DRM and Joe Sixpack

Not all drm will be cracked. Alot will remain uncracked due to apathy.

For example, I bought a Terminator 2 Extreme Edition DVD solely for the purpose of watching the hi-definition wmv on the 2nd disc. I already owned the movie on DVD. This cost me over $20.

When I finally get a dvd rom for my computer, I find I can't watch it without installing their proprietary player which only works on Windows XP. If I feed the wmv to another program, it says it is encrypted.

I don't think anyone has cracked this. The proprietary player fetches licenses from the internet, and of course it has to know how to decrypt the movie (which is likely nontrivial).

I'd ask you rhetorically to link me to something that'll let me watch the movie I paid $20 for as a good consumer, but I don't think it exists and it'd be a dmca violation if you did.

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@ XWRED1

If the sale conditions (of the dvd producer) state that it will only be able to play their dvd on their software, and if that information is freely available to anyone who is going to buy it, then it is legit. As a customer you then agree with it, so there is no legal right to complain.

It isnt legal right hes on about - he is simply saying why should DRM mean I cant use the product in a way that would like to as a normal law abiding consumer. ie: why should decrypting that WMV be illegal if all he wishes to do is watch it as someone else would (on Windows XP).

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Not all drm will be cracked. Alot will remain uncracked due to apathy.

For example, I bought a Terminator 2 Extreme Edition DVD solely for the purpose of watching the hi-definition wmv on the 2nd disc. I already owned the movie on DVD. This cost me over $20.

When I finally get a dvd rom for my computer, I find I can't watch it without installing their proprietary player which only works on Windows XP. If I feed the wmv to another program, it says it is encrypted.

I don't think anyone has cracked this. The proprietary player fetches licenses from the internet, and of course it has to know how to decrypt the movie (which is likely nontrivial).

I'd ask you rhetorically to link me to something that'll let me watch the movie I paid $20 for as a good consumer, but I don't think it exists and it'd be a dmca violation if you did.

I understand your disdain, but that WMV has to be encrypted. If it wasn't then it would have found it's way to P2P networks like Kazaa - and the studio would have done all the legwork for this to happen. Some happy pirate would only have needed to copy the WMV from the disc to their shared folder. That's way too easy.

However I do think you have a valid complaint to pursue - specifically that the studio's custom WMV player is only available for windows XP. That's poor judgement on their part to assume everyone who buys the DVD and wants to enjoy the WMV has XP. In your case you made the purchase solely for this feature so I can really sympathize. My advice is fire off an email saying you want a player for your specific OS or a refund.

Now on to the larger point - that not all drm will be cracked. Of course there will be some obscure and out of the mainstream drm solutions that nobody will bother to crack. This is the type you used in the example. However, anything mainstream can and will be hacked. There has yet to be a widely distributed drm implementation that hasn't been defeated.

Macrovision, satellite tv subscriptions, cable tv encryption, DVD region codes, DVD copy protection (CSS I think it's called) and so on and so on. All have fallen by the wayside. In the gaming world there are devices for the PS1 and PS2 which defeat copy protection, and in the PC world after every generation of SafeDisk is released an updated burning program comes out with a way around it.

The problem content creators face is cost. While they have a strong desire to protect their work, they also realize that consumers will only pay so much for it. If every DVD cost about $90 for example because the protection was top notch do you think Hollywood would sell many? I think not. At $9 it's a whole nother story.

In order for a drm solution to be basically hacker proof it would have to be very, very complex and the way to accomplish that is to make the required expenditure to crack it beyond the means of hackers. However, it would logically follow that such a drm solution would have a high fixed cost associated with it which would be reflected in a 'player' with a grossly bloated price and increased prices for the content as well.

The bottom line is that content providers have to settle for some drm system that does the best possible job at a relatively low cost.... which leaves it prone to the will of hackers.

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The scenario that XWRed1 is talking about is typical bass-ackwards law-making. IMHO sharing copyrighted material on the internet is wrong, there is no question about that. But a law should not inconvenience a law-abiding citizen it should only punish a criminal or it is a bad law.

You may need to consider this more deeply.

Which law is in place that does not hamper the freedoms of law abiding citizens? I cannot think of one.

Every law takes away some liberties in a way, to protect an entities rights in some way.

Speed limits stop you from driving as fast as you like to, and why should you not be able to drive your $25,000 vehicle as fast as you like? Because this injunction against your personal liberty is necessary to ensure that you do not drive your vehicle into a slow moving station wagon and take out a whole family.

In a similar way, DRM laws will inhibit the appropriate use by rightful owners of the data/software it protects, and it is not even a base intention of DRM to eliminate this. I'm certain DRM is intended to minimize it, but the implementers are fully aware that at the same time as they are making things more difficult for pirates, they are inconveniencing or possibly even completely cutting out portions of their market. Unfortunately, I think it is fairly clear in my research, that the tools are readily available to enable pirating of mainstream media, and even much that is obscure, with little or no effort and knowledge required.

It simply makes me wonder when the decision makers will realize that their approach is wholly inadequate. The software protection they incorporate is useless, and more importantly, not free to develop. It is a shame that people who honor the laws, and respect fair use, are caught picking up part of the tab - they experience sanctions against their appropriate use still, but have no protection from others ripping and pirating at will.

Anyways, my point was that with every law or form of protection, something is taken away from one entity, ideally, in order to provide a more positive factor for another entity.

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