'It's Always DRM's Fault' (publicknowledge.org)

A social media post from Anders G da Silva, who accused Apple of deleting movies he had purchased from iTunes, went viral earlier this month. There is more to that story, of course. In a statement to CNET, Apple explained that da Silva had purchased movies while living in Australia, with his iTunes region set to "Australia." Then he moved to Canada, and found that the movies were no longer available for download -- due, no doubt, to licensing restrictions, including restrictions on Apple itself. While his local copies of the movies were not deleted, they were deleted from his cloud library. Apple said the company had shared a workaround with da Silva to make it easier for him to download his movies again. Public Knowledge posted a story Tuesday to weigh in on the subject, especially since today is International Day Against DRM. From the post: To that rare breed of person who carefully reads terms of service and keeps multiple, meticulous backups of important files, da Silva should have expected that his ability to access movies he thought he'd purchased might be cut off because he'd moved from one Commonwealth country to another. Just keep playing your original file! But DRM makes this an unreasonable demand. First, files with DRM are subject to break at any time. DRM systems are frequently updated, and often rely on phoning home to some server to verify that they can still be played. Some technological or business change may have turned the most carefully backed-up and preserved digital file into just a blob of unreadable encrypted bits.

Second, even if they are still playable, files with DRM are not very portable, and they might not fit in with modern workflows. To stay with the Apple and iTunes example, the old-fashioned way to watch a movie purchased from the iTunes Store would be to download it in the iTunes desktop app, and then watch it there, sync it to a portable device, or keep iTunes running as a "server" in your home where it can be streamed to devices such as the Apple TV. But this is just not how things are done anymore. To watch an iTunes movie on an Apple TV, you stream or download it from Apple's servers. To watch an iTunes movie on an iPhone, same thing. (And because this is the closed-off ecosystem of DRM'd iTunes movies, if you want to watch your movie on a Roku or an Android phone, you're just out of luck.)

[...] My takeaway is that, if a seller of DRM'd digital media uses words like "purchase" and "buy," they have at a minimum an obligation to continue to provide additional downloads of that media, in perpetuity. Fine print aside, without that, people simply aren't getting what they think they're getting for their money, and words like "rent" and "borrow" are more appropriate. Of course, there is good reason to think that even then people are not likely to fully understand that "buying" something in the digital world is not the same as buying something in the physical world, and more ambitious measures may be required to ensure that people can still own personal property in the digital marketplace. See the excellent work of Aaron Perzanowski and Jason Schultz on this point. But the bare minimum of "owning" a movie would seem to be the continued ability to actually watch it.

Comments

DRM doesn't work. Period.

[Qbertino]

You're deploying your content to a turing complete device. DRM won't work. It will either be ineffective or so bad it will regularly screw over your most loyal customers. All others will get the rips because it's waaaay less hassle without DRM.

It's a crying shame if you are in the business and haven't gotten that into you thick stupid skull by now.

Forget DRM and offer a good purchasing experience and people will flock to you in droves. Best current example: gog.com.

Re:There is usally more to the story.

[JaredOfEuropa]

When it comes to intellectual "property", the full picture is likely to only enrage me further. The upshot is usually that companies have turned their temporary monopolies (what copyright is, or used to be) into actual property, and at the same time turned what by rights should be our property into a temporary license that can be revoked on a whim.

I am old fashioned and I like building a library of music and movies, even if it's a digital one. Streaming's no good precisely because of this issue: Netflix doesn't renew their license or I move to a different country or whatever, and stuff randomly disappears. Like the removal guys stealing a couple of my books when I move house. Here's a deal for the movie companies: sell me a license that entitles me to a copy of your movie. You don't need to actually provide the file or a disc, I can get the file myself, not to worry. Save us both a little money and hassle. As long as that license continues to grant me the right to have that movie in whatever format on any device, in perpetuity. I'll pay, gladly.