Pan Macmillan: DRM Is Not Evil

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

DVD DRM satisfies producers and customers. We can take a DVD with DRM and put it in any DVD player (as long as it matches the region) and it will play fine.

DVD DRM is essentially useless. It was hacked a long time ago, and is trivial these days to circumvent. I would say that producers are extremely unsatisfied with DVD DRM. That's why they threw it away and started over from scratch with Blu-ray DRM... but that's been hacked too.

There is no such thing as a DRM system which can not be circumvented. IMO, a "proper" implementation of DRM that satisfies both producers and customers doesn't exist.

[kacir]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

DVD DRM satisfies producers and customers.

[rant mode]
I am customer and I am NOT satisfied.
EVERY SINGLE TIME I insert my legally purchased DVD into player I have to watch stupid, *stupid*, *STUPID* warning that I should not steal that DVD. I have already paid for it! I have not stolen it. If it was stolen, the stupid, *stupid*, *STUPID* warning would not be there!
I also hate it when I have to see the advertisements for other movies by the same distributor / DVD publisher that can not be skipped.

When I press "skip" on the remote and all that *MY* DVD player with *MY* legally purchased DVD inside does is to display symbol for forbidden operation I feel irresistible urge to rip the disk or to download ripped image.
[/rant mode]

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by kacir

[rant mode]
I am customer and I am NOT satisfied.
EVERY SINGLE TIME I insert my legally purchased DVD into player I have to watch stupid, *stupid*, *STUPID* warning that I should not steal that DVD. I have already paid for it! I have not stolen it. If it was stolen, the stupid, *stupid*, *STUPID* warning would not be there!
I also hate it when I have to see the advertisements for other movies by the same distributor / DVD publisher that can not be skipped.

When I press "skip" on the remote and all that *MY* DVD player with *MY* legally purchased DVD inside does is to display symbol for forbidden operation I feel irresistible urge to rip the disk or to download ripped image.
[/rant mode]

I agree with you 100%, but I'm not sure that's really related to the DRM, rather to stupid decisions in the DVD standard that enforce forbidden operations.

Yes, DRM tries to prevent you from getting rid of those restrictions, but the restrictions shouldn't have been put in there in the first place.

[NightGeometry]

Originally Posted by kacir

I also hate it when I have to see the advertisements for other movies by the same distributor / DVD publisher that can not be skipped.

I actually love watching trailers, one of those strange likes.

What really really annoys me, and seems just *stupid* is that a DVD starts, I force it past the trailers because I want to watch whatever is on the disk, and then later I can't actually watch those trailers because there is no menu item for them. This is the case on a number of DVD's I have. I just can't get my head around why anyone would do that.

Sorry for the interuption, I'll go back to lurking now.

[ficbot]

For me, it is all about the user experience. With dvds, there are some where I did circumvent and copy to my hard drive because they are workout dvds and either a) I want to play one section of one, one section off another and am too lazy/don't have time to keep swapping disks and going through menus etc or b) they are workout dvds and have long warnings/ads which cannot be skipped, and I only have 30 minutes to exercise and literally do not have time to sit through them. In both cases, I am wanting to engage in legitimate uses for legally purchased media I own, so I see no problem with circumventing. But of course, it would have been easier if this had just been 'allowed' from the outset.

Ditto with ebooks. I want to read them on my Sony. I had past Fictionwise purchases which I could not read on my Sony because they were in eReader format. I wanted to buy future books to take advantage of the sales. If my Sony would accept secure eReader files, I probably would not have bothered to remove the protection. But they do not accept eReader files so I had to remove it and convert them. Again, these are my legal books I bought and paid for, so I see no problem. But they did lose some future sales by insisting on the DRM because I find the conversion process a bit tedious and will only suffer through it for books I really, really want I would buy more books if they were unencumbered and I could read them where and how I wished to. Many more of my purchases now are the multiformat books. I go for those when just browsing. I only buy secure books if it's a best-seller I simply must have

[fbrII]

I also agree with the basic premise DRM is not evil, it's useless, unless your intent is to purposely annoy your customers. Well, come to think of it, that does seem the game plan of most major corporations today - bottom line is critical, marketing is critical, - quality products, employee morale, happy customers - not so much

[wodin]

Originally Posted by fbrII

I also agree with the basic premise DRM is not evil, it's useless, unless your intent is to purposely annoy your customers. Well, come to think of it, that does seem the game plan of most major corporations today - bottom line is critical, marketing is critical, - quality products, employee morale, happy customers - not so much

Speaking of annoying, I can’t wait until someone injures themselves trying to open one of those bubble armored plastic packages that almost everything is locked inside these days and sues the cr*** out of those guys with no regard for their bread and butter.

Ok, you can return to the topic now!

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

Ah, but could you transfer the product to another person? One of the problems with DRM is that it interferes with loaning & resale rights.

That clearly marks DRM as an impediment from doing things the way we always did... but if that was what we wanted, why are we reading e-books?

One of the things about progress and change in media is that the things we can do with the old media often change for the new media. In the same way we no longer put water troughs in the streets for resting horses to drink from, or we now bypass the quaint country roads to cruise down the interstates, we may have to adapt to new ways of handling e-books, and stop doing other things we used to do with printed books.

It may be that reselling e-books simply isn't in our future, and even loaning may go through some major change to accommodate the new medium. This may seem bad to us... but it may seem perfectly normal and acceptable to our descendants.

[zelda_pinwheel]

i sincerely hope not. i think sharing culture with your friends and family is a crucial part in creating, maintaining and expanding our collective cultural identity and enriches not only ourselves but also our (human) culture as a whole. i can't even count how many brilliant authors / films / musicians i've been introduced to by a friend who said "you have to read this book, here i'll lend it to you". this has been a part of our culture since stories were transmitted orally. while i agree that digital technology will change our relationship to media in some ways i am certainly not willing to accept that forgoing all sharing is one of them and i suspect you'd be hard-pressed to find any true bibliophile who is. and any drm which aims to prevent that completely deserves not only the description of "evil" but is also anti-culture in my opinion.

[Moejoe]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

That clearly marks DRM as an impediment from doing things the way we always did... but if that was what we wanted, why are we reading e-books?

One of the things about progress and change in media is that the things we can do with the old media often change for the new media. In the same way we no longer put water troughs in the streets for resting horses to drink from, or we now bypass the quaint country roads to cruise down the interstates, we may have to adapt to new ways of handling e-books, and stop doing other things we used to do with printed books.

We do have water troughs, they're called petrol (gas)stations and the horses were replaced with cars. We're fundamentally doing exactly the same as we did all along. And the problem with your 'adapting' model is that there's no real technical limitation unless we apply the artificial limitation of DRM.

It may be that reselling e-books simply isn't in our future, and even loaning may go through some major change to accommodate the new medium. This may seem bad to us... but it may seem perfectly normal and acceptable to our descendants.

This isn't about what we want, or what is easily doable with the technology we have in hand, but what they want. By they I mean those who control the media and place the ridiculous DRM on the products we consume.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by Moejoe

We do have water troughs, they're called petrol (gas)stations and the horses were replaced with cars. We're fundamentally doing exactly the same as we did all along. And the problem with your 'adapting' model is that there's no real technical limitation unless we apply the artificial limitation of DRM.

If, by "fundamentally," you mean we are still moving from place to place... yes. But the difference between getting around in a horse and carriage and driving around in a car is vast. Are petrol stations in front of every other building? Do horses require oil changes? Did horses come with warranties? Do cars drive themselves when you fall asleep? Did we need to lock up horses when we got off? Can a horse cover 500 miles in a day?

"Fundamentally," we are still reading. But beyond that, there are essential differences between printed and electronic books that can't be denied or ignored. Trying to treat e-books like printed books only holds e-books back (which, as it happens, is exactly what had happened to e-books for the past 20 years).

Originally Posted by Moejoe

This isn't about what we want, or what is easily doable with the technology we have in hand, but what they want. By they I mean those who control the media and place the ridiculous DRM on the products we consume.

No... it's about what everybody wants. Without readers, publishers have no market. Without publishers, readers have no (well, a lot less) content. If no middle ground is discovered, both sides will lose.

Other industries have ably demonstrated that DRM can be part of a middle ground solution. Only in e-books have customers remained mule-stubborn in accepting those solutions, and as a result, e-books are presently behind every other electronic media product. Even the music industry found a way to work DRM into their system, long enough to gain and train their customers into being regular revenue streams... after which they could begin to remove DRM and go to the next step.

[Moejoe]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

"Fundamentally," we are still reading. But beyond that, there are essential differences between printed and electronic books that can't be denied or ignored. Trying to treat e-books like printed books only holds e-books back (which, as it happens, is exactly what had happened to e-books for the past 20 years).

Of course there are differences. It's easier to share digital than it is a physical product. If we had no DRM it would be far more convenient for us as social creatures to spread that cultural knowledge around. We're (the readers) not the ones who are denying or ignoring the change from one format to the other. It is the publishers who are placing artificial restrictions upon the end product, if they even deem it necessary to make that product available in the first place. If you must use the horse / car analogy; ebooks as they stand are like Porsche 911 turbos with the engines stripped out and pulled by a horse. But they don't have to be.

No... it's about what everybody wants. Without readers, publishers have no market. Without publishers, readers have no (well, a lot less) content. If no middle ground is discovered, both sides will lose.

DRM is not a middle ground, it favours only the publisher, and even then it does not favour the publisher because it does not work. It never has worked, and never will work. The publishers risk losing 'everything' and that is no exaggeration, to writers who are savvy enough to understand that offering products without DRM and treating their readers with some dignity and trust is the only way to behave.

Other industries have ably demonstrated that DRM can be part of a middle ground solution. Only in e-books have customers remained mule-stubborn in accepting those solutions, and as a result, e-books are presently behind every other electronic media product. Even the music industry found a way to work DRM into their system, long enough to gain and train their customers into being regular revenue streams... after which they could begin to remove DRM and go to the next step.

This is so rife with wrong I don't know where to begin. Okay, let's start with iTunes (whose Fairplay DRM is by and far the easiest to crack) who never wanted the damn DRM in the first place and only instituted it to get the companies on board. They dumped that crap as soon as they could and gained a lot more sales in the process. It's a hassle for them, for their customers, and for the companies in the long run to use DRM. It costs money to run, it doesn't improve sales, its easily cracked and...it plainly doesn't work, and never has. Amazon had no middle ground offering, they went DRM free from the get go when they launched in 2007 because they saw the mistakes that had been made in the past, as does any other sane thinking person running a business. Again, DRM does not work, its been proven that it doesn't work, I don't see how that's going to magically differ when its applied to ebooks, or if it remains on books. The book publisher are making exactly the same mistakes the music companies did at the beginning.

Should this even be an argument in the year 2009 when we have all the facts at our fingertips from 10 years of pointless battles with the music industry?

DRM gives on a false sense of security. It is easily cracked and removed. It's costly to maintain. It adds nothing to the paying customer's experience, in fact it only hinders their fair use of the product they buy. DRM is nothing to hackers/pirates and those who would wish to take your product for free and re-distribute. Offering products without DRM is seen as good and will generate more profits.

And even after all that, isn't the simplest rule of all the best to go by? Why make something more complicated than it has to be?

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by Moejoe

And even after all that, isn't the simplest rule of all the best to go by? Why make something more complicated than it has to be?

Even ignoring all that, the simplest rule isn't always the best to go by. Leaving products unprotected usually leads to theft... which is exactly what is happening to e-books. That is a simple fact.

Companies have to protect their product from loss through theft, or they go out of business, plain and simple. E-book customers (especially those here, on what is possibly the most popular e-book dedicated site in the world) seem to delight in saying "If I can't get it, I'll steal it... it's easy," which only sets off publishers and makes them concerned over loss, making them want to strengthen DRM against "pirating" customers.

Acting like the only existent forms of DRM in the world are akin to fixing a watch with a mallet is only being obtuse about the issue. It is simply not true. There are plenty of examples of screwdrivers out there that could do the job to everyone's satisfaction... they just have to be developed for this one industry (about the only one left that hasn't managed to do so).

But most importantly, even those screwdrivers have to be accepted by the public, instead of constantly whining that any and all DRM is EVIL and demanding unrealistic services from for-profit companies.

I'm not saying publishers don't have to change their expectations of the realities of the market... they do. But so do customers. It's a new day, it's a new product... and we all have to learn a new way to buy it, to use it, and what we can't do with it.

Some level of security (always imperfect, but reasonably effective in mitigating loss) can easily be a part of that, if it is executed properly. But if customers refuse to cooperate, even to the extent of providing useful feedback (which means something more constructive than "it stinks"), the only forms of security publishers will apply will be poorly-designed and overly-harsh, making it harder on all of us than it has to be.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Even ignoring all that, the simplest rule isn't always the best to go by. Leaving products unprotected usually leads to theft... which is exactly what is happening to e-books. That is a simple fact.

Well, no since it is not theft.

But how do you know that copyright infringement is common for books without DRM? I thought the empirical evidence supported the theory that copyright infringement is less common for eBook without DRM.

Also since the paper book is unprotected you will have to stop selling paper books.

[Icarusbop]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

All true. This is why the best security system is one that is permanently tied to you, and can't be easily used by anyone else... IOW, a biometric ID. The current problems with DRM are essentially a cry for biometric security to finally be applied to daily security practices.

Biometric security would allow minimal DRM to be applied to products, as it could prevent use by unauthorized users more reliably than any other method. Not that it would be perfect, just more reliable, and therefore minimize loss through sharing and theft.

(Ducks and covers as Big Brother Nay-sayers draw their swords and charge into the room)

There is absolutely no chance whatsoever, I am going to give 'Them' or 'They' my fingerprint and / or my DNA data so I can read a newspaper or book......