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Translation of Macrovision Response to Jobs on DRM
BoboB-69 writes "Daring Fireball has posted a humorous, and accurate PR-speak to Plain English translation of Macrovision's CEO's response to Steve Jobs' Open Letter on DRM. Highly recommended reading for slashdotters everywhere."
I mean, I can make it sound like evil fascist DRM wielding maniacs out to rip us off in one breath and make it out to be a proper way to ensure the capitalistic market is protected while reserving the rights of the people who make the media in the next breath.
Not convincingly, you can't.
First, you'll have to convince me that one can "own" an idea, or even an expression, the same way they can own a car, or a knife, or a gold-plated frisbee. And that'll be a hard sell, my friend. I doubt very much you could convince me that DRM has anything to do with capitalism, and everything to do with greed and the desire to control citizens.
The attitude you express is part of the reason I distrust capitalism. Like communism, it sounds good on paper, but there's just no fucking way it can work. Human nature gets in the way every time.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
By "little known" did you mean "let alone"? That might help translate your sentence into English:
> I'd rather not visit a website that calls
> itself "daring" anything [let alone] "daring fireball".
See that makes sense... or, actually it doesn't, but at least it's grammatical.
Since when we judge ideas on the web by domain names? "Google"? What kind of nonsense is "Slashdot"? And don't get me started on those yahoos at.... nevermind.
> I thought we purged all the web idiots during the nuclear winter period.
This time I can't figure out WTF you're talking about.
If only we could purge the trolls.
Fair enough.
But I disagree slightly. A content producer, in my opinion, has a right do do whatever they want with their content. So, in my opinion, a perfect DRM would disallow actions the content producer DOESN'T WANT and allow action that IT DOES.
See, people have this feeling that they're entitled to creative work. A song. A movie. Whatever. It's a product that's owned by the person that produces it. And if they don't want you sharing it with your friends, it's THEIR RIGHT to say so. You don't _have_ to buy it from them. You don't _have_ to listen to it or be their consumer of fan.
If someone wants to create a DRM scheme that says you must be standing on your head to listen to the song, well, it's their right. They probably wouldn't sell many records, but it's still their right.
It's up to the power of the free market to disincentivize this. (yes I know disincentivize isn't a word). If people just don't buy DRMd work, they will quit trying to force it on you. In the end, all they want to do is make value for their shareholders. That's it. They don't want to be evil. They don't want to be mean. All they want to do is meet the obligation they've made to their investors. It's up to us to show them that they can create more value by "allowing" rampant piracy than by trying to stop it.