Darknet

Movie studios in 'last-ditch effort to save DRM'

TechCrunch: Movie Labels To Launch New “Open Market” Play Anywhere Scheme As Last Ditch Effort To Save DRM.

Warner Music gives up on DRM

NY Times: Warner finally gives up on copy protection.

On that hard drive that won't share video

Saul Hansell at the NY Times Bits blog: On that hard drive that won't share video.

BoingBoing today posted about a networked hard drive from Western Digital that blocks access to music and video files. The blogosphere started a chorus of outrage. And I referred to it in a post about the dark side of Macrovision’s acquisition of Gemstar TV Guide.

I also called Western Digital, and when they called back it turns out that the situation is—as it often is—somewhat more complex than it first seemed.

The file blocking is not in the hard drive itself but in an Internet file sharing service called Mio that is included with the drive. This service, Mionet, which was acquired by Western Digital earlier this year, has two aspects: It lets you connect to your own files from anywhere on the Internet. And it also lets you specify certain folders that you can share with your friends.

Even before WD bought Mionet, the service blocked people from sharing music and video files with friends. But it did—and still does—allow users to link to any of their own files. ...

The hitch in Amazon's Kindle

This week's Newsweek cover story, Books Aren't Dead, takes a look at the shiny new gadget produced by Amazon. Steve Levy's sidebar explores the fine print on the Kindle:

Though the copy protection doesn't affect book-reading, it is limiting, and annoying. You can't print out a passage, e-mail it to a friend or copy it into a document. You can't lend a book to someone, or sell it after you're finished.

In Newsweek's main story, Internet Archive founder Brewster Kahle says he's unhappy with the DRM on the Kindle; his choice of an e-book reader would be the dirt-cheap XO device designed by the One Laptop Per Child Foundation.

One anti-piracy system to rule them all

NY Times blogs: One Anti-Piracy System to Rule Them All.

Digg's tough choice

BusinessWeek Online with the somewhat unfair headline Digg's Mob Rules. The news-sharing Web site faces a painful choice: allow user content that courts legal woes, or risk losing users—and content

Antipiracy code spreads wildly

NY Times: In Web Uproar, Antipiracy Code Spreads Wildly

Sophisticated Internet users have banded together over the last two days to publish and widely distribute a secret code used by the technology and movie industries to prevent piracy of high-definition movies. ...

On Tuesday afternoon and into the evening, stories about or including the code swamped Digg’s main page, which the company says gets 16 million readers each month. At 9 p.m. West Coast time, the company surrendered to mob sentiment.

“You’d rather see Digg go down fighting than bow down to a bigger company,” wrote Kevin Rose, Digg’s founder, in a blog post. “We hear you, and effective immediately we won’t delete stories or comments containing the code and will deal with whatever the consequences might be.” If Digg loses, he wrote, “at least we died trying.”

Jay Adelson, Digg’s chief executive, said in an interview that the site was disregarding the advice of its lawyers. “We just decided that it is more important to stand by our users,” he said. Regarding the company’s exposure to lawsuits he said, “we are just going to prepare and do our best.”

The conflict spilled over to Wikipedia, where administrators had to restrict editing on some entries to keep contributors from repeatedly posting the code.

Hacker cracks AACS copy-protection on Blu-ray, HD DVD discs

Digital Media Wire: Hacker Cracks AACS Copy-Protection on Blu-ray, HD DVD Discs.

Well, that didn't take long.

Hacker targets iPod, iTunes restrictions

This is getting a little old.

AP: A hacker known for cracking the copy-protection technology in DVDs claims to have unlocked the playback restrictions of Apple Computer Inc.'s iPod and iTunes music products and plans to license his code to others.

30 days of DRM

Canada's brilliant Michael Geist: 30 Days of DRM.