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"Your post makes it sound like DRM is bad."

DRM _IS_ bad because there's no way to allow me to use media I purchase in any way I choose (e.g ripping DVDs to my MythTV server) while preventing me from giving those files to someone else.

DRM simply cannot be 'implemented properly', because it's broken by design; either I control my use of purchased media or the IP Robber Barons do... there's no middle ground.

Any effective DRM will cripple my use of media so much that I simply won't buy it. For example, I would have bought a few hundred Blu-Ray disks by now if it weren't for the DRM... if it's cracked to the point where I can use those disks as easily as DVDs, then I'll start buying them, but not until then.

All DRM is in fact bad because all DRM carries the assumption that you are incapable of doing the right thing and thus, must be actively prevented from doing the wrong thing. A DRM scheme that prevents you from giving a file to your friends is treating you like a criminal because the assumption behind it is that you WOULD give it to your friends -- they are so certain that you would do this, that they paid programmers to design a system to prevent it. To say that this restriction doesn't bother you because you wouldn't do that anyway misses the point. The point is that your morality means absolutely nothing if you have no ability to be immoral. To support any form of DRM is akin to saying that they are right to treat their customers in this adversarial, dehumanizing fashion.

DRM is power. It's power to control markets, to micromanage customers, to dictate obsolescence, and to hold content hostage. It's a power that comes with no concept of due process or innocent until proven guilty. It's a power that is "justified" by the fact that media companies have chosen not to create a business model suitable for the Information Age, which is no justification at all. It's a power that was not given to the companies willingly, but rather was one that they have taken for themselves. It was born not of overwhelming customer demand, but rather, a desire to control.

DRM is also a sad alternative to restoring the balance that once existed between the temporary monopoly granted by copyright and the benefit of society. Copyright was once only twelve years in duration, and this was when a mechanical printing press was the most technologically advanced method of distribution. We now have the ability to create and sell many more copies of a work in twelve years than we ever could have done before, yet copyright now has a ridiculous duration that has no concept of balance. It is plainly evident that you are dealing with people who are never going to be satisfied, for whom enough is never going to be enough.

The reason why so many no longer respect copyright is because it is no longer respectable. Those who choose to respect it anyway give it a benefit of doubt that the media companies are not willing to extend to their customers. Restoring the balance that once existed could create a world where people again respect copyright because they can see that it is reasonable and good. Such people would not want to infringe it, and thus, would need no restraints to prevent them from doing so. The fact that this simple, self-evident truth is so hard for so many to imagine is evidence enough that we have gone too far down this negative path that we are on. More DRM, no matter how benign, could only take us farther down that path.

If the DRM is so good that "the average person has no pragmatic or material objection to its restrictions" then objecting to it on "principle" alone becomes an exercise in, well, juvenile-wish-fulfillment. In fact, the "average" person has no problem with DRM schemes such as those that "lock" down DVDs or VHS (macrovision), nor those that iTunes had or most software has. I'm not saying that most DRM schemes are there yet, but if DRM is that unobtrusive, then I'd consider it an acceptable part of the real-world compromise necessary when dealing with the owners. I leave to each person to decide if that deal is Faustian or not.

My explanation of why I object on the basis of principle can be found in this post [slashdot.org]. Far from being juvenile, it's a recognition that there are timeless things in life which are and always have been far more important than immediate convenience and certainly more important than whether you can play your music. The juvenile approach is the one in which convenience is everything, where all concerns about whether something is wrong are put to rest by access to entertainment. Such an approach knows nothing of principle, or of the difference between what is legal and what is right and good.

What I'd fear more is the DRM schemes that are designed not to control but to outright discourage the use of digital media. Put on your tin-foil hat with me and ask for a second why content owners would allow online digital providers such as Wal-Mart, Amazon, MicroSoft, and Audible to run a service which can disable your ability to use a license not due to breach on your part but just because they don't want to maintain their servers anymore (and in some cases this has already happened, see Walmart). Any good contract between owner and provider would require that the customer be allowed continued use of the product as sold. Not having those provisions smacks of a scheme by the owners to be able to say "oh, your product doesn't work anymore, well, that's digital downloads for you. Aren't CDs so much nicer!"

No tinfoil hat is necessary for that. All you're doing there is making the observation that these companies are still living in the past, a past time when they had full control over distribution. It's a natural consequence they have no interest in correctly dealing with digital media, as you have pointed out. They have not decided that technological progress has created a different world with new possibilities, and that this means they should evaluate whether their business model is suited to this new world. Instead, they still want that old world where they have full control and they are willing to become adversaries to their own customers in order to preserve it. That is the actual problem. Rather than address this problem and become a joy to do business with, they want to apply a band-aid and this band-aid is called DRM. Other band-aids include wielding political clout to purchase laws that benefit their interests at the expense of others, and making monstrous "examples" by financially ruining the lives of people who have done very little harm to anyone. I cannot in any good conscience support this effort, nor any devices designed to promote it. It's not just that it isn't working, it's that it is wrong. No amount of convenience and no degree of music player reliability is going to change that.