Slashdot Mirror
Explaining DRM to a Less-Experienced PC User?
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?"
This topic has been kicked around by
To date, I have not seen anything approaching a casual description of DRM. In fact, I've seen mostly confusion about and around it. If I were trying to explain to the uninitiated, I would take the tack of describing anything DRM'ed as potentially unusable on one or more devices you own. The fact there is so much turbulence swirling around DRM is an indicator how it hasn't gelled.
Actually I've tried to explain to casual users. For example, I tell Tivo users (who can be extremely passionate) programs on their "Now Showing" list would not be guaranteed to stay around for as long as necessary to be viewed; or may not be viewable more than once; or may be "eaten" as they're viewed, leaving the ability to backtrack and rewatch segments no longer allowed. That usually gets them going.
For CD listeners, I describe CDs that may or may not play on their computer, but are extremely likely to fail on any older CD player, in their car, or in their home entertainment system.
The more I can drive home with examples what DRM looks and feels like, the more I find a spark in the unitiateds' eyes. They don't like it even when only getting a sense of DRM. They don't like it at all.
I think that DRM can't be described casually, and is so amazingly complex, confusing, and potentially onerous lends even more amazement it could ever be allowed to be implemented.
That is all.
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...
"Copy protection"
:-)
Seriously. I've tried explaining the matter to my friends and girlfriend. Those two words saved my life.
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
Try this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1H7omJW4TI
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Then, should you happen to do this for someone who knows what an AAC file is, watch as you are laughed down.
What you mean is:
1) Go to iTunes Music Store
2) Buy a protected AAC file from the store
3) etc...
AAC is not a proprietary file format, nor is it DRM-encumbered by default. The iTunes Music Store (NOT iTunes... it won't DRM tracks that you rip) uses a DRM wrapper around an AAC file... but these tracks aren't standard AAC files.
The real litigious bastards...
"You don't get to choose when and how to use what you've paid for."
"Someone else gets to decide when and how you can play music you bought, watch the movies you're bought, play the games that you've paid for."
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
Pop in a random DVD in their player and let them (try to) skip the ads, the "you don't steal a dvd"-ad, the FBI warnings, the previews and then when you stop the movie for any reason, the fact that you have to watch that crap all over again.
if($subject == devotechristian) {
include "american pie" . $previews
}
Then tell them it will only get worse and that DVD was just a begin. Or tell $random_audiophile he won't be able to make back up copies of his "high quality master"...
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
Right to Read explains the problem with the associated moral dillemas and pulls at the heartstrings. But it is serving as a sort of Animal Farm for DRM advocates, who seem to point out how much they can gain in the short term by enforcing these schemes to make people more money.
Basically, you have to ask the guy about whether he'd be allowed to own anything. DRM is taking America (and a few other countries) into a dark age where there is really nothing you can buy - you can only rent it or lease it,with the owner living downstairs and always prying into your life. Somewhat like Three's Company Too, but except Mr Roper isn't really one person, but a composite of the company director board.
But let me put my example up - I never bought new textbooks. In my college, it is customary to buy the books off your seniors, with the associated writings on the margin, underlined points and the odd love letter hidden in it. But as Right to Read illustrates, information when it loses its physical form becomes a commodity which can be sold over and over again to the same induvidual - for different uses. Meaning that, if I had an ebook DRM based textbook, all of them would have expired by now - while I still retain some of the CS books which have changed the way I think about computers. OR playing quake1 on my new Radeon box, I don't know if I'll ever be able to play Doom3 legally once the Steam servers go offline.
DRM exploits the transience of information in the digital world to squeeze water from a stone, without adding any extra value to the customer (other than the carrots required for them to bite).
Oblig. UF quote (where's pitr these days ?)Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur
I have attempted in the past to explain DRM to my parents by using an analogy based on a house. I know house/lock/weaponry analogies tend to fail rather quickly, however, it strantely worked with my non-tech parents.
I have included a rough transcript of the analogy below.
==
For our purposes, we have a digital file, which is represented by a house.
We have digital rights management (DRM), which is represented by an elaborite door and lock system which is operated by a rather burly doorman.
Now for the cases...
Case 1: You own the house and the doorman is under your control.
(This is similar to you creating a document and applying your own DRM to it.)
You are the owner of the house. You can tell the doorman to keep people out completely, to let certian people in so that they can see your model train collection in the basement, to let certian people open your refrigerator and take a beer... what ever you want, when you want.
Case 2: You rent the house, but the doorman lets you do what you want
(You get a document and the terms of usage are unlimited.)
You may rent the house, but the doorman lets you do anything you want.
Case 3: You rent the house, but the doorman has strict orders on what you can do
(You get a document with moderate DRM)
You are a tennant, but you can't repaint the walls. The doorman, unknown to you, has been forbidden to let your friends drink your beer.
Case 4: You rent the house, but you have no control.
(You get a document with extreme DRM)
You live at the house, but the doorman can do anything he wants to you. Whenever you put beer in the frige, the doorman is the only person allowed to drink it. You are allowed a dog, but the doorman only allows it to poop in your bedroom. Occasionally, you wakeup and the entire place is redecorated by the landlord. You want to move, but the contract you signed prevents it until a replacement house is built.
Navicula hydraulica plena anguilarum est. Omnes castelli tuus nostri sunt. Ed elli avea del cul fatto trombetta.
"DRM is a complicated bunch of technical crap that might be tacked on to music, videos, etc., which is designed to keep you from doing what you feel like you should be able to do."
Feel free to submit proposed revisions.
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
It's actually not that hard. Imagine if you bought a car and the car had a key that only you could use. So if you wanted to loan the car to a friend, he couldn't use it. When you wanted to sell the car, you wouldn't be able to sell the car either because it wouldn't work for anybody else. It would work fine for you, but the moment your wife needed to drive it, too bad.
That's DRM in a nutshell. It's actually worse than that but the metaphor degrades somewhat beyond that.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
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.
See this CD you bought? You own it. You can make backups of it. You can lend it to a friend. You can make mix CDs for your car. You can make copies for any MP3 player you buy. If your car/mp3 player/etc./and/or CD gets stolen, you can make another MP3 and you can listen to your backup. If you get sick of it you can sell it to someone else who will appreciate it.
See this Napster/Sony/Microsoft/FooDRM media file you "bought?" You do not own it. You cannot make backups. If your PC/Phone/MP3 player dies, so does your music. You cannot lend it to a friend. You cannot make mix CDs for your car. If you upgrade your MP3 player, you may have to "buy" it again. If your MP3 player/PC/etc. is stolen or dies, you also lose your music. If you get sick of the DRM'd music you "bought" you cannot resell it to someone else who will appreciate it. You "bought" nothing.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
the less experience pc user generally doesn't care about DRM. they care only that they can listen to their music (or watch movies or whatever) in the way it was meant to be, which to them is many times on the ipod (which is the reason i don't consider apple to be any better than microsoft). they can listen to their itunes downloaded songs on their ipod and they don't really care about using it in any other way.
i work in a college. i have student employees. they just don't care. but here's where they do care. we have ruckus, which is drm'd wma files. they don't like that they can't play them on their ipod and consider it to be a fault of ruckus (granted, they have to buy a subscription to play it on a supported playsforsure player, of which the ipod is not one of them, but that's apple's fault, not ruckus's). they think it's stupid. they also don't like that they technically (although we found this to be untrue) cannot even listen to the music without a valid subscription (which is free during hte school year and costs money during the summer). but they don't care about their apple itunes drm... go figure.
so there's almost no point in trying to explain it to them because they just don't care.
please me, have no regrets.
That's like putting innocent people in prison because someone may violate the law.
DRM takes away your rights and freedoms to protect against the minority who would infringe on their [producers] rights.
The very real fact is that the government grants you copyright protection which INCLUDES fair use. DRM is a way of abusing the monopoly of copyright without honouring the other side of the deal. In all honesty, DRM applied to copyrighted works should be illegal. It isn't. Hmm, I wonder why that is...
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
DVDs are exactly the kind of thing to use to explain DRM to the general public. Start with skipping commercials, and then move on to region coding, CSS, Macrovision (I couldn't transfer my old VHS tapes to DVD using a $200 VCR/DVDRW machine because it mistakes a bad-quality tape for the Macrovision signal distortion), etc.
http://outcampaign.org/
Since this was on boingboing, I'd be surprised if someone didn't mention this already. There's a children's book that explains DRM.
http://www.popularculturegaming.com -- my blog about the culture of videogame players
If a person buys a song off of iTMS, then their expectation is that they'll be able to play it on their iPod and in iTunes. For this reason, it would be pointless to "educate" the user about the DRM - because they don't care that they can't use it with non-iPod, non-iTunes modes of playback. It's about as likely to get them to care about DRM as it is to get them to care that they can't play VHS tapes in a DVD player.
In general, people aren't stupid - even if they don't understand computers, they can still understand basic consumer skills. If a vendor of DRM'd software explains what the terms of the DRM are, and the user pays for it anyway, then it means that the user has no problem with buying a limited product. A DRM'd file is not a broken file, however much the Slashdot crowd may disagree. The file does exactly what it says it would do. The user doesn't care about being able to convert it to a different format, doesn't care about being able to send it to a different computer, doesn't care about what happens to the file when it goes into the public domain. The user has no problem accepting files that you can't do these things to, because the user never wanted to do any of those things anyway, and the user was never led to believe that any of these things would be possible. The user is not being cheated, any more than you'd be cheated if you had bought a copy of a single-player game, and was shocked to discover that it does not feature a multiplayer mode.
So, we can clearly see that the point of this exercise is not to convince average users that DRM is Evil and that the vendors of DRM'd software are trying to cheat them. This raises the next question: what is the purpose of "educating" non-tech users about DRM? Is it just for the purpose of creating market forces that will enable us to buy non-DRM'd music (even if it costs more)? Is it an attempt to create a grass-roots resistance against the encroachment on technology rights by whatever government-controlling conspiracy it's popular to believe in this week, who no doubt want to make unlicensed software of any variety illegal? I'm not seeing it, here.
...but is it art?
Imagine a bookstore that has all the books you could ever want. Now imagine that when you buy a book, it remains forever chained to a desk in that bookstore. You can come back and visit it, but you can never take it out of the bookstore. If the bookstore closes or moves, your books go away with it.
The ______ Agenda
The challenge of this question is coming up with a description of the "problems" of DRM that actually sound like problems to "less-experienced users".
If you tell someone "When you buy from music from iTunes, you'll only be able to play it on all of your computers, all of your iPods, and all of your CD players.", chances are they aren't going to understand just how "obviously" oppressive and stifling that is.
Don't become a regular here -- you will become retarded.
DRM is ripping movies you bought so you can skip the FBI warning.
DRM is ripping music you bought so it works on the player they don't want it to.
DRM is downloading a crack for software you bought, so you don't have register it.
DRM is changing a CMOS bit so your wireless card works in a system it isn't type accepted for.
Anything you have to break to make it work is DRM.
I would use the following definition, or a variant thereof: "DRM is the name given to technology used by the people who sell you digital content to control how, when and where you view/listen, store or copy that content. It includes laws to make it illegal for you to get around those controls." Beyond that, don't bother explaining, show them what it is and how it works, read on:
In years of trying to make my girlfriend, who is a strategy consultant and all-around pretty competent 'business' PC user (i.e. knows her way around Windows reasonably well, knows end-user apps, etc.) and a very bright person, I couldn't get her to care ("I buy all my music/films".)
What'd it take for her to understand why this is important and to listen to me on how it works? Well, we're spending a year on another continent and all of a sudden, her DVDs don't work in the player in our furnished apartment. Oops. Boy, was she pissed. Boy, did she want to know how it worked, why it sucked and how to get around it all of a sudden.
Same with why Windows is broken ("but it just works for what I want to do.") Until it didn't "just work." Same with data privacy ("I don't have anything to hide") until someone stole her credit card number.
The phrase you need to remember is "show me the money" or, in consulting terminology, "where's the 'so what'?" Most people won't care or give a rat's ass until it affects them directly.
Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage
That means that if you buy a CD with MS' DRM, you won't be able to listen on it on: - many CD players, including those built into stereos (car and home) - most DVD players with CD playing capabilities - your iPod, or any or a wide range of other MP3 players, again including those built into expensive stereos (both car and home) - your Mac or Linux PC - your PS/PS2/PS3/PSP / GameCube/Wii / any other non-Xbox game system - regardless of whether or not it has multimedia capabilities.
Note that all of these devices you paid good money for. You also paid good money for the music; however, the music requires you to buy new devices. Why? Simply because the maker of the device didn't pay for the music company's DRM. Maybe they couldn't afford it, maybe it only supported certain media codecs, but most likely because that form of DRM wasn't invented yet - meaning that any device made before the DRM is 100% incompatible with any media that uses that form of DRM.
But perhaps the biggest problem with DRM is that it solves nothing. Pirates can still hack the DRM and sell cheap copies, or make them available online -- and any true pirate not only knows how, but is completely comfortable with doing this. It's no sweat off the pirate's back - they can simply download a tool off the Internet (or program their own) to get rid of the DRM. It doesn't matter how tough the DRM is, the pirates will find a way around it - it's their job.
So in short, DRM is a way for media companies to force you to pay more and buy only from them and their partners.
www.linuxpenguin.net
Who forbids it? Why the company that sold you the sugar cubes offcourse. Why do you have to obey them? Because DRM tells you too and if you do not you go to jail for longer then for rape or murder.
That is DRM. It is like trusted computing, wich really means, we don't trust you computing. DRM and Trusted computing are about the seller telling the buyer what he can do with the product. This is a totally new idea.
As said, nobody on the world would think of it to suggest that a sugar cube wich is clearly designed to be put into hot drinks cannot be used in any other way as the buyer sees fit. I can literally do anything with the sugar cubes I buy that I want with the only hindrance that the act may not be against the normal law. The seller has NOTHING whatsoever to say about it.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I've spent some days/months/years explaining the nature of DRM. It's not so much that people don't understand it. The problem is that they don't believe it!
I mean, I can see that it's unbelievable. That the claims of people opposing DRM sound outlandish. And they do sound completely insane. The most insane thing about it is that they're true.
Generally, I've met 3 reactions:
1. Claims of impossibility
These people usually go "They can't do that". They don't understand that it can be done. They stopped taking a close look at technology with compact cassettes and think that everything works like they did. I.e. that there is just a 'cable' coming out of their player and that this cable can be jacked into a recording device, and that this has to work all the time because, well, it has always worked this way.
2. There will be a recorder
Actually a subgroup of group one, those people usually counter with the motion that for every kind of protection so far, someone has made a program or device that "took care of the problem". What they fail to see is that it's illegal to create such a program or device. Another thing they can't believe, that it can be illegal to program something. Honestly, it is hard to believe...
3. There will be a crack
Finally the group that tells you "so what, someone's gonna crack it". While they are most likely right, I don't really see why I should go into illegality to execute a right I have.
That's more the problem with DRM. It's not that people wouldn't listen. They just don't believe.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
"You don't get to choose when and how to use what you've paid for."
That's very close to what I would have come up with.
I think one of the confusing things about these kinds of debates is that the pro and anti side focus on the intended or feared consequences. Thus, both sides tend to talke past each other. You've made a succinct statement of the anti-side's view. The pro side would put it this way:
"People won't be able to steal movies and music and resell them."
The problem with planning for the future is unintended consequences, both of action and inaction. Particularly with technology, where details of design and implementation may have dire consequences. I am not necessarily against DRM on moral principle, so much as I know the one sided and therefore half-baked schemes will be a large scale disaster for society at large.
Every decision that is taken should have a sheet divided in half, one half for intended consequences, the other for unintended consequenes.
Intended Consequences:
(a) Companies purchasing copyrights can recoup the value of those rights, and in turn artists can be paid more.
(b) Keep existing business models viable.
(c) Create new business models around electronic distribution.
Unintended Consequences (examples):
(a) When DVDs become obsolete, all the DVD movies you've bought are useless.
(b) You may not be able to move your purchased works to new media when your original media is getting damaged. This is major for libraries.
(c) People will no longer be able to quote passages from books and other works for critical, educational or satirical purposes.
(d) Schemes that try to give you more flexibilty may fail if the company you bought the material from goes out of business. This means you won't be able to use the stuff you bought.
(e) If a DRM scheme becomes obsolete, very quickly all the works protected by that scheme will become unreadable, possibly causing them to be lost forever.
(f) You won't be able to copy a work when its copyright expires and you are legally entitled to do so. Some DRM schemes amount to a perpetual copyright, which is against the intent of the Constitution and all copyright precedent.
(g) To make some visions of DRM work, your player might phone home to the company, which compromises your privacy. Companies have a voracious appetite for information about consumer behavior, so it's only a matter of time before this is put back on the table. What you do with a work after you buy it is none of their business, unless it's something infringing on their rights.
(h) You may not be able to buy movies and music at all; companies could force you to enter into a relationship with them, and they will broker all your use of DRM protected works. You can add the record company, the movie company and the book company to the list of companies you are forced to have a relationship with if you don't want to live like a cave man: the telephone company, the cable company, the power company etc.
Naturally, I think the potential downsides of DRM greatly outweigh its benefits. But it's important to remember that all these dystopic scenarios are potential results. They are not logically inevitable results of any DRM, they're just probable results of likely DRM schemes.
If we add a stipulation to DRM that preserves the status quo, I think it DRM becomes a lot less obnoxious:
Definition: A "Fair" DRM is a system which enforces a copyright holder's traditional legal rights, does not extend them in time or any other way, does not restrict the legally recognized rights of consumers purchasing copyrighted materials, and does not force consumers to accept an ongoing contractual relationship with the copyright holder or its agents.
You could still enter into a relationship with, say, the music utility to send them a monthly check in return for access to their library. But the DRM scheme should not force you to accept this business model, it sh
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Don't know if this has been mentioned here before.
There is a very nice book written for kids with great illustrations available at "The pig and the box".
from the page: The Pig and the Box is about a pig who finds a magic box that can replicate anything you put into it. The pig becomes so protective of it, and so suspicious of anyone that wants to use it, that he makes people take their copied items home in special buckets that act as... well, they're basically DRM. It's like a fable, except the moral of the story is very modern in tone.
a funny readHey, 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
Interested in a Flash-based MAME front end? Visit mame.danzbb.com