Quote:
Originally Posted by Steve Jordan
This has been my point about DRM all along: A method that does not inconvenience customers unduly, but still provides useful (though admittedly not perfect) security is possible. Dismissing DRM out of hand, because the present systems don't work well, is doing the idea a disservice.
|
Technology will always surprise us, but I find it hard to believe that DRM could ever work for ebooks, music or video.
For DRM to work it has to do two things:
1) Prevent unauthorised copying/use 100% successfully
2) The DRM-enabled file must be indistinguishable from a DRM-free file to the user (as far as using the file goes)
Those two things are
mutually exclusive.
By definition DRM needs to be 'cracked' by the software that is accessing the file, so I don't forsee any way around that particular weak point in DRM's defences.
If a DRM scheme can be invented that allows me every usage scenario a DRM-free file allows while also protecting unauthorised copying, then I wouldn't have a problem with that DRM. I believe that this is impossible since if the file acted as a DRM free file I would be able to make copies (since I would have the right to use the files on any device I wanted to, and that would potentially include devices not licenced by the DRM creator, such as my current phone or a device I might build myself, etc.) and potentially leak those copies online.