Hardware Analysis - Re: Intel�s East Fork, Microsoft Vista, satisfying unbridled greed?

Re: Re: Intel�s East Fork, Microsoft Vista, satisfying unbridled greed?

Audio Freak — 2005-10-09T14:20:13-05:00

Dave McLain, you said:

"When they buy a CD they are NOT BUYING THE MUSIC. They are only paying for the right to listen to the music, BIG difference...."

So when the CD gets scratched it is not actually damaged, it is just my right to listen the material being revoked and I should enlist myself for that right by paying to the greedy bloodsuckers a.k.a. the entertainment lobby again?!?

Let me ask you something -- do you really believe that the only right thing to do is to pay 6 times to be able to listen the COPY of the same song in our bedroom, bathroom, living room, kitchen boom box, mp3 player and car stereo?!?

Furthermore, do you people want THEM to know WHEN and HOW MANY times you have watched/listened something?!? So that they get your demographic profiles for free so they can even better sell you their crap?!?

Because that is what DRM does as an added bonus. Not to mention even better regional control. For example I cannot legaly watch Terminator 2 Extreme version (HD-WMV format) even if I buy the DVD. Why?!? Just because I don't have U.S. based IP address.

I have informed Inquirer yesterday that the HDCP is already implemented in current video drivers from both ATI and nVidia and in Windows XP from SP2 thanks to DirectX 9.0c. So, no matter which platform you use you will get it, don't worry. Microsoft bundled it with DXVA (DirectX Video Acceleration) to be sure you can't miss it. Check the Inquirer write up on the subject after Mike got my email and see for yourself how many companies are already in it because they want their share of profit from selling the same old cow countless times to the stupid farmers:

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=26791

Albert Crocker, you said:

"We basically told them to "adapt" themselves out of business, as so many people worldwide freely copied and shared millions of songs and movies that used to cost money..."

No we didn't, we asked them to provide good, reasonably priced content which we could listen on every device we have anywhere we go, and instead we got overpriced crap limited to one device.

As for the old content, don't you think that they have squeezed enough cash out of it?!? Don't you think that the Rolling Stones for example should move on and write something really new and good to sell us?!? Instead we are still paying a pretty high sum for the same old songs. It would be wonderfull if I as a programmer could live feeding off the "old glory" but I can't. I have to work more to write new programs. Why should they be any different from me?!? Have they used up all of their brain cells writting their old hits?!?

All that licensing, patent and copyright crap is Evil Thing(TM). Especially the IP (as in Intellectual Property) is stupid. If it doesn't get stopped it will end up like "Oh sht somon copyrghtd lttrs i and e".

What is IP actually?!? It is someone's good idea and it means they got to it first. That is nice for them but it doesn't mean no one else would and should not, after all there are >5 billion people on this Earth. It is just IP holder's greed that can prevent others from reaching the same conclusion and obtaining the same results. Hell, today's songs are so bad that even computer could write them given enough words and rules not to mention all those hyped movies which are in most cases a remake of an oldie from 50's or based on some old and unheard of novel.

Lawrence O. Willson, you said:

"As to Windows XP, you can replace your hard drive or add new hard drives to XP without doing any thing except reading the instructions that came with the device if you do not know how to do it. And you do not have to call Microsoft. You have to reregister the Operating System if you make a new installation of it, .i.e reformat you hard drive and install Windows."

There is a thing called Product Activation or WPA. Surely you know about it after "over 35 years of experience in this field"? Or you have only dealt with volume licensing (or so called corporate edition) copies of XP so far? WPA means that if you change 3 components in your system you have to reactivate Windows. So if you get say new LCD display, faster CPU (God forbid 64-bit one!) and another 512MB RAM stick you will have to "phone home". Is that reformatted HDD? No?!? Is that a new computer? Nope, it is just an inconvenience for the customer who has already paid to use the software.

You also ask:

"I do not mot understand how you ended up paying taxes/royalty fees to the French Government.
How should they know that you made CD/DVD and sent them to your friends?"

How about because royalty fees are already calculated into the price of blank CD/DVD media?!?

Brian Stewart, you said:

"Movie DRM protected? Split your signal cable and copy elsewhere."

I wish if that could be the case with HDCP but it won't be possible because signal will travel encrypted to your HDMI compliant display which will descramble it. And it will probably self-destruct or get revoked if you try to tamper with it and your attempts will be recorded and reported. Next thing you'll know, it will be the RIAA together with FBI, CIA or some other No Such Agency knocking on your doors. Men in black will cuff you, put a hood on your head and drive you in a black van to some secret underground facility for "processing". There you will get your deserved punishment as Sony CEO twists your ears around with a pair of hot or electrified pliers. In the meantime, team will be dispatched to collect your goods, mortgage will be placed upon your house and your family name will be listed in public as an "undesirable for any relations". All your credit cards and security passes will get revoked and you will be sent to correctional institution where they will keep you awake on drugs and make you repeat "I will never attempt to copy anything" all day and night until you turn blue in face.

I admit I am exaggerating here, but this is just to get the point through about what kind of future we can expect if current "legal trends" continue.
Regards,
Audiofreak

Re: Re: Intel�s East Fork, Microsoft Vista, satisfying unbridled greed?

Bob Cooper — 2005-09-15T17:31:30-05:00

Lots of good comments folks. Let me sum what I've gotten so far:
1. greed is still very real and significant. At a certain level it is actually healthy. Isn't it what some noted economist called the "invisible hand" [which drives economic development]? However, unbridled greed is B-A-D.
2. monopoly or oligopoly is a big factor of the OS software and the PC cpu/system chip/chipset business. Monopoly / oligopoly (coupled with greed) requires laws & legal systems to check that greed.
3. microsoft has a defacto understanding with the US government and legal system, key circuit judges (lawyers wearing robes acting as referees on other lawyers), legislators (99 per cent of whom are lawyers in suits), and some well connected law firms. If MS's pace of change is sufficiently speedy then it can ourtun (outwit?) the law. Ergo, MS greed is not effectively checked.
4. there are a lot of decent intelliogent people who notice this and are taking some action, for instance Sander. However a few individuals seldom if ever win against greed, monopoly, oligopoly. What is needed is a movement.
5. if a rotten apple is put in with a barrel of good apples, guess what, virtually the whole barrel goes bad. (This applies at all levels:individuals, corporations, professions, nations.)
6. there is some hope that Karma (possibly in the form of AMD / Linux / Lindows) will bridle MS & Intel- They will become arrogant and shoot their foot / leg etc. or wear (the emperor's) new clothes.

Conclusion: TBD.

Have a great day,
Bob

Re: Re: Intel�s East Fork, Microsoft Vista, satisfying unbridled greed?

angryhippy — 2005-09-13T22:37:09-05:00

Well right now I am paying 2 cents US per MB for music. That seems like a fair price to me. The newest stuff coming out will let you multi-stream to different devices simultaneously from one media center. The media moguls seem to be determined to lock down their products for maximum profit, while the hardware and software people seem to be competitively battling it out to have the best ease of use to do the opposite. For instance they will say the DVDs are for recording larger amounts of data files on the dual layer models. If they are interested in creating home products, for data storage, why don't they just create dual layer CD products. And you can't tell me it's designed for home video. There aren't enough people doing that to sustain the market. They know exactly what those dual layer DVD recorders are going to be used for.

In my neighbor-hood, that's called running game.

A matter of Price level - and competition

Michel Merlin — 2005-09-13T07:50:51-05:00

Payton: � So if your kid wants to watch it in his room, he will have to purchase his own copy. And another copy for the DVD player in the den and/or family room �

I have no problem with that, and none will have, *IF* the price is right, which implies it is divided by 10 or 100 or 1000.

Current prices are determined by monopolies, not by fair competition.

When books were hand-copied by monks, one copy could cost, say $5,000, with an added $5,000 for Copy right.

When Gutenberg came with Print, cost went down to, say $100, plus $100 for �. If people of those times had been as anti-progress and pro-monopolies as now, they would have forbidden to sell printed books for less than hand-copied prices.

When music got recorded on disks, the cost for hearing a Mozart Concerto went from $5 for one performance, to $10 for owning the 78 or 33rpm disc(s); none complained.

But when music went from vinyls to CDs, thus the cost got once more divided by 10, publishers bought one another to stop competition, and prevented prices to follow the due evolution: this is what lead to the current situation.

Now we have to remember, 1st that the right price is about $0.000000001 a byte (a nano-dollar a byte) or even below, 2nd that this right price won't be reached unless we restore competition in music publishing.

Paris, Tue 13 Sep 2005 09:51:05 +0200

Re: Re: Intel�s East Fork, Microsoft Vista, satisfying unbridled greed?

angryhippy — 2005-09-12T17:29:15-05:00

Lawrence. We're not talking about stealing the car. What we are talking about is Ford telling you you can park the Explorer in the garage of your house, but not in the garage of your summer house. You will need to buy a new Explorer for the summer house garage. At least that's how I see the DRM thing. There will always be crooks, and car thieves.

Re: Re: Intel�s East Fork, Microsoft Vista, satisfying unbridled greed?

angryhippy — 2005-09-12T17:19:17-05:00

I live in South Los Angeles. EVERY mall or strip mall I go to I see guys in the parking lot blatantly going up to people asking if they want to buy music or movies. I've seen some selling movies that haven't been released yet. But I don't see any of Dia-RIAAs jack boots making arrests. Instead they have managed to get the government to do the work for them. I'll tell you where this is going. Someday, you are going to be able to buy a movie and have to register which device in your home you can play it on. So if your kid wants to watch it in his room, he will have to purchase his own copy. And another copy for the DVD player in the den and/or family room. Do you think that is pretty far fetched? Then just try to install that copy of XP you BOUGHT onto another computer in your house. Or make a CD for your car from protected content. You can't without committing a criminal act.

Vivendi, one of the companies RIAA represents had 700 Million euros profit in 2004 on 21.4 Billion Euros, in gross revenue. It's hard to feel sorry for them. Especially since they pay the artists who create the music a whopping 7 cents a song in royalties.. I say if you buy it you own it.

I subscribe to a music service that allows me to download as much music with protected content, as I want for 6.99 a month. There is also a provision for buying the music outright It it in WMA format. One album I downloaded, an old blues guy named Sleepy John Estes, has 26 tracks. The entire album is just over $20. That's at 79Cents a song. At 99 cents it would be even more. I can buy the CD with a case and art work, for $19 in the store. Yet Dia-RIAA has even attempted to shut down web sites that offer album covers to download for free. What's wrong with this whole picture? Sander said it. Unbridled greed. And the movie industry is following suit. But like someone said if you can hear it or see it, DRM crap can be busted.

Re: Re: Intel�s East Fork, Microsoft Vista, satisfying unbridled greed?

Joseph Perkins — 2005-09-11T23:04:51-05:00

To Dave McLain

I beg to differ. We "own" the bits and the patterns of bits that encompas the "content" just as mich as we own the arrangement of letters that make up a book. In like manner, the "copyright" applies to what we do with these bits once they leave our control.

Purchase of *any* medium containing content becomes a defacto contract between the content provider and the content holder that agrees that the content provider controls /how and when and under what circumstances/ the holder can relinquish control of the embodiement of the content.

This contract is forwarded to any subsequent content holder that the first holder may subsequently give or sell the embodiement of the content to. This is "right of sale" and applies to book stores and book sales in general *and applies to all media*, no exceptions.

This means that you can give or sell any content in any embodiement to anyone for any reason provided you keep no copies for yourself and the new content holder agrees to this as well.

Here's the problem. No one is teaching these basic laws and rules to anyone so congress and the content providers feel free to craft any garbage they like to add more cash flow to the system and provide content providers (oh, BTW, "content provider" means the legal copyright holder, not the actual creator of the content) with more control.. which adds more cash flow.

I can guarantee you this will not stop the pirates.. possibly not even slow them down much.. but will impact every consumer (content holder) for ever after. The pirates are in a billion dollar industry and can afford more than you or I.

Joe Perkins

PS: Oh, and for "download" of content, when from a legal provider, must still be treated as any other media.. in this case, you own the electrons and the hardware they are being stored on. The Content Provider still owns the pattern.

Content Provider: Copyright owner (note: NOT necessarily the Content Creator).
Content Holder: Anyone who purchases a copy from the legal Content Provider or an Authorized Agent.
Copyright: A set of Rules and Laws governing use, sale and distribution of Content.

Re: Re: Intel�s East Fork, Microsoft Vista, satisfying unbridled greed?

Joseph Perkins — 2005-09-11T22:44:54-05:00

To Lawrence O. Wilson

I make recordings of movies off the air and cable. I encode one series and send it to a relative on occasion because the channel in question is not available in their area. Neither of us make these available to anyone else.

If more folks were to ask me or my relative for a copy (no one has.. simply because we don't advertise we have made a temporary copy), then a petition for the service provider in his area to carry the channel would end what, for us, is a pain in the rear.

I do NOT advocate anyone send copies into the world to be shared by anyone else, or displayed in a public forum because *that* is illegal under *current* laws.. laws, I might add, older than the internet, digital media or television.

Now, as to control of how many times you can watch something, I need only mention one failed concept - Divix (not to be confused with the salubriously named DivX encoding format). This was such an attempt using self destructing media (like Mission Impossible.. without the smoke and flames).

When DRM and HDCP merge, you will be *required* to have a phoneline or cable hookup so your playback of movies is "authorized" by the content provider.

You can already see this with Micro$ofts DRM technology. I have files that no longer play because MP cannot obtain a license from the content provider.

Now, ask yourself, would *you* use a format that can be disabled because there is some chicanery behind the scenes involving a "movie deal" or some agreement with a cable company or some political agenda or just because the content provider is out of business ?

Joe Perkins

Re: Re: Intel�s East Fork, Microsoft Vista, satisfying unbridled greed?

angryhippy — 2005-09-11T22:03:53-05:00

(Deuteronomy 10:14) "Behold, to the LORD your God Bill Gates, belong heaven and the highest heavens, the earth and all that is in it.

Re: Re: Intel�s East Fork, Microsoft Vista, satisfying unbridled greed?

ER@sUrf3R — 2005-09-03T18:14:18-05:00

Even if things do get as severe as hypothesised in probably what is the worst case scenario by Sander, things would never work. Thats just bad business. It might turn out another massive flop like Microsoft's .NET and passport brainwaves...its just not good business..well it just won't be business because I can't figure anybody but the most oblivious people to purchase products to which they hardly have any freedom of use and rights of their own discretion. Thats bad publicity and well...suicide.....I guess we'll be looking forward to the good ol' past. Still...all my pity shall be on Intel and Microsoft if they make such childish decisions. Just pitiful!

Re: Re: Intel�s East Fork, Microsoft Vista, satisfying unbridled greed?

Seth Tucker — 2005-09-02T23:47:04-05:00

I never watch DVD's on my PC.

Re: Re: Intel�s East Fork, Microsoft Vista, satisfying unbridled greed?

ER@sUrf3R — 2005-08-31T03:47:56-05:00

Re: Re: Intel�s East Fork, Microsoft Vista, satisfying unbridled greed?

Mike Burdett — 2005-08-26T09:13:32-05:00

Mr Lawrence O. Wilson,

yes one of the reasons i got a cd burner was to copy cds, to get all my favourite tracks off my cds and make one cd to save changing cd's in my car, also to protect the original from being damaged in my car stereo as everyone knows they always get scratched and damaged in car stereos, and the same with the DVD's if i want to copy something i have paid for to use myself (as i DO NOT distribute) to save the original from damage i will do so, if you are so ignorant as to think that everyone who copies a dvd or cd that they OWN are thiefs then thats your problem, yes maybe things could be done about illegal copies of software but preventing people from copying anything is going a bit far.

Also im not sure what would happen with this but what about the new camcorders that go straight on to dvd? anything i filmed i would own, so i could make as many copies as i wished and even sell them if i wanted? but would this new system preven me from copying these?
(only asking)

Re: Re: Intel�s East Fork, Microsoft Vista, satisfying unbridled greed?

Michel Merlin — 2005-08-26T09:12:41-05:00

Lawrence O. Wilson, Thu 25 Aug 2005 20:11, two last lines: � I do not mot understand how you ended up paying taxes/royalty fees to the French Government. �

You are right, I should have been more specific for our foreigner friends. Here in France (and I think in Europe), Governement takes a tax on every virgin CD or DVD *before it is sold to end users*. I don't know where in the chain, may be from big makers or big importators. This tax was implemented in 2002 IIRC; Gov then said the money would be conveyed to SACEM (sort of french RIAA) which would repay it to authors, to compensate for the copy rights lost when private people make copies on CDs.

I pretend that when doing so, French Gov is assuming every CD will be used for stealing copy rights, that only a governement itself accustomed to steal can make such an assumption, and that such a tax makes more hurt on legit citizens than on thieves. I call it a governement-racket. I am sure (as are most french regular people) that this money mostly doesn't go to true authors, but goes instead to a bunch of well-placed people in gov and medias (including SACEM).

� How should they know that you made CD/DVD and sent them to your friends? �

Of course they don't need to know this to make their tax racket money from citizens (see above). But of course too, they already know everything we do or think, and this has been for a long time. And I think USA is no far behind France in that field.

Paris, Fri 26 Aug 2005 11:12:40 +0200

Re: Re: Intel�s East Fork, Microsoft Vista, satisfying unbridled greed?

Brian Stewart — 2005-08-26T00:42:42-05:00

If it can be viewed once, it can be copied perfectly.

The more wide-spread ANYONE tries to make ANY copy-protection scheme, the more people there are to crack it.

If your Vista box wont let you copy a movie, just route the video out to a video in on another pc / pvr.
Simply buy a splitter for your your video out wire (hopefull it's DVI digital). HDCP?
Composite, S-video, Component, DVI, HDMI, whatever you've got for inputs. Use the best you've got.
Play the movie full screen.
Record from the other PC or the PVR.

As for sound, S/PDIF optical out to S/PDIF optical in.

Not that difficult.

The simple fact is that signal will ALWAYS be decrypted/unscrambled at some point. No matter what it is. All you have to do is copy that end. Don't even bother trying to crack any sort of copy protection, just circumvent it. Gate locked? Climb over. Movie DRM protected? Split your signal cable and copy elsewhere.

Who cares? If you want to steal, there will ALWAYS be the opportunity to do so. If you don't want to go through the trouble of cracking or circumventing the copy protection schemes, someone else will. Any attempt by anyone to curtail this will always fail. It is nothing to worry about.