
Yes, All DRM - DiabloD3
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/05/yes-all-drm
======
Johnny_Brahms
I have always said that DRM protection should automatically void all copyright
protection. If you make it impossible for your work to enter public domain,
you should not have the same protection as works that will.

~~~
6stringmerc
In this universe, how are creators compensated for works of art? Who is the
regulating authority? Details, please, this would be most enlightening as a
thought exercise.

~~~
bduerst
I think they're conflating the purpose of the two, as your questions point
out.

\- Copyright exists to stimulate new content by allowing creators to
distribute the fixed (and sometimes variable) costs of the IP.

\- DRM exists to fill the gap where _enforcement_ of the copyright is not very
feasible, but can negatively affect users.

Maybe the solution is a better scalable copyright enforcement mechanism?

~~~
6stringmerc
Well that's been the issue of late, and all my submitted articles on the DMCA
512 issue that music entities (RIAA) are pushing for in the US government
could have big implications here.

Copyright without enforcement is no right at all - on that we should be able
to agree.

Thus, I believe it's a societal issue in trying to figure out an equitable
balance (in this case - currently policing / take downs via DMCA, civil cases
a la Beastie Boys curb stomping GoldiBlox). Now, has the scale been tilted in
a lopsided way? Oh yeah, I'm no fan of Copyright becoming essentially a
Corporate Legal Weapon.

But...and this is a big but...killing Copyright outright also stands to injure
many smaller, more vulnerable creators. I've yet to see any remotely feasable
avenue to remedy it outside of "Music and movies should just be, like, free,
man" like the parent asserts.

~~~
bduerst
Copyright is harder to make a corporate weapon than patents, right? The
specifics of duration, situations, etc. are details that are debatable.

I was thinking more along the lines of the specific problem that DRM is
attempting to solve - why DRM exists - to see if there is any thoughts as the
way to remove DRM completely but still solve the gap in copyright enforcement.

~~~
narrowrail
>Copyright is harder to make a corporate weapon than patents, right?

Copyright is currently life of the creator+70yrs, while patents are a mere
20yrs. So, it seems copyright laws are weaponized for a longer duration.

~~~
bduerst
Did you read the next sentence?

I'm talking about gaps in copyright enforcement that DRM is trying to fill.

------
riprowan
Say what you want about DRM, but at least in the audio world, the best
software is _still_ DRMed, even after more than a decade of horror stories.

In 1999 I reviewed the Waves ([http://www.waves.com/](http://www.waves.com/))
Native Gold audio plugin bundle on the old ProRec.com. This software was
protected by PACE AP DRM software
([https://paceap.com/](https://paceap.com/)).

The thing about Waves is that it's a staple in the audio world and had already
become a staple by 1999. _Everyone_ uses Waves plugs. So Waves had a fairly
inelastic demand function, but a small overall market. Enter DRM.

The hateful anti-piracy software they used had some process that snooped
around in memory, and if it found anything that it didn't like, it just warm-
rebooted the computer.

You'd be recording a vocal take, and BAM! the screen would go black, there'd
be a beep, then the BIOS screen, and here comes Windows. No warning, no option
to save, nothing. Recording session lost, files left open, disk state
inconsistent.

This is unacceptable even once, but the frequency of these intentional crashes
was horrifying. In a normal day of use the workstation might crash 20 times or
more, typically with some sort of consequential damage (lost work, lost files,
corrupted disks, etc). Waves was unable to address the problem successfully
for more than a year. _Lots_ of professional workstations were affected, and a
lot of customers were very angry.

Nobody wanted to see Waves go under: everyone LOVED the products and wanted to
continue to support development. But at the same time nobody could afford to
install what amounted to horrible malware on their production workstations.

So the pro audio community had simply evolved a workaround: buy the licensed
software, but run the pirated software. Because the pirated software, lacking
PACE AP, was perfectly stable.

To this day, most good products in the pro audio community have DRM - many of
them still run PACE software. Fortunately, problems are less horrific these
days, but everyone in the industry knows the pain of showing up at a session
without your Pro Tools dongle, or being at a gig and needing to reinstall a
plugin, and there's no internet at the gig with which to validate your
license.

TL;DR it amazes me how much pain customers are willing to endure

~~~
bediger4000
_Say what you want about DRM, but at least in the audio world, the best
software is still DRMed, even after more than a decade of horror stories._

We don't really know what the presence of DRM means. It could be that DRM
works in the audio world. Or it could mean that there's not that many
producers of audio world software, and they're taking advantage of the
situation. Or it could mean that there's some pernicious and near universal
mental fault, a cognitive bias, so that DRM makes some kind of emotional sense
if you're licensing software, rather than actually selling something. Or maybe
there's a "gentleman's agreement", like the Apple/Google No Poaching pact
amongst the vendors.

Personally, I'm in favor of the cognitive bias theory. I think that the
concept of ownership, extended to non-physical things, puts the producers of
movies, music, software, etc into some weird psychological position where DRM
just makes sense to them.

------
strictnein
Steam, Netflix, Spotify, etc show that DRM can work properly when users are
given the easy access to the media/content, and they've been a boon to content
creators as well.

And, no, none of those sites using DRM are "a danger to our rights and our
security" as the article breathlessly claims.

I'm sure it's not a popular opinion around here, but I used to be a donor to
the EFF and no longer am. I feel they've gone off the deep end on too many
issues and they're increasingly using hyperbole and hysteria to make arguments
against relatively small issues. I mean, come on:

> "That proposition ranges from unpalatable on a gaming console, to repulsive
> on laptops and phones loaded with sensors and personal info"

Repulsive? With those scary "sensors" sensing things and you know what happens
when DRM and sensors get together!?! Oh, that's right, nothing.

~~~
mavrc
> Steam, Netflix, Spotify

I use and enjoy all of these things but the DRM they include isn't why they
are successful - it's the fact that they make it so much easier to deliver
content to anyone, immediately, bypassing the normal 'store shelves' systems
of distribution. (well, as long as you're in North America or some parts of
Europe.)

While I agree that the EFF's message is often more reactionary than necessary,
the DRM in these services serves no purpose except to make to provide a
placebo to traditional commercial content owners, to get the content on those
services. Ultimately, this is only a placebo. Netflix exclusives appear on the
Pirate Bay minutes or hours after they go up on the service. Yet Netflix not
only survives, but thrives - to such a degree that people use VPNs to
circumvent the region locks, not the payment system.

How many years has it been since iTunes music went DRM-free? Yet it's the most
popular means of acquiring paid-for music. Build a successful distribution
system, make it available to everyone, and people will pay for content.

~~~
jcranmer
There are two types of piracy--there's torrenting (or similar), and then
there's black market illicit resale. Torrenting is dominated by people who
aren't going to pay for the content anyways--at this stage, the largest
barrier that might induce people to torrent is probably geoblocking, and it's
not clear if ending that would be more profitable for the content producers.

The sort of DRM that Steam employs is however somewhat useful for targeting
people selling effectively stolen keys, as it allows for key revocation. It's
this kind of piracy that I (and many content producers) find much more odious,
since people think they're buying things legitimately but the producers aren't
seeing a dime.

~~~
gsnedders
There's a third, which is what was often mentioned by Netflix and others
during discussions about EME on W3C lists: casual piracy, where people just
download a file and send it to a friend. It sounded like that was the sort of
piracy that the studios were predominantly wanting to block (because they
fundamentally don't think they can affect torrents, because they know that
things will likely get broken)—the goal is to make it sufficiently hard that
people won't do it trivially). Targeting stolen keys is, as far as I'm aware,
mostly dealt with through key revocation and the law: I don't think anyone's
ever really proposed a particularly technical solution to it.

~~~
shmerl
_> There's a third, which is what was often mentioned by Netflix and others
during discussions about EME on W3C lists: casual piracy, where people just
download a file and send it to a friend._

This is irrelevant in comparison with torrenting. If someone is willing to
pirate it, sending to a friend won't be the option they'll go with. So
justifying usage of DRM with that is simply false.

------
jordigh
Btw, yesterday was international day against DRM. Maybe if we make more noise
about this, next year it will get more attention:

[https://www.defectivebydesign.org/](https://www.defectivebydesign.org/)

[http://www.defectivebydesign.org/dayagainstdrm/2016](http://www.defectivebydesign.org/dayagainstdrm/2016)

~~~
dfrey
Every day is "day against DRM" for me.

------
caractacus
> every bit of media that is “exclusive” to DRM-encumbered formats shows up,
> every single time, unlocked on file-sharing networks and torrent sites.

Incorrect. PC games, software, console games - many of these have not and
likely will not be cracked. That's not to say there aren't many out there but
if you have paid attention to information dripping out of cracking groups,
you'll see it's becoming much more difficult to get around DRM.

Similarly, Cinavia works. RTMPE works.

It doesn't mean they should be there. It doesn't mean that adding the DRM
doesn't cause annoyances to legitimate consumers. But that blanket statement
that whatever DRM you add is ineffective is simply wrong.

Edit: quick example - ps4 released Nov 2013. Can you play pirated games on it?
Nope. You can install linux but it's likely a number of years before piracy
can happen.

[https://fail0verflow.com/blog/2015/console-
hacking-2015-line...](https://fail0verflow.com/blog/2015/console-
hacking-2015-liner-notes.html)

~~~
mordocai
I can guarantee that as available computing resources increase every DRM
available now will be broken and new ones will have to be created to keep up.

That's not what the EFF meant though.

------
k-mcgrady
I'm generally anti-DRM but I don't see what the issue is applying it to
streaming media. Why should I care the Spotify uses DRM? I don't own that
content, I pay for streaming access which I get. I'm not paying to be able to
download the tracks, move them to different mediums, back them up etc. Could
someone explain the issue? Because the article didn't.

~~~
ef4
That streaming DRM only works if you give up control of the hardware you own.

~~~
k-mcgrady
Sorry, I don't understand. Could you provide more info or a link to something
showing this? I can't understand how I'm giving up control of my laptop
hardware when I stream a movie on Netflix for example.

~~~
parenthephobia
When you stream a movie on Netflix, either the DRM doesn't work, or you no
longer have unrestricted access - from inside the computer - to the pixels on
the screen, or the audio being output.

i.e. If you try to screenshot the movie, or redirect the audio into a file,
you won't be allowed. The video and audio quality may be downgraded if you
attach non-HDCP (a DRM system for local video and audio) outputs to your
laptop.

Sometimes Netflix will simply refuse to stream anything if it isn't sure that
the path from the video decoder to the monitor's screen is secure. e.g.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/3j0vck/whats_hdcp_an...](https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/3j0vck/whats_hdcp_and_why_cant_i_play_netflix_on_my/)

You don't have permission from Netflix to prevent this. If you're in the US or
UK - and many other jurisdictions - it is illegal for you to do so, even if
it's very clearly within your fair use (or equivalent) rights.

In the future, it's likely that DRM will extended to add and detect watermarks
to restricted video and audio output, requiring you (and those around you) to
cede full use of any _other_ devices with microphones and cameras that might
happen to capture that output.

------
russdill
Everytime I see a commercial for a content provider about how they amazing
provide the ability to play back content on multiple devices timeshifted, I
die a little inside. I think some of them actually refer to themselves as
superheros for providing this capability.

~~~
pavel_lishin
> _the ability to play back content on multiple devices timeshifted_

I don't think I've seen these commercials, because I'm not sure what this
means.

~~~
russdill
Sorry, "You can watch your favorite show anytime you want on a number of
different devices."

------
Aelinsaar
The only people winning in this equation are the people making and selling DRM
products to suckers, who then inflict it (mostly) on their honest customers.

~~~
kefka
Well, us pirates also "win".

Buying DRMed software is a fool's errand. If I want to keep it without being
chained to servers that _will_ go away, I break the law. See
[https://xkcd.com/488/](https://xkcd.com/488/) : Piracy is the correct answer
for DRM works.

Better yet, purchase non-DRM works.

EDIT: How odd. High karma on al these posts (and the last few days), and still
rate-limited. Perhaps my popular opinions are a bit too ... controversial,
especially with SaaS and API opinions?

~~~
erelde
In 50 years the whole society will have realised the stupidity of DRMs in the
early days of the Internet.

What we _" need"_ to show how bad DRM are is the bankruptcy of something like
Amazon or even Google, and look at the impact that will make if all of those
servers were wiped.

~~~
BostonEnginerd
This has already sort of happened. We just have short memories.

1) Microsoft kills MSN Music in 2008, removing access from users who purchased
albums.

[http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2008/04/drm-
su...](http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2008/04/drm-sucks-redux-
microsoft-to-nuke-msn-music-drm-keys/)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_PlaysForSure](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_PlaysForSure)

2) Amazon removes access to purchased Disney streaming videos for Christmas
season:

[https://torrentfreak.com/amazon-pulls-access-to-purchased-
ch...](https://torrentfreak.com/amazon-pulls-access-to-purchased-christmas-
videos-during-christmas-131216/)

[https://boingboing.net/2013/12/15/amazon-takes-away-
access-t...](https://boingboing.net/2013/12/15/amazon-takes-away-access-to-
pu.html)

The industry has moved to more of a subscription model which helps soften the
blow when something disappears.

~~~
erelde
Yes, but I meant something like a real disaster like if Google stopped
working, at all, all wiped, search algorithms, indexes, APIs, libraries,
YouTube (what a sh*tshow that one would be, very large, very front facing).

All because we allowed something this big to own so much of our life and still
be private, hidden. Suddenly Europe doesn't have a web search engine (it was
90% of europeans who use Google, isn't it?). Suddenly websites all over the
world stop working because they used some CDN.

I was too young when people really talked and dreamt about everyone owning his
own server, hostname. But I do believe in self-reliance, and DRMs are one of
the blocks on the road to that goal.

People shouldn't have to rely on Amazon's existence to be able to read the
copy of Dickens they bought from Amazon. Because in 50 years, I'll still be
alive, but there's a high chance Amazon won't, because most companies don't
last 70 years. And as all things eventually end, we have to know and
anticipate that fact. DRMs think about the very short term, while we should
already be thinking about the long term.

------
amelius
This is why I hate SaaS software that could also run as an ordinary
application on a local machine. Basically, it has DRM built-in by means of the
cloud.

~~~
tonyedgecombe
I'm selling software that runs on a local machine and piracy is a problem for
me, my next product will be SaaS for that reason.

~~~
Silhouette
It's hard to argue with that policy, IMHO.

Even on HN, where discussion is usually quite reasonable, there are people in
this thread openly admitting to piracy. The top post as I write this argues
that trying to protect the rights granted by law through technical measures
should mean giving up those rights altogether. There is very little respect
shown towards the people who are creating new content, and even less remorse
about ripping them off.

It's hardly surprising that when people are so unrepentant about these things,
the people actually doing the work will take steps to protect themselves. It's
sad that it's come to this, but too many selfish people have spoiled it for
everyone now. I think it's inevitable that for the next few years at least,
we'll see content providers increasingly locking their works up either through
devices where you don't have full access even if you bought it or through
keeping critical parts of the system online where customers can't copy or
control it.

For some of us, piracy isn't a morally acceptable alternative to paying for a
legitimate copy of a work, but DRM still sucks and often makes what we do get
worse than what a pirate would get. I hope there will at least continue to be
enough of us around who will make a point of supporting DRM-free alternatives
that they continue to be available, but I fear we will be a small minority and
so will those willing to distribute their work DRM-free.

~~~
Retra
If piracy is this common, why should people be ashamed to admit they do it?

>It's sad that it's come to this, but too many selfish people have spoiled it
for everyone now.

This statement applies both ways.

Human culture is a necessity. Humans are social animals. If my friends and
family literally talk about Game of Thrones or Star Wars every day, do you
think I'm just going to voluntarily exclude myself from my own community in
order to protect the wealth of some small cabal halfway across the world? Of
course not. That's not a tide you want to fight against, no matter how much
you might want to trivialize the costs.

~~~
Silhouette
_If my friends and family literally talk about Game of Thrones or Star Wars
every day, do you think I 'm just going to voluntarily exclude myself from my
own community in order to protect the wealth of some small cabal halfway
across the world?_

If something is so good that your friends and family literally talk about it
every day and you'd feel left out if you didn't participate, is it asking too
much to actually buy it and support those who make it? A show like GoT has
thousands of people involved in making it, many of them working on it full
time for months. Paying for it legitimately is not just paying for "some small
cabal halfway across the world".

If recent rumours are to be believed, even the mighty GoT is now facing an
abbreviated ending because while it's been successful it's also been extremely
expensive to make. This suggests that despite the optimistic spin the show's
producers have often put on being so widely pirated, it still isn't getting
enough actual financial support to keep going with full 10-episode seasons,
which would be a real shame for all the fans who do pay for it.

~~~
amelius
> If something is so good that your friends and family literally talk about it
> every day and you'd feel left out if you didn't participate [...] A show
> like GoT has thousands of people involved in making it

Perhaps this is what should stop. I don't want big corporations determining my
culture for me. And if they do, perhaps they should accept being pirated.

~~~
Silhouette
This argument makes no sense to me. Either you do enjoy something and want to
participate in the culture built around it, in which case you can pay for it
and support those who create it, or you don't, in which case why would you
want to pirate it?

------
fredley
> The shift in downloadable music from proprietary and locked formats to mp3s
> that play anywhere

The MP3 codec is not free, yet (in the US, until 2018)

~~~
RobAley
I think the important fact there is that the music provider is independent of
the "format provider". I.e. I can download an MP3 from itunes, and Apple has
no control over which MP3 compatible device I move it to or play it on (or
indeed that I even can move it beyond the "purchasing" device). Granted
(legally) not all devices I want to play it on may be MP3 compatible when they
technically could, but that restriction isn't Apples to (directly!) control.

In the rest of the world without silly software patents, it is free!

------
nsxwolf
I like that DRM exists in exactly one use case - online movie rentals. They
wouldn't exist otherwise.

~~~
kemiller
This doesn't get enough discussion. The way I think about DRM is that you
can't in any real sense say that you own something with DRM, because it only
works at the pleasure of someone else. You are effectively renting it. But
that's appropriate when renting is exactly your intention.

------
pessimizer
I can't help it, but I'm simply not against DRM. My problem is with the laws
that make it illegal to break it. DRM is an art, and a form of expression. If
someone wants to use it to delay alternate distribution channels, or to keep
people from looking at things, I find that intriguing and mysterious. To keep
it from being broken within a couple of years would involve an enormous amount
of creativity and effort, and be well deserved.

If we could end copyright, I'd be happy with DRM wherever people could manage
it. Ending DRM feels to me like ending riddles. Buying a locked box isn't
morally bad - the badness comes when the government threatens to drive you to
prison with guns and sticks for trying to open the box that you bought, or
helping someone else open the box that they bought.

Yes, all copyright.

~~~
jalami
I think this is being kind of pedantic. I don't think DRM should be banned and
I don't think most people do. I just don't think it should be facilitated on
the web or legally protected against tampering. It's one thing to say 'DRM
should be legal', quite another to say 'DRM is a good practice'. In the end,
let the consumer decide whether it's a good practice or not, aka don't touch
it legally. So I'll agree with you there, certainly don't give it any
protections against the consumer.

However, I can still say, as a consumer, DRM is a bad practice and I would
always take a DRM-free alternative to it.

A lot of bad things are artsy and clever. The demise of DRM should be more of
a consumer advocacy thing than a legal battle anyway, IMHO.

------
canistr
I don't know if I am wholly against DRM because I do like streaming services
like Spotify for their convenience. I'm just tired of pirating things. And I
do make money as a developer as a result of protected APIs/content.

Is this hypocritical?

~~~
kefka
Yes, it is.

Spotify is saying "You may download this, but this program under someone
else's control will forcefully delete this data from your machine"

My machine is my own. If I wish to grant other users access to the machine or
data on it, cool. That's my choice. If I buy a program to do a task, good.
When your program starts taking orders from "nameless faceless someone else",
we have problems.

Locked in APIs are just as much as a scourge. When you use them, you're
locking yourself into an ecosystem that _will_ go away. It's not a matter of
if, but when. I'm less hesitant when these APIs used are standards compliant
(where I can go 'down the street' and plug in their credential info)... But
that's not where money is.

Lockin is where the money is. And I'll fight it tooth and nail. I already am
doing the fight against bad IoT.

~~~
caractacus
> My machine is my own. If I wish to grant other users access to the machine
> or data on it, cool. That's my choice. If I buy a program to do a task,
> good. When your program starts taking orders from "nameless faceless someone
> else", we have problems.

And the content you are streaming through 'nameless faceless someone else' is
_not_ your own. You pay to get access to it. Are you saying that because you
install a program on your machine, you should have complete control over what
it can and can't do to the content it provides?

~~~
yarrel
Yes absolutely.

Why do you feel they shouldn't?

~~~
khedoros
I feel that a program should be clear about what it will do, to give you the
choice of whether or not to run it on your hardware. Software is pretty dismal
at doing that, and I don't know how to improve it. Something like a bullet-
point list of properties like "SoundBlob will let you listen to music, but not
save it locally" seem like it'd work, but I know that would quickly become a
reflexive "click OK to proceed" situation.

I believe that software on my computer shouldn't have restrictions that I
don't know about, take actions that I don't know about, etc. But if someone
else wants to run some super-DRM app, I don't think that my opinions of what's
best for them should limit what they can run on their machine.

In short, I want complete control over what runs on my computer and the chance
to reject programs that don't work the way I want them to. I don't think that
I have the right to change their intended behavior (although, to be honest, I
_will_ when it suits my purposes).

~~~
kefka
I look at it a bit differently.

1\. Do I have the right to run, inspect, modify, or do whatever to a binary
running on my machine? Absolutely. Running Linux, I can inspect down to the
kernel, if I so choose. But I can hook onto any program I want, and watch any
program I choose. If I want to modify memory, I can. Root really means root.

2\. So who owns the machine if someone else's program can tell you "You can't
do this." ? That's not following what I want, therefore I can only imply that
I'm not the owner. I'm all for signed hardware and protections, but things
like the TPM give security and ownership to someone that's not me. I'd be for
it if I had the private key of that chip.

3\. So a computer that doesn't follow the user's requirements... what does
that look like? It looks like a Tivo, iPhone, some Androids, Windows 10, and
other locked down hardware. Yes, you may have bought it, but you don't own it.
Worse yet, is instead of DRM, is that subroutines come from "the cloud" (AKA
someone else's server), and streamed to the device when requested. Google shut
down a platform for precisely that reason; they deactivated the API servers.

What's the way out? Free Software is a big way out, but so is Open Protocols,
and Open Standards. You have a business for IoT (example)? Use MQTT/CoAP and
talk via the standards and make it pretty. But also make it so I can close up
shop and go elsewhere if you alienate me. Right now, that's the lockin
comparable to DRM.

~~~
khedoros
Part of the difference in our perspectives is that I don't think I should
_need_ to do any low-level manipulation to get software working the way that I
want. It's easier to keep my computer doing what I want it to by altogether
avoiding software that wants to claim ownership of the hardware.

I don't have control over what kinds of garbage someone else puts into their
program, but I have control over whether or not I run that on my computer.
_Technically_ I have the ability to view memory, run it in a debugger, put in
shim libraries to capture data, etc, but in most cases where control is a real
issue, it's easier to just avoid the troublesome software in favor of an
alternative.

------
anotherevan
Very first sentence of the article has an error: "Everybody knows that the
digital locks of DRM on the digital media you own is a big problem."

If it has DRM, you don't own it, you are leasing it.

Agree or not with the use of DRM, I object to buttons that say "Buy Now"
instead of "Lease Now" on web-sites.

------
Endy
Whenever anyone discusses this topic, to shut down anyone who is strongly
against copyright, they come up with "Oh, I don't see a way the artists get
compensated." Maybe that's right. Maybe art needs to lead the way toward a
sharing style pay-what-you-want economy.

------
yuhong
I wonder what would happen to record companies if DAT tape existed in the
1970s (before they really consolidated).

~~~
vibrolax
Well we do know what happened when DAT was introduced in 1987: nothing. DAT
was rejected as a consumer audio format. One reason often cited for the
rejection was the inclusion of DRM features (called SCMS, or Serial Copy
Management System) for pre-recorded content. The subsequent Mini-Disc format
was also rejected outside Sony's home country market, largely for the same
reasons

~~~
yuhong
Yes, I know the history and how SCMS got created. The point is that there was
a lot of consolidation of the record industry back in the 1970s and 1980s.

------
stcredzero
This won't be a very popular position, especially here, considering the high
population of tech people and those who might be running servers this might
affect, but I think it's important for people to realize that the simplistic
"DRM is Evil" position is misguided.

Imagine an alternate universe where government and huge corporations started
using data encryption on its records in the 80's, as a way of defeating the
FOIA and other demands for transparency. There is a public hue and cry, and
with righteous indignation, people start thinking of "encryption as evil." To
help prevent the repeat of such high profile abuses by large organizations,
people work to ban data encryption.

That's not how history played out, however. In real life in the 90's, due to
the PC revolution, ordinary people outside of academia started to become aware
of the potential benefits of encryption over computer networks. There is a
fundamental asymmetry of power between large institutions and individuals.
What is a public good in the hands of the public can be horrible when it
allows organizations to exercise dangerous degrees of centralized control. So
it is with DRM. DRM restricting access by individuals to the software we
fairly bought and to our shared cultural experiences is horrible. However, DRM
protecting individual data against the depredations of companies and other
institutions would be a tremendous pubic good.

Imagine a world where companies could no longer say about your personal data,
"It got out somehow. Who knows? There's nothing anyone can do about that sort
of thing. Privacy is dead." DRM won't be foolproof. Nothing like that can be.
(Which is precisely why it's unsuitable for centralized control, in a
particular way that it causes lobbying money to request stupid legislation.)
However, it will greatly increase the cost and legal risk of companies doing
bad things with our personal data. The same asymmetry that makes DRM horrible
makes it absolutely wonderful when you reverse it by 180 degrees! That
asymmetry is this: Any given company, no matter how large, can't ever match
the level of knowledge and man-hours that can be mustered by the internet at
large. This precise economic asymmetry that makes DRM an unworkable idea that
incentivizes oppression also makes DRM the perfect tool for helping the public
to keep large organizations in line. One whistle-blower, one hacker's
discovery, and that errant company can be prosecuted under the DMCA. (1)

Why aren't we requiring companies that handle vast amounts of private data to
use DRM -- Digital Rights Management -- to protect the rights of _individual
human beings?_ After all, the rights of individual _Homo sapiens_ should be
the priority.

(1) -- Occasionally, some people will have their information breached, and
their information could be disseminated beyond control. However, the bulk of
the populace would still be protected.

~~~
icebraining
The term DRM refers specifically to the technologies built to restrict usage
of proprietary hardware and copyrighted works. Access control to data (even
enforced by encryption) already existed, and it's pernicious to whitewash DRM
by expanding its definition.

~~~
stcredzero
This is the typical incorrect common-knowledge story. If you look at the
papers from which DRM came, it's obvious that it wasn't solely aimed at
copyright and didn't require proprietary hardware. The term is general, as are
the concepts behind it.

It's not that I'm expanding the definition. It's that an uninformed public has
narrowed it, much as happened with "meme."

~~~
icebraining
Can you please provide a reference of these papers? I've made some searches
before posting previously and everything I found (search for writings from the
90s) corroborated my understanding of its origins.

------
tacos
There remain significant markets where DRM improves ROI. There are countless
others where it doesn't and the people involved are too stupid to see the
writing on the wall. Regardless of the end game, the people playing the DRM
game are making more money in a day than the EFF raises in a year.

------
6stringmerc
> _But while it may not be as intuitive yet, DRM on digital media that you
> don’t own is also a major threat._

Yeah, and what this article completely glosses over is that as the creator of
*.mp3s by 6StringMercenary, I own the digital media, by law[1], and I should
have a say in how it's distributed, copied, or exploited, legally speaking. In
a lot of cases, the music that's being "purchased" has never been owned by the
person holding the LP, the cassette or the CD. They own a licensed copy.
There's a fundamental, important difference.

This article does absolutely nothing to rectify that the internet doesn't
automatically own my creations as soon as I put them out there. I'm allowed
control, legally, and I don't think it's fair - appropriate, moral, or ethical
- to try and strip those rights away from me. Nowhere is this even touched
upon as a parameter of this "NO DRM EVER" postulation.

Just because the EFF thinks its business model of begging for money is a good
one doesn't mean other pariticipants in society and commerce feel the model is
appropriate for other endeavors. I get they have a mission, and at times we
see eye to eye. Other times, like this one, I think they're woefully un-
prepared for the implication of the position they espouse to take.

[1] This does not include unlicensed remix projects, works-for-hire, or other
nuanced undertakings outside the scope of this discussion

~~~
acabal
Copyright grants you _some_ protection, but consumers _also_ have rights. In
your world where you have ultimate and complete control over the distribution
and use of your work, _my_ rights to fair use would be trampled, for example--
and I don't like my rights being trampled any more than you like yours.

It's not so black or white, and DRM, which prevents my own computer from doing
as I've instructed, is most certainly on the worse extreme end of the
spectrum.

~~~
6stringmerc
Actually, your statement about "your right" to fair use being trampled is
total garbage - I was referring to technology's ability for ease of mis-use
and un-approved appropriation of one's work. As in, using a lifted track as a
music backing for a video. Fair Use is a limited scope, and one of the most
often abused and totally mis-understood flags waved by people who wrongly
believe it washes away a host of rights by creators. Newsflash: It don't.

Fundamentally speaking, YouTube's ContentID matching system is a form of DRM
and I'd really, really like to see your argument of why it should not be
allowed.

You're right, it's not so black and white, and arguing with me about Fair Use
will get you nowhere. I'm an advocate of Fair Use and the four factors. An
educator by training and have spent time in the profession. You're being
disingenuous bringing it up in a strictly commercial dialogue, and it just
shows you have a perverted sense of priorities because you can't actually
address the issue I brought at first:

Can the EFF present a viable alternative before simply tearing down an
imperfect system?

So far, they can't, you can't, and I think it's going to take a lot more than
just 10 years on the subject to get it figured out.

~~~
icebraining
The point is that DRM can't distinguish from "using a lifted track as a music
backing for a video" and legitimate fair use. And I don't see how we're "in a
strictly commercial dialogue", so your accusation is unjustified.

As for a "viable alternative", the single most profitable online store sells
DRM-free music. How can you argue that's not _viable_?

