willyhoops wrote: > but the important point i am also trying to make is that DRM will only > take off if the content is superior to what we get from ripping a cd > ourselves. eg distribute 24bit recording compressed to to give file > sizes as big as flac but with vastly superior sound. also very rich > tagging and art.
You can try to make that argument until hell freezes over, but it ignores critical facts. Lets ignore most of the 'pay for quality' arguments, I believe there is no mass market for quality. And push aside any claim that people want DRM. Four record labels and a few major movie companies want DRM. DRM is not about artists, musicians, producers, recording studios, etc. It did not help Tower Records. DRM is the lawyers at the four labels and their front, the RIAA, wanting to keep their old business model. I'll ignore it too. The basic fact of cryptography is that security by obscurity does not work. Period. The only strong cryptographic solutions use published algorithms (DES, IDEA, RSA, BlowFish, AES, etc.) and rely upon the secrets being maintained. If you lose the secret (aka keys) all is lost. The old spy cliche about an agent with a briefcase handcuffed to his wrist, delivering the keys to Istanbul, Moscow, etc. is based on fact. The key is important. If you have networked music/video players, connected to an Internet like network, you can use some non-trivial techniques to distribute the keys. But there is no way, seriously, no way, to mass produce a player and keep the keys secret. The DVD player you buy at BestBuy has the key in it, and someone can get it out. DRM is at best a barrier to keep honest people out. What I find amazing about this whole topic, aside from the massive misunderstanding of technology by many posters, is the economics of it all. Thirty years ago, people said no one would pay for TV, since it was free over the air. Now something like 85% of Americans have only cable, which is not free. If music was like cable TV, where I could buy as much as I could stand for $20 a month, all this DRM bull would go away overnight. BTW, I write cryptographic software and security systems for a living. I worked at CyberCash when we invented, literally and technically, the idea of Internet commerce, paying with credit cards over the 'net, etc. Sean is correct, credit and debit cards have nothing to do with DRM. -- Pat Farrell http://www.pfarrell.com/ _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
