RIAA aims to ban CD ripping

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They even banned guitar tablature on the internet, because apparently, someone else's interpretation of a song is still breaching copyright laws, and of course, if everyone gets their tab on the internet, nobody bothers buying the tab books. Not all of these sites have gone down yet, but some have. All these kind of antics are only going to have a negative effect anyway, because people will download and rip stuff illegally out of spite if nothing else.

 

This may be a move in anticipation of the new generation "Digital Rights Management" tools. They must figure that people won't care if they pass a law like this right now, because it's still possible to circumvent these copy protection mechanisms and make copies for yourself.

However, this is not going to work for much longer (at least, if recording companies and Microsoft have their way). If I understand correctly, Vista will contain new DRM stuff, possibly linked directly to the hardware. For example, you won't be able to view high def. digital movies unless you have a specific, trusted monitor (the video stream will be encrypted between the computer and monitor, so that you cannot intercept and copy it). Now, obviusly this DRM will make it impossible to make a backup copy, or rip stuff to the hard drive; this is why it would be good for them to have a law saying that such things are illegal in the first place. Otherwise the unwashed masses may revolt and push for their fair use rights.

 

So Vista is a step in the direction of 'trusted computing'? ****.

**** **** ****.

 

Once they combine a trusted system with trusted hardware, it will be trusted only for them and they will be able to set prices as they see fit. They are making us believe that if we throw ourselves at their mercy, they will give us good prices. Bull****. Everyone knows that copying down = prices up. Just see Playstation.

 

They can't really make anything impossible, there's always going to be a way, but I've no intention of using vista for at least a few years, by that stage, there will probably be a hundred and one programs that disable DRM and such like.

 

Might be a bit harder than you're imagining, as it's tied to the hardware.

For me, well, I guess I'll start looking into the gaming possibilities of a Mac or Linux machine. Still a few years away, fortunately.

 

The problem is that these things tend to escalate. Let's assume that Vista has some DRM. Then most probably it will not want to write data to an unprotected CD drive. So the CD driver has to come with some way of supporting the DRM, otherwise it will not work with Vista (and since Microsoft is a de facto monopoly, well, is not like there are other choices).

So now most CD drives (and hardware) come with means of implementing DRM. It's only a small step to imagine that they will now refuse to work with any program/operating system which does not support some kind of DRM. After all, unrestricted copying is a means to piracy, and we all know that piracy is killing the big media corporations, and free software is communism, anyhow. Welcome to the new world.