some small amount of sanity on DRM

[fjtorres]

Let's say DRM'ed ebooks all go away.
Oh, there go contemporary, copyrighted-ebook lending libraries.
No DRM, no ebook libraries.

Notice the technology is called Digital Rights *Management* not Digital Use Limitation.

DRM is just a tool and a feature of business models. Don't blame the tool, which can be used to enable as well as disable functionality, for its misuse by idiots in the BPHs.

(Okay, so I'm feeling contrarian today; carry on...)

[FlorenceArt]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Let's say DRM'ed ebooks all go away.
Oh, there go contemporary, copyrighted-ebook lending libraries.
No DRM, no ebook libraries.

Yes, that's a good point.

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Notice the technology is called Digital Rights *Management* not Digital Use Limitation.

I confess, I am more concerned about what the technology does to me than about what it should be doing, or pretends to be doing

Originally Posted by fjtorres

DRM is just a tool and a feature of business models. Don't blame the tool, which can be used to enable as well as disable functionality, for its misuse by idiots in the BPHs.

(Okay, so I'm feeling contrarian today; carry on...)

But maybe it's just the tool that is badly implemented? Or rather the tools. I wouldn't mind DRM so much if there was a common format and a common DRM scheme to all e-books. Then there would be no need to convert e-books to change devices (which is not only annoying as heck, but DRM just won't allow me to do it), and a (reasonable) limit to the number of devices could be acceptable.

[EowynCarter]

You have to take this info with a grain of salt. Blizzard is not allowing pure LAN play in SC2. So if you want to play multiplayer, you're playing through battle.net with a valid key. And the game's largest draw is for multiplayer. So it is nice that they aren't using copy protection, but it's not like the entire game is wide open to pirates anyways.

Well, battle.net is already a DRM in itself.
Got screw up with steam on that kind of thing. "Key already registered". And valve gets pretty bad with that kind of thing.

Let's say DRM'ed ebooks all go away.
Oh, there go contemporary, copyrighted-ebook lending libraries.
No DRM, no ebook libraries.

Last time i tried to rent a video, I gave up because of too much DRM.

[rogue_librarian]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

No DRM, no ebook libraries.

Why is that a given? My library lends me regular, old-school audio CDs, too, totally unencumbered by DRM. We need to find a compensation model for authors, I'm fine with that, but nobody said individual copies need to be encrypted.

[Worldwalker]

Originally Posted by FlorenceArt

Yes, that's true, I hadn't thought of that. They have been in business for quite some time, but you never know.

It's the game industry. They will go out of business, or be gobbled up by some other company that bought them for some assets and throws their former customers under the bus.

A friend of mine is a programmer for a game company, and he's really happy this one hasn't collapsed yet, and it's been three or four years. His previous two employers both folded; the employees found out about one of them when they arrived at work one Monday morning and the CEO was in the parking lot telling them they were all out of a job, himself included. Game companies in general are shooting stars: They burn bright and hot, then flicker out.

So yeah, I wouldn't be too confident in any copy-prevention scheme that requires the company to still be in business (and still running that authentication server) for any stretch of time. It might be one of the small percentage that is ... but the odds aren't in your favor.

[Worldwalker]

Originally Posted by FlorenceArt

Notice the technology is called Digital Rights *Management* not Digital Use Limitation.

That's because its proponents got to pick the name.

Exterminators call what they do "pest management". Do you think that changes things from the cockroach's point of view? It involves him getting sprayed with poison either way.

A lot of people call DRM "Digital Restrictions Management", and it certainly could be calle "Digital Use Limitation" but that doesn't fit the TLA. It's all about taking away rights, both practical and legal, that you already have.

[omk3]

Quite right, but it wasn't FlorenceArt who said what you quoted...

[FlorenceArt]

Thank you omk3

[Worldwalker]

Originally Posted by omk3

Quite right, but it wasn't FlorenceArt who said what you quoted...

I clicked the quote button ... blame the MR software. :-p

[FlorenceArt]

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

It's the game industry. They will go out of business, or be gobbled up by some other company that bought them for some assets and throws their former customers under the bus.

Well, they've been around for 17 years Ambrosia is not exactly the "game industry", they develop software for the Mac (and lately the PC too).

[neilmarr]

Cheers. Neil