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Explaining DRM to a Less-Experienced PC User?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the fun-with-analogies dept.

An anonymous reader asks: "I have a question for Slashdot users eager for a challenge. How would one explain – at a casual level – the concept of, and problems with, DRM to someone who is competent using a computer, but with little technical knowledge?"

7 of 195 comments (clear)

  1. Your SOOOUUUULLLLL!!! by DoubleRing · · Score: 2, Funny

    DRM will feast on the bones of your children! It will send your soul to the firey depths of hellfire, as its deadly claws of DEATH drink your brains through your eyeballs! The D in DRM is for DEVIL!! (not sure what the R and the M stand for...) It is the Dread Pirate Roberts, here for your SOOOUUUUULLLS....

    --
    Before you die, you see DoubleRing...
  2. Go Go Gadget Inappropriate Metaphor! by Lord+Bitman · · Score: 5, Funny

    DRM is somebody saying "You can have this lawnmower, but only if you always take this ball and chain with it. Just so I'm sure you don't run off with it. So that you can still use it, it also comes with a butler who will unlock it for you. He unlocks it by flipping a switch from "locked" to "unlocked". You may not flip the switch yourself. The butler only works on tuesdays."

    --
    -- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
  3. Re:there's hardly a casual explanation by AKAImBatman · · Score: 3, Funny

    *Ahem*

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    Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
  4. Re:Two words by bangenge · · Score: 2, Funny

    I've tried explaining the matter to my friends and girlfriend

    someone please revoke this guy's geek license...

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    . o O ( TwO hEaDs ArE mOrE tHaN oNe... )
  5. Car analogy by Profound · · Score: 4, Funny

    Everyone likes car analogies. Think of an engine in a car.

    The big corporations who control the media, they're the piston. The cylinder is your ass.

  6. Re:I've got it in one sentence by dgatwood · · Score: 4, Funny

    Shorter: All your songs are belong to us.

    :-D

    --

    Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

  7. Wait, I thought that was MS Word? by blueZ3 · · Score: 2, Funny
    code that disobeys the user's wishes, and acts against the user, on their own computer

    Hey, you typed a dash at the beginning of a line! It looks like you're creating a bulleted list: and I know that what you really want is for me to reformat the line into a bulleted list with completely new and different formatting from what it had when you started typing

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