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Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.

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Speaker 1: He there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,

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Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio

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Speaker 1: and how the tech are you so? Earlier this year,

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Speaker 1: I did an episode titled the DRM Episode, and it

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Speaker 1: was fittingly enough about the history and evolution of DRM

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Speaker 1: that published back in January. D r M is digital

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Speaker 1: rights management, and simply but digital rights management is all

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Speaker 1: about finding ways to restrict access to digital material to

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Speaker 1: only those who have permission to access it. Now, we

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Speaker 1: mostly think about it as a way of preventing theft

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Speaker 1: and piracy, though it does not do those things very

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Speaker 1: well at all. DRM has also introduced a legal puzz

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Speaker 1: old here in the United States. See it has long

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Speaker 1: been held that it is totally legal for someone to

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Speaker 1: make a copy of media they have purchased for the

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Speaker 1: purposes of having a backup. So, while it would be

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Speaker 1: copyright infringement, if I were to go out and say,

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Speaker 1: buy a compact disc, and then come back home and

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Speaker 1: use my computer to copy that compact disc onto blank

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Speaker 1: compact discs, and then I go out on the street

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Speaker 1: and start selling those to passers by for a huge

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Speaker 1: markdown that would be illegal. It is, however, totally legal

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Speaker 1: if I were to go out and buy that same CD,

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Speaker 1: come home, copy it with my computer, put it on

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Speaker 1: a second CD, and use that as a backup for

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Speaker 1: my own personal use. That's Toad's fine, completely acceptable. Well,

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Speaker 1: then we come to copy protection, and there are lots

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Speaker 1: of different kinds of copy protection, and it is against

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Speaker 1: the law to circumvent or to make or even own

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Speaker 1: tools intended to circumvent copy protection. So it would be

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Speaker 1: legal for me to produce a copy for my own use,

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Speaker 1: but it's illegal to get around the copy protection. Though

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Speaker 1: I should add there's some disagreement on that point. Some

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Speaker 1: say technically it is legal to bypass DRM in order

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Speaker 1: to make a copy of something if it's just for

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Speaker 1: your own personal use. However, it's still illegal to own

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Speaker 1: the software that makes it possible to bypass dr M

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Speaker 1: in the first place. So again you still run into

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Speaker 1: this circular argument. Yes, you can make a copy, but

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Speaker 1: it's illegal for you to get around the thing that

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Speaker 1: prevents you from making a copy. And if you can't

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Speaker 1: get around copy protection, then there's no way for you

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Speaker 1: to make a copy. So it might be legal for

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Speaker 1: you to create a copy. It's just illegal to get

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Speaker 1: around the thing that prevents you from doing that. Because

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Speaker 1: laws are fun, right, and there are a ton of consequences.

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Speaker 1: Uh in how DRM was defined in the Digital Millennium

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Speaker 1: Copyright Act and section twelve oh one in particular, which

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Speaker 1: is the bit that says it's illegal to try and

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Speaker 1: get around copy protection or DRM. So companies have used

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Speaker 1: that passage for the justification of all sorts of shenanigans,

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Speaker 1: including denying the right to repair or to restrict who

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Speaker 1: can actually make software for their products. There's a lot

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Speaker 1: of anticompetitive behavior that has been fueled by this frankly

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Speaker 1: poorly worded piece of legislation. So there are a lot

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Speaker 1: of ways where the Digital Millennium Copyright Act or d

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Speaker 1: m c A has really hurt consumers and companies. So

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Speaker 1: today I wanted to talk about a different, unintended consequence,

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Speaker 1: one that is particularly infuriating. So the whole point of

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Speaker 1: the d m c A was to create rules that

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Speaker 1: would stop people from stealing dit dull stuff right to

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Speaker 1: stop piracy. However, people are still doing that. There are

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Speaker 1: still plenty of people stealing digital content. In fact, the

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Speaker 1: folks who are doing the stealing are the ones who

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Speaker 1: are breaking dr M and they're getting unfettered access to

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Speaker 1: the stuff they stole. So in the process of stealing

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Speaker 1: whatever it is they're going after, they're stripping the d

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Speaker 1: r M from that thing. That means they get to

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Speaker 1: experience that thing without any DRM. Meanwhile, law abiding folk

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Speaker 1: like you and me, I assume we are stuck with

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Speaker 1: the busted products that have dr M all up on them.

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Speaker 1: So in other words, the people what are doing the

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Speaker 1: stealing have a superior product as the scarlet which once said,

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Speaker 1: that doesn't seem fair. So in today's episode, we're going

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Speaker 1: to look at some examples of how dr M had

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Speaker 1: a negative impact on legitimate customers. And I was really

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Speaker 1: inspired to do this because of something going on at

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Speaker 1: Microsoft and its Xbox Online service. So, as the name suggests,

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Speaker 1: Xbox Online is an online component for the Xbox line

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Speaker 1: of consoles. Microsoft has servers running and Xbox consoles will

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Speaker 1: check in with those servers. Now, it was almost a

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Speaker 1: decade ago when Microsoft announced how the Xbox One console

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Speaker 1: was supposed to work, And when that announcement went out,

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Speaker 1: it was that the Xbox one was going to be

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Speaker 1: online all the time. It would have a persistent online connection.

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Speaker 1: In fact, it would require a persistent online connection, and

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Speaker 1: that this would end up having big benefits for players.

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Speaker 1: There'll be a lot of features that would be enabled

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Speaker 1: because of this connection. However, a lot of people got

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Speaker 1: really concerned about some elements, like would that prevent you

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Speaker 1: from being able to purchase used games, something that a

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Speaker 1: lot of people really depend upon. They can't necessarily afford

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Speaker 1: to buy a game at full price, so they wait,

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Speaker 1: they go out, and they buy it used once the

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Speaker 1: price comes down, and they play their games that way.

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Speaker 1: But would this online component kind of act like a

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Speaker 1: type of DRM. Would it check in with that copy

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Speaker 1: of the game with the server look to see if

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Speaker 1: that copy of the game had been registered with some

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Speaker 1: other console, and would it then prevent you from playing

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Speaker 1: the game. This was a real concern because it is

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Speaker 1: a possibility. In fact, a lot of people are arguing

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Speaker 1: that this could have just been a scheme to sell

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Speaker 1: more copies of games, eliminate the secondary market entirely, and

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Speaker 1: hurt the consumer. Ultimately, Microsoft would walk back the announcement

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Speaker 1: and changed its plans and no longer required the Xbox

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Speaker 1: One to have this persistent internet connection, which totally change

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Speaker 1: things up. That was a weird E three, But there's

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Speaker 1: still an online component it for Xbox, and there still

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Speaker 1: is DRM sitting on top of that online component, and

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Speaker 1: it's active for lots of games. And on Friday May six,

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Speaker 1: two thousand twenty two, the servers running this DRM started

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Speaker 1: to have some problems, which meant that Xbox owners found

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Speaker 1: themselves unable to purchase new games, or to start online

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Speaker 1: gaming sessions, or even launch some of their games that

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Speaker 1: they already have purchased and downloaded to their machine because

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Speaker 1: server side DRM runs a quick check to make sure

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Speaker 1: that the copy of a game that is being initiated

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Speaker 1: is a legitimate copy of the game, meaning that the

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Speaker 1: person who's running it actually bought it. So this is

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Speaker 1: kind of like a parent calling in to check on

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Speaker 1: their kid a lot, and if the answers aren't satisfactory,

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Speaker 1: that kid is grounded. So with these servers being down,

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Speaker 1: it meant that this check in could not happen. The

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Speaker 1: copy of the game not be able to get the

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Speaker 1: go ahead from the server to allow the game to load,

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Speaker 1: so without that verified check in, the games would not launch.

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Speaker 1: It's now May nine, and some Xbox users report they

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Speaker 1: are still experiencing this problem. So people who went through

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Speaker 1: all the right steps, they bought their games legitimately, they

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Speaker 1: have a connection to the internet, they are finding themselves

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Speaker 1: unable to play certain titles. They are being punished for

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Speaker 1: playing properly. Meanwhile, people who might have a pirated copy

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Speaker 1: of the game with the DRM stripped from it where

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Speaker 1: it's not doing this online check in, they could potentially

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Speaker 1: still be playing those games. DRM critics have argued that

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Speaker 1: Microsoft should really change it's DRM policy so that games

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Speaker 1: that are meant to be played offline can be played

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Speaker 1: offline even if the Microsoft servers are down. So, in

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Speaker 1: other words, these are games that are not online dependent.

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Speaker 1: There's no competitive or cooperative play. It's meant to be

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Speaker 1: played on your native Xbox in your home and that's it.

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Speaker 1: And you know, you have to also remember some folks

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Speaker 1: live in places where they might not even have a

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Speaker 1: good Internet connection. It seems reasonable to expect that you

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Speaker 1: should be able to play an offline single player game

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Speaker 1: because you know there's no online component. But here we are.

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Speaker 1: There are people who are being affected by this, and

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Speaker 1: in fact, we've had so many examples of games doing

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Speaker 1: this specific thing. In particular I am reminded of the

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Speaker 1: hit Man series because I've certainly encountered this. Anyone who

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Speaker 1: has played hit Man three has likely run into the

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Speaker 1: message that the hit Man servers are offline, or you

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Speaker 1: might end up in the middle of a gaming session

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Speaker 1: get a temporary disconnection and you can't play anymore, or

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Speaker 1: it'll let you play, but it's like nothing's really counting anymore.

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Speaker 1: In fact, some players would get into situations where server

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Speaker 1: disconnects happened so frequently that the game would become unplayable.

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Speaker 1: And you would think that shouldn't be an issue because

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Speaker 1: hit Man is a game that runs natively on your computer.

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Speaker 1: But there are just enough connected features in hit Man

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Speaker 1: three that it's required to have these check ins. One

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Speaker 1: to verify that the copy you're playing is legit, and

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Speaker 1: too to keep track of things like how you're doing

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Speaker 1: versus say, your friends who also play hit Man three.

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Speaker 1: So there are some value added features in there. I

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Speaker 1: don't know how many people really use those that much

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Speaker 1: compared to just playing the game, but they do exist. Now.

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Speaker 1: When hit Man three became available on Good Old Games

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Speaker 1: or go o G, things got ugly because generally g

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Speaker 1: o G has this policy of offering up DRM free games,

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Speaker 1: specifically because DRM can hinder a legit players experiences. But

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Speaker 1: hit Man three has this requirement of checking in with

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Speaker 1: a server, and the inclusion of server based DRM prompted

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Speaker 1: many g o G customers to review Bomb hit Man three,

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Speaker 1: giving it very low ratings due to the server requirement.

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Speaker 1: Go O G contacted hit Man three customers and gave

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Speaker 1: them the option to refund their purchase. When we come back,

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Speaker 1: i'll talk a little bit more about d r M

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Speaker 1: and video games, and then we're gonna go beyond that

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Speaker 1: to look at d r M in other areas of tech.

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Speaker 1: But first let's listen to these messages, all right. One

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Speaker 1: of the big companies that specializes in video game DRM

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Speaker 1: and also anti cheat technology is called Deneuveau d E

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Speaker 1: n U v O. Now, anti cheat is really understandable,

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Speaker 1: right because, at least for competitive online games, it's kind

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Speaker 1: of a necessity. It is incredibly frustrating to hop online

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Speaker 1: to play a game only to get shut down immediately

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Speaker 1: because someone else is using cheat software that gives them

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Speaker 1: an unfair advantage. So a strong anti cheat strategy is

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Speaker 1: really useful in those respects. And and I certainly like that.

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Speaker 1: But the d r M side is another matter. So

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Speaker 1: critics say that Deneuvos software over taxes your you know,

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Speaker 1: the players computers and their CPUs, as well as rights

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Speaker 1: to players storage a lot, which can decrease the lifespan

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Speaker 1: of storage, like if it's a solid state drive, it

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Speaker 1: can start to really affect the longevity of that drive.

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Speaker 1: These are charges that the company has denied, but several

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Speaker 1: journalists have performed tests of games both running with Deneuvo's

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Speaker 1: software being active of and running with Deneuvo's software disabled,

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Speaker 1: and the tests seem to support the accusation that the

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Speaker 1: software has a measurable negative impact on computer performance. And

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Speaker 1: that's assuming that the software is working. Like the Hitman

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Speaker 1: three example, there have been cases in which games using

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Speaker 1: Deneuvo solutions became unplayable because of server issues. But let's

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Speaker 1: move away from video games. We could spend all day

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Speaker 1: talking about how DRM has had a negative impact on

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Speaker 1: video games. We could even talk about the earliest times

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Speaker 1: where you had computer companies or game companies saying that

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Speaker 1: there would be a requirement for an online persistent connection

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Speaker 1: even for single player games, and how players reacted to that.

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Speaker 1: But there are a lot of other examples of DRM

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Speaker 1: going wrong outside of the video game world, so we'll

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Speaker 1: look at a few more. So, let's talk about printers

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Speaker 1: and toner. Several printer manufacturers have implemented DRM in an

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Speaker 1: effort to funnel customers into purchasing official toner cartridges from

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Speaker 1: those companies. You know, it's a long standing joke that

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Speaker 1: buying a new printer is super cheap. It's the toner

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Speaker 1: that'll that will really set you back. That's thoroughly a joke.

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's the idea of printer companies selling

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Speaker 1: you a printer because it will lock you into their

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Speaker 1: ecosystem where they can continuously sell you the toner for

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Speaker 1: much more money, and they keep making cash off of

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Speaker 1: a single customer. Right because you're going to run out

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Speaker 1: of towner, you're gonna have to buy new ones. So

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Speaker 1: obviously these companies are going to take steps to restrict

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Speaker 1: what kind of toner you can use so that you

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Speaker 1: have to buy it from them. That's how they're gonna

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Speaker 1: make all their money. They can do all they could

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Speaker 1: be a loss leader on printers and make it up

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Speaker 1: with the toner they sell. HP for example, started doing

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Speaker 1: this in the HP printer would scan the toner cartridges,

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Speaker 1: and if the cartridge proved to not be an official

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Speaker 1: HP cartridge, the printer would then give the user a

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Speaker 1: message reading quote the following ink cartridges appeared to be

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Speaker 1: undetected or damaged. Replaced the ink cartridges to continue printing

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Speaker 1: end quote. The printer wouldn't let you print even if

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Speaker 1: the third party cartridges were otherwise perfectly compatible, So even

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Speaker 1: if for any other reason it should work, the printer

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Speaker 1: would say, Nope, these are bad, these are defective, get

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Speaker 1: rid of them. Cannon actually went a step further. The

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Speaker 1: Pixma MG six three twenty model is like a lot

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Speaker 1: of printers, and that it has a built in scanner

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Speaker 1: so that you can scan documents and get a digital

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Speaker 1: version of your document. But the Cannon, once it would

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Speaker 1: run out of toner, would disable all functions, including the scanner. Now,

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Speaker 1: scanners don't use any toner at all. They literally just

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Speaker 1: scan a document and create a digital copy, so not

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Speaker 1: one dot of toner has to be used to do that.

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Speaker 1: So users complained that Cannon was purposefully deactivating its printers

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Speaker 1: functions to force folks into buying more expensive Cannon toner

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Speaker 1: then we got the chip shortage, which caused way more

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Speaker 1: headaches for both Cannon and its customers. See, the way

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Speaker 1: that Canon was implementing DRM in its toner cartridges was

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Speaker 1: to include a very small microchip that identified the toner

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Speaker 1: as being a Cannon branded cartridge. But then we get

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Speaker 1: into the pandemic, and then not long after that, we

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Speaker 1: started hitting that massive semiconductor shortage that we are still

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Speaker 1: into this day. Among the many technologies affected by this

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Speaker 1: shortage where Cannon toner cartridges. But this created an awkward problem.

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Speaker 1: The new Cannon cartridges didn't have the DRM chips because

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Speaker 1: of the semiconductor shortage. That meant that Cannon printers were

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Speaker 1: looking for DRM confirmation and couldn't find it even with

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Speaker 1: official Cannon cartridges. So even if you went through the

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Speaker 1: trouble and expense of buying an actual Cannon toner cartridge,

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Speaker 1: your Cannon printer wouldn't recognize them, and Cannon's own d

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Speaker 1: r M would prevent you from using your printer. So

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Speaker 1: Cannon had to send out information to customers on how

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Speaker 1: to bypass the DRM, which means, of course, that you

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Speaker 1: could have tried that same method without using Cannon cartridges

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Speaker 1: at all, so Cannon actually had to tell its customers

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Speaker 1: how to get around the gate keeping it had put

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Speaker 1: into place in order to restrict what kind of ink

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Speaker 1: you could use. Now, in some cases a company may

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Speaker 1: have had no choice but to develop and deploy DRM.

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Speaker 1: So let's talk about Apple's fair Play DRMS solution, which

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Speaker 1: hasn't been a thing for many years, so this is

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Speaker 1: not a current issue. But back in the day, here's

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Speaker 1: how you would listen to digital music on a personal

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Speaker 1: device like an MP three players. Specifically, we're gonna be

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Speaker 1: talking about iPods, So you would go and you would

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Speaker 1: buy your brand new iPod. Uh, So you would get

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Speaker 1: some sort of music management software. In this case, we

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Speaker 1: have to talk about iTunes, the Apple version of that.

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Speaker 1: So this is how you organize music, how you get music,

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Speaker 1: and you would put music on that management software iTunes

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Speaker 1: in a couple of different ways. So in the very

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Speaker 1: earliest days, the only way was really to purchase a

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Speaker 1: music c D, put it into your computer that has

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Speaker 1: your music management software on it, your iTunes, and use

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Speaker 1: iTunes to then rip the music off the CD. Not literally,

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Speaker 1: the music would still be on the CD. You're just

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Speaker 1: really copying the music files. Um and converting them into

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Speaker 1: a format that is easier to store, and this would

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Speaker 1: go into your iTunes software. It would be in a

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Speaker 1: database and it would be something you could easily get to,

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Speaker 1: and you would have a digital copy of those songs,

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Speaker 1: and there'll be no DRM on that music. You would

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Speaker 1: have ripped it from the c D and it would

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Speaker 1: be DRM free music files. And in the very earliest

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Speaker 1: days of iTunes, this was the only way you could

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Speaker 1: get music the iTunes system, as in the management system

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Speaker 1: for music that existed before the iTunes Music Store did,

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Speaker 1: so you would use it to really just organize your

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Speaker 1: music collection and then transfer that music collection to your iPod.

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Speaker 1: But once the iTunes Music Store opened up, well, then

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Speaker 1: you had another option. You could buy music, either entire

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Speaker 1: albums or often individual tracks off the digital store. Now,

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Speaker 1: in either case, if you wanted to put digital music

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Speaker 1: onto your iPod, you had to connect your iPod to

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Speaker 1: your computer using an actual physical cable and you would

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Speaker 1: synchronize the iPods library to that of your computer's library.

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Speaker 1: So with Apple is pretty easy assuming you were working

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Speaker 1: with all Apple products. Uh, if you had a Mac

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Speaker 1: and an iPod, it was pretty easy. If you had

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Speaker 1: a PC and you were running iTunes on it, it

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Speaker 1: was more of a headache. So you could rip music

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Speaker 1: from your CD s where you could buy new music

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Speaker 1: tracks which would get added into your iTunes management software,

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Speaker 1: and then Apple would just automatically add those tunes to

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Speaker 1: your iPod the next time you connected it to your

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Speaker 1: computer to synchronize with your iTunes database. But the big

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Speaker 1: music publishers were wary of digital music. They had already

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Speaker 1: weathered the storm of recy in the napster days, and

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Speaker 1: so the music labels, which pretty much had the leverage,

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Speaker 1: demanded that Apple create and used DRM to protect music files.

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Speaker 1: And so Apple did because if it didn't, it wouldn't

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Speaker 1: have access to these massive companies music libraries, and the

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Speaker 1: iTunes music store would have gone nowhere. You wouldn't have

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Speaker 1: had anything to sell on it. So Apple thus created

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Speaker 1: fair play. Now, one of the things Apple did was

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Speaker 1: that it would not allow any other d r M

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Speaker 1: music onto an iPod. It had to be fair play,

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Speaker 1: DRM or nothing, which meant if you bought a track

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Speaker 1: from a different digital store, you would be out of

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Speaker 1: luck when it came to putting that track on your

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Speaker 1: iPod because these other digital stores also had to comply

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Speaker 1: with the music labels and include DRM on their tracks,

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Speaker 1: and Apple would not allow any DRM other than fair

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Speaker 1: Play in its ghos system, and Apple wouldn't license fair

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Speaker 1: play to any other company. So it essentially was either

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Speaker 1: you rip music from CDs or you have to go

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Speaker 1: through the iTunes music store. Those are the only two

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Speaker 1: options you have. You can't buy music from other digital stores,

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Speaker 1: so companies like real Player or real Play began to

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Speaker 1: reverse engineer Apple's fair play in order to develop similar

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Speaker 1: DRM that would fool Apple's ecosystem into thinking it was

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Speaker 1: fair play. That way, you could purchase music from these

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Speaker 1: other stores and get that music on your iPod. That

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Speaker 1: would give you operate options to buy music that's not

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Speaker 1: on Apple's store, or you can buy it for less money.

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Speaker 1: Like you know, real Plays tracks were sometimes half as

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Speaker 1: much as what Apple was charging. So Apple then accused

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Speaker 1: the real Player company of essentially acting like a hacker,

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Speaker 1: and Apple updated its fair play systems, and subsequently, once

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Speaker 1: the update went out, when you synchronized your iPod with

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Speaker 1: your computer, you would find that any tracks you had

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00:23:05,119 --> 00:23:09,080
Speaker 1: bought from those other digital stores like the Harmony store

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Speaker 1: would go bye bye. They'd get deleted. And there was

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Speaker 1: a whole class action lawsuit brought against Apple for this

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Speaker 1: because people wanted the freedom to buy music wherever they

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Speaker 1: liked and then put it on their iPods. Apple actually

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Speaker 1: ended up winning that lawsuit, however, and ultimately it all

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00:23:25,160 --> 00:23:27,720
Speaker 1: became a moot point because a few years later, Apple

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Speaker 1: discontinued fair play entirely, and at that point it was

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Speaker 1: Apple that had the leverage over the music companies. Steve

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Speaker 1: Jobs himself actually argued that DRM really only hurt legitimate

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Speaker 1: customers and so it was just a terrible business idea

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Speaker 1: to use it. Okay, We've got a couple more examples

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Speaker 1: I want to give before we end this episode, but

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Speaker 1: first let's take another quick break. Earlier in the episode,

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Speaker 1: I mentioned that you could music on an iPod by

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Speaker 1: ripping the music from a compact disc, and that is true,

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Speaker 1: but compact discs could also have their own DRM copy

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Speaker 1: of protection on them, and this brings us to one

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Speaker 1: of the most famous DRM catastrophes, that of Sony b

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Speaker 1: mg s copy protection strategy in two thousand five. So

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Speaker 1: Sony b MG decides that it wants to really control

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Speaker 1: how customers can listen or rip music from Sony b

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Speaker 1: MG albums, and to do that they leaned on some

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Speaker 1: software XCP, which was a copy protection software, and another

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Speaker 1: best called Media Max c D three. Now, this pair

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Speaker 1: of software programs were included on something like fifty different

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Speaker 1: albums within Sony b mg s library, and there were

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Speaker 1: thousands and thousands of copies of these fifty albums. So

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Speaker 1: if you were to purchase one of those c d s,

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Speaker 1: and then you were to put that c D in

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00:25:00,119 --> 00:25:03,240
Speaker 1: or a computer, you would be presented with an end

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Speaker 1: User License Agreement or you LA e u l A.

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Speaker 1: Now we all know that hardly anyone reads those things. However,

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Speaker 1: it turns out that even if you had read it,

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Speaker 1: you wouldn't have known about what would happen next because

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Speaker 1: there was no mention of it within the u LA,

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Speaker 1: And what would happen was ridiculous. Whether you clicked on

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Speaker 1: accepting the ULA or not, the CD would surreptitiously install

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Speaker 1: that DRM software on your computer. Those two programs. Now,

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Speaker 1: if you had a Mac, there was some good news

399
00:25:39,640 --> 00:25:43,320
Speaker 1: because the software would be secretly installed on your computer,

400
00:25:43,480 --> 00:25:45,840
Speaker 1: but you would get a message from the Mac operating

401
00:25:45,880 --> 00:25:49,960
Speaker 1: system once the software tried to change the operating system

402
00:25:50,000 --> 00:25:52,800
Speaker 1: and it would ask are you cool with this, and

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00:25:53,000 --> 00:25:56,080
Speaker 1: you could say no, I'm totally not cool with that. However,

404
00:25:56,119 --> 00:26:00,160
Speaker 1: for Windows machines, Windows of machine owners didn't get any

405
00:26:00,200 --> 00:26:04,639
Speaker 1: warning at all. It just happened. So the software would

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00:26:04,640 --> 00:26:09,080
Speaker 1: alter the operating system, essentially behaving the same way a

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00:26:09,160 --> 00:26:13,639
Speaker 1: root kit would from malware. So a root kit is

408
00:26:13,680 --> 00:26:19,320
Speaker 1: software that gives someone root access to your machine. Essentially,

409
00:26:20,240 --> 00:26:23,600
Speaker 1: this is the worst case scenario where a hacker gets

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00:26:23,640 --> 00:26:27,160
Speaker 1: total control over your computer. They might lock you out,

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00:26:27,240 --> 00:26:30,640
Speaker 1: they might secretly use it without you knowing. They could

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Speaker 1: do all sorts of things. While the software that Sony

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00:26:34,560 --> 00:26:37,840
Speaker 1: b MG but on its CDs didn't do this explicitly.

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Speaker 1: It did not actually act like a root kit, it

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Speaker 1: behaved in a way similar to it. Like from the outside,

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Speaker 1: it would look like it was behaving like a root kit,

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Speaker 1: which meant that anti virus software would likely identify it

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Speaker 1: as a root kit installed on that computer. Plus, it

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00:26:55,600 --> 00:26:59,560
Speaker 1: actually did create security vulnerabilities that could be exploited by hackers,

420
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Speaker 1: and that did happen once hackers figured it out. So

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00:27:03,000 --> 00:27:05,800
Speaker 1: just by putting the CD into a Windows PC, you

422
00:27:05,840 --> 00:27:09,560
Speaker 1: would make that PC more vulnerable to attack, and it

423
00:27:09,600 --> 00:27:14,200
Speaker 1: gets worse, there was no way to uninstall the software,

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00:27:14,640 --> 00:27:18,240
Speaker 1: and meanwhile, the software was always running in the background,

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00:27:18,359 --> 00:27:23,040
Speaker 1: so it was also consuming processing power and impacting computer performance.

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00:27:23,560 --> 00:27:25,760
Speaker 1: So not only was there no way to get rid

427
00:27:25,760 --> 00:27:28,160
Speaker 1: of it, not only did it make your computer more vulnerable,

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00:27:28,200 --> 00:27:32,080
Speaker 1: it also made everything run worse on your machine. And

429
00:27:32,160 --> 00:27:35,000
Speaker 1: to say that Sony b MG faced a backlash would

430
00:27:35,040 --> 00:27:38,920
Speaker 1: be putting it lightly. The company scrambled to address the problem,

431
00:27:39,359 --> 00:27:42,920
Speaker 1: h its first solution actually ended up creating new security

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Speaker 1: vulnerabilities while it was supposedly deactivating the initial software. Uh

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00:27:49,600 --> 00:27:53,399
Speaker 1: so that was not great, right when your solution is

434
00:27:53,440 --> 00:27:56,760
Speaker 1: at least as bad as the original problem, and also

435
00:27:56,800 --> 00:28:00,879
Speaker 1: a point of irony. Later on, researchers would accused Sony

436
00:28:00,920 --> 00:28:04,520
Speaker 1: b m G S DRM of containing code from various

437
00:28:04,560 --> 00:28:11,000
Speaker 1: open source programs in violation of those programs individual licensing agreements.

438
00:28:11,440 --> 00:28:14,960
Speaker 1: So in other words, Sony b MG was making use

439
00:28:15,000 --> 00:28:19,080
Speaker 1: of code without proper permission to use that code, which

440
00:28:19,119 --> 00:28:22,119
Speaker 1: meant Sony b m G, S d r M was

441
00:28:22,320 --> 00:28:27,240
Speaker 1: in itself a sort of copyright violation, which is kind

442
00:28:27,240 --> 00:28:31,800
Speaker 1: of poetic. Sony would issue a recall of all unsold

443
00:28:31,840 --> 00:28:35,440
Speaker 1: CDs that were harboring this DRM uh and a couple

444
00:28:35,480 --> 00:28:38,440
Speaker 1: of class action lawsuits followed, and it ended up being

445
00:28:38,480 --> 00:28:43,800
Speaker 1: a highly publicized and extremely expensive PR disaster for the company,

446
00:28:44,200 --> 00:28:49,240
Speaker 1: and yet DRM persisted. Now, there are lots of other examples.

447
00:28:49,240 --> 00:28:53,680
Speaker 1: We could talk about. Curig, for instance, instituted DRM with

448
00:28:53,840 --> 00:28:58,200
Speaker 1: its Curig two point oh machine moving forward, and that

449
00:28:58,240 --> 00:29:01,240
Speaker 1: would mean that these Curig machine, which are coffee machines.

450
00:29:01,280 --> 00:29:03,520
Speaker 1: If you're not familiar, you put a little pod of

451
00:29:03,560 --> 00:29:05,880
Speaker 1: coffee into the machine and you push a button and

452
00:29:05,920 --> 00:29:08,840
Speaker 1: it brews a cup of coffee for you. Well, the

453
00:29:08,920 --> 00:29:12,440
Speaker 1: DRM meant that these machines would only operate with Curig

454
00:29:12,440 --> 00:29:15,960
Speaker 1: branded coffee pods or k cups as they called them,

455
00:29:16,880 --> 00:29:20,240
Speaker 1: Kurig printed special ink. There's like a sticker on the

456
00:29:20,280 --> 00:29:22,920
Speaker 1: tops of the pods that the Curig two point o

457
00:29:23,040 --> 00:29:26,560
Speaker 1: machine and later would scan for. So the machine would

458
00:29:26,560 --> 00:29:29,160
Speaker 1: scan to look for the presence of this stuff on

459
00:29:29,200 --> 00:29:32,280
Speaker 1: the pod, and if there were no ink found, while

460
00:29:32,320 --> 00:29:35,360
Speaker 1: the machine would not work. It would not it wouldn't

461
00:29:35,480 --> 00:29:37,959
Speaker 1: allow you to brew that cup of coffee. So if

462
00:29:37,960 --> 00:29:40,000
Speaker 1: you bought it from a third party and it lacked

463
00:29:40,040 --> 00:29:44,120
Speaker 1: that sticker or that ink, no dice even if it

464
00:29:44,160 --> 00:29:48,320
Speaker 1: was a Curig branded pod from before they started doing

465
00:29:48,360 --> 00:29:52,680
Speaker 1: this practice. It wouldn't work because the earlier Curig pods

466
00:29:52,760 --> 00:29:56,400
Speaker 1: didn't have this this ink on them, and what followed

467
00:29:57,120 --> 00:30:00,880
Speaker 1: was a massive backlash from customers. Kurig saw an influx

468
00:30:00,920 --> 00:30:04,040
Speaker 1: of negative reviews and a drop in sales as well.

469
00:30:04,360 --> 00:30:07,520
Speaker 1: Third party companies began to produce pods that would fool

470
00:30:07,560 --> 00:30:10,280
Speaker 1: the Curig into thinking that it was a Curig branded

471
00:30:10,280 --> 00:30:13,840
Speaker 1: pod when it wasn't. Customers were upset that Kurig was

472
00:30:14,000 --> 00:30:17,880
Speaker 1: essentially deciding which coffees they should be allowed to drink.

473
00:30:18,440 --> 00:30:22,880
Speaker 1: It was really messy. Kurig weathered the storm mostly but

474
00:30:22,960 --> 00:30:26,520
Speaker 1: eventually settled a lawsuit accusing the company of using anti

475
00:30:26,520 --> 00:30:30,000
Speaker 1: competitive practices to prevent anyone else from producing pods that

476
00:30:30,000 --> 00:30:34,680
Speaker 1: were compatible with Curig brewing machines. The company also brought

477
00:30:34,800 --> 00:30:38,760
Speaker 1: back a device that they had discontinued called the my

478
00:30:39,080 --> 00:30:43,320
Speaker 1: K Cup, which is actually a reusable coffee filter slash

479
00:30:43,360 --> 00:30:48,040
Speaker 1: cup that allows customers to put their own coffee into

480
00:30:48,080 --> 00:30:51,160
Speaker 1: the cup and use that within a Curig machine. So

481
00:30:51,200 --> 00:30:53,239
Speaker 1: that's one way of stepping around it where you're not

482
00:30:53,600 --> 00:30:57,640
Speaker 1: having to buy the coffee straight from Curig. But yeah,

483
00:30:58,000 --> 00:31:00,240
Speaker 1: we've seen this sort of stuff a lot. In fact,

484
00:31:00,280 --> 00:31:03,680
Speaker 1: we've seen it a ton, I'd say, like the last

485
00:31:03,720 --> 00:31:07,520
Speaker 1: decade or so, maybe the last fifteen years. Really, we

486
00:31:07,560 --> 00:31:12,040
Speaker 1: started seeing companies looking for ways to create new revenue streams.

487
00:31:12,120 --> 00:31:14,600
Speaker 1: And the main way a lot of companies focused on

488
00:31:14,680 --> 00:31:17,640
Speaker 1: was how can we get customers locked into like a

489
00:31:17,680 --> 00:31:22,640
Speaker 1: subscription based model or a model where they must continue

490
00:31:22,640 --> 00:31:25,880
Speaker 1: to purchase things from us so that the thing that

491
00:31:25,920 --> 00:31:29,360
Speaker 1: they initially bought continues to work. That that has been

492
00:31:29,440 --> 00:31:34,680
Speaker 1: like a massive strategy that customers in general hate, are

493
00:31:34,800 --> 00:31:37,680
Speaker 1: typically hate UM And it's one of the reasons why

494
00:31:37,760 --> 00:31:41,320
Speaker 1: DRM is necessary because without DRM, then the customer has

495
00:31:41,320 --> 00:31:44,640
Speaker 1: the freedom to go wherever they want to get the

496
00:31:44,760 --> 00:31:48,200
Speaker 1: stuff what makes the device continue to work. And that

497
00:31:48,320 --> 00:31:53,280
Speaker 1: might be a different source, right Like for my my printer,

498
00:31:53,720 --> 00:31:58,160
Speaker 1: I might find a compatible cartridge that costs, you know,

499
00:31:58,360 --> 00:32:00,720
Speaker 1: a third of what it would cost me to buy

500
00:32:00,760 --> 00:32:04,160
Speaker 1: the official brand. I'm obviously going to be tempted to

501
00:32:04,200 --> 00:32:08,280
Speaker 1: go with that one, assuming that my printer will actually

502
00:32:08,400 --> 00:32:13,880
Speaker 1: let me use it. Um. Yeah, it's a it's a mess.

503
00:32:14,200 --> 00:32:17,160
Speaker 1: And like I said, DRM plays an important part in that.

504
00:32:17,440 --> 00:32:21,800
Speaker 1: And uh, I guess the alternative would be these companies

505
00:32:21,840 --> 00:32:25,880
Speaker 1: would eventually phase out dr M, but it would likely

506
00:32:25,960 --> 00:32:29,920
Speaker 1: mean that we would see much higher price tags on

507
00:32:30,000 --> 00:32:33,640
Speaker 1: some of these devices because the company would want to

508
00:32:33,720 --> 00:32:37,280
Speaker 1: make up that revenue elsewhere. And it might mean that, oh, well,

509
00:32:37,280 --> 00:32:40,320
Speaker 1: we're gonna have to sell this at a higher cost

510
00:32:40,920 --> 00:32:43,720
Speaker 1: because previously we were selling it low since we knew

511
00:32:43,720 --> 00:32:47,640
Speaker 1: we would make it up in the subscriptions or additional products.

512
00:32:47,680 --> 00:32:50,160
Speaker 1: So there there is a tradeoff here that even if

513
00:32:50,160 --> 00:32:51,760
Speaker 1: we get rid of d r M, it may mean

514
00:32:51,840 --> 00:32:57,400
Speaker 1: that the things we have been purchasing will get more expensive. Uh,

515
00:32:57,520 --> 00:33:00,560
Speaker 1: the individual stuff that we use on those machines might

516
00:33:00,600 --> 00:33:03,960
Speaker 1: not get more expensive, but the machines themselves could, and

517
00:33:04,120 --> 00:33:06,600
Speaker 1: I don't think people are super keen on that either.

518
00:33:06,720 --> 00:33:08,600
Speaker 1: We would like the best of both worlds, like no

519
00:33:08,720 --> 00:33:12,120
Speaker 1: DRM and still low prices, but you can't get at

520
00:33:12,120 --> 00:33:16,200
Speaker 1: all anyway. That wraps up this episode. I know it's

521
00:33:16,200 --> 00:33:18,400
Speaker 1: a quick one, but we've got a special episode tomorrow,

522
00:33:18,520 --> 00:33:21,440
Speaker 1: so I just wanted to do a fast episode for today,

523
00:33:21,800 --> 00:33:24,000
Speaker 1: and I definitely wanted to talk about it because of

524
00:33:24,040 --> 00:33:28,120
Speaker 1: the Xbox Online issue that I saw earlier today. If

525
00:33:28,160 --> 00:33:30,520
Speaker 1: you have suggestions for topics I should cover in future

526
00:33:30,560 --> 00:33:32,880
Speaker 1: episodes of tech Stuff, please reach out to me. The

527
00:33:32,920 --> 00:33:36,120
Speaker 1: best way to do that is on Twitter. The handle

528
00:33:36,120 --> 00:33:39,400
Speaker 1: for the show is text Stuff hs W and I'll

529
00:33:39,400 --> 00:33:48,560
Speaker 1: talk to you again really soon. Text Stuff is an

530
00:33:48,560 --> 00:33:52,280
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio production. For more podcasts from My Heart Radio,

531
00:33:52,600 --> 00:33:55,760
Speaker 1: visit the i Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

532
00:33:55,840 --> 00:34:00,280
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows. Zero