Chris Lanier's Blog

To:BuyDRM

Are you obtaining the permission of publishing from the bookmaker?
If no ... "Violation of copyRIGHTS" !!

You should stop work concerning the copyright !!

THANX Chirs

I GOT IT !!

Winny
http://www.winny-english.tk/

Winnyp
http://www.uguu.org/winny/
http://winny.clicdev.com/f/index.php

THANX Chirs & BUYDRM.COM

Review

drmdbg.exe -> pick up KID & SID from wmplayer2.exe process
drm2wmv.exe -> pick up RAW WMV/WMA FILE from Encrypted wmv/wma file

BUG ?

I could decrypt DRM10(SecuritySet:2.2/2.4/2.5) wmv file with WMP10.00.3802

did you get drmdbg.exe from winny ?
please teach me how to use drmdbg.exe .

c:\drmdbg.exe -?

no help text returned

I think it is weak that you guys are actually coming up on Chris' blog and asking about the tools. That is a weak mentality and it only shows your complete lack of respect for content owners the world-wide. We can at least take comfort in knowing that our customer's content is safe and you would-be thieves have to hit the road.

If your distributing drmdbg or drm2wmv your scum and you deserve to be nailed.

Christopher Levy
clevy@buydrm.com

Thank you Christopher Levy !

I see what happened due to your magazine image.

I can read and write japanese a little.

GREAT! GREAT!!!!!!!!YHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!

I LUV BuyDRM.com !!!
Did you join force with japanese hacker ??

I don't believe in copyright, especially when it's associated with Microsoft. Can someone verify here if this new tool is reliable? I want to use it too. I subscribe to this particular site for some internet entertainment, but all the video files are DRM-coded. I'm paying £28 each month for a service that I can't access when I'm travelling. WHY? Simply because due to the stupid DRM code, I can only view the video files thorugh my machine at home!!!

Rushie: Microsoft has nothing to do with the rights set for the files you purchased. Go complain to whomever you purchased them from. You have the right not to purchase content from them if you feel they have not provided you with the product you want.

Chris: You have the right not to purchase content from them if you feel they have not provided you with the product you want.

Yes, of course. But I also have the right to crack the DRM code. I choose to practice this right because I hate complaining. Thank God, now.. I know how to do it!

Legally, in most countries, no you don't have the "right to crack the DRM code".

Chris, all licensees have been notified directly. We take getting the word out very seriously and will continue to work closely with these partners.

Thanks Matt, however this doesn't help the countless number of people thinking about implementing a WMRM based soltuion and now don't know what to think about their content being secure or not....

Rushie,

Your posts make you out to be an imbecile. Maybe you are not and you are just new to posting. Try to show some respect.

There is ABSOLUTELY NO REASON why you cannot take your DRM'd content with you UNLESS your Content provider's DRM solution is not setup right. Who is this provider and what is their website? We can help you with this.

WMRM 10 provides the exact features you are asking for.

To come on this blog and ask for the tools or say you don't respect copyright and that we taught you how to crack DRM'd content is foolsplay.

If you want mobile content just ask.

Regards,

Christopher

Satoru,

It is SO OBVIOUS that this posting is you, it is almost not worth your time to sign it ANONYMOUS. Anononymity on discussion boards is a luxury that intelligent individuals do not posess. Discussion boards are for people who can be an adult about what they say and contribute in a positive way. This is not a mud pit where you fling mud. It's an intellectual forum.


"Thank you Christopher Levy !

I see what happened due to your magazine image.

I can read and write japanese a little.

GREAT! GREAT!!!!!!!!YHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!

I LUV BuyDRM.com !!!
Did you join force with japanese hacker ?? "


Oh and one more thing, YES WE KNOW WHO LARK IS and YES WE ARE JOINING FORCES WITH HIM....in a very indirect, positive, legal way.

Regards,

Christopher Levy
clevy@buydrm.com

TO hello

I guess Christopher have drm2wmv.
but...he looks doubtful so you should not contact him.

his posting is too detailed and he did not understand RIGHTS correctly.
he said rights must be protected but himself violate righs...why?
he did not have common sense?

Screenshot was removed now but i see there is BUYDRM.COM logo printed.
I have screencopy of Scennshot to make sure.

Maybe he leak any information to unknown hacker i think.

Should i send it to msft ?

To: abc, Pigs, What is 'RIGHTS' ?, or whatever you want to post as....

I'm not sure what you are trying to prove. It is rather clear that Mr. Levy was working to find out more information on this subject since it happened.

You can feel free to e-mail the screenshot to MSFT, it will not change anything. I'm sure if they wanted a copy of the screenshot (and they don't already have it) they could get it from the FTP server I uploaded it too since it was first provided to me through their MVP program. Or they could just ask me, it's not like they don't know ho to contact me. Microsoft clearly knows of the tools and the issue, if not they would not have updated WMRM.

RIGHTS?
Ahh...we want to know

>Are you obtaining the permission of publishing from the bookmaker?
>If no ... "Violation of copyRIGHTS" !!

Answer ? Y/N ?



And is this TRUE ?

>was first provided to me through their MVP program

After all microsoft already get permission of publishing from the bookmaker?

I know the SS is a piece of JAPANESE magazine
Ha!! how msft get JAPANESE magazine ??????????
I have many lines of personal contacts to japan.
I asked one of them to send me the magazine.of couse i will BUY it.
but I couldn't because it SOLD OUT for few weeks ago.

OK.WELL.
There is one possibility.
If you are saying TRUTH but msft allow you to copy and uploaded in public?
...what the!?

WHY YOU REMOVED IT SUDDENLY ? ?

if you have RIGHTS of open to the public it

PLEASE UPLOAD IT AGAIN HERE !!

I want to prove you violate bookmaker's copyrights or not.

We are talking about DRM.
What is DRM? Why we need DRM?
It is very simple common sense you know.

Copyrights violator have NO RIGHTS of discuss about DRM.It is a hypocrite.

>Are you obtaining the permission of publishing from the bookmaker?
>If no ... "Violation of copyRIGHTS" !!

I personally did not, I can't comment for Chris. Having said that, the image was removed.

>WHY YOU REMOVED IT SUDDENLY ? ?

According to my post "Windows Media DRM 10 has been cracked, however it appears that Microsoft is still trying to keep this semi-under wraps. I have gotten word that they might not be big fans of the image that I had posted here yesterday. So, I have decided to take it down."

It's not a matter of rights why it was removed, it's a matter of Microsoft wanting to take a different position on the matter of WMRM being cracked. Anyone licensing WMRM or thinking of licensing WMRM needs to know if this was cracked or not. That is the point of this post. People need to know before droping tons of money on this technology.

i see all thanks.
i left here and don't comeback forever.
i will wait an answer from SATORU JP on drm newsgroup.
bye

That's cool. My intent has always been to inform. :) I’m not an expert on Japanese at all, however I would venture to bet that iP! is most likely not looking to draw any more attention to themselves with this matter. Having said that, the image is not hosted here anymore for the reasons noted above.

> Legally, in most countries, no you don't have the "right to crack the DRM code".

Legally, in most countries, you have about as much right to distribute this program as you have a right to say anything else. AFAIK the right of free speech is still valid in most parts of Europe and Asia (sadly not US anymore). Reactions like this just tempt me to download this thing off of share or winny and post it on my server (which I am 100% sure is legal in Czech Republic, just like i.e. DVDDecrypter).

And there sure is not any law to prohibit you from running programs on your own computer here either ("crack drm code"). You are only limited by the licence you obtained with the media, i.e. if the media was lent to you for a period of time, you should not use it after that. Restrictions to i.e. number of showings or number of devices used for playback are non-enforceable anyway - same way you cannot ask people in library to read a book only once. And restrictions on reverse egineering (cracking DRM) are illegal due to intercompatibility reasons (see recent apple vs. real issue). See i.e. http://www.eff.com/IP/DRM/fair_use_and_drm.html.

abc: chris took it down, because he thought it was for the best. Anyone is allowed to reproduce part of copyrighted works for the purpose of reporting, parody, quotation, whistling a song in subway etc. - and I do believe this falls into the "reporting" category.

ABC,

I find it amusing that you come up on this board making all these dramatic claims and you won't sign your posts.

That is a sign of weakness IMHO. Who says things they don't put their name on when posting to global public boards? Cowards.

The reason Chris took the image down is that I made a professional request from him to take it down and he did. There was no legal pressure and nobody from Microsoft called him. On that note Microsoft already knows about the image. I think we made that perfectly clear when Chris removed it.

The reason I asked him to take it down comes from a conversation I had last week with a friend of mine at Microsoft who has been an invaluable resource at the company since I began working with them in 1998. He made his case and I agreed and hence the request to Chris.

There is no conspiracy and we were not breaking the law or violating IP/ 's rights to the article. They have waived their rights by breaking international law.

Look they published an article about how to illegally circumvent legal technology which puts them in the grey area of professionalism. I think it's important that people the world-wide realize this magazine is shady and they are willing to endanger people's livelihoods for their own personal gain.

Yusaku whether you agree with it or not on a personal basis, these tools is ILLEGAL by every definition of the word. Whether you respect global law or not is your personal choice but according the world group politic, these tools and their use are illegal.

If you do not believe this, watch as the magazine is bombarded legally and watch as they roll over and provide the software's origin to Microsoft's lawyers. Watch them squirm as they settle out of court and agree to never do this again.

FACT. End of story.

I am not sure what "ABC" (Satoru in disguise) or yourself are out to prove by your posts but before you can participate in an intellectual exchange of ideas you need to show some respect to the other participants. Your approach and complete dismissal of the legality of DRM and the use of it on a global basis is disheartening.

I would hope we can all take a step back and while this is business, it does not have to be mechanical and rude.

Regards,

Christopher
clevy@buydrm.com

Hi Christopher,

could you pinpoint me to the rule of court that states iP broke a law? I agree Chris had full rights to publish as much as he did, but NOT based on your presumption.

Put into another situation - if I break a law by providing unencrypted content of your video on the web, is it OK for a newssite to publish the video on their site as a proof of my sin? It definitely is not - and I fail to see principial difference between these two situations.

> ... these tools is ILLEGAL by every definition of the word...

again, how exactly so? These tools are illegal according to DMCA. DMCA-compatible law still has not passed in my country. And given its history I hope it'll take some time before it reaches here *. Your work is protected here, of course, by copyright law. But that law gives me, as a consumer, between others, so called "fair use" rights. One of them is to make ONE backup copy. There are no laws to prohibit use of cipher technology to do so, so I can 100% legally use this tool - for my personal use. If I use this technology to i.e. record a pay-per-view video on my computer, then I am of course breaking a law - BUT if I use this technology to extract two seconds of the same PPV show and put it online together with a review, it falls below fair-use rights. It is exactly because of the grayness of fair-use rights why DRM is a bad thing (see link posted above).

Is it just me, who sees the fact that the industry born on the abuse of fair-use rights (the famous videorecorder rule that states VCRs are ok), is trying to remove them, as highly ironic?

Do not get me wrong - I believe copyrights need to be honored. But DRM is just not the right way. And people do need to realize that if a portable player (that one can lose and thus lose whole investment) costs $300 in hardware and $12000 in licences for content (40GB), something is wrong. If your DRM really 100% succeeds, people are gonna stop using these devices, as noone can write off loss of $10k+ too easily - that is a price of a new car we're talking about, not a bloody iPod!

I also hope we can stay polite and ask you to forgive me if I failed somewhere - it was not my intention, after all English is not my native language.

Yusaku

yusaku@anime.cz

PS: Sorry, if I offend you by not using my real name, Petr Vyskocil, for conversation - but I rarely use my name on internet and thus think my nickname is better identification.

* Because of DMCA, following two things happened:
- Adobe, inc. sued an individual for writing a program of few lines of code:
fopen(f,"fontname.ttf","wb");
fseek(f,PROTECT_FLAG);
fwrite(f,0);
fclose(f);

in other words, if you say one byte of your file means it is copyright-protected, noone is allowed to flip this byte even if he knows it is just a legal nonsense.

- Lexmark Inc. sued a company producing refills for their printers, because they copied a serial EPROM chip inside the cartridges.

In other words, if maker of your livingroom light decides to put chip with copyright-protected information in it, you'll be able to buy bulbs only from this manufacturer. What's next? chip-equipped pillow?

In much more rational way - have you ever burned a CD or DVD? Then you should probably turn yourself in, as chances that you broke DMCA are quite high (I have not yet seen a CD without the "copyright" flag set).

Was just curious and dropped by...

Yusaku, you are polite.

True that DRM is a two-edged sword. One word of note: laws have jurisdictions.

Funny that. Happens all the time. "America" thinks stuff happening elsewhere in the world is often "immoral", "illegal" and all that right-wing nonsense. Even if you've fooled yourself into the moral highground, it doesn't mean that gentle arm-twisting is perfectly alright! Power corrupts, and DRM is the strong-arm of a rather lethal bunch of rich folk who'd like poor folk to spend their money on more trinkets: while retaining the rights to take all the trinkets away!
I agree anyone distributing protected content should worry. But only about the simple concept of losing multiple sales to the same consumer whose hard drive's died and DRM licences lost. They should still hold the initial sale: someone buys content! Even if it's also on P2P the next day!
But do the people on p2p really have the money to buy all that stuff in the first place? So where are the lost sales? Pure mirage...

Making a fair-use copy of DRM-protected material isn't "against the law" in the absolutist manner you state. Whose law? US law? And if your dear readership doesn't live in the hallowed walls? Are they still breaking the "law"? Living in rogue states?
And what was that rubbish about some magical world government/trade fantasy (world group politik?)?

Forgive me, I can't help but laugh at that. Gently, I laugh, because it is so touching to read this, written by a grown-up man, here in 2005. It so reminds me of the classic ugly-American story, guy couldn't buy a big mac in Paris, France, because "Can you imagine Edna, they don't take dollars, I gotta have that other stuff. Euros, or something" (at the time it came out, it was Francs, of course. I'll bet the British Empire had a version of this joke, something about fish'n'chips and pounds and rupees).

The rest of the world, try not to get excited nor surprised, doesn't like and doesn't want American legislation interferring in their lives. If you think they do, change your media-watching habits and get informed.

Also take note. Blogs don't respect national borders. It seems you'd like the same with American law.

But I want blogs to be international. And I most certainly want law to be uni-national, because of the historical and "national" manner in which legislation evolves. You seem to assume an international desire for an american-style law structure for international law. I can't imagine this happening, but let's understand this: use another country's laws, and your society's legal structure will judge crime based on assumptions and codes that evolved to fit, or once fit, the other country. But they likely won't fit much about the "name the country/region".

After all, most of America would reject laws from France or Japan that interferred with American law. Why can't it work the other way? The Rest Of The World (citizens and some politicians) doesn't like American DRM legislation. So let it rest and business as usual...

You guys are still on the crusades. The moral leaders. Give me a break...

Furthermore, no US citizen, conscious of his rights, would have ever permitted such legislation to hold jurisdiction over him. It took a powerful cartel to ram it through and shame on them and the government that voted it through: I don't particularly care what color the stripe down their backs was, by the way.

Here is the real "crime" regarding DRM, and you'd be well to remain informed, since it appears your blog is getting quite a high google count.

blake

Yusaku and Blake,

On every one of my customers site's there is an Acceptable Usage Policy that clearly states the contract you are entering into when you purchase their content.

If they wanted uses to be able to illegally hack their DRM and make a backup copy it would be in the AUP. Alas for all of them it is not.

Here's another aspect you should look at. What happens when Content providers decide to just block countries that do not respect the DMCA or their rights to protect their content?

We are not talking about Time Warner or Universal we are talking about small mom and pop companies where their content is their livelihood and they don't want it used outside the bounds of their AUP. HENCE the reason they are using DRM.

Look DRM is not a US thang. Sony and Phillips bought InterTrust to advance their DRM initiatives. OMA DRM is mostly a standard supported by overseas cell phone companies which are non-American based or majorily owned. Does that mean OMA is open game for any American Hackers?

Does that mean that when and if Marlin JDA ships a DRM product it would be ok for American Citizens to hack it? Would you consider your rights to hack their DRM also valid and therefore legal? I would propose this is not the case and your right's here are clear.

I fear that there will be this fragmentation of the market beyond licensing restrictions where companies will say just block sales to these countries like they already for for Credit Card processing. I don't think any of us want a Japan/Europe/US/Netherlands DRM war. That would be ridiculous.

We had several customers ask us this week to block certain countries from accessing their license servers and this concerns us. I guess it would just be the natural fallout.

HOWEVER it begs the question: "Where do countries draw the line in respect of other country's rights to protect and preserve their content?"

Yusaku on this specific point:

"Do not get me wrong - I believe copyrights need to be honored. But DRM is just not the right way. And people do need to realize that if a portable player (that one can lose and thus lose whole investment) costs $300 in hardware and $12000 in licences for content (40GB), something is wrong. If your DRM really 100% succeeds, people are gonna stop using these devices, as noone can write off loss of $10k+ too easily - that is a price of a new car we're talking about, not a bloody iPod! "

Where did you get $12,000 in licenses? You can just re-authorize your computer on iTunes and get another license for your tracks you have bought and re-sync the tracks to your iPod. You can do the EXACT same thing with any provider using DRM on the devices located here at www.playsforsure.com . In other word's your not buying the licenses you are buying the content and the licenses can be re-issued.

We do this all the time when a customer loses their licenses or has to format their machine and re-install XP our customers can just give them a new license for free automatically.

Regards,

Christopher

Clearly you DRM lovers haven't heard of something called "fair use". DRM tries to circumvent fair use, so it's only natural people will try to circumvent DRM.

For a history lesson, see: CSS on DVD.

Anyone trying to push a "pay per play" business model is a dinosaur.

(sorry for late reply - due to heavy snowfall my internet connection failed)

Hi Christopher,

> On every one of my customers site's there is an Acceptable Usage Policy that clearly states the contract you are entering into when you purchase their content.

which do you think is more - a law, or AUP? This is not about things unsaid - those anyone can do except when forbidden by some agreement. But no agreement can override a law. If I make an agreement with you that it is OK for you to kill me, you'd still be guilty of murder.

> Here's another aspect you should look at. What happens when Content providers decide to just block countries that do not respect the DMCA or their rights to protect their content?

We're on the internet. There's a big number of IP adresses that do not have Reverse-DNS. If you'll be REALLY persistent, I can always change my R-DNS or use some american proxy. Internet does not like boundaries (see Big Chinese Firewall vs. Google). If you really want to live by the laws of your country alone, try to push through a law that forbids data lines (not just internet) between US and rest of the world. But short of total seclusion, you have to accept there's a bigger world beyond your border router.

The biggest problem of DMCA is that - suddendly - certain thoughts (thoughts only!) are illegal. Certain mathematical formulas have become illegal. I call that loss of "free speech" - and I find it highly disturbing. I find it infinite times more disturbing than copyright violations. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I lived through communism, where as most americans did not - and they are approaching it very quickly. It is sad when constitution becomes worthless piece of paper.

> Does that mean that when and if Marlin JDA ships a DRM product it would be ok for American Citizens to hack it? Would you consider your rights to hack their DRM also valid and therefore legal? I would propose this is not the case and your right's here are clear.

It is not legal for american citizens, because they were stupid enough to give up their rights in exchange for "safety". It is legal for about anyone else. This still does not say the copyright holders are left unprotected - it just means the weights are in balance, whereas with DRM weights are highly off-balance. This means it is OK to put a screencap of one frame of a movie on my desktop, this means I can lend a disk to a neighbor. Yes, this means I have high enough moral credit not to share it on P2P. And if I do not have that, it means I'm ready to accept the random punishment of few thousand dollars that can befall me from organizations like RIAA.

Same with OMA - look, noone can forbid you to put out these "DRM" solutions - BUT when they're broken (and they'll always be broken, in time), it is time to move on and find better ones. You cannot say "Noone can look at how this thing works, because it is illegal". Doing so is a sign of totalitarian government. I.e. cell-phones are good market for DRM, because you can limit a lot of things even without using cryptography - just using flags and customized firmware. But in computers, you'll always lose, unless some beast like Palladium comes into being.

As for countries being blocked - I do not fear that (see above). That will only mean you'll get rid of normal customers, but the ones that have the abilities to crack DRM will not stop at a block of few top-level domains. Too bad for you ;).

> We do this all the time when a customer loses their licenses or has to format their machine and re-install XP our customers can just give them a new license for free automatically.

Could you repeat this, with a cold voice, in front of a group of people who have some years ago purchased a DIVX player, without a fear of being lynched?

Or, in other words - when your/your customer's company goes bankrupt, will you still issue licences?
In 50 years, when noone will know how to operate this "Windows 20003 Server" of a toy computer anymore, will you still issue licences?
When you suddendly decide that all customers have to buy some upgrade, will you still issue licences?
When a customer wants to play the content on a device that you know cannot be upgraded to protect against new decryption method, will you issue him a licence?
When a customer over ten years wants to play your content on 200 devices (very likely in my case, for example), will you issue so much licences?
When a consumer wants to play a protected content on a device without IP conectivity, will you issue him a licence? (over phone, maybe? Then he can input the code by pressing play and pause buttons repeatedly...)

Answer to every single of these questions is "no". Yet these are real-life scenarios that WILL happen. And the consumers WILL be upset about it.

This is the very reason I am applauding companies like Apple - they made a weak DRM scheme so that copyright owners are happy. But educated users are loading their iPods with decrypted AACs anyway - simply because they do not trust Apple that much. Big companies are not to be trusted - or, in general - noone should be trusted this much.

Just a small comment on Blake's rant, could not resist:

<flame>
Did you copyrigt-obsessed guys know that just some 50 years ago, a pirate copy of Lord of the Rings was published in US and JRRT could do nothing to stop it?

Imagine doing that nowadays... the pirate company would 100% bankrupt if they did something like this... and the owners would be lucky not to end in a prison.

BTW: at that time, copyright law in western Europe (ok, so not in Czechoslovakia, ok?) was quite well established.

I guess this time, you're the good guys - just like before. Just forgot a bit to attend history classes...
</flame>

Yusaku

small vocabulary:
"copyright law" in Euro-English = "Mickey Mouse protection act" in American-English

Yeah... concerning this licence issue@50 years - I think we should go back to vinyl+analogue. Which will work, of course, opposite to DRM idea, but it just gives some insurance through physical presence (talking about vinyl, of course).
Will work on figuring out what would the vinyl-DVD diametre possibly be...

thank you

Hi Christopher,

Hajime Mashite Yusaku San.


> On every one of my customers site's there is an Acceptable Usage Policy that clearly states the contract you are entering into when you purchase their content.

which do you think is more - a law, or AUP? This is not about things unsaid - those anyone can do except when forbidden by some agreement. But no agreement can override a law. If I make an agreement with you that it is OK for you to kill me, you'd still be guilty of murder. <


You are over-generalizing the point I am making. Here in the United States, the largest collective holder of copyrighted works in the world, there are laws which provide for Content Owners, Licensees and Resellers and their end-users or customers to enter into a mutually agreeable arrangement whereby a license to a peice of copyrighted material can be delivered to an end-user in return for some form of financial payment be it credit card, check, paypal, micropayment etc. It's not so dramatic as you make it out to be and it's a universally sound fundamental. Someone that OWNS the rights to some piece of copyrighted content OWNS the right to sell a LICENSE for that content to someone else. That you cannot dispute.



> Here's another aspect you should look at. What happens when Content providers decide to just block countries that do not respect the DMCA or their rights to protect their content?

>We're on the internet. There's a big number of IP adresses that do not have Reverse-DNS. If you'll be REALLY persistent, I can always change my R-DNS or use some american proxy. Internet does not like boundaries (see Big Chinese Firewall vs. Google). If you really want to live by the laws of your country alone, try to push through a law that forbids data lines (not just internet) between US and rest of the world. But short of total seclusion, you have to accept there's a bigger world beyond your border router.<


Hey you are correct about that. And since about 99% of the Internet User's don't know how to break the law using this technique it's really not relevant. If we were to take a poll of 100 people who purchase online music for example, how many of them do you think would know how to secure an IP with no reverse DNS or how many do you think would know how to setup an illegal proxy? I am willing to bet the number is about 1 in 100.


>The biggest problem of DMCA is that - suddendly - certain thoughts (thoughts only!) are illegal. Certain mathematical formulas have become illegal. I call that loss of "free speech" - and I find it highly disturbing. I find it infinite times more disturbing than copyright violations. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I lived through communism, where as most americans did not - and they are approaching it very quickly. It is sad when constitution becomes worthless piece of paper. <


I am not sure I agree with you or understand how this is relevant to this conversation. How does someone using an illegal tool to violate the security restrictions on a piece of content equate to a ban on thinking by the DMCA. Thinking and research are I think we would all agree outside the bounds of the DMCA. Anonymously producing and publishing automated tools which allow someone to illegally circumvent a contractual agreement they have entered into are wrong. There is NO way around this Yusaku and all the rhetoric and drama you present still do not make a solid argument as to why these tools should be legal.


> Does that mean that when and if Marlin JDA ships a DRM product it would be ok for American Citizens to hack it? Would you consider your rights to hack their DRM also valid and therefore legal? I would propose this is not the case and your right's here are clear.

It is not legal for american citizens, because they were stupid enough to give up their rights in exchange for "safety". It is legal for about anyone else. This still does not say the copyright holders are left unprotected - it just means the weights are in balance, whereas with DRM weights are highly off-balance. This means it is OK to put a screencap of one frame of a movie on my desktop, this means I can lend a disk to a neighbor. Yes, this means I have high enough moral credit not to share it on P2P. And if I do not have that, it means I'm ready to accept the random punishment of few thousand dollars that can befall me from organizations like RIAA<


Again a very political statement that has very little truth to it. I shudder to think your calling American's stupid but I know that you seem to have a lot of emotions tied up in this discussion and sometimes they can get the better of you for sure. Yusaku I am curious when you speak of balance what balance would you propose for a content owner or licensee to protect them against widespread theft of their content? Do you have a solution? Should they just rely on the good will of people and the human spirit or would you propose another methodology?



>Same with OMA - look, noone can forbid you to put out these "DRM" solutions - BUT when they're broken (and they'll always be broken, in time), it is time to move on and find better ones. You cannot say "Noone can look at how this thing works, because it is illegal". Doing so is a sign of totalitarian government. I.e. cell-phones are good market for DRM, because you can limit a lot of things even without using cryptography - just using flags and customized firmware. But in computers, you'll always lose, unless some beast like Palladium comes into being. <

I would agree that DRM systems will continue to be upgraded and enhanced as time marches on and technology changes. No where am I saying it's wrong or illegal to look at how a system might be weak or to research where cryptographic schemes are vulnerable but I do feel that, much like the recent SHA1 work done by that group of Chinese researchers, the work should be presented in an intellectual forum and not posted anonymously in some p2p network just to be ugly and sneaky. That is not the answer and long-term it's not right.


>As for countries being blocked - I do not fear that (see above). That will only mean you'll get rid of normal customers, but the ones that have the abilities to crack DRM will not stop at a block of few top-level domains. Too bad for you ;). <

Actuall I disagree completely. In this case you will have a small select few group of people deny their other peers and co-citizens the ability to experience legal, high-quality, portable content. In this case one bad apple spoils the bunch. Look at all the countries that are now blocked from using Credit Cards with Visa here in the states Yusaku. Are you familiar with this issue? It's not the HTTP request I am speaking about it's, for example, the dilemma that happens when let's say our customer's decide to block Visa transactions from Japan etc. Your minimizing the scope of my point which is that this is already being done on a wide scale and because of a few bad people in Belorussia for example, the whole country is banned from using a credit card to purchase content here stateside.

Now tell me Yusaku how do you justify that?


> We do this all the time when a customer loses their licenses or has to format their machine and re-install XP our customers can just give them a new license for free automatically.

Could you repeat this, with a cold voice, in front of a group of people who have some years ago purchased a DIVX player, without a fear of being lynched?<

Again your just not aware of your surroundings and defintely not familiar with whom you are speaking.

In fact, I do this many times a year. I speak publicly in public forums where vendors, customers, journalists, lawyers and the public at large gather to intellectually discuss these exact issues and time and time again my position has been presented, supported and affirmed.

It's funny you mention DivX. Their model and technology works almost EXACTLY the same as the Microsoft Windows Media DRM technology and yet I don't see you discussing ways to hack it. Why is that Yusaku. Granted DivX derives about 85% of their revenue from selling pornography but seriously how would you feel if I told you that DivX is, in your model, evil?

Yusaku on that note here is a list of the shows I have spoken at/am speaking at and I would openly invite you or your representatives to attend and join this global intellectual discussion:

http://streamingmedia.com/east/program/session.asp?id=733 COMING SOON BOOK NOW

Past Shows:

http://www.jupiterevents.com/drm/fall05/index.html

http://www.digitalhollywood.com/%231DHSpring/DHSpringTuesday12.html

http://www.digitalhollywood.com/%231DHCES04/DHCES0417.html

http://www.contentworld.com/conference/2003/2003pre_con.html

NATPE, NAB, SXSW.

I am not hard to find by any measure of the word Yusaku. Come on by you might learn something :)



>Or, in other words - when your/your customer's company goes bankrupt, will you still issue licences? <


Actually we are capable of providing our customers a survival plan if BuyDRM were to go under Yusaku and while I won't divulge it, you can bet it's one of the first questions a customer asks and we have a very acceptable answer. Given that I have started numerous DRM companies, your kind of asking the wrong guy that question and I mean that in a very serious sense.

>In 50 years, when noone will know how to operate this "Windows 20003 Server" of a toy computer anymore, will you still issue licences?<

Yusaku, quick I want you to go ask your parents where all their records are from 50 years ago. Better yet ask them where their 8 Tracks are. DO you have all your music from when you were young? How is this relevant?

>When you suddendly decide that all customers have to buy some upgrade, will you still issue licences?<

Again another sort of inflammatory statement with no relevance here. We are very comfortable with our agreement in place with our customers. These type of statements only portray you as a "They Sky Is Falling" mouthpiece.


>When a customer over ten years wants to play your content on 200 devices (very likely in my case, for example), will you issue so much licences? <

In our current model we don't issue licenses to devices Yusaku. They are issued to a PC which then transfers a version of that license to a portable device. In other words we would issue you/your PC one license.

I suggest you read up on this more:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/wmrm10/htm/windowsmediarightsmanagersdk.asp




>When a consumer wants to play a protected content on a device without IP conectivity, will you issue him a licence? (over phone, maybe? Then he can input the code by pressing play and pause buttons repeatedly...)<

Again hit that link above and bone up on your Device DRM ok?


>Answer to every single of these questions is "no". Yet these are real-life scenarios that WILL happen. And the consumers WILL be upset about it.<

Don't bet on it Yusaku. Your making assumptions which don't work well in logical intellectual discussions.


>This is the very reason I am applauding companies like Apple - they made a weak DRM scheme so that copyright owners are happy. But educated users are loading their iPods with decrypted AACs anyway - simply because they do not trust Apple that much.<

HUH??? From: http://www.macnn.com/articles/05/03/02/itunes.growing.fast/

Yusaku you need to do some research. Apple has sold THREE HUNDRED MILLION DRM'd tracks to date. Are you aware of this? Do you think one person is buying all of these tracks? Your right about FairPlay being weak but you obviously don't know record labels or have never worked with them or you would realize the how wrong a statement that is. Clearly users trust Apple or they would not have bought 300 Million DRM'd tracks.


> Big companies are not to be trusted - or, in general - noone should be trusted this much.<

Alarmist. Anarchist. Rebellious. Call it what you will. Not sure you have made an arguement to support this statement. I suspect you have had some problems in the past with someone and it is shading your ability to logically present your argument here in this forum.


Yusaku

>small vocabulary:
"copyright law" in Euro-English = "Mickey Mouse protection act" in American-English <


I think it's clear that:

A. Yusaku has an axe to grind with Microsoft.

b. Yusaku hold's American's and our laws etc. in low regard.

C. Yusaku should do some research and come back with his "A Game."

Regards,

Christopher Levy
clevy@buydrm.com
www.BuyDRM.com

I disagree to a certain degree with Mr. Christopher Levy, which I shall attempt to explain.

While I agree it may be morally incorrect to produce and/or distribute tools such as drmdbg.exe or drm2wmv.exe, it most certainly should not be considered illegal, though it may be the reality in certain cases.

As a software engineer, I look at it like this: is the company that makes guns illegal in some way, just because guns cans be used to kill other people, which is a crime in every country? It is not so, at least I am yet to know of a country where it is.

As so, a person who builds a tool, whichever it may be, is not committing a crime. I will not argue about those who use it: they may be violating a AUP or a law and, if caught, may be jugded accordingly. But blaming those who expose the truth about security or insecurity, just because they are educated enough to realize it and feel they should contribute to social warning, is plain wrong.

Anyone will argue that it wouldn't be necessary to release the tools into the wild, but that is also not true. If they weren't, no pressure would be made on the creators of the system, and it would remain as is, a proven danger for content providers.

If you investigate a little about key-encryption, you'll realize that, although complete security is not achievable, pratical security is, and until a product has achieved enough maturity to ensure that, as much as possible, it can and will be subject to criticism of every type. Someone realizing that it is easily (or not so easily, but still) crackable has, in my opinion, the moral task of alerting the community of the dangers regarding that system.

Obscurity can never be regarded as a solution. Neither in designing systems, nor in social containment of information. It can be, at most, a weak tool. And the end users, no matter how dumb, will always realize it. The only variable is time.

Thank you for your time and attention,

Francisco Passos

Francisco,

Your posting endorses my position although you say you "somewhat disagree" with me.

Alerting the world to a breach in security is perfectly legal and moral.

Releasing tools to the public via a p2p Network which specifically allow end-users to breach security in an automated fashion for the purpose of denying a content owner or license the legal right to renumeration is illegal by world law and IMHO immoral.

If the author(s) of drmdbg/drm2wmv wanted to, he/she/they could have alerted MS to this vulnerablity and written a report about it a published it.

Regards,

Christopher

Copyrights are direct violation of property rights.

Intellectual goods are by definition unlimited, unlike material goods, which are finite. For example, when one takes something from you, let's say, a book, you looses if for good. But if the person simply copies the book's content and returns it to you then you didn't loose anything. That's why copyright violation cannot be said a "theft". Nothing from the original owners property has diminished, and nothing has been added to to the copyer's property too. No material exchange has occured.

The correct definition for intellectual content is that it's a service, not a property. Being a service, it only has economic value while being made. After completed, nothing more should be charged for it, although the service "copying" still might be, since it's a *new* being made, and one that in general has nothing to do at all with either the provider or purchaser of the original content development service.

The only way for such a non-material service to be converted in a property is by way of government made laws to force the natural "unlimitness" of the intellectual content to become limited. This is done by a twofold procedure: a) the government concedes the original provider and/or purchaser a monopolistic power over the content; b) the government makes treats to anyone that doesn't comply with this monopoly. Both procedures result in limiting the right for individuals to use their property, much like what happens when laws forbid 3rd parties from entering a new market, with the consequences of, as is the case in every case of every government-generated monopolies, less options available for customers and artificially increased prices.

Of course, the interest groups that emerge from such an artifically sustained government economic intervention use to firmly addere to such an anti-free-market policy, after all, they learned to make this distortion into their way of living, and would feel very unconfortable in switching into a purely free-market way of handling intellectual content production. This is caused by lack of understanding of classic liberal free-market economics. Where them to understand it and they would know that each and every monopoly produces nothing more than a spread of bad investments that makes the market work less and less efficiently. So bad that won't happen anytime soon.

I hope what I wrote is understandable, as English isn't my primary language. Anyway, if anyone wants to keep this conversation, please contact me by e-mail. I'm not a regular reader of this blog.

Regards,

Alexander Gieg
alexgieg@gmail.com

Pretty high-level concepts.

As a consumer, I just want fair-use; to be able to watch the porn or listen to the music that I paid for (read: willing consumer participant) - without it the inconvenience of that content 'expiring' (to get recurring revenue from me) or the onerus burden of having to be connected to the matrix to get a key to watch/listen to it. (so you can track me.) I don't want to be targeted.

To be sure, some people would use DRM cracks for mass-distribution. There is no denying that, but they are at one end of the bell curve. The rest of us are somewhere in the middle, and if DRM overheads become too great, then we'll do something else. That something else may end up being something the content providers and guys with expensive suits won't like.

-Joe Public

I paid for and downloaded three DRM-protected WMA files from a well-known, legitimate retail chain's web site, but Windows Media Player bungled when I tried to play the first one. I now cannot play any of them at all because I don't have a legitimate 'key'/'licence'/whatever. I tried to fix this using the help from Microsoft's web sites but nothing has worked. I don't know if this can be fixed and searching Microsoft's help site threw up multiple pages of other links whose descriptions left doubt as to whether they would be relevant and implementing some fixes required taking steps that were pretty involved. I contacted the store and they offered me my money back. I have not replied to them as I have been pretty miffed with the whole thing and, since I have paid for the personal use of the music files, I consider it legitimate for me to use a suitable craking program to get at my music. And 'yes' I do believe in copyright. All I want and intened to do is get at my music, which I paid for the personal use of, so that I can personally and exclusively use those music files. That's not too much to ask, is it?

(By the way, I don't mind having to type in a code represented in a picture to post here, but you can't tell if some characters are zeros or capital letter 'o's.)

In the history of man..."I shall not steel" is a choice.

Lookign over the internet i have foudn that adware and spyware have been included in some of these lisences.

"Edelman's test of one of the Trojans on a clean PC demonstrated its impact.

"I pressed 'Yes' once to allow the installation. My computer quickly became contaminated with the most spyware programs I have ever received in a single sitting...all told, the infection added 58 folders, 786 files, and an incredible 11,915 registry entries to my computer." - http://www.adwarereport.com/mt/archives/000095.html

Dont trust licenses, espically any from any Peer2Perr software, they do alot of harm to your pc.

Also an interesting story here: http://www.cdfreaks.com/news/11573

The new version of WMP defeats this crack.

drmdbg can't extract the key . . . . it just sits there until you close WMP and then says

"close proces" "end key run"

I have tried the drm2wmv and it does not work in my case.
It is very complicated and only a few guys have got it to work
with the righ versions of WMP9 and the right language
CRC and date settings..
If you want to read more about it, checkout:

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=89243

Also MS has released a few fixes for WMP, so with the
new versions which are online updated this will not work anymore.
so the DRM of MS is still pretty save.
I will now try to use it for my own movies.

Regards, Stefan.

yep i agree with yusaku and blake.

qoute : yusaku -
"The rest of the world, try not to get excited nor surprised, doesn't like and doesn't want American legislation interferring in their lives. If you think they do, change your media-watching habits and get informed. "

Right on borther! But with Paul Wolferwitz as head of the world bank, it's pretty much certain that big brother is on its final stages of implementation (Or is already in full swing, so cleverly and slowly implemented over the lastthree to four thousand years)

I personally believe that chris levy is only interested in supporting a society where we the peasants are merly a commodity, kept in a holding pen until needed. Matirx baby farms anybody?

qoute : chris levy
"We are not talking about Time Warner or Universal we are talking about small mom and pop companies where their content is their livelihood and they don't want it used outside the bounds of their AUP. HENCE the reason they are using DRM.

I here this excuse being spouted by the big corporations all the time. They use it as a psychological tatic to align themselve in your mind with the sanwich store on the corner. whatch out for it.

To those who say that Micheal Moore has opened your eyes, I say this : he is jew who will only say so much, although he knows more than he lets on(hes not stupid, but he will suck dick to save his life), he won;t elborate on certain events about 911. point in question: in his movie bowling for columbine there is inlcuded some extra footage, one of which is an interview where he talks about the 911 incident. In this interview he says that in his opinon "WHOEVER is responsible for the 911 wtc attacks should be brought to justice", watching the video you'll also note his body language is indicating that that he is tyring to avoid using the story of arabs or anyone being on the plane(s). But when it comes to his new movie Farienhiet 911, he does a complete turnabround and sides with the govs story where a group arabs with no training hijacked plane(s) with stanley knives.

What is important here is that i belive micheal knows more than he has in his movies, he was on a roll with columbine but got trimmed down when it came to farienheit 911. dont trust micheal anymore he ius just a pressure release valve designed to let off our revolutionary emotions.

before anyone even thinks about slagging off on my views of 911wtc, you should be taking yusaku's advice and :

qoute : yusaku
"...change your media-watching habits and get informed. "


back to DRM.
it seems that to continue sharing wmv means that you are silenty and gradually consenting microsoft and similar coprporations and companies to invade your life. It's called fabianism i think.

If you want to cry about how good wma/wmv compression is, then you need to look at ogg and ogm, here's a good for info on how to turn a dvd into a divx or an ogm or any other type of file, they have all the softs you need for free.

> http://doom9.net

just walk away from wmv/wma, which will become one of the
yokes that new chaldean/babylon will use to regulate your life.

if your laugh at that, then consider the car industry. The cars it makes are beautiful and highly desirable to most. they equal sex to most, and most could not live without their car, some even have more than one and even crazier many city dwelling families have a 4wd. A 4wd in the city WTF!
The industry is perpetuating a fake lifestyle that can;t exist without its hordes of willing sheep.
Cars kill more people than anything else. I think the second is alchohol and it's bloody stupid when you think about it, on one end we have cars,alcohol and pharmacutial drugs and on the other hand you have herbs and alternate nrg. Of the herbs, pot is the most common, it grows everywhere, which is why it will never become legal. To become legal the governaments wants to tax it. ho can you tax dope when you can't control who grows it? Until they can control the seed source(which is never), it will never become legal except in the next civilisation.

cars kill more people that pot and pot is illegal, go figure that.

Doesn't everyone here seem to realise the way the law works on this subject? Every person is entitled by law to hold the original and also the backup copy of any media that they have purchased. Therefore, DRM has taken one of our basic human rights away. Everyone is free to remove DRM as long as it is for their own personal consumption and they do not redistribute copyrighted material.

DRM is an infringements on basic human rights. You are paying for a license nowadays not the music.

As a point of principle, every human out there should remove all DRM from every file that they can just so that we can make our own decision about how we will manage the backups of our own media!

I need some help if anyone is willing to give it. First I'd like to start off by saying that I do agree with copyright law to a point. I agree that companies and authors should have the right to protect their work and income by not allowing people to copy and then distribute their products. Copy for personal use is fine. However, I don't think companies or authors have the right to stop me from copying a product for personal use, or to dictate to me the way I use a product that I have legitimately puchased. Hence the reason I need help.

Up until last year I lived in the states, which is where I lived most of my life. I am a U.S. citizen. And I legitimately puchased the T2 Extreme Edition DVD. (You got it, specifically for the HD content.) It ran fine in the states and had no issues. Now for some "REDICULOUS" reason, I am no longer allowed to watch the HD version of T2 ED simply because I moved to Britain. This is why I am angry with these companies and authors constantly crossing the line when it comes to copyright law. Now if anyone can give me some useful advice to get my legitimately purchased but unfairly dictated HD version of T2 to work, it would be much appreciated. I can be contacted at bignick217@yahoo.com in case the information that would be shared can't be shown in this forum.

Thanks

look Christopher Levy + all others who dislike the cracking culture,

if u dont like s**t, dont eat s**t

just becuse u dont like it, dont attmpt to stop or ridicule ppl for liking s**t because, if u look at it, movie makers of all types of artists make money else they wouldnt be doing it, so, so wat that ppl cream off 5,10,15% of an airheads yearly turnover, it doesnt makem poor, :D infact copyright breachers help artists, programmers etc by freely distributing their highly (pah!) skilled work :)

didnt you ever hear of the axpression [quote]the best things in life are free[/quote], well see breachers as a pioneering extension to this expression so eatit else F.off cause u waste kB of a websites allocated space and other ppls time

didnt u know the internet was designd for freely exchanged and accessed information, well ppl that sell online are breaching that intent, so they play with geeky and nerdy fire, and sometimes get burnt.

well thats my 2 pence :p

The whole idea behind digaital rights and RIAA's crusades sucks! A few decades ago, one could buy a book and many could lent it and read it. Did that hurt your 'ethical-sensitive' souls? Did that constitute a crime, done by some vicious scumbags that had no respect on the writer's rights? Or did that simply helped mankind obtaining the knowledge, the joy, the fun or the inspiration that was behind anyhing man was creating for a purpose?
I think that behind this whole digital right stuff lies the greed of the distibuting industry. The simply don't want ANYONE viewing ANY content - whether is music, writing, video or photo - unless he has paid for EACH time he wishes to enjoy it. I won't speak long about the idea of free access to a file by many while only a few will have actually pay for it: this is too sophisticated for the manichaistic attitude of some of you that consider that 'illegal' or 'unethical'. I will only point out the simple fact that THIS WAS THE WAY KNOWLEDGE, ART, SCIENCE, BELIEVES and FUN used to spread through people's communities before RIAA's, DRM's time (who are not the pure civilization's keeper, ok?)
So I will only comment on MY OWN right to enjoy and keep tha way I want the content I HAVE PAID for. So, i can buy a CD but I will have to buy a stereo to listen to it. Now why they have persueade me to spent my bugs in buying sophisticated sound cards and 7.1 speakers for my PC? Why cannot enjoy my Massive Attack's CD in full quality in my PC? Why cannot rip it and make a portable MP3 from the one or two songs I particularly like? Why am I not the OWNER of this piece I spetn 35$ to buy called CD???? Try to find and punnish me if you think distributing the content is a CRIME (loud laughs - crime used to be a reallly heavy word....). But no, you are making no a buyer but only someone that lents something. The same applies to video files. I am subscribing to a website - whether porn, art, sport, etc - paying my bugs and they want me to be a lifelong member just to watch what i liked??????? Is this having any sense???? This downgrades ANY creation to a very LIMITED lifespan, can't you get it? And if that is the case about porn files, THIS IS NOT THE CASE about art files, science files and the like!
The result? I have not bought a single CD since, unless I am sure it is not protected. I don't subscribe to content providers unless I know I am taking responsible ownership of the files I will download legaly from them. In short, I am geting excluded from that content and they loose a customer - I won't pay PER viewing!!!
I am sure I am not the only one.
So OK crusader and hypocrites out there. Continue your efforts to make the big guys richer. You will soon left alone paying eachother.
The era of bars around human creation is begining
Nice work idiots!!!!

I am completely against DRM, but that does not mean that I am pro-cracking. I find it interesting how many of you 'justify' your sharing of coyrighted files by saying that you are simply 'sharing' them. If that were the case, then you would actually have to delete the file after you sent it to a person, and they would have to do the same.

There is a huge difference between sharing and duplicating, and if you can't see the difference, then you are a moron. Sharing means you give something up to someone else. If I share my book with you, I no longer have the book, because you do. If i duplicate the book, we both have the book.

Don't try to justify stealing by saying that these guys make way too much money. Stealing is a crime, the only reason you don't think it is is because nobody is stealing any files that you worked hard to create.

Stop making excuses and accept the fact that you are stealing and it is and should be a crime. I don't care if you are stealing, but don't try to justify it.

i agree with Yusaku and the anti drm crew
a cd or film or any digital media is just one huge stream of 1's and 0's equating to real numbers, so in other words digital media is just a number (albeit a huge one)
how can you copyright a number?
and do you think these film/music companys would be out on the street if we keep downloading stuff over p2p .....i doubt it
microsoft is hypocritical, as wmp 9 (part of windows) is able to rip cd's to mp3 in minutes so wtf are these guys moaning about
drm is a step to far though
laws might not nessecarily be made to me broken but they inevitably will be.
chris have you been mindwashed or something?? cos you views are not natural
"take me bill, take me!"....heh heh

never paid for any software exept nod 32 (quality anti virus)
running cracked xp
all games copied
all appz cracked

"hack the planet"

DarkNRG: It's rather ironic that you are posting from a computer with an IP address from Computer Sciences Corporation in Falls Church, VA. (IP: 20.133.0.14) Not only are you stupid enough to be posting from inside a corporation, but add to that what the corporation does.

According to the website:
===
Our People
Ethical hackers. Nanotechnologists. Informaticians. Cybersecurity specialists. High-performance computing architects.
===

Great way to represent your company! I expect to see you guys getting loads of business in the future.

whats that got to do with what i posted though?
p.s. not my ip.............proxy server

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=5556628

I have read all of the postings in this forum and having a hard time understanding what the really issue is here.

My wife has been in the intellectual property law field for a number of years, hell she loves it so much that she decided to go to law school to practice it. I have had this discussion with her about copyrighted material and what protection really exists. If you look up the US copyright law it states the following:

Copyright Act generally gives the owner of copyright the exclusive right to do and to authorize others to do the following:

To reproduce the work in copies or phonorecords;

To prepare derivative works based upon the work;

To distribute copies or phonorecords of the work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending;

To perform the work publicly, in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and motion pictures and other audiovisual works;

To display the copyrighted work publicly, in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and pictorial, graphic, or sculptural works, including the individual images of a motion picture or other audiovisual work; and

In the case of sound recordings, to perform the work publicly by means of a digital audio transmission.

The one thing that our copyright law does not address is the resale of copyrighted materials. If you buy a DVD or CD at your local store watch or listen to it and get tired of it you can resell that item back to a used movie/music store and walk away. Now is that item still protected under the US copyright law? Well yes and no. The publishing rights for that item have already been paid to the studio/artist during the original sell. When the item gets resold there is currently no tracking mechanism in place to make sure that money gets paid for lets say royalties like with a television show. Is that fair? If you want to control what people do with the material you need to track it, and to track it you use something like DRM, and to un-track it us use something to crack it!

Is this any different than an artist not getting paid for an item that is resold?

> Hajime Mashite Yusaku San.

Kochirakoso, mounagaijikandattakedo, matakokohekurutoomoteta. Sumimasenga, tsuzuku nohanashiwoeigodeshiteiidesuka?
Dalsi moznost je, ze budu psat cesky, ale predpokladam, ze bude lepsi se shodnout na anglictine.

>> which do you think is more - a law, or AUP? This is not about things unsaid - those anyone can do except when forbidden by some agreement. But no agreement can override a law. If I make an agreement with you that it is OK for you to kill me, you'd still be guilty of murder. <

> You are over-generalizing the point I am making. Here in the United States, the largest collective holder of copyrighted works in the world, there are laws which provide for Content Owners, Licensees and Resellers and their end-users or customers to enter into a mutually agreeable arrangement whereby a license to a peice of copyrighted material can be delivered to an end-user in return for some form of financial payment be it credit card, check, paypal, micropayment etc. It's not so dramatic as you make it out to be and it's a universally sound fundamental. Someone that OWNS the rights to some piece of copyrighted content OWNS the right to sell a LICENSE for that content to someone else. That you cannot dispute.

I am definitely stretching the above example too far, but my point remains. Even if I agree to your 20-pages long AUP that gives me <almost> no rights, the fact that you gave me licence to copyright work entitles me to EVERYTHING in copyright law. AUP can negotiate only the parts left out in copyright law (e.g. the length of the contract) - nothing more to say here.


>>> Here's another aspect you should look at. What happens when Content providers decide to just block countries that do not respect the DMCA or their rights to protect their content?

>>We're on the internet. There's a big number of IP adresses that do not have Reverse-DNS. If you'll be REALLY persistent, I can always change my R-DNS or use some american proxy. Internet does not like boundaries (see Big Chinese Firewall vs. Google). If you really want to live by the laws of your country alone, try to push through a law that forbids data lines (not just internet) between US and rest of the world. But short of total seclusion, you have to accept there's a bigger world beyond your border router.<

> Hey you are correct about that. And since about 99% of the Internet User's don't know how to break the law using this technique it's really not relevant. If we were to take a poll of 100 people who purchase online music for example, how many of them do you think would know how to secure an IP with no reverse DNS or how many do you think would know how to setup an illegal proxy? I am willing to bet the number is about 1 in 100.

Hey, you are more that correct about that (actually. I'd think something about 1 in 1000). And, point is? You are loosing 999 good customers and not stopping the one bad guy at all. And how again is an open proxy illegal? (except filling my inbox with spam)


>>The biggest problem of DMCA is that - suddendly - certain thoughts (thoughts only!) are illegal. Certain mathematical formulas have become illegal. I call that loss of "free speech" - and I find it highly disturbing. I find it infinite times more disturbing than copyright violations. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I lived through communism, where as most americans did not - and they are approaching it very quickly. It is sad when constitution becomes worthless piece of paper. <

>I am not sure I agree with you or understand how this is relevant to this conversation. How does someone using an illegal tool to violate the security restrictions on a piece of content equate to a ban on thinking by the DMCA. Thinking and research are I think we would all agree outside the bounds of the DMCA. Anonymously producing and publishing automated tools which allow someone to illegally circumvent a contractual agreement they have entered into are wrong. There is NO way around this Yusaku and all the rhetoric and drama you present still do not make a solid argument as to why these tools should be legal.

What is exactly a DRM? DRM protected file often is encrypted, but you are also given a decrypting key. So basically, the scenario is "Here, have this media file. It is flagged so that you won't be able to play it after one week, s please be so kind and do not destroy this flag, OK?". According to my view, it is legal to show people how technology works. According to you, such research is illegal.

>> It is not legal for american citizens, because they were stupid enough to give up their rights in exchange for "safety". It is legal for about anyone else. This still does not say the copyright holders are left unprotected - it just means the weights are in balance, whereas with DRM weights are highly off-balance. This means it is OK to put a screencap of one frame of a movie on my desktop, this means I can lend a disk to a neighbor. Yes, this means I have high enough moral credit not to share it on P2P. And if I do not have that, it means I'm ready to accept the random punishment of few thousand dollars that can befall me from organizations like RIAA<

> Again a very political statement that has very little truth to it. I shudder to think your calling American's stupid but I know that you seem to have a lot of emotions tied up in this discussion and sometimes they can get the better of you for sure. Yusaku I am curious when you speak of balance what balance would you propose for a content owner or licensee to protect them against widespread theft of their content? Do you have a solution? Should they just rely on the good will of people and the human spirit or would you propose another methodology?

In my country, if I'll be convinced of speading a licenced work over the internet, licence owner can demand three times the usual licencing cost for my country (about $10 000) at a local court. And (but that one will be hard to pull off, I admit) can do that in all other states that signeed Berne convention, multiplying this ammount by about 150. Multiply this by usual ammount of copyrighted works a person is sharing on programs like Kazaa or DC... and even Bill Gates would have hard time to pay that. If something, I think the law stands on the side of copyright owners a bit too much (even without DMCA).

>> ...

> I would agree that DRM systems will continue to be upgraded and enhanced as time marches on and technology changes. No where am I saying it's wrong or illegal to look at how a system might be weak or to research where cryptographic schemes are vulnerable but I do feel that, much like the recent SHA1 work done by that group of Chinese researchers, the work should be presented in an intellectual forum and not posted anonymously in some p2p network just to be ugly and sneaky. That is not the answer and long-term it's not right.

It might be sneaky, but it is NOT illegal. Playing with morals, when arguing about law at the same time does not make sense - and I will NOT start a moral flamewar here, both sides of this business are acting pretty immoral nowadays. It is the same as posting a exploit to a security vulnerability - you might not like it, but there is nothing to stop it. In many cases (in corporate world, 95% of cases), if you do not make a ruckus and stay at the "polite" level, nothing will change. It takes a very big force to make collossess like Microsoft to produce a security patch. And look - the software is now QUITE old, and yet the hole was NOT PATCHED AT ALL, just someone made a stupid few-line patch to disable the current executable of drmdbg (that was easily overcame in a new version). And if you outlaw such research, you might as well put the same request there in writing - and then sue text editor makers for producing a software that allows stripping copyright protection. Where is the borderline?

Playing with morals, being able to do only things specifically permitted (instead of doing everything except the things forbidden)... I remember those days. Let's unite under a red star agains American Imperialists and show them our civilized society that will lead us to better tomorow. Yeah. *pukes*


> ... VISA ...

off topic. Yes, I am aware of it, everytime I have to ask someone in US to pay me something because european CCs are not allowed, actually. But when it doesn't stop me (and believe it or not, I do believe in copyright and would like to see myself as... well... not so bad guy here), it will not stop the bad guys at all.


and now for the funniest part of this - actually a reason why I never replied sooner - say it was kind of test.
>> Could you repeat this, with a cold voice, in front of a group of people who have some years ago purchased a DIVX player, without a fear of being lynched?<

> In fact, I do this many times a year. I speak publicly in public forums where vendors, customers, journalists, lawyers and the public at large gather to intellectually discuss these exact issues and time and time again my position has been presented, supported and affirmed.

It is funny, then, that

> It's funny you mention DivX. Their model and technology works almost EXACTLY the same as the Microsoft Windows Media DRM technology and yet I don't see you discussing ways to hack it. Why is that Yusaku. Granted DivX derives about 85% of their revenue from selling pornography but seriously how would you feel if I told you that DivX is, in your model, evil?

... that you don't even know the name of pioneer in DRM business, the DIVX company that went bankrupt, in the early days of DVD format. That DIVX that Gej made fun of, when he released "DivX ;-) 3.10", roughly two years before the first DivX 4.0 came into being. In fact, no offence meant, after this reply I became convinced that you are not a computer person at all and that you do this only as a work, not as a hobby. Not knowing anything about the problem, yet writing "Expert in" on a bussiness card.

> Yusaku on that note here is a list of the shows I have spoken at/am speaking at and I would openly invite you or your representatives to attend and join this global intellectual discussion:
<cut>

You know very well, that this offer is but moving air. As a student, my budget is definitely not so big as to fly around the world so easily. Yet let me counter - this fall there will be an anime convention in Prague and if you promise to come, I'll gladly host you on a panel, something like "Copyright law - know your rights and obligations", I'll even do the Czech<>English translation.


>>Or, in other words - when your/your customer's company goes bankrupt, will you still issue licences? <

>Actually we are capable of providing our customers a survival plan if BuyDRM were to go under Yusaku and while I won't divulge it, you can bet it's one of the first questions a customer asks and we have a very acceptable answer. Given that I have started numerous DRM companies, your kind of asking the wrong guy that question and I mean that in a very serious sense.

Given that everything is a tree with a root at microsoft, I guess the higher trunks can supply a dead branch quite easily. Unless, for some reason, microsoft goes down the drain. What then?

>>In 50 years, when noone will know how to operate this "Windows 20003 Server" of a toy computer anymore, will you still issue licences?<

> Yusaku, quick I want you to go ask your parents where all their records are from 50 years ago. Better yet ask them where their 8 Tracks are. DO you have all your music from when you were young? How is this relevant?

Actually, they are downstairs in a shelf. Some of them pretty good, the old rock&pop wasn't bad at all. And yes, I listen to them occassionaly. They are not 50 yet, but it won't take long. And it is not even a problem of 50 years - imagine, some 20 years ago people used ZX and alike, XT was modern technology. Can you imagine running an enterprise server on XT now?


>>This is the very reason I am applauding companies like Apple - they made a weak DRM scheme so that copyright owners are happy. But educated users are loading their iPods with decrypted AACs anyway - simply because they do not trust Apple that much.<

>HUH??? From: http://www.macnn.com/articles/05/03/02/itunes.growing.fast/

>Yusaku you need to do some research. Apple has sold THREE HUNDRED MILLION DRM'd tracks to date. Are you aware of this? Do you think one person is buying all of these tracks? Your right about FairPlay being weak but you obviously don't know record labels or have never worked with them or you would realize the how wrong a statement that is. Clearly users trust Apple or they would not have bought 300 Million DRM'd tracks.

Users trust Apple or user don't trust Apple and decrypt the songs shortly after download. Who will know the difference? Average Joe still "trusts" DRM because it didn't break yet. It'll be too late when it does.

>> Big companies are not to be trusted - or, in general - noone should be trusted this much.<

>Alarmist. Anarchist. Rebellious. Call it what you will. Not sure you have made an arguement to support this statement. I suspect you have had some problems in the past with someone and it is shading your ability to logically present your argument here in this forum.

Yes, exactly. It is called communist regime and I am convinced I do not like any sight of that close. Do you?


>>small vocabulary:
"copyright law" in Euro-English = "Mickey Mouse protection act" in American-English <

>I think it's clear that:
>A. Yusaku has an axe to grind with Microsoft.
>b. Yusaku hold's American's and our laws etc. in low regard.
>C. Yusaku should do some research and come back with his "A Game."

actually, extending copyright period "just" before mickeymouse went public domain was quite a comedy :) Especially given the fact that Disney stole Mickey's design without paying royalties (in a way that was - barely - legal at that time).

And, I don't have an axe to grind with MS. The reason why I released the tools from japanese internet on doom9 was this discussion alone, mostly your stand of blindingly defending something that I see as wrong - I'll be against DRM be it MS or DivX Networks pushing it - just a proof of concept. Hell, I don't even have any DRMed content except the few trailers I got from microsoft (but now I seriously consider buying the Terminator 2, given I can finally get it the way I like).

I think most of your laws are perfectly fine; I dream of having constitution like yours... But at the same time I _do_ think DMCA is stupid. So does e.g. most of cryptoanalysts in US too, though ;)

LEGAL ADVICE to writers of CONRACTUAL Agreements...

In most countries around the world there are "CONTROLS/LIMITATIONS" as to what a "CONSUMER" can contractually ENTER into when purchasing a product or SERVICE.

It is NOT sufficient that a CONSUMER has "ENTERED INTO AGREEMENT" for the CONTACT to be valid, the AGREEMENT itself MUST be "REASONABLE" and comply with local regulations on CONSUMER AGREEMENTS.

An UNREASONABLE or ILLEGAL clause in an agreement is therefore NULL and VOID.

I guess I'm confused. See, I bought an WMA compatible rio media player a couple of years ago, and it won't play these new fangled DRM protected music releases. Unfortunately I can't simply up and buy another media player, so I have to resort to either stealing MP3's, or cracking DRM protected music if I want to continue using it. This is why DRM doesn't work. I have 10 year old hardware running windows 2000, and no one will tell me I need to buy a new mp3 player every 3 months to keep up with windows next DRM fix and the RIAA's next wet dream. Stop treating us all like criminals, release high quality music(Anyone who claims that AAC or WMA is high quality deserves to be shot) FLAC or better, and watch the illegal downloads plummet. The problem is a bunch of gluttons want more money, typically for media they didn't create themselves but are reselling and screwing over the original authors, and the only way they can do it is by exploiting uninformed pc users.

This has evolved extremely far.


I use P2P programs & Bit Torrent to download different random songs I find interesting, and after I have them and I decide they are truely worth the money, I go out and buy the CD. This allows me to save money for the time being, and then buy 5/6 cd's at one time. A good example would be Toby Keiths: HonkyTonk University Album. I did receive a copy of the album, only to find that I only enjoyed 1 song, so therefore it was better to pay 99cents for that song rather than $16 for a CD I didnt like (Whatever happened to CD's for $11????)


DRM hasnt bothered me so much, Prior to getting a Macintosh (A few years ago), all my content was protected. However back in those days I was 12 and had one computer running Windows 98 and AOL 5. However, Now that I am multi-platform, it saddens me to see that I can't play any DRM music/videos on a macintosh (Ive heard reports about OS10, but I know OS9.2 and below with WMP7 wont play a DRM file)

Personally I am no fan of iTunes, and the last time I checked, iTunes only played music anyway.

One thing to remember...

The actual discussion here seems to be on intellectual property rights. IPR's are, after all, an economic creation to promote invention, investment, and creativity for the long term benefit of society as a whole. In order to accomplish this, the creators of intellectual property are given exclusive rights for a short period of time so that they have a profit incentive for the initial investment of time, money, effort, etc. Emphasis here is on a short period of time - shorter for those items that will do greater public good once released from monopolistic control. The obvious example here is AIDS drugs.

Check out the resources section on this page from the UC Berkeley website:
<a href="http://are.berkeley.edu/mason/fields/ipr/research.html">http://are.berkeley.edu/mason/fields/ipr/research.html</a>

It is an absolutely fascinating topic...

http://are.berkeley.edu/mason/fields/ipr/research.html

Just would like to point out, the American people were never asked if they wanted to give thier rights away under the DMCA. It was decided for us whether we wanted it or not. Several senators since then have even said they want to revisit the DMCA to correct some grevious errors with it, the making criminals of average citizens who just wish to make a backup of thier movie or software they purchased with thier hard earned money. They realize that is stupid...

Most Americans are in fact against the DMCA because it is clearly against the Fair Use Act. We already had a decent copyright law in place so we don't need another one. but again the people were not asked about it, instead orin hatch(croney of every big business out there) decided we wanted it badly. we didn't, we never will, we want it to go away... The thing about DRM is insane as well. FCC now ordering it to be included on HDTV sets and settop boxes but what about the sets and settop boxes already out in the market that do not have any DRM hardware? thank you for you $5000 now sod off?
not acceptible...

From what I've seen, DRM'd works aren't worth owning anyway (mostly just sh**ty rap music/videos/pop culture movies). REAL artists will not restrict the sharing of their works, I understand the need for financial gain to live, but that's what being a bohemian is all about, "doing without" is the way you MUST live in this system if you really want to share a piece of your soul with millions. Shame on the corporations for removing the art from culture...oh, and aren't you supposed to make your money off of CONCERTS or THEATRICAL RELEASE (for films), instead of owning copies...you can't clone the physical band yet, so don't worry about it 'till then. My generation has forgotten its roots and is a slave to the media, I really do appologize to anyone over 30, as the days of mass-high quality-media are over. You have to look to the underground to get anything that'll expand your experiences.

DRM is just another yuppie invention, I don't believe it will last as it is using proprietary media formats rather than UNIVERSAL IEEE formats such as mpg (xvid/divx etc)/mp3...please don't mess with real engineers, they're tryign to make things work, not complicate the process, remember the KISS rule (Keep It Simple Stupid).

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go pay 5$ to see 5 bands play at the bar now, and I'll enjoy it much more than your trendy rubbish.

The last post makes me feel identified (i'm over 30) .
As a service tech for electronics, DJ and programming aficionado i can see the things in three diferent points of view, as a tech, i know there is ways of "ripping" info from digital sources maybe they will not be as good as the original but who cares for a song that is a hit now and will be garbage in 2 months? as a DJ a mysel f had produced songs that i would liked to be paid for, but since i make music for love not for money i feel proud when somebody wants to share them. As a computer geek i know that tomorrow or two days from now DRM will be crack and you know why?, because mafias and power cannot fight that need to Know, that feeling of challenge that every code posses for a hacker, when that will be killed we will not be free anymore just paid slaves.
Besides, i don't see that RIAA or S0#Y music or anyone of them are closing down because of piracy, ijust that their ambition is so big.
As DataHippy posted i'd rather save those bucks for a local band, perhaps, thanks to DRM we all will re-learn what music is
ART, PASSION, LIFE.
Peace

All the politics and cant won't make any difference to the truth, and that is that DRM is ill conceived, an infringment of personal rights and will soon result in billions of dollars of losses in sales of music, media and mp3 hardware etc. And the companies will have to bear the brunt of their own idiocy.
I am a 57 year old writer who writes for money. In over 30 years my work has been copied, duplicated, shared and distributed by thousands of people... and I have become the better off for it. My recordings and talks have been downloaded and used by writers groups and individuals and I am grateful for all it has brought me. Whether I am the 'voice of reason' or not amongst some of this unintelligable posting, here is my personal view. I have many hundreds of CD's ( I listen to them while I work.) For a number of years now I have searched out new artists, records, performances, and quite often made a quick download to see if I like the material. Then out to the shop with totebag over my arm and several hundred dollars to spend on cd's. Occassionally I might download a hard to find song .... Paul Anka (doh?) simply because I can't buy it anywhere and my hard drive has a nice library.

Sad to say I haven't bought a CD since I ONCE tried to play a Lucinda Williams song from a Filmore Album I really wanted to buy (IF I liked the downloaded song). Since DRM a whole lot of my stuff won't play even though I went and bought the album and put it on my mp3 player. I feel cheated and disgusted... And I guess the problem lies not with the companies but with the artists. I would never sell my work to any company that will not allow my work to be freely distributed. It's MY choice. And so it should be the artists choice. But is this arbitary? I don't know. I am a writer not a technician.
I will never buy another CD and if it was just me alone then we are talking roughly about $12000 a year (AUD). My simple pleasures have been stolen from me by DRM.

All this hacking and cracking is beyond me. But now I feel like a criminal. I downloaded songs I loved, bought the CD and sent the song on to several friends who I knew would have loved them. Now I encourage my friends NEVER to buy another CD that involves DRM. How much loss is that to companies? A lot!
Sales of MP3 will plummet of course!

DRM is sadly, a greedy, badly thought out concept that in the end will not work out. Of course companies will bleat and moan that sales of CD's and Mp3 players etc have dropped,, and they will blame downloading on their foolishness. Pygmies! Fools! Charlatans!

I came to this forum because part of what I do is research for writers, publishers etc, having been asked to write a piece on DRM. Knowing little about it except that it stood for Digital Rights Management sent me in search of information. Not that I have actually got much from this forum except a couple of nice quotes and a lot of righteous indignation. (I suppose I am now righteously indignant too!)

I want my personal freedoms back. I don't want to download and send on to millions. All I want to do is to hear a song. On my computer if possible, make a note to buy the CD and then go my own way, minding my own business and maybe send the song to a few friends with encouragement to buy it.. I can't do that anymore... By US law I am a criminal now. (I was never a criminal before!) I am a thief, and guilty of such a grave crime that my punishment will be thousands of dollars. (Maybe the companies will make up their losses in criminal actions.)

Frankly I hope someone does crack DRM. Maybe in todays world anarchy has some merit.

I don't WANT to go to websites and download pay per use music. Firstly I haven't the time to do that. Secondly I don't have the bandwidth to allow for it. Thirdly, I want to buy my music and keep it to play as and how I want to and to do it where and when I want to, and I want to share the joy of finding a new album with my friends, some of whom live in USA, Canada, Britain, Germany, Belgium among other places. I want to be able to send a file via Skype to my friends and co-authors so that we can discuss and evaluate material. To some extent I can still do that. But not to the extent I could, and I accuse all those supporters of DRM... you have infringed on MY rights as an individual .
Recently some text of mine was published by the World Bank in a text book on English as a Second Language. I declined to be paid for it, and the book is available to students in Moldovia. There are plans to produce this work digitally. Will it be protected by DRM I wonder... and if it is, then MY work will be protected against redistribution against my wishes.

Dora Graham

Just wondering about the DMCA from the point of view of a lay man living the the States (thank god I live in the UK!). Please answer these questions as though I was a newbie:

1. Why is ripping a CD into mp3 format on my computer (because I like my media centralized on a single network hard disk) illegal? It's my CD - and I'm not sharing it with anyone.

2. Similarly, why is cracking CSS on my DVDs to centralize my films onto the same hard disk illegal? Same again, I own the DVD and I'm not giving anyone a copy.

3. I bought an iRiver H120 at around Christmas 2003 (side note: it doesn't play DRM). Why does a song off a CD (bought from a store) which I converted to mp3 format play on it, yet the exact same song off MSN Music/Napster doesn't play? Napster said on the adverts that you can "download music to your mp3 player" yet I have an mp3 player (remember, I'm just Mr. Joe Average, I don't understand DRM). Also, the song off Napster wasn't as good quality-wise as the one off the CD.

4. I'm bored of a certain album. In the past, I'd give the CD (original!) to a friend as a Christmas present. Now that I've bought my music online, why can't I do the same now? The music just won't play on his computer.

5. I have an iPod. I'm also a guitar-player in my spare time and have recorded a few tracks of my own. I want to send them to my friend and to save time, I copy the tracks over to my iPod and go round to his house (he has an iPod and iTunes too). As soon as I plug my iPod in to get my recorded tracks, iTunes on his computer simply deletes all my files! Apparently, its to "to stop me pirating music".


It's things like these which simply complicates the user experience. Ironically, Microsoft's vision is of integrating people with their digital media with instant ease!!!

Also, I reckon that laws such as the DMCA are being passed by the ridiculously-dumb neo-cons in the States. They seem to have an ingrained belief that whatever America does is the right thing and the world should follow suit (in our case, DMCA-style laws. Another example is the Iraq war, but that's going off-topic.) They are the fanatics who claim that since the "American Dream" and democracy is so good, other countries should be forced to oblige and have similar styles of government. Sounds just like Al-Qaeda and the Muslim fanatics, doesn't it?

I don't want to go into politics too deeply, but this discussion on DRM and DMCA just shows that they are actually a small portion of the problem. Just look at the hypocritical stance on nukes - while they condemn Iran and North Korea for making nukes (or even daring to), America has the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons, and is the only country to have used them. These go to show how ingrained this line of thinking has entered and poisoned America, the belief that "we're better than the rest of the world and should therefore be policing it".


Btw, apologies to any Americans who feel they were being unfairly attacked there - I'm only after the idiots who run your otherwise great country. Lastly - some advice to all: don't trust companies and governments too much. Need proof? Read about the discovery of Sony's XCD rootkit (well, that's what it is).

Interesting reading about RIGHTS of copyright owners in light of the XCP "Sony rootkit" incedent. It seems these CD's may have first appeared as early as MAY or JUNE and have been hiding DRM files on users machines for months.

What RIGHTS do they have to secretly install DRM ? Granted this was only ONE label and could be called an isolated incident. However consider this

- Noone told you at the music shop "that installs DRM software embedded in the player"

And in THIS case, noone said "oh btw that will install a rootkit and leave your PC vulnerable to...." "so do you still want to buy it?"

OH the irony..

yes it works, but how do one decripts wma without valid licence?

Come on R3LOADED... I know you can come up with better examples than that for how we Americans are hypocrits. My real critique has to do with your thougths about the nukes. We don't want other countries to make nukes... what do they need them for? You're right, we do have more nukes than the rest of the world combined, but we are dissarming, we have way less than we did during the Cold War... plus, it's not like we can just chuck them all in the ocean to get rid of them, it does take time, and we're getting there. I do agree with you that we have in recent years imposed a lot of our ways on other parts of the world without first asking the World's permission... I don't know what can be done about that now, sorry, our bad. Also, you're right, a ton of stuff that is legal and you should be able to do you can't any more thanks to all the "protection" that goes into MP3 creation these days. My advice to you... if you want all your old functionality, you gotta stick with your old technology. iPod is known to be bad about being used to transfer music, so know before you buy it that it can't be used that way. If you want to give songs and your old music to friends - be old fasioned, buy the CD, just like you used to! Same goes for
your beef with Napster not giving you as high-quality music, you know the CD isn't going to sound like crap, so go buy it and don't be so lazy you have to use Napster! Lastly, you can't transfer all sorts of media (DVDs and audio) to your computer legally because once it's on your computer it's too easy to share and rip off the production industry. Don't blame America or Microsoft for that, blame human nature, or more specifically the crackers of the world - if they hadn't gone around sharing the stuff illegally with their computers in the first place it never would have come to this. So now all your left with is the decision I've made. I like digital media and I don't want to have all sorts of prevention crap associated with it...

SOLUTION: you have to go a little techie. You have to know some stuff about DRM and you have to know where to look to find software to crack all of the industry's protections off your media. The newer pretection technologies are getting better and better and the tougher they get, the more technical you have to be in order to get your way with new media - lay
people are forced to abide by all the restrictions laid down by DRM and Microsoft, it sucks, deal. You have a choice, make it and quit complaining, it's called America, not Utopia.