EU Wants Windows Cleaned of DRM
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The acquisition by Microsoft and Time Warner of a company with a significant portfolio of patents covering digital rights management technologies generates scrutiny by European antitrust regulators. The main focus of the investigation: Microsoft. By Wendy M. Grossman.
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft is suing a group of hackers who apparently gained access to the company's proprietary source code, creating a program that wipes media files clean of file-sharing restrictions. The suit, which Microsoft filed last Friday in a district court in Seattle, Washington, gives only a nickname for the ringleader, "viodentia," who is one of 10 "John Does" whom Microsoft believes are responsible for breaking its Windows Media Digital Rights Management (DRM) software. Last month, a program calledÂ FairUse4WM surfacedÂ that removed the DRM (Digital Rights Management) technology from Windows Media 10 and 11 files. Many major download services, such as Napster, use Windows DRM, and its removal would allow the files to be copied without restriction or uploaded to file-sharing networks. Microsoft is suing for copyright infringement, since FairUse4WM uses code from the company's Windows Media software development kit version 9.5, a toolset used by software developers to build applications. Microsoft said the hackers have caused it more than $75,000 in losses. It is seeking a permanent injunction against the defendants and compensation. In a separate document filed with the court, Microsoft said the defendants have gone to substantial lengths to hide their identities. It asked for extra time to issue subpoenas to e-mail service providers, to track down some e-mail addresses linked to the individuals, to help it to identify them. The hackers have proved enduring foes for Microsoft. Soon after FairUse4WM was released, Microsoft issued an update to its DRM software, making the hacking program ineffective. The hackers responded less than a day later by updating FairUse4WM again. Their efforts are unlikely to affect the growth of legitimate download services, however, since content providers are aware that no DRM is unbreakable, analysts said. "I think in the long term it's not going to deal Microsoft any crushing blow, but it's certainly an irritant for them," said Jonathan Arber, research analyst for Ovum in London. Technology companies will have to make it too hard for hackers to break the DRM, a leap that could be difficult considering any update to the DRM technology would still have to be compatible with hardware in the market, said Paul Jackson, principal analyst at Forrester Research. Additionally, frequent software updates tend to alienate users, he said. "Itâs a question of highly determined hackers desperate to prove their moxie, versus a corporation that can't release updates every 10 minutes because that annoys people," Jackson said.
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Microsoft Corp. said Friday that small companies and their customers would suffer most if it is forced to remove its digital media software from Windows, while the European Union accused it of being "paternalistic" in trying to decide what's best for everyone.
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Microsoft Corp. plans to severely curtail the ways in which people running pirated copies of its dominant Windows operating system can receive software updates, including security fixes.
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A European project aims to change how people receive their digital entertainment in the future.
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Papering over the cracks Microsoft is working on closing a loophole that creates a means to strip usage restriction from music files wrapped in its DRM technology. A program called FairUse4WM, recently posted on the internet, allows users to bypass Microsoft's Digital Rights Management (DRM) system.â¦
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The EU struck at the commercial backbone of Microsoftâs global software empire today - forcing the company for the first time to strip its Windows platform of a popular feature to give competitors a better shot at success.
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Visitors with a pirated copy of Windows may lose easy access to company's Download Center.
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European Parliament is pushing for changes in how musicians collect online copyright fees.
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Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) says it will obey any directives issued by the European Union  over the modification of Windows. European regulators have ordered the  world's biggest software maker to offer a version of its operating  system without its media player.
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BRUSSELS: A European Union court ruled yesterday that Microsoft must immediately divulge some trade secrets to competitors and produce a version of its flagship Windows operating system stripped of the program that plays music and video.
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Microsoft Corp. will immediately ship a version of Windows stripped of the company's multimedia player in Europe and divulge some software blueprints, even as it continues to appeal those same European Union sanctions.
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(InfoWorld) - Consumers in Europe have another group looking out for their digital rights with the opening of a Brussels office by the U.S. nonprofit group the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). The EFF has battled the U.S. government and corporations to protect the rights of consumers and technologists in areas like free speech, data privacy and digital rights management. It has brought or helped to defend cases against the U.S. Department of Justice, Apple, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, AT&T, and others. On Monday it opened an office in Brussels, home of the European Commission and the European Parliament, and said it would play a more active role in shaping European law and advocating on behalf of European citizens. The office was funded partly by Mark Shuttleworth, the South African dot-com billionaire who launched the Ubuntu Linux distribution, and by the Open Society Institute, a U.S. grants foundation chaired by George Soros. Erik Josefsson will be the EFF's European Affairs Coordinator. He was previously the head of the Swedish chapter of the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure, which helped overturn the proposal for a unified patent system in Europe. The EFF didn't say which issues it would pick up in Europe. Areas it could potentially get involved with include the battle under way against Apple to force it to open its digital rights management (DRM) system, so songs bought from its iTunes Store can play on music players other than Apple's iPod. It has already been involved in some European cases. A few years ago it set up a defense fund for the Norwegian teenager Jon Johannsen, known as "DVD Jon," who was accused of creating an illegal program, DeCSS, to watch DVDs on his Linux computer. He was eventually acquitted by a Norwegian court. In the U.S. the group has fought the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a controversial law that seeks to prevent people from cracking DRM systems to access copyright works, but which critics say has been misused to inhibit innovation and fair use. It also brought aÂ class action suit against Sony BMGÂ over the "rootkit" copy-protection technology used in some of its music CDs, helping U.S. and Canadian customers to get refunds. And it helped defend several bloggers who were sued by Apple for allegedly leaking information about upcoming products to online news sites. Its current cases include a class-action suit against AT&T for wire-tapping on behalf of the U.S. government, and a suit in Florida on behalf of citizens whose votes were not properly registered by e-voting machines.
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The European Commissioner in charge of the single market, Charlie McCreevy, said Thursday he is restarting a consultation with industry with the aim of simplifying the European Union&#39;s approach to copyright levies.The move comes 14 months after the Commission abandoned a similar effort, following pressure from France and from lobbying by the music and film industries.Levies are slapped on a wide range of machines, ranging from photocopiers and re-writeable CDs and DVDs to mobile phones and MP3 players, in varying degrees in the 27 different countries. Their aim is to compensate rights holders when their copyright-protected material is copied.Levies on MP3 players, for example range from nothing to &#8364;15 ($21) depending on the rules in different E.U. countries. McCreevy said the current system is &quot;incoherent&quot; but he played down hopes of a total overhaul of the status quo.&quot;What is the right level? There are no easy answers,&quot; he said, during a press conference as he announced a consultation that will run until April 18. After hearing back from industry and from consumer groups the Commission will hold a conference in June &quot;to see if there is common ground&quot; to streamline the current system. &quot;Last time I suspended the initiative because there was no hope then. Now it should be possible,&quot; he said.Gadget makers welcomed the move. &quot;As an industry, we fully support fair and proper compensation for artists, creators and other rightholders. Industry is not advocating for private copy levies to be abolished, but has repeatedly demonstrated that the current system of &#39;rough justice&#39; is opaque, unfair to consumers and industry, and does not fulfill the stated purpose of fairly remunerating right holders,&quot; said Mark MacGann, director General of EICTA, the organization that represents the information and communications technology and consumer electronics industries in Europe.According to EICTA, levies collection has more than tripled since 2001, when the E.U. passed a copyright law designed to suit the digital age. The law permitted copying of copyrighted works such as music for personal use, but allowed individual member states to set levels of levies to help compensate artists.McCreevy said he had no plans to overhaul this law. &quot;The directive allows member states to set levies. There are no plans to do away with this. We just want to get some realism.&quot; He added: &quot;Hopefully people will come [to the conference in June] with an open mind.&quot;Meanwhile, McCreevy announced a parallel initiative to extend the period of copyright protection for performing artists from 50 years to 90 years. Stars that performed other people&#39;s songs in the 1950s, as well as the session musicians of that time, are at risk of being completely cut off from airplay and recording royalties just as they reach retirement age, McCreevy said.Extending the copyright period by 40 years won&#39;t have any impact on the price of music, McCreevy said.Both copyright-related initiatives will require political approval from national E.U. governments.
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The European Commission (EC) opened an in-depth investigation on Wednesday into plans by Microsoft Corp. and Time Warner Inc. to take over U.S. digital rights management (DRM) company ContentGuard Holdings Inc.
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Plus: More DRM standards, and a self-encrypting hard drive.
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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.