If blacksmiths had been as well organized and connected as the music industry, horses would still be a common sight and automobiles a tightly controlled rarity.
I don't like Bill C-61 (Canada's proposed new copyright law). Some form of copyright update is certainly due, this bill is entirely the product of lobbying by US multi-nationals and the Bush administration. The bill's shortcomings have been widely condemned. Three things, in particular, have drawn criticism. First, Industry Minister Jim Prentice promised public consultations before a bill was introduced. The only consultations he actually had time for were with the US Ambassador and several content ownership lobbyists. Second, the consumer "rights" introduced in the law are inadequate for the way people use purchased content. Lastly, the "rights" themselves are overruled by any Digital Rights Management (DRM) introduced by the content owners. The anti-circumvention clause makes it lllegal to break DRM, or to posess the tools to break DRM regardless of purpose or intent. So you can enjoy your right to rip a CD for your iPod, as long as the record label doesn't include DRM on the CD to prevent ripping. It is also worth noting that many Canadian artists and artist's associations are against this law. Bill C-61 was formulated to protect the interests of multi-nationals, not artists.
Critics have also pointed at messy clauses that make compliance nearly impossible. For example, not only uploading copyrighted material becomes illegal, mearly "making available" files for digital distribution would also be illegal. You don't have to actually commit the crime of infringement, you only have to capable of it. Also, it will be legal to use tools that protect your privacy, but illegal to distribute such tools. WTF does that mean? Jim Prentice doesn't know. He brushes off such questions as "too technical". Many legitimate and (currently) legal software programs used by Canadian consumers contain tools to circumvent DRM. You probaly have such programs on your computer.
Besides these objections, two more things really bother me. First, the bill assumes that whoever puts the DRM on the content is always right, and the customer always wrong. That amounts to a get out of jail free card when it comes to Provincial Consumer protection. Product doesn't work as advertised? Too bad, its a DRM issue. You must have broken the DRM rules, that's why it doesn't work. Case closed. There are numerous examples of bad DRM implementations. Here two current examples of DRM going horribly wrong with no consequences for the vendor.
In April, Yahoo! announced that they are closing their current online music store. Last week, they announced the DRM servers that provide continuing authorization for music purchases will go offline September 30, 2008. Music that has been purchased through the store is periodically re-authorized. This is done when you upgrade your operating system, or move the music to a different device. Its also possible a firmware upgrade for your device could trigger an authorization. Firmware upgrades are usually automatic, without user intervention. If you do something that triggers an authorization after September 30, the music will deem itself unauthorized and refuse to play. It just stops working. Yahoo promises to "take care" of customers, but declines to specify how and leaving the onus on the customer to figure out why their music doesn't work and contact Yahoo for releif. Most importantly, this is a good-will gesture by Yahoo. They are under no legal obligation to do anything for these customers. Today, it would be legal in Canada to simply strip the DRM off the tracks and continue using them. Bill C-61 would make it illegal to circumvent DRM regardless of reason or intent and subject to a statutory $20,000 fine .
The PC game Mass Effect, released June 2008, calls home every 10 days for re-authorization. If it can't reach the authorization server, or if it decides your CD key is compromised, the game shuts down. In addition, you are allowed 3 installs per CD key. Upgrading your OS (e.g going from XP to Vista) counts as one of your 3. Re-installing Windows because it breaks? That counts as well. I have to re-install Windows at least once a year. Upgrading certain hardware on the computer also counts. Which hardware in particular? That's a secret. In the case of Mass Effect, you do have an option if the application bricks. You can call Bioware and beg for a new CD key. In at least one case, they refused to issue a new key to someone that had re-installed Windows. Again, if this were my game, I'd crack it in a minute. But after C-61 comes into effect, I'd be committing an illegal act.
My second objection is that a blanket prohibition on circumventing DRM gives content owners (frequently foriegn corporations) the ability to decide what is legal and illegal in Canada. This is just wrong. We have an elected Parliament that decides what the law is supposed to be and a courts system to interpret and apply those laws. There is no room here for a music executive in Los Angeles to say "this is legal" and "that is illegal" in Canada based on the latest snakeoil pitched by some DRM company. No taxation without representation. No legislative power without electoral accountability.
After all that, the really shocking thing is that DRM doesn't work. It has never worked, and it probably never will work. Before the latest DRM locked content hits the stores, there are cracks available online. That's not an exaggeration. None of the currently planned DRM schemes will work either. Content owners are trying to find new ways to lock the content to hardware because cracking software DRM has become trivial. Unfortunately, it will again be only the honest that are penalized. With Emulation now hitting the mainstream, tweaking the "hardware" that Windows thinks it is running on will become as trivial as cracking software DRM is now.
Even worse than the fact that it doesn't work, DRM imposes unreasonable restrictions on the way customers use the purchased content. Songs will work on one device, but not another. Sometimes they won't work on different devices made by the same manufacturer. Limited installs, time-outs, remote authorization, required installation of police-ware, crippled quality. As there are no standards for DRM, every company outsources their DRM from different suppliers. There is no uniformity of usage rules, privacy standards, or implementation between vendors. Different products from the same label or publisher can have completely different DRM schemes. For example, the PC Game BioShock, developed by BioWare and published by EA (just like Mass Effect), had the phone home component dropped due to customer outcry. The 3 strikes install rule was not included either. So these two games created and published by the same two companies have completely different DRM enforced usage rules. Content downloaded from the Internet has none of these restrictions. It can be used, shared, re-used, transferred, re-encoded and used as much as the customer likes and is usually of higher quality (for music anyway). Why on earth would someone want to pay for lousy content when the same content is available in better quality for free? The unintended consequence of this bill is to make it clear: only suckers pay for content. DRM punishes the honest and provides incentives to be dishonest.
Lastly, C-61 protects music companies and movie studios from technological change. In the 1920's, the music industry tried valiiantly to block the introduction of Radio. It would destroy the sheet music business they argued. Well, they were right about that, but the sheet music business was replaced with the vastly more lucrative recording business. Jack Valenti, the movie studio's great warhorse said in 1974 about Cable TV:
A huge parasite in the marketplace, feeding and fattening itself off of local television stations and copyright owners of copyrighted material. We do not like it because we think it wrong and unfair.During a massive battle to make VCRs illegal, Valenti testified to the US Congress in 1982:
I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone.Today, movie studios make far more profit on DVDs than they do at the box office. So the industry crying wolf is nothing new. The only thing that is new is that governments are caving in and giving them what they want. If blacksmiths had been as well organized and lobbied, horses would still be a common sight and automobiles a tightly controlled rarity.
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Update July 29
Yahoo has announced that all customers of the ill-fated music service will be given DRM free tracks of a full refund. Commendable and good for Yahoo. Unlike Microsoft, who left customers in the lurch until public outcry forced them to keep the DRM servers running.
