Watermarking – what’s your take?

Posted by gerloff on 0

While I frequently complain about Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) and the way it takes user’s freedoms away, I have not really worked my way through the alternatives. It is clearly evil for someone to sell broken CDs (sometimes known as "copy protected"), let alone infect customer’s computers with malicious software.

Yet there are many voices claiming that digital technology has made copying of data so easy that rightsholders must have some kind of instrument to persecute infringement of their rights. The best-known way of protecting music or video is to slap it with some kind of DRM, which foists all sorts of annoying restrictions on buyers. Often, you can’t copy music files to your portable .ogg player, at least not unless it has some sort of weird crippling technology on it (which, by the way, significantly shortens battery life). Not to mention the many other ways to make the music you bought online a piece of junk in comparison to the one you bought at the CD store.

There’s a thing called watermarking or, more accurately, fingerprinting. Information is embedded in music or video which can be linked to the person who bought the track. Thus, if it shows up on  a filesharing network, a buyer who uploaded it can be held to account – yet the buyer’s fair use rights remain unharmed.

This type of protection is popular with indie online stores such as Beatport.  Beatport is a place where a lot of DJs and electronica musicians buy their tracks, and these people want to do the kind of things with their music that DRM-mongers get all worked up about: Remix it, sample it, take it apart, stir it up and put it back together. Any restrictions on this would totally devalue the music for the buyers.

After thinking a while, I still haven’t quite made up my mind with regard to watermarking. Is this the holy grail of a compromise with which record labels and music buyers can live (as well as the army of lawyers now writing menacing letters to computer users, and who are at the root of much of the bally-hoe)? Is it a mean scheme by Big Brother, trying to put together a database of every song you listen to and every movie you see? Or a communist subversive plot to deprive well-meaning intellectual property rights holders of their right to to fight users with DRM?

I would like people on this site to voice their opinion on this, helping me to form my own. Some voicing has been done over at indicare.org, as well as on ZDNet, where there’s comments aplenty. Also, Freedom to Tinker takes a look at the systemic weaknesses of different ways of watermarking.

In case I’m just warming up yesterday’s news, please let me know. If not, your thoughts will be much appreciated. 

UNESCO to push A2K, Free Software

Posted by gerloff on 0

CPTech‘s Thiru in Geneva tells me that the UNESCO has published how it intends to go about implementing the Action Plan for "Access to information and knowledge", which was designed at the World Summit on the Information Society.

The document makes a nice read, for a change from the usually rather drab UN stuff. Predictably, I particularly liked this passage:

e) Encourage research and promote awareness among all stakeholders of the possibilities offered by different software models, and the means of their creation, including proprietary, open-source and free software, in order to increase competition, freedom of choice and affordability, and to enable all stakeholders to evaluate which solution best meets their requirements.

CC license confirmed in Dutch court

Posted by gerloff on 0

As netzpolitik.de reports, a Creative Commons license was tested in court for the first time, and it held up. A magazine had used a CC NC-BY-SA licensed photograph found on flickr. Since this constituted commercial use, which the license does not allow for, that use infringed the owner’s copyright.

 Though the magazine got off relatively lightly, with just EUR 1000 to pay in case of repeating the infringement, it’s good to know that the licence is watertight. The copyright holder in question, btw, was ex-MTV VJ Adam Curry.
 

El Reg: Media industry beaten at their own business

Posted by gerloff on 0

The Register has a nice OpEd piece on Apple and the media industry. The gist, with which I agree: While there are tons of things wrong with Apple’s music and, more recently, TV marketing – most of all, their use of DRM -, it is that the media industry is so resistant to invention that a computer company has to show them how to conduct their business.

 It’s not illegal copying harming the pigopolists. It’s their lack of business savvy.

 

…the media companies will only have themselves to blame for allowing Apple to control their TV shows as well as their music. Don’t depend on a company as woefully inept as Google. Create a joint venture capital arm to develop independent media warehouses. Invent something great and give it away via open source. Do something. Do anything. Just don’t whine about your own ineptitude. We’ve grown so very tired of that.

 

Google: Censorship comes home

Posted by gerloff on 0

First China, now the US. As The Register reports, Google US refuses to do its job as a search engine properly, and denies its users access to a rather innocent video of US troops detonating a roadside bomb in Iraq.

Described by one Reg reader as "very boring", the
footage shows little more than a distant plume of smoke. Google has
little cause to prohibit the clip on grounds of taste – after all,
under the banner of promoting "citizens media", it cheerfully serves up
"happy slapping" footage of school thugs beating up science students,
and some impressive ejaculation shots from porn videos.

UPDATE: The story is bunk. Now, El Reg says:

 

Alas it’s not Google that’s doing the censoring – and a big red-faced Oops from
The Reg. Google explained last week that uploaders had made the decision not to
make the clip available to US internet users.

Thanks, tgb. This one still holds, AFAICT:

Speaking of porn videos: Another Reg story reports that seven US soldiers are facing severe disciplinary consequences – for acting in a gay porn video.

The men are charged with "sodomy, pandering and engaging in sex for
money while being filmed", Reuters reports. One is also charged with
adultery.

Now there’s a liberal employer. Welcome to the 21st century. I didn’t
know that "engaging in sex for money while being filmed" was actually a crime. Well, maybe in places like Iran. And adultery? Please.

Democracy – cool video tool

Posted by gerloff on 0

When I saw this on BoingBoing, I was too busy with WIPO to write about it. Though the news is slightly old already by now, this is still so great that I can’t hold my tongue:

There is a new, easy Free Software tool for viewing and publishing Internet video. Democracy aim to be as simple as the Firefox browser. Not only does it make watching internet video easier, it is also supposed to make publishing your own a breeze. It’ll even help you distribute them via Bittorrent, the setup of which, I take it, was not for the faint of heart until now.

The Mac and Windows editions are out already, and a GNU/Linux port is coming up. They are still looking for developers. Apparently, there is even some bounty money left to be had.

So get to it, guys and gals. I want this on my machine as quickly as possible.

WIPO PCDA conlusion – learning English the hard way

Posted by gerloff on 0

The first meeting of the WIPO Provisional Committee on a Development Agenda is over. The mood was rather conciliatory, compared to the rants and raves that took place during last year’s series of conferences on the subject. This made for snail-paced progress, though progress there was.

At least, there now seems to be a draft list of discussion topics for the next meeting, due to take place in June. This agenda was agreed on Friday, after a day of small group meetings, thanks to the excellent Chairman’s frenetic mediation. Read all about the diplomat’s antics on IP Watch and Georg’s blog.

One of the great things about going to WIPO conferences is that you always learn something new. And I’m not just talking about copyright and patents.

Since my English vocabulary is not quite as large as I would like it to be, I occasionally run into slang I find hard to decode. That was what happened yesterday, when on BoingBoing I read the entry US boning the WIPO Development Agenda. Now, I was unsure about the exact meaning of "boning", though by now I am more than a bit acquainted to the US delegation’s tactical games.

My first thought was that, since bone is a hard material, the expression referred to their seemingly immutable position, well grounded in mountains of industry greenbacks. But US-resident A2K people said this was incorrect, though they were strangely reluctant to tell me what it did mean.

From their reluctance I inferred that I was onto something with a relation to sex. I know what a "boner" is, and then "boning" would most likely describe some activity you engage in with one.

Eventually, I got one of them to confirm hypothesis. While I had been thinking of some particular practice, I was told that the word is just a synonym for an English word with four letters, the first one of which is not an "s".

Instead of asking the A2K people though, in hindsight I should really have approached the US delegation, showed them the entry and asked them if the term referred to some new strategy they were deploying… To make up for that missed opportunity, as the session was over for the day, I had this picture taken:

image of pirates at US sign in WIPO

The blue pencils are courtesy of WIPO, and one of the pirate’s heads, a gift, accompanied me all trough this week in the inside pocket of my suit.

Catching rabies over Free Software. Oh, and get a watch.

Posted by gerloff on 0

It is with a sour tone not quite in the Olympic spirit that Tom Giovanetti, everyone’s favourite lobbyist around here, has announced that he has detected a world record in the repetition of the term "Free Software". Predictably, the prize goes to Georg Greve, FSF Europe’s president.

If you ever wondered how many times someone can say the phrase "free
software" in about 7 minutes, I’ve just seen the world record
performance.

Georg made a statement criticising the Friends of Development proposal, which does not mention Free Software as an issue to be included in the Development Agenda, though previous proposals did. Can’t let them get away with it, can you?

If Tom took offence, it was probably because he might still be a bit sore about his institute not being admitted to the Microsoft Antitrust case in the EU, on the grounds that they had no legitimate interest in the case, meaning that they are irrelevant.

What Georg did not mention in his statement, though, was sliced bread:

They use their opportunities to speak as a chance to complain about DRM,
to complain that the public domain is under threat, to say that a
"reprivatization of the public domain" is under way, to pontificate
about all the glories of free software and how it was free software that
invented sliced bread and electricity, and how it was free software that
taught us how to make fire and how to take care of public sanitation and
cure rabies, etc.

IIRC, rabies did not come up either, though at least one person involved in this debate certainly seems to be affected.

Also, the claim that FSF Europe’s statement lasted seven minutes (limit for NGO is three minutes) is false. Maybe Tom should ask Microsoft to buy him at least a decent watch, since that appears to be all they can do for him.

Tom, if you so strongly dislike Free Software, you might want to give up on using the internet and the World Wide Web. Not only was Free Software at the heart of the creation of both, it also keeps an ever greater part of it running today.

WIPO: NGO statements on US proposal

Posted by gerloff on 0

Two NGOs have commented on the US proposal: FSF Europe and EDRI, the European Digital Rights Initiative.

FSF Europe appreciated the US statement as a good starting point for consensus, yet contradicted the US on the view that WIPO had no need for analysing its own activities.

Inspired by last week’s Internet Governance Forum, we also suggested measures for greater openness and stakeholder participation in WIPO’s work. At the IGF, all that was said in the assembly was simultaneously transcribed, projected on a screen in the room, and put on the web in a matter of minutes. Also, all sessions were streamed to the Internet by Free Software volunteers. This would greatly help make WIPO’s work more effective.

The statement was very well received by various government delegate.

For EDRI, Volker Grassmuck made an excellent statement [now online] in which he emphasised the potential of commons-based peer production, as well as casting into doubt the commercial viability of Digital Restrictions Management (DRM). With a number of vivid examples, it makes a very interesting read.

On another note: Civil Society’s usually excellent transcripts of this meeting are online here. 

WIPO’s thursday morning: After Brazil’s jackhammer

Posted by gerloff on 0

The thursday morning session starts with the Chairman’s announcement that, as the discussion of the individual proposals is nearing its end (we’re well into the US proposal, and after that only that of the Friends of Development is left), he will seek to draft a list of topics that have been discussed or are to be discussed.

After that, Brasil quickly finishes ripping apart the US proposal. The Brazilians reject the careless usage of words like “counterfeiting” or “piracy”, since their exact meaning differs from country to country – illicit copying is obviously something to be judged according to national law, and according to Brasil, WIPO has neither the power to define “piracy”, nor is it in its mandate to prosecute such activities.

Then there is the issue of WIPONET, a sort of intranet connecting WIPO and national copyright and patent offices. The US want to use this for their website database connecting “IP beggars” and “IP donors”; Brazil claims that, after sinking roughly a billion Swiss Francs into the project, the network is still not operational. Maybe this issue should be cleared up first, before building new projects on top of it.

Argentina follows in Brazil’s footsteps. They point out that the US is the prime market for counterfeited goods in the world. This demonstrates that piracy and counterfeiting are not a phenomenon that is exclusive to developing countries. Thus, it does not seem clear why the US want counterfeiting studied in connection with technology transfer.

This prompted quite a few chuckles in the room, especially as the Argentinian delegate referred to an article in an international newspaper, which yesterday reported on New York’s effort to fight the sale of counterfeited goods in the city.

Even the delegate of the Ivory Coast heavily criticises a notion he detects in the US proposal: that technology, once transferred to a developing country, will there be used for counterfeiting alone. Though he emphasises that counterfeiting and piracy hurt development, he rejects the idea that developing countries are a hotbed of counterfeiting.

Most people in the room were surprised at the heavy-handedness of the Brazilian statement. Tactically, it is indeed questionable why Brazil would intentionally attack the US so heavily.

If the debate was until now rather non-confrontational, that has certainly changed. It seems logical that now the US will go on and rip apart the Friends of Development proposal, which is next up for discussion. As well as most NGO delegates, EU representatives also admitted to being stunned.

But for now, there is a somewhat eerie quiet, as countries with more middle-of-the-road positions discuss individual points of the US statement. This includes Romania, Australia, and Nigeria. I’m curious when the US will hit back, and if the Brazilian move turns out to be smart in the end.