Blogging Ottinger (tim)

Jon Tillman gives us the lastest example of how DRM simply cannot work. The quote from the guy who cracked it was telling:

Nothing was hacked, cracked or even reverse engineered btw: I only had to watch the “show” in my own memory. No debugger was used, no binaries changed.

They may not all fail this easily, but they all fail. Some DRM schemes even take time and effort. Rather than cheer for the next big DRM scheme or the next big DRM smasher, I think we need to cheer for the folks that are choosing to not use it. You may think it’s cool to play the electronic countermeasures game with your music, but I think it’s so much better to support the vendors who are making better decisions and not wasting their time and money on fruitless control schemes.

Who do I think the heroes are?

• eMusic, MagnaTune, IRateRadio, and similar DRM-free content providers
• the indie bands who have the guts to release mp3s instead of keeping their music locked up.
• well-known (and lesser-known) artists who are releasing their back-catalogs in MP3.
• podcasters, and podsafe music providers without these guys
• Video podcasters, again giving us information and entertainment in open formats.
• Authors of podcatchers like juice/ipodder and democracy TV and others
• those who release old works to the public domain, and those who collect and archive them for the rest of us
• archive.org, making so much of our video and audio heritage available to us in mpeg and mp3 formats
• video sites (YouTube, etc) and videographers, making amateur entertainment available to the masses
• those who develop open source programming languages, operating systems and tools, which in turn make this free entertainment ecosystem possible.

If you want to know where the future is being born, you need to look to this wonderful collection of good people working on good ideas. We’ve never had so many alternatives to corporate programming. There is an embarassing wealth of talent in the world. I think it’s exciting that we get to see the good, the bad, and the ugly if we so desire and free media ranges from silly flash cartoons and old B movies to serious art and documentary.

There is a challenge here. Because of the internet, we don’t really need to be spoon-fed “DRM-enriched” media from a small number of large corporations. Instead, those who make a living producing content will have to compete for our attention, and not just against two or three other corporations which are turning out the same nonsense. They have to compete against the filmmakers of the past, the amateur filmmakers of the present, and the increasingly professional output of enterprising new media companies. That’s hard for them (and they have my sympathy) but it’s good for us. It is a sea change. The new reality is that we have many other choices, and they can join with them or lose us as viewers.

This freedom is not without its villians. There are people who have turned their cameras to the lowest of human instincts, in things like “bum fights” or other (worse) violence against people and animals. At least they provide the evidence against themselves, I suppose. The movie industry at its worst was never as bad as some of these home films. And it isn’t just violence that we have to watch for. Hatemongering in all its forms will be offered up as entertainment, from lowbrow political commentary to racist humor to whatever. Of course, the ability to record this kind of “entertainment” did not create the desire for it, but it might encourage sociopathic behavior that might have otherwise not have been acted out.

Our freedom of expression will crash against ethics and legality and even basic humanity as it always has. If one is free to argue against the mighty corporation, then one is also free to insult the lowly and disenfranchised. I believe in basic human dignity and respect and I know that we will have to find a way to ensure that those values don’t vanish in a world of cheap second-hand thrills and brutish acts. Even in independent film-making, there needs to be accountability for treatment of people and animals. This will be the hardest part of the new media challenge. It will be up to people to help promote decency and draw attention to the truly indecent. Sometimes all we have to do is change the channel, but sometimes we may need to pick up a phone and involve authorities in prosecution of the villians among us. Freedom is tough that way. It is the freedom to go wrong, as well as the freedom to do right.

I am happy for the wealth of good, useful, entertaining podcasts and video podcasts. I am happy for the availability of old-time radio and movies. I am happy that kids can make silly Numa Numa lipsync videos. I think it’s good that flash cartoonists can work in parody and wit to entertain us. I love that we have web cartoons and blogs and (v)podcasts. I am thrilled at the online archives of historical events, airshow footage, and public domain movies. There is a great richness of good, fun, and pleasant entertainment for us.

My plan is to enjoy the best of what is offered with a clean conscience.