Really dumb DRM
p2pnet news view | open source:- All technical people know there’s no way to encode content so it can’t be copied, lawfully or not, by a technically literate person who has the encoded content and a device containing the software with which to decode it.
Information can’t be both copyable/accessible and not-copyable/not-accessible at the same time.
But ignoring all common sense and the laws of nature, a press release from largely unknown DRM vendor Media Rights Technologies tries to claim it’s a violation of the law for webcasters (including Yahoo, Clear Channel, iTunes, Napster, Rhapsody, MSN Music, Pandora, and Live 365) to broadcast music in a way that allows unlawful recording and copyright, even though a technology capable of doing this would violate the laws of nature.
It’s incumbent on those of us with the technical knowledge to know how silly what Media Rigths Technologies is suggesting is to ensure less technical people become informed.
If they don’t, they’ll not only not get the punchline of this joke, they might actually believe what these snake-oil sales-people are pushing and be duped by them.
Russell McOrmond – p2pnet contributing editor
[McOrmond is an independent author (software and non-software) who uses modern business models and licensing (Free/Libre and Open Source Software, Creative Commons). He's also the CLUE policy coordinator.]
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Tired of being treated like a criminal? They depend on you, not the other way around. Don’t buy their ‘product’. Do bug your local politicians. Use emails, snail-mail, phone calls, faxes, IM, stop them in the street, blog. And if you’re into organizing, organize petitions, organize demonstrations and then turn up on your local political rep’s doorstep, making sure you’ve contacted your local tv/radio station/newspaper in advance. Don’t just complain. Do something!
July 5th, 2007 at 12:48 pm
Hm, me wonders why this company that claims to care about “Media Rights” “defraud” Fraunhofer, Thomson and this third party that claims to have some patents on mp3 technology, of some licensing fees by using NOT a licensed encoder for the “mp3″ file they offer in the “Latest MRT News:” section on their site.
Should such a company not be on the forefront of honnoring intellectual property and patents and inovation and all those stuff and be a shining light by using an original mp3 codec and should not use those cheapo for free (and maybe even in violation of US law?) substitute codec named Lame3.97 in audiofiles they distribute from their own server?
Isn’t this a bit hypocrite that the file clearly shows to be encoded with open source technology for which this “Media Rights”-protecting company had not payed a single cent to the poor patent holders that invented mp3 in the first place?!
Interview : Richard Walter & Secretary of Commerce Gutierrez, Intellectual Property Protection [mp3]
http://www.mediarightstech.com/media/Intellectual_Property.mp3
July 6th, 2007 at 8:03 am
LOL
I saw this on C|Net a few weeks ago. Basically, they are suing Yahoo, Microsoft, Apple, and RealNetworks for using faulty DRM. They claim that their DRM does not have these faults so they should use it instead of the in-house propritary DRM solutions.
In other words…they are suing because these companies are not using their product.
Judging by how some of these people are acting, there’s got to be an open bar somewhere. (Robin Williams, Man of the Year).
July 6th, 2007 at 5:49 pm
What you don’t understand is that this “largely unknown” company has been fully endorsed by both the RIAA and IFPI. Meetings were held last year by the RIAA in London and the IFPI in Berlin where the technology of MRT, the Secure X1 Recording Control, was put to the test. It performed flawlessly 100% of the time and completely eliminated the ability to capture streaming audio files which as you probably know is now the number one problem in Internet piracy. MRT has petitioned the Librarian of Congress to cancel all of the broadcast licensing agreements with these companies because Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, Real Networks, Yahoo, Clear Channel and the others you name are in violation of sections 112 and 114 of the federal copyright law and section 1201 of the Digital Miullenium Copyright Act (DMCA). After a decision is reached by the Library of Congress, MRT along with the RIAA and Universal and Warner Brothers are taking these companies to federal court for violations of the DMCA. MRT’s position is entirely supported by federal law.
July 8th, 2007 at 1:31 pm
Jim Coleman In case you are somehow involved with one of those bodies you mentioned it would be nice if you could disclose this fact. This would help you put your arguemnts in the right perspective.
Can you please explain where you got the information that “the ability to capture streaming audio files [...] is now the number one problem in Internet piracy.”?
I thought IFPI and its american branch RIAA are still claiming that the uncontrolled puter to puter transfer of product is the problem, not that people create a permanent copy for themself to retain they get from the classical top to bottom distribution system.
Do you have any information if IFPI/RIAA or MRT will sue Linux, MacOS, BeOS, FreeBSD or what ever else Computer Operating System in existence that does not support this essentialy very simple and in my opinion just snakeoil like “prevent the system sounddriver to record sounds”-Microsoft Windows OSsystem program this Company offers?
July 23rd, 2007 at 12:37 pm
Quote”What you don’t understand is that this “largely unknown” company has been fully endorsed by both the RIAA and IFPI.”
Quote”In other words…they are suing because these companies are not using their product.”
If they are using the same tactics in suing their customers into buying their product, I would even venture to guess that MRT is an unofficial subsidiary of the recording industry.