h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Example of DRM?

I brought the lord of the rings soundtrack last year stuck it in my PC to play normally through one of the programmes (winamp or sonique or something) and guess what it wouldn't play - it found *nothing* on the disc.

thought I. What's going on here then?

Several frustrating minutes passed until i tried it in the MS CD player in the start menu > accessories - and it played right as rain.

It took about 48 hours for the MP3's to appear on the net of course.

But I felt a bit miffed about that 'cos I'd been lookign forward to listening to the music with the visualisations running.

If it was an example of DRM - then I dead against for that reason and everything else everyone's said. I mean if there was every a better example of 'stop the world I want to get off' syndrome - you'd be hard pushed to top this.

Yeah, that sounds like a good example of DRM in action...

I'd be extremely annoyed if I bought some music and couldn't rip it to my computer... since that's where my music collection lives. But I'd find some way around it

With today's technology I could, anyway... it's tomorrow's I'm worried about

That said, what happens to music doesn't particularly worry me... since mainstream music, IMHO, is fairly useless anyway. It's software and computers that are the real area for concern...

How do macs fit into all this? will they be free from this tyranny?

Any legislation which forced DRM to be used would affect all computers - Macs, x86-architecture PCs, Sun servers - everything!

The next stage of 'smart card' technology is being developed along these lines as well.

It starts off as an ID card, then its linked into your bank account, then all your accounts are linked through the single card.

Hey, we can put your driving license on this and then you can swipe through toll booths - it'll help us track down stolen cars.

This card could contain a synopsis of your medical records and link into the main database in case of emergencies. In fact we could use it to contact your relatives should it be necessary.

And then we could offer you the security of tracking you through the card, you can never go missing

Of course, should you be convicted of any crime that would also be recorded on your card for the convenience of the police.

Naturally you would use your card for voting too, and you wouldn't need a passport.

There would of course be occasions when it would be needful to withdraw your card, purely for your own protection. # Should you abuse the priveledges it offers.

And of course should you ever get into financial difficulties then we may be oblidged to revoke certain aspects of your card - I'm sure you can all see where this ends up, the disenfranchisement of the poor and the alienation of the socially undesirable. And seeing as all statistics will be compiled through the card.....

... which is a good example of why the civil liberties people fight the encroachment of these ideas so hard. It is very easy to allow one of them to get through, and then suffer from "feature creep", as various stuff gets added to the list without even being mentioned.

Add to that the tendencies for people in authority to abuse these sorts of information, and you have a real problem.

It is also the reason that I am moving all my computing away from microsoft. I see no reason to have to upgrade all of my system (often with inferior replacements) just so that I can access some "must have" feature like usb support for example.

Really?

I just moved away from Microsoft so my computer wouldn't crash all the time

Regarding smart cards... I read that smart card people are likely to be fairly worried about tough DRM in computers... because it could replace smart cards in a lot of regards...

Er. I don't remember exactly how that went, though.

The trouble with smart cards is that if you ignored the possibility of misuse of the information on them, they'd be insanely useful.

Crap world, this.

Related humour
http://www.theonion.com/onion3836/riaa_sues_radio_stations.html

Unfortunately, this article isn't funny.

the reason for that is that it almost exactly represents the recording industry's position on internet radio and the "per song" tax that they have to pay.

They have managed to get this price set so high, that lots of internet radio stations are already preparing to shut down broadcasting the evening before the legislation kicks in. in fact, some have already shut down in anticipation of the problem.

There was something on slashdot about a proposal to lower fees for the biggest radio stations, thus more effectively squashing the little independant ones...

Incidentally, http://www.acronymfinder.com now gives the right definition for DRM (amongst others): Digital Restrictions Mangement

Nice of them to accept my submission

From the ironic times:

"RIAA To Crack Down On Singing In Shower"

I prefer "Digital Rights Manglement"...

You should go submit that one

You wouldn't believe how little they care about copyright in this country. Here in Malaysia you can walk into normal stores in malls, and the shelves will be packed with vcd's with copied movies. Some which even haven't made it to the cinemas yet. And they don't cost a thing.

hmmm, horrible, horrible, horrible.

The future is with places like the independant country of Sealand, who are already hosting web-sites that break US copyright laws...

Where is Sealand?

sealand are based on an offshore oil rig (or similar structure) which they bought back in 1967. at that time it was in international waters, so upon taking up residence, they declared independance from the uk.

nobody objected, so I assume their claim was accepted, and they are officially an independant state.

years later, the british government got into a dispute about something with another country (probably fishing), and extended their borders to some ridiculous figure (70M+ or something similar).

they still didn't bother comming after sealand for taxes or anything, and still didn't bother to dispute their independance.

a couple of years ago, sealand started making serious money as a "flag of convenience" webhost.

at this point, the british government started to take notice, trying to retrospectively protest their claims to independance, so they can claim back taxes on all profits they have made.

as far as I know, the dispute is still dragging on, and looks like it will for years.

I hope this clarifies this.

their website is at http://www.sealandgov.com/

Ehh, cool.