Gaming Signal: DRM: What is it good for!

DRM: What is it good for!

Come on - you can finish the statement with me, "Absolutely nothin'!". Whew, do we all feel better?

In all seriousness, Digital Rights Management (or DRM) has spawned lots of controversy both here on GamingSignal as well as in the online community in general. The idea behind it is simple - provide the owner of content (that's you) the ability to use the content you purchased according to the rights given to you by that purchase. In other words, it lets me use the thing I bought in the manner the provider intended. It has restrictions, sure - but those restrictions are supposed to be in the areas outside of the scope of the intended use. And as you can imagine, here is where all the problems begin...

You may think that DRM is in the future - that we haven't seen it in use yet but that it will become a factor in all our lives once BluRay or HD DVD comes of age. Well I've got news for you - you're using DRM today whether you know it or not and DRM has been around for years. It's also going to be in use in the future without question. Let's explore the topic a bit and see how things have progressed. I'll also give my views on where we need to go.

Does anybody remember those parallel port dongles that had to be attached to your PC to be able to use certain software like AutoCAD or Wordcraft? Well, that's a form of DRM - it was a way to physically lock usage to whomever owned the dongle. This worked, sort of. I remember having all sorts of printer compatibility problems with dongles. I also remember seeing dongle emulation software out there that provided a, um, work-around. USB dongles are still in use today (unsurprisingly in products from Autodesk.) Did dongles help? Yes, they did and do help - I'd argue that today's solutions are surprisingly difficult to crack and are working for folks like Autodesk. Of course, I remember once when the dongle got fried in a lightning storm and we were without use of the server software we needed for days until a replacement could be obtained, but otherwise it worked. Do I want dongles in the future? Actually, I sort of do - see below.

DVDs contain a form of DRM. DVD content is protected with a system called CSS - you can only play it back on players who have paid a fee to the DVD Consortium and gotten a license. This means that every DVD player in the world has a mini decryption key and decryption engine inside capable of descrambling the data. It also means the player manufacturers have agreed not to include certain features, such as the ability to extract a pure digital feed of the film that would allow a high resolution copy. Did this form of DRM work? Ultimately no, it didn't. It caused all sorts of troubles for consumers who couldn't playback DVDs on their home PCs without purchasing software to do so, despite the fact that the technology was physically all there - I had to buy a DVD playback program in order get the license and thus a decryption key.

I'm sure some of you are now saying, "but wait, I can rip DVDs to my hard disk without loss of quality - how is that possible?" It's possible because somebody cracked the encryption used and as a result pretty much all DVD content is now available without protection somewhere on the internet. Note that if you live in the United States (or the European Union I believe), use of a program to decrypt a DVD to your hard disk is against the law. The problem is - should this use be against the law if I have no intention of doing anything with the content of my DVDs besides making them available on a home media server or for playback on my PSP/iPod? And here's what the nasty part of DRM rears its ugly head - current restrictions make this sort of usage either illegal or a violation of the license agreement.

So we have 2 bad things up there with DVDs - the content owners lost control of their content and consumers have to suffer with restrictions on use that they overall shouldn't have and don't like. Thus, to me DVD DRM is inherently a failure.

We currently have HDTV broadcast out over the airwaves and through cable TV - a fine high-resolution data stream of movie content. This content is protected by a simple form of copy protection known as the 'broadcast flags.' The flags allows content so marked to be controlled by the devices that can demodulate the HDTV stream. For example, the flags might allow the content written to other media (like a DVRs hard disk or an HD VHS) but only once (this is how movie content is routinely set.) It might also prevent all such writing of the content (I'm personally not aware of this ever happening, but it very much possible.) Overall I bet most people don't find this form of DRM restrictive and yet the content owners seem moderately happy with it. So this is one that works, mostly because the content owners have allowed the use that consumers want.

Moving along to the future, here comes BluRay and HD DVD. The DRM in both is similar to DVDs but significantly more complicated and subject to reliability concerns. They purport to allow users to make copies of the content for use in devices like portable players, as well as do a better job protecting the content. I hope they do - but let's take a look at one tiny aspect of the standards. The content you buy (the movies) now contains some interesting new things - along withe movie and extra bits you want to watch, the media also includes code your player has to be able to play. This code (itself encrypted of course) can then analyze the movie and make sure it is the official version and prevent playback if it doesn't like what it sees. [Note that I haven't found what language this code is in, but as all BluRay players have to include a run-time version of Java for its menus, it may easily be some form of interpreted language like Java. If anybody knows, please fill me in.] For BluRay (and not HD DVD) the media can also contain new encryption algorithms - including ones required for the media content to be played. This allows new content to be protected by new algorithms in the event that the initial algorithm is compromised. And finally, each disc includes a new list of allowed providers and allowed players, thus giving the consortium running this standard the ability to shut down providers they no longer trust or disallow players they no longer trust.

OK - I'm scared just reading what I wrote, and frankly I'm saving you from the most gory details. Can I really trust Disney to distribute quality code for my player with my new HD copy of "Chicken Little"? What if somebody decides the player on my PC is untrusted and suddenly I can no longer playback new content?

To me the future has to revolve around some form of content locking. That is, it needs to be locked to me in some useful way. An example of that would be locking it to my online registration, say a Microsoft Passport. Microsoft proposed exactly such a concept with it's Windows Live ID with the example of allowing me to lock my version of Bejewled I bought for one cell phone to automatically be unlocked on its replacement by logging into my Windows Live ID. Now that's DRM I can use!

But what about those devices that aren't online? That's where I think the dongle might make a reasonable return - allow me to put my licenses onto a USB dongle from my PC and move them to the other devices in my home. Think of a SecureID or ActiveKey solution but for home use. I just plug it into my BluRay player when I buy new content and it's locked to me - I can take that disc to my PC and plug in the dongle thus allowing use (including ripping down for my iPod or PSP, of course.) Given how cheap a USB interface is and how cheap the devices are, I can't see how requiring it on all my media devices is a problem. If I lost my key - no problem, I just buy a new one and move all my licenses from my online ID into the key for the next time a device needs it.

OK - that's a long post with lots of commentary - at this point I'll stop and let the rest of the rascals here chime in with mistakes and boneheaded thinking on my part .

I'm not sure I needed a refresher on DRM but I just got one.

Guess what, I still don't like it. But to coincide with the topic I will amend that too, some DRM implementations do not irritate me as much as others.

So all this successful/unsuccessful DRM cost someone money to develop. Guess what, it wasn't the MPAA or the RIAA or any other AA you can come up with. They passed all that cost on to YOU the consumer.

On top of that, the DRM that you paid for only inconvienences you the consumer. To think that any of this junk slowed down a skilled hacker by more than 48 hours is just silly. One last point here, you can't plug the analog hole. Companies need to stop trying. Period.

I envision a world where this DRM cost that has been passed on to me, the consumer, is handled differently. In fact Sweden is doing the very thing I suggest. They are backing off of development of draconian DRM techniques and pouring the money (which they WILL pass on to the consumer, we can't escape that since it is the basic tennet of capitalism) in to lobbying for legislature that penalizes REAL PIRATES in the means of longer jail times, higher fees for violating copyright, THINGS I CAN ACCEPT my IP (intellectual property) creator/author passing on that cost to me the consumer.

Dongles. They just work! I agree with you here Scott. I have used many, I own many, and they do not bother me at all. But they are impractical once everyone starts using one. Thats why they are only used for really expensive software. We would have 7 feet of dongle hanging off the back of our PC's if there was a dongle for every game we owned. Now a "general use" dongle that could be registered to any piece of software... now were cooking with gas!

So whats next? The unique processor ID by intel was not a bad idea, they just screwed it up by having it phone home to Intel for every challenge made too it. It was too "big brother" for people to cope with. If they had just backed off a little and just made it check the code and limit usage if you were not authorized then I think it would have been fine. Which is, I think, how the MS Genuine Advantage DRM works for XP and so far the only thing it can limit is the use of Windows Update. I admit that this is easilly cracked by a real hacker, but once again, if you thought you were going to stop them anyway, you were kidding yourself.

Heres the rub. ANY and I mean ANY DRM mechanism needs to adhere to the currently established copyright laws for the country you are buying that IP in. Our current American DRM implementations do not adhere to American "fair use" rights and limit creativity and convergence of CE devices and developers. We should be running companies like Sony out of town for taking liberties with our rights. And thankfully we are taking Sony to task. The Texas DA case against Sony has not even gone to court yet but the preceeding case (NY I think?) was already won by the NY DA and Sony has to pay for all the DRM CD's with First4Internets DRM on them. Yay for level headed people, boo for draconian Sony. (Oh and America needs to curb the unenforcable EULA's floating out there in the intarwebthingy, they don't even hold up in court!)

Yes, I've taken a side. Yes, Sony needs to change their ways if they plan to keep me as a consumer, along with a lot of other companies. I think its down to just that, vote with your wallet. As I have mentioned, I'm on my 6th or 7th year of no RIAA music purchases. But all that money has just shifted. I'm still spending money on music. I'm just buying Indie music now, and I'm happier for it, and I can see my money going to good use in the local music scene, instead of in to a "fat cat's" wallet.

I think we see eye to eye on this issue Scott, I think the difference was that DRM doesn't make you mad like it does me. I think I am truly a very easy going kind of guy. Not many things get me agitated. But the things that do agitate me REALLY agitate me a lot. So please understand the my vehemence on this topic is not personal against you, I just really detest some DRM implementations. Especially when the ways the DRM limits me are ways that I would never try to exploit or profit from in the first place.

Posted by tditto on Monday June 05, 2006 at 1:48 PM