Hollywood’s new PC vista?
p2pnet.net News:- Bill and the Boyz are bending over backwards to make sure Hollywood is happy with Vista, the next version of Windows, says CNET News.
Microsoft believes it has to make nice with the entertainment industry if the PC is going to form the center of new digital home networks, which could allow such new features as streaming high-definition movies around the home, it says.
Or as professor Ed Felten put it much earlier in the month, Law-abiding people be paying more for PCs, and doing less with them, because of the Hollywood-decreed micromanagement of graphics system design.
Nor will PCs be alone with reinforced pirate-proofing. Similar rules will apply to other devices so they`ll be able to play back the studios’ most valuable content, Microsoft executives say, according to CNET.
Indeed, assuring studios that content will have extremely strong protection is the only way any device will be able to support the studios’ planned high-definition content, the software company says.
‘Stutter in the video’
In Freedom to Tinker, Felten says a recent Microsoft white paper details the planned output content protection in Vista.
“It`s a remarkable document, illustrating the real costs of Hollywood`s quest to redesign the PC`s video hardware and software,” he says. The document reveals that movie studios will have explicit veto power over what is included in some parts of Vista. For example, pages 22-24 describe the `High Bandwidth Cipher` which will be used to encrypt video data is it passes across the PC`s internal PCIe bus.
Hollywood will allow the use of the AES cipher, but many PCs won`t be able to run AES fast enough, leading to stutter in the video. People are free to design their own ciphers, but they must go through an approval process before being included in Windows Vista. The second criterion for acceptance is this: “Content industry acceptance: The evidence must be presented to Hollywood and other content owners, and they must agree that it provides the required level of security. Written proof from at least three of the major Hollywood studios is required.”
But who’s really in control?
However, is everything as it seems to be? – asks Canada’s Russell McOrmond.
“What ‘robustness’ requires is that the technology and software be under the control of the manufacturer, and not the owner of a communications tool. Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) is obviously excluded as not being ‘robust,’ given that FLOSS is accountable and transparent to the user.
“Microsoft admits in many of its recent SEC filings that FLOSS is the largest competitive threat to its market and business model, so it’s no wonder Microsoft sees FLOSS such as Linux and OpenOffice.org as its primary enemy.
“The assumption is that Hollywood is in control. But I believe the opposite is true.
“Microsoft is trying to leverage the (smaller) recording and motion picture monopolies to strengthen its own. It can’t do this directly as it’s under anti-trust (competition) scrutiny, so must dupe the content industry into lobbying for changes to the law. Not understanding the issues themselves, policy makers are not only granting a level of control to the content industry that’s technically impossible to offer, but are also indirectly offering benefits to specific technology companies that they wouldn’t offer directly.
“If a majority of high profile content is only available to Microsoft customers, it will deter a large portion of the marketplace from using competing software. When this tie between access controlled content and Microsoft access technology is strong, the content industry will find out that it’s Microsoft that effectively owns/controls the distribution channels for content. The content industries will only have access to the audiences Microsoft wishes them to have, with Microsoft able to entirely replace the current major label/studio control.”
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See:-
CNET News – Hollywood, Microsoft align on new Windows, August 30, 2005
Ed Felten – Hollywood demands for Vista, August 10, 2005
seems to be – Does Hollywood control Vista?, August 11, 2005
August 30th, 2005 at 5:14 pm
I want to see the EFF or FSF push an antitrust suit if this turns out to be true.
It would be a slam dunk for the FSF, and apple could even get in on the act, as they benefit directly from FLOSS projects.
August 30th, 2005 at 7:10 pm
The EU may not allow MS to push this. They have quite strong robust laws which prevent cartel activity. Although MS have had certain Euro countries under the sword – eg Denmark.
An interesting bit of hypocrisy here: Did you know that there is a warrant of arrest out for the Oppenheimers in the USA? They are a South African Mining Magnate family who own the De Beers diamond cartel. Now if they could be seen as running a cartel, why can’t MS be seen in the same light? Why can’t there be a Senate and Congressional hearing as to why MS is such a monopoly? Probably because Bill Gates is a Yank – and has got the Washington State Senators and Congressmen in his back pocket.
August 30th, 2005 at 10:17 pm
All of this just ensures that a Windows PC will never be the “media centre” in my living room. Shot yourself in the foot with all these restrictions, Bill.
August 30th, 2005 at 10:47 pm
“…Bill Gates….has got the Washington State Senators and Congressmen in his back pocket.”
IMHO Bill’s money lined back pocket holds MANY more than just those few.
August 31st, 2005 at 4:35 am
It does sound a bit paranoid, but when you consider the id number intel was allegedly forced to turn off (or just tell us they’d turned off?) on their cpu’s, this doesn’t sound too paranoid to be true.
the xxAA’s do have very deep pockets tho, and if MS did do this, and then take control away from them, i’m sure they’d put up a very big fight.
August 31st, 2005 at 9:17 pm
Seriously, who needs it? I sure don’t, and I’m sure a LOT of people feel the same. There is a reason people jokingly refer to it as XP SP3. I’ve been using XP Pro since it came out in Oct 2001 and am prefectly happy to stick with it rather than pay good money to upgrade to Vista just so I can do less and be controlled by the cartels. I really see no point to Vista at all. We may get forced eventually though, when MS stops supporting XP some day, which we know they will. Then I’ll probably move to Linux. If Linux was as simple to use and manage as XP, and had just as much software available, I would be using it already actually. All in all, I can’t really complain about XP these days. In all the years I’ve used it, I’ve never gotten infected with spyware/adware, and only got a virus once a year or two ago, but that was by accident because of how IE (which I stopped using when Firefox appeared) handled typed in URL’s. It matched the executable I had sitting on my desktop and ran the stupid thing instead of going to the website (something to do with Disney IIRC). What’s that they say about curiosity? Heh.