Just a quickie for now: Ed Felten’s Freedom to tinker has this must-read posting.
It’s a fortunately-narrow example of the apparent goal of Big Media with regard to complete “protection.” For years I’ve been saying that the only way to completely protect against unauthorized copying of copyright material is to preclude all copying–which in digital terms means all use–of any material that doesn’t include an explicit rights grant in a secure certificate. Which, to be sure, makes all existing digital information (whether you created it, it’s public domain, whatever) obsolete: No certificate, no copy.
I believe I was one of the first, if not the first, to make the logical progression in public. I truly don’t see any other way to provide the absolute 100% every-copy-accounted-for security that Big Media calls for. And it looks like they’re after a piece of it in HD-DVD.
