More Longhorn News. Making Music safe.

[drag]

Originally posted by: kylef

Originally posted by: drag
FSF only cares about the rights of end users and the average person.

The FSF's motivations are offtopic, but since you brought it up, I think the FSF has become a political lobbying organization that seeks ever-increasing amounts of power, like any lobbying organization, and is willing to do or say anything to get more power. For instance, they have quite successfully lobbied the EU's trade commission to do their bidding regarding Microsoft's anti-trust "settlement" in Europe. But again, this is offtopic.

Your the one that brought up FSF and their motivations. You aluded to the FSF trying to make trusted computing discussion soley Evil Corporation vs innocent consumers.

That's why I mentioned what I did. Otherwise I wouldn't of said anything about it.


As far as the other thing, I fail to understand completely how a "Secure Audio Path" makes my system any more secure. How does that help me?

As far as digitally signing binaries, FSF would never do it. It's entirely counter-productive to the idea of Free software. What is the point of having the source code when your not allowed to use it? Look, but don't touch?

Will I have to have a BIOS upgrade to fix a bug with my MP3 player? It's all very silly.

 

[kylef]

Originally posted by: drag
As far as the other thing, I fail to understand completely how a "Secure Audio Path" makes my system any more secure. How does that help me?

It's not designed to make your system more secure, in the sense of protecting you from viruses/worms/trojans. The security is for the audio stream itself, so that it cannot be tampered with in unencrypted form.

Not everything put into a product is for the consumer. Some things are. But other things are placed to solve a problem for the producer. Just look at the smartcards that DirecTV uses. They are designed to be tamper-proof: trying to open one to tamper with it will destroy the chip. That feature certainly wasn't added for the consumer's benefit: it's designed to protect the interest of the service supplier (DirecTV).

Expecting every product design decision to revolve around what's best for the consumer is naive. The goal is the make the consumer want to buy the finished product, not each and every feature.

As far as digitally signing binaries, FSF would never do it. It's entirely counter-productive to the idea of Free software. What is the point of having the source code when your not allowed to use it? Look, but don't touch?

Signing binaries has NOTHING to do with preventing people from "touching" the source code. People will still be as free as ever to modify their code as much as they want. They just won't be able to use the modified platform to access services which require the secure platform.

This is not a difficult concept to grasp. The mainstream uses of this technology have already been successful in the marketplace. The fact that the FSF is fighting this is quite silly.

Will I have to have a BIOS upgrade to fix a bug with my MP3 player? It's all very silly.

Uh, no. Nothing changes as far as the software model goes. The changes are in the platform/hardware of the PC. If you're talking about a standalone MP3 player, then I don't see your point: if it has a bug you already need to flash its firmware.

 

[Falloutboy]

it wll be cracked within days of release

 

[drag]

DirectTV sucks. Stupid propriatory stuff, If I wanted to use DirectTV sattalite services then I would have to take the mpeg2 data stream change it to analog cable then back to mpeg2 stream so that I can save it on my harddrive. They aren't going to get my money, it's not worth my time and effort to work around their stupidity.

Plus it's a very bad example for the positive benifits of DRM. As soon as DirectTV came out people were already creating their own cards and pirating the stuff.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: kylef
Make no mistake about it: Copyright laws will prevail, and service contracts will soon require you to use specific types of technology in order to access certain content. It's as simple as that.

And that, would be considered unlawful product tying. It would be no different, that certain car makers requiring certain specific brands of fuel (not type) to operate.

Originally posted by: kylef
For the majority of you tinfoil hat people, who think this his happening because Microsoft wants to kill all Free Software: you're just plain wrong.

Wrong about what? That this is happening (and is happening because MS wants to kill free software), or ... that MS wants to kill free software? The second is most definately true, MS had, at one point, I believe, called Linux and open-source a "cancer" infecting the software industry. But what it really is, is private persons putting their foot down, asserting their rights, and taking control and ownership over their own personal property, both singlely and collectively. MS hates that, because they want to force all computer users to "rent" their operation system from Microsoft, and Microsoft only. The fact that there is a strongly user-enabling competitor to their commercial monopoly offering, and worse yet, often made available at zero cost, probably makes MS execs' blood boil. (Well, assuming that they have blood, of course. That is thus far unproven, to my knowledge.)

Originally posted by: kylef
This has been in the works long before Linux was even in the vocabulary. This is a legal compliance issue, designed to address a longstanding problem with digital technology: never before has it been so easy to make illegal copies of artists' works without detection. This threatens the very nature of Copyright Protection by rendering it utterly unenforceable.

LOL. How is it any less or more enforcable than it was? Or do you favor the "KGB model" - requiring identification and licensure, along with restrictive guidelines, over any technological device capable of information reproduction? (Aka VCR, photocopy machine, typewriter, etc.)

Originally posted by: kylef
There are technological solutions to this problem, and they do usually involve ensuring that your hardware's copy protection is intact: e.g., that you do in fact have a secure audio channel path set up and can't merely click a button to direct the digital bitstream to a file, thereby making a de-facto digital copy of the content.

Hardware/software-level copy protection, can never solve what is essentially a societal problem. Either it is collectively acceptable in society to observe copyright laws, or it isn't. MS is just scared, that digital technology, makes creative works effectively a commodity.

Originally posted by: kylef
IMO, the Free Software Foundation is making a big mistake here. Rather than attempting to solve this problem using Free Software to make computers less of a vehicle for rampant copyright abuse, it is instead effectively fighting against 200+ years of Copyright Law by saying that techniques to solve the problem are "draconian" and will stop the free spread of ideas.

LOL.

You just simply don't get it, do it. The FSF sees software as a means to an end - that end is a "free society". Your proposal to adhere to the "KGB model", would result in a very much "unfree" society.

Yeah, MS could certainly make a pretty good profit, using a sort of state-owned capital model, in which the citizens were forced to purchase their goods, because it was either gov't-sanctioned, or there simply were no other viable choices available.

The sad truth is, everything that MS has been pushing for, recently, resembles quite strongly the sorts of things that the soviets tried under their "communist experiment". Complete with the lack of any significant free-market choices. MS is highly anti-competitive and anti-customer-choice. (Well, they try to spin it the opposite way - but only as long as all of those "choices" are MS ones.)

Originally posted by: kylef
In other words, they are using a scaremongering defense. Such defenses (thankfully) rarely hold up in court.

Scaremongering ? By someone other than MS ? How dare they! MS holds the exclusive rights to FUD - I saw the patents myself (they were right next to the 'ones and zeros patent')... I'm sure MS will be forced to sue for royalties now.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: kylef

Originally posted by: drag
What copyright law is designed to do is not to restrict the rights of the people using material.

Your post belies a fundamental misunderstanding of Copyright Law. Defining "fair use" rights of people attempting to make copies of copyrighted material is precisely what Copyright Law is designed to regulate! The laws are applicable to both private and commercial use.

Actually, no, your understanding of Copyright law is the one that is off. As much as MS EULAs attempt to paint a picture otherwise - Copyright law doesn't regulate/restrict *private use* of a copyrighted work, that you otherwise have a legal right to own. (Which may be either ownership of the copyright to that work itself, or a license to own said work - the latter is what you implicitly obtain when you purchase retail software.) Further restrictions of the "use" of that work, do not fall under copyright law. For example, I can listen to a CD that I purchase, or read a book, or use a software program, in any manner and place that I choose - so long as I respect copyright law, in terms of restrictions on duplication, distribution, *public* performance, and a few other small things.

The term "fair use", does not refer to private use of a work, but instead it refers to limited/private *duplication* of a copyrighted work, which is technically against copyright law, but the courts have upheld an intepretation of copyright law that allows a certain amount of leeway in that regard, in terms of a non-commercial / educational / private party.

Originally posted by: kylef
Don't think that just because private copyright abuse is rarely prosecuted that it isn't illegal!

Well, it wasn't even illegal (criminal) under the "NET Act" was passed, so long as no commercial benefit was gained from the infringement. Congress originally (always?) intended for copyright law to be considered a civil statute; a manner in which to define abstract creative works as a form of property, and to allow clear ownership/authorship of such, under the law.

Originally posted by: kylef

It is perfectly acceptable to make a dub tape for a freind.

No, it is not! This is a commonly misunderstood side effect of the 1992 AHRA (Audio Home Recording Act). The AHRA introduced SCMS (a copy protection scheme), which gave Digital Audio Recording Devices the right to make royalty-free single-generational copies, in digital format, of all content. In exchange, manufacturers of these devices would pay a 2% per-device royalty and 3% per-medium royalty (from $1 to $8). This royalty was designed to make up for the loss of revenue due to the fair-use exemption granted by the single-generational copies.

The problem is, the AHRA applies only to devices whose specific or primary function is the digital recording of audio content. Computers and CD-Rs, whose primary purpose of existence has always been copying program data, do not apply. There is no fair use exemption for private parties to make copies of copyrighted content unless they are in the standard 1976 Fair Use exemption list (criticism, commentary, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research).

It would seem then, that using "Music CD-Rs", which *are* specifically for "digital audio recording", and whos purchase costs include a fee designed to compensate digital audio recording copyright holders, would generally imply that using such *would* be legal. At least in a similar manner to paying a "compulsory broadcast license fee" for the public performance of copyrighted musical works, for a specific venue.

Originally posted by: kylef

It's perfectly legal to photocopy a page out of a book to be used in a report. There are thousands of instances of were copying copyrighted material is perfectly legal.

This is correct, and in each of these cases, the copying was performed under the "Fair Use" doctrine. But NOWHERE has "Fair Use" been interpreted to mean "making a copy of your music to give to your friend"!!

He did say "dub tape", which could be intepreted to mean "mix tape", which is in fact not a wholesale gross duplication of a copyrighted work, but rather a personally-selected/arranged montage of excerpts from various works, each individual component much less than the whole. (Although much larger than the excerpts that commercial artists use to "sample" each others' works and insert them into their own.)

Originally posted by: kylef

If I video tape a football game for my dad, I can send it to him. If I want to do the same thing digitally, even in HD this is still perfectly and 100% legal. Completely moral behavior, nothing wrong with it.

This is from the famous "Betamax" case, and it applies very narrowly. Specifically, the content in question MUST have been broadcast for public consumption, and the resulting "time-shifting" recording is done for non-commercial purposes. The decision was silent on distribution of said copies; this means you are in legal gray area even here. And besides, this would explicitly NOT apply to the caes of copying your music CDs, which are not broadcast publicly!

But recording digital radio (or other digitally-encoded network broadcasts of content), would be?

Originally posted by: kylef

What DRM and trusted computing is is about control. That's all. The anti-piracy crap is a sham. As tax payers we already have good anti-piracy, it's called the FBI. It's called the Federal Government.

Absolutely, utterly wrong here. The FBI and other law enforcement agencies have cited repeatedly that they have no means to tackle the rampant copyright abuse currently taking place. The current enabling technologies makes it impossible for them to enforce the Copyright Laws as they are written.

LOL. Sure they do. Copyright laws seemingly held up just fine, even in the presence of the existance of first the printing press, and then the photocopy machine. How are today's computer-based equivalents any different?

Originally posted by: kylef

The reason this was able to happen legally is because they WERE MAKING A MONEY stealing and distributing copyrighted material.

You are completely wrong here. There are plenty of documented cases of Copyright Holders winning lawsuits against non-profit organizations and even School Boards for non-fair-use copyright infringement. The most famous was the Encyclopedia Brittanica case against the Board of Cooperative Educational Services (a consortium of public school districts). Re-distributing for a profit is not what makes this a crime! The Law also provides for losses of copyright revenue due the copyright holder.

Actually, at least up until the "NET Act", redistributing for profit is *exactly* what would have made it a "crime". Aside from that, a court would have to rule on any civil damage awards caused by the alleged infringement. I'm not aware of when that case happened, any more info?

Originally posted by: kylef

It's not designed to allow people to 'enforce' their own copyrighted by forcing controls on OTHER PEOPLE'S PROPERTY.

No, no, no! Copyrighted material is not your property unless YOU are its author!
Purchasing a copy of a Copyrighted work does NOT mean that you own that work!

Yes, but you do own that particular tangible fixed copy of the said work. While copyright law does indeed prohibit duplication of that work, except for certain exceptions, there is no provision in copyright law for the copyright owner to control the *private use* of said work. Which, honestly, makes MS's various "server use" vs. "workstation use" licensing a pile of steaming BS, really. Once you purchase a license to *own* a copy of that work privately, how you *use* that work (not talking about duplication here), is completely and totally up to you. Heck, you could repeated 'cat' it to '/dev/null' all day if you wanted to, if it made you happy. Likewise, if you made certain configuration changes, such as the infamous "NTswitch" program does, then that should in fact be completely legal. (No different than a software equivalent of a modchip for a console, which is likewise completely legal, because you own the hardware.)

Originally posted by: kylef
Please don't misinterpret what I'm saying to mean that we should pass laws REQUIRING said copy protection on all computers: but if an industry wishes to add copy protection capability to its software/devices, then it's entirely up to them to do so. You have the choice of either participating and enjoying the content available, or not participating and not enjoying the content. It's really as simple as that.

Except for that such restrictive access-controls, should be considered a mechanism for "illegal restraint of trade" (much like Nintendo's lock-out chip), and therefore illegal in and of themself. But under the recent political administrations, it seems like deregulation/monopoly business is the order of the day, and such things such as regulations to "ensure fair competition", are being quickly forgotten. It also shouldn't be illegal, if one owns a license to a work, to transcribe that work (privately) into a form more suitable for the owner. This includes format-conversion of digital works. That *should* be completely legal, IMHO.

I expect MS to annex the US gov't itself within twenty years, if things continue along the path that they have started in the last decade.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: drag
The 'other people's property' I was talking about is their computers. You say that in order to protect copyright you have to allow copyright owners control over their customer's computer. This seems wrong to me, and getting a 'industry' standard to enforce this is as much as government as anything else and is getting very close to violating anti-trust law.

It's effectively a form of corporate control, designed to allow "corporate taxation"... without representation. You know what famous political act, a similar set of circumstances caused, right? Computers, tea.. what difference does it make, both are commonly-used daily items.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: kylef
Richard Stallman has done the free software crowd a disservice here. He has played this issue as though it is a Evil Corporations vs. The People issue.

Well, because it largely is. Corporations are screaming about their "losses due to piracy" (generally inflated to insane amounts - did you know that the BSA considers computer hardware purchased and used with free software, to be "piracy" that results in a loss of revenue to commercial software producers?), and in the process demanding that they be given special rights, rights to deny other citizens their legal rights over their own privately-owned property. (MS has already started to do this, unfortunately.)

Originally posted by: kylef
But the entire motivating factor here is the eliminating of copyright infringement. (Yes, this includes software copyright infringement.)

Bull***t.

It's all about futher absolute control over the market. It's not about "piracy" at all. It's about being able to technologically implement self-destructing "Pay-per-view-ware", because MS was not legally allowed to do such via laws like the UCTIA, that only passed in few states. If the user can never store a persistant copy of a work (say a media file), then every time that the user wants to view that file, they will have to pay to do so - over and over again! That's the real key here, that's what is at stake. Restricting the user's ability to control and use content, that they supposedly "own" (at least the right to privately use in an unrestricted fashion - as is currently provided by copyright law), in order to greatly maximize profits.

Large companies tried this same thing in years past, it was called "the company store". If you worked for them, you had to live in their housing, and shop at their store. Of course, prices were greatly increased, because of the lack free-market choices available to the customer, and overall, their lifestyle was not really much different than a "captive slave laborer", with the corporation sucking them dry for profit.

That is the exact scenario that DRM systems seek to re-create, in a mostly-transparent and technological manner. The sole purpose of DRM is to restrict consumer choice, and restrict a citizen's rights. That's why RMS opposes it - because it leads directly down the path to an "un-free" society.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: MrChad
Isn't there ANY room to give the consumer the benefit of the doubt in some cases? Aren't the software and content industries going to alienate consumers by assuming that their behavior will be criminal?

We can only hope... that's going to be the only way that people will "wake up", and reject this non-sense, just like they did to Circuit City's "Divx" scheme.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: kylef
I disagree: hardware must trust the software and vice-versa. Linux currently has no way to offer a Secure Audio Path, for instance. There will always be a way around any scheme with the current system, such as compiling a new kernel that traps the data before it is sent to your sound interface.

Which would still be pointless, at least until MS figures out a way to hack the code of the human genome, and rebuild "us" to have encrypted hearing devices, all just to support their "Secure" (ha!) audio path stuff.

Originally posted by: kylef
If the Linux community really wanted to solve this problem, then they could propose a method for a trusted organization (like the FSF itself, which does abide by the law) to digitally sign specific kernels and drivers or something like that so that the non-flashable part of the BIOS or some other hardware platform could verify that it is running trusted code at the lowest levels. This could thwart kernel-level components from sniffing unencrypted content.

If it can be viewed, listened to, etc., then it can be copied. To think otherwise, is pure foolishness. I hope that the media conglomerates realize that they are being sold snake-oil, in the form of "DRM protection".

Originally posted by: kylef
You could make every device vendor solve this issue by embedding some kind of public-key decryption technology in each and every device, I suppose. That way, ALL communication with the device would effectively be secure. But this severely limits the type of encryption technology you can use, and any such hardware keys/certificates would be a gigantic target for crackers to expoit. Not to mention it would make such devices more expensive to manufacture. Providing a secure platform eases the burden on hardware vendors and places it primarily on the system software vendor.

That's really the only way that it could work, though, up until the signals reach the analog domain.

Originally posted by: kylef
Vendors are free to implement their hardware however they see fit: if they want to introduce specific incompatibilities, nothing can stop them except your refusal to buy the equipment in the first place.

Which is precisely why all DRM-capable hardware should be outright boycotted, even if it can still (currently) play/process non-DRM content as well. (The reasoning goes, that they will eventually transition to a DRM-only scenario, and by not boycotting them at the first instance, that falsely signals "consumer acceptance" of DRM-enabled devices to the mfgs. This should not be allowed to happen!)

 

[mhillary]

I heard the graphics are gonna be mindblowing with 'blackcomb'.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: kylef

Originally posted by: drag
As far as the other thing, I fail to understand completely how a "Secure Audio Path" makes my system any more secure. How does that help me?

It's not designed to make your system more secure, in the sense of protecting you from viruses/worms/trojans. The security is for the audio stream itself, so that it cannot be tampered with in unencrypted form.

In other words, it protects the content from ever being "captured" by the user into a persistant (fixed tangible) form. IOW, it's simply not possible to violate the provisions against unlawful duplication of a copyrighted work, because it permanently removes any capability to "save" the signal. It becomes emphemeral. How wonderful for the content vendor, who can charge over and over again for this now-ephemeral customer experience.

As far as digitally signing binaries, FSF would never do it. It's entirely counter-productive to the idea of Free software. What is the point of having the source code when your not allowed to use it? Look, but don't touch?

Signing binaries has NOTHING to do with preventing people from "touching" the source code. People will still be as free as ever to modify their code as much as they want. They just won't be able to use the modified platform to access services which require the secure platform.[/quote]
Which means, a stratified technological society, a collection of DRM haves and have-nots. The "mark of the beast", actually. Perhaps that is what Revelations was actually referring to - the rise of DRM. Perhaps BillG really is the anti-C.

Originally posted by: kylef
This is not a difficult concept to grasp. The mainstream uses of this technology have already been successful in the marketplace. The fact that the FSF is fighting this is quite silly.

Sucessful for who? Certainly not sucessful for society as a whole, and it certainly hasn't served to make society any more free. Sucessful for the snake-oil-selling, DRM-mark branding, slave-master corporations? If it is measured purely monetarily, perhaps that is true, but that simply means that people haven't yet begun to oppose those things strongly enough yet. Hopefully, for the good of the rest of society, they will.

 

[kylef]

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry
It would seem then, that using "Music CD-Rs", which *are* specifically for "digital audio recording", and whos purchase costs include a fee designed to compensate digital audio recording copyright holders, would generally imply that using such *would* be legal.

No. This is true only if you are using a standalone CD-Audio recording device, not a general purpose computer.

Look, you have apparently completely ignored my earlier post about legacy content (e.g., CD's) and fair use. Go back and read that post.

He did say "dub tape", which could be intepreted to mean "mix tape", which is in fact not a wholesale gross duplication of a copyrighted work, but rather a personally-selected/arranged montage of excerpts from various works, each individual component much less than the whole.

It doesn't matter. You cannot transfer copies to other parties unless they meet the fair use exceptions (research, education, scholarly criticism, etc). Personal entertainment is NOT a qualifying fair use exception! The copy is therefore illegal.

But recording digital radio (or other digitally-encoded network broadcasts of content), would be?

For personal use (not transfer), "time-shifting" is a fair use exception for any public broadcast. I can foresee some legal barbed wire over the definition of "public", but more or less, that is the current judicial interpretation of the law.

Sure they do. Copyright laws seemingly held up just fine, even in the presence of the existance of first the printing press, and then the photocopy machine. How are today's computer-based equivalents any different?

The difference is in the volume of non-fair-use copies being made. Sure, there have always been copyright abuses going on. But it was always pretty limited because of the impracticality of widespread abuse. For instance, it was NEVER practical to photocopy entire books to save money. And if people are setting up presses for copying works, then law enforcement will have an easier time catching the perpetrators.

But with digital works, all it takes is a mouse click to make thousands of illegal copies to send to your friends, family, etc. And it's not just the potential for abuse: the current widespread copyright abuse is well documented.

So the question is, do you take away the vehicle for copying by making the vehicle illegal? No. But the vehicle manufacturer can fix the vehicle to make copying much more difficult, dramatically lowering the rate at which the abuse occurs, satisfying content providers without hurting legitimate fair use.

Actually, at least up until the "NET Act", redistributing for profit is *exactly* what would have made it a "crime". Aside from that, a court would have to rule on any civil damage awards caused by the alleged infringement. I'm not aware of when that case happened, any more info?

Whether you are civilly or criminally liable is basically irrelevant, unless you think you can get by "under the radar" in civil liability scenarios because you're such a small fry that the copyright holder is not willing to spend money to come after you. Otherwise, the only difference between civil and criminal cases is whether the state has an interest in deterring future such behavior. If a district attorney wanted to prosecute copyright infringement cases, he/she certainly could. Judges may only hand down financial sentences (the guidelines here differ from state to state) but the DA's responsibility is to be an advocate for victims of crime. In the case of copyright infringement, copyright holders are the victims.

...there is no provision in copyright law for the copyright owner to control the *private use* of said work.

You can do whatever you like with the software CD itself (which IS the copy). You can throw it around like a frisbee, put it in the microwave, etc. But the minute you place it into a CD drive and make a digital copy of the contents of the CD onto your computer (via an installer or whatever), that ADDITIONAL copy had better be a licensed or "fair use" copy! Otherwise it is absolutely illegal.

Except for that such restrictive access-controls, should be considered a mechanism for "illegal restraint of trade" (much like Nintendo's lock-out chip), and therefore illegal in and of themself.

You are free to try to make this case in court, but the way the current laws are interpreted, what you are trying to argue is simply not the case.

But under the recent political administrations, it seems like deregulation/monopoly business is the order of the day, and such things such as regulations to "ensure fair competition", are being quickly forgotten.

LOL. The copyright laws we have been discussing have been the same for 20+ years. Actually, the laws have been the same for 30+ years, but judicial interpretation changes over time. "Political pressure" is the LEAST of the concerns with your arguments. Your problem is trying to fight against the large amount of legal precedence supporting the rights of copyright holders, which you are attempting to invalidate!

I expect MS to annex the US gov't itself within twenty years, if things continue along the path that they have started in the last decade.

Wow, that's a shiny tinfoil hat you are wearing there.

Nice troll.
:roll:

 

[drag]

Kylef is absoletely right about 'fair use' for copying books media and stuff.

You can make mix tapes, rip DVDs, and make copies that way, but you can't distribute them. Personal/private use only.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: kylef

I expect MS to annex the US gov't itself within twenty years, if things continue along the path that they have started in the last decade.

Wow, that's a shiny tinfoil hat you are wearing there.
Nice troll.
:roll:

Why do you think that's a joke? I wasn't joking at all. sharkeeper posted a note in a thread in OT, about MS getting a law passed specifically for them, to deny the normal, legitimate, legal resale rights for MS COA certificates, to anyone but MS themselves. Let me spell this out for you slowly.. MS... gets a law passed specifically for themselves, in which they alone are the beneficiaries, and rights are taken away from members of the general citizen population.

Can you see GM or Ford, getting a law passed, that only corporate-licensed/approved GM or Ford dealers, could sell GM or Ford parts. Your ordinary garage guy, would be explicitly prohibited by law from carrying those parts, to serve their customers.

All under the faulty premise that the only reason for non-dealers to stock factory-original parts, is to aid "chop shop" operations, and the fencing of stolen cars. It's complete bull, and the only reason for them to want to pass that sort of law, would be to eliminate "the little guys", and have the market all to their (corporate) selves.

If you don't see how that equates (almost) to MS annexing the gov't itself, or how it couldn't lead to that.. well, good luck.

Of course it wouldn't be an outright, blatant thing, but very slow and insideous, happening over time, as more and more pro-MS/anti-citizen laws are passed. The effect is largely the same, for the common person. Perhaps I should have said "effectively" annex, rather than just annex.

 

[stash]

sharkeeper posted a note in a thread in OT, about MS getting a law passed specifically for them, to deny the normal, legitimate, legal resale rights for MS COA certificates, to anyone but MS themselves

You believe everything you see in OT?

If I had to speculate about what you are referring to, I would guess HR 3632, the anti-counterfeiting amendments act. Among other things, this law makes it a criminal offense to distribute standalone COA labels. There is no legitimate reason to sell or purchase standalone COAs.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: STaSh

sharkeeper posted a note in a thread in OT, about MS getting a law passed specifically for them, to deny the normal, legitimate, legal resale rights for MS COA certificates, to anyone but MS themselves

You believe everything you see in OT?

If I had to speculate about what you are referring to, I would guess HR 3632, the anti-counterfeiting amendments act. Among other things, this law makes it a criminal offense to distribute standalone COA labels. There is no legitimate reason to sell or purchase standalone COAs.

But it's not anti-counterfeiting at all - it's a law designed to give monopolistic favoritism to MS, and eliminate competition. At least as far as I read about it. (MS allegations about "no legitimate uses" notwithstanding.)

It's crap, and total abuse of the "free market". Actual counterfeit goods are already illegal to "traffic" in. That's not new at all. But the valid legal resale, of genuine articles, being made illegal, in deference to the sole profits of a legally-proven monopolist... that really takes the cake for me.

 

[stash]

How does this law eliminate competition? And why do you scoff at the statement of no legitimate uses of standalone COAs? Can you name one?

But the valid legal resale, of genuine articles, being made illegal, in deference to the sole profits of a legally-proven monopolist... that really takes the cake for me.

Again, there is no such thing as a valid legal resale of standalone COAs.

 

[Munky]

Damn, I almost thought I stumbled into the news and politics section with all this debating

The important thing is, wherever there is capitalism, there is competition. So MS can impose all the limitations it wants, but if you don't like it, you can always switch to linux or even [gasp] mac. If enough people boycott MS, then it would only be digging it's own grave with all these "protection" schemes.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: STaSh
How does this law eliminate competition? And why do you scoff at the statement of no legitimate uses of standalone COAs? Can you name one?

But the valid legal resale, of genuine articles, being made illegal, in deference to the sole profits of a legally-proven monopolist... that really takes the cake for me.

Again, there is no such thing as a valid legal resale of standalone COAs.

You may make that claim - but in the cases in which they were either: 1) stolen, or 2) not genuine - those cases are already illegal. So why does MS need another law on the books, that solely benefits them, to stop illegal acts? Answer: It doesn't, it's just one more pro-Microsoft, anti-competitive law, that unlawfully blocks intermediate resellers from making a buck off of a resale transaction. (Because any COA customers would have to go to MS directly now. They are the de-jure monopoly now for MS COA sales.) This is the same sort of thing as Ford or GM, trying to legally cut out the small garages from reselling parts for their cars, so that they could make all of the profit from those transactions.

Oh, and a (hastily-contrived, I admit) example of a sale/resale use that would otherwise be legal - consider historical/collectable purchases. There was another example in the thread that sharkeeper posted in, about some vendor that was selling (legally) COAs, and that now MS was going after them.

MS is prohibiting otherwise-legal resale of legal goods. That law is a farce, and a slap in the face to anyone that truely believes in free-market capitalist economic systems.

 

[stash]

Ugh, like talking to a wall...

You may make that claim - but in the cases in which they were either: 1) stolen, or 2) not genuine - those cases are already illegal

Uh no...no they weren't. HR3632 closed a loophole in the law, where there was no legal recourse against those trafficking in genuine authentication components (which includes COAs).

There was another example in the thread that sharkeeper posted in, about some vendor that was selling (legally) COAs, and that now MS was going after them.

What part of THIS IS NOT LEGAL do you not understand? There is NO legitimate reason to sell standalone COAs. NONE! COAs are worthless without the corresponding genuine software. Conterfeiters purchase standalone COAs because it makes it easier for them to sell their counterfeit software

MS is prohibiting otherwise-legal resale of legal goods

Except there is no such thing as legal resale of standalone COAs!!!!!!

-edit: typo

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: STaSh
Ugh, like talking to a wall...

You may make that claim - but in the cases in which they were either: 1) stolen, or 2) not genuine - those cases are already illegal

Uh no...no they weren't. HR3632 closed a loophole in the law, where there was no legal recourse against those trafficking in genuine authentication components (which includes COAs).

Uhm, reading comprehension. If they were "genuine", then they weren't conterfeit, and if they weren't stolen - then they should be legal to resell. The only "loophole" there, was in MS's monopoly profits.

Originally posted by: STaSh

There was another example in the thread that sharkeeper posted in, about some vendor that was selling (legally) COAs, and that now MS was going after them.

What part of THIS IS NOT LEGAL do you not understand? There is NO legitimate reason to sell standalone COAs.

First of all, until the law was passed, it was legal. Second, "legitimate reason" is not the same thing as "legal". Remember, this is MS we are talking about, which likes to characterize any of their software, sold at lower-than-official-retail-list price, as "counterfeit", even if it is the genuine article, mfg and packaged and sold by MS, but it happened to spill out onto the grey-market because one of MS's first-tier customers violated their own sales/distribution agreement with MS. MS should take them to civil court and sue for damages then, rather than harass the resellers that handle that grey-market (but geniuine!) MS software. I see this as largely the same sort of thing, and it disgusts me that MS is allowed that much leeway to disreguard the well-established principles of law, instead chosing to re-write it any way that MS pleases, to benefit primarily MS.

Originally posted by: STaSh
NONE! COAs are worthless without the corresponding genuine software. Conterfeiters purchase standalone COAs because it makes it easier for them to sell their counterfeit software

I'm not claiming that there aren't instances of counterfeiters doing so, but that doesn't (AFAIK) mean that their aren't legitimate uses as well. Should P2P network file-sharing software, be banned outright, because some people use it to download software/media-files in violation of copyright law? Should there be a special law made just for that scenario, when it is already illegal? (The only real proponts of doing so, would be doing so because P2P also provides a legitimate channel to distribute indepedently-developed movie/music/software, outside the grasp of the RIAA/MPAA's distribution monopoly. They see it as a form of potential competition, and they want it shut down. That's what MS has done in this case, that I can see.)

MS is prohibiting otherwise-legal resale of legal goods

Except there is no such thing as legal resale of standalone COAs!!!!!!
-edit: typo[/quote]
I thought that you claimed at first that there was no such thing as a "legitimate reason" to resell them. See prior comment about those two things not being the same.

Here's some interesting hypothetical questions for you:
1) Does MS consider a software license to be valid, if you don't have a COA to go along with it?
2) If you have a valid purchase reciept for said software license, does MS consider it to be "legal"?
3) If MS requires a COA to be legal (see #1), then will MS send you a COA to match for your paid (documentable) software license?
4) Will they send it to you for free, or will you have to purchase it?
5) If you have to purchase it, then why can't you purchase it from a reseller, instead of MS? Legally, I mean. (Assuming for the sake of argument that this would have happened before this recent pro-MS law was passed.)

At the end of the day, a COA is just a F-'ing piece of paper, and unlike gov't-issued currency, corporate-issued paper, in itself, has no special protections given to it by law. The difference is if someone were to attempt to defraud or "steal" (in this sense, use it to violate copyright law), in relation to MS's copyrighted software works, then those are already illegal. Making the resale of a piece of corporate-issued paper illegal, is quite silly, and for those of us not so biased, shows a very poignant example of MS's well-known abuses of the US legal system, for their own greedy gain.

Yes, I can see how MS would want to dissuade the theft of COA certs containing keys that could be used to "activate" a copy of their software, or re-use of those certs outside of the software license that they were originally bundled with, to allow activation of an (un-authorized, "stolen" copy of their OS, on another system). They should be perfectly within their rights to do so, provided that they obey the law and do not infringe on other's rights. That's where *I* draw the line at what I consider acceptable. MS forcing users to go through "online genuine Windows validation" - fine. Perfectly legal, and acceptable. MS getting a special-interest law to be passed in their favor, to assist them in ways that DO infringe on the legal rights of others (resellers) - not fine, and should certainly not be acceptable to anyone that wishes to live in a free republic, in which the gov't is charged with the responsibility to protect the rights of *all* of their "citizens", both living and artificial (corporate).

 

[AnitaPeterson]

No matter how hard MS and the U.S. government will try to bend things their way, and despite what the U.S.-dominated NAFTA and WTO will do, pay-per-view, DRM and "Clipper" systems will continue to be miserable failures, met with suspicion and strong opposition in the rest of the world.

Longhorn, despite its bells & whistles, has so far failed to impress me. I see no reason to upgrade my W2k installation.

Mark my words, in five to seven years, China will make it's own operating system, and perhaps devise a new PC architecture (including new CPUs) which will end the American monopoly in the field. I strongly suspect there's a classified E.U. project going along the same lines, possibly at Cern, Dortmund or Lausanne.

And if Sony will end up by buying Apple, Wintel will be hit hard, no matter how you look at it.

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: AnitaPeterson
No matter how hard MS and the U.S. government will try to bend things their way, and despite what the U.S.-dominated NAFTA and WTO will do, pay-per-view, DRM and "Clipper" systems will continue to be miserable failures, met with suspicion and strong opposition in the rest of the world.

Weird.

Nobody likes that crap in the US either, just people like the RIAA and such.

Longhorn, despite its bells & whistles, has so far failed to impress me. I see no reason to upgrade my W2k installation.

Mark my words, in five to seven years, China will make it's own operating system, and perhaps devise a new PC architecture (including new CPUs) which will end the American monopoly in the field.

I don't see that happenning. Longhorn and trusted computing/DRM stuff would be a major boon for Chinese censorship. Right now Chinese rely on network-level technology to monitor it's citizens. With T.U. they will be able to use the computers themselves to do a lot of the work... And don't forget that Chinese government has full access to the Windows source code, it's part of the agreement that allows MS itself into the Chinese marketplace and get (at least some) protections from piracy.

So what purpose would china have in creating it's own OS, it's own hardware platform?

I strongly suspect there's a classified E.U. project going along the same lines, possibly at Cern, Dortmund or Lausanne.

Don't think so.

What possible benifit could they have? x86 is completey open, they could produce their own computers if they wanted to completley independant from US and East Asia hardware producers.

MS could get muscled out of the way if EU want's to prop up local software manufacturers.. but I don't think that would happen either, unless MS does something realy bad to piss them off.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: drag

Originally posted by: AnitaPeterson
Mark my words, in five to seven years, China will make it's own operating system, and perhaps devise a new PC architecture (including new CPUs) which will end the American monopoly in the field.

I don't see that happenning. Longhorn and trusted computing/DRM stuff would be a major boon for Chinese censorship.

That's a scary thought, and the political side of DRM (gov't-controlled/monitored, rather than corporate-controlled), that I hadn't even considered in my rants. At least in the US, we do have constitutional protection against having gov't police officers stationed in our homes, and at least some "due process" with regards to hoops that LEOs have to jump through to obtain lawful wiretaps. (Although it hasn't stopped them from using unlawful ones plenty of times as well.) Hopefully if DRM schemes become mainstream, that the courts will be "sane" enough to recognize that in spirit, the constitution would also prohibit the gov't using a person's own PC to spy on them, because that would be making the PC into an effective gov't agent, or tool of one, and likely similar to an unlawful wiretap as well. (It also brings into question the use of "black boxes" in automobiles, if LEO is allowed access to that data via the vehicle mfg, without any "due process" or not.)

Originally posted by: drag
So what purpose would china have in creating it's own OS, it's own hardware platform?

Well, the Chinese mindset does have a strong sense of "independence from the rest of the world", combined with their own internal belief of superiority over the rest of the world (whether or not that is actually true). They've dumped DVDs in favor of their own, Chinese-specific, EVD standard. If they're willing to forgo a worldwide standard, and "roll their own" for China, for video/media-viewing, whos to say that they won't likewise do the same thing for desktop computing systems? It's definately not out of the question. They would likely choose to use Linux for the base though. ('Red Flag Linux' already being developed, etc.)

Originally posted by: drag

I strongly suspect there's a classified E.U. project going along the same lines, possibly at Cern, Dortmund or Lausanne.

Don't think so.
What possible benifit could they have? x86 is completey open, they could produce their own computers if they wanted to completley independant from US and East Asia hardware producers.

MS could get muscled out of the way if EU want's to prop up local software manufacturers.. but I don't think that would happen either, unless MS does something realy bad to piss them off.

Well, the EU does have a bit of a long history of protectionism, and currently, it seems that the EU is a bit pissed off at MS, enough so to force them to offer a version of Windows' for sale without WMP bundled, and whichever court/agency was in charge of that decision didn't want to listen to MS's appeal pleas, apparently. (IIRC.)

But what with this recent TCPA stuff, and MS's future expected plans, I wouldn't exactly claim that the x86-based PC platform, is in any way "open" anymore. In 5-6 years, you will be scrounging around for black-market "PC modchips", if you want to have any freedom to run your own applications on your own PC at all. Mark my words. It will happen.

And as always, those "PC modchips" will be sold cheaply and openly on the streets, in places like China and Russia and Hong Kong. All of those countries will have a more "open" desktop PC platform, than we will in the US, what with our strong private-interest corporate lobbiests at work (RIAA, MPAA, MS, etc.). By then, there will be no open/free-software developers left in the US, at least not publically-admitted ones. The few that remain, will take on pseudonyms and contribute to the EU, or ironically, Chinese-hosted project sites, via a proxy, not unlike the manner in which "big name warez groups" interacted a few years ago. Because to the powers-that-be, in this country, "free software" == "warez", and will be prohibited by law. Insane you say? No way, they will do it via DRM, and via getting laws passed that limit the legal interoperability between systems, unless they are solely branded by the dominant platform-provider. (Ala MS - think "XBox Live on crack", in terms of security.) In fact, we saw the first rumbles of that sort of thing, with Lexmark trying to use the DMCA to force 3rd-party ink suppliers for their printers out of business. It's all about creating/using "legal" leverage, to force your competitors out of business. (Unethically, and against a proper free-market economy, of course, but it doesn't stop greedy corporations from attempting that. Which corporation has some of the strongest political lobbying right now, and is also incredibly greedy? Microsoft.)