
“DRM is Used to Lock in, Control and Spy on Users” - cheiVia0
https://torrentfreak.com/drm-is-used-to-lock-in-control-and-spy-on-users-161108/
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eveningcoffee
Interestingly copyright industry has grown to be one of the greatest enemies
of the democracy and freedom of speech.

I think that the shame is shared though as too many people started to
disrespect the right of the authors to get a fair share for their work.

It still does not follow that we should prefer rights of the authors over more
general civil rights.

If the choice is between authors not getting paid and freedom of expression,
or any other more important right, we should choose the last.

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syshum
>>disrespect the right of the authors to get a fair share for their work.

Because there is no right or "fair share".

Creators have only the right to ask for money for their works, they have no
right to compensation at all.

Further from an American Legal perspective there is no "choice is between
authors not getting paid and freedom of expression" the constitutional reason
for copyright, patent and trademark is to promote free expression. That is the
sole reason the government was empowered to create copyright law in the first
place. to the extent that copyright becomes detrimental to free expression it
becomes unconstitutional

Copyright does not exist to protect the profitability of Disney no matter how
much their lobbyist believe that it does

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cheiVia0
Have there been any challenges to copyright on constitutional grounds?

If not, at what point might that happen?

~~~
thoughtsimple
Copyright and patents are written into the US Constitution. The wording allows
congress to pass laws granting for a limited time exclusive access to their
creators. The Supreme Court of the US has held that congress can declare any
duration as limited as long as it is not literally forever. There is nothing
unconstitutional about copyright law.

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shmerl
Indeed it is. But somehow the push to reform DMCA and repeal 1201 isn't strong
enough. Why would anyone sensible (besides corrupted control freaks who
designed that) not stand against this garbage?

~~~
criddell
I think their argument would be stronger if DRM opponents were more specific
when talking about harms.

For example, DRM is used to spy on users. The article notes that DRM'd
software can maintain a connection with a server and user actions are reported
and recorded on the server. They need to go one step further and explain why
this is bad and list some of the real damage that has caused.

If they don't, it sounds more hypothetical and people just aren't going to get
all that bothered by it.

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cowardlydragon
So many legal lawyers here.

If the numerical representation of content can be arbitrarily shifted via
encoding, encryption, or masking, how can anything be copyrightable?

DRM itself encrypts and morphs the numerical representation, thus obscuring
its precise identification.

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marmshallow
The numerical representation of the content is not what's in question. It's
the user-perceived content.

Let's say you take the contents of a book, add an extra space between some
words, then compress/hash the new contents. The numerical representation could
be completely different, but the user-perceived content is the same.

Sorry to get all legally lawful on over your ass, but the law of the land (and
common sense) dictates that the new contents are still the works of the
original author even though the numerical representation is completely
different.

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Fifer82
Can't argue with my friend. "If DRM then Warez".

