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A Brief History of Failed Digital Rights Management Schemes

antdude points out this article at opensource.com on the "graveyard" of digital rights management schemes — the death of each of which has left customers out in the cold. An excerpt: "There are more than a few reasons digital rights management (DRM) has been largely unsuccessful. But the easiest way to explain to a consumer why DRM doesn't work is to put it in terms he understands: 'What happens to the music you paid for if that company changes its mind?' It was one thing when it was a theoretical question. Now it's a historical one ..."

28 of 149 comments (clear)

  1. What happens? by wsxyz · · Score: 4, Funny

    'What happens to the music you paid for if that company changes its mind?

    Answer: It PlaysForSure (TM).

    1. Re:What happens? by DurendalMac · · Score: 3, Interesting

      It's one thing to stop selling music with a certain DRM scheme. It's quite another to tell customers that they won't be able to play it again. How this is even fucking legal is beyond me. Either keep your damned DRM server up or give users alternatives, ie, a legit way to strip the DRM or the exact same music in a different format.

    2. Re:What happens? by mehrotra.akash · · Score: 2

      Its probably legal because like steam they would have stated in their ToC that they are just giving you a licence to play the music, which can be revoked at any time

    3. Re:What happens? by betterunixthanunix · · Score: 2

      You can always download the music in a different format.

      FTFY

      --
      Palm trees and 8
    4. Re:What happens? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      Exactly like I did with Star Wars.

      I bought it on VHS.
      Bought it on LaserDisc too.
      Bought the special edition on LD.
      Then came the DVDs, bought them too.
      Now BluRay... guess what... Fuck You George Lucas and Fuck You media industry.

      I now downloaded all my media and buy it when it hits a price I agree with.
      Movies.. less than $5 in HD or $3 in SD.
      Music.. no more than 10cents per track.
      TV shows & anime.. under $1 per episode.
      If the price never gets that low I dont buy but either way I'm happy.
      That is my EULA and if you dont like it you know where you can shove your opinions media industry.

    5. Re:What happens? by nightfell · · Score: 2

      No, Answer: not a damed thing.

      Music isn't sold with DRM anymore. The whole argument is moot, you're fighting a past battle. You are trying to convince non-nerds to rally against DRM, and the best example you can come up with is one that isn't even relevant?

      The problem is you are trying to convince people to hold an opinion that they simply have no reason to hold. You're grasping at straws. Sure, they are plenty of reasons for a subset of computer geeks to be strongly opposed to DRM, but there are very few reasons for regular people to. For them, DRM is mostly invisible.

      DVDs, Blu-ray, cable tv, Xbox, PS3, Wii, iOS, Android... These all contain and extensively use DRM, and most people don't even know it's there, because it works so well.

      The premise of this story is false. DRM hasn't been largely unsuccessful, it's been wildly successful. There are only a few edge cases where there have been notable issues and failures.

    6. Re:What happens? by VitaminB52 · · Score: 4, Informative

      They'll still work just as well as they did the day you bought them if you haven't wrecked them.

      Some of the first CD's I bought have become unplayable due to CD rot. Contrary to what the CD manufacturers want you to believe CD's won't last for ever. Nor will DVD's.

    7. Re:What happens? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      DVDs have DRM (ineffective as it is) called CSS AND they have region coding.
      Region coding is just as bad as DRM. I do not accept artificial limitations on commerce created purely to create artificial scarcity and increase profits.
      If its available anywhere I have the right to obtain it at its lowest price. They can try to stop me if they can.

    8. Re:What happens? by hedwards · · Score: 2

      I take it you're being sarcastic, but I for one don't have hundreds of dollars to spend on attorneys fees each time somebody wants me to agree to their ToS. That would literally require me to have an attorney on retainer for each end every single site I do business with.

      At some point, we need to just admit that the whole thing has gone ridiculously far out of control and needs to be fixed.

    9. Re:What happens? by icebraining · · Score: 2

      Thank you, thank you, thank you for using 'price' instead of 'price point'.

      By the way, try "Harmy's Star Wars Despecialized Edition". It's an HD (720p) version with all the scenes restored to the original (Han Solo shoots first!).

    10. Re:What happens? by icebraining · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The fix is to have strong consumer protection, like plenty of EU directives provide. Any EULA terms that violate them are invalid, so you as the user don't need to worry about them.

    11. Re:What happens? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Extra? Whats extra? The story is unchanged.
      All they've done is add irrelevant data. Its still the same movie.

      Paying more for HD makes as much sense as paying more for a 320kbps MP3 instead of a 160kbps.
      Or paying more for for a car because the speedometer shows your speed in hundredths of a mph.

    12. Re:What happens? by icebraining · · Score: 2, Insightful

      But why on Earth do you still assume you've got the right to download it for free?

      Why on Earth would he assume he doesn't?

    13. Re:What happens? by Teancum · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Some of the first vinyl LP albums that I bought years ago have become unplayable due to scratches and hard usage. Contrary to what LP album manufacturers want you to believe, LP records won't last forever.

      Well, something like that. The mythical "100 year compact disc" certainly was never believed, and all forms of data storage have problems. To get a very long lasting CD, it needed to be essentially an "archival quality" impression onto some durable material, preferably a metal like gold. You can buy such materials, but they are very expensive and generally are not in common usage because the expected life span of those discs aren't all that long.

      DVD discs, and Blu-ray discs even more so, have even higher data density and thus are even more prone to accumulated errors.

      From an historical perspective, the only way that any information has been preserved over long periods of time is to keep copying that information, preferably to distribute that information widely as well to as many people as possible so if a few copies of that information are lost it can be recovered from the redundancy alone. That certainly is the only way ancient texts such as the Greek literature like the Iliad and religious texts like the New Testament and Talmud have been preserved over the centuries.

      It is also a part of human culture, where ideas are over time weeded out. This includes music, where the really bad stuff has simply been forgotten over time. Sometimes good stuff is lost too, but that is part of life. The reason why "classics" are so fondly remembers is that the awful stuff that was being made at the same time isn't remembered.

  2. Re:Successful DRM by ZackSchil · · Score: 3, Funny

    I assume it can't be circumcised because, as conceptual business model, it lacks genitalia.

  3. Some changes were quite good ... by perpenso · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What happens to the music you paid for if that company changes its mind?

    Well in the Apple iTunes case the audio quality was improved and the DRM was also removed.

    1. Re:Some changes were quite good ... by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 3, Informative

      What happens to the music you paid for if that company changes its mind?

      Well in the Apple iTunes case the audio quality was improved and the DRM was also removed.

      You left out the part where we had to pay 30 cents a song for the privilege.

      On the other hand - even now, Apple still supports the original DRMed files if you choose not to upgrade - so this case isn't really a good example of a company "changing its mind" a la PlaysForSure.

      --
      #DeleteChrome
  4. What do you mean it didn't work? by frovingslosh · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What do you mean it didn't work? DRM schemes such as Microsoft's "Play Anywhere" are abandoned and then the customer who paid good money for the music has to buy it again if they still want it,. DRM works exactly as planned and intended/

    --
    I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
  5. Better Answer: Don't buy DRM'd music by scottbomb · · Score: 2

    I buy only mp3 for this very reason. Once I have it, it's MINE. Just like the CD, cassette, or record I used to buy. I can play it on whatever player I want: car stereo, computer, whatever. That's the way music purchasing has always been... until DRM came on the scene.

    I personally thank Amazon for their mp3 music store. They made it worthwhile for the artists to make tracks available in mp3 so Amazon gets all my music $.

  6. supposedly inteligent people don't want to know by frovingslosh · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Several years ago when I first learned of HDLC, I posted here into a thread about the "new" high-definition technology warning that there was a new connector coming (it became HDMI) and a new nasty form of DRM going along with it (HDLC) and that people should hold off because the early adopters were going to get screwed. The response was a lot of angry posts telling me that I didn't know what I was talking about, early adopters told me that their expensive TV sets could play HD just fine, and I was modded down, apparently so people considering buying an early set without HDMI and HDLC would not see my warning.

    Now people who bought those amazingly expensive early "monitors" can't watch HD content from a Blu-Ray player or on-line streaming service on them (although they can enjoy grainy 480 line service). Why? Apparently we can get angry enough when a bank tries to charge $60 a year to spend our own money via a debit card, but we are not able to get angry enough with the content providers when they screw us and make it clear their intent is to buy congressmen to subvert the intention of Copyright as stated in the U.S. Constitution. So the content providers are going to keep screwing their customers. I'm sure that they would like to screw more people, but so far they have only figured ut how to screw the artists and the customers, aside for some random lawsuits that assume if you are not signing up for the screwing then you mist be a criminal.

    --
    I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
    1. Re:supposedly inteligent people don't want to know by fnj · · Score: 2

      HDLC? What are you going on about? I rather presume you mean HDMI, but there's no way to be sure.

    2. Re:supposedly inteligent people don't want to know by DeadboltX · · Score: 2

      Many people seem confused by your use of HDLC to decribe a form of DRM over HDMI.

      I think you meant HDCP

  7. Re:history goes back much further by MobileTatsu-NJG · · Score: 2

    TFA only goes back to 1998. The history of DRM goes back much, much further than that, the only difference being that it was called "copy protection" rather than DRM

    The author of the article knew the difference between DRM and Copy Protection. Given the context of the article being about content no longer playing, wanting a history of copy protection in this article is like asking for an article about unpopular cars to include a history of the horse-drawn carriage.

    --

    "I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)

  8. Apple's FairPlay didn't "fail" by DavidinAla · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's insane to call Apple's FairPlay DRM a failed system, as the item for this says. The system did exactly what it was supposed to do. It allowed Apple to start legally selling something that the record labels wouldn't allow without it and then it was taken away when the labels agreed to go without it. The system worked as advertised. It achieved the goals of building a market for legal music. And then it went away. It was very successful and then it was retired when it was no longer needed.

  9. Missed one by Megane · · Score: 2

    DIVX - the reason I stopped shopping at Circuit City.

    --
    #naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
  10. Re:history goes back much further by MobileTatsu-NJG · · Score: 2

    Not working due to media failure != not working due to lack of permission. Note the use of the term 'rights' and not 'copies'.

    Quite percussive.

    --

    "I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)

  11. Re:What is the point of this list? by VanGarrett · · Score: 2

    Because the article is about DRM schemes that failed, not about DRM schemes that screwed people over.