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You can probably just install Linux and you disable the DRM. I think it is there to make sure OS X doesn't run on other platform.

The DRM they have in place is to prevent people from running OS X on non-Apple hardware. It is already illegal to run OS X on non-Apple hardware, per the EULA, the DRM is merely a transparent enforcement of the license agreement that you, however unknowingly, agreed to.

Frankly, DRM is a necessary evil for companies, that are not providing open source solutions, to turn a profit. CD keys of the old days don't work anymore, as those can be cracked fairly easily (somewhat moreso than DRM as far as my understanding goes). So the DRM technologies we are seing are only out of companies desire to make money from theives that would just download the software at a click of a button without paying for it. It does punish the honest consumers among us, but the deliquent among us have brought this upon all.

Stop buying computers with DRM is not enough. The main forces for introduction of DRM technology is the music and movie industry. This means that you should stop buying music or DVDs as well if you are against DRM.

They tell us they wan't to protect their IP. But if I am to license it at current prices I should be able to listen to, or view it any way I please. If that is not possible the licence fees needs to be significantly lower. And why isn't the IP costs and the media costs separated. If it is IP I'm buying when I buy a CD, I should be able to buy media separately if I allready got a license.

As long as these parties doesn't come up with some kind of protection that doesn't limit fair uue I will not buy anything from them.

but I bet you down load it for free thou

please stop tying DRM to piracy

Well, pretty soon you won't be able to buy a new computer. So I'm pretty sure that you will change your mind if you want to keep up.

> if apple was going to switch to x86, they had to do
> something to keep their os from running on just any
> x86 pc. I guess this was it. Bummer.

STOP YOUR APPLE PROPAGANDA PLEASE

Apple didn't switch to DRM because of x86, but Apple switched to x86 because of DRM!

> I'm sure most sane people will buy a new Mac when
> they're ready to upgrade; regardless of the processor
> architecture, and the inclusion of DRM.

Yes, "sane" people don't care about their interests, they simply say "It's in Apple's interest and not in mine, but hey, it's from Apple, the company who produces gorgeous music players and therefore it's OK to have a computer that does what Apple wants and not what I want". That's "sane".

> The DRM only keeps you from taking your Mac OS X to
> another computer that isn't a Mac. It wont stop you
> from playing your movies or your music.

APPLE PROPAGANDA ALERT

Next year, Apple will switch to x86 with DRM and one year later, Apple will release a silent update to "Pages" so that you can't open your "Pages" documents in software that was not produced by Apple. A silent update like all the silent iTunes updates that imposed more and more restrictions on the users.

> using DRM to stop Piracy, that has plagued the
> Windows Operating Systems for years will not happen
> on a Apple x86 computer this is good:)

Piracy has not "plagued" Microsoft, my darling, piracy has helped Microsoft to gain a monopoly, and now Apple tries to do it exactly the other way round by locking people in, but they will fail.

AND NOW PLEASE VOTE THIS DOWN BECAUSE I DID'T PRAISE APPLE

Spare me. This opinion isn't "intelligent discourse", and it should be voted down. While the comments the poster blasts down attempted to bring out some point, this poster just says WRONG! and brings up a bunch of end-of-the-world what ifs.

It is called trolling. There is not fact or reasonable point in the statements at all.

You want to blast the DRM because it "locks" you in? Fine. Change OSs. There is nothing that will stop you from using Linux or Windows.

Another thing, you talk about the more restrictive silent iTunes updates? When did the restrictions change? They haven't. They've been posted from day 1. The "silent" changes you speak of have been made to protect their current DRM from people who don't want to play by the rules.

Spare me the crap. Bring out real "intelligent discourse".

I agree with your idea about exercising freedom of speech, but awarding him a up vote just because of that wasn't a good idea. I do understand why some thought you deserved down votes.

It is also my opinion that, despite what I said above, you shouldn' have been voted down. Just disregarded.

The silent iTunes updates you were refering to did not add restrictions to the original iTunes user agreement. The deal was that iTunes Music Store purchased songs would let you do a certain amount of things, and all the updates still let you do just that.

But even though it's "cool" to be able to override the copy-protection of these AAC songs and easilly convert them to MP3 or to just skip installation of the DRM layer alltogether does not make this right! It's a breach of the agreement on the user part, and if the user didn't want any part of it, he's free to "not" purchase songs in the iTunes Music Store.

Those extra restrictions in silent updates were only implanted because some people abused them, and Apple needed a way to reassure all parties involved (artists, record companies, users, and other stakeholders) that it would still be able to guarantee that the user agreement would still be enforcable.

The consumer always has the choice, but when other people want to abuse theirs by doing something that wasn't agreed in the first place, others are inevitably impacted by this. You're free to buy CD's and rip them for your own personnal archival use (if you're in Canada anyways), buy songs from other services which usually restricts you more than the Music Store, buy iTunes songs, or just do without.

Of course, opening the door to DRMs would be like opening Pandora's Box for some, but the same is for running an unpatched Windows XP system connected to the Internet. I can use a hammer with nails, or with someone else's head... The choice is mine and wether or not I chose to abuse it and face the consequences.

And think about it, just because Apple is using a way to prevent OS X Intel from being leaked and usefully pirated like hell doesn'T mean that it won't be part of all other PC boards within the next 3 years... MS will also want to use it then as they are pushing for it. As far as I know, OS X Intel and PPC doesn't technically prevent you from abusing your "one install" licence and install it in countless other Macs, Intel or PPC, unlike other operating systems we know...

I've been using "dongle" controlled software for a few years, and these companies never abused their license agreements. If they started doing so, I would change software provider in a snap, and their reputation would likely go down the drain along with their revenues if anyone else would be reconsidering as I would. Apple, to me, is no different; as long as they play fair, I'm OK with it. Personally, I don't think that they can afford not to...

So instead of complaining about DRM, I'd start reading those licence agreements more carefully, and let the companies, the protecting instances, and the public know about any abusing clauses before they buy the stuff and get bound by the EULA without a refund. DRM is really just an enforcing medium that will only enforce what you agreed on in the first place.

That's what I thought too but couldn't this also potentially be used to enforce drms on music and other media?

That's what I thought too but couldn't this also potentially be used to enforce drms on music and other media?

No, because Windows is not using it. There is no way that the Mac version of iTunes (or whatever) could force hardware DRM because of the fact that you can copy your iTMS songs and play them on up to 5 different Macs and/or PCs.

That's being done already.

If Apple want to use DRM technology to make sure that their OS only runs on their own hardware, that would be fine, but only if I can mix and match parts in that computer, or install the same CD on another Mac without having to get some kind of new licence key from Apple.

All systems where you need a new key for a new install is unacceptable. Who knows if the vender is there 10 years from now to give you that new key. It is hard enough to protect digitally stored information over time due to media degradation adding DRM makes it worse, and we can expect that cultural and financial values will be lost if such practices becomes common.

You *want* to use VS 2005 on OS X? is it that much better than the currect VS offerings? perhaps the *only* benefit to that would be easier to write C# programs for the Mac....but i prefer XCode (yes, i've used the current crop of VS & Xcode) by a long shot. i still have not had the opportunity to cut my teeth on obj-c, but i'm working on it.

What are you talking about? That's the problem with using a term like "DRM", no-one knows what it means. Product Activation is not DRM by any definition that is relevant to this discussion. The introduction of trusted computing hardware to Macs will fundamentally change the industry. It will also begin the end of freedom on the desktop.

"It will also begin the end of freedom on the desktop."

Thats overly dramatic don't you think. The PPC chip might just as well have been the DRM. It restricted you from installing OS X on your PC.

It sounds to me that your just upset that your hopes of running OS X on a PC were shot down and now you're bitter.

Thats overly dramatic don't you think. The PPC chip might just as well have been the DRM. It restricted you from installing OS X on your PC.

Absolute nonsense. There are any number of ways Apple could've restricted OS X to their own hardware. This isn't about that. This is about Apple integrating the "Trusted Computing" platform into their OS, which they are incidentally using for the above purpose. If that doesn't bother you, fine. But if it does, then you've now lost your only mainstream alternative to this scheme put forward by Microsoft and Intel.

People were (rightly) outraged by the Pentium III serial number debacle. Now the computer companies are backdooring exactly the same technology into all of our computers. Some thought Apple machines would be an oasis against that onslaught. Now we know, for certain, that they won't be.

Trusted Computing FAQ:
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/tcpa-faq.html

Be for this technology, or be against it. But stop with the red herring arguments.

(Hundreds of comments later)

Incredible argument (at http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/tcpa-faq.html). Especially:

But isn't PC security a good thing?
The question is: security for whom?

Immediately I realize "security for an extreme minority, one of which I and most I know are not included."

Ya' got me. DRM is officially bad.

i3x171um

>What are you talking about? That's the problem with using a term like >"DRM", no-one knows what it means. Product Activation is not DRM >by any definition that is relevant to this discussion. The introduction >of trusted computing hardware to Macs will fundamentally change >the industry. It will also begin the end of freedom on the desktop.


DRM is a very broad label. It only stands for Digital Rights Management, e.g. ways to enforce a copyright holder's rights. For example, the macrovision encryption is a form of DRM since it prevents people from doing what they're entitled to do according to fair use rights. Now, DVD protection wasn't very effective and no longer really is a hindrance to consumers except possibly legally. Encrypted AAC files from the iTunes Music Store is another way of DRM. The CD keys of popular online games is yet another.

However, point is, there are endless ways of implementeing DRM. It can be DRM without having something like a TPM/TCPA chip as long as it's in some way limiting the uses of the DRM-enabled product. Also, it is already possible to create very effective DRM-schemes today, without TPM-like chips built into computers.

That said, I'm not very happy about TPM in computers or other electronic devices. While I doubt that future TPM-enabled computers will be limited to run only TPM-signed code, there is a possibility that it will happen and that will obviously be A Very Bad Thing™ for consumers. However, i believe that should that happen, there will be something akin to modchips releasing the appliance from it's TPM-shackles for consoles very shortly afterwards

LOL that's the best laugh I've had all day. This DRM will be subverted just like every other DRM/copy protection solution out there today. It's really just cat and mouse. What's keeping me from emulating this DRM in some software virtualizer/emulator ala Qemu/Bochs? Copy protection is nearly as old as the software industry. We've had "unbreakable" and "implemented in hardware" copy protection solutions before, such as floppy disks with random lasered out sectors.

I am disappointed, but yes I did see this coming.

Agreed. No matter what engineers/programmers come up with next to protect their software, there is always a way around it. Just a though, anyone wondered if maybe one day people will put mod chips in their computer, similar to xbox/ps2. Wouldn't that be a simple solution to this DRM chip? I know people who know next to nothing about hardware/software, downloading xbox/ps2 games, and playing them. Just seems like a waste of time to put so much money into something, when it will simply be cracked.

yeah, whatever LOL. i am sure some person will have cracked this in a day -- just like every other videogame, dvd, or piece of software out there.

no i as i said i just dont care! or see how its going to affect me.

Your third paragraph is about something that would have to be very limited. Not to mention I believe it's already done with MMU's and no fancy dancy overkill encryption. If I write a program to walk over its bounds, at least on heap memory, the kernel will kill it once it gets out of its own memory region (not necessarily the memory allotted to that specific malloc).

I'm not sure if stack space is protected this way as well, but TMK the major stack problems have been with getting your own process overwritten not with writing over other processes.

Now, I could definitely see it used for things like streaming video which the source if concerned about people recording. This leads to encrypted and therefore illegal to hack things. The problem here is that you don't have full ownership of all your data, as a US citizen or citizen of any other DMCA country.
The idea here is that process x handles all stream downloading and encrypts it. This way, process y can look at it; but process z which isn't licensed legally cannot.

I think one of the biggest real advantages of this is disk encryption. It's done without it, but this would take a bit of a load off your cpu and probably save you some battery life. It's very nice on laptops which have sensitive data.

It is entirely possible for them to make it virtually impossible for you to legally do what you wish with your computer. Technically it's tough, but they can stop Joe User easily. We shouldn't be non-challant about things which can be dangerous. But we shouldn't see conspiracy where it doesn't exist either.

Well, in theory I do agree with you.

Problem is, what about retail licences? Do you want them locked to a specific computer? What if you decide to get a new computer, and want to move your retail license? Ok, we can assume you just need to activate Windows again.

The idea is sound, but it also implies quite a few problems to solve.

"I mean cmon, is it not fair for a company to dictate how you use their software? When you purchase OSX you are not just buying the disk, you are licensing the right to use the software"

I don't rent software, I buy software and once I've paid for my copy I get to do whatever I want with it as long as it doesn't violate good ethics. If some company wants my money for something and then wants to tell me how to use it then I'm going to buy from someone else. If you need the basic idea simplified consider this: what if your boss told you how to spend the money you earned at your job, it's the same idea. You work for the money you earn, just like you pay for the software and movies you want, why should someone else tell you what to do with it once you've worked/paid for it.

People don't trust DRM because companies will get to use it to tell them exactly how to use the things they already paid for, it's a very easy way to force everyone to upgrade to a newer product when company X wants more money. How about when Disney decides to release updated Disney "Classics", they could just cause the older copy of the movie that you already own to stop working and then if you want to watch it again you have to buy a new copy.

DRM is way too easy to abuse, ignorant fools are the only kind of people who would walk into it without any caution whatsoever. Companies don't care about you, they care about getting your money, and anyone who isn't blind can see that when it comes to getting money, they don't have any trouble ignoring morals. How is it that as soon as Apple decides to use DRM, all of a sudden it's ok and everyone against it suddenly becomes a radical software pirate.

Try reading up on exactly what the whole "Trusted computing" initiative is. Considering what it can do I find it hard to belive that it's uses will be limited to preventing piracy. Choosing to be uneducated as to what DRM and "Trusted Computing" really means is setting yourself up for a very ugly trap, do you really expect the companies that want to put a DRM leash around you neck to tell you the truth about it?

Agreed. If this were an article about Microsoft building DRM into the hardware, people (including Mac users) would be screaming bloody murder. But since it's Apple who's doing it, then it's ok.
Of course, I don't see how Mac users could protest - these are the same lemmings who've been buying up iPods and DRM'd music off the iTunes store, so who are they to criticize?

Face it, folks. Apple is nothing more than Microsoft in a different suit (though perhaps a little more innovative, but I digress). I guarantee you that if they get the chance to screw you over and get away with it, they will. If you are against DRM of any type, don't get the impression that "Since it's from Apple, it's ok." Of course, if you don't care about DRM (as most people don't), then it really doesn't matter anyway.

umm... no...

the DRM is so that OS X knows that it is an Apple box, not to exclude other OSs from running on it.