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Vista DRM is a myth?


CruzReal

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I,ve read over the internet that windows vista prevents users from playing illegal mp3 or video files. and there are many other roumors reagarding to DMR and i was wondering, how much of this information is true?

 

Anyway, to answer the original post, Vista does not prevent the user from playing MP3 or video files that lack DRM encoding. That would stop you from making your own videos or ripping your own CDs. (When you rip music from a CD no DRM is included with the file.)

 

I don't download illegal music so I can't answer the original question from personal experience, but I can tell you that I've ripped a CD under Vista and then burned a new MP3 CD (actually I prefer high-bitrate WMA) from the resulting material and played that CD on my car stereo (with the original CD safely tucked away on a shelf where it belongs).

 

Clearly no DMA was added by Vista, or I would not have been able to do this.

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There's been an extensive thread about Windows and DRM with detailed info and some debate about DRM and its usage. DRM will not be able to pose any threat to any well-informed user or programmer as it needs a software side to run. Whatever is software can be altered, cracked or otherwise tricked.

 

There were plans to have the DVD drive linked to the monitor and the monitor would lower quality when a non-DRM media is used. The idea was booed for obvious reasons and it failed since it could rob legitimate users of their content and THEY can sue.

 

We have a saying in Romania - it may and should be universal: "Locks are for honest people". Thieves get in anyway. DRM is to keep Joe Average from inserting any DVD anywhere and getting an illegal picture. When a DVD is released, the content is ripped (by bad people) and transcoded into a format that does not have any flags (AVI, MP3, etc). Those files you get as "piracy".

 

The only thing DRM does (and will do for a long time) is slow down Joe Average using Nero to "disk copy" a DVD movie. It can't stop Joe Average from getting an MP3 from a site/program and pressing PLAY. Mainly because it can't know blindly when an MP3 is being played by a 3rd party software.

 

If you are really interested in DRM, use the search function to get a hold of the original DRM thread (I posted too, this could narrow the search).

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That and (as the Cap'n's article points out) HD video content. There are some real interesting issues there that suggest a real battle under way that consumers are only dimly aware of.

 

It can't be viewed as a situation where Microsoft is taking a hardline stance, but it does appear that they're a bit uncertain about how to proceed. Apple's been having similar problems, and actually I can't point to any company that really understands or deals with any of these issues in a thoroughly consistent manner. Sony is another example of the left hand (legal) often not knowing or understanding what the right hand (engineering) is doing.

 

In Microsoft's case (as the article above points out) these issues have direct ramifications (e.g. "suicide"), because MS intends that Vista be used as a "media PC" (read: "Tivo+"). But how can we do that if its HD functionality is crippled? But IS its HD functionality actually crippled (or are there just a lot of misunderstandings), and if so is it a permanent situation or did MS just... screw up?

 

These are questions that are still to be fully resolved, IMO.

 

None of which has any impact on whether you can save those scratchy old low-bit-rate MP3 files on a Vista machine. I guess the horse is so far out of the barn on the subject of music that even the lawyers don't care anymore.

 

I keep coming back to a NASCAR analogy. There was not one thing under a single hood at the Daytona 500 last weekend that couldn't be found in an engine in *1955*! But any *fan* could log in to the NASCAR web site and get a real-time data stream from any of the cars in the field showing everything from engine speed to oil temperature. The difference in technological level is astounding, and all because the people who run the race feel it's necessary to control the paramters with an iron fist. It's not hard to understand why they feel that way, but it's also easy to shoot holes the size of blown V8 engines in their reasoning.

 

I'd hate to see that happen to the home electronics industry. The "suicide" danger they talk about in the Cap'n's article is on the part of the entire industry right now, not just Microsoft, and it's a real threat, IMO.

 

But with any luck it'll work out like it did with music, with new digital-age options eventually convincing the legal types that as long as they adapt to the times, MOST of their customers will stay legit, and that's good enough.

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  • 3 months later...
DRM is for HD content. DRM is in WinXP and MAC OSX w/Intel Chips. I hate people who just assume everything. Do more research.

 

That's more specific to Windows Media Player / WMV / WMA than the OS itself. The same goes for iTunes/QuickTime on OS X.

 

In Vista, in addition to the new driver architecture which allows for a "snoop free" path for digital media (yes, contrary to what I said above) Vista is also detecting and shutting down certain pirated programs when detected.

 

That's substantially more than XP and OS X, where the only sort of mechanisms in place for that sort of thing all hinge around validating the OS itself, rather than the legitimacy of individual installed programs.

 

Beyond that, Vista has draconian OS activation / validation, far beyond anything XP/WGA or OS X have ever done.

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