Welcome to the Future of DRM Media

MrFancyPants writes "'DRM, digital rights management, is quite possibly the holy grail of the music and movie industry, allowing them to control exactly how DRM protected content is used, distributed and above all can be tracked right down to the individual end user.' Hardware Analysis reports on a horror story of someone picking up a DVD recently and having to go through an agonizing process of installing DRM-enabled applications to even get it to play on his computer. If this is what the future holds, you'd better think twice about buying DVDs and other media, as you're basically at the mercy of the producer."

Comments

my story.

[ilovelinux]

this is a repost of an AC post I did by accident.

I used to buy a pile of music cd's. Even after mp3's appeared, even after napster and their ilk... I liked having the CD, and I liked having the highest possible quality recording I could get.

What has happened now, is that the last two "CDs" I've bought had DRM on them, and the only reason I bought them is because I love the two bands (radiohead and the tea party). I can't play them without putting special sfotware on my XP box. Which I refuse to do because it's stupid and I paid for the CD in the first place.

So now I never listen to those two CDs.

And then I realised, why buy something I never listen to?

So I dont buy anymore CD's. That was a year ago.

Ironic

[Stevyn]

The movies people download don't have DRM to hassle with. So now on top of getting the movie for free, they get possibly a better product.

When will these industries learn that you can't slow P2P by pissing off legitimate customers?

Re:think twice about buying DVDs

[Iphtashu Fitz]

most users simply aren't capable of installing all that crap even if they wanted to

If/when I start getting calls from friends/family who have bought DRM'd DVD's and can't get them to play I'll suggest:

• Return it to the store for a refund
  
• If the store claims they won't accept it because it's been opened then:
  
  • complain to the manager
    
  • Tell them its unusable because of the DRM
    
  • Tell them the packaging is misleading if the DRM isn't fully documented
    
  • Tell them you'll file a complaint with the state consumer protection and/or attorney generals office
    
  • Tell them you'll start documenting the problems everywhere on the web you can
    
  • Tell them you'll contact the local press (many local TV news shows have consumer alert segments)
    
• Follow through on the above threats
  
• If you bought the DVD from a big chain like Best Buy write a letter of complaint to their HQ
  

Only by doing the above are you likely to get your money back and/or start generating some noise about consumer problems with DRM. It's only by making a big stink about these problems with DRM that people will start to notice. If big companies like Best Buy start getting significant numbers of returns & complaints they're more likely to go to their distributers and tell them to stop using DRM. (Yeah, I know... I'm smoking crack) But think about it - the alternative is that the masses will quietly be the sheep that they are and accept that in order to watch a DVD they have to run a Microsoft Windows-based media player that requires a full-time net connection, has to download a different DRM utility for each DVD you own, tells the suits in Hollywood when you're watching Attack of the Killer Tomatos for the 42nd time, and won't let you watch the movie if it decides the moons of Jupiter aren't in the proper alignment.

"Own it on DVD today!"

[renehollan]

There, I OWN it. The ad said so.

The problem isn't so much DRM, but rather that the consumer is being utterly defrauded about what they are getting for their money.

I have no problems with DRM that would enforce existing rights I may have as a user of copyright material: time shifting, media shifting, lending out media, selling media, etc. - though such a system does not currently exist (it would require communicaton and refutation of keys to authorized playback devices - say 10 simultaneously).

However, such a system must also recognize new rights I may be deemed to have by the courts. If timeshifting, archiving, and media transfer are deemed to not violate copyright, then all existing equipment I have that enforces DRM must be retrofited, at the DRM users' expense, to recognise those rights. Same goes for all other people encumbred by a particular DRM system.

In the past, one would build the device, and then defend that it offers fair use (MPAA v. Sony - Betamax decision). However, today that may be legally impossible (DMCA, and relatively uncrackable DRM). But, on balance, one should be able to petition the court for a preemptive decision on whether a particular use would be fair, and if the existing DRM mechanisms do not support it, they would have to be modified at the DRM users' expense. The idea is that the DRM mechanism is a proxy for the DRM user's rights and so must change as those rights do.

I am not suggesting that this would be an inexpensive undertaking for a DRM user faced with supporting a newly recognized fair use. But, it is a reasonable requirement, in the face of the control they exert.