DRM vs the Long Tail -- the problem with strict DRM

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Bob Frankston <Bob19-0501 () bobf frankston com>
Date: July 26, 2005 10:28:50 PM EDT
To: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Subject: DRM vs the Long Tail -- the problem with strict DRM


In this essay I pull together a number of themes from the IP list to  
give an understanding of why DRM can be problematic rather than  
simply annoying. The juxtaposition of Microsoft’s effort to build the  
control of content into basic hardware and the comments on the  
Discovery Institute’s Intelligent Design agenda gives insight to the  
problem – if you believe you can design the future then why not lock  
in the incumbent’s control?



We’ll work around these restrictions but at great cost to the economy.



I normally just send the URL (http://www.satn.org/archive/ 
2005_07_24_archive.html#112242871446727491) and you can lop off the  
rest of this if you want to keep it short.



BobF at 9:42 PM [url]:

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DRM Chops off the Long Tail

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What does Digital Rights Management have to do with evolution? DRM is  
a way of assuring that the “content owner” can maintain control. That  
seems innocuous in itself but it has the effect of limiting the  
marketplaces' ability to change. This makes sense in limited cases as  
it allows investors to recoup the cost of their investment and make a  
profit but if DRM works too well it prevents growth. A marketplace is  
a dynamic system that keeps changing. Why doesn't the marketplace  
simply devolve into chaos? The reason is that it is an evolutionary  
process – one that provides opportunity for creating new results. We  
can think of this opportunity in terms of Chris Anderson's long tail  
– it represents the value to be discovered rather than what is obvious.

Marketplaces that work can capture the results that are viable while  
surviving those that don't work. They renew themselves dynamically.  
Without this process of renewal marketplaces stagnate and fail. While  
the goal of DRM may be noble, if taken too far it leaves us  
impoverished.

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I was annoyed and angry to find that I couldn't use my high  
resolution monitor to watch HDTV content. Instead I am supposed to  
buy an HDMI compliant monitor that would be more expensive and less  
capable than the one I have. For some reason even after my attempt to  
use an “unauthorized device” the program guide information is only  
available on the component (three wire) and not the composite (single  
wire, standard TV) output. Not only am I not allowed to choose how I  
want to watch, I am at the mercy of a set top box that is befuddled  
by the complexity of implementing the scheme!

Something is very wrong. While Microsoft may consider itself only  
helping out by providing facilities to aid and abet such stifling  
control they are doing damage by thwarting the dynamics of the  
marketplace. Sadly, both Microsoft and Intel seem to be determined to  
undermine Moore's law by saddling it with fatal complexity in the  
hope of insuring their incumbency and the incumbency of other  
industries that are past their prime.

Tellywood is defined by the asymmetric control afforded by older  
technologies. It is intent on keeping this control even if it means  
we cannot do anything for ourselves in case they might not capture  
all of the value of their works and in case others may create  
competing works.

The desire to reap the rewards of ones efforts is understandable but  
we must have a balance. Such control must not come at the price of  
denying others any control at all and must not come at the price of  
preventing economic growth.

Imagine where we would be today if Edison were able to maintain sole  
control of the “moving picture” technology. He maintained stifling  
control until his competitors decamped to Hollywood where they could  
assert their own stifling control.

Microsoft is going to prevent what they call “hardware attacks” (as  
well as “software attacks”) on premium content. Such attacks include  
what others call fair use. My attempt to watch content on my own  
screen is an example of just such as “hardware attack”.

From http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/stream/output_protect.mspx

New output content protection mechanisms planned for the next version  
of Microsoft® Windows® codenamed "Longhorn" protect against hardware  
attacks while playing premium content and complement the protection  
against software attacks provided by the Protected Environment in  
Windows Longhorn. These output protection mechanisms include:

• Protected Video Path - Output Protection Management (PVP-OPM) makes  
sure that the PC's video outputs have the required protection or that  
they are turned off if such protection is not available.

• Protected Video Path - User-Accessible Bus (PVP-UAB) provides  
encryption of premium content as it passes over the PCI Express  
(PCIe) bus to the graphics adapter. This is required when the content  
owner's policy regards the PCIe bus as a user-accessible bus.

• Protected User Mode Audio (PUMA) is the new User Mode Audio (UMA)  
engine in the Longhorn Protected Environment that provides a safer  
environment for audio playback, as well as checking that the enabled  
outputs are consistent with what the content allows.

• Protected Audio Path (PAP) is a future initiative under  
investigation for how to provide encryption of audio over user  
accessible buses.

Microsoft and Tellywood are working to assure that you can't buy a  
monitor better than a dinky Tellywood-approved monitor that matches  
their narrow vision of the future. An entry from engadget http:// 
www.engadget.com/entry/1234000727051424/ points out that the next  
step beyond DVD protection is the use of revocable keys. I posted an  
essay RIAA Plans to Sue Hearing Aid Manufacturers to make this point  
but it was satire – unfortunately it may be far too close to the truth.

For me the issue is not so much whether people can choose to protect  
the content but the effects on innovation. This is a Tellywood that  
would have totally and utterly defeated VHS and you wouldn't be able  
to make home movies. And they wouldn't have gotten huge new markets.  
The inability to choose your own LCD screen creates a huge barrier  
between computer screens and TV screens. The whole silly idea of TV  
screens being at six feet and computers at two feet is one of those  
silly Power Point inspired theories that is at odds with reality.

Microsoft and Intel seem to think it is in their interest to  
cooperate with this approach and limit the ability of users to find  
new opportunities. The long tailgets truncated. It's like Cisco  
helping China control the spread of “bad ideas”.

It's useful to read some recent discussions on Dave Farber's mailing  
list for context (http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/ 
interesting-people/200507/threads.html). In particular the discussion  
on science education and the Gates' contribution to the Discovery  
Institute which advocates Intelligent Design. This doesn't mean that  
Bill Gates necessarily endorses their theories but the question of  
intelligent design is an important issue in how we view marketplaces.

Too bad evolution is taught in biology class because it makes it hard  
to see the larger issues. Dynamic systems are evolutionary systems  
and if you try to limit their dynamics they fail. If you believe in  
intelligent design you can assume that systems can be guided.  
Marketplaces are just complex systems. If you give the incumbents the  
role of the intelligent designer the systems will fail because you  
don't allow for new ideas.

It's easy to convince oneself that things are indeed working well and  
we shouldn't risk tampering with it. A good (or, perhaps, bad)  
example is the Bluetooth protocol. It demos well but if you try to  
use it in anyway that is not anticipated it will fail as David  
Berlind points out inhttp://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/index.php?p=1634. The  
Dial-Up Networking (DUN) Profile builds on the idea of a circa 1980  
Hayes Modem and then adds more layers in an attempt to pile Internet  
protocols on top of it. With enough effort you can make it work – at  
least for a while.

I was struck at “D” by Intel's Paul Otellini's approach to the  
complexity of networking. His solution is to add another layer of  
mechanism. That only compounds the problem and makes the system more  
perverse. The whole point of the approach I took to home networking  
was to reduce the amount of basic mechanism rather than piling more  
on it. David Berlind observed one consequence of the “pile on”  
approach in trying to deal with Bluetooth's “DUN” (Dial Up  
Networking) protocol which adds connectivity by going all the way  
back to the Hayes modems and then adding networking as a special case  
on top of all the other mechanism with all the baggage.

I've also started to listen to IBM's Irving Wladawsky-Berger  
describing IBM's autonomic (self-healing) computer and their grid  
architecture. Here too complexity is “solved” by adding more mechanisms.

For those who believe that one can predict the future and that the  
world is organized into nice hierarchies it makes perfect sense to  
add mechanisms to the pile and leave it to the prescient of incumbent  
business to define and limit us to that future. It confuses business  
with marketplaces.

For those who recognize a rich evolving world such efforts to limit  
opportunity do far more damage than just deny us the ability to  
innovate. It makes it very difficult to use what we have because the  
only combinations that work are those that are anticipated. We get  
the kind of task-oriented design that gave us Bluetooth. It's what  
Microsoft uses in trying to “improve' the user interface in their  
systems.

It's also the womb-to-tomb misinterpretation of end-to-end that Bill  
Gates expresses at “D”. Microsoft is trying to do us favors by  
providing us with a complete solution rather than one that is open to  
allowing us to take different approaches.

This why I keep emphasizing that teaching evolution in biology  
classes leaves us without understanding that evolution is a  
characteristic of all systems not just “special” ones. Without such  
understanding it is difficult to see how and why the Internet works.  
Even more to the point why it works despite and not because of  
governance. Why complexity is an emergent property of the lack of  
understanding. We don't “solve” complexity by layering on top of it.  
When we design systems we have to go underneath the system expose the  
simplicity.

It's not at all fair to accuse those who thwart marketplace processes  
as being “anti-evolutionists”. Even though I think it is obvious the  
onus is still on me to demonstrate that the mechanisms are the same.  
I still claim that there is a basic philosophical alignment akin to  
the one that George Lakoff posits inMoral Politics. It is hard to  
trust the marketplace because at any point in time it's too easy to  
see the “right” answer. It's even more difficult to see the  
importance of these dynamic processes when cling to the present for  
safety.

It's like looking at the weather. You can't just see that it's 28º  
(Celsius, Fahrenheit, take your pick). You have to look underneath at  
the dynamic behavior. The same is true for marketplaces – what you  
see is a result of a dynamic process. If you try to legislate against  
change you don't even get to keep what you think you have.

Marketplaces don't just work but are necessary. We can frustrate them  
for short periods – the US Constitution grants only limited  
exceptions. But only at a price that increases rapidly over time.

I better post this piece soon because I'm required to acquire the  
rights for each word lest the coiner assert ownership …





Bob Frankston

http://www.frankston.com





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