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[PhatPhreddy]

OK well I think we all know that corona and WMP9 are DRM equipped... The thin end of the wedge has started and they dont even seem to be waiting to let that thought settle with people....

So heres the interesting link...

This is basically Peter Gabriel (always a tech head) releasing a 5.1 mix of his new album via WMP9 encoded material online...

Interesting titbits to extract from this are...

Microsoft is offering the free preview until Oct. 1. The license for listening to "Up" expires Oct. 8. After that time, the album will not play unless a person pays for it.

This is to my knowledge the first test of MS's DRM structures....

This version is using a DRM of buy once and its yours but we all already know that buy once listen X times is in this system too as well as buy per listen (boy ohh boy do RIAA execs salivate at this one)....  

So how do we feel about this... Personally speaking this demo is good for me... I can listen to a 5.1 album pre purchase (no other way to do that by retail methods) and then probably order it with a direct link on the WMP page... I am (strange in this day and age) still a happy purchaser of CD's... I still believe if you dont pay the producers of media we wont have producers of media...

The can of worms opens up once media is only offered by this method and is unavailable on a buy once listen infinitely terms... Once this happens I am in a position whereby I am set to lose out and end up without the right to listen to purchased published work longer term...

It is my understanding that this release can be un encoded from 5.1 WMA to 5.1 WAVS and then a user could theoretically re encode without the publishers expiry timestamp (this is from my conversations with the head of the MS codec group) therefore this structure does not actually present a stop to the piracy concerns of publishers... The fact that they are going to have to allow output always generates a way for a 'totalrecorder' style app that captures at the output level and the determined pirates will be able to re-encode that (watermarking and systems of making secondary encoding sound bad must be one of thier top pushes in the skunk works... if I was Billy thats what I would be thinking anyway)... Will any of this effect p2p ??  

With MS having lossless and near lossless codecs as well as 24/96 5.1 codecs the broadband media future is kicking down the door faster than I believed it would be...  Sure are interesting times (like that old chinese curse) to be into media PC's and media rights management or media IP control...

Listening to: 'One Step Beyond' from 'Divine Madness' by 'Madness' on Media Jukebox

[zevele10]

There is 2 sides here:

First to be able to listen to a new record for free before buying it or no.
In this case it is a download,but it can be a stream.
There is nothing to say about it.In my opinion just to be happy that such a thing exist.And that there is a security on the songs looks normal.
In the case of Peter Gabriel to get a full week to listen to it is quitte a very fair offer.

Now,what happen after?The cd would be out as a normal one in the shops?
How much the 'Windows download ' will cost'?
If like in many places i saw the same price than a regular cd[or  $3-4 less],i am sure that people would not buy it.

Of cause you will find it on Kazaa,this is sure.And maybe not from the' Windows download' but from the cd.
TotalRecorder-Media Jukebox-minicd recorder and even a cassette  are tools to get the one week free on a permanent support.
Beside this it means that the 5.1 version would not be on any p2p,i cannot see how you can get it from a 'soundcard-out rip'

As i said many times,price is the key.
Put on sale the album with lyrics,pictures,something like the 'bonus' on DVD-things not on the physical cd at a cheap price-half the price of the cd in shop-and do you see any good to bother with trojans,virus and spywares using Kazaa to get it?And not at the same sound quality

There is a need to put out 'internet credit cards' like phone card.This for the main customers:teenagers.

Like it ,you can buy your kid a $xx card.As a birthday present,on a regular basis as part of pocket money.
And he can spend it on music on the net.

Here we have 2 special kinds of way to buy on the weeb.
One for kinds and one for people who are afraid to use they credit card on the weeb.And i can tell you that people buy a lot on the net because of it.

Look like i will try the last Peter Gabriel,the stereo version,not the 5.1

[PhatPhreddy]

In actual fact what they are getting towards, is a value added proposition with the download version rather than value adding a CD (which many people say is the way to help CD sales)... The web version has 5.1 audio (over the CD's 2) while the song plays the lyrics are displayed in time.. There are web links.. there are CD notes... I would bet dollars to doughnuts there will be a buy it now button for the hard media too... This medium however could be really great for the small / indie type bands that need to maintain a good connection and community around a smaller user base of fans... There could be a paradigm shift from pulp pop to artist communities.. Lets face it I would no longer need a record label to distribute... WMP encoder will do that for me and then I create my community... Lots of interesting angles to this...

Of course this can be shared and distributed in its current WMA encoded form but on the set date Poof the licence is expired and this is the first taste of DRM... I had it yesterday I dont have it today... No matter where the copy has spread to in its WMA form the licence will expire and WMP9 will not play it...

I believe that re encoding these files will become as easy as MP3 encoding now... There will be apps (already are if you dond mind using lots of stages to the job) that take a licensed copy play it once and re encode the output to another non protected copy... This is inevitable but will it be worth the hassle...

My pain threashold exists at the 'when I cannot buy infinite use licences' and also on price point and restores...

All of this is fairly safe.. We know that media belongs to someone and its hard not to like a system that may benefit both consumer and artist better... What happens beneath the surface though becomes much much more gray... In a DRM'ed OS only WHQL certified drivers will be usable... Look at the link to the Creative DVD-A player I posted... Notice how this card will only work on DRM equipped OS and drivers.. DVD-A would not be on the PC if the digital out was left in place so now the driver will be auto shutting the digital out at detection of the MLP content... Hmmm

Then extrapolate this IP idea to SW as well as media... The Boys from Redmond will then be holding the keys and it is possible that anything non certified would cause the PC to stop functioning in some manner after all if they detect a crack (eg for MLP out the digital)  being run they have the right to have it reported (hey Jim ) and stop this happening... In fact part of the reason why 'Freestyle'  PCs are costing a lot of money (as well as advanced HW) is the fact that at this point MS are only allowing them to be released on OEM machines that are tied up in DRM certified drivers...

In a fully DRM'ed future every patch / every freeware app / ever byte of code run on a PC may have to be certified... This would have obvious knock on effects to cost of SW and speed of fixes and updates...

Orwellian ??   Better to ask was Orwell near the mark in his predictions  :-/   ??

Fun times huh....

[JimH]

This is to my knowledge the first test of MS's DRM structures....   This version is using a DRM of buy once and its yours but we all already know that buy once listen X times is in this system too as well as buy per listen

Microsoft DRM has been around for a while.  Nobody I know about has used it (or anyone else's) to any great extent.  I think it was introduced in WMP 7.1.

[PhatPhreddy]

Really ?? I though with all the hoo haa about SP1 being the first of the DRM issues and the first time MS has the ability to turn content off at a certain time, or at thier discretion (if the keys are revoked and the machine is online)...

[NoCodeUK]

This is true.  I downloaded a DRM Pink Floyd track about a year ago which was licensed for five plays and then was no longer valid.  There is nothing new in the actual system, the new thing is simply the different way MS is now trying to market it and the fact that the technology is better that they can have 5.1 support in Corona.  The  DRM policy itself has not really changed.  The thing I have always found funny about that phrase is exactly whose digital rights are MS actually tryng to protect?  The artists, the users or their own?  Knowing MS of old I would guess it will be their own :-/
Just another piece in MS's we will conquer the world whether you like it or not jigsaw and the scary thing is with their OS monopoly can they really be stopped???

[PhatPhreddy]

How about the idea of content suppression and freedom of speech though...

In a trully fully DRM'ed computing world (and that could be a matter of years not decades) files would all have a content ownership stamp and rights attached...

Now consider a government decides it does not want me to see an image... Do you honestly think China would have allowed the Tiananmen Sq images to be viewed in China or spread through a chinese computer ?? How about if the main man himself didn't want the bill getting a pie in the face clip to do the rounds ??

I am genuinely fascinated by this topic and it actually keeps me awake at night (yeah I know I should get a job... Anyone paying for any DRM think tank or IP rights consulants ?? ) considering the implications of what DRM really means... Not the aspect of bean counting who has listened to Britney and charging a $$ slice to reward Artists (though there are fascets of that, that are complex enough to still qualify) but what happens when Joe Sixpack does not care about his consumer rights or understand the implications of media ownership that we have never had imposed in an analogue world....

[xen-uno]

>>Not the aspect of bean counting who has listened to Britney

Do people over the age of 10 really listen to Britney?

Xenno

[NoCodeUK]

To be honest I find the whole concept of DRM scare.  I think maybe the M should stand for Monopolisation...
It seems like it is just another way for people on high to dictate to us what we should read, listen to etc.
As well as Freedom of Speech there should be a freedom of Digital Formats act

Adam

[PhatPhreddy]

DRM does have very many scary implications... Of course it could be the key to allowing as all instantainious access to all the worlds stored and recorded media (for a price) but as with any system of control there is always the 'who is watching the watchers' scenario... Someone has to control and issue the keys... Who do we trust to do this ??

Personally I would feel that with MS coming out of a massive monopoly and bad practices lawsuit (that they have now officially failed to comply with I may add... SP1 did not do what they said it would do in the court settlement) they may not be the best candidates... Then again would you want the RIAA or the MPAA to hold the keys ?? I think not either....

A lot of it comes down to politics in the end and politics are controlled by lobby'ists  and therefore in turn by money... Who's got it, and who wants more of it, is what you need to pay attention to (and thats applicable to so many areas it ain't funny)...

Of course we are all pissing and moaning about it (well maybee its only me) but its not like we have no real alternatives... MS is just an operating system Linux gets easier every day (Mandrake 8.3 actually installed easier than windows for me as a n00b) and if MS or any system become more restrictive than beneficial then it will be replaced by one that is not.... If freedom is outlawed only outlaws will have freedom....  

[NoCodeUK]

As far as I can tell at the moment the whole MS DRM thing is only affecting their own closed WMA format and seeing how this is not most peoples audio format of choice it won't really affect many people.  The worrying thing would be if this was introduced into the CDs at the sourve so that we could not actually rip the files or we could only use a CD a certain number of times before it no longer worked.  That is a scary future!!!

[PhatPhreddy]

The new windows codecs are actually pretty good for once... They have multi channel 24/96 as well as lossless compression and near lossless (meaning its lossy but far better than MP3 quality)....  

The issue comes when getting a CD is not the item we buy... Its well known that when we buy a CD we are buying the right to listen to the content... By extension if the digital download future comes of age (and its pretty much a given) then we will only be buying a encoded conent.... When we no longer have the physical CD to rip this is important...

Its the closed format that hollywood / RIAA needs and wants before they will distribute via these delivery systems (why do you think AOL merged with Time Warner ??) once you are wathing your video on demand HDTV you wont care how its encoded (do you pay any attention to the specs of NTSC or DBS ?? no... its only the end result thats important)... These new codecs allow for 1080p video (looks mighty fine !!) and I know someone in Japan with 100Mbit fibre into thier apartment... This is right now... They could easily stream him HD video and high rez audio on that pipe...

Anyway I am rambling away again but it would appear that the nly codecs the industry will work with are closed and DRM'ed ones... By extension no OS is safe if it allowed non DRM passed code to run (can be cracked or patched)... The windows 2010 (TM) OS may well be a very closed shop if the conent owners have thier way.... Would users be prepared to accept such a thing ?? I suspect that if you tell Joe Sixpack he can have an infitie number of channels / video on demand / access to the entire worlds music / film library for the cost of running a specific OS he will take it...