Flash Memory with Copy Protection 365
Castar writes "Mercury News is reporting that SanDisk has created a new type of flash memory with copy-protection logic built in. From the article: "Today, much of a consumer's digital content is held hostage on a particular kind of device, such as an iPod or a PC, because that is the only way to prevent massive piracy. But with the SanDisk flash memory card, a consumer can move the digital content to another device. If the music company insists the data can only be copied five times, the memory card itself enforces that policy in the new device, be it a cell phone or music player." Rejoice that your data can be "liberated" from the confines of your PC or iPod!"
Hooray! (Score:5, Insightful)
Whooo (Score:5, Insightful)
So, there is no benefit at all to this technology? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sigh (Score:5, Insightful)
Step 2) Remove protection from your new copy
Step 3) No more DRM.
Copied? (Score:5, Insightful)
Copy protection, HA! (Score:4, Insightful)
Anything physical science can research and synthesize, physical science can analyze and duplicate
What they apparently don't get is that anything can be cracked, given enough time to research the protection scheme.
Oh, the freedom! (Score:5, Insightful)
But does it run... (Score:2, Insightful)
When SanDisk starts manufacturing DRM-protected thumb drives and PNY or other manufacturers continue to sell unprotected thumb drives, I think the market will do the talking.
This is the general direction of the industry (Score:5, Insightful)
We speak of Freedom as if Linux could provide it, but the question is gradually becoming whether it is better to be the canary in a gilded cage or the crow eating garbage in the snow. Having an isolated "free" system that can't interact with other "non-free" systems is not really how we expected things to turn out, I bet.
Re:So, there is no benefit at all to this technolo (Score:5, Insightful)
But remember we consumers have been crying out for a way to move our music around freely and securely. Oh, wait a minute, I have that, its called scp.
"confined??" (Score:2, Insightful)
if i use my PC or iPod, that's not really confining. plus, any idiot can get their music off of their ipod, it's as simple as viewing hidden folders. not to mention the availibility of free (legal) software that has that ability.
so how does this new flash memory free me up when i can just get current flash memory and copy my stuff as much as I want? i'm not really being confined at all. even with DRM, i can still play it on my ipod, my PC, and burn CDs to play on bazillions of devices. i can't even think of any other uses i would really want for my DRMed music.
hmm...maybe sandisk is making excuses here...maybe they know that consumers don't actually want copy protection built in to their flash memory.
Re:This is the general direction of the industry (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sigh (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Burn a CD
2. Rip the CD
3. Enjoy!!!!
They just don't realise that a mere recording from line-out to line-in in any half-decent sound card will sound as good as the original to 99.% of the users. So they should try and prevent that as well.
But I think what they are really up to is to try and prevent users to enjoy their music. Next thing to come, you won't be able to play it either, so there! No more copy protection problems.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So, there is no benefit at all to this technolo (Score:5, Insightful)
Hooray for the DMCA.
What? (Score:4, Insightful)
Er, so if I copy a file from the memory card onto, say, an iPod, the memory card alters the way the iPod works? Huh? This makes no sense whatsoever.
One of these days, I wish there'd be an article about copy protection that protected the ability to copy.
Makes Sense (Score:5, Insightful)
There needs to be integration with the processor (e.g. processor starts up, decrypts and runs a boot program using a special key) -- but that's already been done. Secure storage makes those two things work better. Note: if your processor is old school and non-DRM, you just snoop the bus and get the secrets.
Looks like a real home run: this is the "right place" (from an economic standpoint) to put the DRM. It will be cheap and secure.
However, it then becomes a juicy target for attack: if they are selling these chips by the millions, and they are protecting IP worth billions, then it is time to break out the acid and electron microscopes, and figure out how to deactivate it. And then it is busted.
Enter Famous Bruce Schneier quote: (Score:5, Insightful)
The sooner people accept this, and build business models that take
this into account, the sooner people will start making money again.
- Bruce Schneier
Re:Hooray! (Score:5, Insightful)
Hooray! One day we'll pay for "advanced" devices that let us do novel things such as "Duplicate" and "Read" (more than 5 times, and over my 30 day limit, and without a $14.95 a month license until the end of time aggreement.)
Re:So, there is no benefit at all to this technolo (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:This is the general direction of the industry (Score:3, Insightful)
Which is why we need to protest the use of proprietary formats and protocols. Just having the right to reverse-engineer them for interoperability reasons (as we have in the EU, AFAIK, IANAL) is not enough. We need the information required for interoperability to be freely available, or there will be no level playing field, no healthy competition, but rather vendor lock-in and monopolies. I think it's reasonable to legally require this information to be free.
I also wrote an essay on the subject [nyud.net] (still undergoing minor changes, feedback welcome).
New Freedom. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So, there is no benefit at all to this technolo (Score:2, Insightful)
No, it can do more, the new functionality just isn't something most consumers will find beneficial. In my opinion, products like this are inevitable. Media companies will eventually have to tap the enormous potential of electronic distribution. Does anybody believe they're going to do this without some system in place to control access to their premium content? I just hope when the time comes it will run on an open DRM platform instead of some studio-created proprietary one. Not holding my breath though...
Re:Sigh (Score:5, Insightful)
Fahrenheit 451 (Score:3, Insightful)
Laws of DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
a) Any device encumbered by DRM will fail if there are alternatives available on the market. If there are no alternatives the product might enjoy a limited success until the product becomes so successful that alternatives/clones/ripoffs become inevitable.
b) All forms of drm can be corrupted/broken/negated, and most will be broken within a matter of days or even hours.
c) Most new technology will be used in ways the inventors never imagined. Trying to restrict this behavior with DRM will surely kill your product.
This 'Gruvi' (what a horrible horrible name) probably falls under cat. A, and will disappear soon.
Re:So, there is no benefit at all to this technolo (Score:5, Insightful)
When a copy is not a copy. Dumb future. (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure, it's silly, but that does not mean it won't work. If everything in the chain is non free, you won't be able to do what you think you will be able to do. There will be a difference between the CD and the DAC.
If you have been keeping up with "Trusted" nonsense, this memory falls right in line. It has a fritz chip in it and it's going to act more like an IPod than memory. It will ONLY copy to a "trusted" device. There will never be a legal linux reader and it won't work with 99% of existing devices. It will have the power to only send low quality audio to any device with an audio out, so that "recording" via a sound card will yield an "FM radio" quality copy. Your music will no longer be a hostage on a few devices, it will be held hostage in the memory itself.
Right now, you can avoid DRM insanity but that's not going to last. When the world's three music publishers only release in DRM form, you will buy it or not have current popular music. The hope of music executives is to drive the world back to music quality and distribution that existed before digital technology. You will only hear good quality music live. Everything else will be FM and no one but them will have the ability to sell caned music. You don't think windoze will play that nasty non-RIAA music do you? Tomorrow's computers will be like todays music stores, RIAA only or no RIAA at all.
Re:Sigh (Score:5, Insightful)
Try again. This memory won't work in a nuTrusted(TM) device. You might be able to rig up a recorder to your headphone jack, but you are going to get a really crappy copy. Worse, any computer capable of playing this trusted crap will then refuse to play your crappy copy. Welcome to the lock down [slashdot.org].
Re:When a copy is not a copy. Dumb future. (Score:3, Insightful)
O nos! What will I do without new Tittney or Chrislutna Ogle-ara? I think popular music sucks, and I don't think I'm alone. The decline in music sales isn't due to rampant piracy, it's because most new music sucks.
If musicians don't care enough to make sure their product isn't compromised by the distributor, then I don't care to support them. I'll keep listening to the music I already own, and only buy unencumbered music.
</curmudgeon>
One more hole added to the above (Score:3, Insightful)
So, don't be afraid of the DRM-using industry. Pity them. They have things a hell of a lot worse than you do.
Re:This is the general direction of the industry (Score:1, Insightful)
The main issue is how DRM lockdown is impossible if not "perfectly" implemented. A perfect implementation would lock down creation, not just copying. Creation allows for copying. Preventing copying cannot be done because creating and copying are the same thing, but with one minor difference. The source of creation is inspiration, the source of copying is another work.
In addition, by restricting creation by "unsafe" entities, the industry would be guaranteed a PERFECT music monopoly which would kill off absolutely all unsigned music on the net.
(And it would mean that for a musician to let other people to listen to his music, he would HAVE to get signed)
This isn't about the "hackers" vs the industry. This is about "culture" vs the industry.
Hasn't this been done? (Score:3, Insightful)
Or is Sandisk just giving a lot of fanfare and hoping their me-too solution will actually be used by someone?
Orwellian madness (Score:5, Insightful)
We get a bad feeling about all this because so much money and resources is going into developing a technology that no one who is actually buying the technology actually wants. The chip designer firm is working with the chip manufacturer who is negotiating with the global entertainment corporation who is linking with the agent who interfaces with the artist who toots up with the liaison of the technology company.
So who's missing here? How about the people who are actually putting out the money to actually pay for this stuff. One person buys an entertainment product and a little while later discovers that they can't do the simple and obvious things that they had come to expect that they could do with it; like backing it up or moving it to another medium like the car stereo. Suddenly the perceived value of this entertainment item drops to half or less of its previous value. So the consumer is only willing to pay $8 for the same CD that they were willing to previously buy at $16 when the CD or CD player has copy prevention technology built into it.
Now the entertainment corporation is raising the price to pay for the development of this new technology and also raising the price because the competition (from easy copies) is now restrained. So the perceived value (and price) is going down at the same time that the price for the entertainment product is shooting up. How exactly is this supposed to be good for the entertainment company or the artist? It must be that they fundamentally assume that because they are so cool and beautiful that the vast dork masses will buy the product regardless of how much it costs or difficult it is to use. This is what happens when entertainment people start talking business with computer people. The greed goes recursive and you end up with the worst mentalities of both industries in one package.
In the long run (10 years plus) this mentality will only act to reduce the importance and viability of the entertainment corporations. The board of directors will look to spin off the entertainment divisions in the way that everyone is now trying to dump their record companies. Maybe DRM is nothing more than a long term plan on the part of the technology companies to seriously depress the value of the entertainment companies so that ten years from now (when all the ultra-fast download-entertainment-directly-to-the-home technology is in place) they will be able to buy the entertainment companies for a tiny fraction of what they are worth now. Or maybe it's just the fantasy of immature greedheaded yuppies with too much access to other people's money.
Re:Oh, the freedom! (Score:3, Insightful)
Other than that, I agree. I cannot understand how it can be legal for them to say what I can or cannot do with my hardware (and since all this "IP" is just bits stored on my hard drive, that's basically what they are doing). If I decide that it's more efficient to have those bits stored on one of the drives in one of my servers, what's wrong with that? Now they're saying I can only copy a specific pattern of bits a limited number of times? What happens when one of my important documents matches that bit pattern?
Re:Sigh (Score:3, Insightful)
I think there is a flaw in your logic here. If the JVC system plays standard CDs just fine, then its the new CD that is broken - not your hardware. Return the CD and let them know exactly why - because its broken as far as you're concerned. If they refuse to take it back for cash, get an exchange for the same CD..then another, then another. (For what it's worth, I've always been able to get cash back when I explain why I don't want the broken (read: DRMed) disc.)
If enough people do this, DRM becomes unprofitable (returns are expensive) and disappears.
This whole thing is a laugh riot.. (Score:3, Insightful)
As far as video goes, I don't know what to do about that. Data? There are programs out there that can copy everything, bit-for-bit, and burn to another DVD/CD. Therefore the license is still valid and intact, and you can put it onto another person's computer. Since they have the "original" (as far as bit-by-bit goes) disc, it should work fine.
These companies are just wasting their time, money, and energy in a pathetic attempt to "control piracy" (read: force their monopolies upon everyone else.) I'm wondering when they'll realize that Newton's third law could very well apply in this situation; For every copy-protection/license/DRM scheme they come out with, someone else will successfully crack and make the exact opposite of it.
There are too many flash formats for this to work (Score:3, Insightful)
Not considering other media storage formats like Iomega ZIP, this is just a list of flash-memory media formats that 'I' am aware of to have come out in the 10 years since 1995 when Compact Flash Type 1 was introduced:
That's an average of more than 1 new flash-memory format/year, and I'm sure there are others that I have missed.
If someone buys a Rolling Stones album on a DRM'd SD card, they're making a bet that from now on, every