Microsoft: We Like DRM
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Microsoft's Robbie Bach says Steve Jobs is wrong.
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft downplayed Tuesday the impact of a new hack of its DRM technology, underlining the difficulties in erecting a long-lasting digital barrier against piracy. Doom9.org, a hacking forum, contained a post last Friday from "Divine Tao," presumably the hacker responsible, with download links for the updated version of FairUse4WM. The program, which was released last August, strips the DRM technology that limits how Windows Media files can be used and prevents illegal file sharing. "Microsoft is aware of the DRM issue, and the breach response team is verifying the circumvention," said a company statement. Windows Media DRM is used, for example, on songs sold through online song retailer Napster. Songs purchased from there can't copied to more than three computers, but there are no restrictions on how many times an individual song can be burned to a CD. Hacking activists argue they created FairUse4WM since they deserve broader freedom to move legitimately purchased content from device to device. Removal of the DRM, however, also allows the files to be copied without restriction or uploaded to file-sharing networks, which the recording industry believes has caused a massive sales decline. Microsoft has updated its DRM technologyÂ at least twice before to halt the effectiveness of FairUse4WM and said its DRM system is designed to support dynamic updates. The updates do not require a new release of Windows Media Player or the Windows Media Format Software Development Kit, used by developers to employ the DRM system, Microsoft said. Microsoft did not give a timetable as to when it may update Windows Media DRM to block the latest version of FairUse4WM. Nonetheless, the company acknowledged the DRM system's inherent vulnerability to hackers. "Microsoft has long stated that no DRM system is impervious to circumvention, a position Microsoft's content partners are aware of as well," the company said. Microsoft filed a lawsuitÂ in a district court in Seattle last September against 10 unnamed defendants for copyright infringement related to the release of FairUse4WM. The suit, however, was later dropped after the defendants could not be located. Record labels are increasingly considering removing DRM from their songs after years of lawsuits and legal wrangling have done little to reduce illegal file sharing. In April, EMI Group said it would sell songs on Apple's iTunes Music Store without DRM. The DRM-free songs cost about 20 percent more but are also encoded at 256Kbps, a higher quality than other songs with DRM.
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p2pnet.net News:- Here&#39;s an interesting twist on the Big Music and Microsoft All Pals Together (maybe) story. We reported that the Big Four record labels have given Microsoft a Wish List of the kind of DRM
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SEATTLE -- Microsoft Corp. is once again on the defensive against hackers after the launch of a new program that gives average PC users tools to unlock copy-protected digital music and movies.
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The cat-and-mouse game continues between Microsoft and a group of hackers intent on breaking the copy protection technology on its Windows Media files. This time, an individual has cracked the latest DRM scheme employed by Microsoft.
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Quality DRM-free tunes sell well, says 7digital, which plans to drop copy-protection this year.
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'I want WMA on my iPod', squeals Hogmanay bellyacher Steve Jobs has received a New Year nastygram from a woman who is upset that iPods won't play Microsoft DRM-crippled songs as well as Apple DRM-crippled songs.â¦
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Apple CEO Steve Jobs has made a surprise call for the end of digital rights management technology, which is designed to stop copyrighted music from being shared illicitly. Jobs says Apple would sell only DRM-free music on iTunes if it could.
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The study indicated that DRM is being used to collect, use and disclose consumers' personal information for secondary purposes.
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft has won a patent for a digital-watermarking technology that could be used to protect the rights of content owners even when digital music is distributed without DRM protection.  The technology, called "stealthy audio watermarking," inserts and detects watermarks in audio signals that can identify the content producer, "providing a signature that is embedded in the audio signal and cannot be removed," according to a filing with the U.S. Patent and Trade Organization (USPTO). The application for U.S. patent 7,266,697 was filed May 3, 2004, by Darko Kirovski and Henrique Malvar, both of whom work at Microsoft Research. Malvar is a Microsoft distinguished engineer and managing director of Microsoft Research in Redmond, Washington, and Kirovski is a researcher there. Microsoft currently has DRM technology called Windows Media DRM that encrypts audio files and protects them from misuse or unauthorized redistribution. The company has traditionally been an outspoken proponent of using DRM to protect owners of digital content, though it said earlier this year it would consider selling DRM-free songs online after rival Apple struck a deal with EMI Group to do so. Forensic digital watermarking technology like the technology Microsoft has patented doesn't encrypt files the way DRM technology does or prevent people from unauthorized use. However, it can be used to prove who owns the content of the digital file by encoding a file with a unique digital signature. That means illegally traded songs could be tracked back to the original purchaser, allowing authorities to identify illegal sharers and serving as a deterrent. The technology could also be used to track files for royalty distribution. In fact, Apple has been inserting simple watermarks into digital audio files that include personal information about the purchaser on some files sold over iTunes so those files can be traced back to their purchaser in the case of unauthorized distribution. However, Microsoft's watermark is much more intrinsic to the file and cannot be stripped out easily by hackers, like Apple's can, said J. Alex Halderman, a computer science PhD candidate at Princeton University who specializes in DRM technology. "It's much harder for people to remove from the recording," he said. The trick for these watermarks to be effective for digital music files, however, is that they must be inaudible and thus undetectable by those listening to the files, which has been difficult for those who have tried to create this technology in the past, Halderman said. Indeed, in their filing, Kirovski and Malvar acknowledged that to work properly, the watermarks must not only be inaudible, but also "must be scattered throughout the file in such a way that they cannot be identified and manipulated" and "be robust enough so that it can withstand normal changes to the file, such as reductions from ... compression algorithms." Microsoft Tuesday declined to comment on how it plans to use the watermark technology it has patented. However, Microsoft Research already has licensed similar yet non-forensic watermarking technology to a company called Activated Content, which is using the technology to insert and extract non-secure data into audio files.
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Our countdown to next week's CES centers now on whether the CE industry will at last reach a solution to the DRM conundrum. The new trend toward DRM-free music doesn't appear to be shaking the Blu-ray and HD DVD folks, who continue to cling to proprietary disk formats. Will consumers seek a video alternative, and might it come from China?
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The unpopularity among users of Microsoft's WGA (Windows Genuine Advantage) digital rights management tech isn't stopping Apple, which has filed an updated patent application on a DRM scheme with similar aspirations.
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Steve Jobs' essay questioning the wisdom of selling DRM-wrapped tunes is still spurring lots of discussion about the future of music, and rightly so. In Listening Post.
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Microsoft's efforts to loosen up access to closely held music owned by record labels has an unintended consequence: It punishes artists who want to share. Commentary by Eliot Van Buskirk.
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Hunt for copy-protection nemesis goes legal Microsoft has launched a lawsuit against the unknown hacker who created a program to strip DRM code from Windows Media Player files.â¦
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The digital rights management system seeks the same control as Microsoft's Windows Genuine Advantage.
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A software patch to protect your system is available from Microsoft.