11-16-2012, 01:40 PM | #361 | |
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Here is a situation that happened at my school. Forget a flash drive at the school computer lab, next kid along grabs it and uploads everything. You make a report, drive gets turned in later, and you get it back. You're on the hook for everything in that scenario. School network so can't exactly track who uploaded it. Another instance, i had a flash drive at work, in my work area. Someone snagged it without asking because they needed to sneaker net a few files. Drive turns up later that day, but with files that weren't mine. I didn't even notice the drive missing till a coworker found it laid by one of the communal work spaces. In that instance i would get in trouble if my files were shared, and i would seem to be responsible for the other files because they're on my drive. Plus some police officers balk at doing reports on lost items. Hell, i personally have had an instance where a person broke into my house and steal my dad's medicine from when he was dying of cancer. The cops refused to do a police report. If they won't on a B&E, do you think they will if you forget a flash drive somewhere? There are a bunch of problems with this. |
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11-16-2012, 02:09 PM | #362 | |
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It's different if one starts giving away copies of her/his books to friends of friends of friends, but I don't do that and my proposed "social DRM" scheme actively pushes against this. |
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11-16-2012, 02:17 PM | #363 | |
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11-16-2012, 03:34 PM | #364 | ||
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As usual, a most detailed and clear criticism :-)
Here are my point-by-point replies. Quote:
With current DRM systems, every file that gets shared can be shared by everyone with everyone else. There's no mechanism pushing someone who is willing to share to refrain from giving a copy of her/his files to anyone who asks. And there's no mechanism pushing people who receive a file from the original buyer towards avoiding to share it with other people, who will share it with other people... ad infinitum. With my system, sharing generates risks for the original buyer. So the buyer will be much more picky in choosing who to share with. And the chosen people will be those that care for the buyer most: i.e., exactly the people that will avoid performing further sharing of their own for fear of damaging their friend/spouse/relative. So the first situation (current DRM) is one of exponential growth of the diffusion of a file: every person who gets a file can become a new center of diffusion. There's no damping mechanism at all, because (promised) punishment is as much hyper-terrible as hyper-unlikely. The second situation (my proposal for social DRM) is one where a strong mechanism for damping is in place. Social links between people tend to keep the file within a finite circle of people comprising the original buyer and his most close acquaintances. There's no exponential spread, only local "sharing groups", each having a media buyer at their center and an outer layer of his closest acquaintances around her/him. Passing of files from one group to the other tends to not occur, even when the same person belongs to different groups. In fact, passing files is mostly done by buyers, and by definition different "sharing groups" have different buyers as their centers. (Of course the geography of "sharing groups" is dynamic. It changes for each specific file and evolves over time, but the key property of such groups -resistance to exchange of files between different groups- is always retained.) Quote:
My main "selling point" is that my social DRM system removes the absurd limitations imposed to media buyers by current DRM systems, legalizes a set of "sharing practices" (such as letting your spouse or kids or closest friends read your books) that have a key impact on people's cultural lives, and empowers media buyers by giving them the possibility of choosing what to do with their media (such as backing up). Getting this result without any increase in piracy would already be a great result in my view. If, as a side effect, piracy is reduced, I think that publishers should be happy as well. Of course, my reasoning may be flawed: this is why I really appreciate the thinking effort that you and the other posters of this thread are putting into helping me finding flaws. That's my point too! Maybe these people don't care about the author (or the publisher or...), but the surely care about themselves. With my system, if you buy media and share them without really thinking about what you are doing, you will almost certainly be damaged personally by this by getting fined. My social DRM turns the problem of preventing "piracy" into a personal problem of the buyer, so even the most selfish buyers will care about what happens to their files. The good thing is that if you think before you share, you don't actually risk anything and, in exchange for your increased responsibility, you get the freedom to actually own your media, i.e. to do with them what YOU want and not what the publisher wants. You are in charge: exactly the opposite of what happens with current DRM systems. Last edited by BoldlyDubious; 11-16-2012 at 03:42 PM. |
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11-16-2012, 04:09 PM | #365 |
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Hi Hellmark. Welcome on board.
The points you make are reasonable, but have already been addressed in the preceding posts or are (the way I see things) non-issues. I'll try to explain... after all this thread is clearly on the tl;dr side! :-) About the "they copied the contents of my pendrive" scenario: this is the non-issue. In my proposal, you get freedom in exchange for responsibility. Freedom to own your files and do whatever you want with them, in exchange for the responsibility of being careful about who gets them. So if you don't trust the people around you (other students, coworkers, ...) you should simply not leave your media files around, or encrypt/password protect them. I introduced the "report theft to police" clause to cover the cases when you take all the reasonable precautions, but your files get in the wrong hands all the same. Say, because someone stole a piece of hardware of yours. If something like that occurs, you usually notice it and can immediately notify the police. if the "theft" is actually an unauthorized access to your PC, noticing is not so easy. So you can either (i) be very careful about security administration or (ii) avoid risks by keeping your media files password-protected, and possibly not physically on the PC (maybe in some cloud repository). The "digital part" of our lives gains increasing weight, and everyone of us has sensible data (personal or associated to other persons) on her/his PC: so security is an issue even if you don't have any media files, and a solution has to be found. Next issue. You seem to think that (in my proposal) reporting a theft of media files to the police has the function of having them try to get your things back. It's not like that. The function of such a report (that can take the form of an email sent to an automatic logging system, for instance) is that of getting you off the hook if some of your files (that you bought before the time of your report) ever appear online somewhere. (Of course if you file a report a week, someone could become suspicious...) |
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11-16-2012, 05:01 PM | #366 | |
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...more to the point: yes, you are right... but it doesn't matter. Let me explain. The fact that you can copy a digital file and have two identical things instead of the single one you started with is exactly the reason why current DRM systems don't work. With digital media, poofing is possible. Current DRM is based on the idea of making poofing difficult. However this kind of limiting mechanism works only if it makes poofing utterly impossible. In practice eluding DRM is feasible, so some poofing occurs. Then, some of the new media poofed into existence will be used to poof other copies, and so on and so on. Given that no effect limiting the number of copies that get poofed (the thing that I called "damping mechanism") is in place, the overall number of copies that get spread around tends to be, on the long run, very large. This is an inherently explosive system, and any reduction in the number of "first-generation" copies will only slow down the explosion a bit, not prevent it. My proposal changes this by making the system strongly damped. The owner of a file can poof how many copies she/he wants, to give them to people. However, the number of people who get copies is limited by the fact that the file owner only gives copies to people that she/he can be sure will not give the file to others, because otherwise she/he will risk getting fined. The file owner, in other terms, will give the file only to people who care about her/him enough to avoid further sharing. And such people, precisely because they care, will really avoid sharing the file they received with other people. So the file will not spread. However, black sheep and social misunderstanding exist. What happens (with my "social DRM") if Brad gets a copy of file X from Anne, the owner, but "cheats" and gives a copy to Charlie even if Anne doesn't want that? Does the system explode into exponential poofing of new files? I think not. Maybe Charlie cares about Anne, so will not share X further because that would risk damaging her. But even if Charlie doesn't care at all about Anne, there's another reason for Charlie not to share the file. In fact Charlie probably cares about Brad. We know that Brad feels so close to Charlie to disobey his friend Anne and risk damaging her just to give Charlie a copy of X. So it's likely that Charlie is somewhat close to Brad, in turn. Therefore when Brad says to Charlie "Please, don't share X with anyone else. I had to disobey Ann to give it to you. If you share X, it may happen some day that Ann gets fined, and I don't want her to be damaged. Moreover, if that happens Ann may discover that I cheated on her by giving you a copy of X, and I don't want that to happen as well. So please don't share the file!", Charlie will experience a strong social pressure to avoid sharing the file. At every passage of the file from a person to another one, a strong local pressure exists which tends to stop further sharing. Such pressure does NOT decrease as we go farther from the original buyer of the file, because is due to the local social ties linking the person who gives the file and the person who gets it. If after all Charlie disobeys to Brad and gives the file to Donna, Donna will be worried about letting down Charlie just as much (on average) as Charlie was worried about letting down Brad. All in all, in my social DRM system distributed social links between people act as an effective damping mechanism that tends to stop the diffusion of files at every passage, and the number of copies does not explode. I hope to have made myself clear! Last edited by BoldlyDubious; 11-16-2012 at 05:25 PM. |
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11-16-2012, 06:53 PM | #367 | |
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You are putting all the responsibility for safeguarding the product on the people who bought and paid for it; you're turning them into potential criminals when they are the victims. And yet you keep pooh-poohing this as a "non-issue." |
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11-16-2012, 09:34 PM | #368 |
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I think the horror scenarios painted by some every time when "watermarking" is being mentioned are way overblown. After all, iTunes has watermarked all their music files for many years and nobody has even been accused, much less convicted, of distributing one of their files. I don't agree with BoldlyDubious that an automatic conviction should follow if your file shows up on torrents, but I do believe that it is a good thing to have digital trail that the copyright owners or the police can follow and investigate. It will definitely make people act more responsibly.
Last edited by HansTWN; 11-16-2012 at 09:37 PM. |
11-17-2012, 02:05 AM | #369 | |
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With my proposed social DRM, when you buy a file you own it, in the sense that you get also the freedom to do whatever you want with it. Share it, backup it, copy it... whatever. However, you are now in the position of making damage to the publisher and the author with your actions, and you have a responsibility towards your actions. If you act carelessly and illegal distribution occurs, it's fair that you get a share of the punishment. You see, you never got freedom actually for free. Currently media vendors are treating their customers as small children. They are (with license-based DRM) physically preventing us from doing the things that the vendors don't want us to do (such as having a friend read a book of yours). You don't get a choice: with DRM in place, you cannot do these things. Just like when you keep a child in a crib... except that in that case you do that because you care about the child's safety, not yours. To get your freedom back, today you have to strip the DRM, thus doing something that at the very least violates the contract between you and the vendor, and in some places can get you in trouble with the law. With my proposal, you get your freedom back. But with freedom comes the responsibility to think about what you do with it. Instead of acting carelessly and unthinkingly like a small child, you are now an adult and have to take decisions. As in all other aspects of life, if you act without thinking you risk to damage other people, but also risk to get damaged yourself. The current situation is similar to this one. My neighbor Joe has a lawnmower. It's a good one, and there are people around that would be glad to steal it. I need to mow my lawn, so I go to Joe and ask for the use of his lawnmower. He says: ok, but I am attaching this heavy chain to it that links it to the wall of my house. You can use it, but of course you can't go around trees (the chain would jam) and you can't mow your back yard (the chain is too short). Finally, I don't want my lawnmower to be outside at night, so every night you have to bring it back in my own garage and then take it out again in the morning. My proposal is like this, instead. My neighbor Joe has a lawnmower. It's a good one, and there are people around that would be glad to steal it. I need to mow my lawn, so I go to Joe and ask for the use of his lawnmower. He says: ok, here it is. You can take it for as long as you need, and use it as you think appropriate. However, please be careful: it's a costly device and it would be bad if it got stolen. Bye! |
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11-17-2012, 09:20 AM | #370 | |||
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The only benefit of your proposal to me as a customer is illusive. I would "own" the e-book, but of course I couldn't truly do any with it, for fear of someone else's future behavior boomeranging back to me. Quote:
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11-17-2012, 10:36 AM | #371 |
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get a Kobo - you can put any epub book on yourself. Or get an ipod touch or iphone - you can also download kobo, kindle or a number of other readers on which you can put your own non-drm books.
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11-17-2012, 11:17 AM | #372 | ||||
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I don't have much time this morning, but I'll write a few notes before I dive into my weekend.
"Casual sharing" is a term used to differentiate friend-to-friend or household sharing from large scale or organized distribution. It does not necessarily imply either method or attitude. Quote:
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a) reduce piracy, or b) increase sales. Quote:
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11-17-2012, 12:03 PM | #373 | |||
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When a buyer gets fined for illegal distribution at time Y, she/he cannot be fined again for illegal distribution of files she/he bought before time Y. So you are not marked at all. You get one single fine, and that's it. Finished :-)Quote:
This is not silly at all. Quote:
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11-17-2012, 12:05 PM | #374 | ||||
Wizard
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It isn't exactly a non-issue if it opens you to potentially millions of dollars in fines, and fees for copyright offenses. And in legal situations, it is holes like these that get exploited, or get the law ultimately thrown out. Quote:
Someone from one of my college classes, split from her boyfriend. He snuck in to her dorm, and copied pictures of her, of a sensitive nature from her computer. He knew here well enough he was able to guess her password, so no hacking or anything. He left, and she was none the wiser, till she found out the files were uploaded to the internet. Now, she knew it who it was that did it, but had no proof of it. In one of your clauses, you stipulate that the person is no longer responsible if they can identify the party that did it and they admit it. Problem is, you have the burden of proof. In this situation if she just makes the claim that he did it, without any proof, all he has to do is deny it, and she's fully on the hook. In the actual case of events, he denied it when asked by authorities. When the cops or school officials weren't around, he joked about it, but that couldn't ever be admitted in court, due to being hearsay, and as in many areas of the US, it could not be recorded without all parties being notified (at which point, he wouldn't freely admit his duplicity). Also this would be another case of where the involved parties were not aware of the files being distributed until after the fact. Plus the whole admitting to it when questioned about someone's accusation also could get things thrown out on the basis of not being constitutional, as it would only work if someone willingly suspended their 5th amendment right of protection against self incrimination. He wasn't supposed to be in her dorm room, let alone her dorm building (my school has non coed dorms), so just his getting to where the files were was in violation of several rules or regulations, and reason enough to not admit it. Quote:
Also, your suggestion on using cloud based storage, is laughable, as that is just as vulnerable. Look at how many different online services have been hacked and had their customer's information stolen? I am particular about which companies I deal with out of some security paranoia, and I've still had it happen several times in the last couple years. Also, based on current US case law, if you use cloud storage, you relinquish your rights of ownership to the files when storing them with a third party. Should anything happen to the host, you're screwed. You don't get access to your files, but according to your scheme, you're still obligated as you're the registered original purchaser of the content. Look at Megaupload. There were millions of users, and when the site was taken down because of some of their users were using it to share copyrighted files, everyone lost everything. There are a few companies suing because they are being denied access to the files they created. Their court cases have no been fairing well, and the government has been continually denying them access. And that isn't even one of the parts of that case that is related to the legally dubious actions of the US government (such as how Megaupload was a non US entity, that complied with DMCA take down requests, but still were taken down by the US, with evidence being illegally taken out of the country that it was originally in by the US government, following illegal surveillance operations by the US and New Zealand authorities, and despite Megaupload complying with the laws giving safe harbor protection to service providers in the even that their users do something illegal). And all this isn't even taking into account the fringe cases, such as people who have to deal with files between multiple countries. Some countries, encryption is not legal, and it is illegal to have encryption or decryption tools. It hasn't been that long since France has relaxed its laws regarding cryptography. Or even the US, which it wasn't legal for encryption tools or information about cryptography to be "exported" out of the country. In China, you currently have to apply for and be approved for licenses to be able to use Encryption. China is a big enough country, where it isn't essentially unheard of for someone to have relations with people in that country, and you are obligated to follow the rules of both countries. So you're right, security is an issue, but you cannot just allow things to wait till a solution is found, because of the legal implications for the meanwhile. Not only that, but there has never been a totally fool proof security system. There are ways around everything. Quote:
Basically, there seems to be a lot of glaring legal issues with your plan as it stands. It requires everyone doing exactly what is expected of them, and being totally honest the entire time. |
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11-17-2012, 12:13 PM | #375 | |
Wizard
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Actually, that's the takeaway from your particular wording of things. You have to be very careful about your wording, because while you obviously didn't intend that meaning, a good lawyer can take and twist things around, and totally negate your intent. Plus once something gets used a particular way in court, it becomes court law, and gets used as a means to further use the same method in later court cases of a similar nature. |
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