All becomes clear... like bullet-proof glass
Sun’s open source Deliberately Retarded Media project, DReaM (read NIghtmarE), turns out not to be quite so "open" after all (yeah, big surprise). According to ZDNet's David Berlind the new DRM software must run as signed code on the new Trusted Computing platform. The compiled application is digitally signed by a trusted third party which can then verify that the executing code on the host machine matches the code deployed on behalf of the rights holders before it is allowed to release control of the copyrighted material. In today's computing environment working around this system in order to exert fair use rights would be a relatively trivial matter, but with the dawn of trusted computing we face a situation in which our own, private hardware will conspire with the middle-men of the content industries to lock us out of our own legally purchased property. While this may fulfill the letter of the open source movement's constitution, it clearly insults its spirit. While we may be able to re-write and re-distribute the code we can do nothing about any existing implementation, we cannot use the source code to regain legal control or invent new ways of using our media. This may as well not be open source at all.
The TC publicity machine has tried to tell us that their technology was designed to keep us safe, protecting our data and our privacy. Now we see what we long suspected, the purpose of TC is to protect the rapidly disintegrating business models of the music and movie industries from a future of consumer control.
Make no mistake, these people are machine breakers, modern day Luddites, smashing the devices that they see as threatening their livelihoods - progress and new thinking be damned! Such greed and shortsightedness can only lead to our being locked out of participation in the art and technology that shapes our lives and our identities. The unthinkable marriage of TC and DRM promises a cultural Flatland where no one is permitted to build upon the work of another, where we are forced to build only outward until every available niche is filled and there is nothing left but a future of ever-extending copyrights and bland repetition.
DRM is 'zombiware', systems designed to perpetuate outmoded business models, to force rigidity and linearity on a new world of flexibility and democratic expansion, to breath the semblance of life into ancient and putrefying industries.
I'd like to suggest that you avoid buying a trusted computing system in the future, but it seems likely that ten years from now you'll have very little choice - you either buy TC or opt out of the greater part of your current media environment.
I really hope Mr Lessig is taking note and planning his rapid withdrawal from any future servicing of the DRM industry. Complementing these systems is like admiring the axe of your executioner.
The TC publicity machine has tried to tell us that their technology was designed to keep us safe, protecting our data and our privacy. Now we see what we long suspected, the purpose of TC is to protect the rapidly disintegrating business models of the music and movie industries from a future of consumer control.
Make no mistake, these people are machine breakers, modern day Luddites, smashing the devices that they see as threatening their livelihoods - progress and new thinking be damned! Such greed and shortsightedness can only lead to our being locked out of participation in the art and technology that shapes our lives and our identities. The unthinkable marriage of TC and DRM promises a cultural Flatland where no one is permitted to build upon the work of another, where we are forced to build only outward until every available niche is filled and there is nothing left but a future of ever-extending copyrights and bland repetition.
DRM is 'zombiware', systems designed to perpetuate outmoded business models, to force rigidity and linearity on a new world of flexibility and democratic expansion, to breath the semblance of life into ancient and putrefying industries.
I'd like to suggest that you avoid buying a trusted computing system in the future, but it seems likely that ten years from now you'll have very little choice - you either buy TC or opt out of the greater part of your current media environment.
I really hope Mr Lessig is taking note and planning his rapid withdrawal from any future servicing of the DRM industry. Complementing these systems is like admiring the axe of your executioner.