Skip to Content

Submit your nominations for the Luxist Awards' Best in Decor
AOL Tech

ContentProtection posts

Filed under: Internet, Security, News, P2P

HD-DVD key fiasco is an example of 21st century digital revolt


It's the most circulated number of the week. Sixteen hexadecimal digits that unlock the wonder of most currently released HD-DVD titles from the surly clutches of the AACS revenue content protection system. Sixteen digits that have been posted in so many places -- and in many cases, removed only to be reposted -- that they're hard to avoid.

Cory Doctorow's class blog for his USC course, "Pwned: How everyone on campus is a copyright criminal" was served a DMCA takedown notice and, on the advice of counsel, removed the offending digits. They were posted to Wikipedia, then removed and locked from reposting. Then the diggstorm came. A slew of digg stories containing the forbidden digits have been posted, made the front page and been removed, only to start again.

Witness the modern equivalent of the 95 thesis' Martin Luther nailed to the door of Wittenburg church. We, digital citizens --commonly referred to by the vulgar term of 'consumers' -- have had enough of content lock-in. We've bought and re-bought entertainment media -- repackaged and regurgitated digital vomitus -- until we're blue in the face. We've been told time and time again that DRM is for our own protection, and we're finally and inconsolably fed up.

As Joe Rogan's character on Newsradio once quite accurately quipped, "Dude, you can't take something off the Internet.. that's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool." The content providers have attempted to do exactly that, remove pee from the proverbial swimming pool that is the Internet and, as we've witnessed so many times before, they've failed miserably.

The bottom line remains, we as consumers, want our content free (as in Freedom) and if we don't get it, we'll take our content free (as in beer).

Filed under: Audio, Internet, News, Windows, Macintosh, P2P

Upper management not so keen on DRM, anymore

Is DRM headed the way of the Dodo bird? Depends on who you ask. In a recent survey, performed by Jupiter Research, 62% of European music execs said DRM free music would sell at a quicker pace, and 54% felt current DRM systems were too restrictive. A divide still exists however, as only 48% of major label execs felt DRM was holding back sales, compared with 73% of independent label execs.

I forecast during the last week of 2006 that DRM was going to die a pitiful and ugly death in 2007. Even Steve Jobs recently argued that DRM needed to go, much to the surprise of anyone who's given much thought to the link between iTunes lock in and iPod's success story. So we're warming up for DRM's big funeral, right? Not so fast. Jupiter analyst Mark Mulligan warns, "Despite everything that has been happening the record labels are not about to drop DRM, even though all they are doing is making themselves look even less compelling by using it."

DRM is a lot like hiring Barney Fife to guard your record store. He irritates the paying customers while the shoplifters just laugh behind his back and walk away with the merchandise. How much longer can the Fife-like DRM hang on to a job it does so poorly?

Featured Time Waster

The World's Hardest Game 2.0 - Time Waster

So, just how good at time waster games are you? Think you've got the stuff? Well, The World's Hardest Game 2.0 doesn't think you do. Yes, amazingly, it's possible to have a sequel to a game called "The World's Hardest Game". It doesn't seem logically possible, since if the first one was actually the world's hardest, how could another one come along and share the moniker? It made me doubt the name in the first place. That is, until I tried the game. The mechanics of the game are very simple. You are a small red square, ...

View more Time Wasters

Featured Galleries

Defective by Design, London: Protest Pictures
Microsoft Security Essentials
Chromium Pre-Alpha on CrunchBang Linux
Safari 4 Beta
10 Firefox themes that don't suck
IE8 RC1
Download Squad at the Crunchies After-Party
Download Squad at the Crunchies
WordPress 2.7
Cooking Mama: Mama Kills Animals
Windows 7 Hands On
Comodo Internet Security
Android First-look: Amazon.com MP3 Store
Android First-look: Twitroid
Google Reader Android
Android Hands-On
Twine 1.0
Photoshop Express Beta
Mozilla Birthday Cake
Palm stuff
Adobe Lightroom 1.1

 


Follow us on Twitter!

Flickr Pool

www.flickr.com

More Tech Coverage

AOL Radio