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What DRM is really all about

post #1 of 5
1/15/07 at 8:15pm
Thread Starter 
Very informative article on the truth behind DRM, and what it means to us:

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070115-8616.html

Quote:


Privately, Hollywood admits DRM isn't about piracy

For almost ten years now I have argued that digital rights management has little to do with piracy, but that is instead a carefully plotted ruse to undercut fair use and then create new revenue streams where there were previously none. I will briefly repeat my argument here before relating a prime example of it in the wild.

...

In a nutshell: DRM's sole purpose is to maximize revenues by minimizing your rights so that they can sell them back to you.

Go here for full article:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070115-8616.html
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post #2 of 5
1/15/07 at 9:12pm
There are many times over more tracks of music stolen than sold every month. So to argue that content owners have no legimate reason to be concerned about piracy is just so over the top as to be laughable. Are there greedy people in business? Of course there are. But, the companies that own the studioes are not any different from any other companies, and they are publicaly held companies and they are required by law to protect the investments of their stock holders (a lot of people.) And if people were stealing from GE or Ford or IBM to even a fraction of the amount that the music and movie studios get stolen from, there would be machine guns involved I'm pretty sure. DRM would be the least of your worries.
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post #3 of 5
1/15/07 at 9:27pm
Thread Starter 
Music figures into it in a way, but the article is mainly about DRM and Hollywood, movie studios, etc.

But even for music, DRM prevents me from ripping CDs to my computer to listen to, but the people pirating and sharing anyway can easily get around the measures. So it doesn't stop piracy, but it prevents people who want to use for legitimate purposes from doing so.

The same lame argument may be used if movie studios decide to stop allowing HD-DVD and Blu-Ray to output HD over component cables. They'll claim it will be to stop piracy, but software pirates will find a way to get around it in no time, and all it will serve to do is prevent early HD adopters without all the digital video connections from being able to enjoy HD video.
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post #4 of 5
1/15/07 at 9:58pm
Quote:


The same lame argument may be used if movie studios decide to stop allowing HD-DVD and Blu-Ray to output HD over component cables. They'll claim it will be to stop piracy, but software pirates will find a way to get around it in no time, and all it will serve to do is prevent early HD adopters without all the digital video connections from being able to enjoy HD video.

There are different tools for different problems. It's true that the DRM on HD-DVD/blu-ray isn't mostly targeted at professionals. Professionals are targeted through law enforcement. But if there are not already more downloaded tracks per period of time than tracks sold by professional pirates, then it probably won't be long until that is the case. So in the long run, professional pirates are going to have to look for another job if DRM doesn't work, because no one is going to pay them either for something that they can get for free.

The movie studios are just looking out to the future. What can be done to music now could be done to movies 10 years from now. It will take some time to get the whole hardware/software industry to work out all the issues, so you can't wait until then to start.

So far, they've not tried to stop the use of component outputs, so you are kind of damning them for doing something that they've not done, though they could. So clearly they aren't as whacked as people would like to make them out. THey realize that there has to be a transitional period of some number of years, while people transition to over to sets capable of taking digital inputs.
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post #5 of 5
1/15/07 at 11:30pm
I just got rid of Rhapsody, the DRM was such a hassle!

I would download some tracks, then the next week they would become unavailble, i couldnt download to the ipod, man what a pain!

And really, I have boughten most of the music i have listened to at one time or another...

Really, pristine 320bit MP3s seem to be the best way of preserving one's collection. Now if they would just start selling them....
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