“The Longest Suicide Note in History†How Vista cowtows to RIAA & MPAA and how you lose your ‘fair use’ rights
Posted by: Wm D in Actual News, TechThat's Peter Gutmann's assessment of Microsoft Vista in his technical, economic and performance analysis of the compromises in Vista. This document is a must-read if you are interested in how the performance and stability of the system for which you paid hard-earned cash will be adversely affected. These issues all stem from demands by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) to prevent the copying of HD-DVD, Blu-Ray, and other content on personal computers, even for fair use backup. A great article written several years ago on this development sits on the Freedom to Tinker blog. The Electronic Frontier Foundation also has an excellent analysis of this cozy and far-reaching relationship here. Lest you think that this is just paranoid hype, read Microsoft's own Output Content Protection and Windows Vista page and accompanying white paper for yourself.
Quoted directly from the Microsoft link above, here are the critical parts of OCP:
- • Protected Video Path – Output Protection Management (PVP-OPM) makes sure that the PC's video outputs have the required protection or that they are turned off if such protection is not available.
• Protected Video Path – User-Accessible Bus (PVP-UAB) provides encryption of premium content as it passes over the PCI Express (PCIe) bus to the graphics adapter. This is required when the content owner's policy regards the PCIe bus as a user-accessible bus.
• Protected User Mode Audio (PUMA) is the new User Mode Audio (UMA) engine in the Windows Vista Protected Environment that provides a safer environment for audio playback, as well as checking that the enabled outputs are consistent with what the content allows.
• Protected Audio Path (PAP) is a future initiative under investigation for how to provide encryption of audio over user accessible buses.
For the full story see: http://www.mobiletechreview.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Board=tankerbobblog&Number=26899
Wow, excellent post. Thank you for putting this together. Microsoft definitely has it wrong here. Honestly, it is sad to see Microsoft go this route as they could be leading the charge against this ridiculous obsession with copyright protection.
Funny that I was reading this article before hoping over here! http://www.ft.com/cms/s/3109938c-cb61-11db-b436-000b5df10621.html