PlaybackTime

Category: Digital Rights, Wrongs

  • Cory Doctorow: "OMG DRM is r33ly bad!"

    Ahhh. Another week, another anti-DRM…well, **screed**…by author, blogger, and Disney fetishist enthusiast [Cory Doctorow][Cory]. In _[Apple’s Copy Protection Isn’t Just Bad for Consumers, it’s Bad for Business][Cory article]_ — more honestly titled _How iTunes Screws the Music Industry and the Public_ on his blog — Cory points his blamethrower at Apple and boldly claims that…

  • First baby-step to MPEG-4 DRM

    ISMA (Internet Streaming Media Alliance) has completed its MPEG-4 Content Protection Specification, and it’s now available for peer review for experts in network security, content protection and cryptography. The encryption method chosen for the new specification is based on the National Institute of Standards & Technology’s (NIST) 128-bit AES encryption standard. Importantly, this method is…

  • "But mom, everybody does it!"

    The Ipsos Group is a marketing research firm. According to a recent survey, 18% of Americans 12 and over — about 40 million people — have downloaded music within the last 30 days. Most of them are males age 24 or younger (downloading activity falls by half in the 24-34 group, and by nearly half…

  • The future of DRM?

    Does this send a chill down your spine, too? [via Epeus’ Epigone] “Warning: Trademark and/or Copyright Infringement” More related Perry Hoberman art (“OK/Cancel” series)

  • Janis Ian: "Don't sever a high-tech lifeline for musicians"

    Recently, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that Verizon must give the RIAA the name of a customer suspected — there is no evidence — of downloading “infringing” files. In an L.A. Times editorial, Janis Ian comments on the RIAA’s actions from the point of view of an average, successful recording…

  • Microsoft retreats on "Palladium" name

    The much-reviled “Palladium” — a reference to items, generally passed from one person to another as gifts, that are believed to protect the the lives of those who carry them — is now the generic-sounding and much-reviled “next-generation secure computing base”. Since Microsoft is apparently going the security-through-obscurity route even with the name, I hereby…

  • ISMA sets schedule to finalize MPEG-4 DRM spec

    This week, ISMA (Internet Streaming Media Alliance) shared their roadmap for the digital rights management technical specification they’ve been working on for MPEG-4. It uses MPEG-4’s IPMP (Intellectual Property Management Protection) standard, and will work for both realtime and progressive (a.k.a. downloaded, a.k.a. shared) streaming content. They intend to make it available for review at…

  • Hilary Rosen's iPod

    Wired Magazine is running a human interest story on Hiliary Rosen in their February issue. For the rest of this year, she’ll be doing everything she can to soften the militant image she’s acquired during her grossly-misguided leadership of the RIAA, and this article is the start of that. In the article, she’s the only…

  • The opening of the XBox

    It’s no secret that, unlike other gaming consoles, the XBox is basically a PC that Microsoft loses money on with every sale (analysts estimate $125 per unit). Since its introduction, there’s been tension between Microsoft (who naturally wants to keep the XBox a closed platform) and folks who see the XBox’s potential as a great…

  • Hilary Rosen resigning from RIAA

    Hilary Rosen, who’s been running the RIAA in full defensive paranoid mode since 1988, is finally resigning. Unfortunately, she’s not doing so until end of the year. During my tenure here, the recording industry has undergone dramatic challenges and it is well positioned for future success. I have been extremely proud to be a part…