[Free-sklyarov-uk] DRM article

[iriXx]

ok.... as this was released a week ago... and i copylefted it :-)...
here's a copy of my latest article, published in Music-ally 
(www.music-ally.com) - thanks to toby lewis for the opportunity to write 
  an article which is something of a distillation of the some of the 
ideas in my book....
m~


The Case Against DRM: In Whom Do We Trust?
by Miriam Rainsford

To a record company or distributor, the idea of digital rights 
management technology (DRM) is quite seductive, providing almost 
unlimited facets of control over the use of their products. But DRM has 
a darker side, kept hidden from the consumer under the smooth rhetoric 
of the music industry. DRM technology and its accompanying legislation 
in the form of the DMCA in the United States and the EUCD in Europe, has 
chilling implications upon freedom of speech and human rights. Under the 
microscope, DRM reveals its hidden agenda, becoming less about the 
protection of content than it is about the increase of corporate and/or 
governmental control over the consumer.

Firstly, to deconstruct the arguments supporting these increased 
measures of control – which I refer to not as ‘copy protection’ but 
‘copy prevention’, as this describes more accurately their real 
intention. In this debate, negative language is used by content 
distributors such as the RIAA to sway consumers towards the idea that 
they are committing the grave sin of ‘piracy’ - but does online 
copyright infringement really compare with violence and pillaging on the 
high seas?

Reports of ‘losses due to online piracy’ should be taken with a pinch of 
salt – it is not possible to calculate loss by multiplying the number of 
files exchanged by users of peer-to-peer technology (P2P). It has even 
been argued that online music has acted as a form of free advertising, 
bringing the artist’s music to a much wider audience – both Janis Ian 
and Lemonjelly pre-release mp3s of their songs on their websites, 
enticing listeners to buy the CD. Perhaps the reality of the major 
labels’ concerns lie in their fears that P2P distribution could make 
their business obsolete. Companies including Emusic.com and MP3.com, 
however, have seen commercial potential in selling music in mp3 format, 
without the need for any form of copy-prevention, using micropayments or 
subscription services to raise funds which are then distributed as 
royalties to the artist. It seems that the major record labels are 
missing the boat by focusing their energies on the development of DRM 
methods, rather than embracing and exploiting P2P to their benefit.

In the wake of September 11, 2001, internet security has fallen under 
the umbrella of ‘anti-terrorist’ measures. While the possibility of 
cyber-attack is quite realistic in an age where a great deal of the 
world’s business relies on networked communication, much of the 
attention that should have been focused on better defending servers in 
leading financial institutions has instead been directed towards P2P 
users and small-time ‘skript kiddies’ defacing the homepages of 
websites. It is appalling that the lives of innocent people sacrificed 
on 9/11 have been hijacked to support commercial causes – earlier this 
year the RIAA went as far as to attempt to shoehorn legislation into the 
USA Patriot Act which would permit them to crack into and potentially 
damage the PCs of suspected P2P file sharers. Ultimately the RIAA was 
forced to remove its wording, however their proposals live on in the 
form of the Berman-Coble bill.

Development of future DRM technology has become increasingly less 
focused upon encrypting or protecting an individual track or CD, and 
more on surruptitious control of the user’s computer or hardware 
devices. Microsoft’s next edition of Windows, expected to be released in 
the next couple of years, will contain its new ‘Palladium’ technology, 
designed to interact with Intel’s ‘LaGrande’ chip to turn the user’s PC 
into a combined hardware and software copy-prevention black box. The way 
in which Microsoft plans to do this is by implementing control over the 
bootstrap mechanism – the process by which a computer’s BIOS starts up 
the machine -  as well as allocating sections of the hard disk to be 
remote-controlled by Microsoft or by content owners. The home user would 
not be able to access the control measures, and would have the rights of 
use of copyrighted material prescribed to them. This method is referred 
to by the ironic title of ‘trusted computing’ – under the definition of 
‘trust’ employed by the US Department of Defense, a system is ‘trusted’ 
to ensure that the flow of information or even breaches in security may 
leak from Secret to Top Secret levels, but never in the reverse 
direction. It is about dictating control from above.

Cambridge University security expert Ross Anderson has examined 
TCPA/Palladium, and believes that the ability of Palladium to delete 
files remotely leaves the door wide open for censorship, or for 
fraudulent practise, as files could be created to self-destruct on a 
given date, destroying all evidence. Palladium is also blatantly 
anti-competetive, as it restricts compatibility with alternative 
operating systems.

Plans are afoot, however, to enforce this so-called ‘trusted computing’ 
by legislation such as the CBDTPA, a bill proposed in the USA by Rep. 
Hollings which would enforce the compulsory deployment of DRM in 
consumer machines. Under US law it is legal for companies to donate to 
individual Senators, and a quick search for his name on the revelatory 
website OpenSecrets.org shows that Hollings’ list of top twenty 
contributors features major corporate players including AOL/Time/Warner 
and Disney. Microsoft is not listed, although they are the highest 
contributor all-round from the computing industry. So companies can buy 
the legislation which suits them – extremes of control which are then 
embraced by the current administration as ‘anti-terrorist’ measures. 
Fortunately this is not possible here in the UK – but industry still 
wields a powerful influence over the European Parliament. DRM’s 
potential for control of the masses is attractive to government.

The implications for freedom of speech are worrying – this policy seems 
to contradict the European Convention of Human Rights and the United 
States Constitution, under which we enjoy the right to freedom of 
speech, and the right of appeal if this is violated. But few people – 
even within the industry itself - seem to realise the subtle means by 
which our rights are being eroded.

Do we really need to sacrifice freedom of speech for DRM control? The 
RIAA insists that DRM is needed before content can be more widely 
distributed online. But a far simpler solution to the problems presented 
by free copying already exists in the software industry, in the form of 
copyleft licensing. Copyleft is the basis of the GNU Public License, 
under which the GNU/Linux operating system is released, which permits 
the recipient to copy, modify and/or redistribute the work without 
royalty, on the condition that the original licensing terms apply to 
subsequent copies. The beauty of copyleft lies in the fact that it 
protects the creator’s rights from abuse at the same time as granting 
the freedom to copy and share the work. It is a daring step to take – 
many artists are concerned at the possibility of not receiving 
royalties. But companies such as Red Hat and Mandrake have proved that 
copyleft is financially successful in the software industry – and could 
well be a viable solution to the current debate over P2P. We should 
question the waste of valuable time and money on developing DRM 
resources when a solution is already here.


Copyright ©2002 Miriam Rainsford. Permission is granted to anyone to 
make or distribute verbatim copies of this document, in any medium, 
provided that the copyright notice and permission notice are preserved, 
and that the distributor grants the recipient permission for further 
redistribution as permitted by this notice. Modified versions may not be 
made.


Miriam Rainsford is a composer, interactive artist and writer. Her book 
‘Copyleft: Creativity, Technology and Freedom?’ is to be released by GNU 
Press in September 2003. Further details are available from her website 
at http://www.copyleftmedia.org.uk.

References:
http://uk.eurorights.org
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/philosophy.html
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/
http://www.janisian.com/article-internet_debacle.html
http://www.politechbot.com/p-03795.html














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iriXx
www.iriXx.org

copyleft: creativity, technology and freedom?
info at copyleftmedia.org.uk
www.copyleftmedia.org.uk

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