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DRM — It's Not Really About Piracy
Posted by
kdawson
on Tue Jan 16, 2007 05:03 AM
from the squeezing-blood-from-silicon dept.
from the squeezing-blood-from-silicon dept.
shadowmage13 writes "Hollywood privately admits that DRM is not really about piracy. From the article: 'In a nutshell: DRM's sole purpose is to maximize revenues by minimizing your rights so that they can sell them back to you... Like all lies, there comes a point when the gig is up; the ruse is busted. For the movie studios, it's the moment they have to admit that it's not the piracy that worries them, but business models which don't squeeze every last cent out of customers.' You can take action on Digital Restrictions Management at DefectiveByDesign of the Free Software Foundation, Digital Freedom, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation."
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DRM — It's Not Really About Piracy
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It never was about piracy (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Power to the artists??? (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.inter-sections.net/)
1) Artists build upon other artists. Some of the best pieces of art are composites of other pieces of art (Shakespeare being the classic example). This super-DRM'ed world would contradict that fact and make it much harder for artists to do their work. It would also make it impossible to create such art forms as satire, abbreviation, etc.
2) This system would contradict one of the basic realities of this universe: ideas are infinitely duplicable at no cost other than the medium to store them. You can have all the DRM systems in the world - if your poem appears on my screen and I memorize it or write it down, I've made a copy. I can then repost it if I feel so inclined. Trying to control the technological gateways (enforcing DRM'ed hardware, etc) is ultimately a losing battle, like fighting the ocean with a broom.
3) Such a system, to work perfectly, would by definition require real-time, detailed monitoring of everyone's activities that have anything to do with so-called "intellectual property". Apart from the huge technical challenge that this would represent (can you even imagine any IT company implementing this when they can't even create a centralised system of patient records without screwing up - see NHS PfIT), this would be a huge infringement on everyone's privacy. Or rather, it would be a complete eradication of the very concept of privacy.
Daniel
Re:Power to the artists??? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Power to the artists??? (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.cafeleprick.com/)
DRM in now way stops artists from building upon the ideas of other artists (copyright may stop this with the extreme measures it has been extended to, but not DRM). Shakespeare did not need to be able to make an exact quality of copy of other artists' works to build off of them. Neither did any of the musicians in history need to be able to make an exact copy of something they heard to use it and build off of it. The idea of art building off of arts means that artists hear/see what other artists have done and use it for inspiration, not that they make an exact copy of it. Artists have never needed to be able to make exact duplicates of other's work to find inspiration from other's work in the past anymore than they do now.
Re:Power to the artists??? (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://slashdot.org/)
Why should we? How do we benefit from this? There are three types of public benefits with regard to creative works: 1) to have as many as possible original works created and published; 2) to have as many as possible derivative works created and published, and; 3) to have no or as few as possible (and for as short a time) restrictions on the public with regard to those works.
If it causes more works to be created and published, then I am prepared to accept some limited, temporary restrictions, but only provided that the public benefit of the extra works outweighs the public harm of the restrictions. E.g. a million years more copyright that caused only one more work to be created and published would pretty certainly not be worth it; no matter how good that work was, we'd be better off without it.
You are suggesting that we give artists the ability to un-create and un-publish works, which would largely try to erase whatever public benefit the creation and publication of the work had resulted in. It would also amount to a permanent restriction on the public, since the work would be irrevocably lost and could never enter the public domain. So I fail to see how there is any public benefit whatsoever. Because of that, I fail to see why I shouldn't deride this as an insane idea, and you as an idiot for having come up with it. You seem to be pretty selfish and short-sighted. The utilitarian model of copyright, which I've described above, and which is the foundation and constitutional justification for the whole thing, is interested in how we can better society generally, by spreading knowledge. You seem to not care about that, even though for any individual on the planet, they will always receive more knowledge from the amassed contributions of others, than they can ever possibly hope to generate themselves. They might generate something new, but never a greater quantity. We don't stand on the shoulders of giants; we stand on the shoulders of all the other people who came before us. You want to kick that over.
Frankly, if your idea was so hot, why not use it in the patent field? Patents operate under the exact same utilitarian model as copyrights (save that it is concerned with the spread and use of inventions, rather than knowledge generally), so if your idea was good for one, then it would be good for the other, right? Well, some human being invented the wheel. Another invented walking upright. Another invented language. Another tamed fire. Why shouldn't we allow them, or their estates, to retract those inventions, turning us into crawling savage brutes, just to satisfy your moronic ideology? I wouldn't allow it, since I want to cultivate the greatest raw material (i.e. the most works, and the most inventions) to help society thrive. I don't give a crap about authors or inventors, save in how they can be exploited in furthering this cause. Since it seems the best way to exploit them is to give them rewards that are enough to encourage them to work, but not enough to outweigh the benefits of their work, that's what I do, and I do it happily, since society still gets the better part of the bargain.
Have fun living in a cave, man.
Re:Power to the artists??? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Power to the artists??? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, I'll give you the argument that you can't copy [or clone] a car (yet) but to let the originator decide exactly how their product will be played or not played is exactly what I don't want.
Don't buy the car analogy because they are in a different price bracket? Let's aim lower. Greeting Cards. You aren't given explicit instructions with your greeting card and told that you have to give the Happy Birthday card on your kid's birthday, and that day alone. You can buy the card and use it for any occasion if you want. It's always fun to give condolence cards for births, birthdays, or even weddings.
Re:Power to the artists??? (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://www.rhymezilla.com/ | Last Journal: Monday December 19 2005, @11:54PM)
Even though they don't tell you this, most greeting card text is copyrighted by the person who wrote it or the company that paid for it to be written. You cannot, for instance, legally make your own greeting cards that use the text from existing cards, just with different pictures.
Re:Power to the artists??? (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://www.mangaschool.com/ | Last Journal: Tuesday January 03 2006, @07:51AM)
Art != Music (Whether or not music, especially contemporary music, is even a subset of art is a matter of opinion). Some of the greatest works of art in history were done 'for hire'.
Unless you want to see an end to persistent recordings, you're advocating the same sort of BS "have thier cake and eat it too" setup we have now, except instead of some industry suits reaping the cash, it's the artist himself. If I buy a painting, I expect the right to put it on my bathroom wall, wipe my mouth on it, or have my picture taken in front of it. Same for a recording. If I want to listen to it in my cd-less car stereo, on my Neuros, or on my GP2X, I'm going to. I expect to control my own purchase.
Re:Power to the artists??? (Score:5, Insightful)
(Last Journal: Saturday September 22, @12:45PM)
We all happily went out and rebought our existing music collection on CD as it was alot more convenient than LP's. And in the process we generated a constant revenue stream as stuff was gradually re-issued. The problem is that this is now coming to an end for the record companies as they have re-released almost everything. They have certainly run out of the stuff with serious mass appeal.
So they now have to look for a new way of extracting similar revenues that they have grown used to over the last 15 years out of a back catalog which most of us already own, possibly in more than one format. The problem is that they have already made it about as convenient as it needs to be and the quality is mostly there as well (Vinyl have better infrasonic performance).
So rather than try and go back to surviving off the revenues they get from new releases which would result in a huge drop in profits they need an alternative. Without an alternative the problems would be very far reaching. The stock market is used to constant revenue growth. If profits fall it is far worse for a company than if they had never risen in the first place, expecially if the fall is not likely to be temporary. This is frequently what drives companies under if they are unable to downsize quickly enough.
So faced with this dilemma the media publishing companies must find a way to keep the boon of the CD years going, and being that they didnt reinvest those record profits very wisely in new content production this is going to difficult. So they are choosing to try and keep the boom of the CD going by constantly selling us a new copy of stuff we already own indefinately.
If you contrast this with companies like BP (who sell Oil) you see that they have invested their profits much more wisely. BP are now the worlds largest producer of solar panels and have started describing themselves as an energy company rather than an oil company.
In a single phrase, "Diversify to survive".
Re:Power to the artists??? (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.nine-times.org/)
Huh... that seems very obvious, but I've never thought of that before. When you first said the problem originated with CDs, I assumed you meant because it was the first digital medium available to consumers, and therefore the first to allow duplication without degradation of sound quality, which allowed better "piracy".
But, if I can try to sum up your post, you're suggesting that CDs were the first new medium that offered significant improvement to cause consumers to re-buy the music they already owned. Therefore, the copyright owners grew dependant on the revenue stream of people re-buying their works, in spite of the fact that they already owned copies. Now that people are done replacing their records with CDs, record companies are trying to devise a new way to force consumers to continually re-buy a product in order to maintain that revenue stream.
That sounds right to me. It seems like the intention is to get you to buy a new copy of each song for every new device you buy. One works with iPods, a different one with your Zune, yet another for your PlayForSure device, and a fourth for your cell phone. This also seems to be the intention with HD DVD media. People have finally replaced their VHS tapes with DVDs, and now they expect you to replace your DVDs with HD.
To me, it seems worth noting the obvious: this is not what copyright law was meant for.
Re:Power to the artists??? (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://fnordius.blogspot.com/ | Last Journal: Friday December 20 2002, @06:48AM)
Artists have always been at the mercy of their patrons. Whether it was aristocrats contracting compositions or keeping musicians on retainer, or writers accepting a commission to write a penny dreadful. Artists were often paid in advance.
There's also that dumb, dumb dream that you can take back what you said, or at least prevent it from being preserved for posterity. Much like how Tom Hanks tried to kill all reruns of Bosom Buddies, or how some composers like Richard Wagner tried to forbid others from playing their operas. Even your post here is now beyond your control.
Today, musicians earn more by playing concerts than by cutting albums. Most of the budding stars only make an album as a way of improving their image. Groups are discovering that non-DRM'ed music on the internet is an excellent way to generate interest.
No, the problem with studios is that they have grown accustomed to being the gatekeeper, and charging ruinous rates for using their distribution channels and production equipment. They are already losing control of production exclusivity. Now they are losing control of distribution. It's all about staving off the inevitable.
Re:Power to the artists??? (Score:4, Insightful)
Unfortunately for DRM to really work, and based on industry attempts so far, the analogy of being able to 'revoke' a post from a webhost falls short. Rather, DRM requires that the content creator has a back-door into your desktop computer that will let them erase the text of their comment that you have cut-and-pasted and any screenshots of their post that you might have made.
I don't object to an artist being able to remove a song from their own download service. But their right to control file access stops at the edge of my machine.
Re:Power to the artists??? (Score:5, Insightful)
I suggest you read up on the reason copyright laws have time limits. It is SPECIFICALLY so that works do NOT get lost forever.
I din't mean to imply this would happen tomorrow but a decade or two from now when certainly things could be watermarked (and recognized) appropriately and furthermore most vehicles of media would be connected one way or another. Given IPv6 it's not impossible.
So the only way to enjoy published works in your version of the modern world is to be connected 24x7x365 to the internet. No thanks.
And what would be wrong with being able to revoke/retrive an embarassing video or soundbite?
What would be wrong with rewriting history? Maybe we can pretend that Sadam was a kind and generous man that was good to his people. Maybe Paris Hilton wants to pretend that she is not a slut, or Mel Gibson wants to pretend that he didn't make anti-semitic remarks. There is nothing wrong with wanting to take back what you said, it's called an apology. There is nothing wrong with stupid teens posting embarrassing videos of themselves either, and later in life saying that we ALL do stupid stuff when we are kids. You learn from those mistakes. Your "system" attempts to eliminate consequences of doing bad / stupid stuff - sorry, that's just not a good thing for society.
Artists would have to reimburse the prorated amount owed the consumer.
So an artist that goes on a drug binge and goes crazy can take away my purchased right to listen to music he sold me back when he was sane? I don't want that, even if I DO get a partial refund. Considering how many artists are nuts to begin with, this is not a far-fetched scenario.
DRM is bad, M'Kay? There are no redeeming values. You can attempt to create some bizzaro perfect-world scenarios where it could possibly work with a gazillion exceptions and conditions, but we do not live in a perfect world.
Re:It never was about piracy (Score:5, Funny)
(http://xybapodcast.blogspot.com/ | Last Journal: Friday December 08 2006, @10:06AM)
Correction: Spin, It was about piracy by the .... (Score:4, Interesting)
(http://www.mygothicheart.com/oh10101 | Last Journal: Sunday October 28, @06:34PM)
OK more spin for US, EU, UN them; All megalomania persons in industry, government, and religion demand a semiliterate servile exploitable public or at least an oppressed fearful culture of hostages suffering with mass-hysteria Stockholm syndrome (identifying with the oppressors as good, fair, and reasonable).
Re:YET ANOTHER MISLEADING HEADLINE (Score:4, Insightful)
Ars Technica's Ken Fisher adds: " It's not piracy that's the concern, it's their ability to control how you use the content you purchase."
It seems to me that is a reasonable interpretation of the "unnamed executive's" comment that the DRM is "too lax", because if "piracy" were a major reason for Hollywood's wanting DRM then its relative stringency or laxity would not be such an important issue for Hollywood. However, if what they are really after is the maximum possible control over users then the relative laxity of a DRM standard *will* bother them - because, for example, they mightn't want a customer to enjoy the content on more than one device without purchasing more than one copy.
Therefore, the summary by shaowmage13 -
The comment from the "unnamed executive" _is_ as good as an admission of that, as has been shown above. The headline Slashdot used "DRM - it's not really about piracy" doesn't directly comment on what anyone has said - privately or not - but states an opinion on what DRM is "about". It's an opinion that is reasonably substantiated by the Ars Technica article.
As for the British gutter press you'd find far more offensive and dishonest articles there than at Slashdot. At least Slashdot sticks to technology and related matters and hasn't, so far as I know, been involved in concealing Stalin's purges from the reading public, as the British newspaper the Guardian was.
Like Region Coding, Then (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://www.cyclomedia.co.uk/ | Last Journal: Tuesday December 12 2006, @06:48AM)
*Though having a decent TV that can handle PAL and NTSC helps, in the UK they're 6 bob a throw i can tell ye!
Re:Like Region Coding, Then (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://arungoodboy.wordpress.com/ | Last Journal: Monday June 18, @06:41AM)
Even if we get over the current mess (Trusted Computing, RIAA etc), it looks like as if the big media dinosaurs will never really learn to adapt. Each time a new technology pops up that threatens their stable position, they panic immediately and create a huge fuss in trying to maintain the staus quo.
If only they weren't so powerful already, they'd probably have died off by now; replaced by smarter, quicker companies that didn't have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the new world.
Re:Like Region Coding, Then (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://www.fredshome.org/)
Something like the big studios are useful because they have the financial backing for large scale projects (in movies mostly, it's less necessary in music unless you have to heavily market something inherently worthless). If they were to die it would be problematic for that industry. The high budget films would be starved for funding. This could well translate into a decrease in quality and originality as only "safe" films would be produced.
Re:Like Region Coding, Then (Score:5, Interesting)
Though it's true that wide distribution over the internet could theoretically drive movie theaters to show an idie film, the actual practice is that distribution is difficult, even if you assume theaters are open to talking with anyone (not likely). Even if an indie film made enough money in home distribution to give theaters reason to believe they'd have a good audience, proper negotiation channels just don't exist between an indie film maker and the massive number of theaters in the country, or world even. The indie film has to partner with someone big enough to ensure the film will get a wide release.
The internet doesn't help in this environment. With such an important distribution channel locked up tight by the big guys, the movie maker who decides to avoid the big companies will miss out on about half of his revenue stream. Considering how hard it is for movies to make money (most films are not "Star Wars"), this kind of a loss is a real problem.
Music is a little different because bands control performances and the internet is a perfect distribution channel that doesn't require a big label. But how will people know the band exists and that new music is available? How are people going to find out what this new band sounds like? Podcasts exist now, and internet radio over wireless is at least a possibility, but which ones are the big podcasts or internet radio stations that large numbers of people listen to?
If you want to reach an audience larger than the neighborhood bars, you need your music to be heard by large numbers of people. Although that can happen virally, viral word of mouth only works for a small number of bands and songs at a time and only really works at all for people who have buddies who like to pester them about music. If you want to get the word out about your band, you have to go to an outlet that's popular enough that lots of people will listen to it. Whatever outlet becomes becomes most popular becomes a bottleneck. Whenever a bottleneck exists, large companies are going to try to, and will usually succeed in controlling it, just like they do with radio stations now.
Once again, a band certainly could go it alone, and I applaud those that do, but not being able to get that large listening audience is going to keep most small bands small. It will mean that labels will be able to continue to offer a very compelling service, for a very steep price, if a band wants to hit it big.
As long as you have scarcity and revenue, you'll have big companies trying, and largely succeeding, in controlling the two. I think indies can become much larger than they are now thanks to the internet, but it's highly unlikely they'll become the dominant source of entertainment.
TW
Re:Like Region Coding, Then (Score:4, Funny)
(http://www.vhemt.org/)
Care to translate?
Re:Like Region Coding, Then (Score:5, Informative)
(http://ettlz.blogspot.com/ | Last Journal: Sunday February 12 2006, @06:53PM)
Re:Like Region Coding, Then (Score:5, Funny)
(http://ettlz.blogspot.com/ | Last Journal: Sunday February 12 2006, @06:53PM)
Re:Like Region Coding, Then (Score:5, Informative)
(http://babelfish.alt...%2F%2Fslashdot.jp%2F)
So the original poster was claiming we can buy DVDs for £0.30; he was quite definitely being tongue-in-cheek, unless he meant blank ones
(*) Fascinating facts #1! Although the concept of a shilling disappeared in 1971, the one and two shilling coins remained in circulation until the early 1990s, as they were identical in size, composition and value to the new 5p and 10p coins. They disappeared when the 5 and 10p coins were reduced in size.
(*) Fascinating facts #2!!!!! That was 12 old pennies (12d)... pre-decimalisation there were 240 pence in the pound. No, I don't remember any of this, I'm not that old
Re:Like Region Coding, Then (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Like Region Coding, Then (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Like Region Coding, Then (Score:5, Informative)
(http://jasonrumney.net/)
I was under the impression that pal VCRS were made to handle NTSC by slowing down from 30 FPS to 25
No, they just convert the colour representation to PAL and output a PAL signal at 30fps. Older TVs (and some newer cheap 14" and smaller TVs) are simple enough that this just works (with a black band top and bottom due to fewer lines on the screen) and newer TVs are designed for it, adjusting their vertical scan to fit the picture on the screen perfectly.
Pretty much all PAL DVD players will output either PAL60 or NTSC if you put an NTSC disc in (modulo region coding issues), and all but the cheapest PAL TVs these days will handle both.
In other news... (Score:5, Funny)
RTFA? (Score:5, Insightful)
I just read the article - there is no cited evidence that anyone from Hollywood has ever said this. It may be true, yes, and I agree with the conclusions of the article itself, but this isn't some sort of sensational scoop.
MPAA executives have never admitted that piracy isn't the motivation for DRM. The current generation will never admit that: piracy is their excuse and they will stick to it. DRM is part of their business model and it won't go anywhere until it results in a shareholder-awakening loss of money.
If people prefer to pirate stuff, that means the DRM is not restrictive enough to stop them. That is the only thing they'll ever tell you, and the only thing you'll hear from the media outlets that they own.
IRTFALITFA (Score:5, Insightful)
I do, however, also agree with the articles conclusion that DRM isn't about piracy, if only because it's so ineffective to be laughable. It's always been, and obviously so, to make the people who do spend, spend more than they should.
Why chase people who won't buy jack, when you can shaft the people who do for more? It's less effort.
Re:RTFA? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:RTFA? (Score:5, Informative)
(http://www.sammamamma.com/ | Last Journal: Friday June 15, @01:49AM)
Dan Glickman, Motion Picture Association of America [bbc.co.uk]
Re:RTFA? (Score:5, Informative)
Here is a quote from another interview with Fritz Attaway, an MPAA exec:
With regard to your comment that many DRM technologies can be circumvented by commercial pirates, you are correct, but DRM is not intended to prevent commercial piracy. It is intended to insure that most consumers will keep the deal they make with movie distributors. Like the lock on your door, they are not a guarantee against theft, but they "keep honest people honest."
Re:RTFA? (Score:5, Informative)
You mean like the leak that sprung up with emusic? Bands that are anit-DRM and tired of being ripped off by the RIAA are starting to go inde. Bare Naked Ladies and others have jumped ship. I wonder how far the bands and consumers will migrate away from the RIAA cartel?
DRM is incompatible with so much stuff, many items are still born. The DAT is a good example. Vista and Blu-Ray may be the next still born. Blue-Ray may be limited to just a few SONY titles and games for the Playstation. It's going to be too much incompatiblily to work on Vista as not enough people are going to spring for all the trusted DRM hardware to make it work. That nice high res monitor and sound system you have are incompatible with the DRM requirements. I have serious doubts the Blu-Ray and HD DVD format war will be won by either. Plain old DVD's will win this one by a landslide. They just work in the computer, in DVD players with your TV set, and portable DVD players.
HD stuff and it's DRM simply won't work in most hardware due to the lack of a full secure digital signal path all the way to the display. The wrong monitor or video card or bad combination will keep the adoption rate very low for a long time. Maybe it will sell as well as the DAT.
Trying to outcompete 15yo (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.melikamp.net/ | Last Journal: Sunday January 28 2007, @05:24PM)
Whaaa? (Score:5, Funny)
well duh... (Score:1)
Bias (Score:5, Insightful)
(Last Journal: Wednesday April 27 2005, @01:58PM)
"His user rules just scare the heck out of us"
Now, it's entirely possible that DRM is about exactly what they say it's about. What's not true however is that Hollywood is admitting this. The article is forcing you to accept the journalists bias hoping you don't exercise your critical thinking skills and question it. Whether it's true or not - the journalist needs to get his act together and get better sources than some other journalists dodgy source.
Now somebody might argue: "well we know they're doing it, what does it matter if the journalist exaggerates a quote from an unnamed source". I think it matters a great deal. When you're right you should be able to prove it very easily. Otherwise you have to accept that no matter how you feel on the matter you may be wrong, or there's just not enough evidence to imply anything.
Re:Bias (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://www.sammamamma.com/ | Last Journal: Friday June 15, @01:49AM)
Dan Glickman, Motion Picture Association of America [bbc.co.uk]
not about piracy? really? (Score:1)
(http://www.spambutcher.com/)
for the most part - it seems to me you can do just about anything that would constitute "fair use" - am I missing something here?
I'm not saying I "like" DRM - I think it's just a reality of the market (counting the RIAA suing grandmas as a "market" force). no one's (OK, almost no one) is going to sell you a pre-ripped MP3 - ready to share via limewire.
I'm playing around with some services that offer $15 / month all-you-can-eat music. this wouldn't be possible without some heavy DRM. seriously - that guy with the horns and the cape - not so bad...
Mirrors my views exactly (Score:5, Interesting)
Just look at iTunes; you can burn the music to CDs and rip to mp3. This is no copy protection - only a mild barrier to make it more likely that the average customer does _not_ buy another brand of mp3 player.
As others have pointed out, the article headline is misleading. Hollywood won't admit any such thing.
mutiple sales (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://freedomsforums.com/)
Re:mutiple sales (Score:5, Insightful)
Insightful, up to that point.
You've swallowed Hollywood's line. Profit is supposed to be a carrot to "promote the progress of science and useful arts", not the purpose, though these days you'd never know that.
As for TFA, yes, what a load of crap. When did musings in random blogs become newsworthy?
Consumers losing control (Score:4, Insightful)
The real risks of DRM come into play when consumers lose control of the devices they legitimately assume will have traditional functionality. Why on earth should my cellphone, a digital communication device be unable to share MY data freely with other networks? So I have to PAY for a ringtone or PAY to upload a picture I just took? Why should my wifi-enabled Zune not be able to "squirt" MY data to any nearby Zune?
That's bad enough, but the most dangerous outcome here is when I can no longer wipe and then reinstall a free operating system onto a general purpose computing device. The people might be forced to pay the microsoft tax, but we will not give up our free software.
F__k em (Score:2, Funny)
Some thoughts. (Score:2, Informative)
(http://blog.slovenija.be/)
Re:Some thoughts. (Score:5, Informative)
(http://code.google.com/p/nmod/)
The problem they have is that faced with this undeniable fact they have decided to focus on an unrealistic solution, being drm. The plain fact is that drm will only cause problems for legitimate users, not unauthorised copiers.
Circumvention being illegal is no problem. There will always be someone, somewhere who figures it out, and finding that person in time to stop dissemination of their solution is a game that will be lost before they start, every time.
DRM then is so they can continue to attract investors. It gives them something to say in pitches. 'We have solution x to this problem that will ensure a return on your investment' and so on. The fact that historically such solutions have a 100% faliure rate isn't something they can even think about, so they're trapped.
Looking at this from an evolutionary standpoint, they're screwed, and heading to extinction. Simply demanding that the world be other than it is can only have that result. What system will emerge in its place I don't know, but I strongly suspect that the current crop of p2p companies/products will form the basis of a new media empire.
The current media industries are trying to get into this feild, but for years all they've been doing is trying to stop it, whilst the p2p producers have been innovating like crazy. That means the p2p guys are already ahead in the next wave of media production/distribution, and very likely to stay there.
I think you're all wrong (Score:1)
(Last Journal: Friday June 11 2004, @11:15AM)
DRM is just another word for nothing left to lose (Score:1, Insightful)
(http://www.mr-locks.com/)
Specious logic. (Score:1, Insightful)
Arstechnic knows this is poor logic. If people are already honest, then there's no need for ANY laws of any kind. No speeding laws because people are already honest. No embezzlement, or fraud laws because people are honest.
Also I would like to see "all of the evidence" for myself, instead of some "unamed source". This is not "Deep Throat", or "Watergate". Let's not let our standards slip because we really want the outcome to be a certain way.
In today's edition... (Score:2)
(http://ejksdesktop.homelinux.com/)
Other stories coming up on the 11 o'clock segment: That hot girl you met in the AOL chatroom? She wasn't hot, and she was a he. This shocking story of one nerd's attempt to meet a real woman. Also, the sky is blue and bears shit in the woods.
>>> But seriously, the entire MAFIAA business model is built around controlling you (the buyer's) access to the artist's work. The Internet shatters that, and they're terrified by the realization that they are now redundant elements in a capitalist system.
Customer lock-in (Score:2)
(Last Journal: Monday February 13 2006, @07:11PM)
When you see Microsoft switching from their PlaysForSure DRM to Zune's own for its marketplace as that player is released without quoting security problems with the PlaysForSure tech, you know there are other things under the hood. Similarly, Apple is reluctant to opening up their FairPlay (why do they keep picking oxymorons for these techs?) standard to others because it could impair Apple's market dominance.
It's really sad that outside organizations to keep market competition, business practices, as well as user rights in check aren't more involved in this.
Well, Duh (Score:2)
(http://ponsaelius.blogspot.com/)
The only DRM scheme that works is Apple's, and that's because they were clever enough not to get down on their knees in front of the studios and promise them anything, which is what Microsoft has done.
What bothers me the most is that Congress ... (Score:4, Insightful)
(Last Journal: Friday December 01 2006, @10:51AM)
DRM - It's Not Really About Piracy (Score:4, Insightful)
Stunned! (Score:2)
If you were to tell me that the Boy Gates has $50 billion in the bank I wouldn't be more Stunned!
Duh (Score:2, Insightful)
(http://giantpachinkomachineofdoom.com/)
No more DRM? (Score:2)
Well, we don't really have to put up with it. (Score:1)
Why the hell are you going to pay for a music file with DRM if you can get it for free trough P2P ? If the music studios played it nicely and gave us the ability to download music in good compression formats (or even flac uncompressed) without DRM, then well, we would have no moral excuses not to buy the music from the artist we like. But since we are paying to get some crappie format that will only play in computer X and portable player Y, then sorry guys, but I think it's moral very acceptable to just get it for free.
If music studios want to make us pay 2, 3 or even more times for the same music ... then my answer is "I'll not pay you even once!".
Where? (Score:3, Insightful)
Support piratebay.org (Score:2, Funny)
(Last Journal: Thursday February 10 2005, @11:01AM)
http://buysealand.com/ [buysealand.com]
DRM is piracy (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd say RMD is piracy, DRM is theft.
Interesting timing (Score:1)
(http://www.slickdeals.net/ | Last Journal: Tuesday July 03, @12:08PM)
Self-Defeating (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://www.antiheroforhire.com/ | Last Journal: Tuesday October 07 2003, @09:06AM)
Unless ALL of these things come to pass, DRM is an unworkable mess and will cause the companies involved in it to fail miserably.
DRMed content: Purchasing a license to use? (Score:1, Interesting)
Maybe some tax laws need to be explored to answer this. IANAL, but I question who owns the DVD or and DRMed content when purchased from a store. I've always thought that ownership changed hands when the taxes were paid. In the case of purchases from a store, or for that matter any purchase that included sales tax.
If you are only purchasing a license and not ownership, why would you be paying taxes on the item. Do DVDs and/or other DRMed items tell you that you are only purchasing a license to view and/or use the material it contains?
When I purchase an item and pay the taxes on said item, I consider myself the owner of that item unless I am told prior to the purchase that I'm only getting a license to view and/or use that item rather than gaining ownership of said item. When I buy a book or magazine, I own that book or magazine when I pay it and that includes the sales tax at which time the ownership of the physical item changes hands. I also understand copyright laws and fair rights. Why do electronic formats, which have the same copyright protections as written material, have the ability to take my fair use rights away from me? The only answer I can come up with is that when purchasing electronic formats that are DRMed, I'm purchasing a license to use and not ownership.
But if I don't have ownership rights to the item, then someone else still retains ownership rights to that item. Since the item in question is only a copy, then that person that retains ownership of many copies of the item. Those items are an asset to the owner and taxes must be paid at sometime on those assets. If I'm only paying a sales tax on a license, then owner must be paying taxes on the ownership of all the copies he/she makes. Are the people that are selling licenses of DRMed material paying the taxes for ownership of those assets? Or did they pay the taxes on the materials needed to make the copies before the copies were made?
The point is, if someone else retains ownership of items they sell you, and you pay the taxes on the items, that someone is retaining ownership of assets and getting others to pay their taxes for them.
missleading topic (Score:1)
Another reason for DRM (Score:2)
A notable recent example is the new rules they want that mean that all streaming radio stations (regardless of what content they play, RIAA or otherwise) must have DRM.
My thoughts and musings (Score:3, Informative)
The full article is a blog? I think sometimes that the heads at slashdot have been kidnapped by forum trolls. Let's stir up some trouble with DRM and see how many days it will stay on the front page!
DRM and piracy: It's been said before, but to reiterate - DRM doesn't stop piracy. For that matter, gun laws don't stop criminals from obtaining guns, and airport security doesn't stop actual terrorists.
DRM and consumers: What a load of bull. We're not doing this to stop piracy, we're doing it to give the user more choices... yea right. What they are doing is locking down media so that they can sell more copies of it. Because hell, if you can sell someone more than one bible, you might as well try to sell them more than one copy of Star Wars. I know lots of people that have more than one copy of World of Warcraft, so that they can play the game twice at the same time. The funny thing is, of all "DRM" schemes, the MMORPG is the one that actually works - you buy the account, or you can't play. The account is verified online, and thus keygens quickly fail as duplicates can't simultaneously play, and there's no real offline/LAN game. The lesson? Some people have more money than they know what to do with - and the media giants have resorted to milking them because the media market in general is pretty well saturated.
Supply and demand (Score:2)
(Last Journal: Tuesday August 08 2006, @03:45PM)
An explanation would be nice (Score:2, Insightful)
For example, incorporating regional lockouts into copy protection, so it is integral to the game/DVD disc, but still allows the company to charge inflated rates in certain regions and keep people from importing from a cheaper region even if the content is the same.
Well DUH! (Score:1)
(Last Journal: Sunday November 11, @03:52AM)
There's a word for this (Score:2)
(http://www.darklock.com/blog/ | Last Journal: Tuesday August 28, @02:44PM)
This is called "capitalism".
It's a good thing.
We're experiencing a crunch. The old way of distributing movies and music is simply not going to survive much longer, so the people who depend on that way for their paychecks are panicking. They don't have to worry about their reputation ten years from now, so they're going to squeeze the consumer for every cent.
This process increases the pressure on the inchoative industry that will replace them. The more they squeeze, the more the consumer begs for an alternative, and the more that consumer will pay for the alternative when it arrives. (A common myth is that this will make the alternative arrive faster; what actually happens is that the alternative is released earlier when it is still incomplete and unreliable. The average consumer doesn't quite know the difference, but those of us who build these technologies do.)
Over time, the consumers end up paying roughly the same amount. Individual consumers may pay more, but not much more. If the industry didn't squeeze so hard, it would keep more customers and continue making money for a longer time - but less of it. Meanwhile, the alternative would still arrive, but consumers wouldn't flock to it and it wouldn't command as high a price.
In twenty years, the result - being more or less inevitable - will be roughly the same. All the media conglomerates are doing right now is driving themselves out of business faster, and arranging for the earliest alternative technology companies to get rich. The consumer will end up with the same end result, so I tend to view the transfer of wealth to the alternative technology companies as a net win overall.
It's sort of like the alternative O/S situation we had when Red Hat got massive. People who would otherwise have bought Microsoft products bought Red Hat instead. They still spent the same amount of money overall, but the Red Hat consumers got more for their investment. Companies that wouldn't have bought anything bought Red Hat. In the end, we got the scenario we have today: Linux has pretty much gotten where it's going to go, Microsoft is still the dominant force with no signs of failure in the near future, and the Mac is slowly carving a swath out of both. In the next couple years, this will stabilise, and we'll have that O/S market for the next twenty years. Even if there had been no Red Hat, things would have ended up very much the same way. Linux was a disruptive technology, but Red Hat was not in any way disruptive - just a momentary blip on the radar.
The media know that something disruptive is about to break. They don't know what. They don't know when. They just know it's all about to fall over and die, so they're grabbing all they can carry before they have to desert the sinking ship.
Not customers - competition (Score:2)
http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/?p=1007 [freedom-to-tinker.com]
Private cracking and file-sharing will likely always be possible. But businesses can't operate in private - they have to offer services in public. So having the ability to sue and withhold licenses from competitors means that you have bigger shares of marketplace for whatever you're using DRM to encumber. Customers can't be stopped - but competition sure can. That's a real point, too.
For us in the retail industry... (Score:2)
(http://www.alloveritradio.com/)
I'm also pushing Linux on anybody asking about Vista, bit it's kinda difficult since my store doesn't sell Linux...
Any suggestions for other 'product swaps'? Any favorite music players out there? (We have Creative Zen, Sansa, Muvo, iRiver, and the new Walkman).
I'm intentionally ommiting the name of where I work, and replies should too as I don't want to affect their Google pagerank, but they have naming rights to a rather large basketball and hockey stadium in Los Angeles.
The worst thing about DRM is... (Score:2)
Today artists don't need a professional studio, nor do they need a huge upfront loan. Many new artists finance their own albums (usually because the big labels never take chances anymore) and they only need retail distribution (unless they intend to sell exclusively from their website). This model leaves no room for the big labels and they know it.
Same thing in the movie business. Most of the better movies are made as independent productions, usually with a fairly limited budget and they only need some form of distribution. Why the major studios pour hundreds of millions into huge productions with overrated stars and too many special effects - and no story - remain a mystery. But they want a return on those investments and as the sales usually don't match the expectations, they need to squeeze the consumer even more, and DRM is great at that.
Hearsay At Best (Score:2)
A Slashdot submitter says that Arstechnica says that Businessweek's Ronald Grover says that an unnamed studio executive admitted DRM is not about piracy.
Even if we skip the verifiable chain, we're still left with Ronald Grover says that an unnamed studio executive admitted DRM is not about piracy.
Very few responses to this submission comment on the article, instead issues about DRM are discussed directly.
Re:On a scale of 1 to 10... (Score:1, Insightful)
Saying you're biassed against what is unjust is basically saying that whatever bias made you choose wrongly the things that you will believe to be unjust, you will now double and then redouble your blind determination to re-inforce that wrong belief, so that you become a bigot and a talking head that spouts dogma.
DRM doesn't prevent massive *anything*. (Score:3, Insightful)
(http://www.scarydevil.com/~peter/ | Last Journal: Monday September 26 2005, @06:53PM)
DRM doesn't prevent people from easily doing massive copying and distribution at all.
It makes it harder for the first person to "rip" that first copy, but once it's done preventing anyone else from "ripping" that copy is irrelevant.
And DRM does much much more than "making it slightly difficult for you to create backups".
It makes it impossible for you to keep a copy of a work indefinitely. Your copy is only usable as long as the company that made the DRMed document still exists. If you think this doesn't matter you need to talk to a historian.
It makes it impossible for you to view the work except through a specific application. I have precisely one DRM-protected e-book now... I recently deleted the Microsoft Reader documents I owned, because they're worthless now I don't have a Pocket PC. Oh, that's right, you want me to buy another copy for that. Why should I?
It makes it impossible for you to use a work in ways the application doesn't want you to. If I own a movie, why shouldn't I be able "enter" it by feeding captured scenes into a VR viewer? Because you want me to have to pay again for the VR version of the movie (if you ever bother making one)?
How many times should I have to buy The White Album anyway?