Slashdot Mirror
Solving DRM in the BitTorrent Age
An anonymous reader writes "FiringSquad has a new article on DRM in the BitTorrent Age. They argue that the movie industry looking for "perfect DRM" should aim for the printed book model (people still buy books even though they can read them for free at Barnes & Noble). They argue that the missing element is that screenwriters are not marketed by Hollywood in the same way the book industry markets its authors."
Or one can simply read the book on screen. A glance at any file-sharing network will reveal thousands of scanned IT books and language tutorials in PDF format.
How about original, quality stuff for a change?
There are so many movies out there that I do not care about, but if it's a movie I really like, I will go out and buy the DVD.
Ditto for a book - if it's good, I will go ahead and buy it.
And people with tastes different than mine will do the same for books and movies.
The advantage of a book is that most books are quite cheap (well, unless you are looking for a specific one in a narrow area, say something by Springer Verlag or something).
Movie DVDs are getting there, but music is far, far away. That is the problem. And the signal to noise is terrible for music - so much crap out there.
And finally, I can do anything I want with my book - photocopy it, scan the pages, rip it - whatever the hell I want.
The music and movie industry is trying to stop me from doing just that - and that is the heart of the problem.
IMHO and all that.
Which is why all the decent e-book readers mysteriously fail to reach the market. In all the last 15 years, since the invention of e-ink, dozens of companies have attempted to make viable e-book readers and been quashed by patents or by the copyright owners who have demanded that the product include draconian DRM. The OLPC, intended to (eventually) sell at US$100 per unit, has a 1200 (H) x 900 (V) resolution (200 dpi) display which is readable in direct sunlight. That is what you need to comfortably read a book. That, or e-ink, with even higher dpi. These things are clearly not expensive, where are they? The OLPC shows what engineers can do when they are able to stop thinking about what will make the most money, and just try to make something great.
How we know is more important than what we know.
But the media cartels will still probably need another 5 years to get it.
And the funny thing is: if they ever end up developing a really hard to break DRM or copy protection scheme it won't really succeed in most of the world. Technology in emerging economies (such as Brazil, Russia, India and China) only gets widespread usage when their copy protection is broken.
As a brazilian gamer I used to track down PlayStation 2 adoption around here. PS2 only got mainstream after pirated games were available. But that doesn't mean Sony lost revenue. It didn't. If the copy protection had never been broken, PS2 would've never succeeded around here.
In the end, DRM only hurts those that try to play by the rules (well, at least until they get tired if being abused and get their [pirated] goodies for free).
Haven't you heard the joke? "Did you hear about the Polish starlet? She was so dumb, she slept with the writer."
Hollywood pays writers very well compared to non-film jobs, but also treats them like dirt and screws them over at the drop of a hat. They're well below actors, directors, and producers on the Talent Totem Pole. Here's an easy way to confirm for yourself how little heed Hollywood pays writers: Without looking at the IMDB, name any writer who has won an Academy Award (other than Peter Jackson) for best original or Adapted Screenplay. Get one and you're probably doing better than 99% of the movie-viewing public.
Or to put it another way: We'll see Hollywood start promoting writers right after they stop making films based on TV shows or video games.
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
Reading books on a screen sucks. When I'm reading a book, I like to sit sideways in the armchair, hang over the edge of my bed, or sprawl out on the floor. You can't read a screen like that. Books are also convenient for actually taking places where it would be impractical, expensive, impossible, or maybe just socially unacceptable to take a computer. Usually outside. You know, that big room with the blue ceiling.
Why is it that when you believe something it's an opinion, but when I believe something it's a manifesto?
I read e-books from time to time on my PDA, outside, under the big blue ceiling, with no problems. That being said, I do prefer the tangibility of paper books. There is something about turning the page, measuring how close to the end you are via a bookmark, etc, that adds extra appeal to a book.
Except that even the lightest DRM will keep honest people honest. For that matter, since honest people are, by definition, honest, a complete lack of DRM will also keep honest people honest equally well, and fairly light-duty DRM will also keep mostly-honest people honest just as well as the most restrictive DRM would.
Thus, the continued constriction of DRM serves only two real purposes: to cause problems for honest people and to help create an artificial boogeyman to distract people from the real revenue problem in Hollywood: current movies suck.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Just make movies cheaper so that people can't be bothered to pirate them. This works especially well with HD films which take days/weeks to download.
If I could buy the film I want in HD for £3-£5 ($6-$10) and get it the next day, I'm hardly likely to bother downloading a 20GB torrent link am I?
Unfortunately even SD DVDs cost a ridiculous amount of money here in the UK and I don't see why I should spend £15 ($30) on a DVD when I can rent it for £3 in a few months time. I rarely watch the same film several times before it's shown anyway on sat/cable.