Solving DRM in the BitTorrent Age

An anonymous reader writes "FiringSquad has a new article on DRM in the BitTorrent Age. They argue that the movie industry looking for "perfect DRM" should aim for the printed book model (people still buy books even though they can read them for free at Barnes & Noble). They argue that the missing element is that screenwriters are not marketed by Hollywood in the same way the book industry markets its authors."

Where to read books

[SEWilco]

The librarians of the world would like to teach the submitter something.

Moderatards

[Anonymous Coward]

The first post may be offtopic or a troll, but by it's very definition is never redundant. If you're going to waste your mod points, please do so with more discernment.

Fags.

substantiate that substance

[darekana]

I, for one, welcome our new 9-year-old content producing overlords.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Stupid

[radtea]

I don't read books online because it's uncomfortable and inconvenient.

And you don't copy them because it's expensive, inconvenient and produces a very low quality product.

The article claims that we buy books because we want to "support our favourite authors" or something like that. But the truth is that we buy books because they are good value for money, copying is a real pain, and the quality of the copy is substantially inferior to that of the original.

Movies, on the other hand, are dead cheap to copy and the copy is just as good as the original. So the economics of book-copying are exactly the opposite of the economics of movie copying.

Maybe we need something like that "why your anti-spam thingy won't work" form for DRM. Ultimately, of course, creating "uncopyable bits" is like creating "massless matter", so the form would be a lot simpler:

Your post advocates a

(X) technical ( ) legislative ( ) market-based ( ) vigilante (X) psycho/socio-logical

approach to DRM. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have other flaws which used to vary from state to state before a bad federal law was passed.)

(X) All crypto can can be broken, and once broken it stays broken
(X) Legitimate users will be harmed
(X) The RIAA/MPAA won't like it
(X) It will stop copying for two weeks and then we'll be stuck with it

Specifically, your plan fails to account for

(X) Crypto-based DRM requires the user to have the keys, the plain-text and the cipher-text. Alan Turing won the War with just the cipher-text.
(X) People won't pay more than they feel is fair just because they like you
(X) Extreme stupidity of Hollywood exec's

and the following philosophical objections may also apply:

(X) Bits are inherently copyable at nearly zero cost.
(X) Feel-good measures do nothing to solve the problem

Furthermore, this is what I think about you:

(X) This is a stupid idea, and you're a stupid person for suggesting it.

There is a simple solution...

[raguirre]

...the film producers just have to create one single copy of the movie, and sell it to the highest bidder.

Starting bid: whatever it takes to recover the investment.