Re: Trusted Computing (was Bad ideas...)

From: Lee Daniel Crocker (lee@piclab.com)
Date: Wed Apr 09 2003 - 16:53:57 MDT

  • Next message: Hal Finney: "Re: Trusted Computing (was Bad ideas...)"

    > (Hal Finney <hal@finney.org>):
    >
    > ...but any argument which includes the phrase "the only reason would
    > be..." is inherently somewhat weak. Can we really be sure that is the
    > *only* reason? Given the vast possibilities for human motivation and
    > creativity, and the tremendous diversity of human needs and desires,
    > I think we need to be extremely hesitant to claim that there can only
    > be one possible motivation for an action.

    True enough. There may be many motives for promoting TC, many of
    I might even find admirable. But I don't think it's out of place to
    look at the past actions of some of those people and speculate that
    their motives might not be what they say they are.

    Your mention of non-static content is important too. That, in fact,
    is probably quite likely to become a popular medium, precisely because
    static content is impossible to control. But it also obviates the
    need for any protection: if the product is a live interactive feed
    from a server somewhere, then the server has no need to verify it on
    the receiving end: the product itself is ephemeral, like a live
    performance, and therefore easily excludable without TC. The server
    might want to distribute a trusted "player" app, but that app is
    static content, and if they think they can control static content,
    their business model is already flawed.

    > Or maybe someone just doesn't think it is right to take a version for
    > free when the artist who worked hard to create it is begging people not
    > to "steal" their content and to buy from the authorized distributor.

    People often buy authorized versions of things even when there's a
    perfectly legal alternative, and business models built around that are
    totally viable. Those who prefer to download unauthorized things will
    typically either do that or simply choose not to buy at all. The only
    gains a producer makes from protection technologies are among those
    who would pirate if it were easy, but who will buy if it's hard. All
    evidence to date says that's a miniscule number, far less than the cost
    of the technology to make it happen. In real life, makipng piracy
    easier has helped creators, not hurt them. Who it hurts is publishers.
    Again for reasons I've given elsewhere, I don't give a damn about
    publishers.

    But that's an economic argument: business models based on control of
    information ar not viable. That's entirely separate from the ethical
    argument over control of information in the first place, and I would
    hold to the latter even if the numbers of the former were different.

    But in the end, you argue that people might still accept DRM even
    if they we're forced to, and I'm not sure I can argue with that.
    I'm just not sure that their doing so is really in their rational
    best interest.

    -- 
    Lee Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lee/>
    "All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past,
    are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified
    for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC
    


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