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Cory Doctorow held a presentation just before the turn of the year, showing how the current copyright wars are just a skirmish in the battles yet to come. It is a very strong omen that gives you an idea just how much is at stake in the coming two decades.

Doctorow?s presentation is

. It is time well spent ? Cory Doctorow is also quite the entertainer, even with a very serious message. If you want to speedread a transcript instead, you can do so here.

In short, Doctorow argues that the copyright industry?s fight isn?t against copying, but against general-purpose computers. As more and more devices we buy are general-purpose hardware devices with custom software designed to make that hardware do certain things out of the box, that custom software that drives the device is also custom-izable software that lets the hardware be recoded and repurposed to do completely different things.

Shortly, we?ll see basically every industry trying to crack down on the freedom to tinker, to keep the products they sold us in the same state as they were before we owned them. This is exactly where we?re headed if the current trends continue.

The problem is that many people don?t understand what a general-purpose computer is. Legislators still think in terms of hardware: A cassette player can only play a cassette. Therefore, a music player today must only play music.

That?s wrong of course. A music player today can be recoded to play, stream, receive, remix, or do other things with music. Or, for that matter, it could probably be recoded to become a networked earthquake early-warning sensor instead, if its microphone was sensitive enough to sense the low-frequency sounds that forebode earthquakes.

This idea ? that an off-the-shelf entertainment device can be repurposed to become an earthquake early-warning sensor with just the copying of a file ? is mind-boggling to today?s legislators. It is just so far out it doesn?t reflect sunlight any more. And it is with this mindset that they legislate that breaking any DRM ? repurposing devices that you own ? should be punishable with jail time.

This is the reason that I keep reminding the world why we need to ban DRM altogether. It is corporations writing their own laws restricting your property.

But it goes beyond that. Let?s return to the concept of the general-purpose computer. In the mindset of today?s oldish legislators, if you want to kill the possibility of broadcasting music from a music player, you remove some piece from that device. Just like you would remove a ?stream? button from a keyboard.

But as we know, it doesn?t work like that. If you want to prevent a general-purpose computer from running a certain type of code, you have to add something to it. You have to add code that prevents it from running this type of code, which it has been designed to do, after all.

And this is where it gets interesting. Since you own the general-purpose computer, you can run any code on it ? including code that removes the code preventing you from running some types of code. These instructions that kill the DRM restrictions, seen from the device?s point of view, is just any kind of code that the device will execute happily.

And so protection for the removal of the DRM code is built in next, like Sony did with its criminal rootkit in 2005 (which is why Sony is on my permanent blacklist). So then that code is removed first by the person owning the device, followed by the DRM code.

The general-purpose computer is, by its very definition, a device where DRM will never work.

The major problem is that legislators don?t understand this. They don?t understand that you need to add something to the device to make it less functional, and that this something can easily be removed by an end-user to restore full functionality again. So we get an endless nightmare where legislators mandate more code, more laws, more code, and yet more laws to try to add restricting code to our general-purpose devices, code that we can easily remove.

We need to shift the viewpoint and narrative on this story ? we need to make legislators understand the concept of a general-purpose computer, and that by definition, you can?t restrict it from running code. We need a Freedom to Code at the citizen level, at the same constitutional level as Freedom of Speech, even if it goes against corporate interests. No, scratch that: especially when it goes against corporate interests.

Of course, one might argue that a general freedom to code would also be a freedom to code those pesky DRM restrictions. That is true on a philosophical level. The fight here, however, is to get an understanding of the general-purpose computer on a conceptual level into legislatures.

Source: Rick Falkvinge (TorrentFreak)

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Yawn.

To bad drm is already fading for "bought" content. How does he plan rented digital content will work without drm.

Renting only makes sense if there is scarcity.

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Hmm no. Paying the sum of one album a month to hear unlimited albums, or one to two movies to,watch as many Moines as I could want makes a lot of sense.

Oh wait. But you want access to all movies and music without paying of them at all...

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Hmm no. Paying the sum of one album a month to hear unlimited albums, or one to two movies to,watch as many Moines as I could want makes a lot of sense.

Oh wait. But you want access to all movies and music without paying of them at all...

Don't try and put words in my mouth. I have no qualms about paying for a service - I've been a paying subscriber to last.fm since 2006, for example. I'm just pointing out that the concept of renting does not make sense given the context.

Besides, way to miss the point of the article.

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The article doesn't make any sense in the first place since dermis dying outside of renting.

Also since renting is still far cheaper than buying, the conclusion is that you simply don't want to pay.

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The article doesn't make any sense in the first place since dermis dying outside of renting.

Also since renting is still far cheaper than buying, the conclusion is that you simply don't want to pay.

Then watch

, that should explain it. DRM is more than stopping teh pirets stealinz your songs.

And once more, in the general case, renting information does not make sense. Stop trying to twist this as me not wanting to pay and address the substance of my posts rather than your warped image of me.

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How is drm dying?

You can already buy pretty much any music for sale digitally without drm. Movies are heading there but need a bit more time. They always follow the music, just a little behind.

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You can already buy pretty much any music for sale digitally without drm. Movies are heading there but need a bit more time. They always follow the music, just a little behind.

Yet you completely leave out another medium, video games? I know I'm a PC gamer and 99% of my games have some form of DRM. Sucks but this is the world we live in today.

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You can already buy pretty much any music for sale digitally without drm. Movies are heading there but need a bit more time. They always follow the music, just a little behind.

The point is a general one, stop building up a strawman based on specific file formats.

For example, you're conveniently missing out the iPod, iPhone, iPad, PS3, Xbox etc. They're all DRMed to the hilt.

Want to put your own app (or one Apple won't authorise) on your iDevice? Sorry, Apple's DRM stops you. Homebrew games and other programs on your PS3? Sorry, Sony's DRM won't let you. The same will probably hold true for smart TVs in the near future.

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Yet you completely leave out another medium, video games? I know I'm a PC gamer and 99% of my games have some form of DRM. Sucks but this is the world we live in today.

EA already make DRM less games. Ubisoft is pretty much the only ones left with draconian DRM. and according to all the steam fanboys. the steam type copy protection used by steam and also Origin isn't DRM :)

Either way, PC game DRM is irrelevant to this discussion. since he's talkign about DRM being used to lock content to devices (i.e.locking your music so you need to use an iPod) PC games are by their very nature already locked to PC and will Always be locked to PC and no lack of DRM will make PC games playable on anythign else or a MAc or Linux.

The point is a general one, stop building up a strawman based on specific file formats.

For example, you're conveniently missing out the iPod, iPhone, iPad, PS3, Xbox etc. They're all DRMed to the hilt.

Want to put your own app (or one Apple won't authorise) on your iDevice? Sorry, Apple's DRM stops you. Homebrew games and other programs on your PS3? Sorry, Sony's DRM won't let you. The same will probably hold true for smart TVs in the near future.

Except the music you buy on iTunes for your iDevice isn't DRM'ed. the movies probably still are, but that'll change with time. and games on these devices are as I said already locked to the devices to DRM' won't matter.

Also you're talking about the opposite of what the article is. you're talking about locking stuff out, while the article talks about locking in. decide already.

oh and ANYONE can make Xbox games. and if you can't see the reason why these devices need DRM to stop tampering and to lockout bad, software then you're blind. it's about both protecting your customers and protecting your platform developers. if you can protect your platform from piracy so that your developers can be safe in knowing that people have to pay to use your app and can't just steal it. How's that bad ?and that's not preventing him from developing for other platforms. and it's not stopping anyone from making iOS or whatever OS apps either. They just have to submit the app for verification, or get a dev unlocked device.

SMART TV's only accept widgets/apps from the makers own library. and thta's a good thing. I would not sell any unlocked SMART TV in the store I worked. since that would 100% mean that the customer would come back later angry and demanding money back because his TV is now dead form the malware he installed on it.

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