DRM Chops off the Long Tail
http://www.satn.org/archive/2005_07_24_archive.html#112242871446727491
What does Digital Rights Management have to do with evolution? DRM is a way
of assuring that the ³content owner² can maintain control. That seems
innocuous in itself but it has the effect of limiting the marketplaces'
ability to change. This makes sense in limited cases as it allows investors
to recoup the cost of their investment and make a profit but if DRM works
too well it prevents growth. A marketplace is a dynamic system that keeps
changing. Why doesn't the marketplace simply devolve into chaos? The reason
is that it is an evolutionary process one that provides opportunity for
creating new results. We can think of this opportunity in terms of Chris
Anderson's long tail it represents the value to be discovered rather than
what is obvious.
Marketplaces that work can capture the results that are viable while
surviving those that don't work. They renew themselves dynamically. Without
this process of renewal marketplaces stagnate and fail. While the goal of
DRM may be noble, if taken too far it leaves us impoverished.
I was annoyed and angry to find that I couldn't use my high resolution
monitor to watch HDTV content. Instead I am supposed to buy an HDMI
compliant monitor that would be more expensive and less capable than the one
I have. For some reason even after my attempt to use an ³unauthorized
device² the program guide information is only available on the component
(three wire) and not the composite (single wire, standard TV) output. Not
only am I not allowed to choose how I want to watch, I am at the mercy of a
set top box that is befuddled by the complexity of implementing the scheme!
Something is very wrong. While Microsoft may consider itself only helping
out by providing facilities to aid and abet such stifling control they are
doing damage by thwarting the dynamics of the marketplace. Sadly, both
Microsoft and Intel seem to be determined to undermine Moore's law by
saddling it with fatal complexity in the hope of insuring their incumbency
and the incumbency of other industries that are past their prime.
Tellywood is defined by the asymmetric control afforded by older
technologies. It is intent on keeping this control even if it means we
cannot do anything for ourselves in case they might not capture all of the
value of their works and in case others may create competing works.
The desire to reap the rewards of ones efforts is understandable but we must
have a balance. Such control must not come at the price of denying others
any control at all and must not come at the price of preventing economic
growth.
Imagine where we would be today if Edison were able to maintain sole control
of the ³moving picture² technology. He maintained stifling control until his
competitors decamped to Hollywood where they could assert their own stifling
control.
Microsoft is going to prevent what they call ³hardware attacks² (as well as
³software attacks²) on premium content. Such attacks include what others
call fair use. My attempt to watch content on my own screen is an example of
just such as ³hardware attack².
From http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/stream/output_protect.mspx
New output content protection mechanisms planned for the next version of
Microsoft® Windows® codenamed "Longhorn" protect against hardware attacks
while playing premium content and complement the protection against software
attacks provided by the Protected Environment in Windows Longhorn. These
output protection mechanisms include:
Protected Video Path - Output Protection Management (PVP-OPM)
makes sure that the PC's video outputs have the required protection or that
they are turned off if such protection is not available.
Protected Video Path - User-Accessible Bus (PVP-UAB) provides
encryption of premium content as it passes over the PCI Express (PCIe) bus
to the graphics adapter. This is required when the content owner's policy
regards the PCIe bus as a user-accessible bus.
Protected User Mode Audio (PUMA) is the new User Mode Audio (UMA)
engine in the Longhorn Protected Environment that provides a safer
environment for audio playback, as well as checking that the enabled outputs
are consistent with what the content allows.
Protected Audio Path (PAP) is a future initiative under
investigation for how to provide encryption of audio over user accessible
buses.
Microsoft and Tellywood are working to assure that you can't buy a monitor
better than a dinky Tellywood-approved monitor that matches their narrow
vision of the future. An entry from engadget
http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000727051424/ points out that the next
step beyond DVD protection is the use of revocable keys. I posted an essay
RIAA Plans to Sue Hearing Aid Manufacturers to make this point but it was
satire unfortunately it may be far too close to the truth.
For me the issue is not so much whether people can choose to protect the
content but the effects on innovation. This is a Tellywood that would have
totally and utterly defeated VHS and you wouldn't be able to make home
movies. And they wouldn't have gotten huge new markets. The inability to
choose your own LCD screen creates a huge barrier between computer screens
and TV screens. The whole silly idea of TV screens being at six feet and
computers at two feet is one of those silly Power Point inspired theories
that is at odds with reality.
Microsoft and Intel seem to think it is in their interest to cooperate with
this approach and limit the ability of users to find new opportunities. The
long tail gets truncated. It's like Cisco helping China control the spread
of ³bad ideas².
It's useful to read some recent discussions on Dave Farber's mailing list
for context
(http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/200507/thread
s.html). In particular the discussion on science education and the Gates'
contribution to the Discovery Institute which advocates Intelligent Design.
This doesn't mean that Bill Gates necessarily endorses their theories but
the question of intelligent design is an important issue in how we view
marketplaces.
Too bad evolution is taught in biology class because it makes it hard to see
the larger issues. Dynamic systems are evolutionary systems and if you try
to limit their dynamics they fail. If you believe in intelligent design you
can assume that systems can be guided. Marketplaces are just complex
systems. If you give the incumbents the role of the intelligent designer the
systems will fail because you don't allow for new ideas.
It's easy to convince oneself that things are indeed working well and we
shouldn't risk tampering with it. A good (or, perhaps, bad) example is the
Bluetooth protocol. It demos well but if you try to use it in anyway that is
not anticipated it will fail as David Berlind points out in
http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/index.php?p=1634. The Dial-Up Networking (DUN)
Profile builds on the idea of a circa 1980 Hayes Modem and then adds more
layers in an attempt to pile Internet protocols on top of it. With enough
effort you can make it work at least for a while.
I was struck at ³D² by Intel's Paul Otellini's approach to the complexity of
networking. His solution is to add another layer of mechanism. That only
compounds the problem and makes the system more perverse. The whole point of
the approach I took to home networking was to reduce the amount of basic
mechanism rather than piling more on it. David Berlind observed one
consequence of the ³pile on² approach in trying to deal with Bluetooth's
³DUN² (Dial Up Networking) protocol which adds connectivity by going all the
way back to the Hayes modems and then adding networking as a special case on
top of all the other mechanism with all the baggage.
I've also started to listen to IBM's Irving Wladawsky-Berger describing
IBM's autonomic (self-healing) computer and their grid architecture. Here
too complexity is ³solved² by adding more mechanisms.
For those who believe that one can predict the future and that the world is
organized into nice hierarchies it makes perfect sense to add mechanisms to
the pile and leave it to the prescient of incumbent business to define and
limit us to that future. It confuses business with marketplaces.
For those who recognize a rich evolving world such efforts to limit
opportunity do far more damage than just deny us the ability to innovate. It
makes it very difficult to use what we have because the only combinations
that work are those that are anticipated. We get the kind of task-oriented
design that gave us Bluetooth. It's what Microsoft uses in trying to
³improve' the user interface in their systems.
It's also the womb-to-tomb misinterpretation of end-to-end that Bill Gates
expresses at ³D². Microsoft is trying to do us favors by providing us with a
complete solution rather than one that is open to allowing us to take
different approaches.
This why I keep emphasizing that teaching evolution in biology classes
leaves us without understanding that evolution is a characteristic of all
systems not just ³special² ones. Without such understanding it is difficult
to see how and why the Internet works. Even more to the point why it works
despite and not because of governance. Why complexity is an emergent
property of the lack of understanding. We don't ³solve² complexity by
layering on top of it. When we design systems we have to go underneath the
system expose the simplicity.
It's not at all fair to accuse those who thwart marketplace processes as
being ³anti-evolutionists². Even though I think it is obvious the onus is
still on me to demonstrate that the mechanisms are the same. I still claim
that there is a basic philosophical alignment akin to the one that George
Lakoff posits in Moral Politics. It is hard to trust the marketplace because
at any point in time it's too easy to see the ³right² answer. It's even more
difficult to see the importance of these dynamic processes when cling to the
present for safety.
It's like looking at the weather. You can't just see that it's 28º (Celsius,
Fahrenheit, take your pick). You have to look underneath at the dynamic
behavior. The same is true for marketplaces what you see is a result of a
dynamic process. If you try to legislate against change you don't even get
to keep what you think you have.
Marketplaces don't just work but are necessary. We can frustrate them for
short periods the US Constitution grants only limited exceptions. But only
at a price that increases rapidly over time.
I better post this piece soon because I'm required to acquire the rights for
each word lest the coiner assert ownership
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