Tag: DRM
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Aussie Judge Tweaks Kazaa Design
A judge in Australia has found Kazaa and associated parties liable for indirect copyright infringement, and has tentatively imposed a partial remedy that requires Kazaa to institute keyword-based filtering. The liability finding is based on a conclusion that Kazaa improperly “authorized” infringement. This is roughly equivalent to a finding of indirect (i.e. contributory or vicarious)…
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DMCA, and Disrupting the Darknet
Fred von Lohmann’s paper argues that the DMCA has failed to keep infringing copies of copyrighted works from reaching the masses. Fred argues that the DMCA has not prevented “protected” files from being ripped, and that once those files are ripped they appear on the darknet where they are available to everyone. I think Fred…
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DMCA: An Avoidable Failure
In his new paper, Fred von Lohmann argues that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998, when evaluated on its own terms, is a failure. Its advocates said it would prevent widespread online copyright infringement; and it has not done so. Fred is right on target in diagnosing the DMCA’s failure to do what its…
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Measuring the DMCA Against the Darknet
Next week I’ll be participating in a group discussion of Fred von Lohmann’s new paper, “Measuring the DMCA Against the Darknet”, over at the Picker MobBlog. Other participants will include Julie Cohen, Wendy Gordon, Doug Lichtman, Jessica Litman, Bill Patry, Bill Rosenblatt, Larry Solum, Jim Speta, Rebecca Tushnet, and Tim Wu. I’m looking forward to…
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HD-DVD Camp Disses Blu-Ray DRM
Proponents of HD-DVD, one of the two competing next-gen DVD standards, have harsh words for the newly announced DRM technologies adopted by the competing Blu-Ray standard, according to a Consumer Electronics Daily article quoted by an AVS Forum commenter. [Fox engineering head Andy] Setos confirmed BD+ [one of the newly announced Blu-Ray technologies] was based…
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Blu-Ray Tries to Out-DRM HD-DVD
Blu-Ray, one of the two competing next-gen DVD standards, has decided to up the ante by adopting even more fruitless anti-copying mechanism than the rival HD-DVD system. Blu-Ray will join HD-DVD in using the AACS technology (with its competition-limiting digital imprimatur). Blu-Ray will add two more technologies, called ROM-Mark and BD+. ROM-Mark claims to put…
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Hollywood Controlling Parts of Windows Vista Design
A recent white paper (2MB Word file) from Microsoft details the planned “output content protection” in the upcoming Windows Vista (previously known as Longhorn) operating system product. It’s a remarkable document, illustrating the real costs of Hollywood’s quest to redesign the PC’s video hardware and software. The document reveals that movie studios will have explicit…
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DRM Textbooks Offered to Princeton Students
There’s a story going around the blogosphere that Princeton is experimenting with DRMed e-textbooks. Here’s an example: Princeton University, intellectual home of Edward Felten and Alex Halderman, has evidently begun to experiment with DRM’d textbooks. According to this post, there are quite a few digital restrictions being managed: Textbook is locked to the computer where…
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Harry Potter and the Half-Baked Plan
Despite J.K. Rowling’s decision not to offer the new Harry Potter book in e-book format, it took less than a day for fans to scan the book and assemble an unauthorized electronic version, which is reportedly circulating on the Internet. If Rowling thought that her decision against e-book release would prevent infringement, then she needs…
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HD-DVD Requires Digital Imprimatur
Last week I wrote about the antitrust issues raised by the use of encryption to “protect” content. Here’s a concrete example. HD-DVD, one of the two candidates for the next-gen DVD format, uses a “content protection” technology called AACS. And AACS, it turns out, requires a digital imprimatur on any content before it can be…