Slashdot Mirror
'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.
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.
DRM is still the absolute #1 reason why piracy is better than paying outright for a "product" (service?)
There is always more to the story, but there is also the simple fact that DRM will eventually bite you in the ass if you purchase DRM media. The easiest answer is don’t buy DRM media unless you understand that it’s a lot more like renting than buying.
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.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Content owners just don't get it, either because they are too set in their ways, or else because they are too stupid. Piracy's motivation is not, for the most part, a desire to get people to save a few dollars. Its motivation is to empower people to access the material promptly, conveniently, at all times, everywhere. I am willing to venture that most people do not resort to the Pirate Bay and others because it is free. They do so because it is convenient. Official offerings seem to be keen on making it as difficult and inconvenient as possible to access the material, with constraints on where, when, and in what devices you are allowed to play the material. The Pirate Bay and others make it easy and convenient, while at the same time removing those artificial constraints. Also, nobody will sneakily remove any material that you have obtained from such sites.
Content owners can of course do whatever they want with the material that they own. But things won't change much in piracy front for as long as they remain stubbornly anchored in their obsolete business model. Unless, of course, they want to bring about police state-like controls, that is. The realistic choices for them are either to make less money out of their content than before, or to make no money at all.
Did you think "Digital Restrictions Management" would make accessing content *less* restrictive? It's kind of right in the name.
And people wonder why (and sometimes snicker at the fact that) I still buy physical blurays and music CDs. I rip them (still legal here), put them on my NAS and store them away. I never have to worry about DRM crap.
It's better to burn out than to fade away
I don't have this problem playing my CDs. I put them in my player, any player, and they play.
No matter where I go, they work.
Must be this new fangled technology we hear is supposed to make our lives easier that is causing the issue.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
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.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Sure. But "Digital Rights Management" is just a euphemism as far as the end user is concerned. It is indeed about managing rights, but not the rights of the consumer. It's marketing doublespeak. No, this is entirely about the rights of the person "selling" (renting) the content, and a mechanism for doing an end-run around copyright terms and limitations. Thus the term is really dishonest, and deliberately misleading to end users. No, Digital Restrictions Management is actually far more accurate of a description of what DRM is and does. It's not an ignorant thing people say like those who use "M$." Rather it's an accurate depiction of what DRM is intended by vendors to do. I say "vendors," rather than content creators, because these days content creators get abused as much as consumers do.