Is DRM Intrinsically Distasteful?

jelton writes "If digital media was available for sale at a reasonable price, but subject to a DRM scheme that allowed full legitimate usage (format shifting, time shifting, playback on different devices, etc.) and only blocked illicit usage (illegal copying), would you support the usage of such a DRM scheme? Especially if it meant a wealth of readily available compatible devices? In other words, if you object to DRM schemes, is your objection based on principled or practical concerns?"

Both.

Sure, I support the ability to use DRM. That should be the artist's choice. But not a blanket enforcement of it. Why? Because there are some people who make audio productions who do not charge and do not restrict distribution. As long as that is still possible, and those people don't have to pay some arbitrary group for a "license" or other enabling mechanism to distribute their "stuff" for free, I'd be all for it.

But... our history is that once we close the doors, we lock people out based upon income or other arbitrary factors that really have no bearing on the subject at hand, except perhaps as prejudice or a money-making scheme. Radio station licenses are a racket. Product bar codes are a racket. Liquor licenses are a racket. Marriage licenses are a racket. The whole "top-40" thing is a racket. The list is long and depressing. My expectation is that if a DRM scheme is settled upon, the only model supported will be commercial and involve money and/or equipment that the little guy just won't be able to afford. Cynical? You bet. But based on past performance.

We've seen this begin to happen already. Vista will degrade audio that is "unsigned", meaning, created or put in place by software that hasn't got some kind of deal going with Microsoft. This is bad on every level — models like this only hurt the little person.

We're better off without DRM, I'm afraid, because the proponents of it are uniformly commercial, as are their goals... but the world is not.

Re:Both.

Sure, I support the ability to use DRM.

See, and I don't. Why? Well, first off, DRM allows for what amounts to unbound copyrights. After all, if I can't read, copy, edit, or redistribute a public-domain work, what use is it to me? Copyright is supposed to be a *bounded* contract between the copyright holder and society. DRM is just an attempt at an end-run around the rules.

Secondly, I demand my right to shift materials that I've rightfully purchased onto other media. For example, I have a MythTV installation. On it, I have my entire music collection, not to mention a mass of recorded video, and eventually I plan to have my DVD collection ripped as well. DRM means I can no longer do any of these things, which restricts my ability to enjoy the content I've purchased.

So no, I don't believe in DRM. Do I believe that artists should be compensated for their work? Absolutely. They put in significant effort creating the media I enjoy. But I don't like being treated like a criminal in my own home, and I don't like the artists wiggling out of their part of the copyright bargain.

Re:Both.

first off, DRM allows for what amounts to unbound copyrights.

This is a failure of current DRM schemes, not DRM in general. It would be easy enough to design DRM so that the DRM no longer applies after a certain date.

first off, DRM allows for what amounts to unbound copyrights.

Again, this could be done with DRM, though it would require a much more robust and flexible system than will exist any time soon.

And defeated by changing the date.

This is a failure of current DRM schemes, not DRM in general. It would be easy enough to design DRM so that the DRM no longer applies after a certain date.

Which would require the date to be locked on the machines so I cannot defeat it by simply moving the date ahead 100 years.

Re:And defeated by changing the date.

Isn't that what DVD John did?

And quite easily avoided.

Nobody is proposing to do DRM that depends on machine clocks. Simply releasing the decryption key after a period of time is quite easy.

Considering that the time period under discussion is several decades long, that would depend entirely upon a company maintaining those keys, not losing those keys and still being available to release those keys after all those years.

[sarcasm]Yeah, I don't see any problems there.[/sarcasm]

Re:And quite easily avoided.

Ok, would you be happy if in order to use DRM on a commercial product and retain the copyright, the company was required to deposit the keys with the Library of Congress, which would be responsibile for releasing them when the copyright expires?

Re:And quite easily avoided.

Since this is a "what's your opinion" topic...

Secrets, in principle, are an attack on the mind. They're an attempt to force others to flail about blindly in an uninformed fashion, damaging their ability to make intelligent decisions and care for themselves. They're a passive-aggressive act, and fundimentally wrong.

Aside from all that...

There existed a time in human history when people in western societies were so bogged down with the labour of survival that it was necessary for society to subsidise creations of the mind if there were to be any of them, and the machination of that subsidy was the root of intellectual property law.

That time is passed.

The time has arrived where there are many idle hands and minds in the world, and we will reap more rewards as a society in these areas by removing barriers and putting more powerful tools to create and share into the hands of the masses than we will by systematically isolating people from them by imposing barriers to entry.

Personally, I oppose DRM in every possible fashion and in every concievable use.

Re:And quite easily avoided.

What if the company goes under? What about when a use determined to be fair is found to be blocked by their DRM? Why not just require the library of congress to give the keys to whoever asks, whenever they ask, and if anybody abuses it, then sue them for violation of copyright, just like you would if a publisher was publishing without permission? Better yet, why not abandon the DRM, and just use the court system for all copyright violations, not just the ones that don't involve technology?

You don't have to do that.

You don't have to postulate some magical "moral entitlement" to give creators a temporary monopoly on their works; you only have to posit that people will be more inclined to produce creative work if they have a guaranteed opportunity to profit from them. (Nothing's guaranteed; if nobody buys your CD, your rights under copyright law help you not at all.) Of course, current copyright terms are absurd, and serve to stifle creativity by locking up our culture. Still, it's based on a completely legitimate idea, and I for one don't advocate the abolition of copyright as a whole.

I'd advocate a return to Founder-era copyright terms, heavy protections for fair uses (especially noncommercial and educational ones), and something like for full protection, commercially exploited works must submit to the Library of Congress, to be held in escrow, a fully unencrypted, unencumbered version of the work. But wonky ideas don't count for much when the central question is whether copyright will go from Life+70 to Life+90 in the next few years...

Bah. I wish we had Public Domain Day [copyrightwatch.ca] in the US.

Re:And defeated by changing the date.

Which would require the date to be locked on the machines so I cannot defeat it by simply moving the date ahead 100 years.

Um, that's exactly what they're doing.

It's called, in that lovely NewSpeak way, a "secure clock," and it runs independently of the time-of-day clock that you're allowed to set. The "secure clock" is updated only by (more NewSpeak) "trusted" system components, and is used by defective (nee "protected") media to enforce expiration dates.

You really don't want to look deeper into this Sausage Factory -- it's revolting on more levels than you can possibly imagine.

Schwab

Re:Disney Extension doesn't work quite that way

>>Consider that even if an artist was the last of his bloodline, owned all his copyrights, and did not will those rights to anyone, you still couldn't copy any of his works for however long Disney decided they should be extended.

IANAL, but I think that'd be untrue under a couple of legal theories at least:

First, if she had no heirs at all (including parents, siblings, cousins, etc.) then her property would escheat to the State. The practical effect of which (I believe - I haven't researched it) would be to put the work in the public domain. I have no idea if anyone has done any work with this area, but it'd be fun thing to try...

Next, if the copyright is in limbo and no one seems to have any rights to it, it would probably be considered an Orphaned Work. There have been Bills recently in Congress to clarify and codify the status of such works, but none have passed yet (that I know of.) The Copyright Office was soliciting advice from the public on what should be done last year. ( http://www.copyright.gov/fedreg/2005/70fr3739.html [copyright.gov] ). I personally opined that they should go into the public domain, possibly with a grace period to allow for a lost author to suddenly show up before it becomes public property*.

*I admit my anti-copyright bias, but I don't think this is unfair. If you want your work to be protected, you should have to put a notice of copyright within the work, as under the old system. And you should have up to a year or so to decide you want to do that (to prevent people copying your expression.) Beyond that, it's public - period.

Re:Both.

It is actually a practical impossibility to design such a DRM scheme. If I were to give you a 5 1/2" floppy right now, could you extract the data? Probably half of us could not, even if allowed hours to root through our attic for dusty old equipment. But with floppies, we have the advantage of knowing the format, and we're not at the mercy of some long-defunct website to give us decryption keys.

Copyright protection currently lasts so long that if content were to survive until it enters the public domain, it would need to be format-shifted ten or fifteen times. But the whole point of DRM is to preclude format-shifting, since that's indistinguishable from illegal copying. Tell you what: in 70+(life of author)+(RIAA campaign donations/$100M) years, if you can successfully and legally give me a copy of some 2007-vintage DRM-encumbered music, I'll eat my hat.

Re:Both.

If I were to give you a 5 1/2" floppy right now, could you extract the data?

Depends on whether the media was still readable after I trimmed 1/4" off to fit it in a 5 1/4" floppy drive.

End of discussion

Parent is not quite correct. I agree that "Principled" DRM is completely and utterly impossible, but that doesn't make the question moot, it makes the question simple to answer, because it makes the answer "I object based on principle". If DRM is inherently unprincipled, I object to DRM because it does not meet my principles.

Here's how I see the arguement. I object to DRM because its very nature goes against my principles. Unless I'm being sued or charged with a crime, for anyone to seize control (electronic or otherwise) over my media player of choice is intrinsically an invasion of my privacy. In order to secure a media player so that it will play digitally encrypted files without me being able to remove the encryption, some form of electronic control must be seized. So, I object to DRM that works (keeps me from unencrypting the files) because it doesn't meet my principles concerning privacy rights. I object to DRM that doesn't work (lets me unencrypt the files) because it doesn't meet my principles concerning stupidity.

Re:Both.

So, would you still object?

If the system gave me full freedom to do what I wanted with the media (including play it back on systems I've built, such as my MythTV box), with the exception of distributing illegal copies, and the protection expired after the copyright ran out, I would have no problems with it.

Problem is, such a system is most probably impossible to build. Without full control of the hardware from soup to nuts, there's no way to plug the analog hole, and without that, there's always a way to distribute the material (unless you can come up with a watermarking scheme that's unbreakable). This is, of course, why HDCP was invented...

Re:Both.

This is a hypothetical situation.

This mythical DRM we are talking about would do none of those things.

This becomes an arguement like "Can God make a rock so heavy He can't lift it."
There appear to be huge logical paradoxes in the idea that DRM that doesn't have the negative consequences real DRM has can exist. The whole question is equivalent to "Would you still oppose the death penalty if we could revive the criminal in the case of mistakes?". That's fundamentally not what the word Death means. Your mythical DRM is like a four sided triangle or simmilarly impossible concept.

Now DRM is fundamentally a legal issue. The original poster doubtless didn't mean to, but has just abused people, in the exact same way as putting someone on the witness stand and asking "Have you stopped beating your wife yet? please answer with a simple yes or no." is abusive. Your followthrough on this point is also personal abuse of the parent poster. Who the hell do you think you are that you have some special right to expect a logically defensable answer to a nonsensical question? I'm sure that, whatever the parent answered, you would be glad to pick logical holes in it, but you, not the parent poster, are the one putting those holes into the logical arguement. My answer to your question is, "I do not answer illogical questions from crazy-talking people who obviously want to pick a fight, and you are being a bully". (and yes, you are).

        So, would you burn down an orphanage filled with cute toddlers if things were different enough that that wasn't a bad thing? Please answer quickly, so I can quote back just the part that lets me win an arguement with you and make you look bad.

Fair Use Backups?

Would this protection from "illegal copying" also prevent me from legal copying? Aka backups that are protected by fair use? If so, then I would be against it in practice and principle.

Re:Fair Use Backups?

Exactly, what is the difference between the copy of a CD or DVD for my car, and the one I make to give or sell to a friend?

The answer is: Actions that can not be monitored from the computer, and sorry, but I refuse to get a **AA monitoring camera embedded into my forehead.

Prevent *only* illegal copying

It seems to me that this is a pipe dream without a fully regulated hardware path (which I find inherently distasteful). Generally speaking, computers aren't smart enough to determine legality without something like Trusted Computing, therefore, unless a brilliant DRM breakthrough is made, yeah, I find DRM inherently distasteful.

Re:Prevent *only* illegal copying

It seems to me that this is a pipe dream without a fully regulated hardware path

This is a pipe dream even with a fully regulated hardware path, because in a lot of cases the only difference between an infringing use and a non-infringing one is the human's intent.

No, any DRM scheme is wrong

Copyright is supposed to be imperfect and leaky. I do not want a scheme for perfectly enforcing it via architecture.

This goes for most laws. The difficulty of enforcing laws is what keeps a lot of laws from being horribly onerous burdens rather than simply being annoying inconveniences. I'm against any scheme for perfectly enforcing laws. Laws should always be tempered by human understanding.

I think Godels incompleteness theorem applies here. Laws are like a system of axioms. You cannot make a system of axioms that can in all cases separate behavior you want from behavior you don't. So making that system of axioms be enforced by the architecture is inevitably going to prevent behaviors that you don't want to prevent.

Re:Yes

I disagree with your analogy. Limiting a car to 65mph is a bad idea because under certain circumstances it would be unsafe. Trying to accelerate away from a 16 wheeler losing control on the freeway and failing would be, um, disappointing. This notional system (I'll get to this is a sec) for preventing anyone from *only* illegal copying is pretty hard to object to.

The question is a great example of a straw-man argument. IF you could make a DRM system that would *only* limit illegal copying and not impact you in *any* other way, would you support it? I can't imagine a sensible negative response that isn't basically "but I like getting music for free".

But the assumption in the question is fundamentally a lie. It's not possible: no-one knows how to do it without affecting fair use, or imposing a crazy authentication burden to the user, and it won't be possible any time soon.

If someone asks a question like that, you know the next step is that they offer up some scheme of theirs that they claim meets that criterion, but it's always a flawed approximation.

I don't object to Utopian DRM. That would be fine. I don't object to Utopian Communism or Utopian Freemarket Anarchists either, but they just don't work in practice.

a fantastic analogy

If 1 in 100 people does something bad with a gun, we all still get guns. If 1 in 100 people (probably less actually) illegaly copies and uploads or sells a movie or song, we all get super restrictive DRM. Apparently greed is more important than safety.

Re:a fantastic analogy

The difference is, there isn't ONE pirate to criticize, but there is just ONE artist or company that makes the decision to use DRM.

Re:a fantastic analogy

If 1 in 100 people does something bad with a gun, we all still get guns. If 1 in 100 people (probably less actually) illegaly copies and uploads or sells a movie or song, we all get super restrictive DRM. Apparently greed is more important than safety.

Oh, please. In the US, there are untold millions of firearms in private posession. Only a miniscule fraction of those are every use to do "something bad," and most of those are used by someone who stole it or has it illegally. As a ratio, many more people do "something bad" in their disregard for the copyrights of the artists that they claim to respect. We have untold millions of people who've ripped off their entertainment - and that's a significantly different scenario. Incidentally: if you "do something bad" with a gun, it's likely off to jail with you. If you do it frequently or badly enough, it's a lifetime there, or the end of your life. You certainly don't get to go legally owning another one once you've done your felony time.

Not really a good analogy, and not at all fantastic. The firearms industry is one of the most heavily regulated in the country. Manufacturers, dealers, repair shops, owners, shippers, airlines - they all have a myriad of laws, regs, and practices they must follow to stay legal. I'm guessing that's not part of you world, or you'd know that.

Worthless question

That is a worthless mental exercise as there is no way that DRM can be there and it not be 'in the way'.

By definition DRM would cause issues with legit useage.

DRM is wrong, in any form.

Omniscient DRM?

So, basically, you're saying that if God were DRM, would we be philosophically opposed to it?

Seeing as how this is Slashdot, I think I know the answer to that one.

And in any case, if DRM were God, if it was working right, we wouldn't even know it was working at all. ;-)

No.

Why should consumers be forced to waste resources that they paid for?

Seriously - while most users never come near the limits of what their computer can do, I have spent a ton of time waiting for 3d renders to finish thanks to a maxed-out CPU. Since any real enforceable DRM requires a bit of 'assistance' from hardware, that's just that many more CPU cycles (or GPU cycles, or ...? depending) wasted on DRM that I could be putting to good use.

I buy computers on a price/performance measure - how much performance per dollar can I get is my metric. Why should I be forced to accept a lowered ratio because someone else decided that I (or any given user) could, in their eyes, potentially be a dirty little copyright pirate?

/P

Copying Cannot be Controlled

I can't help it, but the way this question is asked, it sounds very "official" to me. As if somebody in a big media corporation or record label wanted to find out what the masses think, or some such... But nevertheless, here's my two cents:

I don't think there can be any such thing as "illegal copying". Copying is a fundamental operation of any computer, and the internet means we can copy world-wide, instantly, at zero cost. Any mechanism that tries to make this impossible is trying to set the clock back to before the internet age. As many DRM-opponents have pointed out, trying to control copying in such a world amounts to establishing a police-state, no less.

The consequence is that artists, and distributors (in whichever form we may still need them), need to be paid by other means, NOT by the number of copies they distribute, NOT bound to the act of copying.

One idea is voluntary payment (think Magnatune). Another idea is that musicians, in particular, can shift to other means of generating income, e.g. concerts, public performances.

The economy is going to change. It has to, because copying can no longer be controlled. Altogether, this is a good thing, but it can turn into a very bad thing if people try very badly to keep this from happening.

Stupid question.

I hate these impossible hypothetical questions. Technical solutions to social issues are inherently flawed. The problem with DRM isn't the technology - it's the corrupt legislation like the DMCA, which makes it illegal to circumvent the DRM. It's utterly impossible for technology to know the difference between legal and illegal, unless you change the laws to define what's illegal based on the technology.

It's like that stupid discussion that was going around the internet about a plane on a treadmill - at the very core it's a flawed question, and just encourages idiotic discussion about meaningless "what if"s

There is no "good" DRM

there is no way that DRM can be there and not be 'in the way'

Exactly right. There no way that DRM can magically determine the difference between "legal" and "illegal" copying.

I don't know exactly. What do you think?

Is DRM Intrinsically Distasteful?
Would a monitor and speed regulator on your car be Intrinsically Distasteful?
Would a monitor that reports your TV viewing habits to the govt. be Intrinsically Distasteful?
Would a monitor that only allows you to buy certain foods be Intrinsically Distasteful?
Would a police force that inspects your home every day to ensure that you are not harboring criminals be Intrinsically Distasteful?
Would a monitor that ensures you don't cook microwave food on the bbq be Intrinsically Distasteful?
This list can go on for a long time...

Yes, it IS Intrinsically Distasteful?

The question is contradictory

Unfortunately, DRM that allows for fair use and for copyright expiration isn't even theoretically possible. Also, even if the DRM rules permitted every reasonable use they could think of, some future development in technology would be sure to clash with it.

If Frogs Had Wings...

This question is analagous to "if frogs had wings, would they still bump their butts on the ground?"

Intellectual property is an intangible construct. I don't see much point in discussing "if if if...." Ultimately there is no utopian DRM implementable. Heck, humans can't agree on value judgements...how can an algorithm do better?

Begging the question

> "If digital media was available for sale at a reasonable price, but subject to a DRM scheme that allowed full legitimate usage (format shifting, time shifting, playback on different devices, etc.) and only blocked illicit usage (illegal copying), would you support the usage of such a DRM scheme? Especially if it meant a wealth of readily available compatible devices? In other words, if you object to DRM schemes, is your objection based on principled or practical concerns?"

This is a classic example of begging the question [wikipedia.org].

The ability to shift formats, shift time, play back on different devices, "etc", is indistinguishable from "illegal copying". The question is based upon the incorrect premise that the two things are distinguishable.

Consequently, my objection to DRM is based on both philosophical and practical terms.

I object on philosophical grounds because there exists no such device.

I object on practical grounds because any device that purports to "allow full legitimate usage but ... block illicit usage" is a device that does not allow full legitimate usage.

The root of your problem is the notion of "legitimate" and "illegitimate" versus "copying", "playback", and so on. The former terms are terms of law; they are defined by lawyers and enforced by men with guns. The latter terms are descriptions of functionality; they are defined by the laws of physics and mathematics, which are enforced by the universe itself.

DRM, and why I despise it

I liken DRM to the locks on my house: they keep the honest man honest.

If someone wants to "steal" music, movies, tv shows, whatever, they will. No amount of copy protection is going to stop them.

Tapes, CD's, DVD's, Blu-Ray, HD-DVD, XP Authentication, Serial Numbers...doesn't matter. If someone wants to get something for nothing, they will find a way regardless of how much time, effort, or money you put into trying to stop them.

However, the honest man who won't do any of these things...well, what does it matter if his stuff is "locked"? I mean, after all...if someone isn't going to enter my house uninvited, then the locks on my doors and windows are meaningless.

Yes, people change, and yes everyone who "steals' media starts somewhere...but still, you get my point. The only thing DRM (and things like it) does is inflate the cost of things for people that plan on legally purchasing it anyway. The people that plan on not obtaining it legally...well, you can finish that sentance.

Galactic Civilization II is a PERFECT example. Shipped with ZERO protection on it, it still managed to sell many thousands of copies...if you perused their forums around the time of it's released, many cited the reason they bought it was SOLEY because it shipped with no copy protection, and they support that idea.

Music corporations (and movie studios, for that matter) will NEVER return to the days where they had total control over how people obtained their media and what they do with it. The honest people will do the exact same thing they did years ago, and the non-honest people will always find a way around it. A waste of time, money, and effort.

we need to do what china does

operating under the assumption that drm is a tool for enforcing copyright, then drm should be flaunted, destroyed, ignored. on the principle that there is a better way

in china, copyright is openly flaunted. enoforcement, if it is any, seems laughably inadequate

musicians make money via advertisements or concert tickets only

no middle man at all

what crazy world is this?

whatever you call it, it's absolutely superior to the stifling copyright system in the west

the copyright system in the west has overreached. it was intended to foster innovation by rewarding content creators. that's the original point

however, in the west it is now just a tool for rewarding the middleman. he stiffs the content creator

content creators deserve financial reward: concerts and endorsements. that's their financial reward. it's not jay-z millions. but that's not the point: content creators deserve a compfortable life. but they don't deserve billions. their grandchildren don't deserve money every time someone plays happy birthday. that's patently insane (pardon the pun). and yet it is the law of land in the west. ridiculous

for content creators, i thought the point was love of music? musicians create music only to make money? i don't want to listen to any musician who does that, do you? so the creator deserves cushy upper middle class rewards from endorsements and concerts. what's wrong with that life? you still have the fame, the adoring chicks. just not jay-z millions. oh well, the golden age is over

and middlemen deserve absolutely nothing. in the age of vinyl/ cds, they controlled the means of distribution, so they got something, a lot, no matter what they actually deserved. but in the age of the internet, they've been made obsolete. so they should die

and they are dying. but like any dumb dinosaur, it doesn't realize it is dying, it's a lot of struggling surging animal flesh that takes out bystanders, and it will go out fighting. fine. just avoid the thrashing tail of the dying beast, the day will come when it thrashes no more. and soon

and it has no absolutely no meaning what laws are passed or what drm is in place. the internet was designed to route around damage due to nuclear blast. western culture, those who want music, it's poor, motivated, intelligent youth, they will find away to route around the "damage" to the internet that is drm

make all the laws you want. common sense will prevail. just like china has to honor ridiculous western notions of ridiculously long and stifling copyright for economic reasons. in the halls of beijing, they pay the bullshit lip service. but on the streets of hong kong, common sense prevails

Why I don't buy online

I purchased a few CDs online a year or so back. I stopped because there just wasn't anything more that interested me at the time. I then purchased a new PC. I decided to leave my old PC as a MP3 store for myself. I loaded up Winamp and dumped the entire contents of my old PC into the playlist. Lo and behold, I got DRM warnings on all of my purchased tracks. Even though I did not copy the music to my new computer (though I had thought about doing so and clearing off my old PC for a rebuild), I was restricted. So I cannot copy to another PC, I cannot listen to on another PC. Fortunately, the tracks worked in my Dell Pocket DJ I had at the time.

I understand the why behind these tracks not working on a logical level, but it certainly left a bad taste in my mouth. I have not bought any music online since. I have bought a small amount of CDs and ripped them to my computer. I find that the industry is trying to fill every hole that their income can leak out of and in the end they are just not impressing the consumer.

Another fine example of their efforts causing more grief to the paying consumer is this:

My friend had purchased the latest Nickelback CD. He does the same as I would, rips it to his computer and adds it to his playlist. The CD would not rip. It would not even play on his laptop. Apparently, only some CD players would play this disc as it was formatted. So now he is limited in how he can enjoy the media. Needless to say, the CD hit the trash and as a result the consumer and the artist lose. He won't buy anymore Nickelback CDs because he as a consumer remembers the artist, not the record label.

DRM was a good idea, but it was implemented horribly wrong. The consumer suffers with annoying popups and warnings and flat-out denials, while the guys who the RIAA wants to nail work around it. The RIAA and the labels are doing a damn fine job of taking their own profits away from themselves...between pushing away consumers via DRM and their rampant lawsuits, I'm wondering if the jokes of the recording industry moving towards lawsuits as a primary source of income aren't just coming true.

Fantastical DRM

I've yet to see a DRM scheme that didn't interfere with legal uses and was remotely effective. If we invented a DRM scheme that only stopped illegal use without any negative side effects, then I would definitely support it. I would also support building a perpetual motion machine for everyone to fufill all our energy needs.

I object on all levels

There is nothing I find acceptable about DRM:

• assumption of intent: while the proprietors of DRM insist this is about protecting intellectual property, that's simply a canard to hide behind for what they really want, control. Meanwhile, it's clear their "DRM" is an assumption I am trying to rip them off (I'm not).
• portability: their notion of control proscribes what should be normal fair use. Imagine the old days not being able to take your vinyl records to a friends house to listen because they wouldn't play on other people's machines. That really is insane. The only reason they are trying to restrict to that level today (and they are) is because they can.
• convenience: there are so many reasons things can go wrong. In today's and the future's DRM world if it goes as far as it seems it may, you risk all kinds of outages, from the momentary inconvenience of grabbing the wrong player (unauthorized), the the catastrophic (an entire collection wiped out because of a lost key).
• quality: I'm not convinced they can layer DRM into digital art ad nauseum without degradation and corruption, no matter how long and hard they try to convince me they can.
• trust: similar to "assumption of intent"... after I have my purchased (ummm, sorry, "licensed") digital art in my digits I resent the implication I won't and can't handle the notion of fair use appropriately. Further, I resent their blanket inference we as citizens are somehow that sleazy. The average user doesn't care about cheating and stealing, but DRM finally gives them at least a reason to consider it.
• ...

No, I can't say as I find DRM something acceptable at any implementation or level. In its most innocent and benign form it's just irritating noise, in it's most insidious manifestation (and they're going there if they can), it's rage-inducing.

You need even more impossible "IFs"

I would need to know for sure that I could place the song on any player now or ever to be created.
I would need to know that I could transfer it to any media that will ever be created.
I would need to know it would never cause degradation or loss of content.
No transfer or change of use should require external access for permission.

If I drive in a friends car, I should be able to bring the song on a USB stick and play it on his player. ...or a CD, or any other technology his car's player accepts.

I must be able to transfer ownership to someone else.

I'd expect (although it could be argued against) to be able to share the song with my wife and children.

Finally, since they have a record of my ownership in order to enable the DRM rights, I'd absolutely expect replacement/reissue any time I wanted it.

Then DRM will be acceptable.

The problem is, DRM is absolutely incapable of supporting many of these uses.

So no, I don't have anything against DRM itself, but it is absolutely, inherently counter to the needs of the public.

Silly Question

As others have pointed out, this is a silly question. There could never be such scheme, since the boundaries between legal and illegal use are so fuzzy, and may depend on the intent of the user. What you are really trying to ask is, "Is this fair-use thing just a smoke screen, and is the real reason we all object to DRM is that it prevents you from committing obvious copyright violations?"

I suspect there's some truth to this. I'm sure plenty of people here download music/movies etc. that they don't really have the right to. I personally wouldn't care so much if I couldn't do this. (Although I won't claim that I haven't). However I do like being able to trade and copy CDs from friends. This isn't really legal either, and DRM such as you described would put a stop to this, too.

In it's current form, though, DRM makes it harder for me to do things I should legally be able to do.

One obvious example: iPods play music. iTunes software makes it really easy to tranfer the music from shiny disks I buy onto the iPod. iPods also play videos. However, there is no legal software that I'm aware of (and iTunes certainly doesn't) that allows me to transfer my movies from shiny disks I buy onto the iPod. This is solely due to the DRM on DVDs.

I think illegal trading has served a valuable pupose: I wonder if without illegal trading, we'd have iTunes today. Without any compitition, it would probably be in the music companies best interest to keep forcing us to buy music as complete CD's.

Witness what DVDs can do

When I witness a DVD sending a command to my player to ignore the skip/FF buttons during ads and FBI warnings, that is a foreboding omen of things to come from DRM.

That is very frustrating and points to a practical reason why I oppose DRM totally.

Flawed Premise

A DRM scheme which allows full legitimate usage is no longer a DRM scheme. DRM can only regulate technical actions, but whether or not an action is legitimate depends on human factors. If a DRM scheme allows me to change formats and move content to any device I want, then I should be able to view content on Linux, re-encode to XViD/Ogg Vorbis, put the files up on my home server, and stream them to the PCs around my apartment. I should also be able to ssh in from work or school and pull down a few songs to listen to at my desk. All of this is legal fair use, because I paid for the content in the first place. If DRM doesn't restrict these actions, then I really don't see how it can hope to restrict doing the same re-encoding and sticking the files on some P2P network.

DRM as it is today is like buying a car with a governor that keeps the speed locked below 20 miles per hour, so that no matter where you drive you'll never be speeding. It can get you around your neighborhood, but by not trusting the user, it prevents you from doing things that you really ought to be able to. If the governor were set to 70 miles per hour, I would still find it distasteful, because the system is still setting parameters on exactly what I'm able to do with it, and the parameters continue to stifle legitimate use (for example, I can drive as fast as I want on a private road).

Basically, it boils down to this: either a DRM system must lock down uses which are perfectly legal, if rare, in order to stop piracy, or the system must be so weak as to be essentially nonexistent and allow everything (including piracy). Trying to design a system which lets you have your cake and eat it too, so to speak, is like trying to design bullets that only hurt the bad people.

DRM now and future

DRM is plagued with problems that were never really thought out. The implementations in use today are to solve an immediate need. In most cases, they are failing badly.

I work with some Indie record labels and none of them employ DRM except for what they sell on iTunes. Their CDs are all clean. They have recently come under fire for CMT videos not playing in Firefox, Opera, Netscape, etc. To counter this Microsoft PC only issue, they have now started posting the music videos on YouTube.com also. They had to as nearly 30% of their audience couldn't watch the videos.

But, we come to an even bigger problem. Obsolesence. Labels get bought and sold. Media changes (cylinder - 78 - 45 - LP - EP - CD - SACD - Digital.....) So, it is quite likely that any mechanism employed today won't work in the future and, at the rate of technology evolution, that won't take too long. At some point, the music becomes unaccessible. You paid for it. You licensed it. But you can't listen to it.

We also have copyright issues. Lets say in 50 years the copyright expires and the music becomes public domain. How to you remove the DRM? How does one make the music available to the general public once it is in the public domain? Under DMCA you can't - even if it is for legitimate use.

Finally for historical and archive purposes one would need to keep the playback mechanisms current, licensed and capable for playing old DRM'd content. In 100 years if somebody wanted to do research and study 1990-2010 music of a particular genre, it would probably be much more difficult due to DRM'd media getting in the way. How do you play, restore and repackage the DRM's oldies?

The DRM people haven't seriously looked at the cultural and social long-term impact of DRM. They don't really care as that doesn't bring revenue to their pockets but society does care but society doesn't have a voice or lobby power that RIAA/MPAA/BMI/ASCAP and the other Performance Rights Organizations (PROs) do.