Re: [tlug] Stop the FUD! here are some facts on the DMCA

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

>>>>> "Josh" == Josh Glover <jmglov@example.com> writes:

    Josh> I just want an implementation of DRM that will let me
    Josh> accomplish my fairly reasonable (I think) goal of playing
    Josh> media that I have purchased wherever I want to play it.

But you're misunderstanding the relation of DRM to "media".  Consider
the general notion of medium implemented by MIME.  Effectively what
DRM is, is (eg, for music) MIME type audio/drm-$KEY.  Every key
creates a new medium.

Now, basically what you're asking for is a site license (where "site"
== "the person of Josh Glover").  Expensive!

In fact, the iPod is a pretty close approximation to what you say you
want.  I don't own one, so I don't actually know, but can't you pipe
the output from the iPod through any sound system, and use it as a
portable mass storage system for your various iTunes players?  Think
of the iPod as a universal dongle for media.  Since effective DRM must
be hardware-based[1], *you have to carry a dongle*.  This is why
keitai + iPod devices are the coming thing: they reduce the number of
dongles by one for the great mass of consumers.  (At least if I were
Apple and Nokia, that's the way I would be thinking.  Personally I
find it scary---that's a lot of eggs to put in one basket.  Especially
in this anti-consumer country.)

There's nothing unreasonable about wanting a "site license".  But I
think you're going to *want* to adjust your thinking about (a) what
your needs really are and (b) how much you're willing to pay for their
satisfaction.  And (c) how to short-circuit the need for good content
to go through the media marketing mill, which is the real problem.


Footnotes: 
[1]  You could imagine a system where you register your personal PGP
key with the music vendor, but they're not going to like that very
much---too easy to generate a new one and share.  Anyway, *that*
requires one or more dongles; nobody I know carries their keys in
their head.  You could also imagine it being your fingerprint or
retinaprint, but fingerprints at least should be easily fakeable, and
I bet retinaprints aren't terribly far behind.

-- 
School of Systems and Information Engineering http://turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp
University of Tsukuba                    Tennodai 1-1-1 Tsukuba 305-8573 JAPAN
               Ask not how you can "do" free software business;
              ask what your business can "do for" free software.