Log in

View Full Version : SD cards and Digita Rights Management


TTown
03-08-2003, 06:14 AM
What does it mean when they are talking about Digital Rights Management ready on the new SD Cards?

Can you download a song to the SD card, but not transfer it from there, or will it not allow you to download a song to the card in the first place :?:

Jason Dunn
03-08-2003, 06:53 AM
Actually, none of the Pocket PCs support the "secure" portion of SD cards, so it's largelt a moot point. The DRM that can exist comes from your computer - apps like Windows Media Player won't move content to memory cards if that content is flagged as being protected. It's easy enough to turn that off though when you're ripping a CD.

Hope that helps!

TTown
03-08-2003, 09:10 AM
So if you download a song from the internet, it won't copy to the SD card?

Janak Parekh
03-08-2003, 09:58 AM
So if you download a song from the internet, it won't copy to the SD card?
Depends on how you download it. If you download an unprotected file, you can move it at will, including to and from the SD card. Protected content is another matter entirely.

--janak

TTown
03-08-2003, 06:55 PM
How can you tell if you downloaded a "protected" song

Janak Parekh
03-08-2003, 07:23 PM
How can you tell if you downloaded a "protected" song
It usually says. FWIW, MP3s are not protectable. That's why the industry wants to move away from that format and to "protectable" formats, like WMA (which can either have protection turned off or on).

--janak

JvanEkris
03-08-2003, 07:45 PM
As i understood it: the SD-cards cary some unique ID (like a MAC adress), this could be used by music services to lock music to the SD card, making copying it imposssible. This because a harddisk or another SD card don't have that number. So backups are useless :( .

Apperantly, this feature is a bit paradoxal to me: the hardware-suppliers want me to buy more and especially larger SD-cards. To support their everlasting quest for a larder card, i uppgrademy card every year. This behaviour is not really stimulated.

Janak Parekh
03-08-2003, 09:14 PM
As i understood it: the SD-cards cary some unique ID (like a MAC adress), this could be used by music services to lock music to the SD card, making copying it imposssible.
Possible, but this hasn't happened yet. Part of the reason might what you said: people switch SD cards too often -- there isn't an easy methodology that would be appealing to the masses. We'll see.

--janak

Pony99CA
03-08-2003, 11:31 PM
As i understood it: the SD-cards cary some unique ID (like a MAC adress), this could be used by music services to lock music to the SD card, making copying it imposssible.
Possible, but this hasn't happened yet. Part of the reason might what you said: people switch SD cards too often -- there isn't an easy methodology that would be appealing to the masses. We'll see.

If that's the case, it's not a real problem. If you have the source material on your PC, you just download it to your new card. No big deal. If you don't have the source material, it's assumed (rightly or wrongly) to be pirated and you can't get it.

Of course, it's still on your original card. :-)

I suspect that the "Secure" part prevents copying off of the card somehow if the content is marked as protected. Of course, that leaves the question -- how do they distinguish between reading for playback and reading for copying?

Another alternative could be that the card is marked with some information from the device you first copy the data from. That would prevent using that card in any other device without formatting it. That would be very unfriendly, I'd think.

Is there anybody here who really knows how the security is handled? If not, maybe I could ask the leader of the Secure Digital organization; it happens to be based in Hollister.

Steve

Janak Parekh
03-08-2003, 11:47 PM
If that's the case, it's not a real problem. If you have the source material on your PC, you just download it to your new card. No big deal. If you don't have the source material, it's assumed (rightly or wrongly) to be pirated and you can't get it.
What if your PC fails? That's always been the fundamental problem for me. Oh, and I'd occasionally like to listen to my ripped music on a different computer. Even if both of the computers are just mine, I wouldn't be able to copy it from one to the other.

Of course, that leaves the question -- how do they distinguish between reading for playback and reading for copying?
Here's one possibility (and I don't know if they do this): encrypt the content with some combination of the unique key on the SD card and a private key that the industry keeps careful tabs over. The player would then have the two pieces needed to decrypt and play back the content. That's one way. One could theoretically do lower-level controls as well, I guess, but that's a bit trickier.

Is there anybody here who really knows how the security is handled?
As you can see, not me. :) The SDMI stuff has been in flux for several years, and I stopped tracking it.

--janak

JvanEkris
03-09-2003, 12:03 AM
The playback part had me puzzled for a while as well. The one thing that was most likely was something i read about in an article about sony's intentions about DRM.

The way Sony liked it: you buy music, and destine it onto a uniquely marked card (probably the only place that legal download service will accept). The seller reads back the ID of the card, modifies the music in some way, and sends it to you as a download. The only way to play it would be by using a specific player, the music itself and the key that is on the original SD card.

In this way, moving the music from the card would remove it from the unique identifier, and would make it useless. Of course, it is a mater of time before somebody finds a way around this.....

Jaap

Pony99CA
03-09-2003, 01:43 AM
If that's the case, it's not a real problem. If you have the source material on your PC, you just download it to your new card. No big deal. If you don't have the source material, it's assumed (rightly or wrongly) to be pirated and you can't get it.
What if your PC fails? That's always been the fundamental problem for me. Oh, and I'd occasionally like to listen to my ripped music on a different computer. Even if both of the computers are just mine, I wouldn't be able to copy it from one to the other.
If your PC fails, I'm sure you made a backup, right? :-D Even if you didn't, if you bought the CD, you just re-rip the song. If you bought the file online and didn't back it up, maybe the vendor will keep track of what you paid for so you can download it again (Fictionwise does this, for example).

As for copying from one computer to another, what prevents you from copying it over the network, sending it via E-mail, etc? If we're only talking about Secure Digital cards, not DRM in general, if the music isn't coming from the SD card, you can share the files at will.

Steve

Janak Parekh
03-09-2003, 01:59 AM
If your PC fails, I'm sure you made a backup, right? :-D
Well, only if I backup my keys that unlock the music. I'd have to do that as a separate step, as I usually reinstall the OS in case of failure.

maybe the vendor will keep track of what you paid for so you can download it again (Fictionwise does this, for example).
True, so long as they stay in business.

As for copying from one computer to another, what prevents you from copying it over the network, sending it via E-mail, etc? If we're only talking about Secure Digital cards, not DRM in general, if the music isn't coming from the SD card, you can share the files at will.
I think both things are being discussed in this thread. Since SD cards don't have any protections currently implemented, this is a non-issue. It's possible, perhaps likely, that content providers will roll out protections on a broad scale, encorporating DRM on the desktop and handheld devices, at the same time.

--janak