Sun’s DRM to enforce Creative Commons licences
A Sun scientist working on Sun’s DReaM/Open Media Commons DRM system, Susan Landau, gave a talk today [PDF] and Benjamin Mako Hill was there to report.
I really hope Creative Commons will not engage in this slippery slope.
“But DReaM enforcement of CC licenses is a bad thing and the bad taste that it inevitably leaves in many commoners mouths is not hard to explain:
- Many commoners are not comfortable with the idea of DRM because it shifts power over users’ computing devices away from the users and makes computers obey the will of a copyright holder. That’s true of DReaM just as much as as it is of Apple iTunes or Microsoft DRM.
- Many commoners are not completely comfortable with all CC licenses, so the idea of technical protection measures enforcing these terms, even those allowing for fair use lines and in line with the will of the author, is seen as dangerous.
To solve the first issue, CC needs a more strongly worded anti-DRM clause — ideally one tied to a parallel distribution clause. To solve the second, we will ultimately need a new banner under which only truly free cultural works will reside.” — source: Dare to DReaM? by Benjamin Mako Hill
“Susan Landau doesn’t have it easy but she does seem to have the genuine best interest of consumers and users at heart. That’s more than I can say about the vast majority of people in the DRM business. She’s trying to walk a fine line and she’s almost certainly being abused and heckled by folks in the industry who call her “communist” and by folks like me who feel that she’s sacrificing essential principles in an attempt to compromise. The one thing we all agree on is that the ground she’s treading is mine field.
Yet while I sympathize with her, I must speak out against both her and DReaM. A DRM compromise at this stage would be insanity. This is a fight we have to win.” — source: Dare to DReaM? by Benjamin Mako Hill
Robin, nothing about the thread, sorry, but I thought you should know that having one of those link-boxes repeated over and over again on the front page breaks the adsense rules. You’re only allowed one of those per page.
Comment by Oli — 2006/11/17 @ 04:29
Yeah, thanks for the reminder. The front page is misconfigured with regards to the google ads, but as far as I know we’re allowed as many ad blocks as we wish. You just have to set each up with a different id but I have more important things to worry about right now, like how to actually make any money out of these :)
Comment by Robin — 2006/11/17 @ 05:32
On-topic, my 2 cents
- DRM will never work. It is a phase, it will phase out. Give incentives to people to have the real deal. THAT will work.
- Being more and more repressive to everything will lead to something being used by no one. I loathe the day GPLv3 will come in because it segregates between “good” and “bad”, and doesn’t give a choice. DRM might be bad, but it’s their bad.
Example for part one, I have all the music videos from Palm’s excellent Director’s Label. All the DVDs are either dual layer, double side, or doubles. The box is very nicely done, got posters, got extra stuff, and for every DVD, I got a very nice booklet with many many pages of pictures, texts, discussions, whatever the director wanted to give away. VERY interesting and incredibly nice. Even if I were to give out all this in a torrent, people would miss most out of the fun. Not strangely it’s very hard to find on the Net, due to that.
Example for part two, I had to recode many pieces of software because of a overintrusive license. My software doesn’t have limitations, it doesn’t inhibit any behavior … and I don’t want people to be left out, no matter what, or impose a model that’s not mine. IJG Jpeg asks you to put their name in the documentation… fair, but I cannot make sure of that, nor will I make sure of it. LGPL asks for DLLs and external stuff from my application, and if it’s something very low-level, it means someone can change the DLL to another hacked version and very easily get all my assets… not something I want for security’s sake. Stop giving limitations and I will start using your stuff.
Back on text, if I give away stuff with CC on my site, and give away stuff to use anywhere, well… that’s very good… and I have forfeited the rights for what I am giving out under their terms. The terms say they cannot do profit from my work… fine. The terms say they have to give credits where due… fine. Whether someone else puts it on their site, asks for a download, gives away a 35-digit serial number the user must put on their computer to have access to my stuff, as long as it’s non-commercial, I have absolutely no say on this, it’s still free, it’s still there. Whether someone wants to print my stuff and make a book out of it and put it in his shelf, that’s his money, he can do whatever he wants, as long as the license is shown and my name is not misrepresented, that’s fine. If he wants to create 10000 books and give them out, hey, go ahead dude, as long as you’re not selling them, I don’t care, nor should I. He can even change the pictures as he sees fit, as long as the original source is cited and said it’s changed. Whatever suits them, I do not care at all.
This is why my two cents would say that CC should not care its usage, nor change its plans. If it did, I would probably not upgrade the license of my site and stay with the good ol’ version.
Comment by Michel — 2006/11/18 @ 02:13