Random Musings

The copyright industry is up on arms about the alleged analog hole. Basically, DRMed digital content has to be converted into regular analog content before you can view or listen to it. The industry doesn’t like this. After all, this “hole” lets people copy CDs and movies to portable players instead of paying twice for the same thing! Can’t have that now, can we? So, Congress has introduced the Digital Transition Content Security Act, which mandates the use of an anticopying watermark that costs $10,000 to even look at! Secret technology should not be mandated by law. I personally think the “analog hole” isn’t a problem-Organized crime pirates will not be stopped by this, or by any DRM scheme, only legitimate users-but, even if everyone insists on a watermark, shouldn’t it be an open standard that everyone can study, to avoid a repeat of the Sony rootkit fiasco?

# posted by Dan @ 4:25 PM