Technological Protection Measures

Posts Tagged ‘Technological Protection Measures’

C-11 ~ Copyright: Fallacy #2

“Wasn’t the whole purpose of copyright to allow artists, musicians, and authors to make a living?”

— @coyo

Well…. No.

Although the privilege of copyright was granted to writers (and later extended to other creators), they had a very limited ability to make copies. A writer could copy the manuscript by hand and sell copies to anyone they met. The printers had the expertise and the control of the expensive equipment, so right from the start the creators were disadvantaged, writers had no choice but to assign this “right” to the distributors.

Although the supposed justification for copyright is to allow creators to make a living, in practice the monopoly allowed the Stationers (or Booksellers, Printers, Publishers &tc.) to generate revenue and control publishing. Copyright succeeded so well for so long by giving the appearance of existing to benefit the creators. Creator support ensures that the market – the audience – honours copyright.

As time went on, creators wound up with ever decreasing power over this supposed privilege, while the distributors — now called publishers — accrued more and greater power, which they used to dictate terms to creators. The problem was that printing was only part of it; the distribution network was the other side of the equation.

More and more of our cultural pursuits have come under the “protection” of copyright. The music recording industry is the worst for creators, as many (most?) musicians were forced to give up their copyright in order to secure a recording contract. For all but the biggest stars, the effect is to thrust most recording artists into indentured servitude. Because of this, more and more musicians choose the independence now possible with affordable recordings and Internet distribution. Before the Internet, CRIA controlled the recording industry in Canada; but 30% of the Canadian Industry was independent by 2010. It isn’t piracy that threatens the legacy distributors, it’s competition.

In today’s Canada we also have a proliferation of copyright collectives which have devolved onto yet another “middleman” with a hand in the copyright till.

The only way for creators to access the funds owing them as a result of the copyright monopoly is by way of copyright collectives, which is why copyright collectives lobby for stronger, longer copyright.

Perhaps initially these collectives actually represented the interests of creators, but judging from the lobbying they engage in today, it seems pretty clear these collectives are primarily interested in their own needs.

Making it appear that copyright benefits the creators is a great way to have creators support

Both the technological revolution ushered in by plummeting copying costs and the Internet threaten the corporations and copyright collectives. Corporate interests want to regain absolute control of their industries while copyright collectives want to regain absolute control of their respective workforce. Both are threatened with obsolescence due to rapid growth of independent creators that threaten the old fashioned business models.

In response to this threat both special interest groups have been lobbying governments around the world to use legislative means to turn back the hands of time. Canada’s draft copyright legislation new copyright legislation will vest absolute power in Technological Protection Measures (TPMs) and give in to these demands with Bill C-11, which is ironically called “The Copyright Modernization Act.”

There is Still Time to Say “No”

[This is the second in my C-11 Copyright Series. Canada’s majority government is poised to pass Bill C-11, the co-called “Copyright Modernization Act” in spite of unprecedented Canadian opposition. The tragedy is most Canadians are unaware of copyright issues and don’t yet realize the growing impact it exerts over our daily lives.

This is the second in my C-11 Copyright Series:

Written by Laurel L. Russwurm

May 31, 2012 at 11:51 am

Posted in copyright

Tagged with "The Copyright Modernization Act", Bill C-11, copyright collective, coyo, CRIA, Independent Creators, Janis Ian, Special Interest Groups, Technological Protection Measures, This Magazine, TPMs, USTR

C-11 ~ It isn’t just a danger to Fair Dealing

C-11 ~ Criminalizes TPM circumvention without Warning Canadians

with 2 comments

Before making it illegal to circumvent TPMs, shouldn’t Canada make it mandatory for manufacturers to warn Canadians that the media and devices we buy use TPMs?

Especially since most Canadians don’t know what TPMs are?

Canadians don’t recognize TPMs.

We think we are doing something wrong when we are prevented from copying digital photos we have taken of our own kids, with our own digital camera, to the hard drive on our own computer. We can’t tell if there is something wrong with the camera, the cable, the flash drive or the computer. It would never occur to us that the software has decided we are infringing copyright — especially since we aren’t. Our ability to copy our own digital content can be prevented accidentally or deliberately with TPMs (Technological Protection Measures).
We don’t know the reason we have so much trouble trying to burn our home movies onto a DVD for Granny is because TPMs prevent the software from working properly. When TPMs (more commonly called “DRM” or “digital locks”) are added to our media and our devices the functionality is often degraded. In other words, to protect the intellectual property from consumer customers, TPMs that may break the thing are often considered an acceptable risk.
We don’t know that our legally purchased DVD won’t play in our own DVD player because it is region encoded for a different region, another deliberate TPM. Consumers accept “region encoding” as a natural limitation of the technology, because we knew it was a physical limitation on VHS and PAL videotape formats. But the reality is that a DVD would play in any machine except that region encoding TPMs artificially prevent consumers from playing the DVDs we purchase on the device of our choosing.
We don’t know that the DVD we legally purchased will not play on the digital device we own if it has a Free Software Operating System (gnu/linux) without first utilizing a player like VLC to circumvent the manufacturer’s TPMs — DRM or “digital locks.” Bill C-11 will make software like VLC illegal because it can be used to circumvent TPMs.
We don’t know that we can’t save the YouTube video letter our grandchild uploaded for us because YouTube’s TPMs prevent this.
We don’t know that when we’ve upgraded the hardware on our computer one too many times, the reason that our “improved” computer suddenly became a brick and simply will not work any more is because TPMs prevent it until we buy a new copy of the software. Bill C-11 will make it possible to prevent consumers from installing free software on our own computers.
We don’t know that the Nineteen Eighty Four eBook we bought from Amazon disappeared from our Kindle because Amazon was simply exercising a is a deliberate TPM (Technical Protection Measure), more commonly called DRM or “digital locks.”
We don’t know that the printer ink cartridge isn’t actually empty, but that the TPM has decided it is. Sometimes because we have made a certain number of copies, or maybe because there is a TPM which tells the printer that the cartridge can no longer be used after a certain date. So some printer cartridges can’t be refilled without resetting that date – which constitutes circumventing TPMs.
We don’t know our scanner isn’t scanning those photographs because they have been “copy protected” with TPMs. Even though the photographer has (a) died (b) gone out of business or (c) long ago deleted the content from their drives. Further, we don’t realize that if we do find a way to scan the only copy of that milestone photograph of our loved one we will be circumventing TPMs, which will be illegal once Bill C-11 passes into law.

Not all TPMs are digital.

Some devices are assembled using specialty screws that can’t be turned with standard screw drivers. So you must possess the proprietary screwdrivers just to open it up. With Bill C-11 these screw drivers can be considered TPM circumvention devices, which will become illegal if Bill C-11 passes. Computer recycling depots, AV departments in schools and libraries, and of course repair shops across Canada will have to be very careful not to repair or refurbish any device with TPMs. It will be safer to throw many goods out rather than risking breaking the law to make repairs.

The Copyright symbol is a TPM. Overlaying the words “Do Not Copy” or some other kind of watermark on an image is another kind of TPM. Very often both of these TPMs are used in the commission of copyfraud. Creative work that was never “protected by copyright” (like the works of Shakespeare) or that have already entered the public domain (like the works of Oscar Wilde) are not subject to copyright. Anyone can use them, because the monopoly has expired. But there are a very large number of websites set up to sell copies of public domain art etc that claim copyright to which they have no right.

If copyright infringement is theft from the copyright holder, then copyfraud is theft from the public. Making copyfraud an offence would actually modernize Canadian copyright law, but as it stands, Bill C-11 will actually protect copyfraud, at the expense of Canadians.

TPMs effectively allow machines authority over human behaviour, and there is no appeal. How do you convince the hardware or software that it is in error?

No one tells us these things even have TPMs.

A great many of the problems we currently experience with our digital media and devices are caused by TPMs/DRM or “digital locks.”

Manufacturers place Technical Protection Measures on our media and devices in order to control our use of these things we own. They don’t want to draw attention to this; if they did, consumers might choose not to purchase the goods. As you can see from the examples shown, TPMs are capable of far exceeding “copy protection” and in many cases TPMs are currently employed to artificially impair the media or device to force consumers to upgrade or buy a new one. Which sounds rather like fraud to me.

What most consumers see is that something is broken. Some of us will take the digital goods back to the retailer, who will do their job and sell us a new one. Never mind that adding material that might be repaired but for Bill C-11 — perfectly good digital equipment — to our landfills is hardly in the public good.

Before Bill C-11, if the TPMs manufacturers added broke the goods we purchased, we could repair them. If the TPMs prevented us from accessing media that we were legally entitled to access, we could circumvent them. Or get someone who knew how to circumvent or repair them for us. Bill C-11 will make this illegal.

You can’t see most TPMs with the naked eye, so we can’t even tell if it is there because most TPMs are hidden. Which is why:

Bill C-11 Must Add Warning Labels

Citizens must be told:

that TPMs are present, and
what they do

Citizens can not be reasonably expected to follow the digital lock provisions of Bill C-11 without the inclusion of mandatory warning labels informing/explaining TPMs to consumers on “protected” media, including:

movies,
music,
games,
software,
eBooks,
images,
services,
etc.

and on “protected” digital devices such as:

Computers,
DVD players,
CD players,
game systems,
eReaders,
cell phones,
cameras,
digital drives,
scanners,
etc.

C-11 criminalizes circumvention of TPMs we don’t know are there

If Bill C-11 is passed without also mandating manufacturer warnings that inform consumers of the existence and parameters of the TPMs that we may not legally circumvent simply in trying to make our own digital media and devices work,

Bill C-11 will make all Canadians into inadvertent criminals

There is still a tiny bit of time left to contact our MPs and let them know we don’t want them to pass this Bill C-11 as it is There is still time to say “No”

Written by Laurel L. Russwurm

May 16, 2012 at 5:43 pm

C-11 ~ What are TPMs anyway?

with 6 comments

The majority of those Canadians who took my unscientific poll understand (or think they understand) what DRM is.

Yet very few taking my poll had any idea what TPMs are.

Friday May 4th was the International Day Against DRM. Although Canada has been talking about changing copyright law for well over a decade, DRM (Digital Rights Management, or Digital Restrictions Management) isn’t even mentioned in Bill C-11, the draft legislation currently before parliament.

Interestingly enough, many Americans are just as confused by the acronym TPMs as Canadians are, because, especially in the tech sector, TPM is more often an acronym for Trusted Platform Module.

If you search for “Technical Protections Measures” on Wikipedia, you will be redirected to the “Copy Protection” page. And oddly, although people talk about “Technical Protection Measures” the language in Bill C-11 is actually “Technological protection measures.”

Wikipedia will tell you that there is no “Technological Protection Measures” page, but provides a list of search results. Unsurprisingly, the first on the list is the Digital Rights Management page, which is appropriate since “Technical Protections Measures” or TPMs are pretty interchangeable with DRM.

Curiously, DRM is not mentioned in the American Digital Millenium Copyright Act either. The phrase “technological measures” is used to describe DRM in that bit of legislation.

`Sec. 1201. Circumvention of copyright protection systems …
(3) As used in this subsection–

`(A) to `circumvent a technological measure’ means to descramble a scrambled work, to decrypt an encrypted work, or otherwise to avoid, bypass, remove, deactivate, or impair a technological measure, without the authority of the copyright owner; and

`(B) a technological measure `effectively controls access to a work’ if the measure, in the ordinary course of its operation, requires the application of information, or a process or a treatment, with the authority of the copyright owner, to gain access to the work.

— Digital Millenium Copyright Act

Bill C-11 defines TPMs thus:

“technological protection measure” means any effective technology, device or component that, in the ordinary course of its operation,

(a) controls access to a work, to a perform- er’s performance fixed in a sound recording or to a sound recording and whose use is authorized by the copyright owner; or

(b) restricts the doing — with respect to a work, to a performer’s performance fixed in a sound recording or to a sound recording — of any act referred to in section 3, 15 or 18 and any act for which remuneration is payable under section 19.

— Bill C-11

Short answer: TPM is Bill C-11 legal language for DRM.

If Bill C-11 becomes law as written, it will become illegal to circumvent DRM, even if the DRM is “protecting” work that does not infringe copyright. Work that is in the public domain. Work that qualifies as fair dealing. Work that is licensed to share. Work that doesn’t infringe copyright.