Is DRM Intrinsically Distasteful? 631
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. (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
a fantastic analogy (Score:4, Interesting)
No. (Score:4, Interesting)
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?
DRM, and why I despise it (Score:4, Interesting)
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 (Score:5, Interesting)
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 (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:Both. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Both. (Score:5, Interesting)
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:And quite easily avoided. (Score:3, Interesting)
True, but...
Moore's Law takes care of that. By the time a song that is DRM/Copyrighted today is released into the Public Domain (75 years from now), the typicial cell phone could crack the encryption in a matter of minutes. Or seconds.
Re:No, any DRM scheme is wrong (Score:3, Interesting)
How and WHY is Copyright SUPPOSED to be imperfect and leaky? I thought the point of copyright was to give the creator of a work the sole right to create copies of it (and thus decide who can have a copy, and under what terms). There are a few purposfuly drilled holes in it (naimly Fairuse), but those are defined under the law (admitedly fairuse is incredibly grey, and hard to figgure out exaclt what is "fair"). I would not call something like fairuse "imperfect and leaky" (if that is even what you are reffering to).
Is it that you object to the concept of copyright at all (as other repliers have been saying)? If that is it, well then I will aggree to disagre (I personaly think that if you invent sometihng you should have the right to profit from it).
I also do not understand your grievance against laws. I don't think the soloution is to make laws hard to enforce, rather I think the soloution is to create better laws (remember, we are talking about a perfect world where pixy dust and ponies solve everything).
A rather simple direct case of what I think you are talkign about is sometihng like jay walking (somethign that as a New Yorker I am very familiar with). To me the concept of getting fined for jay walking is silly, and I tend to take the signs as a suggestion, and so do pollice for that matter (part of your tempering via human understanding?). My belife is that the law should instead state something along the lines of: "If you cross against the light and sometihng bad happens it is your own damn fault. If you cause any damage/injury to others because of this action you must make full restitution (and then some extra for beign a twit and caussing an accident)". Ofcourse it would not be worded this way, and would have all the loopholes removed, and put in clauses for extenuating circumstances (say rescuing the biker that just fell over).
Would this be an acurate paraphrase of what you said:
"Because the world is not perfect, and there are always extenuating circumstances that can not be covered by codified rules, we must then use a system of enforcment that can artifcialy create this via imperfection".?
Re:And quite easily avoided. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Both. (Score:2, Interesting)
I might be mistaken, but isn't that kind of a theme that's been played out with disk copy protection in the past? There seem to be eras of relative openness and locked-downness.