November 21, 2005 4:00 AM PST
Who has the right to control your PC?
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Now, as Sony embarks on a nearly unprecedented recall and exchange program for the 4.7 million rootkit-carrying CDs already distributed to stores, industry experts say the record label's missteps highlight a broader question for the computer and entertainment industries: Who has the right to control your computer?
Sony's CDs, which installed a rootkit program that hid its copy protection tools deep inside computers' hard drives, crossed over a line of acceptable behavior, critics say. But the entertainment giant was hardly the first company to do something like this. Many other software programs also take over aspects of people's computers, often without consumers fully understanding what is happening.
"Consumers don't have any kind of assurance that other companies aren't going to do the same kind of thing (as Sony)," said Mark Russinovich, a software developer and blogger who first discovered the rootkit three weeks ago. "Which actions are considered actions for which users want really prominent disclosure? I think that's a complicated issue, but it needs to be addressed."
This issue cuts deep in the entertainment industry, whose music, movies and video games are particularly vulnerable to computers' ability to make perfect digital copies. But the question will increasingly cut across other industries as more products and services move online, requiring the use--or facilitating the abuse--of PCs.
"A personal computer is called a personal computer because it's yours," said Andrew Moss, Microsoft's senior director of technical policy. "Anything that runs on that computer, you should have control over."
Sounds simple, but it's not.
The average consumer PC is quickly filled with a myriad of applications, from instant messaging clients to media players to confusing DSL-networking software. Many of these make deep changes to the way a computer functions--often dropping automatic update features, for example--and rarely provide license agreements both technically specific and comprehensible to the nontechnical user.
"It really gets at how much control a user can reasonably expect to have over the amazing number of clowns that are inside the clown car of a computer," said Jonathan Zittrain, a professor of Internet government and regulation at Oxford University. "I don't know that there are good standards out there that respect the kind of colloquial property interest in computers that we as consumers have."
Culture clash inside the hard drive
The controversy over Sony's copy protection highlights two ideas of property that are clashing as the technology and entertainment worlds converge.
Record labels and movie studios have complained bitterly over the last few years that their intellectual property rights in films, music and games are routinely undermined by people burning copies of discs or DVDs, or trading files online. Recent analyst research suggests that nearly 30 percent of people in the United States have acquired music by burning a copy of a CD from a friend. Record labels are deeply worried that trend will do irreparable harm to their businesses.
They've responded by developing, supporting or lobbying for technology that shuts down the ability of a computer to make unrestricted copies. That ranges from Sony's rootkit software to the "broadcast flag" policies that would prevent digitally recorded television content from being traded online.
But if some computer owners have shown a lack of respect for intellectual property rights, Sony's invasive content protection tools displayed a similarly tone-deaf attitude to consumers' sense of ownership over their own PCs, critics say.
"If you wanted to take something from the lesson of Sony's rootkit, it should be that people want their demands for respect and autonomy to be taken more seriously," said Julie Cohen, a Georgetown University law professor who has written extensively on the intersection of property and technology.
Are these two sides always destined to clash? Executives on both sides of the technology and entertainment divide optimistically say no, and hope that gaffes like Sony's rootkit are a sign of digital growing pains.
See more CNET content tagged:
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I encourage everyone to vote the incumbants out of office and to vote with your dollars against big companies like SONY and all the others who are screwing us.
I am mad as hell because good people aren't doing a thing!
Juche
The industries which are claiming that they are owed monies from the work of the above mentioned people are outdated. They are good for nothing more than marketing and distribution. Since distribution can be handled via the Internet, there is no longer a need for that arm of the respective industries...and so that just leaves us with marketing.
It's time that they step-aside and allow progress to take its natural course.
The MPAA, RIAA, and other organizations represent those who wish to keep the money rolling in from antiquated ideas that are based on mid-20th century ideas.
Like John Dvorak recently wrote...the industry is going to have to get used to it.
And as Microsoft so tactfully argued during their monopoly trial, "this stiffles innovation," and that's exactly what these dinosaur entities are doing..stiffling the free market.
The truth is that most computer users really don't care about viruses, rootkits, or anything. Sure, they want it to work, but they don't realize that there is a thousand times more maintenance that needs to be done with PC's than with cars. Instead of having a light come on indicating the oil is low, they ignore alerts on their PC's. There is a digital divide, and if you are reading this, you are the minority.
Do you think Sony will give me a record deal?
http://otherthingsnow.blogspot.com
There's allot of things they can do. The entertainment industry is just not looking in the right path. Lower the prices and make a pay per month online download site. If this doesn't work it will give rise to new freelancer music. Things happen whole industries fall. What they need to do is adapt before they are one of them.
If anybody from Sony reads this. Here's a little suggestions, - Adapt you idiots, its the way of the world. You cant expect to make money selling music and movies like they did in the 90s. Like in the 90s, I mean by cassette and CDs. Its 2005 and I think the rest of the world has passed you by. Like the software industry, you can still buy products from the store but they sell allot more online.
Also another thing I really hate about the music industry. When they make a CD they always put one good song on it with a bunch of what I call filler or junk. You expect me to pay $20 USD for a CD with only one song I like. The entertainment industry has been robbing the consumer for years and now the tide has changed their winy babies. No wonder you guys are getting robbed.
Don't like it? TFB. Control by 3rd parties isn't even theoretically possible without a world dictatorship (Somehow I don't think we're doing that for the music companies).
Techno-peasant lawyers and MBAs don't get this. No matter. Reality is the best teacher.
"WHAT!!?!! How could it not exist?" you say in surprise. Simple, the definition used by publishers is that "Piracy is revenue lost when a consumer acquires their product without compensating the publisher." Its a simple definition, and easily falsified. Lets take a common statistic, Microsoft Office sales in China. Alleged that 80+% of the running office software in China is pirated. Now lets look at what the publisher charges for Microsoft Office in China. According to this article:
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/en/doc/2003-08/24/content_257716.htm
Office has a list price of 3840 Yuan (about $475), compared to the median income of someone in metropolitan China (not farmers mind you) of its top 30 cities (according to this article:
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3723/is_12_15/ai_113758881
) is roughly $1,500 per year.
What rational person would pay one THIRD of their annual salary for a buggy set of document manipulating programs? Answer NONE. So now we get to the falsifying the piracy myth.
Lets assume perfect copy protection where it is impossible to get a copy of Microsoft office without buying it from the publisher. How many sales are there in China to the average folks? NONE.
So if this is true:
"Piracy is revenue lost when a consumer acquires their product without compensating the publisher."
Nearly none of the copies that were obtained would have resulted in any additional revenue for the publisher. Thus no money was "lost", thus there is no piracy, QED.
The fact of the matter is that this entire "piracy problem" would vanish overnight if software was sold with gross margins that were comparabe to the gross margins obtained on real property (12 - 35%) and came with equivalent warranties for function.
As long as companies like Microsoft and Electronic Arts, and Sony, can get 90% gross margins without providing any warranty for fitness of purpose whatsoever, the so called piracy problem will persist.
The reason people feel the need to copy games and music from friends is cost.
It is ridiculous, that we get charged $30AUD for a CD, and the artist gets $3 dollars (about 10%). Where's the rest of the money go - the record labels.
So in effect by copying, we are rorting major corporations first and foremost. At the same time, these labels are brainwashing their artists, programmers etc, into thinking they are getting the raw end of the deal.
Over the last few months, CD's in Australia have come down to under $20 for new CD's. As a result i have started buying twice as many as i did previously, why - cause it isnt as much of a rip off as it was previously. I now get twice as much music (almost) the record label gets twice as many sales (if not profits) as a result of greater sales, productions costs recede, and they make more profit anyway.
Look at a playstation game - $90AUD to purchase it, $5 bucks a minute for telephone hints, and $30 bucks for a hint book. No wonder kids dont pay it, why would you.
However, what if you were to get all of the above for $50AUD - all of a sudden its more worthwhile.
Most people arent prepared to pay $90 for something they could potentially be sick of, or have completed within 1 or 2 weeks.
If dropping prices, leads to a great increase in purchases, surely there is nothing lost in the process, and everything gained. The world gets less piracy, consumers get better value for money, record and gaming companies get higher sales, and either better profits, or lower costs due to higher volumes or both.
Maybe then i could afford to own more than just my stock standard favourite PS2 games, and actually experience something different, and who knows, maybe enjoy the change, and maybe spend more money as a result.
Whats for certain is, its a manufacturer problem, and blaming the consumer for it however, just puts the consumer further offsie.
It can be used to protect your online identity against spyware and your files against thieves, which is good. It can also be used by a network administrator to remotely control a company computer, which is legitimate.
But it can also be used by Microsoft or the RIAA as a trojan horse into your computer. Although the TCPA specifications take care not to mention it explicitly, they are clearly designed with DRM applications in mind.
Let's use Sony's mistake to influence policy and make sure software and media monopolies won't be allowed to misuse this technology.
AC
Canadians who are concerned about this attack on our property rights should get political. I host a citizen forum called Digital-copyright.ca which has been involved in the Canadian copyright revision process since mid 2001, and can help people get informed about these issues and help them write to their elected representatives.
We have a petition for users rights that, among other things, to "recognise the right of citizens to personally control their own communication devices". If you have not already, please join the 2378+ citizens who have already signed.
Our politicians are entirely in the dark about this process, and it is our responsibility as citizens to inform them!
Canada may also be heading to the polls very soon, with elections being a good time to talk to all candidates about these issues to see who is better informed. Our site provides per-riding BLOG areas to allow for easy reporting on individual candidates.
Http://digital-copyright.ca/
Suckers Unite, Don't Buy The Hype.
The money you have managed to save after paying all your bills is a powerful voice. Spend it that way.
And thank you to all of the people who have the necessary talents to make the entertainment industry come alive for us, but please use some of it to influence your handlers to do the right thing.
Sony once went around acquiring American movie studios as a strategy for ensuring the health of its video divisions; the music studios may have to do us all the public service of buying radio stations from the radio moguls if they want to fend off a real financial downturn, not the self-admnistered downturn of overpricing. Consumers won't buy music if they can't find out what's new on radio...
Just an example: Recently, the Best Practices Committee of the TCG published a document entitled "Design, Implementation, and Usage Principles for TPM-Based Platforms". On page 13, the document states:
?TCG realizes that market forces, coercive behavior, and poor implementations can do much to weaken these principles and that there is little the TCG organization can do to prevent a manufacturer or system designer from subverting the goals of privacy and control, if they are determined to do so.?
Do I need to say anything more?
I guess the case of SONY was more or less the same story. They are just determined to enforce their rights. No matter the price. And in this context, they have decided that their rights are more important than their customers' rights. A very bad policy for a company. In fact, there are other more user-respectful technologies and even other possible business models as demonstrated by i-Tunes.
We are experiencing strong protests by miners in Spain. Mining is not profitable any more and they know it. They just ask for a way out. In my opinion this is also the case for record companies and in general for any digital good intermediary.
I don't want to be obvious but the perception of the music consumers (to mention the best known case) is that artists earn lots of money, and that record companies earn even more money. Furthermore, the added value of record companies, given the current status of technology, is very little. One of the values is recording. But recording studios have started to be affordable. I have a recording studio at home. I'm not rich, and I don't make my living out of the music, it's just my passion. Of course a proffesional one is still expensive, but the existence of very good quality home studios make entering the music business easier for novel artists.
Then there is the promotion. However, most of us feel that the promotion strategy that almost all music companies have is not good for the art. It is good for their (mainly economic) interests. So the general opinion is that music companies manipulate consumers in order to sell their products, with no respect for the good music. They only produce commercial music. I know this is not applicable to all of them, but it is for the 99.99%.
Finally, there is the issue of collecting revenues, but current Internet technologies make this possible by automated means without their intervention.
In fact, SONY and the others are "record companies", designed to earn money and provide added value in a past world where records were a popular good, but the future information society is "recordless". So, in the end the sad conclusion is that record companies, and any other intermediary of digital goods are bound to dissapear if they insist in playing the same roles. They have to re-invent themselves or die. Just as Spanish miners.
- Depends
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by mcunix
November 23, 2005 11:07 PM PST
- At home: me. Period.
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See all 49 Comments >>At work: a combination of my employer and me with them > me.
Simple. Next question?