Macrovision Responds to Steve Jobs on DRM

An anonymous reader writes "Macrovision Corporation, best known for its long history of DRM implementations, (everything from VCRs to software copy protection), has responded to Steve Jobs open letter regarding DRM. With ample experience and despite the obvious vested interests, it's great to hear their point of view. In the letter they acknowledge the 'difficult challenges' of implementing DRM that is truly 'interoperable and open'. At the same time they also feel that DRM 'will increase electronic distribution', if implemented properly, because 'DRM increases not decreases consumer value', such as by enabling people to rent content at a lower price than ownership, and lowering risks for content producers. While I'm impressed they responded, I can't say I'm impressed by lofty goals that might not be reached for years. The reality is, current DRM implementations often leave users with the bad end of the deal. What do you think? Should people give DRM manufacturers more time to overcome the challenges and get it right?"

DRM adds customer value ???

I would disagree that buying music that is flawed EG i can't use it with devices i desire, vs buying in DRM free for increases consumer value!!

But what do I know I am just a consumer ;) ...

Re:DRM adds customer value ???

As far as I am concerned there is no value in a product you buy and can't use as you see fit. The one thing that doesn't want to be admitted here is that it isn't what a company sets the price and value at that has meaning. It what the customer is willing to pay for it that sets the value. You can make all the thousand dollar matches you want, if your customers won't buy them then you go broke waiting for the sale.

While the example may be a good bit overextended, it makes the point no less applicable. Selling a nonphysical product at the price of a physical one and then limiting what can be done with it lowers the value that is already seen as near nil by the majority of the public.

Parasites versus pirates

It seems to me that the DRM people are basically parasites. They do not create the original source material, they would have no function if the source material did not exist. Now I admit that if original works that are expensive to produce (movies) were heavily pirated, then no one could afford to make them and they would generally not come into being. (Although machinima is pointing to the future when maybe you won't need to spend $50 million to produce a movie, with a $10 million paycheck for some actor.) But I think that neither parasites nor pirates have an honorable role in society. Maybe we need new models for the arts that make both irrelevant. Look at the great animation that came from projects sponsored by the National Film Board of Canada. Then look at the latest Hollywood stinkbomb produced by the existing bloated system. Somewhere there's something wrong.

And on a side note, if we have a system where DRM is needed to protect Kevin Federline or Britney, it begs the question of why lock up turds in a vault anyway.

renting content

DRM increases not decreases consumer value', such as by enabling people to rent content at a lower price than ownership

Well, if the consumer recognizes that as a value at all. So far the trend (at least in DRM systems used in internet distribution) has been clearly indicating that people generally don't want to rent their content.

The media companies certainly want this however, as it gives them more opportunities to get the consumer to pay for the same content multiple times, maybe in different formats or for different devices or uses.

Re:renting content

There's a tiny store near us called 'blockbuster', I wonder if it will catch on?

Re:renting content

I've got a pretty nice library near me. Selection is not as nice as Blockbuster, but the prices are somewhat better.

Give to your local library. Either media (originals, of course) or via donations. Your entire community will benefit.

Re:renting content

The wanker-in-chief Fred Amoroso says:

Quite simply, if the owners of high-value video entertainment are asked to enter, or stay in a digital world that is free of DRM, without protection for their content, then there will be no reason for them to enter, or to stay if they've already entered. The risk will be too great.

Quite simply, this is bullshit. Some of the greatest (sorry, "High value") music and film was produced in an era when there was no DRM. The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Charlie Chaplin, B.B King, Billie Holiday, Miles Davis, Martin Scorcese, Stanley Kubrick, even Steven Spielberg created their work in a pre-DRM era and somehow managed to sell their work.

Are we really to believe that people such as these would not pursue their art if there were not DRM? It doesn't even make sense from a hardcore businessperson's point-of-view. If someone stamps their feet and says "Fine, I'm not going to make my brilliant movie because I cannot use DRM," then there is no loss. Someone else with more sense will simply step up to the plate and make their movie instead, and profit from it. To think that one cannot make money on media without DRM is ridiculous. History has shown this. If there is money to made, somebody will do it.

Some will argue that less profit would be made without DRM due to piracy. Even if this were true, less profit does not equal no profit. But various studies have shown that piracy does not affect sales much, and nobody has ever been able to demonstrate that DRM prevents piracy. In fact, it is more likely that DRM reduces profit, because companies have to pay a "DRM tax" to the ridiculolus companies who make crappy DRM, like Macrovision. It's basically an extra cost that doesn't even prevent piracy.

We offer to assist Apple in the issues and problems with DRM that you state in your letter. Should you desire, we would also assume responsibility for FairPlay as a part of our evolving DRM offering and enable it to interoperate across other DRMs, thus increasing consumer choice and driving commonality across devices.

Macrovision even think they can do a better job than Apple, and offered to "take responsibility" for Fairplay. This is hilarious. They are obviously jealous of Apple's success, and would love to be given access to Apple's products. Does anyone think that Macrovision could do a better job? Apple is one of the top software producers in the world. Macrovision is a bunch of hacks, a one-trick pony who has made a living from a stupid analog video hack. I doubt they are even competent to write software. We've all seen the kind of shit that bottom-feeding companies like this produce, and it ain't pretty. (think Sony rootkits)

Re:renting content

Apple is one of the top software producers in the world. Macrovision is a bunch of hacks, a one-trick pony who has made a living from a stupid analog video hack. I doubt they are even competent to write software

ever heard of safedisc? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SafeDisc [wikipedia.org] Macrovision make that, and its fairly 'successful' in terms of publishers using it

Re:renting content

ever heard of safedisc? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SafeDisc [wikipedia.org] [wikipedia.org] Macrovision make that, and its fairly 'successful' in terms of publishers using it

Sounds like crap to me. Deliberately authoring discs with "weak sectors"? Sounds like copy protection from the Commodore 64 era. Probably breaks DVD standards, too.

This is exactly the kind of shit I'm referring to when I talk about hacky software developers. When have they written some serious software that does something useful?

And, from the Wikipedia article:

Though SafeDisc protection effectively prevents regular home users from creating functional copies of CDs or DVDs, it is quite easy for skilled software crackers to bypass.

So, it doesn't even work, does it?

00000001.TMP CLCD16.DLL CLCD32.DLL CLOKSPL.EXE DPLAYERX.DLL And also by the existence of two files .EXE and .ICD (where is replaced with the acual game's name). The EXE executable is only a loader which decrypts and loads the protected game executable in the encrypted ICD File.

Gee, that EXE file must work wonderfully with non-Windows systems.

Re:renting content

it works against the novice, clueless users who dont realise it can be removed yes,

The problem being that the novice clueless users are probably not inclined to try and copy a disc in the first place, and just go buy them at the store. So, it does nothing except cost producers profits, because they have to pay to license stuff from Macrovision, when they could simply release the product without those costs.

Its why i put 'successful' in quotes :)

Yeah, I got that, but I still think they remain a "one trick pony." the "SafeDisc" thing is really just the digital equivalent of their analog video hack. What are they going to do to "help Apple improve Fairplay? Have it include deliberate "bad samples" in AC3 files?

I was trying to highlight what a joke it was of Macrovision to think they had anything to offer Apple - who have some of the greatest talents in the software field, and produce a greater breadth and depth of software than pretty much any other company. In comparison, Macrovision reminds me of those idiots who write the drivers for hardware copy-protection dongles.

Indeed, so well infact that it wont even let it *start* the game :D

Yup, but Macrovision claim they want to "lead the industry" in DRM. Yet they've written software for a grand total of one platform, and are basically only still around because of the prevalence of their video hack. not really ones to be in a position of leadership over anything.

The funniest thing about their rant is that I actually know people who stopped buying DVDs, and started getting copied DVDs from friends because of Macrovision. You see, their DVD player is hooked up to their old TV via a VCR. This is because their TV only has an RF input. So DVDs look like utter crap. They eventually found out that this was because of Macrovision. But ripped DVDs that have been de-macrovisioned look perfectly fine.

I'm not sure how Macrovision can be considered "successful" when illegally ripped copies of products that use Macrovision look better than the purchased original. I guess they are successful in the way the mafia is successful - but even the mafia adds more value for end users than Macrovision.

Re:Might be with the world "digital" in it

.....If they could apply the same method to analogue with the same sucess.....

Analog success? I remember making a simple one transistor sync restoration circuit to circumvent the Macrovision VHS "protection" scheme. Other than the normal generation loss from the analog process, the VHS copies were just fine.

Re:renting content

The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Charlie Chaplin, B.B King, Billie Holiday, Miles Davis, Martin Scorcese, Stanley Kubrick, even Steven Spielberg created their work in a pre-DRM era and somehow managed to sell their work.

They also created their work in a pre-Internet era, in which essentially zero cost distribution to potentially hundreds of millions of people simply wasn't possible.

I'm no fan of DRM, but you're (intentionally?) ignoring the fact that copyright infringement is a lot easier and on scales orders of magnitude greater now than in the period you're talking about, even ignoring the (solved) problem of generational loss of quality.

If you are asking that question on /.

You must be new here.....

Re:If you are asking that question on /.

The GPL and DRM are very different, both conceptually and in terms of implementation. The GPL is based on copyright law, DRM is not. The GPL says you have bought (or had given to you by someone who is either the copyright holder or their authorised distributor[1]), and you may use it in any way you wish. If you want to distribute it, then the GPL imposes legal, but not technical, limitations on you (such as requiring you to pass on the same rights that you have to anyone you distribute the code to).

DRM, in contrast, says 'you have paid for this material, now you may do any of this small list of things (which are usually smaller than the list of things copyright law allows you to do anyway) with it.' Do you see the difference? The GPL (and copyright law) are exclusive, while DRM is inclusive. You can use GPL'd (or copyrighted) material for anything that the GPL (or copyright law) does not expressly prohibit. You can only use DRM'd material in the way that the DRM vendor authorised; no transcoding, no playing it on unauthorised devices, and often no fair use rights, such as extracting clips for academic discussion or using a music track as the sound track to your (not for distribution) home video.

[1] In the case of the GPL, this is anyone who has a copy of the code and accepts the GPL.

Well...

I say:

My opinion has been meditated for a long time, based on personal experiences, feelings to different companies and the fact that I am no the other end of the deal. So the conclusion is:

Fuck DRM, Fuck Macrovision, Fuck any company, retailer, producer, whatsoever that supports drm.

DRM just hurts the legal users, it has never, never stopped me from pirating content, so what's the point?

Why the never tried to, don't know, lower the prices to increase the sales? and not try all the time to increase profit by sale.

DRM increases not decreases consumer value

"such as by enabling people to rent content at a lower price than ownership"

Consumers don't get the opportunity to "own" media, consumers get no ownership rights at all, we cant resell, get a refund etc like you can with a TV you buy.

Consumers get usage rights as granted by the copyright holder, DRM makes it easier to restrict these usage rights which takes us further away from what they would call "ownership".

Smells like fud to me.

Added value

Of course DRM adds value! You get an interesting pastime, a puzzle to solve.

A new job for starving stunt men

Those starving stunt men who show up in front of otherwise legitimate movies to warn us about how we (the theater-going evildoers of the world) are denying their kids a college education...
I SAY LET THEM EAT CAKE. Let's take up a collection... and hire them to drive cars off cliffs ...said cars to be filled with DRM executives and other such indispensible consumer-value-enhancers.

Re:A new job for starving stunt men

Nothing irritates me faster than being forced to watch that drivel BEFORE I get to watch the movie I PAID FOR!

Re:A new job for starving stunt men

The really hilarious part here is that I've never seen those infomercials before movies, because I stopped paying for the movie theater "experience" (i.e., douchebags with cell phones, sticky floors, and 25 minutes of car commercials on the screen) long before the studios started adding them. So the people like me--who might actually feel a smidgen of guilt at seeing the infomercials--don't actually see them, while people who are doing the right thing by paying instead of stealing get to be annoyed by shit that doesn't apply to them in the first place.

I guess I just defined irony.

Translation from PR-Speak to English

Here [daringfireball.net] is John Grubers translation. Spot on.

Renting makes no sense

At first sight their argument about letting people rent videos might sound reasonable,
but then in real life, why rent videos to a lower prize, when it costs the same (or even less) for the content manufacturers to give a real copy?

It's a waste of money

I don't think DRM will ever develop to a good thing. Either it places restrictions on a user regarding OS, player, mobile device, etc. or it is available everywhere which will make the DRM system more vulnerable to cracks. Then it's a waste of money to develop such a system if it's unable to protect content. Was making analog copies of VHS tapes and DVDs really prevented by the Macrovision protection on there? No. So why develop it in the first place?

OK, let's see

> DRM increases not decreases consumer value

Can somebody explain me, how exactly DRM will increase the consumer value of
a particular music piece. Let's take http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._9_(Beeth oven) [wikipedia.org]
Symphony No. 9 as a very good music and well-known example.

Well, I'm not Steve Jobs and it seems that nobody will answer...

if you can't compete with free

then you're in the wrong business

Balance

It is all about balance. While as a consumer I prefer non DRM, I understand the business point of view. This is a grey-area IMHO not black or white.

Looking for a silver lining...

because 'DRM increases not decreases consumer value', such as by enabling people to rent content at a lower price than ownership

That's like being happy you got into a car accident because you met a nice nurse at the hospital.

These Guys Want You To Drink Their KoolAid

How is this possible that anyone who buys tracks and listens to music can benefit from these Jokers
who want to steal your right to own your own copy of a song, and share music with your friends at
parties? (Things even our parents and grandparents could freely do when they were growing up).

You buy a copy of a song or album, and play it all you want, and move it to another player for jogging,
or to play in your car, or as a backup on your computer. But Macrovision and the music companies would
deny you any of this.

To them, DRM means they own the music and they will rent you your copy for a price, and totally limit
what you can do with that rented copy. Don't buy into their Doublespeak. They are not your friend.
Their only interest in you is profit, and as much as they can milk you for.

To them, you have no rights, and you are probably a criminal anyway, stealing their potential profit
from them, every time you hum the words in public, and every time a second person hears the song
you bought playing on your stereo, and every time you move that song to another player or computer.

Which sort of makes this whole topic ludicrous, doesn't it? You might as well discuss how the terrorists
are going to benefit us with their way of doing things. Sheesh!

Steve Jobs was right about DRM. It is time to ger rid of that whole thing. If it were gone, more people
would buy music, and even these people who say they own the music would profit by DRM being gone.

Prices wont come down, they'll go up.

The prices of DVD's have gone down, with all of the illegal copying and downloading...

Why in the world would the prices go down with DRM? DVD's when they first came out were not copyable, were not downloadable and cost a lot more than they do now...

Now they're cheaper..

Should we presume that they are cheaper because they are downloadable, copyable and so forth?

I know the market is saturated with dvds but still. Frankly i think the piracy is a way keep their prices fair. If they eliminate piracy, the skyies the limit for them, they can charge whatever they want and you have no alternative.

Mackerelvision

So, the guys at Mackerelvision respond... DRM "increases" value for the consumer. War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Up is down. Black is white. Anyway, I don't know whether to laugh or cry, I'd laugh if I thought there was no way people would believe them, but I cry because I know people tend to be stupid enough to believe something that absurd. How exactly, does a technology that by design, interferes with my fair usage rights, and interferes with my ability to play back the content I purchased usage rights for at a time of my choosing on the platform of my choice add any value for me? No, every time you buy a DVD with Mackerelvision crippling, you're signing these assholes paychecks, so they can keep designing worse and worse systems by which to restrict you.

Electronic distribution

I absolutely wouldn't want DRM on anything I "buy" (or is it "license" with shitty terms?). I am however excited at the prospect of more content being available over the Internet. I don't really mind watching commercials much, but I would much rather use my monitor than TV and I hate planning around schedules. Piracy, besides price, simply offers a better product.

But in the meantime, dear Macrovision

Why can't those of us who prefer buy-to-own just download in a standard, non-defective format? Then you can put time-expire DRM on the market once you've made it work in an open and efficient fashion (or invented a free-energy machine, whichever comes first).

Facts

1. DRM costs the consumers money. That is, the producers license shit technology (that going by their track record they're batting .000) that they then pass the cost onto the consumer/customers.

2. DRM doesn't actually work. Every single form of DRM from CSS to WDRM to Fairplay has been in one form or another broken or circumvented. Including the many methods (and millions of dollars that went into) CD and video game protection schemes

3. Despite the ability to circumvent DRM, media says continue to increase.

4. DRM often attempts to circumvent fair use rights preventing the social order.

5. The introduction of the DMCA was a *crutch* introduced by lobbyists to do what DRM could not do.

6. DRM vendors have no souls.

7. Media studios leverage their market share to unfairly harm competition (see: payola).

8. Media studios will boldly lie about revenue and other statistics to gain power over citizens of "free" nations.

9. I ran out of facts.

Tom

Re:Facts

10. The executives who think this DRM stuff up, go to bed every night with a big smile thinking of all the money their making despite having cheated on their tests all the way from high school to college, since they are now putting their training to good use.

DRM solution...

DRM woul be a acceptable solution if (and only if):

• the consumer have the right to buy as many copies of the media, at raw media cost, when (s)he bought the right to see it (then you don't need to copy it). The content owner must however always and forever be able to ship new media if you media dies, after X years they may choose to lift the copy protection.
• the DRM was truly transparent and platform independent (also on open platforms like Linux and xBSD).
• the DRM didn't require a connection to the content owner.

If you now look at this, it is quite simple to achive... most people are just too blind to see the solution. The solution is a USB like device with personal key allowing wiewing and copying as long as the key device is present, copies made this way have to require the key too unless the media is uncopyable (that could be a MP3 player with no digital output capability).
Now... there are several problems in it... your key device need to have the capacity to hold indefinite number of keys... AND there have to be a central copy of it so you can get a new one if it fails (wich may be against the law at least in some countries). Next problem are gifts... you can't buy the physical media... you have to buy a gift certificate (because the key have to be updated too, unless there also is an online key distribution service wich is multiplatform).
---
This idea is now in public. You may or may not use it. The license is GPL ver. 3. ...oh shit ;-)

Re:DRM solution...

How about....no DRM ? There are many other problems in the world looking for solutions, why create more problems?

Re:DRM solution...

Let's see...

It would really suck if my car got stolen. That's why I go to the effort of carrying a key with me everywhere I go to protect it.
It would also really suck if my house got broken into. Or my bank account. These things are so important that it's worth carrying around a piece of metal or plastic just for that wherever I go.

If someone copied my music off my iPod... well frankly that would be between them and the RIAA. In other words, I as a consumer have no interest in protecting my music from being stolen (especially when it's being protected from myself), therefore I have no interest in carrying a dongle to access my music.

Furthermore, my car, my house and my bank account are probably the 3 most expensive things I own, so once again I go to such lengths to protect them. If I am forced to go to such lengths to protect something like my music, then why not have a dongle to activate my toaster, my chair or my shirt?

As with all DRM, the issue here is that unlike other forms of security (where I go to as much or as little lengths as I wish to protect myself) this is about me being forced to go to exactly the lengths they tell me to go to to protect them. This is a hopeless solution, and I don't think consumers would even be stupid enough to go along with it unlike other forms of DRM.

No matter what they throw at us

We'll put our 5,000 computers on the grid and break it in an hour. There's almost no sport in it anymore. It's like hunting sqirrels with an elephant gun.

Stop pretending it's in our interests

DRM is uniquely suitable for metering usage rights, so that consumers who don't want to own content, such as a movie, can "rent" it.

I fully agree that the Single And Only Fair Usage of DRM is to enable rentals. I hate DRM, but if I'm going to pay $3 to rent a film, it's in everyone's best interests to give me a disc which I don't need to return, I can just throw away as it becomes useless after a week. That's great, and it's a great use for DRM.

Problem: I don't want DRM to "meter my usage rights". In other words, I don't want DRM to say "you own this" "you rent that". By the very nature of DRM, I don't own it. In my eyes there is one and only one solution: Anything I am renting has DRM on it. Anything I own does not, or by definition, I don't own it.

Similarly, consumers who want to consume content on only a single device can pay less than those who want to use it across all of their entertainment areas - vacation homes, cars, different devices and remotely.

Correction: Consumers who want to use content across all of their entertainment areas can pay more than those who just want to consume it only on a single device. This was never about making things cheaper.

The entire concept of this is complete bullshit. You buy content. You own it. You do whatever the hell you want with it. There is no free or convenient consumer market for "only using content on a certain device". No market like that is ever in the consumer's best interests.

Abandoning DRM now will unnecessarily doom all consumers to a "one size fits all" situation that will increase costs for many of them.

You know... if I could buy a shirt that fits any size body, like I can buy hats or socks that do, I'd be happier with my shirts (in case I grow, or I want to give it to my friends, or I don't want to fuss about with shirt sizes, or whatever, it's just more convenient to have one-size-fits-all shirts). Digital media is great, because it is one-size-fits-all! Yay! Now why would you use the phrase "doom all consumers to a one-size-fits-all situation"? One-size-fits-all is good for consumers, if it's feasible. And it is.

"DRM needs to be interoperable and open"

There is no such thing as open DRM. There is only different shades of interoperability. So you can get FairPlay vs Zune going at each other, or you can unify them into a single DRM model which is interoperable. That's better for consumers, yes, but it isn't open. DRM, by design, can never be open, because as soon as it is, it can be cracked. In other words, you may get the same DRM working on Zune, iPod, Windows and Mac, but you will never get it working in open source software (unless it's been hacked, like DVD).

Without reasonable, consistent and transparent DRM we will only delay the availability of premium content in the home.

The delay, I assume, being from the corporate shits who can't stand to see their content go on a format without DRM. What about the years of setbacks in products such as PS3 and Vista just to get the overblown and insane DRM specs working?

BS arguments

TFA is the usual corporate snake oil.

"We don't give a shit about our customers and we don't want to see them as anything more than cows to be economically milked, but we can't let them know that because if they do find out, they have a tendency to jump the fences we're trying to build around them. The only thing we care about is money. We don't care about our own lives, the lives of anyone else, or anything else. The only thing that matters is getting as much money as possible. We don't even care if we destroy the world sufficiently that we won't be alive to do anything with our billions of dollars after we've made it...the only thing that matters is making it."

It's times like these that I am in danger of almost vaguely starting to believe that at least some of Stallman's paranoia and relentless fanaticism is justified...it becomes momentarily seductive, anywayz. I may not appreciate the FSF's desire to dominate people to the extent they seem to want to, but I sure as hell don't advocate demoniacs like the author of this article, either.

DRM increases cost

A couple of days ago, I put forth how DRM was just a waste of money and mostly defeatable by those who want to try enough. What DRM is really for is to increase cost.

(*) M$ would love it if you had to pay to open Word or PowerPoint each time you needed it, maybe even renting your computer back to you after you shelled out the money on the hardware. (*) Music companies would also like to charge you each time you play a song on your mp3 player

Now is really the time for M$ and other organizations to start thinking about how they plan to implement DRM before they start to do stupid things and Linux and open source really becomes a desktop standard.

On a side note, I have no problem paying for things. I do not think most people do either. But there is a difference when a song is not worth buying but worth enough to waste the time to download.

Insight

I am currently in Tokyo, Japan and there is a very curious thing here: there is an area of the city (akihabara, the "electric town") where whole buildings have nothing but DVDs with porn. And they are very easy to find. But there's a catch: all the scenes that shows the sexual parts are pixelated. That's right: you pay the whole price for a movie, to watch in the privacy of your den, and you're denied the option to see the whole thing. That's DRM. You pay the whole price for something that only hinders you and prevents you from doing stuff that you have the right to.

ps. I don't know if there is any "normal porn" around here, I've been here for 2 weeks and so far, nothing.

cut the bull

'DRM increases not decreases consumer value', such as by enabling people to rent content at a lower price than ownership

That statement takes advantage of the nearsighted. DRM's purpose is to maximize proffit, and to do that you have to maximize the money you squeeze out of the consumer. You cannot maximize proffit AND provide the customer with a better value, the two goals are opposed to each other.

Yes, DRM allows a consumer to rent content for less, but it also requires them to rent it every time they want to watch it, paying several times instead of once. As a result, the consumer ends up paying more over the long term to rent the content many times than they would have paid to purchase it and play it as many times as they liked.

Saying that DRM provides better value to the customer is a very poorly disguised lie.

Anyone trying to convince me that companies are spending millions of dollars and pissing off their customers because they are "trying to provide the consumer with better value" will be laughed at. (and then kicked)

Jobs didn't call for the death of DRM...

Macrovision's CEO's argument with Jobs seems to rest on a faulty foundation. Jobs didn't call for the death of DRM, at least not directly, he called for the big 4 to license their music for sale online without DRM.

If, like most people reading this, you consider DRM a negative for the consumer, then you'd naturally think DRM-free licensing would obviously lead to the death of DRM, at least for music. But if, like Macrovision's CEO, you claim that DRM actually adds value for the consumer, then you should have nothing to fear from competition with non-DRMed sales. If a consumer thinks it is a better value to rent music with DRM, then they will do so regardless of weather music available for sale elsewhere has DRM or not.

The idea that DRMed music cannot be successfully sold when non-DRMed music is also available is only valid if you assume that DRM has a negative impact on the consumer large enough to overwhelm any positives it might offer (like the ability to facilitate online rentals). The fact that Macrovision's CEO equates allowing DRM-free sales opportunities to denying DRMed sales opportunities, while asserting that DRM is a positive for the consumer, would seem to indicate that he is either arguing dishonestly or hasn't really thought this out (or both).

That said, Macrovision's CEO's position actually suggests a compromise (if we assume that Macrovision's CEO is honest in his assertion that he believes DRM adds value for the consumer, and that decision makers at the big 4 agree with him, both of which are far from certain imho):
If Apple were to license the RIAA (and it's international equivalents) the right to sub-license FairPlay DRM to anyone they liked, in return for the RIAA's members giving Apple license to sell all their music DRM-free under terms no worse than their current ~70% cut, then everybody wins (after a fashion).
Apple gets to sell music DRM-free, the RIAA&co get to sell/rent DRMed music for the iPod under whatever terms they like, and the customer gets to have their choice.

'Difficult Challenges' too difficult for them!

In the letter they acknowledge the 'difficult challenges' of implementing DRM that is truly 'interoperable and open'

Clearly too bloody hard for them. I got two new DVDs last week, was pretty happy with them. Both use RipGuard, meaning none of my Linux machines, using XINE, MPlayer or VLC can play the damned things.

The sad fact is, these are fairly obscure UK TV shows, and basically, short of piracy, this is now the only way for me to get them on DVD. So what I have to do now is rip them to watch them on Linux.

Ironic, how the only way to watch "RipGuard" on any of my computers (all running Linux) is to rip the things!

Creators vs distributors

DRM is a method by which the distributors can keep charging consumers ad nauseum for access to what they already have paid for. Same goes for media format changes (LP, Cassette, CD, VHS, Beta, DVD, MP3, etc...) We are living an age where you don't purchase anything, you only rent it monthly or weekly.
When you purchase a blender you own it. You can use it as you choose, where, when and how.
Imagine if when you paid for a blender there was a EULA that stated that you actually did not purchase the blender but only a license to use it. Also by "opening this blender you agree to only blend drinks for 4 people or less" (you could purchase a license for a 4 to 8 person blender) and that you could not have any alcoholic product in the blender. And that if you violated any of the EULA that the licenser of the blender could turn off the blender remotely and you have no leave for appeal. That effectively is what the distributors of music want and DRM is the enforcement mechanism.
We have become the ultimate in consumer society, we can now pay money for items we can never own. What's next on the restricted list, cars, shoes, clothing, food... (by purchasing this potato you agree that it will used for its nutritional content only and not for use in advertising or promotion, and built into it is a chip to sense camera lights and explode the potato to prevent such uses)
We need to take back our rights as consumers, avoid DRM protected media, and challenge EULA's at every opportunity (most won't hold up in court anyway). Lets stop purchasing rights and start purchasing products.

Please, Apple...

"At Macrovision we are willing to lead this industry effort. We offer to assist Apple in the issues and problems with DRM that you state in your letter. Should you desire, we would also assume responsibility for FairPlay as a part of our evolving DRM offering and enable it to interoperate across other DRMs, thus increasing consumer choice and driving commonality across devices."

ie. "Please, Apple. Give us the keys to your iPod and let us make money from your copy protection scheme while you abandon it" Huh?

DRM lowers prices? Since when?

I have not seen drm lowering prices. Maybe I'm missing something?

Just put DRM on rentals then

I've long said that I have no problem with DRM in cases like Napster, where the music is provided under a subscription contract, because it's not realistic to believe someone will delete their DRM-free music when a contract expires. If people want to rent music or movies, DRM is necessary. I don't want to rent music, but I will agree that there is a potential market for that. Suggesting, however, that DRM from iTunes increases the consumer value for that reason is stupid.

If I rent something, I have no problem with it expiring after a certain period. If I buy something, I want it to be mine. If I get tired of it, I want to be able to sell it to somebody else. I want to be able to play it on any platform technically capable of playing it. If it's mine, I should be able to do these things.

On media distributed on the Internet, it's certainly reasonable that purchased media could be DRM-free while rental media could contain DRM. I believe that that the physical rental services, at least in the united states, are vast enough to justify printing DVD's for Blockbuster, libraries, etc. that have DRM, while printing DRM-free DVD's for stores.

Wait for better DRM, you say?

No.

I don't like DRM. I'm not happy with the concept. I don't like where copyrights have gone in the last 200 years. The first 120 years were okay.

Life is far far far too short to be a complete fool spending my time, effort, money, and resources trying to make something as simple as looking at a picture, watching a movie, listening to music, or reading a book, into a huge wrestling match between me and my electronics. See, I've got a life. Not enough to stop me from making this comment, but enough that I'm not going to fool around with crap and pretend it's all good.

Go out, get your Zune and squirt your eyes out, for all I care. You young people with your rock and roll music. GET OFF MY LAWN!

Like it matters

The U.S. isn't governed by the people. When our opinions differ from big business, big business lobbying will win.

It's pretty clear what Slashdotter opinion is, so why is the some old question being asked again when it certainly won't change anything?

An open letter to Macrovision

Dear Macrovision,

I would like to start by thanking you for bringing forth you opinion on the matter of DRM and the content industry.

First I would ask you to please explain your statement about DRM being a key "enabler" across the spectrum of available content. From a consumer perspective DRM is the great disabler of fair use rights and Macrovision has been at the forefront of disabling consumer rights. Please explain to us what value do consumers find in the inability to migrate legally purchased tapes to newer available media? Please explain to us (the consumer) what "value" we find in the inability to make backups of thousands of dollars worth of legally purchased media. Please exlpain to us the consumer how Macrovision enabled content protection has stopped the criminal piracy of the content protected my Macromedia. You probably want to explain this to your customers also because in the 20+ years that content and content players have been infected with your products bootlegged and pirated content has been thriving. Everything that content creators have paid you to protect is avalable unprotected worldwide in markets and on the Internet. Your products have done the reverse of what they were intended to do. They force the Law abider to break the law just so they can access their own legally purchased content in new media formats. Are VCRs going to be around forever? DVD players too? Please explain how upgrading perfectly good hardware and devices that are capable of playing "premium content" is a "value" to the consumer. Please explain how stripping my right to play a cd in any player I chose then charging me more to do what i have been doing for 20 years is a "value" to me the consumer. The "one size fits all" situation that you mentioned has been in existence for ever. How has that doomed us? I think what you mean is that getting rid of DRM will not allow the content distributor cartel to *charge more* to allow consumers to play their legally purchased media in whatever device however they feel fit as they have been able to do for decades. And you call this a value to consumers? Please explain how we the consumers are doomed if we don't have to pay more to play more.

Your idea that without DRM content owners will refuse to produce content is ludicrous. What you are saying is that there will be no entertainment industry without Macrovision. This is pathetic rhetoric at its best. Market dynamics are the biggest driver. Macrovision has only been around for 20 years. Didnt an entertainment industry exist before that ? Also the failure of Macrovision products to stop wholesale piracy of Macrovision protected content is total disservice to the content creators and owners that have funded your existence for two decades. I would say that content providers would be better served if they stop paying you for false protection of content. They could lower the price of the content while still recovering the same profits and driving higher sales due to lower prices.

Please explain how DRM enables the creation of more sophisticated devices. From what we have been seeing for the last 20 years of Macrovision DRM is that it disables and encumbers sophisticated consumer devices while doing NOTHING to prevent the criminals from mass producing and illegally distributing content. Please explain how HDCP devices more sophisticated than non HDCP devices.

In closing I would like to point out that the enormous sums that Macrovision has siphoned from the content creators and consumers had done absolutely nothing to protect any Macrovison protected content and has done a lot cripple the home entertaiment industry and the rights of consumers while the criminals continue to stay ahead of game and redistribute as they please. Your advocacy for more draconian DRM measures will simply make it more convenient for the consumer to turn to the criminals for content while providing a market for the criminals to thrive.

of course

FTA: "The solution is to accelerate the deployment of convenient DRM-protected distribution channels--not to abandon them."

Of course they would say this. DRM is what they sell.

how about...

How about DRM for 'rented content' (movies or music subscriptions for example) and no DRM for bought content?

Handy Translation Guide

Since this letter is full of PR speak, I'm providing a link to a Handy Translation Guide [daringfireball.net]

owning information

I think that we need to seriously re-evaluate the idea that information should be owned, and whether people are better off if we use the power of governments to enforce ones ability to own information.

The only way we've been able to support information ownership is the one structure with exclusive right to control the army (the government) also works to enforce the interests of businesses to own information.

While this hellish compact may have made sense in the past, we now exist in a world with near-instantaneous, near-free global communication. Why should the governments enable businesses in own (and necessarily then) hide information from their own citizens? This is not a rhetorical question any longer. The role of governments is to protect the interests of the citizens, not the businesses. I assert that the social contract for information ownership no longer makes sense as currently implemented, and must be seriously reassessed.

In the final analysis, I say the inevitable path for humans to take towards real, global peace is to adopt the open-source mentality for all information, not just source code.

Macrovision proves only that liars can still lie

That is all they established in thier letter.

1. DRM is broader than just music. This one is true. Digital restictions are placed on more than just music. They cause problems for legal purchasers of movies and computer software as well. As Sony showed us a year or so ago, DRM doesn't mix well with other media either.

2. DRM Increases Consumer Value. FALSE. This only shows that the author has no idea what value is. Value is increased by ability to use the product. DRM is all about limiting the ability to use the product. DRM is diametricly opposed to the value of the product. You do not increase by limiting. Limiting DECREASES. Jobs at least got this one right in his letter.

3. DRM will increase electronic distribution. FALSE. Electronic distribution was at it's peak with Napster (the origional, not the current imitator). Record companies never saw thier sales as high as they were when Napster was operating. When it was shut down, sales plummeted. Only with the rise of the P2P services have sales recovered. Somewhat. Experience shows that consumers are not the fools this group hopes they are. Limiting the ability of purchasers to use the product will result in sales declining. (That is after what DRM does. It is all it does.) Electronic distribution is only one more avenue for sales. Choking the users of the product will not result in increased sales. Non DRM media will outsell restricted media in every market where it is available.

4. DRM needs to be interoperable and open. this is just his pitch to be the new monopoly in this space. It won't happen. Microsoft and Apple both have thier eyes set on that little plum, as whoever controls the most used format will have the Hollywood billionaires by the throat. They would both love to be in that position. Both Jobs and Gates would rather see nobody in control, than the other guy in control. That's why they are both making minor moves in an open direction.

The end result should be that the producers realize that giving your business to somebody else is not a good move. The past efforts at 'DRM' have done nothing to deter mass pilfering of movies or music. The latest attempts (Blue-Ray and HD-DVD) were broken less than a week after going on sale. the professional copiers in organized crime were already selling bootlegs on the street by then.

I wish that this whole ugly assault on purchasers by a power mad industry would just go away. But, I don't think they are that smart. Or that honest.

I wouldn't ...

I wouldn't read a lot into that letter. Macrovision isn't basing its future on DRM. Copy protection is a revenue stream for MVSN, but so are its installer products (InstallShield, etc.) and license management products (FlexLM), and let's not forget that MVSN is the largest backend for online (downloadable) game sales in the world. Fred has to pay lip service to DRM but MVSN has backed way, way off its fairly stern position of just 18 months ago, before the Sony audio CD protection debacle. Sony's misadventures probably put an end to the possibility of any onerous new DRM for audio material in the near future. DRM for film and video has never been a big deal, really.

Some people are quite happy with the "jukebox" model for music and on-demand video. I might be at some point in the future, but of course there's the problem that much of the music I listen to is out of print, and no one seems to have a solution to that other than used CDs/LPs and piracy.

DRM

There is nothing wrong with the concept of DRM, in perfect world, same as there is nothing wrong with concept of DRM-FREE content in perfect world.

DRM in perfect world
- download music in multiple formats, multiple bit rates
- download movies in multiple formats, including smaller sizes for handhelds, and HD quality for big screen, with same purchase
- easily play content in any player you device
- easily transfer content to any device you want

If DRM would still give me freedom of decision as to when, where and how to play my purchased content, there is simply nothing to complain there.
Case in point - Blu-Ray movies. There is nothing wrong with DRM in BD movies. Movies are playable in all players, I can borrow them to my friends, I can sell it on ebay, whatever I want. No problem there, especially since BD's are VERY durable, unlike standard DVD's.

However, content I purchase on iTunes is completly different. I can not play it where I want. I can not borrow it. I can not sell it when I am done with it. If I buy some other music player, I can not legally use my PURCHASED music on it.

Why will we never see perfect DRM situation? Because both content providers and hardware monopolists are strongly against it. Content providers know that they have limited number of people that want to purchase online content, so they to make them purchase it as many times as possible. On the other side, hardware monopolist keeps users locked in their hardware platform by not allowing them to use any other devices, with their purchased music.

DRM-FREE in perfect world
- purchase content, DRM free, do whatever you want with it

This sounds really great, with exception of one problem. And that is that people will always get something for free, rather than pay for it. Most humans dont have really high moral standards, which we witness every time when we watch CNN. We have to face the fact that content producers spend considerable resources (read:money) to produce content. For instance, if game publisher spends 10mil to produce xbox game, and game is available, DRM-Free from their favorite torrent site, that publisher would easily go out of business.

Conclusion is that however you slice it, gray is the color of our world, and we cant group everything into the same bin. Music is not same as Games, and not same as the movies. DRM on xbox game is perfectly fine, because it does not take away your customer rights, and DRM on Blu-Ray movie is perfectly fine for the same reason. On the other hand, online market is currently in dark shades of gray. DRM exists only to limit you in using your purchased content and is completly wrong. I dont doubt that music companies will realize the distinction soon, especially since anyone can easily download any mp3 for free, so their DRM only ends up being the deterent to their customers and not to the pirates.

Steve Jobs, hypocrite

It's easy for Steve to complain about other companies using DRM to protect their intellectual property. If Steve feels so strongly that DRM is a problem he should set an example by removing the DRM that prevents MacOS X from running on non-Apple hardware.

Re:they are retards

Guess what? DRM is not about profit, DRM is about CONTROL and POWER...