By John Lettice
Published Tuesday 4th May 2004 13:01 GMT
Microsoft has taken the wraps off its next generation Digital Rights Management software, designed to allow digital music and video to get into consumers' hands without actually escaping. The technology previously known as Janus "will make new scenarios possible, such as protecting, delivering and playing subscription-based or on-demand digital music and video," and this will cover "Windows-based PCs and devices, including portable audio devices, Portable Media Centers, cellular phones and personal digital assistants (PDAs) such as Windows Mobile-based Pocket PCs and Smartphones, and networked devices connected within the home, including those that connect over a wireless network."

Translation: the technology will act as a facilitator for companies selling 'all you can eat for a monthly fee', restrictive licenses whereby playback is time- or number of plays-limited, and it will allow these services to be sold on a multitude of devices. It will allow you to play the stuff you bought on all sorts of devices connected to your home network, so long as you have obtained the necessary licences to play the stuff at that particular time, on that particular device. 'Your' rights to do this will be managed by the Windows DRM licence management software you bought in order to make it safe for the content companies to sell you all this stuff.

You may have spotted that, as it's already perfectly feasible to rip all of your CDs to MP3s, shove them onto your portable music player and stream them around the home, this might not entirely be a solution to your digital entertainment problems. But granted, if from your perspective it's a good deal to pay a monthly fee in order to be able to listen to a big pile of music, then having the ability to listen to it on a portable player might be helpful. Otherwise, in the secure DRMed future you'll do well to keep questioning who exactly it is that 'your' hardware is working for.

Janus was the Roman god of doors, and had two faces. We seem to recall he had some brief for spies as well, but the two faces will suffice for our purposes today. Janus here faces two ways, smiling warmly and solicitously at the content owners and vendors, and somewhat less convincingly at the consumer. Under these circumstances you might well expect Microsoft's announcement to be two-faced. And you would not be disappointed; a clutch of eager rentaquotes from the business just can't help telling us what it means for them, and for us.

Here, for example, is AOL VP Alex Blum: "Consumers are embracing online music with a passion [indeed...] ... Our goal has always been to offer music fans the widest range of options to experience leading content in the highest quality possible. Microsoft's latest version of Windows Media DRM will help us continue to take legitimate digital music offerings, particularly for our rapidly growing broadband audience, to the next level, ultimately meeting the consumer's goal of taking purchased or rented digital songs, games and movies with them wherever they want, on any device."

please read the source article in full at
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/05/04/ms_drm2_rollout/

DRM is evil, most of us are totally against it, but *sigh* it is looking like we must accept the reality that it will continue to proliferate regardless of it's uselessness in stopping a determined person from bypassing it. I wish we could ban it completely, but wishes are fishes. What we CAN do about it tho is to encourage independent artists to NEVER use it. We CAN EDUCATE the indies about what file types are associated with DRM. We CAN convince them that DRM is for suckers and is really a corporate TOOL to try to keep the indie folks from competition in the market place (even tho the industry CLAIMS the primary goal is to defeat the non - existant rampant "piracy" of copyrighted works.)

We may not be able to utterly eradicate the RIAA any time soon... but we CAN go around them and come out with more than a draw. We independents may still yet come up with what I would call a VICTORY if we continue doing what we are doing... we can keep putting out our songs for free on the web and letting our fans be better advertisers of our music than even the Radio and Tv that we are effectively banned from. Hell, 5 or so years ago, we didn't even have the ability to afford making our own CD's nor the ability to get our music to every corner of the world.

Even still, we should continue to FIGHT the RIAA and what they represent. They HATE it that there are "new kids on the block" and that they are not the only game in town anymore.

That in ITSELF is a victory.

But we ONLY win if we keep OUR stuff DRM free.

Shmoo, of Electric Gypsy
Support Local and Independent Music!

This will be cracked within a week of coming out

Its part of the WMDRM scheme. That one has a good record. Other than a decryption crack for the DRMv2 encryption system (never used because of the crack) its completly unbroken. It probably wont stay that way through. As h new Janus module gets added and many diverse hardware implimentations are produced, sooner or later a flaw will emerge.

That's just what I was thinking, nyer82. At the very least, if it can be heard, it can be recorded.

And Schmoo, I'm with ya on that one. I'm hoping there are enough of us make an impact by keeping our music out there DRM-free. I fear sometimes that there are those who would interfere with our way of doing this.

you only fear it SOMETIMES???

Nobody is against paying for a product. I think most people here would pay to use P2P under the right conditions (I emphasize right conditions.. and right price).

DRM isn't to stop piracy. It's to maintain control.

I choose to ignore DRM, just as I choose to ignore any content protected by it. If they so passionately do not want to allow me access to their content, they can keep it themselves. There are far too many creators who are user friendly and want their content to be enjoyed (like our friends Shmoo and George) to even bother with battling ol' two-face for a peek behind his door.

I'm with you, deletethispost!

Why bother about DRM if all the content is (and hopefully will be) available in p2p?