True Purpose Of DRM: To Let Copyright Holders Have A Veto Right On New Technologies
from the why-they-fight-so-hard-for-anti-circumvention dept
A whole bunch of people have been submitting Ian Hickson's writeup on the true purpose of DRM. Given how many people have submitted it, perhaps you've seen it already, but there are some really good points in there. His main thesis is that the debates over DRM tend to focus on the wrong thing. The anti-DRM crowd points out that DRM does not and cannot stop copying. Supporters of DRM say that's not true. Hickson agrees that DRM does not stop copying, but he argues that the purpose of DRM has never really been about stopping copying, but about gaining control over software and hardware tools that play content:The purpose of DRM is not to prevent copyright violations.He provides a few examples, such as how DVD players force you to watch "unskippable" ads, how services like Netflix can try to limit you from watching the same movie simultaneously on two devices, and how if you buy a movie on iTunes, and want to then watch it on a non-iPhone, you'll have to buy it again. As he notes none of those things are really about copyright violations.
The purpose of DRM is to give content providers leverage against creators of playback devices.
Content providers have leverage against content distributors, because distributors can't legally distribute copyrighted content without the permission of the content's creators. But if that was the only leverage content producers had, what would happen is that users would obtain their content from those content distributors, and then use third-party content playback systems to read it, letting them do so in whatever manner they wanted.
In all three cases, nobody has been stopped from violating a copyright. All three movies are probably available on file sharing sites. The only people who are stopped from doing anything are the player providers -- they are forced to provide a user experience that, rather than being optimised for the users, puts potential future revenues first (forcing people to play ads, keeping the door open to charging more for more features later, building artificial obsolescence into content so that if you change ecosystem, you have to purchase the content again).If you're wondering why copyright holders are soooooooo desperate to have anti-circumvention provisions in copyright law, this is why. In the past, we'd pointed out that it didn't make sense for the movie studios and record labels to be so focused on anti-circumvention/digital locks, since if people are violating copyright law (such as by reproducing or distributing copies), existing copyright law already covers that. So why add in a separate provision all about circumvention -- and then be so focused on making sure the same provision exists in all laws around the globe? It seemed silly, because the only "additional" benefit it seemed to be providing was to outlaw legal forms of copying, since everything else was already covered under existing law.
However, Hickson's argument explains much more clearly why anti-circumvention provisions are seen as an absolute necessity. It has nothing to do with copying, and everything to do with controlling the players so as to limit the kind of innovation they can provide. It's basically a de facto veto power over new technologies. And, really, that puts a bunch of other statements in context as well. Remember how former Copyright Register Ralph Oman was saying that new player technologies should be illegal until Congress approved them? Yeah, same basic thing.
All of this shows a legacy copyright industry that is so focused on holding back innovation so that they have a veto right and control over the pace of innovation. That, of course, is bad for the economy, bad for the public and bad for society. Innovation is important in growing the economy, and due to silly laws around DRM, we are purposely holding it back.
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Filed Under: control, copyright, drm, ian hickson, purpose
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The legacy industry do not care about this as long as their monopoly is protected.
We elect politicians to care about this but that too is negated by the fact that our elected officials are very much in the pockets of the industry.
This is the crux of the problem. The public has no one of power and influence fighting for their interests.
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Why would you want to do this? And what's the point of stopping it?
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Silly premise. First, DRM works unless circumvented.
"The purpose of DRM is to give content providers leverage against creators of playback devices." -- An empty truism, like: "The purpose of controversy is to give writers of twaddle a topic to dilate on."
Here's the real thrust: "But if that was the only leverage content producers had, what would happen is that users would obtain their content from those content distributors, and then use third-party content playback systems to read it, letting them do so in whatever manner they wanted." -- The principle of copyright are to state clearly WHO owns the work, and who deserves to get the income from it. Mere distributors have NO rights to TAKE content from the producers and divert those income streams into their own pockets.
How many times can you guys repeat the unethical, immoral, and illegal assertion that distributors have some sort of claim over producers?
As to bad effects of DRM: BLAME PIRATES, not the creators. If it's increased because pirates don't take hints and clear statements of its proprietary nature, BLAME PIRATES AGAIN.
Just quit blaming creators. Pay them what they ask, or go without.
Take a loopy tour of Techdirt.com! You always end up same place!
http://techdirt.com/
Where Mike's "new business model" (file hosts like Megaupload) is to grift on income streams that should go to content creators -- and then call the creators greedy!
06:23:03[h-530-3]
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I made a Stand and I have Refused and still Refuse to pay for DRM.
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http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130319/15192222381/super-meat-boy-developer-to-ea-drm-hur ts-your-bottom-line-more-than-piracy-does.shtml
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Re: Silly premise. First, DRM works unless circumvented.
The whole point is that it is so easily circumvented that it is pointless, moron.
Prime example is the DRM on Amazon e-books. It is so easy to strip that it may as well not even be there.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootkit_scandal
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Well it used to work
Because the rate of innovation was so slow for so long, this never really seemed to bother society. But now things advance at a much more rapid pace than ever before in human history AND our ability to communicate with one another across the globe has increased exponentially AND many of the old barriers into the market have disappeared.
So now you have A LOT more people than ever before asking the question why?
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Re: Silly premise. First, DRM works unless circumvented.
I raped your sister last night. It was totally her fault, for dressing like a slut. Even though I'm a thinking breathing human being with a conscience and the ability to think for myself, I had no choice but to do an evil and harmful act. I was compelled to do so. Totally not my fault, she's to blame.
See how bad your "logic" is?
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Yeeesh
Laws are obeyed unless they are broken, cars don't move unless they are driven, and ice cream doesn't make you fat unless it's eaten. Any more completely banal statements you would like to use to back up your lame argument?
"Mere distributors have NO rights to TAKE content from the producers and divert those income streams into their own pockets."
What do you think a publisher is? What do you think a record company is? The people who own rights are almost NEVER the people who actually had the idea or put the blood and sweat into creating it. Most indie game developers, the people who actually DO directly benefit from sales of product, don't put DRM into their games cause they know it's ineffective and only punishes legitimate customers.
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Luckily for most of us here in the US, circumvention of DRM is legal for non infringing purposes when preserving PC software.
OK to my point aside from my (shameless) plug in the name of classic software preservation:
The true purpose of DRM was originally to prevent piracy of programs...which was actually quite easy so ling as you had matching floppy disk drives and disks. DRM as we know it today was actually tried out in the past. It came on a computer system that had features on it we take for granted. I'll explain other bits if asked about them but my point is that this all boils down to something few people know about.
The Apple Lisa was built and engineered by a greedy chair board (who almost killed Apple Computer in the Mid 1990's). They made it so that once a disk of office software or any other software (the Lisa was mainly office oriented) ran on one Lisa, it would permanently be tied to that machine and you could not use that disk on any other Lisa's. Part of the Lisa's hefty expense was Apple manufacturers having to have a unique device ID stored in ROM. This is at a time where a megabyte of RAM cost US$5,000 per chip.
The story of the Apple Lisa in the regard of DRM is an example of what a mess they were and Apple may have lost more money on the Lisa due to its DRM than the cost of RAM.
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Re: Silly premise. First, DRM works unless circumvented.
Sorry but you've engaged in a non sequitur. A playback system is not a distribution system (though in some cases they may be attached together). If I buy a legally made copy of Star Wars on DVD and then play it on a DVD player that is not authorized to decrypt it, and which ignores UOPs, doesn't apply Macrovision, etc., the manufacturer of the player has not taken content from anyone, and has not diverted income attributable to the Star Wars copyright from the copyright holder. Nor is the distributor to blame, for in the hypo in the article, he is authorized by the copyright holder to distribute copies.
Just quit blaming creators. Pay them what they ask, or go without.
I'd rather just change what they're allowed to ask for, and then let them choose to ask for what we're willing to pay, or let them go without creating.
After all, I want both creative works and freedom to do what I like with them, and I'm unwilling to give too much of the latter away for too little of the former.
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Re: Silly premise. First, DRM works unless circumvented.
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Re: Silly premise. First, DRM works unless circumvented.
So does EA deserve to make an income off of obsolete versions of various Sim games that were meant to run on now obsolete hardware? They are sitting on obsolete software meant for obsolete hardware platforms. Hell they even think that taking a screenshot of Battlefield 3 and posting it online is infringement. Are you saying that because EA owns the rights to the game, they also own the rights to the screenshots created by users? Since when has creating a screenshot ever been a copyright issue?
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Re: Silly premise. First, DRM works unless circumvented.
You don�t seem to get it, either for trolling purposes or because you simply lack the ability to see the forest for the locked-up trees: DRM doesn�t exist to protect anyone�s rights.
DRM exists to lock content up in a way that makes someone a criminal for �unlocking� it.
DRM exists to slow the growth of innovation in a time where such innovations happen at a pace that makes the legacy media players feel uncomfortable.
DRM exists to make legitimate paying customers feel like criminals for buying the product while the actual �criminals� have nothing to deal with but their consciences and the seven proxies they need to hide their tracks.
DRM exists to limit what the average person can do with their electronic devices (including cars) and who can repair them (�the device maker� and not �a repair shop�).
In short: DRM exists to impugn on the rights of everyday citizens while protecting the �rights� of corporations who think locking everything up will help those everyday citizens.
Ask yourself this question: if DRM disappeared tomorrow, how much would it really hurt the world at large?
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The DMCA provides provisions that allow consumers full rights to break DRM and use the content under it if the DRM is defunct. Meaning that if the industry disables auth servers or changes to a new kind of encryption/DRM and you can no longer buy on the public market new devices that support that DRM then you can legally break that DRM and I believe devices capable of breaking the DRM are allowed to be distributed for personal usage.
So far this has only happened on a small scale for some games and other niche areas and I don't think it's really be tried in the courts. This particular provision is something they want to kill IIRC but have yet to do so completely (though I'm sure there are more restrictions than what i simply state here).
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Fuck you, Hollywood. Fuck you and die.
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Re: Silly premise. First, DRM works unless circumvented.
Thank you captain obvious.
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Point being like the article states, DRM is basically useless for copyright protection and just an annoyance to the customers.
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Re: Silly premise. First, DRM works unless circumvented.
Copyright is intended to control who can make copies, it was not intended to control the use of copies. The maximalists are extending it to mean control of the use of copies.
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how can you even think this, let alone say it? how many times have we been told that all this copyright protection etc is good for innovation? how many times have we been told that without copyright protections, there would be no more innovation, no more inventions or progress? surely, Mike, you must be truly mistaken!! ask any of the entertainment industries or the politicians that are paid a fortune each year in 'campaign contributions'!
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Re: Silly premise. First, DRM works unless circumvented.
If the right to get paid is so much more important than actually getting paid, no problem. I'll happily go without. There is no shortage of legal free entertainment in the world. And there is a growing amount of artists happy to both treat me with respect and take my money.
Just watch your back when you're lifting all that cash you'll make from me not watching/listening/reading/experiencing your movie/song/book/whatever.
Oh, wait.... Yeah, explain that to me, would you, please? If I'm not consuming your content (paid or free) at all, how does that help you?
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Re: Silly premise. First, DRM works unless circumvented.
Who's blaming the creator? And the challenge here is that we would like to know exactly what we are paying them for. Am I paying for a movie, to watch the content of it, or am I paying only for the experience of watching it in the manner to which they later decide I should watch it even if originally we had agreed upon something else? Should they (this creator you describe... you know, the corporation that now merely owns the copyright, not the actual person/people who invested creative effort) get to retroactively decide what I do with a work that I purchased under previous terms? Do they get to decide how long I get to enjoy something for?
The problem for me is that they can't even clearly articulate what I am actually getting.
I understand clearly when I go to a movie theater to watch a movie what exactly I am getting - I am getting access to a seat in a room with a big screen, big sound, a bunch of other people, to watch a movie exactly once. That is very clear. And when I fork over my money, I understand that clearly.
What I don't understand is why when I purchase a movie on DVD I can't watch it on any DVD player, forever.
Next it will be that we can only watch certain movies on a certain size of TV... that's right, next you will only be able watch Spider-Man on a Sony TV because that is clearly what the creator wanted...
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This might actually be wrong. Consider that every new DRM scheme created is usually circumvented rather quickly, and new DRM schemes are put in place to be broken, ad infinitum. I would say that innovation in DRM and circumvention has been growing at a rapid pace.
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Re: Re: Silly premise. First, DRM works unless circumvented.
Yeah, but their ultimate goal, shown by charging "piracy" taxes on consumer storage devices, is to get paid whether or not you are consuming their product, legal or otherwise.
So they want to control the device, and still get paid whether or not you consume their content.
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Re: Silly premise. First, DRM works unless circumvented.
Hey Blue, I'm being curious here.
I believe you've stated in the past that you use Linux. You ever watch a legally purchased DVD with your Linux box? If you have then you have circumvented the DRM on the DVD to do so.
How does having to circumvent the DRM to view a legally purchased movie on your OS of choice fit into your narrow view of DRM being all the pirates fault?
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Innovation? Or price discrimination?
It is basic economics, different uses have different value. A bottle of water when you are lost in the desert is priceless. Another pint to spray on your lawn is trivial. If you have the water monopoly you want to make sure the water people drink to stay alive goes for big money but you still want to make a few more bucks on green lawns. Making that happen means preventing people from drinking the lawn water.
DRM and a tiny computer in every player gives superb ability to charge different prices for different uses. You can pay to see the movie once but then it poofs. You can pay for a DVD but selling it in another region is problematic because of the region locking code. Advertising can't be skipped. Whatever new uses flow from new technology the copyright owners own through DRM and can price optimally to squeeze the last drop of utility out of their customers and into their pockets. (Why they squander this with FBI warnings I don't know. They degrade the value of DVDs to all users and stop nothing.)
Technology is involved but the principles of monopoly pricing and market segmentation are old.
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Yar Har Fiddle Dee Dee!
By making DRM so appealing to Legacy Content pirated goods will always be better in quality for the consumers, to the point where people will be forced to pirated goods to get content that is playable at all.
Plus, Rum!
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Re: Re: Re: Silly premise. First, DRM works unless circumvented.
Copyright is passed its sell-by date, it was useful, but probably not necessary. when expensive processes were required to make cheap copies. It did not exist when copies were individually expensive to make, and should not apply where copying cost almost nothing, and can be carried out by any one.
The problem is the middlemen think they need copyright to protect their business models, and they probably do unless they move to a less controlling and more service orientated model.
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Please stop using the term 'legacy'....
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Re: Re: Silly premise. First, DRM works unless circumvented.
Thank you for putting it in such a simple example. I will infringe.. I mean, use this idea in other places to explain some of these concepts.
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are those ads paid to be put on DVD's? (I don't know, I have never bought a DVD)
if they ARE paid for then the Movies cost is cheaper, right??
I don't have movie playing software on my PC, nor a music player (I removed media player) so I am NOT able to watch movies or play music on my PC....
I download a lot of Linux distros, so I can try them out. I play free games online and watch HULU (free) My wife is the same way...
what the hell IS DRM anyways?? (and no I don't own an automobile either)
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Re: Silly premise. First, DRM works unless circumvented.
How many times can you guys repeat the unethical, immoral, and illegal assertion that distributors have some sort of claim over producers?
The MAFIAA does basically that. You can't change facts ootb no matter how hard you try ;)
The principle of copyright are to state clearly WHO owns the work, and who deserves to get the income from it.
No it is not. It's supposed to benefit the public. Creators will earn their money if people think what they produce is worth it.
As to bad effects of DRM: BLAME PIRATES, not the creators. If it's increased because pirates don't take hints and clear statements of its proprietary nature, BLAME PIRATES AGAIN.
Yeah, keep blaming those who will never be affected by DRM and keep ramping it up. At some point your paying customers will get fed up. But you miss the point again eh? Pirates are just a convenient excuse as it has been proven ad nauseam file sharing actually helps creators and pirates are the best customers.
Just quit blaming creators. Pay them what they ask, or go without.
Nobody is blaming creators, we are pointing fingers at the MAFIAA. They create nothing except bad laws and your beloved DRM.
I'm finding it easier and easier to do go without. Hope this trend catches up and your bosses go out of business =D
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"Handbrake can process most common multimeida files and any DVD or Bluray sources that do not contain any kind of copy protection."
Handbrake *encodes* and why would I wanna encode when I can watch a ripped version using DVDfab?
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Re: Innovation? Or price discrimination?
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It is designed to screw you out of your purchase!
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Mission Accomplished?
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Copyright and DRM
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