Wednesday, February 27, 2008
DRM
DRM "Just there to annoy" Counterproductive? NEVER
From http://www.dansdata.com/gz079.htm
The Great Apathetic Revolution
Originally published 2007 in Atomic: Maximum Power Computing
Last updated 27-Feb-2008.
As every nerd knows, copy protection - more accurately describable as "copy control" - works backwards.
And yet there seems to be more of the bloody stuff with each passing year.
The marketing people babble on about how Digital Rights Management "enhances" your "enjoyment" of a product. But what copy control really does is make ripped-off stuff better than the legal version.
The most obvious example of this is the difference between illegally downloaded movies and commercial DVDs.
To view a downloaded movie, you double-click it. And then you're watching it.
Stick a recent commercial DVD into your player, though, and you'll probably have to sit through lengthy, un-skippable warnings about how dastardly is the piracy which you did not just engage. And that's before you even get to the annoying menus, trailers, and other dross that stand between you and the movie for which you, one might start to think foolishly, paid.
From http://consumerist.com/consumer/drm/mpaa-says-drm-exists-to-annoy-honest-customers-153871.php
No, it is not correct to assume that one clever hack dooms all use of DRM. Content owners use DRMs because it provides casual, honest users with guidelines for using and consuming content based on the usage rights that were acquired. Without the use of DRMs, honest consumers would have no guidelines and might eventually come to totally disregard copyright and therefore become a pirate, resulting in great harm to content creators.
From http://www.dansdata.com/gz079.htm
The Great Apathetic Revolution
Originally published 2007 in Atomic: Maximum Power Computing
Last updated 27-Feb-2008.
As every nerd knows, copy protection - more accurately describable as "copy control" - works backwards.
And yet there seems to be more of the bloody stuff with each passing year.
The marketing people babble on about how Digital Rights Management "enhances" your "enjoyment" of a product. But what copy control really does is make ripped-off stuff better than the legal version.
The most obvious example of this is the difference between illegally downloaded movies and commercial DVDs.
To view a downloaded movie, you double-click it. And then you're watching it.
Stick a recent commercial DVD into your player, though, and you'll probably have to sit through lengthy, un-skippable warnings about how dastardly is the piracy which you did not just engage. And that's before you even get to the annoying menus, trailers, and other dross that stand between you and the movie for which you, one might start to think foolishly, paid.
From http://consumerist.com/consumer/drm/mpaa-says-drm-exists-to-annoy-honest-customers-153871.php
No, it is not correct to assume that one clever hack dooms all use of DRM. Content owners use DRMs because it provides casual, honest users with guidelines for using and consuming content based on the usage rights that were acquired. Without the use of DRMs, honest consumers would have no guidelines and might eventually come to totally disregard copyright and therefore become a pirate, resulting in great harm to content creators.
