[DMCA-Activists] IriXx: In Whom Do We Trust?

[Seth Johnson]

(Forwarded from C-FIT Community list)

-------- Original Message --------
Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2002 10:16:32 +0000
From: iriXx <address@hidden>
To: C-FIT_community
<address@hidden>,address@hidden,
dmca_discuss<address@hidden>


ok.... as this was released a week ago... and i copylefted
it :-)...
here's a copy of my latest article, published in Music-ally
(www.music-ally.com) - thanks to toby lewis for the
opportunity to write an article which is something of a
distillation of the some of the ideas in my book....

m~


The Case Against DRM: In Whom Do We Trust?

by Miriam Rainsford

To a record company or distributor, the idea of digital
rights  management technology (DRM) is quite seductive,
providing almost  unlimited facets of control over the use
of their products. But DRM has  a darker side, kept hidden
from the consumer under the smooth rhetoric  of the music
industry. DRM technology and its accompanying legislation 
in the form of the DMCA in the United States and the EUCD in
Europe, has  chilling implications upon freedom of speech
and human rights. Under the  microscope, DRM reveals its
hidden agenda, becoming less about the  protection of
content than it is about the increase of corporate and/or 
governmental control over the consumer.

Firstly, to deconstruct the arguments supporting these
increased  measures of control – which I refer to not as
‘copy protection’ but  ‘copy prevention’, as this describes
more accurately their real  intention. In this debate,
negative language is used by content  distributors such as
the RIAA to sway consumers towards the idea that  they are
committing the grave sin of ‘piracy’ - but does online 
copyright infringement really compare with violence and
pillaging on the  high seas?

Reports of ‘losses due to online piracy’ should be taken
with a pinch of  salt – it is not possible to calculate loss
by multiplying the number of  files exchanged by users of
peer-to-peer technology (P2P). It has even  been argued that
online music has acted as a form of free advertising, 
bringing the artist’s music to a much wider audience – both
Janis Ian  and Lemonjelly pre-release mp3s of their songs on
their websites,  enticing listeners to buy the CD. Perhaps
the reality of the major  labels’ concerns lie in their
fears that P2P distribution could make  their business
obsolete. Companies including Emusic.com and MP3.com, 
however, have seen commercial potential in selling music in
mp3 format,  without the need for any form of
copy-prevention, using micropayments or  subscription
services to raise funds which are then distributed as 
royalties to the artist. It seems that the major record
labels are  missing the boat by focusing their energies on
the development of DRM  methods, rather than embracing and
exploiting P2P to their benefit.

In the wake of September 11, 2001, internet security has
fallen under  the umbrella of ‘anti-terrorist’ measures.
While the possibility of  cyber-attack is quite realistic in
an age where a great deal of the  world’s business relies on
networked communication, much of the  attention that should
have been focused on better defending servers in  leading
financial institutions has instead been directed towards
P2P  users and small-time ‘skript kiddies’ defacing the
homepages of  websites. It is appalling that the lives of
innocent people sacrificed  on 9/11 have been hijacked to
support commercial causes – earlier this  year the RIAA went
as far as to attempt to shoehorn legislation into the  USA
Patriot Act which would permit them to crack into and
potentially  damage the PCs of suspected P2P file sharers.
Ultimately the RIAA was  forced to remove its wording,
however their proposals live on in the  form of the
Berman-Coble bill.

Development of future DRM technology has become increasingly
less  focused upon encrypting or protecting an individual
track or CD, and  more on surruptitious control of the
user’s computer or hardware  devices. Microsoft’s next
edition of Windows, expected to be released in  the next
couple of years, will contain its new ‘Palladium’
technology,  designed to interact with Intel’s ‘LaGrande’
chip to turn the user’s PC  into a combined hardware and
software copy-prevention black box. The way  in which
Microsoft plans to do this is by implementing control over
the  bootstrap mechanism – the process by which a computer’s
BIOS starts up  the machine -  as well as allocating
sections of the hard disk to be  remote-controlled by
Microsoft or by content owners. The home user would  not be
able to access the control measures, and would have the
rights of  use of copyrighted material prescribed to them.
This method is referred  to by the ironic title of ‘trusted
computing’ – under the definition of  ‘trust’ employed by
the US Department of Defense, a system is ‘trusted’  to
ensure that the flow of information or even breaches in
security may  leak from Secret to Top Secret levels, but
never in the reverse  direction. It is about dictating
control from above.

Cambridge University security expert Ross Anderson has
examined  TCPA/Palladium, and believes that the ability of
Palladium to delete  files remotely leaves the door wide
open for censorship, or for  fraudulent practise, as files
could be created to self-destruct on a  given date,
destroying all evidence. Palladium is also blatantly 
anti-competetive, as it restricts compatibility with
alternative  operating systems.

Plans are afoot, however, to enforce this so-called ‘trusted
computing’  by legislation such as the CBDTPA, a bill
proposed in the USA by Rep.  Hollings which would enforce
the compulsory deployment of DRM in  consumer machines.
Under US law it is legal for companies to donate to 
individual Senators, and a quick search for his name on the
revelatory  website OpenSecrets.org shows that Hollings’
list of top twenty  contributors features major corporate
players including AOL/Time/Warner  and Disney. Microsoft is
not listed, although they are the highest  contributor
all-round from the computing industry. So companies can buy 
the legislation which suits them – extremes of control which
are then  embraced by the current administration as
‘anti-terrorist’ measures.  Fortunately this is not possible
here in the UK – but industry still  wields a powerful
influence over the European Parliament. DRM’s  potential for
control of the masses is attractive to government.

The implications for freedom of speech are worrying – this
policy seems  to contradict the European Convention of Human
Rights and the United  States Constitution, under which we
enjoy the right to freedom of  speech, and the right of
appeal if this is violated. But few people –  even within
the industry itself - seem to realise the subtle means by 
which our rights are being eroded.

Do we really need to sacrifice freedom of speech for DRM
control? The  RIAA insists that DRM is needed before content
can be more widely  distributed online. But a far simpler
solution to the problems presented  by free copying already
exists in the software industry, in the form of  copyleft
licensing. Copyleft is the basis of the GNU Public License, 
under which the GNU/Linux operating system is released,
which permits  the recipient to copy, modify and/or
redistribute the work without  royalty, on the condition
that the original licensing terms apply to  subsequent
copies. The beauty of copyleft lies in the fact that it 
protects the creator’s rights from abuse at the same time as
granting  the freedom to copy and share the work. It is a
daring step to take –  many artists are concerned at the
possibility of not receiving  royalties. But companies such
as Red Hat and Mandrake have proved that  copyleft is
financially successful in the software industry – and could 
well be a viable solution to the current debate over P2P. We
should  question the waste of valuable time and money on
developing DRM  resources when a solution is already here.


Copyright ©2002 Miriam Rainsford. Permission is granted to
anyone to  make or distribute verbatim copies of this
document, in any medium,  provided that the copyright notice
and permission notice are preserved,  and that the
distributor grants the recipient permission for further 
redistribution as permitted by this notice. Modified
versions may not be  made.


Miriam Rainsford is a composer, interactive artist and
writer. Her book  ‘Copyleft: Creativity, Technology and
Freedom?’ is to be released by GNU  Press in September 2003.
Further details are available from her website  at
http://www.copyleftmedia.org.uk.

References:
http://uk.eurorights.org
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/philosophy.html
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/
http://www.janisian.com/article-internet_debacle.html
http://www.politechbot.com/p-03795.html


-- 
iriXx
www.iriXx.org

copyleft: creativity, technology and freedom?
address@hidden
www.copyleftmedia.org.uk

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