Quote:
Originally Posted by Sparrow
An interesting post Sir Edward  .
I wonder, though, if technological changes to the production of IP products can't also help the original producers as well as the copiers. It would be very easy to individualise each mass produced digital item (unlike trad. mass production), so that it's onward existence could be traced (thereby possibly indentifying who is duplicating it and blacklisting/punishing the purchasers). (But such avenues don't seem to appeal to producers, who see DRM as a more restrictive approach which they presumably think could increase sales volumes - rather than a genuine attempt to prevent piracy.)
If I was a producer, I'd also wonder about the benefits of flooding the darknet with malware-ridden versions of my product - thereby undermining it's credibility as a source of 'safe' copies. |
Sparrow, I'm afraid we are at the stage where Humpty-Dumpty can no longer be put together again. DRM is simply a ham-handed attempt to maintain the mass-production model. So are the draconian laws being passed in various localities. The only <real> way to restore the mass-production model is the Luddite answer - destroy all the personal computers. And that's a cure worse than the disease. You cannot make a working personal computer without having some form of mass storage to store application programs and data. And that data can be unauthorized as readily as authorized. Bits are bits. (And when I say <destroy all the computers> that includes all the special purpose imbedded computers that capture or store data as well, such as digital cameras, picture phones, PMP's, ect.) The use of malware, ect., is a half-hearted Luddite answer (only break the machine you don't like - randomly - to scare everybody else).
Let me give an economic example of the change. Apple (et. al.) sells a large capacity music player, capable of storing 40,000 peices of music. To purchase (and from a practical standpoint, a DRM'ed product is not a purchase, but a long term rental) the 40,000 pieces of music directly by legal download would cost $40,000 (approx.). Or a person illegally downloads 40,000 songs for an out-of-pocket cost of say, $500. Difference of $39,500.
Or two modest cars in the US. That sort of cost differential will keep the pirate world thriving, no matter what is done (short of the Luddite solution).
Books are not so large a differential in aggregate cost, due to the difference between listening to 3 minutes of music versus 3 hours of reading a book. 40,000 pieces of music would equate to, say 2,000 books from a time sense. Or say (at $10 a book) $20,000 versus $500. I.e., one modest car in the US.
This does not mean that I condone or encourage piracy. I'm just pointing out (explicitly) the economic drivers involved.
Watermarking, (which is what you are describing by you comments on customization) is a real non-starter in the US, due to our long standing cultural fear of tracking being used for tyranny. The opposite, breaking power-bases, has a long and noble tradition in our culture. Just read
our literature.