UK company, eh? Stealing Ogged's ideas, eh? I think we now know why "OneFatEnglishman" keeps himself pseudonymous around here. Good luck with your billions, 1FE.
It's tragic to be so far ahead of your time. The true inventor of the sewing machine died a pauper, but Isaac Merrit Singer got rich off it and married his lesbian daughters off to louche European princes.
But the real story is that Singer's copyright lawyer Edward Clark was made a full partner in the company, and as Martin Pertez's great-great [...] -grandfather-in-law is responsible for financing today's New Republic.
1) Why can't you just delete the 5 second intro?
2) I doubt it's really "undetectable" which bits are deleted. If you have a few different copies purchased under different names, can't you compare and reconstruct the full unmarked file?
3) Who holds the keys linking the signature bits with purchasers?
3:
(1) You could. But pirated copies are still detectable by the bit deletions. At the same time, the need to edit off that five seconds will deter a lot of casual piracy, more than the presence of the bit deletions by itself would.
(2) Probably. But then purchasing multiple copies for the sake of pirating further copies is something only professional DVD pirates would do, and stopping those people isn't what this scheme is about.
(3) I dunno.
4: the need to edit off that five seconds will deter a lot of casual piracy
It doesn't matter if you deter 99% of the would-be uploaders. Once *a single copy* gets put on a file sharing network, it will spread and the whole question of deterring more people from uploading it becomes pointless. This is kind of the universal problem with DRM schemes.
Putting some kind of user-specific watermark on downloaded media will probably help keep them off the networks, but until these things sold online only, there's nothing stopping anyone from buying something with cash and putting it online. At which point, again, Streamburst's scheme becomes entirely pointless.
1) Piracy group steals a credit card number.
2) ???
3) Profit!
re 5
The point is that the streamburst encoding is as hard to remove as normal DRM and doesn't restrict personal use or backup in any way.
What joeo said. The argument from 4 is the nuclear argument against any removable DRM. It doesn't address the question of the relative superiority of the Ogged (tm) DRM method to existing methods.
You saying "bza" but you're thinking Emmanuelle Béart.
Well, there's two questions:
1) Is this superior to existing DRM methods?
2) Will this actually reduce piracy by any substantial amount?
Statements like "will deter a lot of casual piracy" make it seem like 4 is claiming that the answer to question 2 is "yes". But the fact that the answer to question 1 is almost certainly "yes" (sue, Ogged, sue) doesn't change the fact that the answer to 2 is almost certainly "no".
"You" s/b "you're"
I knew that's what you meant to say; it's like we have a mystical connection.
7 + "and doesn't really restrict or prevent piracy, either." For basically the reasons that Victor Freeh gave.
But let's just grant that there will always be some piracy. We don't have a good idea of how much piracy is deterred by DRM, nor do we really know how many purchases are deterred by it. We do know that restrictive DRM burns good will. The My Method doesn't seem like it would increase piracy, but if purchases are deterred by DRM, they're less likely be deterred by this, and it seems like it would burn less good will than restrictive DRM. Net: Benefit!
I knew that's what you meant to say; it's like we have a mystical connection.
Then you must have also known that I was trying to link to this but fucked it up...
-gg-d, the point is that the same reasoning would apply to "no DRM at all." Putting no DRM on any electronic media would (a) be less restrictive than the current regime, and (b) wouldn't increase piracy appreciably. Since pretty much anyone who wants to pirate right now is already doing so. Net: benefit!
wouldn't increase piracy appreciably
Hmm. This is the question, ain't it?
You know clownman's story about a new job was bs and we banned him for doing that -gg-d thing, right?
I only do it to get your attention. "Look over heeeeeere, Ogged!"
Look, the fact that one copy of an electronic document gets out the jig is up is only half the story.
The same thing is exactly true of the algorithms/methods used to break all these watermarking and drm schemes. It's not like everyone who would pirate movies or music needs to figure out how to unwatermark their files -- only one person needs to do it, and then they distribute a program to do the same for everyone else. This is the concept behind the 'script kiddie' -- algorithms are as fungible as data.
Face it, Ogged -- DRM is like trying to hold water with a sieve. It might drain more slowly, but it's going to drain inevitably.
It's all about the swing pirates. Some people are going to pirate no matter what, and some people don't know what file sharing is. But how likely is the regular iTunes customer to send his buddy a song or video he just bought if there's no DRM, and how likely is he to send it if his name is attached to it? I don't know how much difference it makes, but I'm not convinced that it makes no difference.
It's the Theory of the Marginal Pirate.
But go back to what Victor Freeh said in the first place. It's not the marginal pirate who would strip the DRM off in the first place, and once the DRM is off it's off for good.
Look, I say this as a guy who's downloaded a movie or two in his time, and who watches pirated Chinese TV on the weekends to get his soccer fix. If it was up to me to put these movies online in the first place, Hollywood'd be sleeping a lot easier at night. And if it was up to me to pirate the tv feed, I'd never see any EPL at all. But it's not. And instead, I use really easy programs like a bit-torrent client and .. well, a peer-to-peer video program, and all my friends do too. Only one person initially pirated those bits, but thousands of us enjoy them afterwards.
It's all about the swing pirates.
How true...we so rarely hear about the Edelweiss Pirates anymore.
The My Method doesn't seem like it would increase piracy, but if purchases are deterred by DRM, they're less likely be deterred by this, and it seems like it would burn less good will than restrictive DRM. Net: Benefit!
Yeah, this seems like it would be a step up (from both the user and the supplier perspectives) from current DRM methods. But when I read things like "stopping those people isn't what this scheme is about", I have to ask...what exactly is this scheme about? Pirated copies of the media will still be distributed and anyone who wants to download them will still be able to. It seems like the sole virtue of schemes like this is that they make some movie and music executives more comfortable about distributing their good online, despite not actually having any real effect on piracy.
But guys, will you admit that there will probably be differences in the prevalence of piracy depending on whether there's no DRM, My Method DRM, or restrictive DRM?
Wow. I had never heard of the Edelweiss Pirates. They sound like a bunch of thugs first and anti-fascists only incidentally, but good on them, nonetheless.
What do you mean by "prevalence," Ogged?
(a) Fewer people will be stripping DRM from their electronic media?
(b) Fewer people will use networked, peer-to-peer filesharing tools to distribute already-un-DRM'ed media?
If by (a), then I think we probably all agree. If (b), then no. But the rate of (b) is what matters.
I think ogged's referring to more casual piracy, where people get their media as copies from friends who own it, not knowing how or wanting to bother obtaining a copy on their own.
What matters is that consumers are made to accept the DRM regime.
35 to 33, not to w-lfs-n's lunatic ravings.
In his heart, Oggers knows that 35 was directed at 21. A secret little moment of self-affirmation.
But who cares about that? As everyone knows, casual piracy doesn't matter.
Casual piracy cheapens women's souls, Ben.
Next time I'm pirating something, I'll make sure to dress up in one of those tuxedo t-shirts. No casual piracy for me!
Then, if that file shows up on some file sharing service, prosecute.
So, if you lose your iPod, you go to jail when those songs show up on the web?
Shouldn't people who lose their IPods or have them stolen be required to notify the owners of the property which is contained on the IPod?
This is not a new idea. There has been a lot of work on what is called watermarking. See for example US patent 6807634 which attempts to deal with the collusion problem mentioned in 3.
My understanding is that watermarking is best suited for the case where you are worried about a relatively small number of customers who you are dealing with repeatedly. So if think one of them is pirating you can just cut them off without having to prove anything.
I think the new-ish part isn't the watermarking scheme, it's the 'for shame, we put your name on the front of the movie, now you can't/won't pirate it' part.
45
Oggeds's idea was just watermarking which is well known.
I didn't say you'd get a conviction.
Tell it to the judge. I'm not worried about being convicted, really. I'm worried about being arrested and tried, as well as probably being sued civilly by the RIAA. These things sound inconvenient and expensive.
People lose control over the media they purchase at a non-trivial rate in another way: Computer viruses and spyware.
Casual piracy could also be argued as fair use. If we recall the 80s or early 90s, I don't think most lawyers/judges considered dubbing tapes or making mix tapes (yes, literally cassette tapes) for friends infringement. IANAL, but it appears to fall under exemption 1 and 4.
"So, Mr/s. Smith, is this your name in the first five seconds of this digital copy of Canonball Run?"
"Uh... yeah?"
"Did you pirate this movie to distribute via P2P networks?"
"Pea to who-huh?"
"Mr/s. Smith, do you have a wireless network in your home?"
"Yeah!"
"Is it secured?"
"You bet! I lock my front door every night!"