Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Hardware
DRM on Mactel Machines?
I think I'll save most of my ranting about this for the podcast (which should be coming next Monday, and it should be an actual podcast available in the iTMS and everything; keep your fingers crossed), but I just wanted to point you all to some very disheartening news: it looks like Apple is going to add Trusted Computing to the new OS X, Intel-savvy kernel. What's wrong with that you ask?Well, Cory covers this part nicely: "The point of Trusted Computing is to make it hard -- impossible, if you believe the snake-oil salesmen from the Trusted Computing world -- to open a document in a player other than the one that wrote it in the first place, unless the application vendor authorizes it.... It's like a web-site that you can only load in the browser that the author intended it to be seen in. ... What this means is that 'open formats' is no longer meaningful." As far as I am concerned, if Apple goes live with this on the new Macs, it'll be the worst move they've ever made.
Make sure you check out the /. thread where this info originally emerged. I'm sort of speechless about the whole thing. Why does bad news always come at the beginning of the month? Anyway, I wrote a poem about how this makes me feel:
Kill DRM Dead, a poem by C.K. Sample, III:
Have I ever told you that I hate you, DRM?
I do. I hate you, DRM. You ruin everything. You make everything more difficult. You break apart the sharing goodness that makes society flow. I hate you. Die, DRM. Die.
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Zac said 12:06PM on 8-01-2005
Why not wait until you see what the DRM is for before you get your knickers in a knot?
It may be that the DRM is simply to authenticate the OS and hardware so that people don't run the OS on non-Apple hardware.
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Sean Flanagan said 12:08PM on 8-01-2005
So does this mean that Apple's own TextEdit won't be allowed to open up Word documents anymore? What about files created on other platforms? This is horrendous.
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Tom Twigg said 12:17PM on 8-01-2005
This assertion is ridiculous if you think about it -- Apple would make it impossible for Preview to open Acrobat files, Pages and Keynote could no longer open Word and PowerPoint docs? This is nonsense magnified by paranoia. Get a grip.
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C.K. Sample, III said 12:19PM on 8-01-2005
Sean, it doesn't mean that right away. The problem is that it *could* be used for something like that, and I think Apple should really look carefully into how this will not only be seen as a "bad big bully" move on their part by a lot of Open Software people, but how it could potentially backfire on them into something like what you mention.
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Pedro said 12:28PM on 8-01-2005
Before I would argue that DRM is a good thing, but not any longer. I totally agree with you CK... DRM and the idea behind it in general is a bad thing. I really want to believe this is a good idea on Apples end, and maybe you are blowing it out of proportion, but you never know.
My worse fear is that Apple would get a little DRM crazy after the success of iTunes and its DRM... hope its not coming true.
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zack said 12:33PM on 8-01-2005
Perhaps it's a marketing ploy to sell off the remaining G5-based machines...
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Jay Contonio said 12:50PM on 8-01-2005
This post is complete crap. All things are possible with DRm but do you actually think apple would use all the ideas?
It's to make sure PCs won't boot the dev release. Plus if you rtfa, it's built into Rosetta, not the "Intel kernel". Maybe they'll take it out of Rosetta, who knows.
Just because there is mac "news" doesn't mean you have to post it. Posting this will just get everyone up in arms over a product that is not shipping, is not available yet, and a product no one has any idea about.
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Jam said 12:53PM on 8-01-2005
This is quite sad, if this becomes a problem with the future Mac's I simply wont upgrade I'm not about to jump on the Linux bandwagon (windows is getting this property bs too) but I wont be buying a new Mac that's locked down like a prison.
Quite simply this is sickening and a bad move for consumers, computers are becoming a hassle to get how you like you pay for something that can do anything but everything is slowly being locked down and controlled. Apple are supposed to be different but there becoming more "meh"
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Porchland said 12:57PM on 8-01-2005
Pick yer dress up and quit yer cryin'. I don't understand all of the DRM fear-mongering. Joe User doesn't care. Is the people who are currently violating licensing agreements for all sorts of software and content that have something to lose.
I mean, if DRM allows vendors to trust that their products will be used within license, isn't that a good thing? Theoretically, better and cheaper content would be more widely available if the DRM were tight enough.
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C.K. Sample, III said 12:58PM on 8-01-2005
Jay, please don't be shy about telling me how you really feel.
You say: " Posting this will just get everyone up in arms over a product that is not shipping, is not available yet, and a product no one has any idea about."
The last bit of your statement is just incorrect, b/c we already know this is in the works and we know about Trusted Computing as a DRM company that, in my opinion, we should all fight against.
The first bit of your statement, I hope, is spot on. That's what I want. I want all those who say "Relax. No worries. Apple wouldn't screw us!" to wake up and see how the iTMS DRM is already screwing us, and how this is a little scary. I want people to get riled up about DRM. I want there to be a million man march on Infinite Loop demanding that Apple do away with all forms of DRM and leave it as a disease to plague the Windows world. That's exactly what *I* want and exactly why I posted this.
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Penginkun said 1:05PM on 8-01-2005
I can't take TUAW seriously if you're going to engage in FUD.
Here's how you respond: Apple's going to use the TCA. I wonder why? Maybe they're going to use it to keep people from using MacOS X on unapproved (read: non-Apple) hardware.
Your response was wild and certainly unprofessional, jumping to conclusions well in advance of any actual INFORMATION.
Relax. Apple isn't out to get you, CK. They just want your money. And just because it was on Boing Boing AND slashdot doesn't mean it's accurate. Chill, man.
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Laurie said 1:09PM on 8-01-2005
I'm inclined to agree with Jay Contonio and Porchland. Much ado about nothing for now.
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Drew said 1:16PM on 8-01-2005
I think some people may be overreacting a bit. First of all, we're already living with DRM. No one likes the inconveniences and limitations, but content owners won't deliver music, movies, etc without it.
Secondly, Apple has made mistakes in the past, but Steve and co. aren't dumb. This won't be the death of open standards or cross-application compatibility. What it might mean is stronger protections if you try to open a movie purchased from the ITMS in another app.
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Jake of 8bitjoystick.com said 1:57PM on 8-01-2005
Go yell for a moment then have some deep breaths. I really don't think this is going to be bad at all. It is probably just to keep the OS on Apple hardware. This is not Palladium. If Apple did NOT do this it would be suicidal to port OSX to Intel hardware that could run on any "gray box" PC. It would kill apple and cannibalize their hardware sales if the OS was free to install on cheap non Apple hardware.
Why You Should Not Freak Out About TCPA in Mac OSX on Intel
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Joshua Ochs said 2:02PM on 8-01-2005
Oh my goodness, computers *could* be used for evil? And people *could* act evil? We better put a stop to all of those computers and people, too.
Look, ALL this is right now is a way to lock OS X to Apple hardware. It's likely it will be defeated quickly. It's likely Apple will do little to nothing to stop this. Why? If Apple was such a DRM nut as people like to believe, why can I freely burn regular audio CD's of my DRM'ed iTunes music?
Face it, folks. DRM was necessary to get the music labels to play ball and have a music store at all. DRM is necessary for Apple to make sure "regular" users are buying Macs (just as they always have). Just like with CD burning being a simple workaround there to dissuade easy sharing of songs, this will likely be easily defeatable to dissuade easy installation of OS X on a plain x86.
The sky is not falling - please take off your tin foil hats.
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janeiro said 2:06PM on 8-01-2005
Is that last part of the poem German for "The DRM. The"? (assuming DRM is a feminine noun)
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C.K. Sample, III said 2:15PM on 8-01-2005
Well, I was trying to save all my comments for the podcast, but the hyperbolic reactions this post is garnishing in response to my hyperbolic poem-joking sky-is-falling post are missing the point: It's not a matter of "the sky is falling." It's a matter of with DRM, the sky has already fallen. We're soaking in it. It's already gumming up the machine (not a literal machine; its a metaphor) in nasty ways.
I am fervently and politically anti-drm. I think it's a big sham industry where a bunch of snake-oil salesmen go up to companies like the MPAA and the RIAA and say "Hey, we have this product that will keep pirates from pirating your content." In reality, the DRM doesn't prevent this at all; people can still get around DRM. There is no uncrackable DRM.
"So what's the problem then, C.K.?" you ask. The problem is that since it doesn't actually prevent piracy, all the DRM is doing is making things more inconvenient for law-abiding citizens. And not only more inconvenient, but more costly. All this out-sourced DRM technology adds to the overhead of the end project and increases the price of these products for the manufacturers, and that cost is passed down to the consumers.
It's a big bad bit of ugly business.
What makes it even worse is that the DMCA exists now, and thereby makes it illegal for you and me to try to circumvent DRM *even though* much of the DRM out there, like the DRM found in the iTMS tracks, for example, infringes on our own fair use rights. The only way to *legally* get an iTMS purchased track onto my PSP for example, is to burn it to CD and then re-rip the track to iTunes. This costs me time, money (the cost of the CD), and hard drive space. That's unfriendly to me as a consumer.
All this under the guise of protecting from piracy, but it just flat out doesn't do what it says it is going to do. *THAT's* why we should all be wary of any added DRM technologies to anything that we buy.
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Laurie said 2:19PM on 8-01-2005
C.K. - have you had lunch yet? I'm thinking these novel-length rants are the result of dangerously low blood sugar.
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AHM said 2:36PM on 8-01-2005
Currently all Apple's doing is making sure that the dev release can't get installed on non-dev boxes. However, the concern is whether this is the thin end of the wedge and whether (with the iTMS and upcoming video store) whether Apple will begin using hardware-based DRM for other purposes and adopt the rest of the "Trusted Computing" architecture. While the iTMS DRM doesn't really bother me (got hymn?), the potential for future lockdown of everything (your Word documents, contact info, etc.) through hardware measures is quite disturbing. See the TCPA FAQ: http://www.againsttcpa.com/tcpa-faq-en.html
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jonny quest said 2:47PM on 8-01-2005
"You break apart the sharing goodness that makes society flow."
I think you're just a digital commie. =)
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