, 2005)

I just read a Newsweek article for free. I used to pay for that. Too bad they didn't shoot the DRM heroin and dream about a charge per view fairy land. It's an insipid rag that the world would be better off without.



GlobalMind said:


> All of these arguments are from an industry who refuses to change how they do business, and who believe that they are somehow entitled by to always profit and be protected in perpetuity.


They are entitled to take very careful aim and shoot themselves in the foot. Personally I think the false promise that the content owners and distributors see in DRM is a gift.

I like Wikipedia very much. The alternative- a free but advertisement based Britannica would have been very much worse.

Tivo could help these jokers survive but they don't see it that way. Maybe the content owners and distributors would prefer to work with Microsoft, or live in a world with no name PCs playing video in the living room with software written in Hong Kong.

They own the field for now, so it's their move.

Oh what's this- the chain of trust is all on one Broadcom Chip. Glorious. Encrypted video in, HDMI out.... Brilliant Eh?


> *George:* Great Scott, sir! You mean you mean the moment's finally arrived for us to give Harry Hun a darn good British-style thrashing, six o' the best, trousers down?!
> *Blackadder:* If you mean, are we all going to get killed, yes! Clearly, Field Marshall Haig is yet about to make another gargantuan effort to move his drinks cabinet six inches closer to Berlin.
> *George:* Well, bravo-issimo! Let's make a start, Ei! Up and over to glory, last one in Berlin's a rotten egg.


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## ashu (Nov 8, 2002)

Justin Thyme said:


> I just read a Newsweek article for free. I used to pay for that. Too bad they didn't shoot the DRM heroin and dream about a charge per view fairy land. It's an insipid rag that the world would be better off without.


Too bad the WSJ & NYTimes have a higher impression of their crud online


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## Thursday (Nov 6, 2006)

I just spent a while reading this entire thread, and there are a few things that I want to respond to.



MScottC said:


> ...clip...
> Am I entitled to free medical benefits
> ...clip...


Actually, yes. Under EMTALA ( Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act ) Link, but that is besides the point.

I would like to say that I do have a right (or think I should at least) to tivo any episode that is aired by my Cable Provider and have it available for me to watch and re-watch as many times and as long as I so desire, because, in fact, I did pay for it. I pay a monthly fee to Comcast for entertainment. I pay them for every single channel that I recieve ( besides OTA-HD, which are doubled on Comcast anyways). I pay comcast, and comcast pays the company that produces the show. So, you in the business, have already been paid for what I have tivo'd.

There have been numerous shows that I have been anticipating but unable to watch because I am either at the Firehouse where I don't have digital cable, or am at the hospital where I can't watch TV. So, why shouldn't I be able to watch a show that was aired on History International, or Discovery Health Channel, that I really wanted to see, but turns out to be 0 minutes because of copyright protection. I already paid for it. I want to watch it. I suppose I could set my VCR to record it if 1) I had a VCR and 2) if I didn't have an S3 that actually reproduces a quality image.

All of the copyright protection business has really gotten out of control. You can draw a likeness to how both local and federal government have tried to control firearms. They impose stricter and stricter laws on firearms, but that doesn't stop the people who are already buying the weapons illegally, and have no intention of using them in a legal mannor; it's only hindering the people who want to use them in a legal mannor, abiding by the laws set forth by our governing bodies. Imposing a law stating you cannot have a hand gun in the cit of Chicago ( real ) isn't stopping the gang bangers who are using them day in and day out in an illegal fasion.

It's the same argument for the people who are currently ripping your copyrighted material from their DVRs and HD Broadcasts onto their computers. It's already being done, and you can't stop it. You encrypt it, they break it. You encrypt it differently, they break it again. I am not saying that encryption technologies should be just abaondoned, but that they should be focusing their attention and resources in a more productive way.

I have my S3 in my bedroom. When I get that new HDTV that I've been eyeing for my living room, it would be nice to be able to see it with out having to drop another 800 bucks on another S3, and even then, what's the point of having the same show on 2 Tivos? And what if I ever wanted to take a show with me to the firehouse? Apparently that is out of the question as well.



MScottC said:


> By definition, the law defines what is reasonable in our society.


No, law doesn't define what is reasonable in society, society iteself defines what is reasonable. With your logic, we would never have any amendments to our constitution past the Bill of Rights. Slavery would still be legal ( Amendment 13 ) or rights granted by the constituion could still be denied to minorities ( Amendment 15 ).


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## toots (Feb 24, 2003)

Um, yeah!

Seriously, nicely said.


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## MScottC (Sep 11, 2004)

You sir have quoted me in a wrongful way and mis-attributed a quote to me.



Thursday said:


> I just spent a while reading this entire thread, and there are a few things that I want to respond to.
> 
> Quote:
> Originally Posted by MScottC
> ...


 You really do not understand anything I said. First of all the emergency medicine you refer to does not constitute the medical care I was talking about, or any of the other expenses of living a decent life. I also have the right to try to make a living so I can afford a TiVo

And second, I am all for TTG and MRV and all the other technologies that allow a person who pays for material to view it in a convenient way to such person. I have no problems with anyone making a backup of a file, of a copy of a file to view on another device in their possesion, or an archive copy for later viewing. I have a problem with those who believe it is their right to mass distribute that which they do own the distribution or copyrights to. I never once said that you should not be able to view what you paid for.



Thursday said:


> Quote:
> Originally Posted by MScottC
> By definition, the law defines what is reasonable in our society.
> 
> No, law doesn't define what is reasonable in society, society iteself defines what is reasonable. With your logic, we would never have any amendments to our constitution past the Bill of Rights. Slavery would still be legal ( Amendment 13 ) or rights granted by the constituion could still be denied to minorities ( Amendment 15 ).


Show me where I even made this statement. If you are going to attribute something to "someone," at least get the "someone" right.


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## Thursday (Nov 6, 2006)

bicker said:


> _N_o_ they're not -- that's my point. You *claim* you don't want the break the law -- that's not the same as not breaking the law. The law includes the contract between you and the seller of whatever you buy, and deliberately violating the terms and conditions of the same, whatever they may be, is transgressive, no matter what kind of pretty window-dressing you try to hide bethind.
> 
> That's exactly what I was going to ask you. *By definition, the law defines what is reasonable in our society*. You can choose to FEEL whatever you want, even feel animosity towards a law, but that is your own subjective determination, only applicable within your own mind. Objectively, the law trumps your personal discretion. How convenient it would be if you can explain away any transgressive behavior you exhibit by declaring it "unreasonable".


Sorry Scott, I misquoted you when it should have been attributed to Bicker. My appologies.

All in all, I want to point out that I feel that restricting the people who are law abiding in order to keep the few that aren't is not the right way to approach the problem of piracy. In no means am I as educated as others here about economics or even the law on these matters, I am just a regular consumer who wants to be able to watch programs at my leisure. I don't want you to think that I'm attacking you, just that I am frustrated about how these media wars are being handled.


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## MScottC (Sep 11, 2004)

Thursday said:


> Sorry Scott, I misquoted you when it should have been attributed to Bicker. My appologies.
> 
> All in all, I want to point out that I feel that restricting the people who are law abiding in order to keep the few that aren't is not the right way to approach the problem of piracy. In no means am I as educated as others here about economics or even the law on these matters, I am just a regular consumer who wants to be able to watch programs at my leisure. I don't want you to think that I'm attacking you, just that I am frustrated about how these media wars are being handled.


Apology accepted.

One of the sad facts in life is unfortunately the few always ruin it for the many. For instance, on my job, certian managers are now demanding doctor's notes for even a single sick day. Why??? Because we have a few who constantly abuse sickdays, and as the end of the year approaches, believe they must use up every sick they they are allowed. So unfortunately, even someone who stays home one day a year for a bad cold, needs a doctors note per certian managers.


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## TAsunder (Aug 6, 2003)

MScottC said:


> Apology accepted.
> 
> One of the sad facts in life is unfortunately the few always ruin it for the many. For instance, on my job, certian managers are now demanding doctor's notes for even a single sick day. Why??? Because we have a few who constantly abuse sickdays, and as the end of the year approaches, believe they must use up every sick they they are allowed. So unfortunately, even someone who stays home one day a year for a bad cold, needs a doctors note per certian managers.


Hm... is that even legal? My doctor does not write notes as far as I know. I sometimes am too sick to go into work but I can't get a doctor appointment until the next day. I also wonder about HIPAA. A doctor's note would involve some information about me that an employer is not legally entitled to, the name of my doctor, for example.


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## toots (Feb 24, 2003)

Actually, I dispute bicker's assertion that the law defines what's acceptable in our society.

In most cases, the law follows what's acceptable in our society, but it doesn't always (ref: 55 MPH speed limit, prohibition, and others, where what society considered acceptable was in clear variance with the law).

Certain deep pockets can buy enough congresscritters to pass a law to codify what that special interest considers acceptable, but if society doesn't consider it acceptable, there will either be widespread violation of the law (as with the two examples given), or in the case of copying, they could gravitate to vendors with more liberal practices, thus making the law moot.


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## SpankyInChicago (May 13, 2005)

infinitespecter said:


> these "protections" do NOTHING to stop any of the things you've mentioned. Nothing at all. If someone wants to copy media, they will find a way, and all the protection in the world means nothing.


Absolutely incorrect.

The only reason why the protections are currently falling short is because they media companies are still trying to be consumer friendly while putting into place reasonable protections against their content.

Here is an SHA256 hash of my salted credit card number (expire date 11/09):

5fa2da427044a01dde3035cc8da9e3b9a299ec85cd2b1e01b7bfaa91fac28c92

If you can crack my credit card number I give you permission to purchase your entire list of holiday gifts on my card.

I can do this because I know it is impossible for you to derive my credit card number in the next 10,000 or so years.

People that keep saying that no matter what protections are put in place that they can always be cracked are speaking from ignorance. Most schemes to this point could be cracked because the schemes put in place have not been nearly as strict as technology would currently allow. In other words, the content providers are already being leniant.

It is entirely 169% possible to make it impossible to steal digital content at a cost that would not add significantly to the cost of consumer devices. Of course, such security makes things difficult on consumers. But the more people steal, the more secure products have to become. Your stealing makes your life more difficult. And if the stealing keeps up you are going to have even more restrictions placed on content.

To suggest that if I create a piece of software that I have no right to control how it is used is total insanity. There is no difference between a piece of software, a movie, or a lawnmower.

If I come to your lawnmower store and you sell me a lawnmower, it doesn't give me a right to have all my friends come over to your store and get free lawnmowers. If I want to lend out my lawnmower, that is fine - assuming I didn't enter into an agreement with you stating that I would not lend out the lawnmower. As the owner of the lawnmower store you may want to discourage lawnmower lending because you can sell more lawnmowers if they aren't being lent out. And perhaps because you know that lawnmowers can't be lent out and you will sell more of them that you can make the cost of every lawnmower lower.

If I come to your lawnmower store, I may not wish to purchase the lawnmower. I may want to rent it. Or perhaps you don't want to sell lawnmowers and you only want to rent them. In that case, I have no right to keep or use the lawnmower beyond the time period to which we have agreed that I may rent the lawnmower. If our agreement states that I can't mow more than an acre of lawn per day, then I am breaking my agreement if I do mow more than that. If you can put a regulator on the lawnmower to prevent me from mowing more than an acre per day, then you have the right to do that.

As the owner of the lawnmower store you get to decide the rules by which your lawnmower are sold and/or rented. If I do not like your rules, then I can go elsewhere.

The fact that you consider software or movies to be different than lawnmowers is absurd. The whole concept of intellectual property is fundemental to our economy and that is why intellectual property is treated the same as other property in our courts.

You folks keep saying you want to do what you want to do with "your" content. It isn't your content. It is the content of the producer. The producer may sell you a license to use it with very minimal restrictions, or the producer may rent it to you for a certain period of time or certain number of uses. If you use it in a way that is outside the terms of the agreement, you have broken the law.

I think what you folks really want is to get a copy of some content for the lowest price possible (usually you want it free), not have to watch any commercials, copy the content as many times as you feel is appropriate, and use it in any way that currently suits your mood.

This logic is so failed that I believe people are pretending to be obtuse. There is nobody with an IQ above 100 that can't make the correlation between the owner of a lawnmower controlling its use and the owner of "content" controlling its use.

If you don't like the rules, then don't use the content. It is really simple. Nobody is forcing you to use the content. You have no right that states that companies must provide you content for use on your terms.

Please stop stealing content, because you are only making the content protection mechanisms more harsh.


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## SpankyInChicago (May 13, 2005)

Thursday said:


> I would like to say that I do have a right (or think I should at least) to tivo any episode that is aired by my Cable Provider and have it available for me to watch and re-watch as many times and as long as I so desire, because, in fact, I did pay for it. I pay a monthly fee to Comcast for entertainment. I pay them for every single channel that I recieve ( besides OTA-HD, which are doubled on Comcast anyways). I pay comcast, and comcast pays the company that produces the show.


You are paying Comcast for a service. Comast determines the terms and conditions of that service. No service is provided carte blanch and without restriction. Have you read your terms of service agreement?

If Comcast inserts a statement in the TOS that says that by using the Comcast service you must honor the rights of the copyright holder of the content you receive, then you are not paying for unlimited use if the copyright holder says you don't have unlimited use.


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## Stormspace (Apr 13, 2004)

SpankyInChicago said:


> Absolutely incorrect.
> 
> The only reason why the protections are currently falling short is because they media companies are still trying to be consumer friendly while putting into place reasonable protections against their content.
> 
> ...


While I have mixed feelings about the whole IP thing your analogy does fall short in it's use of lawnmowers. For instance, assume I could make a copy of your lawnmower that I purchased. It would be identical in every way to the one you sell and it costs me almost nothing to duplicate it. I give one to each of my friends. Now they don't have to buy one, but you have lost nothing other than an opportunity to sell them a lawnmower. I haven't deprived you of anything except a potential sale. The RIAA and MPAA would have us believe that equates to not a lost potential sale, but a real lost sale. We may as well sue people that use the neighbors lawnmower regularly to keep from buying more than one. Hey lets sue the whole neighborhood if I let them borrow my lawnmower any time they want, after all I am preventing the legitimate sale of lawnmowers.

This is where it gets ridiculous to me. One download does not equal a lost sale and it never will.


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## SpankyInChicago (May 13, 2005)

AbMagFab said:


> All copy protection scheme's will be broken within 60-90 days of them being released. Either through brute force, or through bribing the people that created it.
> 
> Nothing at all will ever stop, or even slow down bootlegging. Period. It's that simple.


Again. This is totally incorrect and totally ignorant. It is absolutely possible to make a DRM model that will eliminate theft of content (in the digital realm) for 10,000+ years.

Let me ask you: do you think if you were given the ability to full access to the inside of an ATM machine that you could obtain the PIN numbers of the users of the machine? I assure you that you won't be able to do it even if you had 10,000 years worth of time to do it. Why? Because of unbreakable encryption and tamper-proof hardware. Again, we are talking the digital realm here. Nothing will prevent you from running up and smashing someone over the head with a baseball bat and stealing their card and kicking them until they tell you their PIN. Of course baseball bats and kicking are in the analog realm.

Again, the content providers have been very leniant in terms of their DRM schemes compared to what is economically and technically possible.


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## ah30k (Jan 9, 2006)

Anyone have a stake that we can stick in the heart of this thread?


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## IzzyB68 (Dec 8, 2006)

I agree, this thread needs to go away. 

The bottom line is copywrite protection is best for the people that invented the object. Whether it be a new object on a lawn mower, a movie, show, song, etc. It doesn't matter. It is so that person can make money off what he made, which he or she has a right to do. The lawnmower story above is dumb, because I don't think anyone has an issue with you borrowing your neighbors movie and watching it, the issue is when you borrow it, copy it, and keep a copy for yourself and give the original back to the owner.

Look, there has to be some encryption and it has to be something that can't be hacked by everyone. Once this happens I am sure Tivo will be able to do the stuff they want.

I have never invented something, but I am sure any one of you that is complaining about copywriting, if you invented or created something and had it stolen would be VERY upset that someone else was not buying your stuff. That is the bottom line, someone puts time and effort into something, it should not be stolen.


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## toots (Feb 24, 2003)

Well, the problem with making DRM work is that everything you need to know to play back the content is known in the same box (PC). That is, the DRMed media need keys to decrypt/play back. As long as those keys are also available to the PC (meaning that the PC is doing the decrypting), the strength of the encryption used is irrelevant, because you can always patch the software that decides whether or not to apply the key.

To make it more bulletproof, you need to make the hardware, the OS and the playback application impervious to anyone poking around, and so far, no one's done that. Microsoft's trying with 64 bit Vista, requiring the OS and application to be digitally signed before executing, but that still doesn't stop someone from finding a way to circumvent the signature checking, or just reverse engineering the code to the point that it can intercept the reception of a playback key at the time of the first legal playback, and applying it in parallel to the DRMed content.

As far as playing DRMed media on any PC based hardware, the only real way to prevent hacking is to essentially "weld the hood shut," because the most successful techniques of hacking DRM haven't been cracking the encryption keys, but rather cracking the applications that can obtain and use the keys. (Check the latest DRM cracks for iTunes 7. It doesn't break the encryption, it breaks the playback application.)


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## SpankyInChicago (May 13, 2005)

bicker said:


> That's pretty-much *all* it allows.


Don't try to be an attorney if you aren't one.

Our legal system is based on case law.

The legislative branch plays a role by making law. The judiciary plays a role by interpreting the law.

If you read the law you quoted, you note that it lists certain specific fair uses, but the list is purposely not comprehensive. The very next portion of the law goes on to spell out a test for the judiciary to use in determining whether or not a use is fair or not.

Through case law it has been determined that a backup copy is fair use by application of the "fair use" test.

You want to live in a different society than ours if you think the "letter of the law" should always be followed and that all scenarios must be codified for them to have weight under the law.


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## SpankyInChicago (May 13, 2005)

JohnBrowning said:


> All the DRM cr&p is no different than gun control. Both hinder law-abiding citizens while doing nothing to prevent the illegitimate behavior of those who choose to bypass such controls.


Wow. What a twisted analogy.

1) The Constituion iterates your right to own weapons.

2) The Constitution iterates the right of content providers to protect their works.

3) Gun control attempts to regulate a right.

4) DRM attempts to protect a right.

And DRM does protect against "illegitimate behavior.". The reason being that most "law abiding" citizens don't think they are doing anything wrong when they viloate licensing agreements. Of course, they are. And that is what DRM protects against. DRM does not (mainly) attempt to prevent against sophisticated criminal enterprises with an outright goal of stealing content for illegal profit. It is protection against "friendly copies" which cost content providers a lot of money to which they are entitled.


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## SpankyInChicago (May 13, 2005)

toots said:


> Well, the problem with making DRM work is that everything you need to know to play back the content is known in the same box (PC). That is, the DRMed media need keys to decrypt/play back. As long as those keys are also available to the PC (meaning that the PC is doing the decrypting), the strength of the encryption used is irrelevant, because you can always patch the software that decides whether or not to apply the key.
> 
> To make it more bulletproof, you need to make the hardware, the OS and the playback application impervious to anyone poking around, and so far, no one's done that. Microsoft's trying with 64 bit Vista, requiring the OS and application to be digitally signed before executing, but that still doesn't stop someone from finding a way to circumvent the signature checking, or just reverse engineering the code to the point that it can intercept the reception of a playback key at the time of the first legal playback, and applying it in parallel to the DRMed content.
> 
> As far as playing DRMed media on any PC based hardware, the only real way to prevent hacking is to essentially "weld the hood shut," because the most successful techniques of hacking DRM haven't been cracking the encryption keys, but rather cracking the applications that can obtain and use the keys. (Check the latest DRM cracks for iTunes 7. It doesn't break the encryption, it breaks the playback application.)


Again, this kind of stuff has been done in the banking world for 30 years. It is not impossible - or even difficult - to isolate software processes in an environment that is impossible to "crack." The device in an ATM that does this is called a "hardware security module" or HSM. Where are the keys stored? In an HSM. Where is the encryption done? In the HSM. Can you crack the software running in the HSM? No. Why not? Well. Why don't you go take a look at an HSM? Check out http://www.nchipher.com. Or look into an HP division called Atalla Security.

The TPM chip coming to PCs in the near future is a much less expensive and still fairly robust HSM.

Again, the technology exists to totally protect digital content. The fact that it isn't implemented is a sign of leniancy on the part of content providers.


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## Stormspace (Apr 13, 2004)

SpankyInChicago said:


> Again, this kind of stuff has been done in the banking world for 30 years. It is not impossible - or even difficult - to isolate software processes in an environment that is impossible to "crack." The device in an ATM that does this is called a "hardware security module" or HSM. Where are the keys stored? In an HSM. Where is the encryption done? In the HSM. Can you crack the software running in the HSM? No. Why not? Well. Why don't you go take a look at an HSM? Check out http://www.nchipher.com. Or look into an HP division called Atalla Security.
> 
> The TPM chip coming to PCs in the near future is a much less expensive and still fairly robust HSM.
> 
> Again, the technology exists to totally protect digital content. The fact that it isn't implemented is a sign of leniancy on the part of content providers.


This is not a new idea. Software companies have been providing security "Dongles" for years to prevent unauthorized use of their software. To suggest that a hardware key be used for each Work on a PC is just ridiculous. I can see it now, a PC with a bank of 300 usb ports so you can play all your protected content without having to remove a device. Bring it on I say.

The reason it hasn't been done is the consumer backlash would put them out of business, not because they don't want to do it.


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## toots (Feb 24, 2003)

Famous last words.

TPM will make it more difficult, but it needs software to make it happen globally, and so far, it ain't there. (Hint: 64 Bit Vista ain't enough.) There's still something feeding the encrypted data into the black box and something reading the unencrypted data out of the black box, and if there wasn't, you wouldn't be able to play the media, which makes it a rather pointless purchase. So, fine, let the black box do its thing. Intercept what comes out of it.

This really is the point: Doesn't matter how tightly encrypted it is coming in, if it's ultimately going to end up going to speakers or a screen, and all the bits that convert encrypted to your playback devices are in house, it's crackable, without having to guess encryption keys, mainly because the very device you're using to play it back with is doing the cracking for you.

And before you mention HDCP, read Ed Felten's article on how HDCP works. It hasn't been cracked yet mainly because it hasn't been worth the effort (everything else has been cracked).

Read Bunny Huang's book on cracking the Xbox if you want to know just how robust these solutions are. 

And that assumes, which is the other point of this conversation, that consumers will even put up with this nonsense. Assuming that we did come up with an uncrackable system for playing DRMed content, I highly doubt anyone would bother buying it.

It doesn't matter what the laws say or what technology makes possible, if you make it too annoying to use, no one's going to use it. And charging per-play, or saying "You recorded it in the living room, so you can't play it in the bedroom" or preventing "making a copy for the car" fits the average consumer's definition of "too annoying to use."


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## Redux (Oct 19, 2004)

SpankyInChicago said:


> the content providers have been very leniant in terms of their DRM schemes compared to what is economically and technically possible.


This is absolutely true. Mostly because they figure they wouldn't be selling a lot of disks if people didn't have decvices that could play the content (without waiting 10,000 years).


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## SpankyInChicago (May 13, 2005)

Stormspace said:


> This is not a new idea. Software companies have been providing security "Dongles" for years to prevent unauthorized use of their software. To suggest that a hardware key be used for each Work on a PC is just ridiculous. I can see it now, a PC with a bank of 300 usb ports so you can play all your protected content without having to remove a device. Bring it on I say.


An HSM is not a hardware dongle. An HSM costs five, ten, maybe thirty thousand dollars. A hardware dongle costs $2.00. A TPM is somewhere in the middle. True HSMs, of course, could be made much cheaper if there was volume.


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## SpankyInChicago (May 13, 2005)

toots said:


> There's still something feeding the encrypted data into the black box and something reading the unencrypted data out of the black box, and if there wasn't, you wouldn't be able to play the media, which makes it a rather pointless purchase. So, fine, let the black box do its thing. Intercept what comes out of it.


I don't think you really understand how it works. The entire data path can be made secure whereby the data is never "in the clear."

Consider when you get to pick your PIN for your ATM card. You get to type it in on that little keypad. When do you think the data becomes encrypted? When it leaves the keypad? Nope. It occurs on the keypad. Can you get what "comes out" of the keypad? Sure. But it will be encrypted. Is there a way to "break into" the keypad? Nope.

How do you think your PIN is validated when you make an ATM withdrawal? The PIN is encrypted on the keypad. Then sent to your bank. Your bank never decrypts your PIN in the clear. It sends the encrypted PIN, the PAN, and a PIN offset, into the HSM where the HSM calculates the PIN from the PAN, adds the offset, decrypts the PIN block, and compares the PIN you entered to the calculated PIN. The response it sends is a "yes" or "no" response.

Could you fake the yes or no response? Nope. The systems are designed to break if you attempt to tamper with them.

My point is that it is possible to make secure, "unhackable" data protection systems.


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## megazone (Mar 3, 2002)

SpankyInChicago said:


> Let me ask you: do you think if you were given the ability to full access to the inside of an ATM machine that you could obtain the PIN numbers of the users of the machine?


Yes. In fact, this was done very recently. You give ATM makers too much credit. They often transmit the card details over the wire IN THE CLEAR. The recent data theft didn't even require access to the inside of the ATM - the spliced the data line and recorded the modem tones on an iPod. All the data was right there for the picking.

Other ATMs, especially 3rd party ATMs, are notorious for having known default access codes. One clever chap used them to reprogram ATMs to think $20s were $5s, so it gave him 4x the amount it should. The same tricks have been used to dump card data.

This stuff happens all the time - my company is involved in the payments industry so I read some of the trade press. ;-)

One of the projects were worked on for a major convenience chain, let's call them 8-Twelve, was a combo kiosk/ATM. Turns out it had a bug where you could make it keep spitting out change (bills) and it could've been used to empty the machine. (Not our part of the code, it was the ATM vendor.) It was caught before it was exploited.


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## megazone (Mar 3, 2002)

SpankyInChicago said:


> My point is that it is possible to make secure, "unhackable" data protection systems.


History is full of 'unhackable' systems that were hacked.

New attacks are developed all the time, or improved - timing attacks, side channel attacks, etc.

Even an HSM could be reverse engineered even if you can't get into it. If you can tap all the info going into and out of the HSM you treat it as a black box and attempt to recreate the behavior. If you succeed in reverse engineering it, then there are attacks you could do on the system, without breaking the HSM.

DRM has to remain usable and affordable, or it is not viable. So you can't develop an unbeatable system if it makes movies cost $100 each to buy. That's self-defeating. Or if it means you can only play them in one player that is locked down, because people don't want that and it would kill sales.

There are a number of economic factors at work, just protecting the content isn't the only issue. It has to be protected, but still be salable and usable, or there is no point in protecting it.


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## sommerfeld (Feb 26, 2006)

toots said:


> TPM will make it more difficult, but it needs software to make it happen globally, and so far, it ain't there. (Hint: 64 Bit Vista ain't enough.)


It's not at all clear that TPM remote attestation will help against people who can hack hardware; it may be difficult to extract keying material from a TPM chip but not difficult to get it to "measure" something other than the actual running system for the purposes of remote attestation.

As far as I can tell, anyone who tells the entertainment industry that they can build a secure DRM system on top of TPM is peddling snake oil.


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## Brainiac 5 (Aug 25, 2003)

SpankyInChicago said:


> The only reason why the protections are currently falling short is because they media companies are still trying to be consumer friendly while putting into place reasonable protections against their content.


What's an example of a way in which they are trying to be consumer-friendly or lenient? If you mean that they made their protection weak so that you can break it and copy their content, I don't for a minute think that's true.

Being lenient isn't about the strength of the encryption, it's about what they let you do if you don't break it. For instance, if they are lenient, they will let TiVo implement multi-room viewing on the S3 - if the feature works, the people that use it for its intended purpose will not care what kind of protection mechanisms exist behind the scenes.



> Here is an SHA256 hash of my salted credit card number (expire date 11/09): ...
> 
> If you can crack my credit card number I give you permission to purchase your entire list of holiday gifts on my card.


Note that you said "SHA256 _hash_." SHA256 is a one-way hash, not an encryption algorithm. It is not intended that *anyone* can reconstruct the original message (your credit card number) from the hash, no matter what other information they have. A possible use might be if I wanted to verify that a credit card number I had been given was actually _your_ credit card number. I could do that by generating the hash and seeing if it matched what you posted. That's not the problem that content providers have to solve. "Cracking" a one-way hash consists of being able to generate a message with a hash that you choose, not of being able to reconstruct the original message.



> People that keep saying that no matter what protections are put in place that they can always be cracked are speaking from ignorance.


While I'm not a proponent of the view that if a lock can be broken then there's no point in having the lock, these people are not speaking from ignorance. There's no getting around the fact that the player has to know how to decrypt the content, and you can analyze the player. This is different from your SHA256 example - when you use SHA256, the receiver doesn't need to know how to reconstruct the "content;" it's not used for sending secret content that the receiver then reconstructs.

You can make it very, very difficult to analyze the player, but you cannot make it impossible.

Your other example of extracting the PINs from an ATM also does not illustrate how content can be made secure. Unless the people who designed the ATM are complete fools, your PIN is not stored anywhere in a way in which it can be extracted. Typically for that type of application, what you would do is to generate a one-way hash of the PIN, and store that. When the user enters their PIN, you would generate a one-way hash of what the user entered, and compare that hash with the one you stored. If they are the same, then what they typed was their PIN. That is, the machine can verify that something is the PIN, but nowhere is there a record of what the actual PIN is. Have you ever noticed that if you lose your PIN, the bank can't tell you what it is, they can only set it to a new one? (If they _can_ tell you, then I'd move to a different bank, as their system isn't secure.)

Again, this sort of thing doesn't lend itself to protecting content, because all it lets you do is verify that some plaintext content is what you think it is. It doesn't apply if you need to be able to reconstruct the content without already knowing it.

I'm not saying they shouldn't bother with encryption, but if we're going to bring the science of encryption into it then we should look at the relevant facts.


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## SpankyInChicago (May 13, 2005)

megazone said:


> Yes. In fact, this was done very recently. You give ATM makers too much credit. They often transmit the card details over the wire IN THE CLEAR. The recent data theft didn't even require access to the inside of the ATM - the spliced the data line and recorded the modem tones on an iPod. All the data was right there for the picking.
> 
> Other ATMs, especially 3rd party ATMs, are notorious for having known default access codes. One clever chap used them to reprogram ATMs to think $20s were $5s, so it gave him 4x the amount it should. The same tricks have been used to dump card data.
> 
> ...


You are talking about situations where best practices were not followed.

I too am in the payments industry.

When best practices are followed, these things don't happen.

I suppose there are some banks where the Atalla box is loaded with the KEKs by one person instead of the keys being under dual control.

And there are some (many, most?) online merchants who are not CISP / PCI compliant and dont' even have HSMs despite the fact that PCI requires them to do so if they store cardholder information.

Again, these are failings in procedure, not in the technology.

Of course, failings in procedure can be absolutely as destructive as a failing in technology. So your point is valid.

Only thing I will point out is that some of these convenience store ATM manufacturers don't exactly - as you know - have the same quality machines as the larger manugacturers like Diebold and NCR. That is why a Dielbold machine can run you $40k and some of the convenience store models are $5k.


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## SpankyInChicago (May 13, 2005)

megazone said:


> History is full of 'unhackable' systems that were hacked.
> 
> New attacks are developed all the time, or improved - timing attacks, side channel attacks, etc.
> 
> ...


I think you make two points. One I agree with. One I do not.

All things are technically hackable. Yes, you could eventually hack an HSM given unlimited funds and unlimited time. In the security world when the cost of breaking into a system costs more than the data stored in the system the system can be considered "unhackable." Same applies to time. If the time it takes to defeat a security system takes longer than the validity of the data beingh held by the device, it is considered "unhackable." So I don't agree with your conention that you can't make econimical systems that are unhackable.

I do agree with your contention that security has to be lax enough to make the product user friendly otherwise you are going to sell less product.

That is why I state they are being leniant. They are not making systems as secure as they could because they want to still make the technology user friendly. This is self-serving of course, but it is also a benefit to the consumer.

The more people steal the more DRM you are going to see.


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## SpankyInChicago (May 13, 2005)

Brainiac 5 said:


> What's an example of a way in which they are trying to be consumer-friendly or lenient?


They don't make their DRM schemes as strict as they could.



> Your other example of extracting the PINs from an ATM also does not illustrate how content can be made secure. Unless the people who designed the ATM are complete fools, your PIN is not stored anywhere in a way in which it can be extracted. Typically for that type of application, what you would do is to generate a one-way hash of the PIN, and store that. When the user enters their PIN, you would generate a one-way hash of what the user entered, and compare that hash with the one you stored. If they are the same, then what they typed was their PIN. That is, the machine can verify that something is the PIN, but nowhere is there a record of what the actual PIN is. Have you ever noticed that if you lose your PIN, the bank can't tell you what it is, they can only set it to a new one? (If they _can_ tell you, then I'd move to a different bank, as their system isn't secure.)


Unfortunately that isn't how PINs are handled.

PINs are dervived from the PAN. Each PAN (card number) has what is known as a natural PIN that is derived through the use of DES or 3DES keys known as PEKs or PIN encryption keys. When you get a bank-assigned PIN what you are getting is a natural PIN. You you self-choose a PIN, the PIN you choose is substracted from the natural PIN and an offset is created. This offset is stored with your account information. Of course, if you have the natural PIN, your offset is zero.

When you enter your PIN at the ATM the PIN along with PAN is assembled into what is known as a PIN block. This PIN block is then encrypted. There are actually a whole string of ecnryptions that occur, but to keep things simple we will just say it is encrypted. The encrypted PIN block is then sent to your bank where it is decrypted using a SEK (session encryption key). The PAN is again used along with the PEK to recalculate the natural PIN. The offset (retrieved from your account record) is added to the natural PIN. The result is compared to the PIN sent in the PIN block (i.e. the PIN you entered on the ATM keypad.)

All of this - when best practices are being followed - occurs in an entirely secure enviroment that isn't "hackable." The PIN is entered on a secure keypad. The value that comes out of the keypad is encrypted. It is then transferred to an HSM where the PIN block is created. The encrypted PIN block is then sent over a telco link to the bank and, of course, the communications channel is also encrypted. The PIN block ends up in an HSM at the bank where the entire transaction of decrypting the PIN block and comparing it to the natural PIN + offset occurs without ever leaving the HSM. The response as to whether or not the PIN was correct is then returned to the ATM and you get your money

If you try to break the keypad? It stops working and destroys its keys.

If you try to break the HSM? It stops working and destroys its keys.

Getting the keys into the HSM also is a secure mechnism that (best practices being followed) requires at least two people to do with split knowledge (i.e. each person only knows part of the key material).

The way this is handled is illustrative. Replace "PIN" with "video" and you can construct a secure end-to-end environment that can be used to DRM content. And the environment will be unhackable. Remember that from the time the content leaves its media to the time it gets turned into visible light for your eyes to enjoy the content COULD be kept in an entirely digital and entirely encrypted state.

Will they go this far? Not yet. Is is possible? Sure. Could it be done fairly inexpensively? Sure. Keep stealing and you are going to find out.

Finally, your point on my use of an SHA hash as a data protection mechanism not beign valid because it doesn't specifically apply to DRM is invalid only because it misses my point. My only point was that the user said that every form of digital data protection was hackable. My point was to prove that it is not. I will further state that hashes (i.e. digital signatures) do play a large role in DRM schemes.

I think that, in the end, this arguement is one that people are just not willing to budge on. It is like you either belive in the baby Jesus or you don't. Your mind isn't going to change. Same thing with DRM. You either think you have a right to do what you want with content without regard to the author's intent or you think that the authore has the right to determine how the content is used. Your mind (and mine) isn't going to change.


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## ac3dd (Mar 2, 2002)

MScottC said:


> One of the sad facts in life is unfortunately the few always ruin it for the many. For instance, on my job, certian managers are now demanding doctor's notes for even a single sick day. Why??? Because we have a few who constantly abuse sickdays, and as the end of the year approaches, believe they must use up every sick they they are allowed. So unfortunately, even someone who stays home one day a year for a bad cold, needs a doctors note per certian managers.


Yet another example of a bad business model, that puts an annoying burden on those who want to stay honest or turns honest people into fraudsters. When you didn't need a doctor's note, the honest people who didn't use their sick days had to make up the slack for those who lied and took sick days. Now a doctor's note is a burden on those who were really sick, while the really dishonest ones can still find a way to get a fake note.

My company solved it by just giving people X number of days off to use as they want, sick or healthy. If you use up all your days being sick and still want a vacation, you can get unpaid leave. Now if somebody wants Friday off to do something, they let their boss know in advance and everybody can plan around it, rather than calling in sick on Friday morning.

Similarly, the content industries need to develop ways to make it more convenient for consumers to be honest than to violate copyright.


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## Phantom Gremlin (Jun 20, 2002)

SpankyInChicago said:


> Replace "PIN" with "video" and you can construct a secure end-to-end environment that can be used to DRM content. And the environment will be unhackable. Remember that from the time the content leaves its media to the time it gets turned into visible light for your eyes to enjoy the content COULD be kept in an entirely digital and entirely encrypted state.


You're wrong about that. At some point before content is turned into visible light, the content is still digital and yet unencrypted. For example it would be trivial to intercept the digital stream going to the driver electronics of an LCD display. It would only take a few thousand dollars worth of hardware to turn that digital stream back into DRM-free MPEG. The main reason that pirates don't do that is because there are currently much easier ways to access the unencrypted digital bitstream.



> Will they go this far? Not yet. Is is possible? Sure. Could it be done fairly inexpensively? Sure. Keep stealing and you are going to find out.


Inexpensive, ha! You're living in some bizarro alternate reality if you think consumers will pay $10,000 for a "tamper resistant" LCD monitor instead of paying less than $500 for an ordinary LCD monitor that can display HDTV. You're living in some bizarro alternate reality if you think such a scheme would even be proposed.

And a tamper resistant LCD doesn't even solve the problem. In the old days we used to say "software is like VD. You can give it away and you still have it." Which means that *just one cracking device* anywhere in the entire world needs to be built, and the content extracted for that content to be easily shared across the entire world. You can duplicate and give away unencrypted content as many times as you want and you still have it.



> Same thing with DRM. You either think you have a right to do what you want with content without regard to the author's intent or you think that the authore has the right to determine how the content is used.


Your argument is of two extremes. The real world doesn't work that way. There are always shades of grey. The US Constitution says

_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;_

And right there is the problem with your entire collection of rantings. You, and the greedy bastards in Hollywood, have bribed Congress into granting infinite copyright extensions.

You have violated the social compact, which says that society will use its police powers to protect your rights for a *limited time*. In return for that protection, content will eventually become available to society at large.

The classic example of this corruption is Disney. Half their movies are nothing but ripoffs of public domain stuff from long ago. And yet now nothing ever enters the public domain any more.

So, don't expect any sympathy from me when everyone pirates your content. You no longer have the moral high ground which would allow you to complain about the thieves.


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## SpankyInChicago (May 13, 2005)

Phantom Gremlin said:



> You're wrong about that. At some point before content is turned into visible light, the content is still digital and yet unencrypted.


"is" doesn't mean "has to be."

The rest of your rant is just that.


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## Brainiac 5 (Aug 25, 2003)

SpankyInChicago said:


> They don't make their DRM schemes as strict as they could.


They're being lenient by not being as strict as they could be? I'm not sure that helps me understand, so let me rephrase the question. When you say they could be more strict, do you mean that they could make their schemes harder to break, or that they could place more restrictions on what the user can do without breaking them?



> Unfortunately that isn't how PINs are handled.


What I know about is just cryptography, not how it is used in ATMs, so you'll have to bear with me a bit (well, you don't *have* to, of course. ). I know that it would take considerable space for you to explain everything about how the system works, but if it's okay I do have a question. I suspect you are simplifying the part about sending the PAN + offset and comparing that to what is stored at the bank, is that correct? If the PAN is stored identically on your card and in the bank's computer, that isn't as secure as it could be. Given physical access to the hard drive (or whatever) that information is stored on at the bank, you could obtain the PAN and produce a working duplicate of someone's ATM card. There must be something aside from physical security that stops you from doing this, correct? The example of a way to do this that I gave would of course only be one step in a real system, but it is a crucial step that makes what the system does different from what you'd need to do to secure video content.



> The way this is handled is illustrative. Replace "PIN" with "video" and you can construct a secure end-to-end environment that can be used to DRM content. And the environment will be unhackable.


So you're saying that encrypting the data and using physical security to prevent someone from getting the encryption key is what makes it unhackable? Encryption is fine, but I disagree that making the physical security good enough so as to not be worth breaking can be done "fairly cheaply." Is there an example of an existing, cheap machine that uses this?



> Remember that from the time the content leaves its media to the time it gets turned into visible light for your eyes to enjoy the content COULD be kept in an entirely digital and entirely encrypted state.


That would not be practical, for many reasons. On an LCD, you're going to individually encrypt the value sent to each pixel?



> Will they go this far? Not yet. Is is possible? Sure. Could it be done fairly inexpensively? Sure. Keep stealing and you are going to find out.


I assume the last statement is directed to people in general, and not me? I myself do not actually pirate anything - music, video, computer software, or anything else.



> Finally, your point on my use of an SHA hash as a data protection mechanism not being valid because it doesn't specifically apply to DRM is invalid only because it misses my point. My only point was that the user said that every form of digital data protection was hackable. My point was to prove that it is not. I will further state that hashes (i.e. digital signatures) do play a large role in DRM schemes.


I responded to that example because the challenge you issued does not prove your point. What you described is impossible, not because SHA256 is secure, but because the hash does not contain the information you asked for. If your challenge was to construct another credit card number that hashed to the same value as yours, that would make sense - preventing you from being able to do that is the purpose of SHA256.

Yes, hashes play a role in DRM and many other security protocols. But you can't make a DRM scheme based only on hashes. You have to provide information (the audio/video) that can be reconstructed by the player - if that can't be done securely, then your DRM scheme won't work.

But back to your point - I don't think people are saying that every encryption algorithm, cryptographic hash or whatever can be broken. If they are, then they're wrong. But you don't have to break those to break a DRM scheme. It suffices to do something like obtain the decryption key, or intercept the data at a point where it isn't encrypted. So you're really only relying on the physical security of the player.



> I think that, in the end, this arguement is one that people are just not willing to budge on. It is like you either belive in the baby Jesus or you don't. Your mind isn't going to change. Same thing with DRM. You either think you have a right to do what you want with content without regard to the author's intent or you think that the authore has the right to determine how the content is used.


Well, I personally am only discussing the theoretical possibility of making an unhackable DRM scheme, so maybe I'm actually off-topic for the thread. 

However, I should point out that there is another alternative to the two views you described. There are many people who do not think that they should be able to do anything they want with content, but do think they should be able to do reasonable things that don't infringe on anyone's rights or cause anyone to lose money. An example is what I mentioned in my earlier post - multi-room viewing on TiVo, which we currently don't have on the S3 due to copy protection concerns.


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## Phantom Gremlin (Jun 20, 2002)

SpankyInChicago said:


> "is" doesn't mean "has to be."


Just how do you propose generating an intelligible visible signal directly from an encrypted bitstream? Are you saying that an LCD display panel can potentially have 2,000,000 separate "unbreakable" decryption circuits in it, one for each pixel of a 1920x1080 display? Or maybe you can have 6,000,000 decryption circuits, one for each sub-pixel?

Sure, that'll work. A handful of transistors to drive a pixel, 100,000 more transistors alongside those to decrypt the bitstream going to that pixel. Rube Goldberg would be quite proud of you. And determined people would still be able to steal the content.

Not that Wikipedia is an authoritative source, but here's a little of what they say about *analog hole:*

_Engineers are aware of mathematical and physical principles that often begin with "It is not possible to..." which sometimes come in direct conflict with business and political goals. One does not have to be an engineer to understand that it is simply not possible to simultaneously display and conceal a signal._

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analog_hole

To quote Dr Ray Stantz: *"You never studied."*


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