Posts by Duane Griffin
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speaking of which, ripping the Naked & Famous cd to my mp3 player was a pain in the butt - are music companies still putting "anti-copy" stuff on cds?
In the end, Nero did the job. but it pissed me off.
Man, I hope not. That is exactly the sort of thing that is so counter-productive about DRM.
Happened to me once. No doubt I could have found a utility to rip it properly but it pissed me off so much I binned the CD and vowed never to spend a thin dime on the artist again. I reconsidered shortly afterwards and modified the vow to never buying from the label, as the artist almost certainly didn't have anything to do with the decision.
Unfortunately Naked & Famous don't seem to be on emusic, otherwise I would have just bought a couple of songs, and then the rest of the album if I liked them.
I'll try and remember to check them out next time I'm in NZ. As long as I can find an uncrippled CD, that is...
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They could stop it with a change of attitude and copy protection though.
You may as well say "They could stop it with a change in attitude" and leave it at that. DRM is useless if people are prepared to pirate music; it is pointless if they aren't.
Change people's attitudes towards piracy -- yes, absolutely. That would work. But DRM doesn't help that cause, it harms it. Like it or not, it is inconvenient. It makes you go and install crap software. It prevents you playing music you've paid for on your own devices. It actually, ludicrously, makes it quicker and easier to get music from pirate sites than to buy it legally.
Anyway, leave aside inconvenience -- let's pretend for a moment that there is none. DRM is still useless to the music industry because it doesn't work. Even if, somehow, unprotected formats such as CD and vinyl were completely eliminated it still wouldn't work. To play music a user's device must have access to the audio data. There is no technological way to prevent people from storing and replaying that data.
Media commentators like Russell are not to blame for pointing out DRM's shortcomings. The music industry is to blame for not accepting them.
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rodgerd:
Steam is doing pretty nicely for Valve.
Steam is not just a copy protection system. Also, from what I can see from a quick google, its copy protection has been cracked. Regardless, something like Steam just wouldn't work for music. With music the data is the same every time it is played and by definition it must all be processed by the user's computer. That isn't true for rich-content games such as HL2. Requiring an internet connection to play music is not going to fly, either.
...there are more than a few gaming studios simply abandoning the PC gaming business in part...or in full...and citing poor sale:piracy ratios for doing so.
That is precisely my point. They can't stop it with copy protection. They actually leave the industry instead. The same will happen in the music business. If your business model requires DRM then your business is going to fail.
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Russell: Ah, thanks. I suppose anonymous opt-in usage is fine.
No Gmail account then? Google Docs? Well, they still have a whole bunch of your search data. An evil company could do plenty bad things with that.
Not to mention email sent to/from other people with gmail accounts. I'm not sure of the data they collect through AdSense but I'd imagine it would be considerable, too.
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On another topic: Yes, DRM is dead. It was always doomed; there was no way it could ever have succeeded because it simply doesn't work.
During the 80's the software industry sunk huge amounts of time, talent and money into various "copy protection" schemes. They tried everything, up to and including hardware dongles. None of their schemes ever worked.
Unfortunately the music industry has seen fit to repeat that mistake. Of course there are plenty of con-men and chancers who are happy to encourage them to believe in technological pixie dust that can somehow prevent computers copying bits.
I realise this is very inconvenient for the music industry. For some musicians it will mean the difference between making a living playing music and not. It would be tragic if that "some" turned out to be "many", but even if it did there still won't be any way to make DRM work.
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I'm pretty sure they said explicitly that Analytics data is not used. That would certainly be evil. I think it would also violate the Analytics terms of use.
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You should ice your cake with both names, one on each side, and see which one goes quickest :)
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If you're interested in battery life, and haven't already, you should check out powertop. It should be available through the ubuntu package management system.
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The consummate professional wouldn't have been an odd-looking guy with imposing glasses, by any chance? If so that would be Nick Robinson, the BBC's political editor. Latest blog entry: GB slams BB 'racism'.
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It seems like a very sound argument. Such ridiculous requirements and design constraints would be very costly to implement. So I expect they will either be ignored or worked around by any manufacturers who can't recoup the costs from their customers. Just how much Vista-compliant hardware and software is going to be available by the end of this year?
Cringely's response misses the point quite spectacularly. He doesn't address or even acknowledge the cost or security arguments. Which is odd, considering the title. The points he does make mostly seem to agree with conclusions in the paper: the strategy is driven by MS desire to dominate the marketplace and lock-in customers and suppliers; this will be costly; it isn't what consumers want; and the ostensible goal of all this, "content protection", is unachievable anyway.
Anyway, as a long-time personal and professional Linux user, I really don't care too much. I don't think it will have as much of an effect on the open hardware situation as Peter seems to believe, mostly because I think it will be a complete failure in the media market.