When Would You Accept DRM? 1288
twigles asks: "Following on the heels of Apple closing DVD Jon's end run around its DRM and a British TV station offering DRM'd downloads it seems fair to ask, what DRM would you accept as a consumer? Personally, I take the view that if a song, movie, book, etc. is DRM'd then it isn't truly mine. On the other hand, if a particular piece of digital media is priced correctly (a la' rental fee) would that be satisfactory, or do you feel that DRM in any form is ridiculous?"
Never (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll answer for slashdot (Score:3, Insightful)
- It's not right for content creators/originators/owners/licensors to expect to be able to protect their content; if their content needs protection, their business model is dying;
- All "information" and "ideas", which includes music, software, text, and other unique works, should be allowed to freely flow between people in an unlimited fashion without any encumbrances of ownership;
- DRM is fundamentally flawed and is only used as a tool of the rich and powerful to forcefeed commercial tripe to the masses;
- In the digital realm, ideas of "ownership" and "theft" are meaningless. The world has changed, and unlimited digital copies of all manner of content can be distributed nearly free and without any harm to or detraction from the original. Therefore, any old model based on physical manifestations (books, CDs, DVDs, etc.) is dead.
I'll accept it when... (Score:5, Insightful)
-Jesse
My rights (Score:5, Insightful)
Duh (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Never (Score:3, Insightful)
The pretense is that every media container you own - CD, DVD, book, magazine, etc - is a licensed copy of that type of media alone. You do not have the right of use for the exact same content in another form.
This is all nonsense, of course. And we have let them build a business on the nonsense for far too long.
I have long since drawn my own line in the sand.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
wtf?! (Score:2, Insightful)
Want what I pay for (Score:4, Insightful)
However, if it's used to enforce a rental or temporary use of something, and that's what I'm agreeing to pay for, no problem.
But again, if you are trying to sell me something that is broken, I won't be buying. FYI: If everybody made their purchases this way, there would be no such thing as DRM. In my opinion, iTMS users have done serious damage by undermining expected fair use by accepting these purchases.
None. (Score:5, Insightful)
Computers are not like cable boxes or satellite receivers, or even DVD players. They are our most fundamental and important devices of communication. To surrender control over those devices to others is a mistake we should pay for dearly...
Re:I'll answer for slashdot (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:I'll answer for slashdot (Score:5, Insightful)
I take it you aren't a fan of the GPL then. Take what you said to it's logical conclusion and the GPL becomes too restrictive even for you.
Quick answer: no (Score:3, Insightful)
But I don't think we'll really have a choice in the future. If there's one thing companies hate, it's lawsuits, and they'll do anything to avoid them, including implementing DRM.
You probably already do... (Score:3, Insightful)
Personally, I don't really care that much about DRM, as long as it's designed well, like the iTMS. I don't know if I "own" the songs or not, but I don't really care - it's never really restricted what I've wanted to do with my music. And if they do make it hard, I'll just find a crack to get around it.
DRMs MUST be banned. (Score:5, Insightful)
I remember a call from a friend of mine who remembered that I was knowledgeable in video editing and she contacted me to help her with a problem they had with a student project. (that was back in 1994)
They were student who selected very short extracts of scenes for their project for the last 20 sleepless hours and they wondered why they couldn't make copies of many of their extracts. When I finally arrived all I could do is explaining what was happenning and tell them to find some other scenes (Macrovision had a cyclic effect in which a few seconds would be copied all right) I didn't have any video filter at that time to go around it and it was too late to go and find/build one.
CONCLUSION:
It's simple, DRM prevented those kids to express themselves correctly, it was damaging their possibility to create.
Now, with DRMs much more insinous than Macrovision nowadays just try to imagine the artists who have been prevented to express themselves, imagine also the art forms that have been crushed before their own existences by these DRMs.
DRM is bad, it is evil, it MUST be banned for the sake of the human spirit.
( it's the second time I put this story in
Never. (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem isn't really the restrictions now -- I will gladly grand the copyright holder the right to control the (re-)distrobution of their product. Copyright doesn't, and shouldn't, control or limit use, which a lot of DRM/copy protection does, and that I do object to. But having iTMS want to limit P2P reproduction -- to me, that's fair.
To me, the issue is instead what happens 150 years from now -- they copyright has expired, but Rights Manglement never dies....Let me tell you why I am okay with it (Score:3, Insightful)
RMS short story (Score:2, Insightful)
Not mine? (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem is philosophical to a point (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Yes (Score:3, Insightful)
Unacceptable in any form (Score:3, Insightful)
DRM is unacceptable to me in any form. It's basic premise is that consumers are untrustworthy and/or criminals.
In effect, it states I don't have control of my property, and logically means to me I don't own it.
I DO have products that are DRM'd, today (Apple iTunes). The only saving grace of which is that I can burn them to CD and be rid of the DRM.
Re:Yes (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I'll answer for slashdot (Score:1, Insightful)
How do you earn your living?
Would you propose that we all spend 8 hours a day farming, then work on media for everyone to own after that?
I purchased almost 2000 CD's in my youth. (Score:3, Insightful)
Why should I continue to support an industry which (a) treats me like a crook and (b) won't give me what I want?
What do I want? Digital music files that I can play, store, and convert however the hell I want to. I paid for the right to use the music -- GIVE ME THAT RIGHT.
Re:Yes (Score:3, Insightful)
But the owners love it!
So unless you're planning a glorious uprising of the working classes, then we'd better get used to it.
The DRM I'm willing to accept os the DRM that I won't even notice. Like the one on the iTMS seem to be. I never bought any of their wares, but from the list, I could burn any of my music, and move is to another computer without problems.
DRM that doesn't get in the way of fair use is acceptable.
Don't answer for me, Argentina (Score:3, Insightful)
- All "information" and "ideas", which includes music, software, text, and other unique works, should be allowed to freely flow between people in an unlimited fashion without any encumbrances of ownership;
A question... with these two statements, are you offering government or societal subsidy for content creators? Authors, artists, musicians, innovators, programmers, designers, etc., who deal in information and ideas would get paid for their labors by society in general?
Or are you not proposing that?
In which case, what incentive would any content provider have to provide content? I mean, personal enjoyment comes into it - I like to write, I like to create and play music - but I still have to pay bills. And for any form of content creation that requires capital investment (say, Pixar's render farm), with no return on their investment, do you think any of that would survive?
-T
Re:None. (Score:4, Insightful)
Only on Rentals (Score:1, Insightful)
For purchases no amount of DRM is reasonable. DRM on software and games is especially annoying e.g. the newly released Silent Hunter 3 uses StarForce for DRM. StarForce disables cd burning applications on your computer, intercepts IDE calls, causes system instability and sinks it's teeth into the registry, in some cases requiring a complete reformat to remove it from the system. It is borderline malware and forced me to avoid this game. Another annoying memory is HL2 and Steam, where the pirate community did a better job of delivering a working product to their customers than Valve did.
DRM punishes paying customers.
Grew up with CD's and LaserDiscs, can't accept DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
Not me. My teenage years were in the 1980's, where I was able to purchase -- legally -- "perfect" quality CDs and high quality (for NTSC, anyway) LaserDiscs, both free of copy protection. Both CDs and LaserDiscs were touted to last a lifetime, and even though that's not true, the lack of copy protection enabled lifetime chain copying to preserve the recording for personal use.
I grew up accustomed to, after hearing or seeing something I liked, purchasing it, and playing it back at any time for one of two purposes: a) reflecting upon its content, b) recalling the time and place where I originally heard or saw the recording, for the purposes of sentimentality.
I've said it many times, and almost always get modded down, but I'll say it again. I consider it a form of mind control for a publisher to present something for my consumption, and then be able to at a later date forbid me from reviewing that material in the time, place, and manner of my choosing.
As I said, I believe this attitude of mine is due in part to my Gen X demographic. Baby boomers and older -- those presumably running XXAA -- grew up not expecting reviewing capability. Baby boomlets grew up expecting stuff for free via P2P. Gen X'ers are in the position of expecting lifetime reviewing capability, and expecting to pay a reasonable one-time fee for it.
But demographically, there aren't as many Gen X'ers as baby boomers and baby boomlets. And no one seems to care that books after 1924 are rotting away. So DRM and short memories it will be from now on.
Re:I'll answer for slashdot (Score:4, Insightful)
I agree. I shelled out $5 for Debian on CD. I should be able to do whatever I want with it, including redistribute only the binaries to people, without any source code. Or modify the source code, build binaries, and ship only those binaries to people. Why not? I paid for it. Who the hell is this Stallman guy who thinks he can tell me what I get to do with something I bought? Sounds like another Jack Valenti to me.
Seriously, the "It's mine I paid for it, fuck you" attitude doesn't work in civilized society. There is a concept of "fair use" - sure, it's gone out the window in recent years, but it was called "fair use" for a reason. It wasn't called "fuck you, mr. artist".
Re:Yes (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure the same service can be offered with open MP3 or OGG files.
>Or how about DRM allows video producers to have a video be playable only from their web site and for a certain amount of time before it expires?
But I don't want that! I want to be able to download and save video I view on the net. Web sites don't stick around forever, and if you see something cool, there's no guarantee it'll be there tomorrow. Therefore, I want to be able to save it.
I have archives of several pages that I wouldn't be able to see anymore if I hadn't been able to save. We must not let DRM-proponents get their way, because if they do, media archives will be a thing of the past. Look at archive.org and the prelinger archives -- if all those movies had been DRMed and expired, we wouldn't have them today, right?
DRM is evil. Sorry, no ifs, ands, or buts here.
-Z
Re:I'll answer for slashdot (Score:5, Insightful)
Just as the protecting freedom of speech means protecting speech you hate, protecting an open sharing society means sharing with people who don't want to share it forward. Once you share something, you should not have any control over what the recipient does with it. Sure, somebody might try to sell your code, but that doesn't diminish your ideas, nor does it diminish the ability of others to build and share.
I'm not pushing this concept, I'm just saying that some people definitely feel this way. Any opinion is a valid opinion, even when you don't agree with it.
Pricing and product decide.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Physical products should not contain any DRM, but allow for a sales paradigm that a small'ish fee and a download allows for limited DRM or other revenue genterating ideas for the content provider.
$1.00 movie downloads, free TV show downloads with ads built-in.
Or have a quality/price ratio.
piss-poor = free
56k stream = $0.99 / video
128k stream = $1.50
T1 = $2.00
DVD = $20 + ability to rip/store and view *for personal useage only*
Movie companies want you to goto the theater & buy a ticket and then buy the DVD. How many people here can attest to d'loading a crappy cam version of a film and then wanting the "extra-value" that the theater experience offers?
I know I do all the time. I use cam downloads as my person movie critic Roger & Fatbert.
It has also saved me from wasting my money.
With the exception of bandwidth costs (And there are alternative methods that could be looked into) they have nothing to loose.
Too many times companies are stuck in the same mindset of: It has worked well for the last 100 years, why should we change now?
Hmm, dinosaurs. Fossil-Fuel.
rise-lather-repeat
DRM is OK if... (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think that the content providers are happy with having to do this.
I would accept DRM if:
* I find price is reasonable
* Does not impose restrictions on my personal use
* DRM Expires after a reasonable time
70 years after the death of the artist does not seem reasonable to me - I happen to like stuff created by people who died 69 years ago
There is no reason that music, text books etc. should be free, just as there is no reason that software should be free. The creator may choose either, and the consumer must then choose whether to support non-free content.
If I create something, then I can choose the conditions under which I will make it available, and you can choose whether you find it valuable enough to accept those conditions.
If ends don't meet then the product disappears - It's that simple.
Quit all that b*** about the companies charging unreasonable high fees - you are free not to use their product.
Just my 5 euro-cents
Erik
Do you feel that the dollar bill in your pocket... (Score:2, Insightful)
Before you dismiss the compairson, think about it.
Interesting, yes. Insightful, no. (Score:3, Insightful)
I do not agree, however, that, "In the digital realm, ideas of "ownership" and "theft" are meaningless." and I'm willing to bet that a lot of /.'ers don't agree as well. Even the hallowed GPL depends on foundations of digital ownership, for without these common rules it simply would not be enforceable. Copyright law has been around longer than digital media, and it also gives rights to creators of 'virtual' content such as a book, movie or song.
Anyways, your perception is not based on reality, because the reality of the world is that digital rights are here to stay, and they've been here a lot longer than you imply. As for DRM, I believe it signals a bad days ahead for computer users. And I hope that the trend of incorporating things that are controlled by a company and not the hardware owner are a failure.
BUY v.s. RENT (Score:3, Insightful)
And DRM imposes restrictions as if you were renting or leasing the product. That would be alright if the price on the product was close to zero, but I get offended when someone claims they are selling me something when the product is not sold, but rented.
That being said, I use Linux. There is no way to buy/rent DRM products for Linux users, and I am fairly sure that if it was possible it would not be Open Source. And if you are not willing to show me the source, then I am not going to install it on my system. I require the source, the source ensures FAIR USE. The sum of this is that DRM in any shape or form will never work for me.
As long as it's mine, as in... well... mine. (Score:2, Insightful)
- continue to use my medium (music, movie etc.) even after the DRM authenticating facility ceased to exist.
- continue using my medium on a new pc, after my old one ceased to exist.
- lend the medium to a friend. Maybe even timebombed (eg after a week, the friend cannot use it anymore, I mean, he has to give back my CD's/DVD's too, after some time).
- transfer my medium to another type of storage in case CDs or DVDs are as common as 8-tracks or something.
Furthermore not having the feeling, that the DRM mechanism can be used to remotely cut me off from using my medium is a big plus, too (like for example that Napster monthly-fee thingie, where your music stops playing, as soon as you stop paying). Basically: If the DRMed medium has the same usability as a CD I bought about 6 years ago, then it's a DRM I'd accept. Apples iTunes DRM is almost fine by me, since my friends in the LAN can listen to my music. I can burn them a CD, and so on. However I don't know what happens, if iTMS closes its doors, and my PC crashes. When I'm still able to authenticate my protected music, all is well. And if not, well there is always (J)Hymn...Re:Yes (Score:2, Insightful)
So unless you're planning a glorious uprising of the working classes, then we'd better get used to it.
Great attitude. I suppose we all may as well have gotten used to Hitler too - after all, there was nothing anybody could do about him!
Before anyone gets all bent out of shape, I'm not in any way saying DRM is as bad as Hitler. I'm just pointing out the fallacy in these "better get used to it" arguments. There is a line that can be crossed whereby something is no longer worth "getting used to", where a person's rights and liberties simply take precedent over any restrictions somebody wants to place on them, and that line is somewhat different for everybody. This topic exists for the sole purpose of finding out where that line is for each of us respondents. (Obviously for you, DRM does not cross your personal line in the sand, but it does cross mine and a lot of others'.)
The DRM I'm willing to accept os the DRM that I won't even notice. Like the one on the iTMS seem to be.
Yeah, just try upgrading your OS and then tell me how you don't even notice the iTMS DRM.
Re:Never (Score:5, Insightful)
Actualy only as rights of first sale are not messed up. The price on DVD's and the fact I can pass them on and they will play in the next guy's machine is the only reason I buy DVD's. The broken right of first sale is what killed Circuit City's implimentation even though the price was lower.
Nobody wants to buy a movie with an expiration date.
Re:Yes (Score:3, Insightful)
So what are these great uses of DRM?
Re:I'll answer for slashdot (Score:1, Insightful)
How will you feel when your masterpiece is disseminated amongst the masses for no repayment.
Anyone that promotes those free MP3 sites as viable alternatives to buying from 'The Man' is living in a dreamworld. Sure there may be a few idealists out there who are giving for the sake of it but I'm sure a lot of them are just individuals and bands who just can't get a recording contract. And if/when they finally do they'll probably want to protect their works too.
Re:Basically, never... (Score:2, Insightful)
Amen (Score:3, Insightful)
Truer words were never spoken. The original purpose of patents was to encourage innovation. The modern purpose is to build monopoly and to discourage innovation because it threatens existing monopolies.
A "good" use of DRM is to identify the true source of a file, payment being only one of the reasons to so. But the "modern" purpose is to deliberately infringe on fair-use rights, ultimately denying them.
Re:Yes (Score:2, Insightful)
It's supposition of guilt. These companies assume that you will "infringe" their copyrights and take measures to prevent any copying which then infringes on your fair-use rights which, imho are much more important with opt-out copyright laws like we have in the states. It's a double-edged sword. They also want to lock you into their proprietary system which is onerous but not really unexpected. It's amazing to me that anyone would accept this. It's their job to be as sneaky and diabolical as possible and it's out job to say "Hey, wait a minute. That's BS".
btw, forgive me if I'm wrong but I don't remember any of this hubbub over mixtapes. What happened?
DRM Control (Score:3, Insightful)
Commercial DRM I don't support at all. If I buy a CD I expect that CD to play in anything I have for as long as I own that CD. Commercial DRM limits that. The Best Example is Windows XP. Yes I have to register it to use it and it works. Now what happens when MS decides to not support WinXP anymore? Can they guarantee that I can install WinXP and use it 20 years from now?
Both Personal and commercial DRM have issues when it comes to system recovery. I see this problem in WMP now. If you buy music on WMP and WinXP crashes, I hope you backed up your Encryption key, otherwise all your music is now worthless. The same goes with the Encrypting File system in WinXP, although that can be handled and minimized by a Domain server in a business environment.
so in summary:
DRM in my control = Good
DRM in Someone Else's Control = Bad
Fundamentally untenable concept (Score:5, Insightful)
DRM only works if it's supported right down to the hardware, and I fundamentally object to my computer having a different agenda to mine. I will not buy hardware that I'm not in control of, and I view it as irresponsible and invasive to even try to control or artificially limit something I've paid (my) good money for.
If you don't understand this attitude, ask yourself why the government fines people for speeding but doesn't install mandatory speed-limiters in cars, or makes murder illegal but doesn't ban guns outright. Precedents both.
DRM without end-to-end hardware support is essentially impotent unless you are prohibited from cracking it by law. Legislating against technology like this is like legislating against bad weather, or against the tide - it's coming eventually whether you like it or not, and you only look stupid and/or put yourself in harm's way by trying to get between it and where it's going.
(As an aside, can anyone think of an example where a popular technology has been legislated against, and it's died there and then? I honestly can't think of one. In contrast, I can think of several cases where legal proceedings (and the attendant publicity) have launched a new piece of techology into mainstream usage, but I can't think of one counterexample. If anyone else can, please let me know...)
Short version - end-to-end DRM is fundamentally invasive and tramples on your rights as a consumer (First Sale, Fair Use, etc). Vulnerable DRM propped up by dubious lawmaking both cheapens the law and retards technology as a whole (e.g. banning P2P networks unless they pro-actively filter for copyrighted software effectively bands P2P as a useful technology).
DRM represents an attempt to graft concepts and precedent from physical property law onto digital "property". They are not alike, and this sets a false precedent which will (and is) harming both our technological and cultural development.
Re:I'll answer for slashdot (Score:5, Insightful)
True, but that has nothing to do with DRM. The record companies sold non-DRM vinyl LPs for over 60 years and non-DRm CDs for over 20 years. Not only did the record companies make billions in profits but a lot of musicians got very rich as well.
DRM *IS NOT* about "fight piracy". It *IS NOT* about "protecting intellectual property". The sole purpose of DRM is to fundamentally change the ownership of property that you have legitimately purchased -- "you don't own it, you've merely purchased a license to use it -- but you can only use it in the way that we dictate".
Re:Yes (Score:5, Insightful)
The copyright holders love it, not the owners.
The copyright holders love it because it gives them control over the owners of the media.
I think you are talking about "intellectual property owners." This is why the phrase "intellectual property" is a misleading one because it tricks folks into thinking that intangible things are the same as tangible things when they are not.
If I buy a cd or a dvd, I am its owner, nobody else. If I download from an online music store, I am paying for a service. In either case, nobody else "owns" anything I have paid for.
Re:Never (Score:3, Insightful)
Agreeed... Any DRM is too much (Score:1, Insightful)
If I *buy* it, I want it.... on my terms, not some RIAA jackass terms which translate to "you'll have to buy it a few more times before you die, pretty much any time any of your equipment dies, and maybe even before that, if our profits aren't enough that quarter."
So, I simply boycott anything that goes out of my way to restrict my rights to use it as I see fit for my own personal enjoyment.
This boycott is made easier for me because I frankly don't see much of *anything* coming out of the RIAA nor the MPAA that's worth owning these days.
I have bought DVDs and CDs- but directly from the artist. Who usually is glad to sign them. No media mogul middleman involved. The artist gets the full profit.
It's like Negroponte said about "What's wrong with standard (meaning analog, non-HDTV) television? Is it the sound? No, the sound is fine. Is it the picture? No, the picture is certainly adequate. It's the _programs_, stupid!"
I don't even bother to P2P. There's nothing out there worth my time downloading it.
Yes, I *have* spent time working in "the media", and it's not that money is the most important thing to these people. It's the ONLY thing. They make Big Tobacco and Big Oil look like the Red Cross and the Unitarian Universalists.
I boycott the MPAA, the RIAA, and I encourage others to do the same. Buy from local artists, buy direct from artists; create on your own. The system will change when it's no longer profitable for them; we simply need to hasten that day.
Limited life of DRM schemes (Score:3, Insightful)
I am okay for short lifespans. If I rent a video from the local BlockBusters I am perfectly okay with a DRM scheme that blocks access after a fixed period of time.
Over the long run I have see many problems:
1. Lifespan of companies like the new Napster. The music is only playable as long as Napster is around to authenticate the DRM scheme. Napster goes out of business and its dead.
2. Lifespan of the DRM scheme. If I buy (not rent) a title, the DRM scheme better allow me to use it as long as I have it. I don't want to find out its not compatible with Windows 2020 or Linux 10.4, and told I have to buy a new version.
3. Valid expiry dates. If a title has a copyright expiry date of say March 1, 2054, then the DRM should reflect this, not 2038 (UNIX time_t value) which I expect to be around for, or infinite (which means the title will be copyrighted well after the Sun goes nova).
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:wtf?! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Yes (Score:1, Insightful)
Because that TOTALLY explained away all the other good points.
"You just spent $100 on a Divx player and Divx discs, and now they're a useless pile of crap? Get a job."
"You built an entire library of music at a cheap price of $1 per song, and now that Apple has gone out of business, you can't move them to your ipod anymore? Get a job."
"Nobody sells you music or movies anymore, you just have to rent them for $10 a viewing? Get a job."
Excellent work, soldier. Continue to fight the good fight.
Re:Purchase or rent (Score:3, Insightful)
DRM should not be used in situations where the media itself is replacing physical media - buying music online instead of buying a CD, etc. I think FairPlay is a fantastic exception to this rule, as it is very liberal and has only a modicum of restrictions (I think three computers is fair, and no extra fees to play on iPod).
People who want to sell you something and be able to take it back, however, should be revolted against.
Re:Yes (Score:3, Insightful)
So we're supposed to accept DRM because they somehow feel entitled to our money? Oxygen is freely available too. If it were't, someone would be charging for it. That doesn't mean that some chemical company is entitled to a subsidy, tax, or other business structure to prop up their failing business because no-one is willing to pay for their freely-available Oxygen product.
My prediction: Artists will make money off of concerts, merchandise, and endorsements but their music will be available free. More music will be available from more artists since the only difference between a garage band and Madonna will be the quality of their music, not whether or not they got a record contract. And I predict the recording industry will shrivel up and die because it no longer serves a useful purpose. And I mean the recording industry, not music. RIAA != music. If RIAA dies that doesn't mean music dies. It just means some useless media executive will go have to find a real job instead of pimping for the real talent which is the musicians.
Yes, things will get worse before they get better. The recording industry will not die quietly. But it will die. And music will be free. Technology and the free market guarantees that, and even rich industry and corrupt government are incapable of stopping technology and market forces over the long term. It's like a 5-foot seawall trying to stop a 50-foot tsunami.
Re:Yes (Score:1, Insightful)
Yes, and I'm sure that if they do that greedy dickheads like you will steal all the stuff, whine that "Informations wants to be free anyway" and "CD's are just ads for concerts" and make them go out of business.
> But I don't want that! I want to be able to download and save video I view on the net. Web sites don't stick around forever, and if you see something cool, there's no guarantee it'll be there tomorrow. Therefore, I want to be able to save it.
It THEIR video which they GAVE you. Maybe they do not WANT you to save it? Maybe they are dependent on ad revenues. Maybe they have other reasons to let you download it from their site. Who the fuck are you to tell them what to do with their property anyways??!!
you people are going to hate me!! (Score:1, Insightful)
Though I do not much like current DRM systems.
Life will be better when you can listen to what you want, when you want, anywhere you want.
A few things that must happen first:
1. Distribution systems - digital streams anywhere, anytime
2. Payment systems - pay as you go
3. Forget ownership
When you buy a CD, you are only purchasing a licence to listen to the music, or use the software. That little plastic disc is just a silly, outdated, impractical distribution mechanism (we all know this). You own nothing.
Personally, I would rather pay for my content $0.025 at a time. News, music, "TV", software.
For the record: I have never, nor currently, nor have any plans to, work on a DRM system or content.
Re:Yes (Score:2, Insightful)
You are like my boss who pirates Windows XP and then bitches the next day that he had to call Microsoft to register his other (legit) copy. Goddamn retard.
Rotting Music and Games (Score:4, Insightful)
And a majority of the recorded music is rotting away because it isn't available. I too grew up in the 80s. What if I want to listen to a group that I liked, but my tapes are worn out? Can I go out and buy their CD? Maybe, if any store will carry it. There is a lot of good (and bad) music that will be lost because the record companies don't think they can make money on it anymore. They own the right to it, and choose to let it die.
The same goes for lots of things I guess. We are definitely a nostalgia generation. If it weren't for the enthusiast community, a lot of the video games from the 80s would be extinct. I was into arcade video game collecting for a while, and one of my friends (who was into it WAY more than me) cobbled together pieces from several different video game boards to resurrect a game that nobody had anymore in working condition. (Zektor) Now you can play it on MAME. Now you can play LOTS of games on MAME, and big companies had nothing to do with it. Music and movies are the same to some extent, I am afraid. I don't want to hear crap that is on the radio, I would like to hear the old stuff I used to listen to when I was growing up. It is getting harder and harder to find.
It is part of OUR culture, it is still up to us to preserve it.
Re:Grew up with CD's and LaserDiscs, can't accept (Score:3, Insightful)
Guess when copy protection in the music industry started to become an issue...? Right when CD Burners became affordable.
Re:Yes (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem with "DRM" is that it will never work. The way to sell content is to make it easily available for anyone to buy at a fair price. Such that buying becomes the "easy option".
Re:Yes (Score:3, Insightful)
Get a brain.
if DRM existed, it would be acceptable. (Score:3, Insightful)
Management : acte of managing.
Whose rights exists ?
- Author rights.
- Producer rights.
- Public rights.
Show me a system that manage (not restrict) public rights.
Show me a system that remove all protections once a work fall in the public domain.
Show me a system that help me to parody, or quote, or permit me all fair right uses, no matter where I'm in the world.
No SCDRMS (So called Digital rights management system) manage rights.
Presently, DRM is inexistant. What exist is public perception manipulation and brainwashing. And this, too, is unacceptable.
Why DRM can't work in it's current form (Score:4, Insightful)
The ONLY thing DRM is good at right now is keeping us locked into a device or proprietary service.
I have over 8000 mp3's. Three-quarters of them are ripped from cd's I legally purchased and the last quarter was ripped from friends, downloaded from napster (way back), winmx, or some torrent.
I've been adding to this collection since 1997. Over the years I've listened to it:
-on my home computer
-in my car burned as a standard audio cd
-in my car on a hacked virgin webplayer I mounted to the glove box
-in my car on an mp3-cd player
-at friend's houses streamed with andromeda
-on my archos jukebox
-on my PDA
-on my home stereo through a computer I had hooked up there
-on my home stereo through a D-link networked media player
-on my work computer
-on my laptop while travelling
As far as I'm concerned, that's ALL fair use. I WILL NOT buy music if I don't have the flexibility I had with MP3's. I really love my music, and the ability to play it anywhere with little or no effort. Initial cost aside, if I threw it all away, and bought all my music DRM-protected, how much OF MY TIME do you think I would have to spend TRYING to listen to it in all those places. I'd lose my damn mind fighting with it, and probably STOP listening to music altogether for some time.
From the other side of the fence, I can understand the record companies position. I'm sure those money-grubbing bastards can't sleep at night knowing ppl are listening to music they own for free. I can sympathize with this as I like to protect my own business interests as well, but I think they're going about it the wrong way.
Music is easily traded because there's essentially no difference between the cd I buy in the store, and well encoded mp3's of the album I can download freely. Give us added-value. Start bundling cool stuff in with the cd's we want. Some labels do this to some extent, but not enough. The last 5 cd's I bought retail were purchased because they came with bonus dvd's, booklets, or were some special edition release. I opened up my wallet and gladly dished out the 20 bucks every time.
Re:I'll answer for slashdot (Score:2, Insightful)
THE GPL FORCES THE FREE FLOW OF INFORMATION AND IDEAS.
The position you view as contradictory is only so within the narrow limits of your understanding. No copyright means no GPL required. It's a VICTORY for GPL fans, not a loss. It's the very point of the GPL.DRM is both insulting and technically unworkable (Score:1, Insightful)
The whole DRM concept is technically flawed. To implement DRM of any kind you need to have a "secret" which will enable the product to be used. Unfortunately these DRM'ed products have to contain the secret in the product or the software algorithm for it to be usable. All it takes to listen to some music is to use the software provided to unscramble it. If the software is running on a general purpose machine e.g. a PC, then any competent programmer can reverse engineer the process and undo the scrambling permanently. What the media companies do not realize is that we have both pieces of the puzzle already, so no matter how they deliver it we can always get "the music", and it only takes one determined individual to make all their DRM efforts (millions of $$) all for nothing. Just one very determined, perhaps insulted and poorly treated, individual! Its not rocket science! Its just a computer program that is easily taken apart with the right tools. The only way to keep "the secret" a secret is to force everyone in the entire world to use a special piece of hardware just to play the music, but even then the low tech methods (e.g. A patch cord and a sound card) will still work for generating a good quality sound file that can then be played on that same old PC we wanted it on in the first place. They can't win as long as one "pissed off" consumer with technical talent still exists in this world.
Given the desire I could un-DRM anything they could put out there, but fortunately for them I am an honest person. My money is my vote, and I vote no-DRM with my wallet. In the mean time I will listen to music I like from any other legal media where I do not directly fund their DRM efforts.
Re:Yes (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, I love what I do. Being paid for it is a bonus. I don't need to go work in an office pushing papers around and running spreadsheets of numbers. Personally, I would find that sort of things boring. The current business model allows me to earn a living doing what I like instead of what I have to do to make ends meet. If I weren't a little talented, it wouldn't work out, and I'd be forced to give away my music in hopes of being noticed by a few people who might fork over whatever few pennies they could spare. I don't do busking any more as that was one of the worst weeks of my life.
When your product is such a pile of crap, you have to give it away, the only income you'll get from it is pity money. I can now understand why it's called a pittance.
Re:I'll answer for slashdot (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Yes (Score:2, Insightful)
Just like typewriters are a thing of the past, replaced with computers.
Put ofcause if you prefer to write you letter with homemade ink on homemade paper go a head.
Re:Yes (Score:3, Insightful)
True, but I do own my copy of that song.
* you don't OWN all rights on the content on that disc, only those rights copyright holder grants to you.
I don't own all the rights on the content, true.
I own more that just what they grant me though. They can grant me any rights that copyright takes away by default, but any other rights I have already.
Think of it as a venn diagram with sets A, B, C
A is the set of all rights.
B is the set of rights copyright law removes. (and is a not empty subset of A)
C is the set of rights granted by a copyright owner. (and is a subset of B)
The rights I have on a work is the union of A and C.
The copyright owner can try to add any restriction they want. (eg, you do not have the right to fly a helocopter if you buy this CD) but they are unenforcable. They cannot take away rights using copyright, only give back rights that copyright law took away in the first place.
The only exception to that is if you have entered into a contract with them.
Re:Never (Score:3, Insightful)
Personally, I take the view that if a song, movie, book, etc. is DRM'd then it isn't truly mine
Exactly. You didn't write the song, make the move, etc. If you want to own the content, create it or pay someone to create. It cost more than $.99 a song, or $19.99 a movie. From the parent:
The pretense is that every media container you own - CD, DVD, book, magazine, etc - is a licensed copy of that type of media alone. You do not have the right of use for the exact same content in another form.
Technically you generally do have the right to use that content in another form, unless the terms of the license agreement say you don't. DRM protected content usually includes such provisions, such as iTunes allowing you to burn CD's of the material. The Fair Use concept generally allows you to use it for your own enjoyment so long as you don't make a profit. The wholesale redistribution of that content via Peer to Peer networks should not be considered "Fair Use".
This is all nonsense, of course. And we have let them build a business on the nonsense for far too long
So your proposal is to stop allowing people to profit from their creations? Which might work for simple works, like songs, where a an artists might be driven by the need to create enough to invest his time writing new songs, but who would invest more than a few thousand to create a movie that movie theaters could just copy and display for free? Well, the Government and other advertisers I guess.
I have long since drawn my own line in the sand.
Great! Where can I check out the content you created and licensed under the Creative Commons license? So long as your line is "I won't purchase DRM media", thats fine. Just don't extend that to "I don't like the terms you offer this non-neccessity product under, but choose to consume it anyway without compensating you".
Why does everything have to be absolute? (Score:5, Insightful)
I hesitate to post a counter-opinion, since doing so on these threads seems to be worth about (-2, I Disagree So You're A Troll), but what the hell. ;-)
What if the alternative is not being able to download legally at all? I don't know whether it's officially acknowledged or not, but it's a good bet that legit services like Napster's or Apple's are only allowed to distribute the content by the recording industry after agreeing to apply DRM technology to it. If they gave up, or the DRM proved to be ineffective, there probably wouldn't be any legal download services at all. At that stage, some people reading this may be quite happy to break the law and risk becoming a statistic/example case so they could still download music, but a lot of people would lose out through being unwilling to commit a crime.
Not everything in this world comes down to absolute ownership. The rental model has been working well for videotapes for years: if you just want to watch a film once, but don't want to keep the tape, you can pay a smaller amount but you have to give it back a couple of days later. Most of the arguments in posts like the parent would basically rule out such a model, despite the fact that it is welcomed by many and of benefit to them.
And I know two people, completely independently, who had trouble securing book publishing deals after draft content that they put on their web site temporarily for the benefit of those who were interested wound up republished (without their consent, or even notifying them) on so-called archive sites that have decided they are above copyright law (which I suspect may become an expensive mistake the first time they try this with a megacorp).
Neither of these people publishes anything whatsoever on the web any more, because the resulting tedious negotiations with their publisher's lawyers over distribution rights just aren't worth it. Ultimately, it's not the authors who have lost out here, it's the people who were benefitting from having their content at a much cheaper rate. That was the very distribution of work that copyright and similar concepts are intended to promote, and when copyright wasn't respected, it stopped. Go figure...
Where are the Apple zealots? (Score:4, Insightful)
Where are all the Apple zealots now? Just two articles ago were I was reading the spouting of how much they don't mind DRM. How iTMS is so great that they don't mind a little slice of freedom being taken away. How Apple is just sooooo consumer-friendly, and they're trying to convince the record labels to be more digital on our behalf.
It's a lot harder to chime in when the question posed is tantamount to "When is it acceptable to give up your freedom to a company"
Just because Apple says that it's DRM is the best it could do for the consumer and still appease the labels, doesn't mean it's something the consumer should accept.
THIS is NOT insightful its bullshit. (Score:3, Insightful)
Unacceptable they can offer the same service without DRM...DRM is NOT a requirement for doing business. If the companies like Napster refused to give in to the record companies we would not be in this situation. It comes down to this...you can either sell the music through this service without DRM and trust the consumers. Or you can not sell it, make no money and the consumers will still obtain the music, but you will not get a dime for it.
Or how about DRM allows video producers to have a video be playable only from their web site and for a certain amount of time before it expires?
Again I call shenanigans...you offer it up I should be able to save it to my machine to then play it back in whatever way I deem comfortable. If I want to play it back in a format like the video out to my TV because I want a larger picture I shouldn't be restricted to the medai player window in a web page. Or perhaps even to watching it using only a particular OS.
Does anyone care about the valid and useful DRM applications before screaming human rights violations?
There are no valid and useful applications DRM just gets in the way...there is no reason for it...
END OF STORY...if you believe in DRM your a dumb "cow", who doesn't understand just how your being screwed...
Re:Never (Score:5, Insightful)
That seems fair to me.
P.S. I dont think the parent you are replying to mentioned anything about the theft you keep bandying around.
The people have spoken (Score:3, Insightful)
1)DRM is OK as long as they're not Nazi's about your use (like burning CDs from iTMS)
2)If you don't do MP3, you have nothing. (sony)
3)Nobody gives a crap about OGG.
I know these things are painful to hear, but that's what HAS happened. I know some people think of creative work as the common property of all mankind, but [sarcasm] "high quality" [/sarcasm] media production costs big bucks, and they need to recoup that investment. The options to do so are
1)DRM (sorta works)
2)Prevent all digital distribution (didn't work)
3)rethink your business model. (record companies know they are obsolete, this wont happen)
Re:Never (Score:5, Insightful)
Nobody owns the actual song. Someone may own the copyright to the song, but that is just ownership of temporary government sponsored monopolistic rights, not ownership of the song itself. Further, there is plenty of precedence stating that when you buy a copy of a song or other work protected by copyright you own that copy of the work in question. That is the first sale doctrine, and generally it's been upheld that if someone claims they're selling something to you they _are_ in fact selling something to you, no matter how they wish to later claim licensing or rental. Your rights to do what you wish with your property may however be curtailed by someones copyright, but you are still the owner of that property.
"So your proposal is to stop allowing people to profit from their creations?"
There's a difference between allowing people to profit from their creations and allowing derived monopolies to expand indefinitely, thus severely damaging the free market. Copyright is meant to compensate the creator of a work, not huge inefficient corporations with whatever expenses they can generate. And it's becoming woefully obvious that the intellectual monopolies are our economies version of the Soviet factories. Only when you have a monopoly can you let your expenses grow to hundreds or thousands of times what the actual production cost is.
Patents and copyright need to be drastically revised to compensate _only_ the actual creative work.
Re:Never (Score:5, Insightful)
If I buy something it should be mine, I should be able to dictate the terms I use it on, I should be able to resell. I should be able to trade media with another store or a friend.
I can't stand renting everything digitally for the rest of my life. Now is the time for the consumer to stand up or we will lose all our rights in the digital world.
Re:Never (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Never (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Why does everything have to be absolute? (Score:5, Insightful)
The only reason that model worked is because the content producers had a cartel that allowed them to charge an unrealistically high price for new movies on videocassette: $100+ per copy. No home user was gonna pay that much per movie, so rental (from a middleman who swallowed the high initial cost and recouped it was the only feasible market model.
When DVD came along, Warner Bros. Home Video president Warren Lieberfarb had the vision [ultimateavmag.com] to see that they could make a lot more money with a sales model and realistic pricing than they were through the rental model. So he led Warner to break with the cartel and push DVD as a sell-through format at the $10-20 price point. He took a lot of flak from the rest of the industry for that, but when the money started to roll in for Warner it wasn't long before the rest of the cartel followed suit.
Today, the studios make more money off Lieberfarb's model than they do at the box office on many movies, and rental behemoths like Blockbuster Inc. are seeing their value plummet [yahoo.com]. So it's pretty clear that in this example, when given a choice between rentals and reasonably priced sale copies, people prefer to buy over renting.
License Agreement? (Score:3, Insightful)
But I didn't agree to any license. I went to the store, they offered a CD or DVD for sale for a price, I accepted the offer and paid the price and took the disc home. That is the entire agreement. Why should I need a license to listen to or watch the disc I bought? Why should I need a license to rip it to
Yes I do think that distributing it over a p2p system would be a violation of copyright, and illegal, and wrong, but what does "license" have to do with anything?
Re:Never (Score:5, Insightful)
If I want to let you borrow a CD, you can. If I want to let you borrow something I've downloaded off Napster Express, well, we're both screwed.
DRM now? Sure. I won't buy it- that's me voting with my wallet. However, when the content providers decide to provide everything in DRMed format, and electronics manufacturers only provide DRM-ready equipment, its game over. Your parents and grandparents had a better deal.
Re:Never (Score:3, Insightful)
I have no problem with copyrights on music like most of the people here... but I personally purchase CDs and then promptly rip them to lossless format (FLAC), then transcode to the current portable format de jour (MP3 still right now).
These MP3s i stream to work through my website, burn to CDs for play in my car, upload to my nomad jukebox, and play on my Linux and Windows machines.
Now contrast that with what I could do using a DRM'd format such as itunes MP4, WMA, or DVD-audio.
Exactly.
Re:Never (Score:3, Insightful)
DRM is big pain in the butt for the consumer.
How did you feel if a book that you bought dissapeared in smoke 3 years after. You probably wouldn't buy the book in the fist place!
There are no standards, you can't play you DRMed avi files on your new DVD player or any other device except a Windows/PC (and that's when the files aren't locked to run only on your system).
If you bought something DRMed or download it in a subscription based service you better hope you don't REALLY need those files. In the case the content provider goes under, ceases to distribute, or simply disallows the use of a file, you can complain all you want because the file is not yours.
DRM is being pushed because content publishers and copyright holders fear digital copying. Altough there are more books, CDs and DVDs sold now than in any other time, more music is sold and more contents are on the market.
Like CSS, region coding and so on, DRM is a way to protect business models, to trap markets in price rigging schemes that milk every penny that a regional market can offer. Or do you think that prices are the same all over the world?
To this day DRM has been used has a tight fist strategy, intended to reduce consumer choice and to makes the consumer buy the same things all over again.
Re:Never (Score:2, Insightful)
If you agree to a license that allows another party remote access to your personal property, that would be your own stupidity causing you a problem, not DRM.
If you rent a movie, the movie store has no right to come to your house and break in to reclaim/edit it.
This is supposed to be a discussion, not a FUD fest.
Comment removed (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Never (Score:3, Insightful)
Allowing our government to grant a monopoly on these things is, IMO, incredibly counterproductive. It reminds me most of the way some European monarchs treated manufacturing when it began to grow -- individuals were given exclusive rights to manufacture this or that product. The countries which did not follow this practice developed vibrant economies, and those that did eventually abandoned the practice in order to catch up.
In other words, copyrights and so forth are the opposite of free market capitalism, just as the monopolies granted by the old monarchies were. To refresh you memory, recall the Boston Tea Party? It was the American colonists' rebellion against the King George's imposition of one of those monarchical monopolies.
Free markets are much better for manufacturing and trading societies, and free use of ideas, songs and stories will be much more productive for our society.
You Believe in a Lie (Score:5, Insightful)
Copyright law today rarely protects the financial interests of the people who created the work. It mostly protects the financial interests of the distributor who do not fairly compensate the artists. The artists themselves do not have the right to copy their own works. This is why all media publishing industries are so screwed right now. I remember when I was back in audio production school, I was told that most employers in the music business consider all work that you do (even at home on your own equipment) to be their property. This is written into the employment contract. Doesn't sound like a way to protect the interests of the people who are actually creating the works. If the creators of a work want to profit from their creation, they are far better going it alone and utilizing the power of today's technology for distribution. At worst, they could gain some notoriety if their work is any good. But as soon as they sign up with a label, they are going to get screwed. The statement you made hat I am nit-picking should be phrased:
So your proposal is to stop allowing the major labels/motion picture distributors to profit from their acquisitions?
If you were an artist, you'd "get it". Sound to me like you're a "suit" or a wannabe business person.
Re:Never (Score:5, Insightful)
That exactly is the problem!! The record companies are changing the paradigm. In the past...when buying cassettes, albums and CDs....you were buying the media and a copy of the music contained...to use as you wanted within fair use rights. You were NEVER considered buying a license to use it...but, you owned your copy to do with as you pleased...within copyright law (as you alluded to in your comment about doing this with no profit involved.)/
Now, just because the music is digital...they're trying to say, no, you don't buy your copy...you buy a license to USE it...which can be revoked at any time.
This is what's wrong...and I believe, the center of much of the controversy. They're changing what you purchase. And if we don't fight this...it will become the norm.
I've said it before..."What one generation accepts...the next generation embraces"
DRM. (Score:1, Insightful)
Seriously, what does copyright deal with? The right to make copies (duh)! However, I've heard media-types defending UPOs (user-prohibited operations) on DVDs (that which does not let you skip the commercials) as "ensuring that the copyright holder can exercise his right to control the way in which the consumer experiences the work in order to exercise our right to protect the artistic integrity of the work."
Let me clue you in, media-types. I have searched high and low in copyright law and found no "right to protect the artistic integrity of your work." I haven't been able to find a reference in copyright law that gives "the right to control the way in which the work is experienced." The moment you sell a copy to me, I have the right to "experience the work" as contained on that copy in whatever way I freaking feel like - EXCEPT most cases of creating and distributing new copies ("Fair Use" excepted, but that's not where I want to go here).
The easiest analogy to use is... gasp... BOOKS (also copyrighted objects). If I buy a copy of mystery novel and wish to "experience it" by skipping to the last page and reading the pages backwards, that is my perogative. It is NOT your right to force me to read the pages in the order YOU would like me to. If I wish to read chapters 1-3, skip chapter 4, and then read chapters 5-end, that is my perogative. Again, it is NOT your right to keep me from experiencing my copy in any way I see fit to protect your imagined "right to control the experience." If I wish to take a sharpie and blot out every f-bomb (or every preposition, or every instance of the letter "e") in MY COPY of the book, that is my perogative - it is not your right to ban sharpies in order to "protect the integrity of the work" and make sure that I read those words in the future.
If I wish to take it to Kinko's and make copies for all my friends, it IS your right to keep me from doing so. If I wish to scan it on my computer and plop in on (insert filesharing medium of choice), it is your right to keep me from doing so. Notice in both of these instances, you're keeping me from MAKING COPIES - which is what copyright is really about. Not "controlling the experience." Not "protecting the artistic integrity of your work."
Copyright is about restricting me from making copies - and as Fair Use can trump even that restriction, DRM is fatally flawed, because it cannot by its nature make judgements as to whether or not use is infringing or "Fair Use." DRM is simply a means for media companies to stake a claim to more imagined "rights" than they actually have, at the sole expense of taking away my REAL (not imagined) rights. Thus, DRM is completely unacceptable. Ever. Period. End of Discussion.
A system which automatically notifies the copyright holder when a copy is created (and only at that time)? Acceptable, and perhaps even desirable... because those engaged in Fair Use when making the copy will not have to worry about their copying. Those *not* engaged in Fair Use (i.e., violating copyright) can more easily be caught. (Note this is not the same as, "you should be okay with an unsolicited search if you have nothing to hide;" rather, it means that if you engage in something that needs a case-by-case review to determine its legality, you should have no problem with having that review for your case - if you're legal, you're fine). And if the system contains a means of contacting the copyright holder, it makes it easy for one who owns a legitimate copy to contact the copyright holder, thus alleviating one of the big problems of wanting to license material (trying to find the copyright holder to obtain a license).
Of course, what I would REALLY like to see is compulsory licensing for *all* copyrighted works, but that's another story entirely.
--AC
Re:Never (Score:3, Insightful)
NOBODY *owns* content. Content is thought, experience, knowledge, understanding, appreciation. These are intangible, and cannot be contained, quantified, or taken from someone after the fact. We enacted copyright to give creators an incentive to create, that our society should be rich in content. But even in its current screwed up, completely out of proportion incarnation, copyright terms end. Copyright does not last forever. Content eventually becomes free of all restrictions, and all can use it however they please. But DRM doesn't end. This is why DRM is bad for society. It de-facto extends copyright indefinitely, and does so with more onerous restrictions than copyright itself allows a creator to impose. Here's an answer to the original story submitter's question: I will accept DRM when it automatically becomes completely and permanently disabled the instant the copyright on the work it's protecting expires.
So your proposal is to stop allowing people to profit from their creations?
I would remind you that copyright does not exist to guarantee creators the ability to profit from their creations. It exists merely provide an environment in which creators have incentive to create. Incentive need not include any guarantees. (e.g.: Look at Vegas. Plenty of people find adequate incentive to gamble at casinos.) Once copyright has gone far enough that creators find enough incentive to create, and our society has rich, continuous streams of new content, its job is done, and anything additional is too much. IMHO, we're already quite far into the realm of "too much".
DRM: Depreciated Reposessable Media (Score:3, Insightful)
How much would you pay for a car that could be deactivated at will by the dealer?
Wouldn't it be great if you could make something that everyone wanted, but you can sell it to everyone without spending a dime to distribute it? And then wouldn't it be great if you could make it evaporate so that the same people would have to pay you again and again?
They want to have their cake and eat it too. Who can blame the greedy shits? Greedy greedy greedy greedy greedy. You can copy information infinitely without depleting the source, and each copy can be the source for more. So distribution is free on a massive scale, and then if you could also tap into scarcity value like when you sell something that is a depleting resource the more you sell it... so you get the courts to make that legal fiction work in the markets and KA-CHING!
All of the arguments that people have against welfare and lazy people with their entitlements all apply to corporations and institutions exactly the same way. If you create a system of entitlements, watch the life get sucked out of the business. DMCA is a system of entitlements for corporations who sell DRM. It's just too bad they have to compete against non-DRM. If things that were sold as DRM start behaving unlike non-DRM, watch the Divx history repeat itself.
DRM fundamentally impossible (Score:3, Insightful)
Even if you have DRM-enabled hardware, there's always the "analog hole". And all it takes is one person with some decent analog equipment to recapture the data, and begin distributing digital copies.
If bandwidth keeps getting cheaper, things like Freenet will probably get fast enough to spread digital media. At which point there's no stopping it, short of a full-blown 1984 scenario.
Re:Yes (Score:3, Insightful)
Well you're right about the part that you have "the same rights to music and video that you buy that you have to software that you buy". The rights you have in either case are all the rights that copyright law grants you. When buying most software, the license is presented after the copy of the copyrighted work becomes yours. You don't need a license to use something you already own.
The license, even if/when you hit "I accept" may not even be valid under contract law since the software company did not concede anything in exchange for your rights at that time. They didn't conceed a copy of the software - you already had that.
Re:The RIAA brought it on themselves (Score:2, Insightful)
DRM schemes destroy fair use. (Score:3, Insightful)
DRM is the 'easy' way out for the media business - if they can lock up everything, then they don't have to pay lawyers to enforce their rights.
However the side effect of the DRM approach is that it tramples on the rights of people to gain fair use of copyrighted material for teaching, for personal archiving and any other non-infringing right accorded by legal precidence.
Of course, businesses would love to control all of the media on your devices - even the media you yourself have created. That way you have to pay them for their hardware and software to view anything and everything - another 'Microsoft Tax' in the making.
Just say NO to DRM of any kind. It doesn't work, and it ends up making criminals out of hobbyists - when the lawyers should be spending their time doing real investigations of the real criminals instead.
Re:Never (Score:3, Insightful)
Now with digital media the laws says that companies can grant whatever rights they want to the media in the form of licences. The first thing they took away was the ability to redistribute, you can no longer sell what you have once bought (this is why I like to call online media distributing as renting). With DRM they have also taken away the ability to use what you have payed for in ways not authorized by the licence.
New laws are needed and they should give more rights to the consumer.
Re:Mod parent up! (Score:3, Insightful)
It's like saying a society with laws against slavery is freer than one that has no such limits. In both cases, one "freedom" is taken away so that the entire system is more free.
There are two dynamics at play:
1. The system that the license creates.
2. The individual instances within that system.
The system the GPL creates is more free, but the BSD allows for one more freedom in the individual cases.
The BSD promoters (who use 'freedom' as a reason) seem to be missing the forest, and only seeing the trees. It's one thing if you want your code to be usable in proprietary products, but that's not promoting freedom in the system.
People won't preserve freedoms they don't value. (Score:3, Insightful)
I would be much more likely to buy an explanation that jibes with what I hear from consumers (and jibes with what I'm seeing multinational corporations teach consumers). For example, incompatibilities with their everyday lives, sort of like the lame reasons why people reject e-books: computers aren't portable and cheap like paper, they can't be read as easily in all the conditions in which one reads a paperback book, and so on. I call these reasons "lame" because they are so easily addressed (and thus resistence is so easily undermined) by sufficiently advanced technology. The more interesting and important issues have to do with the law (right of first sale, as you brought up, for instance) and ethics (how should we treat one another?).
I should add that I'm not saying any of this to stifle any attempt to educate the public about more important reasons to critically examine DRM or related efforts in "trusted computing" attestation ability. We need more people talking about what to look for when old ideas are transferred to new technology (reading books on computers instead of bound paper volumes, listening to music on portable digital audio players instead of carting around playable media, etc.).
New stupid record (Score:2, Insightful)
Stupid ideas like the corporations are getting all the money, not the artists, therefore it is ok to steal stuff, since the corporations don't deserve copyright protections anyways.
Stupid ideas like I won't buy anything that has DRM, when the reality is that virtually everybody has at least one of the major gaming consoles.
Stupid ideas like once I buy it I can do anything I want with it, including giving it out to everybody I want.
The stupid-meter is off the chart on this topic. The fact is that a lot more people than the artist have a vested and legitimate interest in making money in this business. Whether you like it or not, the technology is going to catch up and we are going to have a strong (and fair) DRM scheme eventually.
It may take decades, but eventually stealing copyrighted materials will be as difficult as stealing a book is today. And that's the way it should be. If you don't like it, you don't have to buy the product.
If the copyright owner could come up with some scheme that only allowed you to access their content from inside your car during daylight hours, then more power to them. You may not like it, but that's a decision you are free to make before you buy the product.
Personally, I pay $4 to be able to watch a movie for 5 days only (blockbuster rental), or I pay $15 to be able to watch it as long as I want. If they can come up with a scheme whereby I can pay $8 and watch it all I want, but only from my home TV, that's fine with me too.
Do whatever the hell they want. I am the consumer and can decide for myself whether I am willing to put up with their restrictions for the price I am paying.
But that's not what DRM is about... (Score:3, Insightful)
- They're pissed off because they can't make a backup copy and there's no warranty on the original
- They're pissed because they can't resell their used copy if they don't want it any more
- They're pissed off because they used to be able to do these things and now it's being taken away from them
Don't get me wrong, I'm pro-copyright (although 90 years + the life of the artist is a little much). I agree that trading copyrighted anything online is illegal (movies, music, books, software, whatever). But that's not what DRM is about. DRM is about taking away the rights of the end-user -- by destroying the principle of first sale. DRM tells the end user, we think you're a thief, so we're going to protect you from yourself.I'm all for the RIAA lawsuits -- because that's how you protect copyright. I'm all for FSF lawsuits against GPL violators because that's how you protect copyright. If Red Hat DRM'd my Enterprise Linux CDs, I'd still look for a way to break the DRM and make a backup copy because I bought a usable copy of software.
Of course this is all academic, anyway. I've always said, "as long as something can be seen, heard or otherwise processed by humans, it can always be duplicated." New DRM schemes will be broken. The "Trusted Computing" machines will be cracked -- because necessity is the mother of invention.
Re:When libraries make the next revolutionary step (Score:2, Insightful)
So, at least in this case, DRM can actually bring value to the people.
For fuck's sake, the only solution is to make it available to everyone, or don't publish the fucking thing online in the first place. I realise that your idea is perhaps the only one that copyright holders would consider, but it's still fucked. Digital information must be free (as in speech), especially library texts. Anything else is not only sub-optimal (why wait for someone to check back a digital book when you should be able to get it now?) but more importantly, unethical (why should people be deprived of sharing books that cost the copyright holder nothing to have propagated?) I really wish people could realise the potential of completely freeing digital information - DRM's sole purpose is to extend the control over distribution that megacorps currently have over tangible media (which is becoming less and less desired due to the flexibility and durability offered by digital content) to intangible media.