The History of Hacking DRM

phaedo00 writes "Ars Technica writer Nate Anderson has penned an in-depth look into past DRM-crackings and what the future looks like for people who are vehemently anti-DRM: 'Like a creeping fog, DRM smothers more and more media in its clammy embrace, but the sun still shines down on isolated patches of the landscape. This isn't always due to the decisions of corporate executives; often it's the work of hackers who devote considerable skill to cracking the digital locks that guard everything from DVDs to e-books. Their reasons are complicated and range from the philosophical to the criminal, but their goals are the same: no more DRM.'"

Comments

Anti-DRM?

[rwven]

I don't know anyone who's NOT Anti-DRM. All DRM does is make buying music miserable for the people who are doing it legally. People who don't care about the legality of it will just torrent the CD or get it off some other file sharing network. They avoid the headache of DRM as well as the "cost" of being legal...

The only way DRM will ever be plausable will be if they produce a DRM'd codec that plays on anything. People are sick of buying CD's on itunes and not being able to play them on their other players...as well as other music services trying to play on itunes.

Re:Anti-DRM?

[Darundal]

I know several people who are pro-drm. They are also the least technically literate people I know, have next to no experiance with any digital music players or services, and they generally assume that because someone is accused of something by a company or the government, they are automatically guilty.

In other words, they are joe consumer incarnate. They don't follow the issues, they are unaware that their is even any type of debate over this subject, and and they are unlikely to ever encounter any issues with DRM because they all use Windows and are the type to be highly loyal to a brand, so probably wouldn't ever buy a music player from another company.

While I myself am vehemently anti-DRM, your post assumes two things;

A: Everyone is aware that there is even an issue, and will become frustrated by DRM

B: Even if someone becomes aware and frustrated, they would attempt to use other channels unconcerned with industry FUD and would know what those other options are or where to find out about them

Re:DRM is not evil

[mrsbrisby]

I'm a vocal pro-market advocate, and I don't see any problems with DRM. If you have something you want to keep out of prying eyes, you should be free to protect it in any way possible -- including making it ultra-proprietary.

You're confused. DRM is about you keeping customers away from their data, not you keeping customers away from your data.

If I buy an accounting and compliance package, and it timebombs six months into full use, I should be able to buy another one, and transfer my data. I should be able to pay someone else to transfer that data because I feel the first vendor was untrustworthy.

DRM means I must pay the first vendor, or go out of business (compliance laws). Never mind what happens if they go out of business- I have no options anymore.

Now, you might think the government has no business protecting people from incompetent companies, what if the vendor did this on purpose? What if that company deliberately set up their accounting package to explode so that they could underbid the competition and recoup the costs later? Isn't that tantamount to extortion?