DRM (DIGITAL RIGHTS MANAGEMENT) — alongside of DRM. Apple’s i Tunes Music Store (i TMS) basically, copy-restriction technology — is built on has a conditional access system that doesn’t give junk science. But it has a more popular, less visible you access to a song until you go through the cousin that actually works: conditional access. The one-click purchase process that moves $0.99 from two get mixed up a lot — deliberately, as DRM your bank account into Apple’s hands. vendors often point to conditional access systems But CA has an important difference. CA doesn’t to prove their wares’ viability. Conditional access worry that you’ll get unlawful access to a work that may not always be used in a way that’s good for they’re protecting today, nor with the disposition the public interest, but at least it actually works. of the stuff you got access to yesterday. CA sys-
Here’s the problem with DRM: a single leak, how- tems are all about what you do tomorrow.
ever obscure, is all it takes to render the system If the i TMS was compromised so that you could
useless. It doesn’t matter if you’re not leet enough to download ten tracks without paying for them today,
crack the DRM on a DVD; you can always download it it wouldn’t matter: tomorrow, they could patch the
after searching Google. Making the first copy is hard, system and go back to charging you for access again.
but every subsequent copy is as easy as can be. Looked at that way, it’s clear that i Tunes DRM
is just a cost-sink, while the CA is a vigorous, multi-
“No iTunes customer ever hundred-million-dollar profit center. No i TMS customer ever bought a song for the DRM it
bought a song for the contained, but lots ponied up their $0.99 because
they wanted the access it got them.
DRM it contained, but lots What’s more, the DRM hypothesis of keeping
honest users honest is herein revealed for a sham:
ponied up their $0.99 every song for sale on the i Tunes Music Store is like-
because they wanted the wise available as a totally free, unencumbered MP3 on P2P networks like Grokster and Kazaa. Honest
access it got them.” users choose to get the i Tunes version not because of the DRM, but in spite of it.
Lots of us have had an intuition that the right
Leaks happen. Always. The DRM systems place goods at the right price is all that it takes to sell
the proprietary file and the tools necessary to stuff on the internet, even when the same stuff can
open it in the hands of infinitely skilled, infinitely be downloaded gratis. i Tunes music sells because
resourced attackers (bored Norwegian teenagers, Apple’s interface and service/support are better
rabid Ukrainian gangsters, Princeton engineering than the P2P networks.
grad students) who go through this crap like If you want to compete with free, start by making
Superman shredding wet Kleenex. They have all the a better product.
advantages, and if DRM requires that they never
break the systems, the DRM systems are doomed.
Conditional access (CA) is a lot like DRM. It Cory Doctorow ( craphound.com) works for the Electronic Frontier Foundation ( eff.org), and co-edits Boing Boing often relies on cryptography; it secures or restricts (boingboing. net). His new novel is Someone Comes to Town, access to files and resources and is often included Someone Leaves Town from Tor Books.
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