I don't think it's bringing up intellectual property is all that useful when talking about DRM.
DRM is a technological means to enforce private control independent of the (limited) legal monopoly from copyright.
It's legally enforced by the DMCA (in the US) and similar laws in other countries, which "criminalizes the act of circumventing an access control, whether or not there is actual infringement of copyright itself" (quoting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_A...).
If copyright were to disappear tomorrow, there would still be DRM.
> Laissez faire capitalists still want a government
No, not as a rule, they don't.
Some may, but even those must be against government interference in the market, as that's the definition of laissez faire. The only relevant dividing point is if they regard "IP" as a valid form of property.
"Advocates of laissez-faire capitalism argue that it relies on a constitutionally limited government that unconditionally bans the initiation of force and coercion, including fraud."
with an example:
"A more recent advocate of total laissez-faire has been Objectivist Ayn Rand, ... Rand believed that natural rights should be enforced by a constitutionally limited government."
More historically:
"The Physiocrats proclaimed laissez-faire in 18th-century France ... they advised the state to restrict itself to upholding the rights of private property and individual liberty, ..."
"Gournay held that government should allow the laws of nature to govern economic activity, with the state only intervening to protect life, liberty and property. ..."
"To the vast majority of American classical liberals, however, laissez-faire did not mean "no government intervention" at all. On the contrary, they were more than willing to see government provide tariffs, railroad subsidies, and internal improvements, all of which benefited producers". ..."
Getting rid of government but keeping capitalism would be more like anarcho-capitalism, not laissez-faire capitalism.
My observation is that DRM is essentially independent of copyright or intellectual property, so bringing up the existence of that dividing point really doesn't matter.
> the large majority of laissez-faire capitalists still want a government
That may be true, but even a majority doesn't make it true that "Laissez faire capitalists still want a government". You'd have to prepend a "most".
> anarcho-capitalism, not laissez-faire capitalism
All anarcho-capitalists are laissez-faire capitalists, only not all laissez-faire capitalists are anarcho-capitalists.
> My observation is that DRM is essentially independent of copyright or intellectual property
You say "DRM is a technological means to enforce private control independent of the (limited) legal monopoly from copyright. It's legally enforced by the DMCA".
I say "Without government force to back it up, who would care?". The DMCA - Digital Millenium Copyright Act - is a market intervention designed to produce artificial scarcity where naturally there would be none, in order to generate money for government cronies.
I don't care about that level of penny-ante pedantry. That's turns every forum into hyper-correctionalist tedium.
As I already quoted, the DMCA DRM clause holds even when there is no copyright infringement. Pointing to the title of the act as evidence is like saying the Democratic People's Republic of Korea is a democracy because it has "Democratic" in the name.
> designed to produce artificial scarcity where naturally there would be none
Sure, absolutely. But it isn't due to intellectual property.
We have an artificial scarcity of nuclear weapons too. Just not due to intellectual property laws.
> I don't care about that level of penny-ante pedantry. That's turns every forum into hyper-correctionalist tedium.
And I don't care for sloppy thinking. It leads to all kinds of bad conclusions.
> As I already quoted, the DMCA DRM clause holds even when there is no copyright infringement.
The reason for this is still to protect copyright. Only because the law is so intrusive as to criminalise the step preceding a potential copyright infringement does not change that that is the rationale behind it! [1] [2]
The goal is to simplify enforcement for copyright holders. That under the DMCA, copyright owners do not need to prove that actual infringement occurred, but only need to demonstrate that circumvention of access controls took place, lowers the burden of proof for copyright owners and allows them to take action more swiftly against potential copyright violations. [3]
"If someone breaks the technologies used to protect against copyright infringement the copyright owner need not prove that an infringement took place; all the owner needs to prove is that a violation of the Anti-Circumvention provisions occurred".
> We have an artificial scarcity of nuclear weapons too. Just not due to intellectual property laws.
My point is that DRM is still not intellectual property.
The DMCA prohibits circumvention of DRM, even when there is no copyright infringement.
It's illegal for an author of a story who still holds the copyright to it, to download a DRM'ed version of the story and then break the DRM.
It's illegal to circumvent DRM to unlock works in the public domain.
The Unlocking Technology Act of 2013 was meant "require the infringement of a copyright for a violation" when circumventing DRM, but it and others like it never passed.
Yes, DRM is used as a technological means to enforce intellectual property rights, but get rid of property rights completely and it will still be illegal to circumvent DRM.
DRM is a technological means to enforce private control independent of the (limited) legal monopoly from copyright.
It's legally enforced by the DMCA (in the US) and similar laws in other countries, which "criminalizes the act of circumventing an access control, whether or not there is actual infringement of copyright itself" (quoting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_A...).
If copyright were to disappear tomorrow, there would still be DRM.