The purpose of DRM is different for different people:
Technology vendors - DRM is the proprietary standard that will enable them to own the toll booth, which in turn will enable them to reap extraordinary returns and lock out competitors. In this respect, DRM is no different than Microsoft owning the Windows real estate and IBM owning SNA before that, except that the proprietary standard will be mandated by law, which is a monopolist's wet dream.
Entertainment Industry Executives - DRM is the pixidust that they will use to protect existing revenue streams, which is what these executives tell their bosses and stock holders in order to justify keeping their highly-paid jobs for another quarter. Because of this, anyone in the corporate hierarchy that speaks the truth about DRM is in danger of loosing their job.
Industry Analysts - DRM is bullshit; however, the technology vendors are paying the analysts retainers. Consequently, the analyst will go along with the "DRM prevents piracy" fraud, at least in public.
Politicians - DRM is something that they will mandate by law so that they will get campaign contributions from the technology and entertainment industries. Since the general public is too ignorant of the subject, they won't know they're getting screwed and, therefore, there is virtually no political cost to the politician.
Honest consumers - DRM is something they don't know or care about until it stops them from doing something. It will encourage honest consumers to join the next group.
Pirates - DRM is irrelevant. Most of these people will use software written by someone else to break DRM. If the DRM is hard to break, then at least one copy will always get out in the clear anyway. Since digital content in nothing more than 1s and 0s, which can be perfectly copied an infinit number of times, the one copy in the clear will turn into millions of copies overnight and travel around the world on the Internet at the speed of light.
When are they going to learn? Give people content in a consumable form and at a reasonable price is the best way to stop piracy.
Digital content is nothing more than a collection of 1s and 0s. You can copy 1s and 0s any number of times without degradation. And with the Internet, these copies can be made very fast and sent anywhere in the world. If you plug 99.999999% of analog and digital "holes," that is not good enough to stop piracy. It probably won't even slow it down.
ONE COPY IN THE CLEAR = GAME OVER
The bill under discussion is a pointless effort with regard to piracy. It will, however, inconvenience legitimate users, encourage people to break the law, and probably stiffle innovation. Give people what they want in a consumable form and at a reasoanble price and you can beat the pirates.
Building DRM into the operating system would be fine, except for three problems: (1) DRM has never prevented piracy in the past; (2) DRM does not prevent piracy today; and (3) DRM is not at all likely to ever prevent piracy. DRM is only sometimes effective at preventing people from making one-off copies and back-ups.
When it comes down to it, digital content is made up of 1s and 0s. You can copy 1s and 0s perfectly an infinite number of times. By using the Internet, you can get these copies almost anywhere instantly. You MIGHT come up with the greatest DRM in the world, but if one copy gets out in the clear, the pirates have won.
The only way to compete with free is to give people something better than free. DRM makes digital content worse than free. Much worse.
Piracy, however, is very useful to executives at large public companies.
STOCKHOLDER: Why are your numbers so bad this quarter? OVERPAID EXECUTIVE: College kids are pirating our content. STOCKHOLDER: How are you going to fix it? OVERPAID EXECUTIVE: Use DRM and also sue the college kids. STOCKHOLDER: OK then. You get to keep your overpaid, cushy job for another quarter.
I know that it might be rude to talk about commercial interests. But some of the posts on movie downloads and DRM made me jump out of my skin. My company, EZTakes, developed a DVD movie download and burn service that is running live now. We are different in that we provide users with the ability to burn movies to DVDs that can play in their living rooms. We have a number of free DVD downloads on the site and a number of others available at a reasonable price. You can check it out for free. In order to discourage piracy, we mark each DVD with the user's identity. We don't use DRM. You can burn backup copies of the DVDs you buy, store a copy on your PC and play it back in your default DVD player software.
While a greatly respect and like Apple, their DRM is a smokescreen that was created to protect Apple, not rights holders. I wrote a white paper on the subject.
Slashdot Mirror
Technology vendors - DRM is the proprietary standard that will enable them to own the toll booth, which in turn will enable them to reap extraordinary returns and lock out competitors. In this respect, DRM is no different than Microsoft owning the Windows real estate and IBM owning SNA before that, except that the proprietary standard will be mandated by law, which is a monopolist's wet dream.
Entertainment Industry Executives - DRM is the pixidust that they will use to protect existing revenue streams, which is what these executives tell their bosses and stock holders in order to justify keeping their highly-paid jobs for another quarter. Because of this, anyone in the corporate hierarchy that speaks the truth about DRM is in danger of loosing their job.
Industry Analysts - DRM is bullshit; however, the technology vendors are paying the analysts retainers. Consequently, the analyst will go along with the "DRM prevents piracy" fraud, at least in public.
Politicians - DRM is something that they will mandate by law so that they will get campaign contributions from the technology and entertainment industries. Since the general public is too ignorant of the subject, they won't know they're getting screwed and, therefore, there is virtually no political cost to the politician.
Honest consumers - DRM is something they don't know or care about until it stops them from doing something. It will encourage honest consumers to join the next group.
Pirates - DRM is irrelevant. Most of these people will use software written by someone else to break DRM. If the DRM is hard to break, then at least one copy will always get out in the clear anyway. Since digital content in nothing more than 1s and 0s, which can be perfectly copied an infinit number of times, the one copy in the clear will turn into millions of copies overnight and travel around the world on the Internet at the speed of light.
When are they going to learn? Give people content in a consumable form and at a reasonable price is the best way to stop piracy.
The bill under discussion is a pointless effort with regard to piracy. It will, however, inconvenience legitimate users, encourage people to break the law, and probably stiffle innovation. Give people what they want in a consumable form and at a reasoanble price and you can beat the pirates.
Building DRM into the operating system would be fine, except for three problems: (1) DRM has never prevented piracy in the past; (2) DRM does not prevent piracy today; and (3) DRM is not at all likely to ever prevent piracy. DRM is only sometimes effective at preventing people from making one-off copies and back-ups.
When it comes down to it, digital content is made up of 1s and 0s. You can copy 1s and 0s perfectly an infinite number of times. By using the Internet, you can get these copies almost anywhere instantly. You MIGHT come up with the greatest DRM in the world, but if one copy gets out in the clear, the pirates have won.
The only way to compete with free is to give people something better than free. DRM makes digital content worse than free. Much worse.
Piracy, however, is very useful to executives at large public companies.
STOCKHOLDER: Why are your numbers so bad this quarter?
OVERPAID EXECUTIVE: College kids are pirating our content.
STOCKHOLDER: How are you going to fix it?
OVERPAID EXECUTIVE: Use DRM and also sue the college kids.
STOCKHOLDER: OK then. You get to keep your overpaid, cushy job for another quarter.
I know that it might be rude to talk about commercial interests. But some of the posts on movie downloads and DRM made me jump out of my skin. My company, EZTakes, developed a DVD movie download and burn service that is running live now. We are different in that we provide users with the ability to burn movies to DVDs that can play in their living rooms. We have a number of free DVD downloads on the site and a number of others available at a reasonable price. You can check it out for free. In order to discourage piracy, we mark each DVD with the user's identity. We don't use DRM. You can burn backup copies of the DVDs you buy, store a copy on your PC and play it back in your default DVD player software.
While a greatly respect and like Apple, their DRM is a smokescreen that was created to protect Apple, not rights holders. I wrote a white paper on the subject.
Jim Flynn
CEO, EZTakes