DRM

RealNetworks filing preemptive lawsuit to protect its DVD-to-PC copying product

Paul McNamara — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 14:03:45 -0400

Apparently tired of waiting to be sued by the motion picture industry over its new DVD-to-PC copying software, RealNetworks this morning announced that it will file a preemptive legal action of its own in an attempt to establish the product's legality.

(See updates below: Industry firing back.)

From a statement just issued by RealNetworks:

"In response to threats made by the major movie studios, RealNetworks this morning plans to file an action for a declaratory judgment against DVD Copy Control Association, Inc., Disney Enterprises, Inc., Paramount Pictures Corp., Sony Pictures Entertainment, Inc., Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp., NBC Universal, Inc., Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., and Viacom, Inc., in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. The lawsuit asks the court to rule that RealNetworks Home Entertainment, Inc.'s RealDVD software, made available to consumers today at www.realdvd.com, fully complies with the DVD Copy Control Association's license agreement. ...
"RealNetworks took this legal action to protect consumers' ability to exercise their fair-use rights for their purchased DVDs. The DVD CCA, which represents numerous parties including all of the major studios, previously sued another company over the same issues. The trial court ruled against the DVD CCA and allowed the distribution of a product similar to RealDVD."

In addition, RealNetworks this morning has officially released the software, which debuted in beta Sept. 8 at Network World's DEMOfall 08 to a largely mute but stern reaction from the movie industry.

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Subscriptions will work this time! For sure!

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 16:47:59 -0400

The usual rubbish. "Pay, er, PlayNow Plus is completely unlimited, covers all major labels, no DRM, get all you want any time you like! This is the biggest deal in mobile music ever! Of course, it'll only play for the duration of the contract, all songs then disappearing. Well, just a little DRM. Honest." Perhaps subscriptions will make big bucks this time, since they didn't every other time.

MSN Music DRM servers being decommisioned

Alex Lewis — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 00:29:52 -0400

A few days ago I noted that [url=http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/27068]Microsoft's MSN group would be stopping support for Outlook Express for hotmail users[/url]. In a similiar end of support announcement [url=http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?no_d2=1&sid=08/04/22/2130225]Microsoft will be decomissioning the DRM servers used to authorize playback of music from the dead MSN Music store[/url] in September. This means no new computers will be able to be authorized after September. What happend to all that music you purchased? You can still listen to it on authorized computers but when you upgrade systems you're out of luck.

Flash video downloads get DRM

Jason Meserve — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 18:11:54 -0400

The two big pieces of news coming from Adobe this week are potential Flash support on the iPhone and a new Digital Rights Management capability for Flash videos downloaded to Adobe's Media Player or applications built on the AIR platform. Most are hyping (or decrying, depending on the point of view) the latter because DRM will help draw big name content providers (read: movie studios) to the platform. Microsoft has had a lead on this for a while and now Adobe is getting into the game.

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Say Goodnight, Vista

Miles Baska — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 10:03:57 -0500

Face it. Vista was never about you. It was all about them and protecting their copyrights. BillyG felt he had to do it because he dreams of ruling your set-top box.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Sony BMG Music Entertainment, the world's second largest music company, will this month become the last of the big four majors to drop copy protection software on music downloads, also known as digital rights management (DRM).

OOops. CD sales fell 15% last year and digital music sales didn't take up the slack. Steve Jobs lead the parade -- he felt DRM was a barrier and took it down. Seems everyone is getting in line with him. Whither goest thou, Vista?

The lady from O2....

Thu, 20 Sep 2007 16:41:16 -0400

Has the most compelling argument to date - and one that doesn't apply in the US, as AT&T is the least favored carrier in the nation (kudos Jobs, on that lame-o choice - I hope you make enough $$$ off of it). It's the same thing that's wrong with DRM. Make a lock and people will want to break it. Make your goods available at a price where it's more trouble than it's worth and everyone will comply - because they're basically lazy. Instead, do like the O2 people are doing, and make the deal so attractive that it's LESS attractive to break the lock. Now, I don't know if O2's offer is really that good, but it was sounding a LOT better than AT&T's in the states.

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Microsoft patents new digital rights management protection

Microsoft Subnet — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 14:15:00 -0400

Microsoft has invented a technology for digital rights management that some experts are saying is unbreakable. It is dubbed “stealthy audio watermarking.” It permanently inserts the content producer’s name within the MP3 and .WAV files – based on similar spread-spectrum technology used by the military. To really work, it would require that devices be designed to refuse to play a file that isn’t properly watermarked, according to a posting on the Wolf’s Den blog.

Should this concept take off, it could put an end to the seemingly unstoppable trend of illegal music swapping. Big that’s a big if.

Gouging By Google

James Gaskin — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 13:49:45 -0400

Here's a cautionary tale for both sides of the disagreement. In case you haven't heard, Google decided to stop their Download To Own / Download To Rent (DTO/DTR) video site. That's OK, because companies stop selling products and close divisions all the time. The pain point comes when you compare the name of the service, Download To Own, with the reality: you can only watch downloaded videos through the special Google Player. When the service stops next week, the player goes away. A good overview can be read in The Register. Here's your lesson in Digital Rights Management technology: you only have access to your purchased (Download To Own, remember) electronic products as long as the seller allows you access to your products. In this case, you must use the Google Player to view your own purchased videos so Google can restrict copying. Unfortunately, companies restricting your rights to your own files can restrict or eliminate viewing, as Google will next Wednesday when their player goes dark. Let's stop calling DRM Digital Rights Management. My new term? Digital Rights Manipulation. You buy, they manipulate.

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Microsoft DRM system cracked, again

Microsoft Subnet — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 14:42:13 -0400

According to the AP:

“The latest version of the FairUse4M program, which can crack Microsoft's digital rights management system for Windows Media audio and video files, was published online late Friday.”

The story reports that Microsoft has stopped this program twice in the last year, plugged the holes it exploits. It even went as far as filing a federal lawsuit against the programs anonymous authors, which of course, had to be dropped because anonymous people are hard to find and therefore even harder to sue.

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DRM just won't work as a vendor security measure

Tue, 22 May 2007 01:30:51 -0400

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Gates calls for new privacy law

sumj — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 12:36:30 -0500

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Vista DRM report gets blogger hopping mad

Microsoft Subnet — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 16:27:21 -0500

Peter Gutmann of the Department of Computer Science at the University of Auckland has made some in the blogosphere hopping mad with his Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection report, which concludes that "The Vista Content Protection specification could very well constitute the longest suicide note in history." One irate reader is online pundit Robert McLaws, who blogs: "I wanted to write a point-by-point rebuttal, but was overwhelmed with the sheer number of glaring inaccuracies ...

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Jobs on closed DRM

Mark Gibbs — Wed, 29 Mar 2006 13:23:51 -0500

In my Backspin column this week -- "Laws in France kick Apple's pants" I discussed the French government's proposed anti-closed DRM legislation and in this blog a couple of items ago we had some discussion on the topic. Well, it turns out that Apple is at least historically in favor of the idea!

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Apple and the French

Mark Gibbs — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 16:06:10 -0500

In Backspin this week, I tell Steve Jobs why he'd be smart not to just shrug off French sales of iPods because of a possible French law to require open DRM systems. What do you think?

The problems with digital rights management (DRM)

Alpha Doggs — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 15:36:20 -0500

The anti-digital rights management crowd has to be heartened by some of the latest comments from researchers.

Speaking today at a conference in London, Cambridge-MIT Institute senior research manager Ian Brown said that DRM's flaws have been easy prey for hackers to date. He said music and movie companies have been unable to exploit DRM to protect their content, and suggests that what they should really be doing is looking at a different business model. He pointed to the band U2 as an example of a group that uses its music to promote its other merchandise, such as tickets to concerts. Of course, U2 might be a tad better position than other bands to take that approach given its successful track record.

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And yet more Sony BMG revelations!

Mark Gibbs — Wed, 30 Nov 2005 17:50:14 -0500

I didn't think that there would be more to blog about Sony BMG today but I was wrong, oh, so wrong ...

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New Sony BMG DRM revelation! They violated the DMCA!

Mark Gibbs — Wed, 30 Nov 2005 17:06:25 -0500

The Sony BMG fiasco just keeps getting better and better! Apparently the Digital Rights Mangling, er, Management (DRM) software that Sony BMG installed on unwitting users' PCs contains code that violates the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA)!

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Sony litigation update #2

Mark Gibbs — Mon, 28 Nov 2005 18:14:53 -0500

Following the Gibbsblog update on Sony's legal situation there's a good article on the latest happenings in the Sony BMG fracas over on Sterophile.

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The scope of Sony's DRM "infections"

Mark Gibbs — Tue, 15 Nov 2005 14:34:01 -0500

As I suspected: The scope of the problem that Sony BMG has created with its retarded DRM solution is truly enormous!

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Interview with Sam Curry, CA re: Sony BMG DRM

Mark Gibbs — Tue, 15 Nov 2005 10:17:56 -0500

Following my Network World Backspin column "Is Sony's CD DRM malware?" (also see "More on Sony's rootkit") I got the chance to have a telephone conference with Sam Curry, vice president of eTrust Security Management for Computer Associates. CA researchers analyzed the Sony DRM software and concluded that:"The media player that Sony ships with the CD is spying on the user, sending the IP address and listening habits back to Sony and potentially to Sony partners, without notice, consent, or choice." In other words, the Sony BMG DRM system is spyware! It turns out that there's even more wrong with Sony's DRM than stealth installation and reporting on the user. We had such an interesting conversation that I asked whether we could recap by e-mail and expand on a few of the themes for Gibbsblog. Here's our e-mail exchange …

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