[advocacy] DRM in OGG - A Proposal

[Daniel James]

> Of course, DRM and copy-protection for audio can never work, because
> analogue copies, which will not be encumbered by DRM/copy protection (and
> so can be reproduced digitally), can be easily be made.

That might be the case at the moment, for the kind of person who is prepared 
to use analogue outputs and a pre-DRM recording system. But I've already 
experienced a device widely used in the UK (a digital satellite TV box) that 
completely frustrated our attempts to make analogue copies. We were trying to 
make a VHS copy of the live Tour de France coverage via a SCART output - 
somehow, although the signal was perfect on the TV it would not record on the 
VHS. I expect the hi-fi of the future will be the same. 

> Of much greater
> concern to me is the complaints from the recording industry against the
> methods of getting music from unsigned artists, such as peer2peer networks.

Would you care to estimate what percentage of music on p2p networks is by 
unsigned artists? 5%? 1%?

> It
> seems to me that this is much more important to vorbis than
> advocating/attacking DRM.

Part of the same phenomenon. Vorbis needs to answer both DRM advocates and 
those who would shut down p2p networks by force. It's the same interests 
behind both, after all.

> but the main complaint about DRM doesn't apply to software
> licenses. The GLP doens't prevent you from exercising exemptions from
> copyright granted by law.

The GPL may not, but other software licences certainly do in the EULA. They 
just use legal penalties rather than technological enforcement - the 
technical aspect of DRM systems is an admission that law has failed to 
enforce copyright. Besides, depending where in the world you live, you may 
have recently lost those time-honoured exemptions from copyright law.
 
Personally, I'm not interested in levering exceptions to copyright law for 
myself - I'm quite happy to pay artists a fair rate for their work. Rather, I 
want to defend the copyright system from those who would bring it into 
disrepute with heavy handed and anti-musical technological controls.

Cheers

Daniel

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