[WEB4LIB] RE: Gray Hats Re: Re: Jack Valenti: Copyright and

[Richard Wiggins]

Your fears are well-founded.  Secure container technologies could leave complete control over the distribution of content in the hands of publishers.

Having said that, I wrote an article for New Media way back in October of 1997 on secure digital copyright management tools.  I interviewed lots of really smart folks at IBM (remember Cryptolopes?) and elsewhere who argued strongly that the widespread use of secure containers was right around the corner.

It ain't happened yet.

For it to happen, 

1) Content has to be distributed in the secure container exclusively from the start.  This would mean, for instance, that a new album from Eric Clapton would never come out on CD, only in some new, secure digital format.  DVD would have to morph into DVD-Secure.  Etc.

2) There must be no convenient way to extract an adequately satisfactory copy for digitization and redistribution; ie, no high-quality analog out.  I don't know how you make a device that talks to today's stereos and home theaters without offering high-quality analog out.  Sure, the first digital copy suffers analog generation loss, but the pirate pays that penalty only once; all copies from there on are perfect.  

DVD-RAM is about to become available at popular prices.  We can and should expect Moviester to evolve quickly.  You think your campus network is busy moving MP3 files today?

I think there are lots of chicken-and-egg questions to resolve before secure containers rule mass market content distribution.  Since e-books are in their infancy, maybe it really will happen there first.

/rich



------Original Message------
From: Lloyd Davidson <ldavids at northwestern.edu>
To: Multiple recipients of list <web4lib at webjunction.org>
Sent: March 21, 2001 5:31:35 AM GMT
Subject: [WEB4LIB] RE: Gray Hats Re: Re: Jack Valenti: Copyright and


Napster and other P2P systems that flagrantly break copyright bear much of 
the responsibility for the sudden heightened interest by publishers of all 
media in highly secure digital rights management (DRM) systems, such as are 
being developed by InterTrust and a variety of other companies.  The advent 
of such technology, which encapsulates digital objects in secure digital 
containers, secured at either the hardware or software level, or both, will 
soon make copyright and fair use obsolete concepts.  Not only will most 
legal restrictions on this material depend primarily on contract law and 
the DMCA (and possibly UCITA and ultimately copyright law), but it will be 
physically impossible to access, copy, print or propagate the contents of 
these secured containers without the specific consent of the immediate 
controller of the material, whether copyright owner or simply distributor. 
Often, consent will only be given in exchange for some sort of payment, 
monetary or otherwise.  In addition, much public domain material of any 
consequence, including government information, could be, for all practical 
purposes, removed from free and open access by such devices.  The effect of 
these restrictive systems on scholarly communication is potentially 
devastating, yet libraries will have little say as to their implementation 
and general application to traditional library materials.  In my opinion, 
this is one of the more fearsome and now inevitable outcomes of Napster's 
abuses. To be sure, Napster is not entirely to blame for this, and such 
secure, access-controlled DRM systems probably would have soon become 
popular anyway, simply because the economics of profitable commercial 
online media distribution seems to strongly favor their deployment in our 
current cultural and ethical environment.  Nevertheless, Napster and the 
P2P movement in general are responsible for the rapidity of their 
development and ever widening commercial acceptance.

Lloyd
__________________________________________________
Richard Wiggins
Consulting, Writing & Training on Internet Topics
http://www.netfact.com/rww  wiggins at mail.com
517-349-6919 (home office)  517-353-4955 (work)  
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