Businessweek reports that CinemaNow has delivered the Holy Grail of the online movie business: a mainstream movie (although, it must be said, not a very good movie) that consumers can purchase for $10 and burn to a DVD that can be played on an ordinary DVD player.
Well, sort of. BusinessWeek mentions in passing that they licensed technology “from a German company” to copy-protect the DVDs. That made me skeptical, as the technical problem involved was quite challenging. As has been discussed on this site before, the copy-protection on DVDs works by putting the encryption keys for the DVD in a part of the disc that can’t be written to on the type of DVD-R media that’s available to the general public (known as “G” media). That means that if a PC tries to copy a DVD, it can read the keys, but it can’t write them to the new disk.
But what that really means is that home computers can’t create any encrypted DVDs that will play on DVD players, because the only encryption scheme those players support is the one that requires “A” media, which isn’t available to ordinary consumers. All a PC can do is generate an unencrypted movie. And that, Hollywood believes, would be an unacceptable piracy risk. So, I thought, this magical German technology must be awfully sketchy to do what it claims to do.
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By sheer coincidence, I’m currently (re-)reading Hayek’s The Constitution of Liberty, which I recommended to Luis in a recent post. I thought this passage was interesting:
The importance of our being free to do a particular thing has nothing to do with the question of whether we or the majority are ever likely to make use of that particular possibility. To grant no more freedom than all can exercise would be to misconceive its function completely. The freedom that will be used by only one man in a million may be more important to society and more beneficial to the majority than any freedom that we all use.
It might even be said that the less likely the opportunity to make use of freedom to do a particular thing, the more precious it will be for society as a whole. The less likely the opportunity, the more serious will it be to miss it when it arises, for the experience that it offers will be nearly unique. It is also probably true that the majority are not directly interested in most of the important things that any one person should de free to do. It is because we do not know how individuals will use their freedom that it is so important. If it were otherwise, the results of of freedom could also be achieved by the majority’s deciding what should be done by the individuals. But the majority action is, of necessity, confined to the already tried and ascertained, to issues on which agreement has already been reached in that process of discussion that must be preceded by different experiences and actions on the part of different individuals.
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It’s interesting how people on the technology side of the media business tend to badmouth digital rights management technology even as they acquiesce to the content industry’s demands for it. We’ve seen how Steve Jobs bluntly admitted that DRM is not an effective piracy deterrent, just months before rolling out what became one of the world’s most widely deployed DRM schemes. And we’ve seen how Yahoo has pointed out to the labels that DRM does little more than inconvenience paying customers. Now Ashwin Navin, co-founder of the BitTorrent service, is badmouthing the concept even as his company implements it at the behest of Hollywood:
The reason it’s bad for content providers is because typically a DRM ties a user to one hardware platform, so if I buy my all my music on iTunes, I can’t take that content to another hardware environment or another operating platform. There are a certain number of consumers who will be turned off by that, especially people who fear that they may invest in a lot of purchases on one platform today and be frustrated later when they try to switch to another platform, and be turned off with the whole experience. Or some users might not invest in any new content today because they’re not sure if they want to have an iPod for the rest of their life.
Quite So. The people who pay for your content are not the enemy, and it’s counterproductive to create headaches for them.
Hat tip: Ars Technica
I think the hysterical tone of this article about the new restrictions in the latest version of the Windows Media Player DRM is unnecessary, but it makes some good points:
One of the problems with WiMP11 is licensing and backing it up. If you buy media with DRM infections, you can’t move the files from PC to PC, or at least you can’t and have them play on the new box. If you want the grand privilege of moving that content, you need to get the approval of the content mafia, sign your life away, and use the tools they give you. If you want to do it in other ways, you are either a lawbreaker or following the advice of J Allard. Wait, same thing.
So, in WiMP10, you just backed up your licenses, and stored them in a safe place. Buying DRM infections gets you a bunch of bits and a promise not to sue, but really nothing more. The content mafia will do anything in its power, from buying government to rootkitting you in order to protect those bits, and backing them up leaves a minor loophole while affording the user a whole lot of protection.
Guess which one wins, minor loophole or major consumer rights? Yes, WiMP11 will no longer allow you the privilege of backing up your licenses, they are tied to a single device, and if you lose it, you are really SOL.
We hear a lot about how DRM is a contract. But what kind of contract allows one party to unilaterally and retroactively change its terms?
Moreover, this is really a pretty severe restriction on the use of digital files. Backups are a fundamental part of good computer use. I back up my data at least once a month. I use my laptop pretty heavily, and a little bit abusively, and I rely on the fact that if my hard drive dies (or is lost or stolen) I’ll be able to get my data from backups.
In some cases, if you ask really nicely, the store that sold you the files will permit you to access the files again. But it’s clear that they do this out of the goodness of their hearts: “Some stores do not permit you to restore media usage rights at all.”
Is it any wonder that Windows Media-based music stores are going down in flames?
Variety reports that Yahoo’s lobbying effort to get the labels to ditch DRM reached another milestone:
In a first for mainstream pop music, Yahoo! will sell Jesse McCartney’s new album “Right Where You Want Me,” from Disney-owned Hollywood Records, in the unprotected MP3 format. That means consumers will be able to play it on any digital music device, including Apple’s iPod. MP3 files are the only type that will play on an iPod besides those downloaded from iTunes.
But because they have no copy protection, MP3 files can be easily traded on peer-to-peer networks, emailed to friends or burned onto an endless number of CDs.
“We’re trying to be realistic,” said Ken Bunt, senior VP of marketing at Hollywood Records. “Jesse’s single is already online and we haven’t put it out. Piracy happens regardless of what we do. So we’re going to see how Jesse’s album goes (as an MP3) and then decide on others going forward.”
Yahoo! previously sold an exclusive version of Jessica Simpson song “A Public Affair” as an MP3, but it has never offered a major-label album for sale elsewhere without copy restriction, nor have any of the other digital music stores.
That’s the most sensible quote about DRM I’ve seen from the recording industry in… well, probably ever. I’ve never heard of Jesse McCartney, but I’m tempted to buy a copy of his album on principle. If it sells well, maybe that will encourage other labels to be equally realistic.
Hat tip: Derek
Update: I poked around on Yahoo’s site for a little while, but couldn’t find an easy way to buy the album. Perhaps you have to do that through their client software, which doesn’t appear to have a Mac version. If anyone knows of a straightforward way to buy the MP3 version of the music, please let me know.
This week Microsoft released details about Zune, Microsoft’s purported iPod killer. Techdirt is reporting that Zune won’t be compatible with Microsoft’s previous digital rights management technology, which, ironically enough, was branded “Plays for Sure.” Microsoft’s marketing folks might want to look into changing that. In addition, nothing seems to have come of rumors that Microsoft would “buy out” iTunes users by giving them copies of the songs they’d previously purchased at the iTunes store. Which is really peculiar, given that it would have been a big win for both the labels and Microsoft.
I doubt Steve Jobs is losing over sleep over this.
Assistant Attorney General Thomas O. Barnett gave a rather odd history of the iTunes Store at a speech at George Mason University yesterday:
Apple’s iTunes music service has (for the moment) solved a problem that some observers, less than five years ago, predicted might never be solved: how to create a consumer-friendly, yet legal and profitable, system for downloading music and other entertainment from the Internet. It is instructive to review the history of the problem. The technical capability to offer digital music over the Internet has existed at least since the early 1990s; nevertheless, digital music first moved online in a significant way only in 1999 with the launch of the Napster centralized file-sharing service. There were major flaws with the early attempts to offer downloadable music: Napster and Grokster were based principally on piracy, while recording industry efforts such as MusicNet and pressplay never achieved wide use and, in addition, were attacked as risking a recording industry monopoly over not just the songs, but technological development as well. While it battled the music pirates, the music industry suffered huge losses, including a 25 percent drop in sales from 2001 to 2002, which could be measured in the billions of dollars. Reviewing that bleak picture, the head of the Recording Industry Association of America said in 2002, “I wish I could tell you that there is a silver bullet that could resolve this very serious problem. There is not.”
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I would say this month’s movie store battle came out a draw. iTunes movie prices range from $9.99 for older selections to $14.99 for new releases after the first week (for reasons that aren’t clear to me, you save $2 if you buy movies the first week they’re released). People use the familiar iTunes interface and can play the movies on their iPods. And early next year, Apple will be releasing a $299 product code-named iTV, a set top box that nicely solves the “last foot” problem by streaming movies wirelessly to your TV.
The big downside, though, is that Jobs apparently only succeeded in getting \ one of the big Hollywood studios, Disney, to sign onto the service at launch. Perhaps his seat on Disney’s board made the negotiating process easier. So as Ars noted last week, the studios have split. If you want Disney movies, you’ve gotta sign up with iTunes. If you want anybody else’s movies, you’ve gotta sign up with Amazon.
Hopefuly this situation won’t continue. It would be awfully irritating if you had to buy iTV to watch your iTunes/Disney movie, and some other device to stream your Amazon Unbox movies to your TV.
Update: It’s worth noting that nothing was said about DVD burning, which presumably means it’s not going to be allowed. So your options will be to watch the video on your tiny iPod screen or shell out $299 for iTV.
Update 2: Commenters are pointing out several other ways you can get view content: on your computer screen, or using an A/V cable to hook your iPod up to your TV. Both excellent points.
Randy Picker has a great dissection of the Unbox licensing agreement. He finds three notable (mis)features: first, the software reserves to right to phone home to look for software updates and enforce the terms of the DRM software. Second, if you uninstall the software, Amazon reserves the right to delete all of your purchased movies and terminate your right to watch them. And finally, Amazon reserves the right to change your rights under the EULA unilaterally.
As Prof. Picker notes, these terms are not likely to be a big hit with consumers:
I suspect my tone sounds a tad hostile but I don’t really mean it that way. For better or worse, this is exactly the design we should anticipate with digital rights management software and therein lies the central market conundrum for DRM. Indeed, I am surprised that folks are surprised by the design. It may be sensible for the law to validate DRM as it does in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, as I have argued before, but that is a far cry from saying the consumers will embrace it. The law should facilitate sales of purple shirts with pink and yellow polka dots, but no one should buy them.
Given that Amazon intends to support both online sales and rentals, it either needs to implement built-in expiration or some sort of phoning home to the mothership. The rental structure contemplates a 24-hour window in which to watch the download and a 30 day period in which to start watching.
I’m surprised that he’s surprised that people are surprised. (Sorry, I couldn’t help myself) I’ll explain why below the fold.
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CNet has a harsh review of Amazon’s new video download service:
I left work after that and rebooted my laptop at home. That’s when the real trouble began. I noticed that the Amazon player had launched itself. Annoying. I looked in the program for a preference to stop it from launching itself, and there was none. Typical. So I went to msconfig and unchecked Amazon Unbox so that it would definitely not launch itself at start-up. When I rebooted, it was no longer there. However, my firewall warned me that a Windows service (ADVWindowsClientService.exe) was trying to connect to the Net. I clicked More Info in the firewall alert and found it was Amazon Unbox. Downright offensive. It still was launching a Net-connection process that even msconfig apparently couldn’t stop. Forget it. That’s not the behavior of good software. I went to uninstall it.
After the Install Shield launched and I chose uninstall, I got a login screen for my Amazon account. I just wanted to uninstall it. I shouldn’t have to log in to my account to do that. So I canceled the login, and the uninstall failed. I tried that three times, and it failed each time. Finally I gave up and logged in and the uninstall finished.
So, in summary, to be allowed the privilege of purchasing a video that I can’t burn to DVD and can’t watch on my iPod, I have to allow a program to hijack my start-up and force me to login to uninstall it? No way. Sorry, Amazon. I love a lot of what you do, but I will absolutely not recommend this service. Try again.
As Ed Felten has explained, it’s not a coincidence that DRM software tends to act like spyware.
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.