Bruce Schneier has written an informative article for Forbes titled "Why Vista's DRM Is Bad For You". It begins thusly:

Windows Vista includes an array of "features" that you don't want. These features will make your computer less reliable and less secure. They'll make your computer less stable and run slower. They will cause technical support problems. They may even require you to upgrade some of your peripheral hardware and existing software. And these features won't do anything useful. In fact, they're working against you. They're digital rights management (DRM) features built into Vista at the behest of the entertainment industry.

Definitely worth a read if you're thinking about "upgrading" to Vista. The article is also available on his website.

Oh yeh, and the word on the street is that the processing keys for Blu-Ray and HD-DVD have been found, which seems to indicate the copy protection on these formats has been smashed.

This is a war for 21st-century movie distribution and, when the dust settles, Hollywood won't know what hit them.

sounds like a recipe for fun!

I found it too be a little lacking. He seemed to focus more on DRM than DRM in vista. Considering the next version of Windows is scheduled for 2009, im not really concerned. That and I dont plan in going to HD-DVD or blu-ray for a long time.

I dont understand how it makes my computer less stable and slower. My computer is FASTER with Vista and rock solid.

sounds like aids

I dont understand how it makes my computer less stable and slower.

Yeah everyone goes on about how it is the devil, but what if i dont play any drm protected content at all, will it affect anything? Ive seen a few articles talk about image and sound degradation, but its always with a reference to a movie... i mean i am not going to be playing quake 7 and all of a sudden it will drop to 640*480 or something like that will it?

I play my games and watch movies and all sorts of crap through media player , havnt had a problem yet.

no OS is gonna f*** with MY media

Yeah everyone goes on about how it is the devil, but what if i dont play any drm protected content at all, will it affect anything? Ive seen a few articles talk about image and sound degradation, but its always with a reference to a movie... i mean i am not going to be playing quake 7 and all of a sudden it will drop to 640*480 or something like that will it?

all your video material is DRM motitored. Not just select new material. the point is, with out you knowing it, windows may be playing it back at a s***tier rate.

Any multimedia that you play/use/view/listen too is being subjected to windows DRM, not just new stuff.

I found it too be a little lacking. He seemed to focus more on DRM than DRM in vista. Considering the next version of Windows is scheduled for 2009, im not really concerned. That and I dont plan in going to HD-DVD or blu-ray for a long time.

I dont understand how it makes my computer less stable and slower. My computer is FASTER with Vista and rock solid.

Thats because he's responding to many papers published by non MS people, and the many replies and PR releases done by MS. Follow the links in the articles.

same to your second point, in software it basically goes, less code == better code (in most cases). adding DRM to EVERYTHING, every driver etc, just means more areas for it to all go, BOOM!.

I'm not anti-MS, i actually like most of their products. but one of the major things i'm not upgrading for is to see just how bad the DRM affects systems.

i don't think quake 7 is out yet bah

No, it's not FUD - DRM sucks, seriously.

Well this had to be the most BS way of sledging DRM. Yeah, DRM is bad in every way... but the ways described in this article are just BS exaggerations and over-dramatizing for the most part.

just a quick question guys, im going to update xp -> vista and i have a raid controller with 160gb + 60gb drives on that raid controller, will i have to try and find an updated raid controller driver or should vista pick it up automatically?

why are you "upgrading" to vista ? seriously

Nobody knows what the DRM management system will do.

nobody? like, not even the programmers that coded it. that's pretty cool. :D

Well this had to be the most BS way of sledging DRM. Yeah, DRM is bad in every way... but the ways described in this article are just BS exaggerations and over-dramatizing for the most part.

Well, you're just saying that because he badmouths Apple in addition to Microsoft :)

I disagree that's its a BS exaggeration and/or over-dramatization. It's a Forbes article, for starters - it's aimed at technically inept people that are presumably focusing more on the costs of something rather than the technical benefits. It's written simply and highlights the problems of DRM (more in general, but also how they apply to Vista).

It focuses on the very real costs and risks associated in upgrading to Vista. It links off to more technical stuff if you really want to get your hands dirty.

The only thing I can think of to complain about with this article is the conclusion he made that Vista is the way it is because Microsoft want to own the entertainment market. I think his arguments behind that are pretty convincing anyway, but I wouldn't be prepared to make that conclusion - I don't know if Microsoft actually want to OWN the market themselves directly, or if they just want to be the #1 player when movie studios and the RIAA are coming to them to try to sell their products to Joe Sixpack (MS make jillions of dollars peddling their DRM solutions to companies that think it will help them secure their product).

Who is winning in the content space at the moment online? Sure as s*** isn't Microsoft. It's GoogleTube, because their content is easily accessible by everyone. Not everyone running Vista, or Mac, or whatever OS. The winner of the media wars will be whoever makes the most accessible, easy to use, compatible system. At the moment the most accessible, easy to use, compatible system is BitTorrent + common standards like xvid and mp3 (though mp3 isn't 'open', it's a pretty solid standard).

last edited by trog at 16:17:39 14/Feb/07

why are you "upgrading" to vista ? seriously

because i'm bored and want something to do for a few hours till my girl gets home

I was starting to go 'soft' with my opinion on content control until I tried to fire up a DVD to test our new subwoofer the other day.

Took us over a minute to get to the DVD menu as we had to sit through an initial copyright screen, the full-length "Would you steal a handbag" anti-piracy clip (which fills me with rage as it's full of logical fallacies) and then another anti-piracy warning ... all of which were unskippable.

I know it's not the same thing as what's being discussed in this thread, but f***ed if more companies will successfully force me to go through s*** like this repeatedly, without my having the ability to rip the main movie (of the DVD I own!) for easier accessibility.

im sorta surprised they havent done it with games yet.

wont be long till every time we load up a new game we'll be sitting through "dont copy that floppy"

DRM is s***.

But while using Vista and playing all my MP3s, Pornos and other related movie files I have noticed no slow downs, s*** performance, poor relability or other negative factors. Perhaps those that did notice s*** performance should upgrade their PC.. I hear that DX chips have the FPU built into them!

dual boot, run xp for all ur ripping needs (of course with the dvds u bought :)), watch it in hardware accelereated vista. problem solvered.

or i could just watch in XP cause the difference is neglegable i'm sure

Nobody knows what the DRM management system will do. Nobody can predict what will happen in the future because of bugs or patches. You really have no idea what you're talking about if you think they've added digital rights management to everything giririsss, it'd be a pointless endeavour.

Thats a bold statement, considering that the DRM is already out there, being used, and tested, and i believe the specs are out there for all the programmers to be able to use.

It is a pointless endeavour, i agree, except when you want to purchase something legally, that will actually use the DRM stuff. DRM in the long run hurts legitimate users more than pirates. Because the pirates will ALWAYS find a way around it.

To go as far along as he did to suggest MS want to own hollywood is, well, yes a big claim. But i thik they're trying to sure up a way that when they're ready, for anyone apart from MS to release streaming or bought digital content in the form of movies, will be particularly hard.

I think he draws comparisons to WB and Apple well with MS and video. And i agree, iTunes is a POS, and ruins the iPod.

shore?

Nobody knows what the DRM management system will do.

hehe... much like Ausgamers did for large lans around Australia (ie BFG) ?

Nobody can predict what will happen in the future because of bugs or patches. You really have no idea what you're talking about if you think they've added digital rights management to everything giririsss, it'd be a pointless endeavour

maybe if you're under the age of 30 and are new to computers. freedom finds a way chief. I notice some Tassie links popped up thru via the local Brismesh network late last year.. gg

The problem with DRM becoming ubiquitous, is the vast majority of people are completely unaware of what it is, let alone how it could affect them directly.

Millions of people are buying songs of iTunes blissfully unaware that if they buy a new, cooler non-apple mp3 player tomorrow, they will not be able to play the music _they_bought_.

Imagine if Columbia Tristar implemented technology in DVD's that restricted you to playing their movies on a Sony DVD player. It's such a ridiculous notion most would brush it off. Of course that is exactly what is happening in the Music industry, and similar restrictions are applied to all online content.

As others have pointed out, this only hurts legitimate users.

also,

WTB [Less Text]

And here I was thinking this thread would continue without someone posting that Kiwi's OHNOESDRMISEVIL web site that every doomsayer links to.

DRM is flawed. It will die.


Next?

The large majority of the people writing articles about the DRM system do not know what it will do in practice, and make broad assumptions based on sections of the documentation which were poorly written.

Well, it's pretty much safe to say that it'll behave like every other DRM system ever written.

- it'll mean your locked to that platform for your media
- it'll mean you can't easily move your media to a new system
- it'll mean if your system dies, you've probably lost all your content
- it'll mean you can't purchase media on other systems because idiot content publishers think its a good idea
- it'll almost certainly get cracked anyway
- ... and so on

How much would Microsoft be sued for if their system was flawed and they had done nothing to protect it, leading to the leaking of protected HD content?

Right - so what's better for them? Build a massive painful system that requires instant cooperation from every hardware vendor, cooperation from software developers and all the other stuff that's required - or just... leave it out?

If you don't want to buy or acquire Vista for a really good reason then don't, but having the capability to play back DRM encrypted content is really not a good reason.

It's an excellent reason if the DRM system in the OS fundamentally affects the stability of the system - which is of course the entire point of the article. Sure, it's more speculation at this point, but it's a logical extrapolation based on previous instances of DRM (Sony rootkit, anyone)?

Edit: also, I agree - not buying DRM encrypted content is really important.

so what's your actual point beside the captain obvious comment of "drm bad mmmk"? that you and trog are sellouts?!?

if this forum had 'report to admin' I'd click it on both of your extremely abusive posts

http://amigry.moon-station.us/gryhtm/mortal_kombat2_fight.png

http://www.pornolize.com/pornolize4?lang=en&url=http%3A%2F%2Fqgl.ausforums.com%2Findex.php%2F%3Fagn%3Dthread%26id%3D2502698%26startid%3D0

lol! haven't seen a site 'pornolized' before.

hmm, very interesting. i wonder of the legalities of this?

The reason it uses 600mb less ram is probably just because it switches off that whole memory pool capability in Vista. I'm not running Vista, so I dunno what its actually called, but by default Vista puts aside a heap of ram into like a quick access pool so it can share it out to apps when its needed (which is where a lot of the OMG VISTA IS USING SO MUCH OF MY MEMORY complaints come from, its not actually using the memory, its just earmarking it and putting it aside for when its needed).

You can turn that feature off though, and I'm guessing with Vlite its off by default instead of on by default.

But what's the point when you need to pay for CEDEGA. ;)

Pay?

You can build Cedega from CVS automatically thanks to community scripts.

And yes it's perfectly legal, as they have to offer the code that they build on top of.

The most frustrating thing with that is there are so many better ways to manage and distribute media that are more convienient to the public and I'd love to do that, but cant because of the way in which we have to do the license request...

I thought this was funnah cause a local Brisbane company over on Wrecker Rd, Mt Gravatt East is about to do just this cheaper than iTunes.. still that was just what they said in the ad.

either way - I hope Google comes along and whipes all this s*** out. Paying top dollar for decently ripped mp3s? No way man...

btw.. someone lend me some phat lute?


Google shares are only ~$500US atm eh...

WHO in their RIGHT MIND would want to run Windows Media Player, Outlook Express or Internet Explorer when you've got VLC Media Player, Firefox and Thunderbird.

Me! cause I'm NOT a f***ing noob. I laugh at yew. Only noobs whinge at the tools presented too them.

yeah reckon, i get by just fine using WMP, IE and outlook express

VLC i use for prick vid's that won't work in WMP

reckon

VLC i use for prick vid's that won't work in WMP

(disclaimer: I don't use Vista or Linux)

Bahamut wrote...

The claims that it significantly impacts performance, stability and responsiveness are completely absurd and unfounded, created by people that just have some personal score to settle with Microsoft. The large majority of Vista users have reported no such problems, in fact they're claiming it is stable, fast and snappy. Those with problems are usually caused by the absolutely horrendous drivers nVidia provides for Vista and likely the drivers ATi and other vendors provide as well.

I'd rather NVidia spend more time getting their drivers to work well than having to devote time on implementing DRM, tilt bits, etc into the code. Those things don't give me a "better PC experience".


A lot of people have been talking about Microsoft bowing to pressure from Hollywood. I don't think that's their main motivation - MS aren't known for caving to demands (not even from the courts). They have a history of crushing/buying the competition, and their biggest upcoming threat is probably Linux. Despite their miniscule market share, if the Linux community were ever to develop a user-friendly interface for the average Joe, it could be marketed as "Just as good as Windows, and save $250 on your PC price." Since Microsoft can't buy the Linux community, their next best option is to lock down the PC architecture. Perhaps under the guise of DRM, MS is claiming it can't afford to release driver code or security specifications because it will facilitate cracking. How can the open source community continue once everything has security chips and requires a licence and NDA to code for it?

fightpic

trog, shortly after reading about drm:
http://content.imagesocket.com/images/Night_of_s***ty_Threadsd1d.gif

Does anyboduy else find WMP 11 to be a bloated, unstable piece of s***? I find it vastly inferior to 10 and even 9. Also, Firefox is for noobs who want to feel leet.

Well WMP feels about 5 times LESS bloated than iTunes (tho I still use that on XP). I prefer to use WMP to *play* stuff (i.e when dblclicking on media files) and iTunes to manage my music, ipod and also play my playlists.

Each WMP has been bloated since about WMP3. which is why Media Player Classic gets so many votes from users out and about. It's basically the WMP3 skin, ie no massive gui, and with other intent than playing your files. Not managing them, not checking up on you, not giving you a reach around. Just playing the video.

It's a wacky concept i know, but it works.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/12/28/vista_drm_analysis/

http://www.infopackets.com/channels/en/windows/bills_links_and_more/2007/20070130_windows_vista_drm_suicidal.htm

Per the white paper, the new operating system will limit the functionality of certain pieces of hardware (such as video cards and monitors) from viewing High Definition (HD) content, requiring customized device drivers. It also requires that hardware vendors "get the OK" from major movie studios such as MGM, 20th Century Fox and Disney before releasing their drivers to the public.

On top of that, additional costs will be incurred by hardware vendors because Microsoft disallows a one-size-fits-all design for devices in the new system. Futhermore, it bans the use of add-ons such as TV-out encoders, DVI circuitry and other add-ons, since the new OS disallows the feeding of unprotected video and audio to external components.

According to the movie studios and Microsoft, that would make it too easy for a user to get around the copy right protected content. As a result, the devices will require a more custom design before being compatible with the new OS.

http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html

Vista's content protection mechanism only allows protected content to be sent over interfaces that also have content-protection facilities built in. Currently the most common high-end audio output interface is S/PDIF (Sony/Philips Digital Interface Format). Most newer audio cards, for example, feature TOSlink digital optical output for high-quality sound reproduction, and even the latest crop of motherboards with integrated audio provide at least coax (and often optical) digital output. Since S/PDIF doesn't provide any content protection, Vista requires that it be disabled when playing protected content [Note E]. In other words if you've sunk a pile of money into a high-end audio setup fed from an S/PDIF digital output, you won't be able to use it with protected content.

Say you've just bought Pink Floyd's “The Dark Side of the Moon”, released as a Super Audio CD (SACD) in its 30th anniversary edition in 2003, and you want to play it under Vista. Since the S/PDIF link to your amplifier/speakers is regarded as insecure for playing the SA content, Vista disables it, and you end up hearing a performance by Marcel Marceau instead of Pink Floyd.

We only have ourselves to blame, we accepted the DRM as part of the free trade agreement with America. At the time I posted many remarks how this was bad but everyone, Trog included said I was just anti-Americian (somewhat true), but we (the Australian public) didn't think much about it and now we are stuck with DRM. Could we have done something about it? Unlikely. For now the future looks like a forced update of hardware as well as OS. Oh wait I use Linux I'll be ok, nope the future were told is embedded drivers via plug and pray, DRM and Vista only!

last edited by GumbyNoTalent at 15:53:10 18/Feb/07

Does anyboduy else find WMP 11 to be a bloated, unstable piece of s***? I find it vastly inferior to 10 and even 9. Also, Firefox is for noobs who want to feel leet.

all windows media players have been bloated pieces of junk except for 6.4. What's with the "napster" link up the top of wmp11 though? That can go suck my fat cock. Media player classic for life.

I remember reading an article a while back with bill gates, who was quoted in saying he hated drm and thought it was s*** or something to that extent.

not xactly vista related ... but drm related.... does anyone know what would happen if i bought a new lcd monitor that has hdcp & plugged it into my old fx5900? if the video source (old fx5900) isn't tranmitting the hdcp keys will the monitor display at all?

i can find a lot of info about what will happen if you have a new hd content source & try & display it on a non-hdcp display... but no info on the other way round. :/

I like Vista. So much faster and plays everything I want.
Waiting for the fix to get Visual Studio working 100% (XNA studio express has a nice workaround too), but coding aside, Ive only had positive experiences in the month since installing Vista Ultimate 64bit. I can actually see my hardware being utilised more =]
Im sure there are some things about it that might need to be fixed in SP1 (no surprises there). Heh, I sound like one of those fake planted posts. But Im just tired of reading all the negatives about Vista. So breaking the trend I thought Id post something positive.

As for DRM, lets wait and see. It's probably just being over-hyped like everything else.

It's probably just being over-hyped like everything else

What, like Vista itself?

At the time I posted many remarks how this was bad but everyone, Trog included said I was just anti-Americian

I defy you to find a serious post made by me that was not critical of the FTA

That's cause you know FTA is 3 characters and won't turn up in QGL-search and you went through and nuked all the positives in threads that turned up under a search for 'Agreement'... ala #16 at http://qgl.ausforums.com/?agn=thread&id=2363058 :-)

What, like Vista itself?

There was hype with a new software product from Microsoft?!
There's always hype, my point is... its usually unfounded =]

defy you to find a serious post made by me that was not critical of the FTA

Well I'll take it back, but I had some recollection (not that my bourbon hazed memory is that reliable) about discussion on DRM, that went along the lines that you weren't overly concerned about DRM because it protected copyrighted material and wouldn't impact us greatly and used iTunes as an example. But then again it could have been someone else.

Perhaps we should revisit the threads on how justified the invasion of Iraq was, with all those nasty weapons of mass destruction just lying about, and how it had nothing to do with oil... ;)