Weblog - Tom Jacobs

DReaM - Sorting out the reality of "free" and "open" in a non-Utopian world

SUMMARY

DRM is a necessary evil for some industries and individuals. Utopian no-DRM philosophy is naive. Reliable means to respect fair use must be provided. DReaM is leap forward in DRM methodology by managing rights based upon identity rather than simply on devices. Open Source and Royalty-Free (or at least RAND ex-Ante) is a direction who's time has come.

And so I begin... my first Sun blog...

Since the announcement of OpenMediaCommons.org and Project DReaM, I've watched the press, analysts and bloggers react to the concept of creating open source DRM (and CAS) technologies. As the Sun Labs Engineering Director behind Project DReaM, I feel compelled to join the blogging noise and respond to the inaccuracies and naive opinions being tossed about. It is my hope that this blog will serve to help encourage a more reasoned dialog on DRM... especially from the point of DRM users who have thus far only experienced the "restrictive" effects of DRMs.

First, I am a content consumer. I buy (new and used) CDs and DVDs and rent DVDs (Netflix). I subscribe to satellite entertainment services (DirecTV, XM-Radio). I create my own content from family activities (kids piano recitals, vacation videos and digital photography) that I share with other family members over the Internet. I have certain expectations of the content that I consume as well as content that I share. I pay a lot of money for the content rights I receive... and I want better rights and access than the first generation DRMs allow. I've purchased some of my music collection on vinyl, cassettte tape, and CD-Audio and SACD/DVD-Audio discs. I've purchased some of my favorite movies on Betamax, VHS, LaserDisc and DVD (and soon Blu-Ray DVD). In addition, I happily pay to see movies in theaters, on airplanes, on pay-per-view service as well as purchased or rented DVD. I also love my Pioneer TiVo which has a built-in DVD Burner that allows me to take my recorded programs with me easily. I want to take my content with me on either my Sony PSP or my mobile phone, but that is still too much trouble, too time consuming or too costly. What I want is greater flexibility to consume the content I use on the devices of my choice without having to keep buying the same content over and over again and without the fear of buying content for one device which won't easily work on my other devices.

The Reactions Thus Far...

The reactions I've seen have been somewhat expected... the most entertaining coming from some in EFF who view DRM as "crippleware" technology which is inconsistent with their definition of open source software. Some have expressed the opinion that open source software must be free for other software developers to change, improve and build on without such verification mechanisms as digital signatures and trusted execution environments. For many industries (Government, Healthcare, Business, Entertainment) there are significant risks (financial, privacy, security, etc) from determined individuals/groups who try (and have done so historically) to exploit loopholes in security. Whatever you might think of the motivations of the entertainment community, you'd have to admit that there are many industries that have the right (and responsibility) to employ truly secure DRM solutions to protect trade secrets and confidential information.

The motivation for making DRM implementations open to all was motivated by the need for better quality, broader review and (in the case of DReaM) help drive the industry more quickly toward interoperability. Additionally, the goal of pursuing a _royalty-free_ design architecture was a response to the cries from many in various industries who felt that the traditional technology standardization process had been subverted by desire of some companies to create patent bloated standards and subsequent streams of royalties more so than innovative standards that created products, services and jobs.

Would the world be better off if DRM were not open sourced? Yes, if you either have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo of non-interoperable proprietary DRM solutions... or if you cynically believe that proprietary implementations are less secure, easier to break and thus less likely to impeed your easy, free access to content.

And so...

The time for open source, (ideally) royalty-free, or at the very least RAND ex-ante (disclosure of the terms of Reasonable And Non-Discriminatory patent licenses during standards setting activities) technology standards, is here.

Posted at 04:20PM May 03, 2006 by tomj in General  |