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Copyright

The Privacy Ceiling

By: Dan
22-08-2006
Bad design, Black box, Bureaucracy, Business model, Civil rights, Consumer rights, Control, Copyright, Creeping erosion of norms, Crime, Design, Design engineering, Design philosophy, Design with Intent, Designers, Digital rights, Discriminatory Architecture, Distasteful corollary, Do artifacts have politics?, DRM, Embedding code, Engineering, Engineering design, Everyware, External Control, Feature deletion, Future, Good design, Insurance, Intellectual property, Interaction design, Intrusive technology, Invention, Law, Legislation, Norms, Panopticon, Patents, Pervasive computing, Philosophy of control, Political design, Privacy, Product design, Prophecy, Regulation, Restriction, Surveillance, Technical protection measures, Techniques of persuasion, Technology, Technology policy, Treacherous computing, Trusted Computing, Ubiquitous computing, User experience, User Psychology, Worldwide, Your property

Scott Craver of the University of Binghamton has a very interesting post summarising the concept of a ‘privacy ceiling’:

“This is an economic limit on privacy violation by companies, owing to the liability of having too much information about (or control over) users.”

It’s the “control over users” that immediately makes this something especially relevant for designers and technologists to consider: that control is designed, consciously, into products and systems, but how much thought is given to the extremes of how it might be exercised, especially in conjunction with the wealth of information that is gathered on users?

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Use of RFID in DRM

By: Dan
22-08-2006
Analog hole, Audio, Bad design, Business model, Cargo cult, Circumvention, Consumer rights, Control, Copyfight, Copyright, Creeping erosion of norms, Design, Design engineering, Design philosophy, Design with Intent, Designers, Digital rights, DRM, Embedding code, Engineering, Engineering design, Entertainment, Feature deletion, Firmware, Future, Gadgets, Intellectual property, Intrusive technology, MP3, Music, Music industry, Product design, Razor blade model, Rent-seeking, RIAA, Sneaky, Specious arguments, Technical protection measures, Technology, Treacherous computing, User experience, User Psychology, Worldwide, Your property

A CD with its functionality destroyed using GHz-range radio frequencies

Via Dave Farber’s Interesting People, a brief New Scientist article outlines Sony’s continuing obsession with restricting and controlling its customers (the last one didn’t go too well):

“A patent filed by Sony last week suggests it may once again be considering preventing consumers making “too many” back-up copies of its CDs…

Sony’s latest idea is to place a piece of monitoring hardware inside the CD. Its patent suggests embedding a radio-frequency ID chip that could be interrogated wirelessly by a PC or CD player. The chip would record the number of times the disc was copied and prevent further recordings once it reached the limit. The device could also be fitted to DVDs. Whether Sony will turn the patent idea into reality remains to be seen.”

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Ed Felten: DRM Wars, and ‘Property Rights Management’

By: Dan
15-08-2006
Analog hole, Arbitrary, Bad design, Black box, Broadcast flag, Bureaucracy, Business model, Cargo cult, Cartridges, Circumvention, Civil rights, Consumer rights, Control, Copyfight, Copyright, Creeping erosion of norms, Deleuze, Democracy of innovation, Design, Design engineering, Design philosophy, Design with Intent, Designed to be unpleasant, Designers, Digital rights, Discrimination, Discriminatory Architecture, Distasteful corollary, Do artifacts have politics?, Dongle, DRM, Dystopia, Embedding code, Engineering, Engineering design, Entropy, Erosion of liberty, Exclusion, External Control, Feature deletion, Fightback Devices, Firmware, Forcing functions, Freedom to tinker, Future, Gadgets, Hidden persuaders, Indoctrination, Ink cartridges, Innovation, Intellectual property, Interaction design, Internet economics, Intrusive technology, Invention, Killjoy technology, Law, Legislation, Liberty, Lobbying, Monopoly, Norms, Open source, Oppression, Patents, Philosophy of control, Political design, Printers, Product design, Propaganda, Prophecy, Protest, Razor blade model, Regulation, Rent-seeking, Restriction, Reverse engineering, Sneaky, Social engineering, Software, Specious arguments, Stifling innovation, Technical protection measures, Techniques of persuasion, Technology, Technology policy, Treacherous computing, Trusted Computing, User experience, User Psychology, Worldwide, Your property

RFID Velcro?

At Freedom to Tinker, Ed Felten has posted a summary of a talk he gave at the Usenix Security Symposium, called “DRM Wars: The Next Generation”. The two installments so far (Part 1, Part 2) trace a possible trend in the (stated) intentions of DRM’s proponents, from it being largely promoted as a tool to help enforce copyright law (and defeat ‘illegal pirates’) to the current stirrings of DRM’s being explicitly acknowledged as a tool to facilitate discrimination and lock-in — and the apparent ‘benefits of this’:

“First, they argue that DRM enables price discrimination — business models that charge different customers different prices for a product — and that price discrimination benefits society, at least sometimes. Second, they argue that DRM helps platform developers lock in their customers, as Apple has done with its iPod/iTunes products, and that lock-in increases the incentive to develop platforms.

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DRM now the ‘biggest issue’ in preserving information for the future

By: Dan
11-07-2006
Analog hole, Bad design, Bureaucracy, Censorship, Circumvention, Consumer rights, Control, Copyfight, Copyright, Creeping erosion of norms, Design, Design philosophy, Design with Intent, Designers, Digital rights, Discriminatory Architecture, Distasteful corollary, Do artifacts have politics?, DRM, Dystopia, Education, Erosion of liberty, Greasing palms, Hidden persuaders, Indoctrination, Intellectual property, Interaction design, Intrusive technology, Killjoy technology, Law, Legislation, Liberty, London, Monopoly, Nonsense, Norms, Philosophy of control, Political design, Propaganda, Public money, Rent-seeking, Restriction, Software, Stifling innovation, Technical protection measures, Techniques of persuasion, Technology, Treacherous computing, University, User experience, Vague rhetoric, Worldwide, Your property

A model of a library, in a library (Shoreditch College/Brunel University, Runnymede)

The Guardian has an interview with Richard Masters, of the British Library’s digital objects management programme looking at the impact of technology on archiving. The usual worries about file formats, media incompatability and how to select what to preserve and what not to are discussed, but:

“The biggest issue is digital rights management. At the moment, acting as an honest broker between the public interest and the individual rights holders is incredibly difficult. Much more so than with printed material that is physically deposited on your site. Many electronic property holders lease material and specifically prohibit copying for preservation purposes.

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Oh yeah, that Windows Kill Switch

By: Dan
10-07-2006
1984, Arbitrary, Bad design, Broadcast flag, Business model, Circumvention, Civil rights, Consumer rights, Control, Copyright, Creeping erosion of norms, Design, Design engineering, Design philosophy, Design with Intent, Designed to be unpleasant, Digital rights, Distasteful corollary, Do artifacts have politics?, DRM, Dystopia, Embedding code, Engineering, Entropy, Erosion of liberty, External Control, Feature deletion, Firmware, Future, Gadgets, Gravy train, Greasing palms, Hidden persuaders, Indoctrination, Interaction design, Internet economics, Intrusive technology, Killjoy technology, Liberty, Monopoly, Nonsense, Norms, Open source, Oppression, Orwellian, Panopticon, Philosophy of control, Political design, Privacy, Propaganda, Prophecy, Protest, Rent-seeking, Restriction, Sneaky, Software, Specious arguments, Stifling innovation, Surveillance, Technical protection measures, Techniques of persuasion, Technology, Technology policy, Treacherous computing, Trusted Computing, User experience, User Psychology, Worldwide, Your property

I know the furore surrounding Microsoft’s ‘Windows Genuine Advantage’ is a few days old, and perhaps I should have blogged about it at the time, specifically the rumoured ‘Kill Switch’ which would remotely deactivate any PCs apparently running ‘non-genuine’ copies of XP. That’s certainly a candidate for my feature deletion/external control category, as well as treacherous computing, and ranks far more severely than, say, removing mp3 capability from a phone after a mandatory upgrade.

Nevertheless, if WGA does have a kill switch, and does remotely kill off 50% of Windows’ user base over night, that’s just going to be good news for GNU/Linux adoption, and Apple. There’s not going to be any perfect substitution, that every copied installation of Windows has lost Microsoft $xxx therefore by preventing those installations from working, Microsoft will recover $xxx from each user. Sure, they’ll make some more money, but the loss in goodwill will more than offset that. Vastly more than offset it.

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EFF: Another Endangered Gizmo – the Neuros MPEG4 Recorder 2

By: Dan
05-07-2006
Analog hole, Arbitrary, Broadcast flag, Business model, Cinema, Circumvention, Consumer rights, Control, Copyright, Creeping erosion of norms, Design, Design engineering, Design philosophy, Design with Intent, Designers, Digital rights, DRM, Dystopia, Engineering, Engineering design, Entertainment, Erosion of liberty, Fightback Devices, Future, Gadgets, Good design, Gravy train, Greasing palms, Innovation, Intellectual property, Interaction design, Invention, Law, Legislation, Liberty, Lobbying, Monopoly, Movie industry, MPAA, Norms, Oppression, Philosophy of control, Political design, Product design, Public money, Regulation, Rent-seeking, Restriction, Stifling innovation, Technical protection measures, Technology, Technology policy, User experience, User Psychology, Video, Your property

Neuros diagram
Image adapted from Neuros website

Via EFF DeepLinks, details of the Neuros MPEG4 Recorder 2, a product specifically designed to allow users to break through the arbitrary architectures of control imposed by other video devices and formats, and hence make the most of the content you own:

“[It] digitizes analog video output and records it to a CF card or a memory stick in MPEG4 format. The video can then be put on your computer, burned to DVD, moved to your video iPod, or slotted right into your Sony PSP. You can also output video to a display device from the R2.

In turn, the R2 helps you make legitimate use of your media and lawfully escape DRM restrictions…

* Free your recorded TV content: TiVo and other PVRs restrict moving recorded video to other devices. The DMCA limits removing these DRM locks, and, if the broadcast flag proposal passes, these restrictions will get even worse. Regardless, you can lawfully use the R2 to create a DRM-free copy, recording straight from your TV or TiVo.

* Free your DVDs: DVD ripping software is widely available, but using it to rip a film to your computer and video iPod may violate the DMCA. The R2 gives you a legal (albeit more cumbersome) alternative. Similarly, though region-free DVD players are available, you can use the R2 to help create a region-free copy of the movie itself.

* Free your VHS tapes: You’ve probably faced the unhappy choice between rebuying your VHS collection on DRM-restricted DVDs or lugging around a legacy player. The R2 helps you liberate your movies from their VHS chains.”

Of course, the R2 device’s legality – as a video analogue-to-digital converter – is threatened by proposed US legislation aimed at ‘plugging the analogue hole‘, hence its ‘endangered gizmo‘ status applied by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. This would seem to be a case where a device really has been designed with the users’ needs and convenience uppermost in mind, yet it may be ruled out of existence by a legislature which listens more to (certain) corporate lobbying than to its own citizens.

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Architectures of Control project (2004-5)

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Written by Dan Lockton, 2004-12

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