Get Ready For DRM On Physical Goods

from the would-a-hammer-and-nails-represent-circumvention dept

Mon, Mar 4th 2013 1:55pm — Mike Masnick

Simon Phipps recently posted a short film showing the nature of DRM when applied to a chair, effectively demonstrating how ridiculous it is to build a product that is designed to prevent usage, creating artificial scarcity where none need exist: As he notes, DRM is really a form of "digital vandalism." While the video itself may seem a bit silly, some are certainly thinking about DRM for physical goods. At Mobile World Congress last week, a company named Fabulonia debuted, hyping up its "copyright solution for 3D printing." What's that? Honestly, it's not at all clear. It looks like it'll be a marketplace for 3D printing instruction makers who are overly paranoid and who don't want to participate on any of the much more open platforms for 3D printing instructions. In this case, the "DRM" isn't so much on the product, but on the printing instructions, which might be the same thing in the long run. Part of the way it works is that the designs get uploaded and downloaded, but apparently are somehow kept encrypted such that the "buyer" never actually gets to see the plans themselves.

Of course, most people would recognize that this automatically decreases the value to the buyer. They can't see the actual plan? They can't have it on their computer? Then why would they buy it in the first place? You don't convince people to pay by taking away a key part of the value. And yet that seems to be the entire goal of Fabulonia.

As with music, software, movies and more, these all are cases of imposing artificial scarcity where it makes no sense to do so. It's not just "digital vandalism," it's out and out economic vandalism, because you are purposely destroying a resource that can be used for economic growth. It's really tragic that people still think this is a concept that makes any sense at all.

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Filed Under: 3d printing, artificial scarcity, chairs, copyright, drm, physical goods

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silverscarcat (profile), 4 Mar 2013 @ 12:15pm

What really needs to happen is this...
DRM needs to be made illegal.

Simple as that.
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yeah..., 4 Mar 2013 @ 2:01pm

that's never going to happen, ever

i and 15 generations of my descendants will croak long before any of this DRM/IP/copyrestrict nonsense is done and with
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Mar 2013 @ 2:16pm

But, but, what about all of those backsides who have found rest without properly compensating the creator?
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Fentex, 4 Mar 2013 @ 2:20pm

It doesn't need to be made illegal, it just doesn't need to be legislated and protected in anyway.

Let it survive or die on it's own merits.

Mikes argument is that as it lessens the value to a purchaser of any transaction it will not succeed in a market where people have options to make more worthwhile transactions.

The problem isn't that any supplier might try it but that legislators attempt to protect them at others expense.
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Mar 2013 @ 2:20pm

Sitting is stealing.
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bob, 4 Mar 2013 @ 2:25pm

We do this all of the time-- it's called public policy
Gosh, let's rail against those anti-gun nuts who force the manufacturers to put safeties on guns. Don't they know they're restricting our freedom to shoot ourselves in the foot.

Every single well-designed device limits usage to protect the user and society in general.

Yes, in many cases the companies may also slip in ways that boost their profits. Planned obsolescence is a way of life but anyone who's a designer will explain that it's a practical reality because the designers want to bring the costs down as much as possible. They need to guess a price point and design toward it.

The idea of "artificial scarcity" is really missing the huge reality that manufacturers (and artists) need to spread the development costs over all of the users. The nutcakes around here can keep dreaming that the world can be supercheap and buy just one digital copy that we'll all share, but that ignores the reality of development costs.
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Mar 2013 @ 2:26pm

Re: We do this all of the time-- it's called public policy
None of that has anything to do with DRM, but good effort at deflection.
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JP Jones (profile), 4 Mar 2013 @ 2:30pm

The sad part is that the only ones really inconvenienced by DRM are paying customers. I can't think of a single piece of mainstream software that hasn't been pirated at some point.

The only purpose I can think of for DRM is to set up lawsuits via the anti-circumvention clause in the DMCA. That way someone with a legitimate copyright use can be sued due to breaking the ineffective DRM.

OK, the other purpose is so that developers/publishers can put in a check box next to the "anti-piracy" spreadsheet that makes CEOs feel like they're solving the problem. It saddens me that we have such powerful analytical tools available yet we've forgotten how to use the analysis. If only they'd add a "Customers lost due to our business practices" column next to the "Sales lost due to piracy" column we might actually get somewhere.

Unfortunately it's much easier to be a person who places blame on others rather than be a person who takes responsibility for themselves.
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PRMan, 4 Mar 2013 @ 2:31pm

Re: We do this all of the time-- it's called public policy
And yet, CDs and MP3s are selling really well despite having no DRM whatsoever and being available for free on sites like Pandora, Spotify and YouTube.

What do they know that the DRM-happy crowd is missing?
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Chuck Norris' Enemy (deceased) (profile), 4 Mar 2013 @ 2:41pm

My HP printer won't let me print a dollar bill
For the kids, I made some funny money on our PC using US dollar templates and replaced the presidents with our own faces. When we tried to print it out on our HP printer it printed about half way and then had some text along the lines of don't copy US currency. If they can code that into a printer, I am sure anything made for the masses (when 3D printers are everyday household items) they will have copy blocks built in.
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Rikuo (profile), 4 Mar 2013 @ 2:42pm

Re: We do this all of the time-- it's called public policy
" The nutcakes around here can keep dreaming that the world can be supercheap and buy just one digital copy that we'll all share, but that ignores the reality of development costs."

FINALLY! I get a chance to bitch-slap some sense (AGAIN!) into you.

We are customers. As customers, we should NEVER hear the words "development costs". We don't care about them, it is in fact impossible for us to care about them. Your $100 million movie? I value it completely differently. Your costs there are millions of dollars and years of work. Me? The person you're trying to sell to? It's worth a couple hours of my time, tops. In fact, with there being so much entertainment vying for my personal attention, perhaps I should be charging YOU to take up two hours of my valuable time.

Anyway, you should stop trying to sell the movie as a quantifiable unit. Doesn't work that way anymore. The Internet has is essentially the Star Trek replicator for digital data. If you've ever watched Star Trek, you may have noticed that from TNG on, the Federation doesn't have a money based economy (the less said about gold-plated latinum the better!). That's because with a device capable of producing infinite goods at zero cost, the cost to produce those goods falls to zero. With the replicator able to replicate everything (except for when the almighty plot says no), the concept of a financial economy fell apart.

Since the Internet can copy data at practically zero cost (or as close to it as makes no difference), you should NOT be concentrating on selling infinite copies. Instead, offer access to your database as a whole for a price. That's one thing you can do. I've paid multiple times for cyberlockers. Do that. Or get a real Netflix-esque service up and running, with every title in existence for the vast majority of people who will not want to buy dozens of hard drives for local file storage.

Or you can go for option two. You can continue to rant and rave, while the rest of the world progresses and the concept of selling something that is now infinite falls apart.
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Baldaur Regis (profile), 4 Mar 2013 @ 2:43pm

So what they're selling...
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Baldaur Regis (profile), 4 Mar 2013 @ 2:45pm

Re: So what they're selling...
...are bragging rights to "This is an original copy!"
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JP Jones (profile), 4 Mar 2013 @ 2:49pm

Re: We do this all of the time-- it's called public policy
A safety on a gun is completely different from DRM. The comparison doesn't make any sense. A safety is designed to protect and assist the user. DRM is designed to limit access by the user. If you had a gun that could only be fired by the registered owner, and if they want to teach someone else to shoot the other person needs to buy their own gun first, plus the gun prevents any type of magazine other than ones sold by the gun manufacturer, NOW you're in DRM territory.

It is artificial scarcity because the development costs are heavily self-imposed. License costs, $3,675 dollar 3d graphics programs which are only slightly superior to freeware (3d Studio vs. Blender), and publisher limitations all dramatically inflate the cost to create content. Many of these things exist due to legacy industry and backroom deals, not because they have that much inherent value.

As technology improves, and costs to create (as well as barriers to entry) are reduced, the logical thing is for the prices to drop as well. If you expect people to spend $15 for a CD they can burn at home for a cent (or more likely do without the CD completely), which is the same as before that technology existed, you're delusional.

It would be like someone trying to sell a Trio smartphone for $300. It's obsolete technology and no one is going to pay the old price. Gone are the days of idiot consumers who only have the word of advertisements provided by a select few corporations to go on. If consumers aren't willing to pay what you want them to pay, stop making your stuff. Someone else, probably better than you, will fill the void at the price people are willing to pay, and nobody will miss you.

That's reality. Who's really ignoring it?
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Juan Diosdado (profile), 4 Mar 2013 @ 2:53pm

good luck with enforcing that! #stupidlaw
and while you're on that, please try to impose DRM on food recipes, please do...
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Zakida Paul (profile), 4 Mar 2013 @ 3:00pm

Re: We do this all of the time-- it's called public policy
Comparing the safety on a gun to DRM? Really?

What a moron. Do you have any understanding of anything?
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DannyB (profile), 4 Mar 2013 @ 3:01pm

Don't download
Would you download a movie that only played eight times? No? Then don't download a chair that can only be sat on eight times.
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Nick-B, 4 Mar 2013 @ 3:29pm

Re: My HP printer won't let me print a dollar bill
Yeah, we found that out too. My father, who is obsessed with scanning in high resolution images of everything, was recently getting around to mementos from his trips. He is scanning in old photographs, old foreign currency, and, for kicks, is also scanning in the new cool designs in our modern currency. And guess what? Scanners are also designed to watch for if American money is being scanned and refuse to scan.

We are already sitting under a thin blanket of big brother, I'd hate to see what happens when all the corporations get in on it.
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silverscarcat (profile), 4 Mar 2013 @ 3:40pm

Re: Re: We do this all of the time-- it's called public policy
I can't wait until replicators are made. How fast do you wanna bet that people will scream that they should be made illegal since they can make everything from food, to medicine, to clothes and more with just a button press?

"You wouldn't replicate a car, would you?"

Just watch me!
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Corwin (profile), 4 Mar 2013 @ 3:53pm

ROTFLMAO
Let me get this straight. They want to enforce DRM on self-replicating devices?

They failed on general computing, and now they try to enforce. DRM. On. Self-replicating. Devices. It's like trying to stop humans from reproducing.

What are they gonna do, closed ecosystems where you can only buy plans for digitally-signed prints? What's the point, it's not 3D printers if they can't print what you design! "Only what you design" kills collaboration. Okay, then there will be limits on collaboration. Which limits? Number of seats that can collaborate? How would it be calculated? Like changing the region of a DVD? How to plug the fact that general-purpose computers will be used to design the prints, sell a special-purpose computer? It had better be orders of magnitude better and cheaper than hobbyist gear, if it's crippled enough to have a meaningful copy-protection mechanism.

DRM is too expensive to work, and technically impossible to enforce.
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The Old Man in The Sea, 4 Mar 2013 @ 3:56pm

Take you up on one point - design to price point (development costs)
If you have done even a rudimentary study of recovery of development costs and design to a price point, you would immediately recognize that your last sentence was garbage.

There are a number of factors that relate to price:-

1). Development costs (need to amortize over all units initially counted)
2). Total profit desired (again amortized over all units initially counted)
3). Total number of units in initial run (over which profit and costs will be amortized)

These 3 items determine your initial price. But there is also another item which comes into play.

4). Perceived value by customers, if price is too high, can't sell and if price is too low also can't sell.

The juggling of the numbers for 3) and 4) above ultimately determine if you will make a profit. If you handle this well, any items after the initial numbers will only have input costs and hence should give you a higher profit return.

So we see, companies that have a price point that is very high and low unit sales and high profit margin per unit. We see companies with low price point and high unit sales and low profit margin per unit. In both cases, they make their desired profit, but quite often, the latter makes even more profit.
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Dr. Morbius (profile), 4 Mar 2013 @ 4:03pm

Bad analogy
The analogy should have been that the chair breaks if anyone other than the original buyer tries to sit in it. Of course that would defeat the whole purpose of a chair since you would never be able to have house guests sit in it.
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out_of_the_blue, 4 Mar 2013 @ 5:09pm

Moron Mike mixing up materials and methods.
Boy, reading the nutcakes comments (Rikuo for nuttiest), you'd think that a 3D printer requires no materials and can make whatever you want. Actually they just daub thermoplastic around, kids, there's no metal, and consequently 3D printers can only make TOYS. -- And require expensive material to do even that. But Mike writes as if materials are free...

Now, assuming that's nailed down -- reality, that is -- a PLAN is still an intellectual property and could be copyrighted while the actual making isn't. The obvious reason such plans are not yet copyrighted is because irrelevant since you need an expensive gadget and expensive materials (perhaps custom for a brand of 3D printer) to do anything with the plan.
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out_of_the_blue, 4 Mar 2013 @ 5:41pm

@ Nutcake "Rikuo": I'm going to copy your words over and over!
You've busted out of your little fenced yard and gone off down the street yapping your head off at moving cars! That fence is there to protect YOU, not us!

>>> "We are customers. As customers, we should NEVER hear the words "development costs". We don't care about them, it is in fact impossible for us to care about them. Your $100 million movie? I value it completely differently. Your costs there are millions of dollars and years of work. Me? The person you're trying to sell to? It's worth a couple hours of my time, tops. In fact, with there being so much entertainment vying for my personal attention, perhaps I should be charging YOU to take up two hours of my valuable time."

The most blatant demand yet seen from a brat who believes he's entitled to make demands and that others must obey. Little Rikuo just throws a tantrum: "I WANT! I WANT! I DON'T CARE WHAT IT COSTS YOU! GIMME! GIMME! NOW! NOW! YOU'VE GOT TO REWARD ME FOR MY VALUABLE TIME!"

>>> "Anyway, you should stop trying to sell the movie as a quantifiable unit. Doesn't work that way anymore. The Internet has is essentially the Star Trek replicator for digital data. If you've ever watched Star Trek, you may have noticed that from TNG on, the Federation doesn't have a money based economy (the less said about gold-plated latinum the better!). That's because with a device capable of producing infinite goods at zero cost, the cost to produce those goods falls to zero. With the replicator able to replicate everything (except for when the almighty plot says no), the concept of a financial economy fell apart."

This is what I call proof-from-fiction. You take a totally fabricated story and use it to prove whatever you want. Preachers still do this often (not coincidentally making demands on a supposed infinite resource). I think these kids truly believe that's just around the corner. They must live in a mental fantasy where is no want or need, one only has speak demands and robot slaves whir into action.

Just amazing ain't it, folks? Rikuo doesn't even have the sense to see that he's saying he rejects reality when it doesn't please him.

Hey, Big Media: don't give an inch to clowns like Rikuo! HANG 'EM whenever you find them stealing! Enough arrogant little brats like that can destroy civilization!
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Mar 2013 @ 5:51pm

Re: Re: Re: We do this all of the time-- it's called public policy
They'll try to lock it down, but it won't work, because the first thing people will start replicating is more replicators, until everyone has one. It'll be like the internet; the powers that be hate it to pieces, but what can they do against something ubiquitous and essential to modern life?
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squall_seawave (profile), 4 Mar 2013 @ 5:53pm

Re: Bad analogy
actualy the analogy is against licenses that limit the number of times you can install a software (if i heard correctly a game has only 3 times before it gets blocked)
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silverscarcat (profile), 4 Mar 2013 @ 6:11pm

Re: @ moron_who_knows_nothing
"Enough arrogant little brats like that can destroy civilization!"

We tend to call these people revolutionaries.

French Revolution was made up of NOTHING but "arrogant little brats" who wished to destroy their civilization because it wasn't helpful to the "little brats" at all.

I suppose that's what you're advocating, hmm? *Grin*
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silverscarcat (profile), 4 Mar 2013 @ 6:21pm

Re: @ moron_who_knows_nothing
You have NO clue about technology, do you?

Lemme break it down for you in ways you MIGHT be able to understand.

The 3DS has only been out for 2 years now, and you don't need 3-D glasses to view it.

The first 3-D effects of less than 25 years ago required the use of blue and red glasses to get the effect.

The NES came out in the 1980s, by 1990, the SNES and Genesis both had enough graphic power to rival arcades, which, until that point, were superior in every manor to all forms of gaming.

The Dish Hopper just came out, it allows you to record any program you wish to watch and skip the commercials.

Go back just 13 years and you had to use a VCR or a DVD player to record a program, and often times, you couldn't do it very well because of the flashing clock.

Gaming on the phone? Remember when the most you could do was play Reversi or Snake?

Now? Hey, Angry Birds! Final Fantasy 1!

Remember this, in less than 10 years the Blackberry went from over 200 dollars and only used by Sprint or AT&T to less than 30 and is now being used by Tracfone while other smart phones are being used by Straight Talk.

You can get a decent computer these days for less than 200 bucks.

Try back in the 1990s, you wanted even a half-decent computer? It ran over 600 dollars and even phones today out-perform those computers by leaps and bounds.

A gigabyte, back in the 90s, was unheard of for storage size.

Now-a-days we have TERABYTE hard-drives.

Do you not understand yet?

What isn't possible now WILL be possible soon.

Remember this line, it applies to how things are going.

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
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btrussell (profile), 4 Mar 2013 @ 6:30pm

Re:
"i and 15 generations of my descendants will croak long before any of this DRM/IP/copyrestrict nonsense is done and with"

Well, it will need to be phased out.
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Mar 2013 @ 6:43pm

Re: Moron Mike mixing up materials and methods.
So when used in an investment casting setup, the 3d printer joins the ranks in prototype shops.
Dismissing a trend based on the modern setups is a huge mistake. Look at the early pc's, very limited in capabilites and priced out of reach to some. Now we have smartphones, tablets, wifi and still expanding.
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btrussell (profile), 4 Mar 2013 @ 6:44pm

Re: Re: @ moron_who_knows_nothing
"...you couldn't do it very well because of the flashing clock."

Hilarious!

I'll bet blues clock is still flashing.
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Mar 2013 @ 6:49pm

Re: Moron Mike mixing up materials and methods.
I'd highly recommend you not talk about 3D printing OOTB...you obviously don't understand anything about it. Go look up information on DARPA's use of 3D printers and then tell me if you still think it's only used to make toys. I'll wait.

Sure, 3D printing is expensive now. Computers, the internet, cell phones, airplanes, cars...all these things have been expensive and unavailable to most consumers in the past. Ten years from now? Who's to say we won't be downloading shoe plans from Nike that are custom sized to our feet with whatever pattern we want and printing it out? Instead of buying from shopping malls you just buy raw materials.

Yet another example of the difference between someone who embraces new technology and someone who fears it. This comment explains a lot about you and how out of touch with technology you are. Those who adapt survive. Those who cling to the old ways don't. It's only a matter of time.
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Mar 2013 @ 6:49pm

Re: We do this all of the time-- it's called public policy
Speak for yourself - I personally think if you weren't allowed to shoot yourself in the foot so often you wouldn't post so often either.
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Mar 2013 @ 7:16pm

Re: @ Nutcake "Rikuo": I'm going to copy your words over and over!
The most blatant demand yet seen from a brat who believes he's entitled to make demands and that others must obey.

The irony of this statement is staggering. Who's entitled? What about the business who believes that suing a mother of four $250,000 for sharing 24 songs? Or that believes they can decide how you can use things you've legally purchased? That decides they aren't going to sell you their product but "lease" it to you at the same price? That believes they should get paid for every use of their product, no matter the context?

The copyright maximalists are making demands that we do what they say with their product when they have no right to do so. If someone sold me a knife and told me that I'm only allowed to use it to cut cheese and they would sue me $10,000 dollars if I used it to cut meat, then offered to sell me another knife that cut meat, and that I agree to those terms because I bought the knife, who in their right mind would listen? That's not how things work.

Yet that's exactly how these entitled brats at the MAFIAA think. If I buy a painting, and decide to draw beards on all the people, the artist can rant and rave about how I'm disrespecting their work but I don't give a crap because I bought it. If you don't want your stuff to be seen, ripped apart, and modified, don't sell it.

Nobody is going to miss this entitled artist/producer generation that believes they get to hold all the cards. Somebody is going to fill the vacuum and do a better job because they'll be using the money you waste on "anti-piracy" and lawyers to improve their product and get more sales. There's always an opportunity cost. The "war on piracy" is costing you customers. You can blame the customers all you want but the only real culprit is yourself.
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G Thompson (profile), 4 Mar 2013 @ 9:09pm

Re: Moron Mike mixing up materials and methods.
Wow you really think 3D-printing is only about thermosetting plastics?

I think you might be surprised to understand that the emphasis in research (that is basically finalised) in new material science goes into areas such as ceramics, glasses, metals including biometals (metallomics), and the most fascinating and positive type of material carbon nano-tubes (c-60).

Oh and I haven't even touched on the fascinating ability of Graphene.
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JMT (profile), 5 Mar 2013 @ 1:30am

Re: Moron Mike mixing up materials and methods.
"Actually they just daub thermoplastic around, kids, there's no metal, and consequently 3D printers can only make TOYS."

Does this look like a plastic toy to you?

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/03/download-this-gun-3d-printed-semi-automatic-fires -over-600-rounds/

Clown...
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Ninja (profile), 5 Mar 2013 @ 2:43am

Re: My HP printer won't let me print a dollar bill
As if any moron in a hurry would mistake a dollar bill with a printed knock off for kids. Next: jailbreak your printer so it'll print what you want!
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Mar 2013 @ 2:59am

Re: Re: We do this all of the time-- it's called public policy
The comparison is quite apt, actually.

Apply DRM to a gun and you get a gun that someone else decides when, if, and how it should be fired.

Makes sense! No more gun-related accidents! No more unsanctioned gun violence! How is that not perfect?
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Bergman (profile), 5 Mar 2013 @ 3:37am

I'd be willing to buy a chair made of wood that looks about as simple as that one for $20. If it could only be sat in 10 times before self-destructing, I'd pay $0.25 at most for it, since I expect my furniture to last for years.

If all chairs cost $20 or more and I cannot get one without DRM, I won't buy chairs. But obviously the market is failing because of piracy.
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Niall (profile), 5 Mar 2013 @ 4:51am

Re: Re:
Well, 'life' will soon be twisted by the copywrong controllers to 'life of any part of the genetic code of the creator or any of the controllers', i.e. to the Nth generation...
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Niall (profile), 5 Mar 2013 @ 4:54am

Re: We do this all of the time-- it's called public policy
Key word - "well-designed".
Key concept - gun 'safety catch' = safety feature (like seat belts).

Neither is true of DRM. Similarly, a gun safety catch doesn't require you to have permission from the gun designer/seller/police/any of their great-grandchildren to unlock, let alone fire the gun. Nor to sell it.
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Mar 2013 @ 9:39am

Re: Moron Mike mixing up materials and methods.
You've obviously never seen a CNC machine. It is essentially a 3D printer for metal, though it works by subtracting rather than adding (a bunch of different diameter drills). They have the same kind of thing for wood using lasers (drills could catch on the grain of the wood).

This stuff exists and the demand is being drummed up through the plastic printers. I don't know whether it will make the leap to the consumer market, but the potential is there.
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Not an Electronic Rodent (profile), 5 Mar 2013 @ 9:54am

Re: Re: Re: We do this all of the time-- it's called public policy
Apply DRM to a gun and you get a gun that someone else decides when, if, and how it should be fired.[snip] How is that not perfect?
Because it removes the point (and whatever value there might be) in owning a gun. Plus, of course, any military using such weapons would lose horribly against anyone who wasn't.
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Chris in Utah (profile), 5 Mar 2013 @ 11:06am

Re: Re: Moron Mike mixing up materials and methods.
my dad has been an cnc machinist at Hill Air since hell... 31 years... it's what crafts those landing parts on well just about every aircraft. I also saw them in action it's not drills these days it's high pressure water. Works well on aircraft aluminum to steel (had him make me a N64 knob when mine broke once) All I had to do was use his mike(fine tuned measurement device) I got it a little long but my thumb is big... I've broke 4 joysticks for pc that way too lol!
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Mar 2013 @ 4:33am

Re: Re: We do this all of the time-- it's called public policy
Thank you for introducing me to blender. Thanks a lot.
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