Surely Jupiter can do better than this

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We covered Cory Doctorow’s DRM talk here last week. It’s clear, well-reasoned, and covers a lot of ground. It’s also structured in such a way that both experts and neophytes can follow his analysis.

That industry people with stakes in DRM disagree with Cory is hardly surprising. What is surprising is the amazingly half-assed way in which Jupiter Research’s Michael Gartenberg did so. Without saying how Cory is wrong about DRM’s fundamental conceptual problems, he insists that nevertheless Cory IS wrong, and that he’ll be happy to explain why to paying customers (he also positions his pseudo-argument in a “what customers will put up with” way, which says an awful lot).

Er, right, Michael. Of course, given that way the music industry seems content to buy snake oil, maybe this is all the sales pitch they need.

This, however, is

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A coalition of tech heavyweights — including Intel, Sun, Verizon, SBC, BellSouth, and others — are supporting a proposal by Virgina Representative Rick Boucher to substantially defang the anti-circumvention provisions of the much-maligned, anti-Fair-Use Digital Millenium Copyright Act. The DMCA is the law that makes it illegal to bypass copy protection for any reason, even if the goal is something traditionally protected by the doctrine of Fair Use, such as copying a CD for use on your computer (or, in an earlier era, dubbing CDs to tape for use in the car). The anti-circumvention provisions are the sort of thing that give Jack Valenti wood, but they’re terrible for consumers — and for innovation.

CNET’s coverage is well worth reading.

Well, with McCain out, he’s clearly the logical choice

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Scan through this content-free article to the end, and you’ll find a gem:

While in Colorado, Kerry made a quick stop in Aspen for a $500,000 fund-raiser at the home of Michael Goldberg, president of Miami-based airline leasing company Aerolease International. Kerry invited Aspen resident and writer Hunter S. Thompson to ride in his motorcade and brought three copies of Thompson’s book about the 1972 presidential race, “Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail” for autographs. “Just to put your minds all at ease, I have four words for you that I know will relieve you greatly,” Kerry told the fund-raiser. “How does this sound — Vice President Hunter Thompson.”

Via jwz.

Dick Cheney is a Big, Fat, Shameless Liar

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And our press corps SUCKS. Administration officials are lying with confidence that they won’t be called on it. See the discussion at Daily Howler (about halfway down to the BORGER’S RETREAT headline) or at Fair.org of his appearance on MSNBC with Gloria Borger. To summarize, here’s a bit:

Borger: Well, let’s get to Mohamed Atta for a minute because you mentioned him as well. You have said in the past that it was, quote, “pretty well confirmed.” Cheney: No, I never said that. Borger: OK. Cheney: I never said that. Borger: I think that is . . . Cheney: Absolutely not. (…)

Of course, there’s also this from his appearance on Meet the Press on 12/9/2001:

What we now have s developed since you and I last talked, Tim [Russert], of course, was that report that — it’s been pretty well confirmed that he did go to Prague and he did meet with a senior official of the Iraqi intelligence service in Czechoslovakia last April, several months before the attack.

And we impeach people for lying about blow jobs? Christ.

More on Velvet Revolver

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Professor Felton has a few bits to say on the subject over at Freedom to Tinker.

Also, I’ll note that there is actually a way to get the tracks onto an iPod: buy the album in compressed, digital format from the iTunes Music Store. However, this gives you what is obviously an inferior copy, and the issues associated with Apple’s DRM are the same fundamental problems any such system faces.

In other news, it appears that the Beastie Boys have fallen into the same trap, making their new record another one I’d buy but for the DRM, particularly given reports that the disc installs software without asking upon being loaded in the owner’s computer (and this time, it’s true of both Windows and Macs).

“Etics. It’s what separates us from the animals, the beasts of burden, beasts of prey.”

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Remember that “GOP aide steals Democratic memos” problem a while back that finally resulted in someone being forced to resign?

The guy who resigned — Manuel Miranda — has been named the president of the new Ethics in Nominations Project, the group whose job it will be to prevent such unethical behavior in the future.

I think Mike’s reaction is about right.

In which we find ourselves in an ethical quandry

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BMG has released the eagerly anticipated — at least by me — Velvet Revolver CD with some goofball DRM on it which purports to prevent ripping to MP3. Instead, the CD has a CD-ROM area on it with some Windows Media format files on it, for use on computers and some portable devices.

Leaving behind for a moment how wholly wrongheaded DRM schemes are — see the other post, on Cory Doctorow’s speach, for more on this — the Windows files are useless to me and to anyone else who uses the most popular digital audio player, Apple’s iPod, which doesn’t play Microsoft’s format (big surprise).

The other point is even weirder: the DRM scheme in question (Sunncomm’s) is hopelessly broken. Much was made of it a few months back, especially when it surfaced that you could circumvent their “copy protection” by holding down the shift key at the right moment. Of course, doing so for any reason is technically illegal under the DMCA, even if your goal — say, putting the Velvet Revolver tracks on your iPod — is completely within the realm of fair use. (That’s what DRM is really about: limiting your choices as a consumer. No DRM yet exists, or can exist, that will stop truly motivated pirates — by this, I mean folks who seek to make money from the counterfeited goods; remember, if the content owners had had their way in the early days of the VCR, it would have been dead on arrival.)

So here’s the issue: I’m steadfastly opposed to any such DRM. I agree with Cory; I think it’s wrong and stupid, and it treats your customers like thieves. Do I stand on principle and refuse to buy the CD for this reason, or do I buy it and rip it anyway, since I know the DRM in place is a paper tiger?

And a bit more on Digital Rights Managment

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SF author and EFF evangelist Cory Doctorow gave this talk at Microsoft discussing why DRM is a bad idea. His main points:

  1. That DRM systems don’t work
  2. That DRM systems are bad for society
  3. That DRM systems are bad for business
  4. That DRM systems are bad for artists
  5. That DRM is a bad business-move for MSFT

Read the piece. Really. Pay particular attention to the first point: there’s a very simple reason why DRM cannot work as advertised, and he makes this point very, very clear.

In which we notice that we’ve been geeks for a long, long time

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On another online forum, someone noted that they felt terribly old when visiting a computing museum, as some of the software displayed in glass cases included code they’d written. Ouch.

I’ve not been around quite that long, but the comment did make me realize that my first computer — 16KB of RAM, 6502-based, no disk drive — is almost certainly the single most primitive piece of electronics in my home, exceeded in all meaningful capacities by such heavyweights as my Tivo, our new stove, the toaster, various calculators, what-passes-for-a-Walkman-these-days, and who knows what else. That our phones are smarter is no surprise, either; my handhelds have exceeded its meager profile for years (the new one sports 20MB or so of internal RAM, plus an expansion card of 256MB).

A slightly more amusing development is that you may now get watches and pens with more memory than that computer by several orders of magnitude (for the watch, the difference is 32,000x). Of course, since those are two areas where I prefer simple mechanical devices, the old TRS-80 is spared at least that humiliation.

What Heathen Central’s Street Looked Like Yesterday

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Lake West Drew That’s Associate Heathen Elf’s car on the right. At its peak, the water was about 18 inches in places, and left a highwater mark 4 or so feet up the driveway. Allison, in 2001, produced a similar phenomenon, but came about twice as far up the driveway, and ruined cars parked on Drew.

About 20 minutes after the rain stopped, the water was gone.

What a frightened GOP establishment looks like

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With the President’s numbers dropping and the war in Iraq fast becoming a quagmire, the last thing the CREEP needs is Michael Moore asking embarrassing questions. They thought they might get a break when Disney refused to distribute the film, but the Weinstein brothers took care of that. Now, if this effort is any indication, the film must be very damning indeed.

In short, it’s one of those astroturf initiatives. And the guy running it is the same fellow behind the campaign to kill CBS’ biopic of Reagan, which was deemed unsufficiently hagiographic. His site here is more of the same; the film is “anti-American,” and Moore hates America and our troops, etc., so why would anyone want to see this movie? They’re up front about wanting to “stop Michael Moore,” which has a somewhat disturbing ring to it for anyone who’s read the Bill of Rights; that providing a critique of policy might be a duty of a free nation’s citizenry appears to escape this particular portion of the right.

I’m typically no big fan of Moore, but I’m looking forward to this film.

In which we point out what nutbirds the Texas GOP are

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Salon’s article on the platform of the Texas GOP would be hilarious if it weren’t for the actual platform. They call for the abolition of, amoung other programs, the Department of Education, and insists on the repeal of laws making voter registration easier (such as Motor Voter laws). Oh, and they affirm that the US is a “Christian nation,” contrary to the ideals of the Founders, natch.

Remember what you’re voting for when you vote for these clowns. Fortunately, there’s more than enough infighting this year to cause ’em some internal strife; keep your fingers crossed.