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FairUse4WM breaks Microsoft DRM again

By | July 17, 2007, 5:00am PDT

Summary: A hacker “Divine Tao” has released a newer version of FairUse4WM that appears to have ripped Windows Media DRM wide open. It is interesting to note that “Divine Tao” is an anagram of the original author of FairUse4WM going by the name of “Viodentia”. This latest release posted on Doom9 forums seems to [...]

A hacker “Divine Tao” has released a newer version of FairUse4WM that appears to have ripped Windows Media DRM wide open. It is interesting to note that “Divine Tao” is an anagram of the original author of FairUse4WM going by the name of “Viodentia”. This latest release posted on Doom9 forums seems to work on Windows Media audio and video files on Windows XP or Vista so all those conspiracy theories about Vista DRM were wrong.

Unlike the Apple FairPlay cracks which relies on the capturing of a decoded audio stream, this literally strips out the DRM in the file within milliseconds per file with zero degradation to the digital content. The significance of this crack is that a lot of Microsoft’s customers use the content subscription model which means someone could theoretically download thousands of songs and unlock all of them during just the trial period. When FairUse4WM was released last year, Microsoft rushed out a patch in just three days but was immediately countered by a patched version of FairUse4WM. It will be interesting to see how Microsoft responds to this latest attack and how “Divine Tao” counters.

There has never been a DRM scheme devised that couldn’t be cracked and any attempt to silence the crack or information on cracking is met with a massive user revolt as Digg found out. When DRM finally dies - at least for large-volume low-margin content - it will die because of the lack of ROI (Return On Investment) and not because of all the protest and conspiracy theories about DRM.

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Topics

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George Ou

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?page_id=557

Biography

George Ou

George Ou, a former ZDNet blogger, is an IT consultant specializing in Servers, Microsoft, Cisco, Switches, Routers, Firewalls, IDS, VPN, Wireless LAN, Security, and IT infrastructure and architecture.

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"have often worked"
Ole Man 22nd Jul 2007
Wooooooooooow! What reliability. How often
have they worked? A coupla dozen times?

You mean to say all them thousands of people
who have been griping about drivers in Vista
are just liars? And everybody should just
take your word for it? Because XP
drivers "have often worked" for you?
View in thread
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So we need to stop buying DRM Music?
nucrash 17th Jul 2007
Does that mean we should pirate everything, or only buy items that don't have any DRM like some of the Apple iTunes. Even though they are watermarked with sales info, they are still free of DRM.
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I said no such thing
georgeou 17th Jul 2007
I said DRM didn't have ROI. I didn't say you should buy or not buy DRMed content or products that implement DRM.

If anything, this seems to be the kind of DRM you can easily remove after you buy the content so it gives you the freedom of doing anything you want with the music.
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OT--George, how is your name pronounced
bmgoodman 17th Jul 2007
George, when I want to talk with coworkers about topics you've written about, I am unsure how to pronounce your last name. Is it like "ow", "woo", "ooo", or something else. Thanks.
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Say it with silent U. As in Oh.
georgeou 17th Jul 2007
Say it with silent U as in Oh. It's the Chinese pronunciation and it?s spelled with the character for Ocean or Europe.
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Thanks
bmgoodman 17th Jul 2007
I hate to mispronounce peoples' names! Funny that I never considered "Oh" in all my guesses!
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Different countries use different pronunciation rules
georgeou 17th Jul 2007
Different countries use different pronunciation rules. For example, the Brazilians (or Portuguese) pronounce Roger as Hoger. It just so happens the Chinese pronounce Ou as Oh in their new phonetic system that they implemented in the last couple of decades to make Chinese compatible with the western alphabet.

Don't worry though, everyone botches my name. I would say 95% of the time people botch it until I tell them the correct pronunciation. It makes me wonder if my parents made the right choice in using the Chinese spelling rather than the English spelling.
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Not so quick George ...
MisterMiester 17th Jul 2007
If anything, this seems to be the kind of DRM you can easily remove after you buy the content so it gives you the freedom of doing anything you want with the music.

According to the DMCA it's not freedom, but a liability to strip the DRM punishable by fines/prison. The entire issue of DRM is not to protect the music itself since it can be easily circumvented, but allows the industry to CYA so enforcement of the DMCA can take place.

It creates a cloud over everyone's head that circumvention is illegal. This is just typical of the fear of criminal wrong doing that is applied unjustly in the United States on a daily basis, but that's another topic for discussion. happy
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They might go after you for pirating stuff
georgeou 17th Jul 2007
They might go after you for pirating stuff, no one is going to go after you for stripping DRM from content that you actually purchased.
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DVD Jon and 2600
Edward Meyers 22nd Jul 2007
DVD Jon wrote DeCSS so he could play the movies he owned on Linux and they sure as snot went after him - twice no less.

Then they went after 2600 for witting about DeCSS.

There are two examples.
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Watch yourself George.
Letophoro 17th Jul 2007
"If anything, this seems to be the kind of DRM you can easily remove after you buy the content so it gives you the freedom of doing anything you want with the music."

You don't want to appear to be urging others to strip the DRM from DRM-laden content. That would be another criminal act on your part, since inciting others to commit criminal acts is itself a criminal act.
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Fair use is not a crime
georgeou 17th Jul 2007
They might go after you for pirating stuff, no one is going to go after you for stripping DRM from content that you actually purchased. There are provisions for fair use in the DCMA.

I would never tell people to steal content or condone it in any way. But exercising your right to fair use is perfectly legitimate and I truly doubt the RIAA or MPAA wants to test this in the courts by trying to sue someone for stripping DRM for personal use on content they own.
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Doctrine of Fair Use Not Applicable ...
MisterMiester 17th Jul 2007
There are provisions for fair use in the DCMA.

There are exceptions for security testing purposes, certain educations uses and a few others narrow descriptions, six in total, but as far as stripping the DRM there are NO PROVISIONS in the DMCA for exception under the doctrine of fair use. Don't believe me? Read the summary for yourself:

http://www.copyright.gov/legislation/dmca.pdf

Until the DMCA is tested in court against the doctrine of fair use, conflicting statues, exceptions not listed in the DMCA are violations which are subject to fines and/or imprisonment.
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Fair Use does not apply.
Letophoro 17th Jul 2007
In a nutshell: Under the DMCA, the stripping of DRM simply for the purposes of an archival backup that would otherwise be fair use under copyright law is illegal.

I was not saying that you were implying that others should commit copyright infringement. Copyright infringement BTW is not the same as stealing content. I was simply saying that if you tell others to strip the DRM, which is an illegal act, you could conceivably be charged with inducing others to commit a criminal act.

"I truly doubt the RIAA or MPAA wants to test this in the courts by trying to sue someone for stripping DRM for personal use on content they own."

Given their recent behavior, I wouldn't count on that.
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Nonsense, speech is not illegal
georgeou 17th Jul 2007
"I was simply saying that if you tell others to strip the DRM, which is an illegal act"

Nonsense, speech is not illegal. Wearing the decryption key on your T-Shirt for cracking HD DVD code is not illegal. The RIAA and MPAA would be crazy to try and prosecute someone for that.
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Charles Manson would disagree.
Letophoro 18th Jul 2007
"Nonsense, speech is not illegal."

Uh-huh, try this then: Walk into a crowded movie theater and yell "Fire!!!" Alternatively, you can try inciting a riot. After you post bail, you can do a blog about how speech isn't illegal. Charlie Manson didn't kill anyone - he simply told others to do it. By your logic, Charlie's an innocent man doing time for the crimes committed by others.

"Wearing the decryption key on your T-Shirt for cracking HD DVD code is not illegal. The RIAA and MPAA would be crazy to try and prosecute someone for that."

Wearing a decryption key is not the same as telling others to do something. And the AACS-LA crew tried to claim copyright over their keys, which if they are upheld would make wearing the key illegal under copyright law.
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Re: Nonsense, speech is not illegal
none none 21st Jul 2007
Wearing the decryption key on your T-Shirt for cracking HD DVD code is not illegal. The RIAA and MPAA would be crazy to try and prosecute someone for that.

I wouldn't be so sure that wearing the code on your T-shirt isn't illegal. It wouldn't be appropriate for the *AA to prosecute the crime in any case.

They would do what Adobe did with Sklyarov: sic the FBI on the "criminal" then disavow the subsequent prosecution.



happy
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It would help though
TripleII-21189418044173169409978279405827 17th Jul 2007
George said it correctly, DRM on music will die. There is no value, it is a pure drain on any revenue. The sooner the industry is forced to re-invent itself, the better. It would happen quicker if people refused to purchase DRMed wares.

TripleII
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ROI is the killer for sure
voska 17th Jul 2007
I've always said that will kill DRM. DRM salesmen are snakeoil salesmen. Even Microsoft has had people admit DRM won't work to secure content. The thing with Microsoft is if they will create what people want not what they need. Seeing as they can't provide what customers need they are more than willing to take money giving them what they want knowing full well it won't do what they need. This isn't an attack on Microsoft just pointing out a common business practice. Supply customers wants is very profitable. Supply a customers needs can be profitable but the problem is customers often don't know what they need but know wha they want.

So all the companies selling DRM solutions know that their solution will fail. The gamble is how long it takes to fail and how much profit they can rake in before it does. At some point the content people will realize that they can't keep buying DRM scheme after DRM scheme only to find it does nothing in the long run, no ROI.
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Microsoft has no choice but to offer DRM
georgeou 17th Jul 2007
Microsoft has no choice but to offer DRM to the RIAA and MPAA or else they won't permit their content to play on Windows. DRM is the price of admission. This is why I will buy a monitor with HDMI and HDCP so that I can play HD-DVD or Blu-ray content. I don't like it but that's life. That doesn't mean that Windows Vista prevents you from using non-DRM content or even strip DRM.

So in a sense, including DRM in Windows simply pacifies the RIAA and MPAA so that they will publish content for Windows, but it's really a meaningless protection.

Where I do think DRM is useful is for very low-volume content like proprietary white papers and E-Books. This is for the little guys who depend on getting paid for their content. No it doesn?t stop people from stealing it if they really want to have it, but it?s enough to make reputable people and companies pay for it. In general you?ll have a hard time finding low-volume content being pirated and it?s only the popular stuff that gets seeded. Large-volume content like music needs to figure out a new business model where they exploit the popularity of the content for targeted marketing. What they need to do is figure out how to monetize all those viewers and listeners.
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I don't buy that
John L. Ries 17th Jul 2007
If MS had said "no", then either the MPAA or RIAA would have had to accomodate them, or the studios and record companies would have had to tell their customers that high definition DVDs could not be played on a Windows PC (not something they would have wanted to say, I'm sure).

MS should have told them where to go; would have saved all manner of Vista-related headaches.
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It was to be win-win
TripleII-21189418044173169409978279405827 17th Jul 2007
MS wanted to be the only HD PC platform, so willingly accomodated the MPAA. You are right, they could have told them to shove it, and the MPAA would have relented. It isn't like they make money by NOT selling movies to people who refuse to play by their rules, lol.

Anyway, if you own HD DVDs (OWN THEM, not downloaded) but don't have the HDMI or compliant video card or Vista XYZ or whatever, there is a program out there that lets you watch what you bought the way you want, you know, kind of like in a fair use way.

TripleII
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Tell it to fox
notsofast 18th Jul 2007
who basically pulled all of their BD releases when it's DRM was broken.

If you don't like DRM, then don't buy DRM content. Buy CDs. Stick with DVDs that you can strip the DRM off of.

Movies have had copy protection for over 20 years, and it's not going away.

And frankly, once they enable managed copies to media servers, everyone should be set. The only other thing that they should do is provide free (or for shipping cost) replacements of damaged disks.

Why don't you b*tch about Pioneer, Samsung, LG, Yamaha and Denon for supporting DRM?
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Do you actually read my posts?
John L. Ries 18th Jul 2007
I wasn't complaining about MS (in this case); was merely responding to George's patently false contention (which appears to be MS party line) that MS had no choice but to go along with the DRM scheme demanded by the MPAA and RIAA.

MS did and does have a choice; my belief is that they push DRM for their own reasons, and that the studios and record companies are allies with MS in a common cause, rather than potential adversaries to be appeased.
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FairUse4WM breaks Microsoft DRM again...
jacarter3 17th Jul 2007
Actually it only breaks, removes, DRM from content. This has very little, if anything, to do with the DRM code and methods embedded in Vista. So how does this dispel the "conspiracy theory" about Vista DRM and how it can be potentially used to frustrate the play back of non-DRM content?

Answer, absolutely nothing. In fact if MS DRM content can be stripped of DRM, then MS has even greater, in fact much greater, incentive to limit non-DRM content because it could be altered, originally DRM content. This gives MS the need and urgency to check non-DRM content for signatures that indicate it was never DRM, or has a valid license, or a verifiable source that is legitimate. Failing these checks, Vista may well refuse to play non DRM files after some "critical" update or perhaps SP1.

George, I really think that your example as to why Vista DRM is not a very powerful strategy to control users and their access to content was very poorly chosen. Further, after going back to your linked blog post, I am even more convinced that the DRM conspiracy exists and will be moving in even more draconian directions soon. The only force, factor that will slow this process is the slow adoption of Vista. But as Vista gains traction in the mass market, things will get worse and worse giving another reason to shun Vista altogether.
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That was hilarious!!!
NonZealot 17th Jul 2007
Failing these checks, Vista may well refuse to play non DRM files after some "critical" update or perhaps SP1.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!! Please, tell us some more of your theories! I need another laugh!!! happy Seriously, how do you think up this stuff? Next you will be telling us how Windows will send electrical spikes down the USB cable whenever it detects that you've plugged in an iPod! HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
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But you're not
jacarter3 17th Jul 2007
If you have nothing of substance to say, then don't bother. In any event, I would kindly ask you to please stop responding to my posts.
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In fairness
notsofast 18th Jul 2007
your post was nothing but FUD.
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What fairness?
jacarter3 20th Jul 2007
I only proposed what is potentially possible and still remains a distinct possibility despite your opinion otherwise. NZ's response in no way deals with that possibility or proposes any thing of interest regarding that. How is that something that you need to respond to? Why do you feel some need to weigh into my response to someone else and who really cares how you care to label my posts?

My opinion is my own and based on matters clearly beyond your limited comprehension or experience.

In all fairness, your post is completely without relevance or context. You may also please stop responding to my posts unless you wish to relate your reasoning and not just label something as a bigot would.
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Is this an exercise of listing what is possible?
NonZealot 20th Jul 2007
I only proposed what is potentially possible and still remains a distinct possibility despite your opinion otherwise.

I never said that what you wrote wasn't possible, I just think it is silly to say that because something is possible, that it is at all likely to happen. It is possible that Apple's next update will delete all your .mp3 files and will format the disk if you are using a PPC Mac. That is possible, right? It doesn't mean that anyone who isn't a serious conspiracy nut thinks it is at all realistic.

You may also please stop responding to my posts unless you wish to relate your reasoning and not just label something as a bigot would.

So is that it then? Anyone who disagrees with your publicly posted opinion is not allowed to publicly post a response? You've told me off, you've told notsofast off, when are you going to tell Resuna to stop replying to your posts?

Nobody reputable claimed that Vista would prevent you
from playing non-DRMed content. that's as impossible a goal as implementing uncrackable DRM.

Here is someone who hates Vista's DRM and even she thinks that your "theory" is ridiculous.
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Vista DRM
Salman Pak 17th Jul 2007
I've read several posts from you (an others) going on about how Vista has DRM all through it. I'm running Vista and can rip CD's and DVD's, play Divx movies, run bittorrent and nntp clients, listen to my MP3 collection and everything else I was doing on my old XP box. In fact I'm running all the same applications for the above that I've always used; they all run under Vista just fine.

I don't see a 'DRM conspiracy' from Microsoft. In fact the only DRM conspiracy I see is the FUD being spread by people such as yourself who don't run Vista and don't appear to have any idea what they're talking about.
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Good for you!
jacarter3 17th Jul 2007
Personally I have 10 Vista Business upgrade licenses that go with my 10 XP Pro licenses. But I won't upgrade to Vista. That's my choice, not yours.

If you can't read about or refuse to acknowledge the Media Foundation Protected Pipeline [EXE] layer that runs every time any audio or video content is played in Vista, that's your choice too.

If you can't see the potential for MS to tighten the restrictions in Vista to play your files because they can't secure their own DRM content, that's your choice.

So how long have you been buying and using MS products? For me it's over 2 decades (21 years). I have beta tested the first three versions of NT. I am also a MS Partner (many years there too). I have watched and personally experienced all of the things that MS has done over almost the entire history of the company.

I don't need to install Vista to read about other people's experience with it and to know what it's about. I don't have to even search to find out about its major shortcomings, some of which are even discussed on MS own web forums. I don't have the time to play with Vista when XP Pro does everything I need anyway. And I especially don't need need to prove anything to you.

But maybe you can enlighten me. Why did you move to Vista just to "rip CD's and DVD's, play Divx movies, run bittorrent and nntp clients, listen to my MP3 collection and everything else I was doing on my old XP box" when you could easily do this on the XP box without paying for new hardware and software?

Also, you do know that ripping, or DeCSS'ing, DVD content is illegal don't you? In spite of fair use, it's illegal to frustrate DRM or unencrypt copyrighted material because of the DCMA. You probably won't be caught or fined but it's still against what the major content companies think you should do.

Perhaps MS does need to block non DRM content because of criminals like yourself. Thanks for ruining it for the rest of us. It's people like you that motivate the collusion of MS and the content owners to make it more difficult for everyone.
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Re: DCMA
Salman Pak 17th Jul 2007
Good thing I don't live in the United States!
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Good for you again and again
jacarter3 17th Jul 2007
As I posted to some other smug non US citizen:

"It's just way too bad that MS is a US based company and just may do everything they can to enforce US law in your wonderful country. That's the point of my post. It may not matter what your law says if MS controls your PC. Get it?

Probably not. MS is much more concerned with the large US companies that hold content than little foreign users that will keep defending them anyway. The law doesn't matter or even apply to you but your actions matter to MS et al. Get it yet?

But thanks for paying twice what I would have to pay to license Vista just to "rip CD's and DVD's, play Divx movies, run bittorrent and nntp clients, listen to my MP3 collection and everything else I was doing on my old XP box." It's foolish people that waste so much money for nothing but thanks to you the stock market is skying. Please keep sending us money. My retirement accounts thank you too.
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DCMA has fair use provisions for ripping
georgeou 17th Jul 2007
DCMA has fair use provisions for ripping so you're safe in the US. You might see the RIAA for going after people who illegally download music, but you're not going to see the RIAA or MPAA go after people for stripping DRM from content they paid for.
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George, that's your opinion only
jacarter3 17th Jul 2007
If it were legal to rip DVDs and back them up, then we could legally buy software to do that. I don't believe or respect your opion in this matter. Why don't you send a memo to Sony America, Universal, Disney, and the other movie houses telling them that you regularly do this and see how they respond?

Go on ahead if you think it's so legal...
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It's illegal to sell the software, but it isn't illegal to use it.
georgeou 17th Jul 2007
It's illegal to sell the software, but it isn't illegal to use it. It's only illegal to produce the software that circumvents DCMA. It is not illegal to use that software. It might be a grey area in the DCMA's fair use section but I'll bet you that the MPAA and RIAA aren't eager to test that in court. They also don't need the negative PR for suing their own customers who paid for their content.
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Re: It's illegal to sell the software, but it isn't illegal to use it.
none none 21st Jul 2007
It might be a grey area in the DCMA's fair use section...

It's not a gray area, it's a Catch-22. Take excerpting a DVD for fair use purposes - It's legal to use the content but it's illegal for someone to furnish you the software to excerpt and it's illegal for you to manufacture your own. There's no way to exercise your right to excerpt without breaking some other law. That's the situation we have.



I'll bet you that the MPAA and RIAA aren't eager to test that in court. They also don't need the negative PR for suing their own customers...

They don't have any standing to sue. Circumvention isn't necessarily copyright infringement. I could mod my DVD player to dishonor region coding, for example, and it would be a crime. I don't need to be within a mile of copyrighted content, so which studio would sue?

And even after I put a paid-for DVD into the player and viewed it, there's still no standing to sue for copyright infringment. Region coding is not among the exclusive rights copyright confers.

The reason it's a crime is to prevent someone from making a business out of modding DVD players, another unacceptable, in my opinion, crime invented to prevent us from resisting corporate business models.



happy
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You're only half right
notsofast 18th Jul 2007
Yes there's a fair use provision. However, as I recall, it is illegal to circumvent DRM, so while Fair use is still allowed, in order to exercise that right, you must break the law.

The MPAA/RIAA are unlikely to go after anyone for stripping DRM from copies they bought, but they could and the law is currently on their side.
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Vista DRM i have to agree Salman Pak i am doing the same stuff on vista
SO.CAL Guy 17th Jul 2007
Vista DRM i have to agree Salman Pak i am doing the same stuff on vista that i did on XP.

i buy a dvd the first thing i do is get out my decrypting software rip it keep a copy in divx and then make a new DVD so i can put the original up and use the burnt copy.

i use all my software some older software that can't activate any more because the company will not reactivate it because they said i have activated it to many times for there taste. "even though i bought the software"

so i download a crack off of bit-torrent to use with the software i paid for. i've never had to do this with Microsoft. they are more than happy to reactvate my copy of windows if needed.

so all this FUD about vista locking down because you have something that does not pass the DRM Nazi Code Test is just that FUD
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Another scoff-law agrees that Vista is soooo great
jacarter3 17th Jul 2007
"i buy a dvd the first thing i do is get out my decrypting software rip it"

So, you don't know that ripping, or DeCSS'ing, DVD content is illegal either, do you? It's been discussed a great deal. In spite of "fair use", it's illegal to frustrate DRM or unencrypt copyrighted material because of the DCMA. You probably won't be caught or fined either but it's still against the letter of the law and what the major content companies and copyright holders allow you to do.

So we have even more reason to understand that MS does need to block non DRM content because of criminals like yourself and, I guess, a lot of others like Salman. Thank you, too, for ruining it for the rest of us. It's people like your ilk that create a great deal of motivation and urgency for collusion of MS and the content owners to make it more difficult for honest folks that don't break the law.
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Another American that thinks US laws cover every country in the world
Skyhawk_z 17th Jul 2007
All this talk about the DMCA is worthless outside the US. All my friends outside the US are ripping DVDs including BlueRay and HD-DVD with impunity and laughing at us all. If the content publishers were not so greedy and charged a decent price there would never be a need for DRM. People have to remember that the law of the US STOPS at the border and that includes the DMCA.
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Good for you too!
jacarter3 17th Jul 2007
It's just way too bad that MS is a US based company and just may do everything they can to enforce US law in your wonderful country. That's the point of my post. It may not matter what your law says if MS controls your PC. Get it?

And please stay in your in your homeland; we have way too many people with your pleasant attitude here already.
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Again, stripping DRM for content you own is covered by Fair Use
georgeou 17th Jul 2007
Again, stripping DRM for content you own is covered by Fair Use in the USA.
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I'm no lawyer but...
brittonv 18th Jul 2007
"Illegal to circumvent a technical measure copyright owners use to control access to their works"
http://www.stedwards.edu/copyright/CopyrightLaws.html

By stripping DRM from media are you not violating that?
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It most certainly is not
Edward Meyers 22nd Jul 2007
The fact that you honestly believe this shows that you have 0 understanding of the issue. Several issues here and the courts already answered them in two cases;

Both the 2600 DeCSS case and the 321 studios case.

To begin with DeCSS is not required to copy movies. It's main function is to play movies on computers that lack CSS as part of their DVD playback software(At the time, and even still today, Linux/Unix-Like OSes). 2600 did not host the DeCSS but rather provided the URL to the code and was sued for doing so. So in fact telling people where to find anti-circumvention tools or giving out the code is in fact illegal using the precedent that was set in this case. Go read the decisions and court papers if you think otherwise http://www.eff.org/IP/Video/MPAA_DVD_cases/ .

In the 321 studio case, 321 studios created software that allowed you to strip the encryption off your own DVD and it also did watermark it. 321 studios had a reward program where as you could turn in any video that you found on the internet, for cash, created with their software so they could in turn have the poster prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

The court ruled that consumers do not have a right to remove the encryption of their own DVDs, even if the work was in public domain, and that 321 studios violated the DMCA by offering their software. The details of this case can be found here http://www.eff.org/IP/DMCA/MGM_v_321Studios/

Finally the reasoning and goals of the DMCA and DRM are clearly expressed in public congressional hearings http://www.kcoyle.net/testimony.html .

The goals were not only to stop "piracy" but rather to;

1. Destroy interlibrary loans
2. Destroy Doctrine of first sale
3. Destroy fair use
4. Give copyright holders control of all uses of copyrighted material not just the uses/activities copyright grants them
5. Destroy copyright law by allowing the author, and not congress, the ability to enforce any terms they wish through technical measures which would be illegal to circumvent... (Replace copyright law with one-sided contracts which they call "licenses")

This is all documented BTW.
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The biggest example is that Vista doesn't prevent you from playing non-DRM
georgeou 17th Jul 2007
The biggest example is that Vista doesn't prevent you from playing non-DRM content. That's the big thing that busts all the conspiracy theories that Vista locks you in to DRM.
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Yet
jacarter3 17th Jul 2007
But with people like you that believe you can rip whatever content you think you "own," it may only be a matter of time. That's my point. Can't you read?

Basically your supposed "existence proof" in this reply has no bearing on what may or may not occur in the future. And your claim that DRM content can be broken has nothing to do with Vista's DRM mechanisms but it is tantamount to provoking more restrictive content management to combat the ignorance of the law.

Answer this one, how is it different to rip a DVD and watch it in two places in your home simultaneously, which you claim is "fair use," compared to hacking Windows activation to run Vista on two PCs at the same time? Both involve modifying copyright information and decoding encryption techniques. I am willing to bet that some of these cracks for Vista are available or will be. Why are DVDs fair game but not the Windows OS?
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That was my original point
Salman Pak 17th Jul 2007
My original point in my earlier post was just that. FUD-meisters like jcarter would have you believe that Vista was DRM'd up to the point that you couldn't even listen to an MP3. I was only pointing out that there was nothing in Vista the prevented me from doing anything with my PC that wasn't possible under XP.
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Do you really believe that?
Resuna 18th Jul 2007
"The biggest example is that Vista doesn't prevent you from playing non-DRM
content. That's the big thing that busts all the conspiracy theories that Vista locks
you in to DRM."

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, George?

That makes no sense at all. Nobody reputable claimed that Vista would prevent you
from playing non-DRMed content. that's as impossible a goal as implementing
uncrackable DRM. What the claim is... is that Vista's DRM support makes Vista a
less reliable and efficient OS, that it limits people's ability to legitimately use THEIR
computers as they want, and that it DOESN'T make DRM any more effective as a
mechanism to prevent widespread copyright violations.

If anything, this event *supports* the criticisms of Vista, rather than undermining
them.
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What does it prevent you from doing?
NonZealot 18th Jul 2007
that it limits people's ability to legitimately use THEIR
computers as they want

You've made this claim, now back it up with specifics. What can't you do with Vista because of its HDCP support that you could do in XP? Give me a specific task and then back it up with personal experience or a link to someone with personal experience.

The only thing Vista prevents you from doing is playing back HDCP protected content at full resolution with full audio support unless you have the required hardware but no other OS in the world allows you to do that either so how is Vista preventing you from doing something that is possible on other OSs?
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"have often worked"
Ole Man 22nd Jul 2007
Wooooooooooow! What reliability. How often
have they worked? A coupla dozen times?

You mean to say all them thousands of people
who have been griping about drivers in Vista
are just liars? And everybody should just
take your word for it? Because XP
drivers "have often worked" for you?

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