Quote:
|
Originally Posted by quux
OK. That said, my own opinion about DRM is mixed. Personally, I'll stop being bothered as soon as some of the current problems are worked out. I can see a world where DRM means I still own my music/movies/whatever even if I lose the CD/DVD. Even if CD/DVD tech goes out of style and some new thing comes into style; my DRM certificate should allow me to easily download a new copy of the content I bought 15 years ago and play it in my whizbang new-tech device. That's the promise of DRM. If it doesn't fulfill that promise, I don't want it.
|
Actually, that's not the promise of DRM and it never will be.
DRM means that you don't own your content - you lease it and that lease can be terminated for any reason, at any time and you have no say in the matter (or any compensation, for that matter).
DRM means that if the player it uses goes out of style, you must repurchase your content for the new player.
DRM's philosophy is that
you, the customer, are the attacker and you must be stopped.
DRM's reason for existance is to lock the customer into a product/service and, in the long term, to force customers to repurchase content every time they want to do something different with it.
DRM means that the Public Domain is endangered.
DRM is a
technical restriction placed on us - not a legal restriction. That's the main issue. Right now, if I took a DVD a made copies of it to sell, I'm in violation of the law. If I took that same DVD and ripped the movie from it to put on my PVP, I am
not in violation of the law.
But to the Content Cartel, that's exactly what they
don't want. They want me to pay, yet again, for the privildge of playing it on, not
my PVP, but their special, locked down, controlled PVP that prevents me from viewing the content in the way I want to view it.
DRM is nothing more than the Content Cartel's method for making changes to the law without having to actually buy anyone in Congress.
You are right in that there is no "The Enemy" in DRM. The Content Cartel is one enemy. Another is Microsoft, because they
have the power to tell the Content Cartel to stuff it - but they won't because DRM is part of Microsoft's monopoly plans.
Yes, the makers of DVD players play along in order to sell product, but remember that the Content Cartel also requires players or their products are useless.
BTW: I don't use Microsoft products. I don't use iTunes. My DVR is something that I built that has no DRM. Both my DVD players are region free. I vote and I write my congress-critters.
But I am one man and I can only do so much.