TM: An alternative to DRM? Let's discuss.

[Olympus]

have a nice reading at today's article at http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...ne-piracy.html

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

This is like the speeding camera system: Supposedly, if you were detected by the system as transmitting or receiving illicit goods, that detection is the accusation of guilt, like the picture of you and your car speeding through the detection zone. You can either accept it, and the punishment, or demonstrate that you did nothing wrong (by producing the legally purchased file). You are still innocent until proven guilty... but if you cannot produce counter-evidence to refute their evidence, you will be found guilty.

This is basically the method by which the RIAA has been pursuing file-sharers, so there is already a precedent in-place.

But, is having a file on your computer "proof" that you stole it. Lets say for example I rip my collection of 2000 music CDs. I am a great backup guy, and use Amazon S3 AND Mozy to backup my PC. Then, there is a fire in my house and my CD collection is destroyed. I don't have the original CD's nor did I save reciepts for each and every one. Am I now a pirate?

As a US citizen I have a right to privacy.. which is why I think the so called "patriot" act is unconstituional and should be abolished. Just because I want privacy doesn't mean I have something to hide or I am doing something illegally.

BOb

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

But, is having a file on your computer "proof" that you stole it. Lets say for example I rip my collection of 2000 music CDs. I am a great backup guy, and use Amazon S3 AND Mozy to backup my PC. Then, there is a fire in my house and my CD collection is destroyed. I don't have the original CD's nor did I save reciepts for each and every one. Am I now a pirate?

Interestingly enough, you just provided one of the best reasons in support of DRM: A digital file with a digital marker that indicated its origin or legality (which could include the indication that a file was burned from a legally-purchased CD, or purchased from an upstanding vendor) could absolve you of any guilt.

Sans DRM, theoretically, the law would be within its power to ask you to produce receipts for everything. In reality, it's rarely that simple or literal with small items like that. (For a car? Sure. CDs? Naw.) If you provided proof that your property was destroyed in a fire, like insurance records, most courts would take that into account. Failing that, you could also offer to take a lie detector test to back up your claim.

This is also a good reason to inventory your property in case of loss, BTW. You'll not only be able to bet insurance reimbursements, but you'll have a record of what you own to take to court.

And for the record: No, you wouldn't be a pirate; you'd be an unfortunate who'd better be able to cover his a$$ in court.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by Olympus

have a nice reading at today's article at http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...ne-piracy.html

FYI: Liviu also found two articles related to Tracy Chevalier's comments.

[Darqref]

Originally Posted by Lucien21

Or a pirated work generating more piracy to download her other books.

Well, but they weren't. The *other* books sold were royalties for PRINTED books sold. The free ebook generated sales of PRINT books, even if they might also have been available on the darknet.

[Darqref]

Originally Posted by Taylor514ce

I think IP rights ought to be controlled at the most basic level: in the minds of the consumer. After all, if I pay an employee to develop a skill, or to work with some of my data, then they are violating my IP rights if they take that skill or knowledge to another employer. What we need is a way to apply DRM down to the core cellular level, perhaps with some kick-ass Sumerian word virus. That would make an awesome book.

Yeah, real scary book. John Barnes, "Candle". and you get competing virii in your brain. But I don't want One True to run on my brain.

[Taylor514ce]

My brain is actually a shareware program, I think. There was a core kernel at birth. I've added to it quite a bit, but then everyone around me, every thing they say and do, alters my programming a bit. Like most shareware, there is a considerable degree of unnecessary, redundant, and convoluted code. However, trying to fix it would most likely cause more harm than good. The mind is what the brain does.

[spooky69]

Piracy is a very complex issue.

[Madam Broshkina]

I wonder if people would buy a book that was sold on a SD card that would could be read by any of the current and future readers. The file would have to be read only and no way it could be copied. When your done with the book you could lend the card to a friend or possibly sell it like you would sell one of your printed books. The cost would be more due to packaging and manufacturing costs but you would own something physical. I myself have no real problem with DRM but by reading this site apparently some people do.

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by Madam Broshkina

I wonder if people would buy a book that was sold on a SD card that would could be read by any of the current and future readers. The file would have to be read only and no way it could be copied. When your done with the book you could lend the card to a friend or possibly sell it like you would sell one of your printed books. The cost would be more due to packaging and manufacturing costs but you would own something physical. I myself have no real problem with DRM but by reading this site apparently some people do.

i think this was discussed previously, but i can't remember where. i think there are good points and bad points to this solution. the good points are the ones you mentioned, and all of them seem very attractive to me.

however, one bad point is (in my mind, anyway), one book per card means instead of stocking individual paper books, then i must stock individual sd card books. they are smaller, but i'm sure that an external hard drive is much smaller still than the equivalent number of books on sd cards. one of the great things about ebooks, for me, is they take up almost *no room* ! my appartment is really small and already crammed with paper books (whose number i am slowly reducing, even if i don't intend to get rid of *all* of them). i don't want more things to stock. (i'm even starting to think about de-materialising my cds next ; they take up a lot of space as well...)

however, that being said, it could be a good solution for *some* books, or in particular cases.

[NatCh]

It has gone 'round the post a time or two. I didn't think you'd been around long enough to remember it, though, zelda_pinwheel!

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by NatCh

It has gone 'round the post a time or two. I didn't think you'd been around long enough to remember it, though, zelda_pinwheel!

hm, but i read a lot...

[JeffElkins]

Originally Posted by spooky69

Piracy is a very complex issue.

Not least of which is the term "piracy." Violation of copyright is still (thank God) a civil violation. Real piracy still exists and is endemic in places like the South China Sea, and off the coast of Somalia. Calling a copyright violation "theft" or "piracy" devalues real crimes.

Finally, the music industry is realizing that DRM is useless and alienates customers. Will the movie and book publishers be far behind?

[Krystian Galaj]

Originally Posted by Madam Broshkina

I wonder if people would buy a book that was sold on a SD card that would could be read by any of the current and future readers. The file would have to be read only and no way it could be copied.

If it can be read then it can be copied - it's just a matter of fooling the card into thinking it's giving away the data to display to read, and storing the data. However well the data on the card is protected, at some point it will have to be unpacked into text - that's where it's usually relatively easy to catch it. Even if only with digital camera and OCR program.

[Ramen]

Note: Sorry for the extremely late reply. I tried staying up-to-date in the beginning of the week but I simply had too much to do.

I've read the statements of the Pirate Party, for example. They see Big Brother in every stop sign. They live in the mistaken fantasy that somewhere, someone in a little room with a camera is watching each and every one of them, writing down their every move, and waiting for the moment when they can push their little button, and their subject will be dragged off to the stockade for the inevitable decade of torture before finally being shot as a traitor for throwing gum on the sidewalk. And they are based in Sweden, likely one of the most liberal and free of countries on the planet! Those guys need to find themselves a little island to play Lord of the Flies on, and give the rest of us a break.

This is one of the fundamental disputes between the two "crowds", so I need to pick it up again, sorry.

Unfortunately, your core assumption is no longer true: Someone is monitoring you specifically and it is difficult/prohibitively expensive.
Probably just a generation ago, surveillance was hard/expensive enough to need specific reasons to be worthwhile. With the advances in computing and storage technology, this is no longer true. It is no longer infeasible to simply collect just about any information you can get your hands on and perform data-mining on it when you need info. Completely automated. Especially on the Internet, as everything is already digital.

Just this week, ISPs in the UK and the US admitted to spying on their customers for advertising reasons. In the US, roughly 100k customers are affected, in the UK (BT) some 10k's. The method used is dubbed "deep-packet inspection" which means the ISPs do not just look at the packet header but scan the entire contents of all packets you send.
This means:

• All websites you visit are known to your ISP, including usage patterns
• Related to the above, all content you watch is known to your ISP
• All emails/webmails/chats are known to your ISP, unless you use encryption and the ISP isn't hacking that connection (where possible)
• All forum posts are known to your ISP
• Your ISP may inject data into your connection (adverts in this case, but trojans is possible as well and has been publicized before)
• ...

All this they did for advertising, meaning for profit. You could pair this with credit-card history from your bank, customer cards for your mall, mobile usages from your mobile phone company and get an extremely accurate description of your life over the past months or years, depending on the storage times. For businesses this may be illegal (even in the US?) but the government has less restrictions. Not to mention the RFID tags in all your stuff. Again, this is what surveillance state means.

An other prime example is Google; they store all search queries for a number of years. They have superposed a search structure over the/large parts of the internet. Surveillance information is much more focused and coherent.

I'm not paranoid but I did study computer science and my minor just happens to be information security and privacy.

Edit: \o/ no more mod checking!