Content Protection On An Open Platform, Why?
By Thomas Hawk |
July 25th, 2005
Comments (5)
Content Protection On An Open Platform, How?: Chris Lanier posted another post last night on his argument (and my apologies if I’m oversimplifying it) that goes something like this. DRM is not a bad thing. Without DRM Hollywood won’t release content that can be consumed by a PC. By creating a DRM scheme that is foolproof, Microsoft invites Hollywood to release HDTV and other content for Media Center and once this security is in place the barriers will come down and we will all be able to finally enjoy premium programming. Since we only ought to be using content in legal ways anyhow, for the legal user we should embrace DRM as a tool to expedite the delivery of this content to us.
Here is where I think Chris is wrong though. Do you think when Sony created the BetaMax that they said we must create some kind of tool to prevent people from illegally videotaping Major League Baseball? After all, if we don’t the content providers might stop broadcasting baseball? Of course not. Sony said to hell with Hollywood, we are making our machine and so what if it scorches and burns their world we are going to make a hell of a lot of money selling machines.
In fact it turned out that not only did the VCR not scorch and burn their world but may have been the best thing that ever happened to it as the story has been oft repeated and we are consistently reminded about from folks like Cory Doctorow over at the EFF (you simply must see his Powerpoint presentation to Microsoft if you haven’t yet).
The argument that without DRM, premium HDTV and other content will simply not be available to Media Center is in my opinion wrong. If an HDTV signal can move from a cable box or a satellite box to a TV screen, it can be captured. Hollywood (especially early on) will not risk losing the lucrative HDTV business by screwing with this.
I believe that the decision to push DRM into Longhorn and Longhorn Media Center is not Microsoft with a gun held to its head by Hollywood as the only way, or even the best way, to get a job done for the end user. I believe rather that Microsoft is a willing participant with Hollywood and is participating at a much greater level. As an arms dealer, why only sell guns to one country at war when you can sell them to both countries at war? 1. You can sell Media Center PCs and the lucrative potential license that comes with this. 2. You can sell licenses for set top box software like Foundation (that Comcast is using today). 3. You can sell DRM protection software to Hollywood. Perhaps a lot more money can be made this way than just selling MCE machines at a tepid pace.
The problem is though that this strategy very well may backfire on Microsoft. When you try to play both ends against the middle frequently, unless you are the most masterful of strategists (and if anyone is it’s the folks in Redmond), it does not work.
The single biggest objection to the Media Center PC today for most average consumers is the complexity of use.
This weekend I decided to finally be a responsible wireless user and enable security protection on my Microsoft branded (yes they’ve stopped making them now) wireless router. When I originally bought it a few years back I couldn’t get it to work with the protection and nonchalantly buying into the benevolent neighbor theory I just left my connection unsecured. Well as you’d guess with his tree hanging over into my yard and my midnight drumming hobby I figured the tension was high and it was time to lock the thing down (just kidding of course). My problem, with security enabled, my Microsoft router told me that I didn’t have an internet connection. It asked me to unplug the router for ten seconds and wait two minutes and try again. Guess what, no luck. And again. And again. It was Sunday afternoon, the kids were screaming and the last thing I was going to try and do was to get someone on the phone — so I gave up.
This long illustration is only to prove a point that something good, security, for me was nothing more than a pain in the ass. Microsoft is notorious for writing software that is horribly complex to the end user, buggy and then pushing off the accountability for the bugs off to their OEM, er, partners.
1. DRM will very likely add to the complexity of the Media Center. Having to go to the internet to get licenses, having your computer crash in the middle of a license download, having a system restore (if there weren’t so many problems why do we need system restore) take away your license. I can only begin to imagine the buzz. And everyone is just begging for one little thing to go wrong with this DRM. Everyone will be looking for one little way that they are inconvenienced and then they will magnify it with the power of the blogosphere and the press and the message that the rest of the less connected world will get is that this thing is just too darned hard to use and who wants a computer in my living room anyways.
2. If Microsoft doesn’t develop an open platform ability to record HDTV then someone else might. Right now Microsoft has the best user interface for consolidated media in the home. This is all they’ve got. This could change quickly. As Linux based products begin to look more and more like Media Center and as certainly the cheaper alternative (remember folks, HP said that they were going to sell a Linux Media Hub, hey whatever happened to this anyway) having an open system that can record HDTV might seem the better deal for the end user.
3. Despite Chris’ positive view with regards to DRM, most often DRM is seen as a negative in people’s minds (bad doggy, no biscuit). Associating this negative aspect and highlighting it for the general public = bad PR. WTF? (See what I’m talking about?)
So is this the best course for Microsoft to be on? I’m not sure. Maybe, maybe not. They are already terribly late to the HDTV party. My TV use on my Media Center PC is all but non existent and near everything I watch is on a DirecTV HDTV TiVo Satellite PVR (yes a closed system). As more and more people adopt cable and satellite solutions, the pool for potential Media Center buyers gets smaller and smaller. Sure, I’ll consider switching my TV back to Media Center if in the next 15 billion years at some point they actually come out with premium HDTV, but I’m a tech freak. For most people they will take the attitude that the cable/satellite freebie box works just fine and why mess with a good thing (TV). Every day Microsoft delays and the more complicated they make this mess, the less chance they have at success. In my humble opinion of course.
And by the way Chris, nice interview with Ian on The Media Center Show!
What is fundamentally wrong with Chris’s arguments is that DRM is taking away freedoms that we all have today. So it is illegal to backup a DVD or to record HBO for personal use, but nobody really cares, because it is considerd by most people not legit for HBO to take away this freedom so we just do it. No one will get sued for recording an HBO show for his/her personal use! With DRM the studios have a way to enforce these ridiculous rules and by that take away freedoms that are perceived as trivial by all of us. The question here Chris is not what company can become the best studio poodle (Microsoft and Apple are the winners here!). The question is how should we as a society define the rules for producing and consuming media in such a way that artists and consumers are treated fairly. Yes, artists and consumers not the studios. They are just a money sucking middle man that is scared to loose its position in this new digital reality and therefore clings desperately to DRM and other absurd mechanisms (the broadcast flag anyone?). It is time for the artists and consumers to be the big winners, not the studios, not Microsoft and not Apple. The good news is that it is up to us the consumers to make a difference by choosing not to purchase DRM related products or by not working for companies like Microsoft or Apple…
ronenmiz:
No “one” might get sued, but surely a $40 billion company would. Today on my blog I asked about Reexamining Sony v. Universal (eg BetaMax case) now after MGM Studios v. Grokster has been decided. In the Grokster case Justice Souter said “We hold that one who distributes a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright, as shown by the clear expression or other affirmative steps taken to foster infringement, is liable for the resulting acts of infringement by third parties.”. The BetaMax case in the complete oppsite. My view is that if the content owners were to argue based on the Grokster case, they would win. If they argue based on the BetaMax case, they would lose.
I’m not trying to dispute why DRM should not exist, I’m more concentrated on how it factors into our near future. No doubt content protection needs to be reformed, but that’s not going to happen anytime soon. In that time that it’s not happening, I would rather be able to play what I purchased on my PC.
The big problem with your question of “should we as a society define the rules for producing and consuming media in such a way that artists and consumers are treated fairly” is another win/lose situation as the one that I covered in the first post on my blog. Should we? Yes. Do we? No. We can sit here and complain about this, but media isn’t going to be stopped and the mass of the market that doesn’t care, they are still going to buy it.
How many people don’t get Cable or Sat HDTV because it’s protected? Too few to count. How many people stopped buying DVD’s because they are protected (weak sure, not the point). We didn’t stop buying VHS, etc. The only two formats that work with the “we didn’t buy so they failed” are DVD-A and SACD. However, the reason they failed isn’t fully because of the copy protection, consumers just didn’t get it from the start.
Microsoft isn’t going to sit around and wait for studios to get that point, it’s “bad business” for them to. We b***h when Microsoft doesn’t have full Cable HDTV support in Media Center, then we b***h because getting into the PC is seen as “taking away our rights”, even when we couldn’t do it before! They have the ability to allow the consumer to play and capture this protected media in the next version of Windows, adding this support far supasses not having it there IMHO.
The market of people who would stop buying media isn’t big enough to make a difference, sorry but it’s just not.
Take Audio CD’s for example, how many people said they were going to boycott the RIAA and never buy another CD again? What happens next time sales are calculated after these “threats? Sales were higher then ever in the last 10 years (or whatever it was). Point being, boycotts and such have failed to produce results. I buy media (as do millions of other people) and I (and them) want the ability to play it.
This is about getting the mass of the market what they want, which is the ability to play the media they purchase! If your not interesting in purchasing and playing this media in your PC, none of this applies. If you are more interested in fighting the content owners to get that we should better control the media we buy, great!! Please keep fighting, but IMO fighting Microsoft for trying to enable us to play it isn’t the best thing to do (and as I covered in my first blog post, it turns into a win/lose situation for us.)
Chris
Is it just me, or are these DRM discussions just the best! I could go back and forth on these all day.
I get the whole futility of the noble fight against corporate american and the evil DRM. Yes, it’s going to happen to a large extent and there isn’t much point in fighting it.
However, I agee that Windows is getting way to complicated and there is significant compitition that the possibilty is failure is pretty real. Like most folks, I’m pretty happy with my cable box PVR and not going to want to replace it with an unreliable, complicated, unsightly, noisy PC (yes, I know they’re are improvements). It doesn’t matter whether I can deal with it myself, the wife and kids won’t.
I have a PVR/DVD player/ recorder device sitting virtually unused in my stereo cabinet because its too difficult to use. I’m not confident that a Microsoft PC is going to be much better (Apple?)
So, I don’t think Mircosoft’s biggest problem is in convincing the technies, but in convincing the massess that they’re product is better then the competition.
Can anyone explain how these WinVista DRM schemes will (or won’t) affect my use of current, non-HD content, ie todays CDs, DVDs and broadcasts. I mean, I seriously have no interest in HD content for the immediate future. I’m a tech junkie, but HDTV is still very much in the early adopter stage and out of the reach of the masses. The HD format wars with Blu-Ray and HD-DVD pretty much ensure that I won’t be buying content in either of those formats anytime in the near future and CDs and DVDs will be with us for many many years to come. I mean, once the hi-def content is readily available, we are probably talking about Vista’s successor at that point.
It’s not supposed to affect current media, unless you are talking about something like getting Cable/Sat HDTV into the PC. This is already protected and we can’t get it in the PC currently. PVP-OPM should help with that. For your DVD’s and CD’s you own now, it’s not supposed to be any different.
Chris