Strategies and Tactics in the
Battle Over Digital IP
Randall Davis
MIT Computer Science and AI Lab
Outline
• The Digital Dilemma in hindsight
– Origins of the problem
– The role of culture and sociology
– Business models
• Looking Forward
– Trusted computing and the possible
irrelevance of copyright
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Origins of the Problem
• Technology advanced
• digital information
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effect on reproduction
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Origins of the Problem
• Technology advanced
• digital information
• networks
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effect on reproduction
effect on distribution
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Origins of the Problem
• Technology advanced
• digital information
• networks
• the Web
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effect on reproduction
effect on distribution
effect on publication
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Origins of the Problem
• Technology advanced
• digital information
• networks
• the Web
effect on reproduction
effect on distribution
effect on publication
Erosion of the natural barriers to infringement
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Origins of the Problem
• Technology advanced
• digital information
• networks
• the Web
effect on reproduction
effect on distribution
effect on publication
Erosion of the natural barriers to infringement
The problem is fundamental.
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Origins of the Problem
• The technology became a part of everyday
life
– IP became increasingly concerned with private
behavior
– The RIAA lawsuits
• Culture matters
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Culture Matters
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Culture Matters
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New Business Models
• Music as the test case
• The idea is beginning to sink in
– "We could be 100 percent correct morally and legally
that it is wrong to trade copyrighted files, but from a
business standpoint it doesn't matter," said Larry
Kenswil, president of the eLabs division of Universal.
"We need to construct legal alternatives.” (NYT
7/1/02)
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New Business Models
• Difficulties remain
– Everyone tells us to get a new business model
but no one has told us what it is," said Doug
Morris, the chairman of Universal. (NYT 7/1/02)
– "The hardest thing for the music industry to
wrap its head around is how do we compete
against free, even though you know intuitively
that free isn't what's supposed to be happening,"
said Ted Cohen, vice president for new media at
EMI. (NYT 7/1/02)
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Competing Against Free
• Five answers
1
etc.
2
3
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Selling songs for 99 cents online gives the labels about
the same profit they make per track on a CD, industry
executives said. (NYT 7/1/02)
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Competing Against Free
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5
Reconceptualize the product:
Madonna, and porn, to the rescue
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Looking Forward
• Can we negotiate a pathway between the
claims of copyright owners and the values
associated with open computers and open
computer networks?
• Almost surely not, if
–
code is replaced by code
– economics outweighs policy
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The New Element
• Trusted Computing
– aka Palladium/TCG/NGSCB/Longhorn
• The fundamental difficulty: open systems
– open hardware, open software
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Open Systems
Sound Source
Your Computer
Sound Card Driver
Sound Card
Speakers
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Open Systems
Sound Source
Your Computer
Another Driver
Sound Card Driver
Sound Card
Speakers
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Open Systems
Sound Source
Your Computer
Another Driver
Sound Card Driver
Sound Card
Speakers
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Trusted Computing
• Solution?
– Don’t allow that
• Control software and hardware
– tamper-resistant crypto module (“Fritz chip”)
– secure memory in cpu, secure kernel in OS
and applications, secure storage
– “Remote attestation”: a secure signal that the
hardware & software are in a known state
– Result: state of machine is exposed, verifiable
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Trusted Computing and IP
• Server will download only to clients able to
to provide (cryptographically protected)
proof of approved hardware and software
• The end of content piracy
• The fundamental technology for DRM
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Trusted Computing and IP
• “Approved hw & sw” will mean what the
vendors supplied, as they supplied it
– incapable of making unencumbered copies (of
course)
– unchanged (of course)
• I’ve surrendered control over the machine
– someone else determines what it can’t do
– someone else determines what it can/will do on my
machine
» software with a revocation list
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Trusted Computing and IP
• TC as currently configured protects
against the user
– and the user is paying for that
• literally: hw & sw
• switching costs
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Pressures for Implementation
• Original guess: secure shopping
• Current reality: Convergence in your living room - the
media center.
• Current reality: Documents, email
• Current reality: Software DRM
DRM’s not just for documents any more
– The rise of software as a service
– (With the same problems as information as a service.)
• Will you be able to buy a computer without it?
– Intel, Microsoft, ...
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It’s Likely to Happen
• The forces behind it are enormous
– media, software, control of information
• The opposition is (as usual) ill-defined and
disorganized
• The costs of not doing it are quantifiable
and melodramatic
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But...
• I don’t have to use TC at all.
• I can use only applications with benevolent
DRM policies
• But, but:
–
–
–
–
–
if Windows™ and Word™ and PowerPoint™…
if your bank and local government adopt it...
if reverse engineering is inhibited...
if innovation is retarded…
Most people can’t deal with OSs now...
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The Important Questions
• Costs and Benefits
– What if the networked computer was not safe
for digital information?
– Who said that business model had to be safe?
– Cost-shifting
– The substitution of contract law for IP law
– The substitution of code for code
– Power shift
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The Important Questions
• Costs and Benefits
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Private decisions about information policy
Disappearing documents?
Censorship, revocable publication?
Forced upgrades?
Securely encumbered data?
Inhibiting interoperability?
Inhibiting competition?
Will PCs suffer the fate of the DAT?
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Digital Audio Tape Player
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Bottom Line
• No guarantee TC will happen.
– But the pressures for implementation are there
– Work is going ahead
• TC/DRM will open new possibilities and new
markets
• No guarantee TC will produce adverse effects
– But the possibility is clearly there
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Bottom Line
• The result might be the obsolescence/irrelevance
of copyright, IP
• All this to make the world safe for media and
documents?
• Copyright and the networked computer
• Information access and the trusted computer
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