Criminalizing The Consumer - Where DRM Went Wrong

][nTrUdEr writes "The Economist has posted an editorial on how DRM has gone wrong. What ostensibly began as a tool to ensure artists received due compensation for their work has been turned, and now criminalizes the consumer for wanting to use what they have purchased. 'Despite the number of iTunes downloaded for a fee, Apple would be in trouble if people were prevented from transferring legitimately owned CDs to their iPods. The software Apple gives away to iPod customers is designed to let them do just that. Most people think it ludicrous that they can't do the same with the DVDs they own. Now it seems, despite squeals from the movie industry, the law is finally moving in the video fan's favour. The issue in the recent case was whether Kaleidescape, a maker of digital "jukeboxes" that store a person's video and music collections and distribute the entertainment around the home, had breached the terms of the DVD Content Control Association's CSS (content scrambling system) license.'"

License

When I buy an album or a movie, I am not buying a "license." I am not agreeing to anything. I am not bending to the will of anyone's "license," I am not signing anything, I am not entering a contract, I am not forfeiting anything, waiving anything, and I am not compromising anything. I am buying a copy of some physical medium for my own enjoyment, and at that point I own that copy of that medium. I have already entered into a "license" for this media through a little thing called copyright law. Anything beyond the application of this copyright law, which includes fair use clauses for a very good reason, is bullshit. Pure and simple.

Re:License

'' When I buy an album or a movie, I am not buying a "license." ''

Unfortunately you are.

Not yet you're not. The media companies have yet to receive any court judgements which strip away right of first sale and fair use. Just laws that act to impede such things like the DCMA and it's exported derivatives around the world.

'' I have already entered into a "license" for this media through a little thing called copyright law. ''

And copyright law is getting worse and worse for the consumer.

Yes, but hopefully the pendulum in the courts has started to swing back to a more moderating influence.

Someone needs to remind the content companies that treating your customers like criminals, and impeding everything they do isn't going to get you more customers, it's going to get you less. And, graciously offering to give us our rights back in a roundabout way isn't the way to do it.

They buy all of these laws which, on the surface, are intended to stop the widespread commercial exploitation of people selling counterfeit items. But, it has the effect of not reducing piracy at all, and attempting to remove the rights of the average consumer to use the thing they've bought.

They're also trying to argue the line you seem to be buying into -- that when you buy a physical product (a DVD or a CD) that you're entering into a contractually binding obligation to only do what they like with it. That, is completely untrue, and I hope it stays that way.

Cheers

Re:License

What the RIAA, MPAA, and media industry believe no longer matters. I believe I have a right to use my purchased CDs and DVDs any way I choose within my sphere of influence, which includes all property, vehicles and devices I own. The difference is that my belief only affects me (fair use), while their beliefs attempt to affect everyone.

The only thing differentiating DVDs from the CD situation is the encryption, which in truth only provides thin legal protection to the media in question, it has absolutely no effect on preventing copies (we all know what made CSS weak).

Having said all that, I think that none of these groups really intend to stop copying. The artificial barrier to copying is a welcome side effect, however I think its original and continued purpose is to restrict your ability to use media, not your ability to copy it.

I think the media industry is trying to enable a business model wherein you must purchase media rights for each device you intend to use, so called "Viewing Rights". Of course there are a number of executives who want to fight piracy simply for a refusal to admit defeat, but I think a majority of these companies and the officers in charge of them are more interested in maximizing financial return on the products they sell to the public, by changing the business model from a universal media purchase, to one of individual device rights. While the current HD-DVD and Blu-ray systems don't appear to contain this sort of individualization, it is present in every other form of digital media currently in use, and probably will be in any future system from now on.

Re:License

Unfortunately you are.

No, you're NOT. RIAA and MPAA members fully recognize this in their advertising. When a movie comes out on DVD, they don't say "license Narnia on DVD today" they say "Own Narnia on DVD today" and ditto for CDs.

It is a commodity product; just as with a book, when you buy it, you OWN it. It does come with some limited restrictions, e.g., you cannot make and distribute copies (in full or in part) outside of the Fair Use clause exceptions, but you absolutely, positively do own it.

Very simple...

There's a very simple solution, and all you goobers were claiming you were for it back in the Napster days, before it started happening:

Trust consumers, eliminate DRM and sue the pants off of illegal file sharers. Yes, that means college students, nine-year-olds, cancer patients, single mothers and everyone else. Yes, that means some small percentage of erroneous accusations.

That's the solution, not some goofball schemes to turn the whole entertainment industry into street mimes.

Making the legal product worse...

This is what annoys me about pretty much all forms of DRM - the anti-piracy measures ultimately make the pirated version simply better than the legal version.

With Windows, the pirated version removed the annoying "phone home" feature that Microsoft uses to ensure the product is legit. With computer games, it prevents the stupid "CD in the drive" requirement just to play a game that's using 8GB of hard drive space. With movies, it allows watchers to skip the stupid previews and FBI warning and jump straight to the actual content.

Ultimately DRM punishes those who would purchase the media legally, and makes the pirated version just that much more attractive. Why should I pay $20 for a DVD when a free rip offers better usability?

I'm more than willing to pay for content. I just don't want to have to put up with all the brain-dead restrictions placed on it solely because I'm foolish enough to actually attempt to support the content creators. For the love of common sense, make the legal product at the very least almost as good as the pirated version, instead of substantially worse!

And please, please stop demanding that people who paid for the game have to use the CD in PC games. That alone is enough to push me to find the no-CD cracks. I shouldn't have to turn to pirates to make my purchases worthwhile!

Re:Making the legal product worse...

With movies, it allows watchers to skip the stupid previews and FBI warning and jump straight to the actual content.

Maybe that's why the pirates will never stop, they are not seeing the FBI warnings!

The Economist... get it

This is an advertorial for the folks at the Economist, I'm a subscriber and its easily been the most useful journal I've ever subscribed to, it gives a clear business view of what is going on, so even when they get technology wrong you can see how the business will get it wrong too.

Put it this way, if you are arguing with the business and can say "The economist said" its going to be a million times better that wired/slashdot/any computing mag you can think of.

Politically its "liberal" in the traditional sense of the word (i.e. slightly right wing and think the government should keep out of our lives)

Mark me up, mark me down, its a class magazine.

Re:The Economist... get it

I don't think you understood what he said - by all means, the Economist is "liberal" in the traditional (or European) meaning of that word, it is hardly the same thing as what "liberal" means in the U.S.

With apologies to Douglas Adams

> Where DRM Went Wrong

...had been obvious to all of us reading Slashdot, even between the 500/503 errors, but that didn't stop the Economist from making a small fortune when they used it in their trilogy of editorial blockbusters including:

Some More of DRM's Greatest Mistakes, Well That About Wraps It Up [userfriendly.org] for DRM, and What Is This DRM Shit Anyway?

Only 9 years

It's only taken 9 years since Linux DVD users started being prosecuted to the now when the media is finally picking it up thanks to the public's addiction to Steve Jobs' trinkets.

Just as we have been clamoring for geek involvement in patent review, we should be clamoring for geek involvement in legislation review. Geeks can a) forsee future applications of technology and b) find potential bugs due to the similarity of rigidity and logic between law and code (see comments such as mine [slashdot.org] attached to Source Control For Bills In Congress? [slashdot.org]).

9 years. 9 years of prosecution. 9 years of our EFF dollars wasted having to fight this.

Re:Only 9 years

9 years. 9 years of prosecution. 9 years of our EFF dollars wasted having to fight this.

Think of it instead as a group of motivated people, aware of the slippery slope that was approaching, taking action to prevent it from becoming firmly entrenched.

If those 9 years of battle hadn't been fought, and instead people lay down and accept it until it was too late to fight it, we'd then experience.. who knows? how many years of locked down content and bland crap produced by the people rich enough to pay licensing fees.

Once a system becomes widely used and mostly accepted, it's difficult if not impossible to change it, no matter how heinous, illegal, or rights-infringing. That these 9 years were marked by a battle against that is something to be proud of.

One could argue it's a battle that should never have been fought, which is true, but there will always be someone or some corporation willing to push the limits of rights and ethics to make a buck. The battle never ends.

Kaleidescape vs. the Others

It would be nice to believe that since Kaleidescape won their lawsuit, that iTunes, Windows Media Player, and all the other media products out there will be able to let the users rip their own DVDs. But I don't think that'll be the case anytime soon (no matter how badly I want it to be that way). Kaleidescape won their lawsuit because they had previously licensed CSS decryption, probably before the DVDCCA really caught on to what they were planning on doing with it. Had the DVDCCA known what the Kaleidescape system would be, they never would have granted the license.

Which is funny, because it's probably one of the most locked down, secured DVD movie servers out there. Other similar servers use DeCSS (they just tell the end users where to download it, so the manufacturer isn't doing anything *illegal*), and they have their movies stored in Windows folders that can easily be accessed and shared with anyone on the network. That's right, they went after the company that had the most MPAA/DVDCCA friendly product possible, and let the other guys with lesser products get by on "illegal" software.

The problem

The problem with DRM is the introduction of scarcity into a scenario where there is no natural scarcity. Current economic models such as communism, socialism, and capitalism exist only to handle the efficient or fair distribution of scarce (limited) resources. They have no mechanism for handling goods where there will never be a scarcity. The degree on my wall that says Economics tells me I should know more about this than most people, but I think most everyone understands the problem, even if they can't put it into words.

I usually explain the current problem with reconciling creative incentive with no natural scarcities as a fable. Imagine a berry bush that has very, very tasty berries, but is excruciatingly difficult to grow. The farmer has to spend hundreds of man hours raising the bush, and cannot hold another job while doing so. The owner of the bush decides to hire 5 armed men to guard the bush, and sell baskets of berries for 5 dollars a piece, until they are gone. We call this capitalism. The owner pays for the cost of raising the bush and the guards, and profit goes towards his livelihood. If there were no guards, and looting of the bush happened, the owner is out of a bush, economic opportunity, and probably a livelihood. Looting causes an inefficient distribution of resources. Communism would look similarly, but the farmer would have doled out the berries equally to who wanted them, for the cost of a generally collected (taxed) stipend, from everyone who did and did not want them.

Now, imagine if that bush never ran out of berries. Sure, people might get tired of the berries, or they might not like berries. But you get two interesting problems. First, if the farmer keeps selling berries, he makes unlimited money. That drops his costs to nearly zero. Second, if he's looted, he is not out of berries to sell. He is only out of the opportunity to sell the berries. Capitalism doesn't protect your demand, only the physical property you have to sell. Sure, eating gobs and gobs of berries means that those people are now full on berries and have no interest in buying, but maybe everyone didn't anyway. Law does not regulate demand.

The farmer who owns the unlimited berry bush does not need guards to prevent the stealing of property, he needs them to protect his demand. If he left the bush unattended overnight, he does not lose property, he only loses demand. If modern capitalism is to be remodeled to include protection of demand, you quickly find that you can't write a negative review of a product, or change your tastes, as well as similar problems, since you have damaged demand for a creators product.

And this is the problem with DRM. DRM are the armed guards at the unlimited berry bush. This is NOT the most efficient method of distribution. The most efficient method would collect enough money for farmers to have incentive to grow a bush, but would not prevent the widest distribution of berries possible (everyone who wants one). Plain and simple, no current economic model satisfies perfectly.

You can make arguments that theater seats are a scarcity now, and good movie experiences can be used to generate profit and motivation. But when the day comes of very, very cheap home theaters, you have to shift the model again. Concerts are better, and could save the music model, but apart from plays, this is really a difficult problem for big-budget movies. Not allowing unlimited distribution is very inefficient, as is not compensating the creator. Truly, it's a curse of riches.

There, you get a class lecture for free, without DRM.

Yawn

Somebody wake me up when: a) I can use the (preferrably DRM free) iTunes store on my Linux boxen, and b) I can distribute deCSS legally.

Jobs on DRM

Jobs argument is actually coherent, although the actual points he made was never reported in the Mainstream Moron Media. Jobs argues the biggest failings of DRM is:

* It doesn't work.
* It's too easily cracked, and patching the DRM software to stop cracks is a losing battle.
* The RIAA sell the very same music unprotected on CDs anyway(!!!!!!)

http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughtsonmusic/ [apple.com]

Anything that causes Macrovision stock to crash has to be a good thing.

Why don't they just say it?

DRM is wrong because it places enforcement of copyrights into the hands of the content and distribution owners instead of the people who should be doing it under due process.

Why don't they just say that? Stupid phrases like "criminalizes the consumer for wanting to use what they have purchased" are besides the point.

What a load of crap

The consumer isnt criminalized if they buy the music. When you buy music you but the media, not the content. You dont own the song, you never did. When you buy a CD, you dont get free LPs and cassettes.

Whether or not piracy is a real economic impact, people are still "booleging" music.

You people need to stop rewriting history. If any has been criminalized its the rightful owners of the music.

Re:Kaleidescape licensed CSS?

Because then they'd be manufacturing and distributing a circumvention device, which is illegal, just like DeCSS is illegal.