Irony Overload: WB Pirates Antipirate Tech

Truth is stranger than fiction, much to the chagrin of fiction writers. And you must look no further than Warner Brothers entertainment for proof. Who knew that piracy laws allowed recursion?

German firm Medien Patent Verwaltung claims that in 2003, it revealed a new kind of anti-piracy technology to Warner Bros. that marks films with specific codes so pirated copies can be traced back to their theaters of origin. But like a great, hilariously-ironic DRM Ouroborus, the company claims that Warner began using the system throughout Europe in 2004 but hasn't actually paid a dime for it.

The Amazon Kindle & Big Brother

On Friday, some strange news broke: all copies of George Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm were being remotely deleted by Amazon from customer's Kindles. This seemed like a huge invasion of privacy - revoking already-completed sales just because they could due to the digital existence of eBooks. And it was made even more troubling by the choice of books being revoked - classic books about abuse of power and control of thought.

In the meantime, CNET has put up an explanation of the situation that is more balanced. Essentially, the books were being sold thru Amazon illegally. The publisher was claiming the books were in the public domain, when they were not. Thus, when the legitimate publisher found out, they objected and demanded all existing copies be repossessed.

While I agree with CNET that this puts Amazon in a slightly better light, it still leaves open the question, "Who is protecting the customer?" A more customer-sensitive decision would have been for Amazon to compensate the true publisher, punish the fraudsters, and allow customers to keep what they paid for.

Amazon has pledged to do better in the future. Here's hoping they do. Otherwise the Kindle may very well go from trailblazer to footnote.

iTunes Plus Price Drop

Apple has announced that the price of iTunes Plus tracks (higher quality and no DRM) will drop down to 99 cents making them the same price as the DRM tracks. I haven't bought any iTunes Plus tracks, only downloaded the free singles they offer, but this is great news. One of my fears about buying iTunes tracks was that someday the iTunes Music Store wouldn't be around and I would no longer be able to listen to my iTunes tracks without burning them to CD first. Unfortunately, it is still only EMI and some independent labels, but this is yet another hole in the RIAA's DRM armor.

iTunes DRM free tracks not so DRM free

It seems that while Apple has removed restrictions on how you can use some iTunes tracks, they certainly haven't removed their monitoring data. Several people have written on this both in technical terms and not so technical terms, but either way it seems that Apple is still watching what we do with our purchased music. I don't know if I should feel outraged or simply cynical.

Apple sued for NOT using DRM

My father was a lawyer. And an honest one at that. No, "honest lawyer" is NOT an oxymoron. However, many in the legal profession appear dedicated to making it so. Consider this case where a company is suing Apple, Intel, and others for NOT using their technology. The DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) made it a crime to knowingly bypass a DRM (digital rights management - controlling whether you gave access to a given file) technology without the permission of the copyright holder of whatever is protected. This has been used to run companies out of business that allow ripping of copy-protected DVDs, for example. In this new case, a company has engineered a technology to control and limit users ability to "rip" streamed videos (like YouTube, for example). Most companies have chosen NOT to use the software - presumably because either it does not match their business model or they simply feel it is ineffective. So now, the company is claiming by NOT licensing their technology (i.e. paying them to use it) they are "bypassing" this DRM scheme.

This is like using a law against breaking into someone's house to force all homeowners to buy locks for their front doors from every lockmaker in town. Here is hoping the case is quickly dismissed with prejudice.