DRM is a bit of a red herring. [LWN.net]

DRM is a bit of a red herring.

Posted Feb 11, 2007 22:02 UTC (Sun) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313)
In reply to: DRM is a bit of a red herring. by drag
Parent article: Recommendation: no GPLv3 for Solaris

1. Tivo already gives you the full source for everything under the GPLv2 on the box.

2. people are already writing various tweaks and tools to run on the tivo. this 'evil company that's useing DRM' isn't preventing it. I have over a TB of shows that I've copied off of my tivo

what tivo isn't doing is making it trivial for people to load their own software on the tivo.

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DRM is a bit of a red herring.

Posted Feb 12, 2007 0:30 UTC (Mon) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]

I agree with that statement.

No form of 'DRM' is practical at all, when your goal is to control what people do with their own hardware and software. (you encrypt the data to 'protect it', but you have to give them the keys, hardware, and software nessicary to decrypt it, but depend on secrets to control their usage of it.)

The only way it works is through legal enforcement. With out DMCA then it would be profitable for businesses crack DRM and sell software and devices to do that.. the more stronger the DRM the more profitable cracking it would be. It would be so weak that invensting large amounts of money into it would garrentee business failure.

In the long run cracks and such will almost certainly always be aviable. Once those cracks are codified into redistributable software then it's trivial for people to use them..

but by breaking the law it's pretty much useless to people that want legetimant uses of their hardware and software that they do own themselves.

DRM is a bit of a red herring.

Posted Feb 12, 2007 1:45 UTC (Mon) by sepreece (subscriber, #19270) [Link]

"Of course, this is all illegal under the DMCA and no consolation if you want to be lawful, even with such repulsive, stupid laws. This only strengthens the case for GPLv3."

Note, though, that the GPL cannot make legal what the DMCA makes illegal...

DRM is a bit of a red herring.

Posted Feb 12, 2007 16:09 UTC (Mon) by Arker (guest, #14205) [Link]

In this case, it can, actually. Just as v2 hacked copyright law for freedom, v3 is hacking the DMCA for freedom. The moment a vendor like Tivo, assuming they use GPL v3 code, attempts to assert a DMCA claim, they are in violation of their license and lose their permission to use that software.

DRM is a bit of a red herring.

Posted Feb 12, 2007 17:23 UTC (Mon) by sepreece (subscriber, #19270) [Link]

If TiVo made such a claim, they might be in violation of their license. If the MPAA made such a claim, the user would still potentially face criminal prosecution.

Also, of course, the clause only applies to "the covered work". They're still free to prosecute if you try to hack any associated proprietary software or services.