4 ms·

I'm with you except the very last assertion: > Again, users don't care about DRM. Because they don't understand it. If they did, they would reject DRM-enabled

I'm with you except the very last assertion: > Again, users don't care about DRM. Because they don't understand it. If they did, they would reject DRM-enabled products. I understand DRM in great detail (as CTO of a streaming film company), and though I would in principal like to reject it, I have no basis to do so except illegal piracy. Theoretically if all the customers stood up and boycotted DRM we could have an effect, but in practice that would mean not being able to see the latest premium content for some period of time. Are people really going to give up their Game of Thrones to strong arm the industry? I can't foresee any universe where that would happen regardless of the users' understanding and savviness. edit: it's amazing how this provokes a flurry of replies, none of which address my point at all. I am not making any positive claims about DRM. I am simply asking: how are you going to mobilize customers to boycott DRM?

StavrosK 10y ago
> I have no basis to do so except illegal piracy Why? Pirates are the only ones who aren't affected by DRM. That's why I torrent Netflix shows even while paying for Netflix. I can play them anywhere, even without a net connection.
vetinari 10y ago
I would turn the question the other way: are movie publishers going to give up the distribution over internet / playback on anything connected to the internet? I very much doubt it. They are never going back to physical discs and require their customers to drive to shop and buy a physical copy. Heck, right now companies like Netflix fight hard in order to be able to be present in the web browser. On the other hand, I see adapting a so keep your Game of Thrones for yourself attitude somewhat more realistic. There are already people like that.
eli_gottlieb 10y ago
As a user I've got an objection to DRM: it restricts me from using products that were already legally bought-and-paid-for. I bought a Blu-Ray drive for my media computer. My friend brought over a Blu-Ray copy of "The Social Network". It turned out that we could not play the film in the drive without paying an additional fee for a proprietary, DRM-enabled Blu-Ray video player application. This is particularly bullshit because I paid for the hardware. They could have just built the appropriate crypto keys into there. Hell, they could have built a whole update-and-revocation scheme into the drive's firmware, something that much smaller and weaker devices than Blu-Ray drives can still afford in their electronics and firmware. They could have built it all so that buying the hardware would enable me to play the media, no further questions asked. They did not need to sell me a piece of hardware that is outright unusable for its intended purpose without further payment for proprietary software whose primary job is just to license the appropriate crypto keys.
- 794CD01 10y ago
  There's nothing wrong with selling hardware and software separately. This is the kind of laziness that gave Windows a desktop monopoly.
  - AnthonyMouse 10y ago
    There's nothing wrong with software competition, but that's not what this is. Otherwise you would be able to get software that does that under a free software license.
    - 794CD01 10y ago
      Depends on what kind of software you want to buy. I can buy a computer without an operating system. I can then buy an OS separately. If I want to use that OS to run a web browser, I have many options. If I want to use that OS to run the new Tomb Raider game, which is published by Microsoft, I must buy Windows.
      - AnthonyMouse 10y ago
        But then in your example there isn't software competition. And there is no law prohibiting anyone from publishing free software that could run the game, unlike in the DRM case.
        794CD01 10y ago
        There is software competition to perform basic functions. There is not software competition for some more specialized cases because one competitor is far superior to the others.
  - eli_gottlieb 10y ago
    There's everything wrong with selling hardware that cannot work for its intended purpose without additional proprietary, for-profit software. Would you buy a car if you had to pay again to receive a steering wheel, a transmission, or a key? No. Or to take an analogy closer to home, NVIDIA and ATI both sell graphics cards. They also both distribute proprietary device drivers as binary blobs. They do not charge money for the binary blobs on top of what they already charged for the card itself. Nobody has to give anything away for free, but charging twice to use one piece of hardware for its intended purpose oughtn't be allowed.
legulere 10y ago
DRM doesn't prevent privacy, it only professionalizes it. At some point the data is decrypted and crackers will take the data from there. You can only make copying harder, but not impossible. Pretty soon after release everything lands on the pirate bay. The only people that are hindered are legitimate costumers. The playback might not work, because the monitor/projector because it doesn't support HDCP. With movies on Blurays they can't make copies for backups/to play the movie without a disc spinning/to play the movie on a device without a bluray drive. My sister cuts music pieces together for dancing, you can't do that with drm'd music. Pirating media often is hassle-free compared to the legal way. The problem for customers is that compared to buying analog media or digital media without DRM you are restricted to simple playback and also in certified settings (certain programs, devices etc.). With streamed media the issue is not as bad, as you can compare it more to renting, but there are also issues (e.g. I need crappy silverlight to use amazon prime video in Safari). My hope is that movie and series content owners will wake up the same way as music studios and book publishers. Selling music without DRM didn't hurt the music industry. Selling ebooks only with DRM led to the strong market position of Amazon with the Kindle.
- tremon 10y ago
  The only people that are hindered are legitimate costumers. No, also third parties that have nothing to do with the content industry. At work, we have massive 60" touchscreen in all our conference rooms, and we use them daily for presentations/meetings. Those presentations are regularly interrupted by 20 seconds of black screen. The problem? HDCP handshake incompatibility between the newest batch of laptops and the TVs.
AnthonyMouse 10y ago
> Theoretically if all the customers stood up and boycotted DRM we could have an effect, but in practice that would mean not being able to see the latest premium content for some period of time. Are people really going to give up their Game of Thrones to strong arm the industry? Ordinary people aren't organized. They won't suddenly all stand up and sign some kind of petition. What they're going to do -- what they are doing -- is that when DRM sucks, they go watch cat videos or argue with people on the internet instead of watching your content, and that money disappears out of your pocket.

StavrosK 10y ago

> I have no basis to do so except illegal piracy Why? Pirates are the only ones who aren't affected by DRM. That's why I torrent Netflix shows even while paying for Netflix. I can play them anywhere, even without a net connection.

vetinari 10y ago

I would turn the question the other way: are movie publishers going to give up the distribution over internet / playback on anything connected to the internet? I very much doubt it. They are never going back to physical discs and require their customers to drive to shop and buy a physical copy. Heck, right now companies like Netflix fight hard in order to be able to be present in the web browser. On the other hand, I see adapting a so keep your Game of Thrones for yourself attitude somewhat more realistic. There are already people like that.

eli_gottlieb 10y ago

As a user I've got an objection to DRM: it restricts me from using products that were already legally bought-and-paid-for. I bought a Blu-Ray drive for my media computer. My friend brought over a Blu-Ray copy of "The Social Network". It turned out that we could not play the film in the drive without paying an additional fee for a proprietary, DRM-enabled Blu-Ray video player application. This is particularly bullshit because I paid for the hardware. They could have just built the appropriate crypto keys into there. Hell, they could have built a whole update-and-revocation scheme into the drive's firmware, something that much smaller and weaker devices than Blu-Ray drives can still afford in their electronics and firmware. They could have built it all so that buying the hardware would enable me to play the media, no further questions asked. They did not need to sell me a piece of hardware that is outright unusable for its intended purpose without further payment for proprietary software whose primary job is just to license the appropriate crypto keys.

794CD01 10y ago
There's nothing wrong with selling hardware and software separately. This is the kind of laziness that gave Windows a desktop monopoly.
- AnthonyMouse 10y ago
  There's nothing wrong with software competition, but that's not what this is. Otherwise you would be able to get software that does that under a free software license.
  - 794CD01 10y ago
    Depends on what kind of software you want to buy. I can buy a computer without an operating system. I can then buy an OS separately. If I want to use that OS to run a web browser, I have many options. If I want to use that OS to run the new Tomb Raider game, which is published by Microsoft, I must buy Windows.
    - AnthonyMouse 10y ago
      But then in your example there isn't software competition. And there is no law prohibiting anyone from publishing free software that could run the game, unlike in the DRM case.
      - 794CD01 10y ago
        There is software competition to perform basic functions. There is not software competition for some more specialized cases because one competitor is far superior to the others.
- eli_gottlieb 10y ago
  There's everything wrong with selling hardware that cannot work for its intended purpose without additional proprietary, for-profit software. Would you buy a car if you had to pay again to receive a steering wheel, a transmission, or a key? No. Or to take an analogy closer to home, NVIDIA and ATI both sell graphics cards. They also both distribute proprietary device drivers as binary blobs. They do not charge money for the binary blobs on top of what they already charged for the card itself. Nobody has to give anything away for free, but charging twice to use one piece of hardware for its intended purpose oughtn't be allowed.

legulere 10y ago

DRM doesn't prevent privacy, it only professionalizes it. At some point the data is decrypted and crackers will take the data from there. You can only make copying harder, but not impossible. Pretty soon after release everything lands on the pirate bay. The only people that are hindered are legitimate costumers. The playback might not work, because the monitor/projector because it doesn't support HDCP. With movies on Blurays they can't make copies for backups/to play the movie without a disc spinning/to play the movie on a device without a bluray drive. My sister cuts music pieces together for dancing, you can't do that with drm'd music. Pirating media often is hassle-free compared to the legal way. The problem for customers is that compared to buying analog media or digital media without DRM you are restricted to simple playback and also in certified settings (certain programs, devices etc.). With streamed media the issue is not as bad, as you can compare it more to renting, but there are also issues (e.g. I need crappy silverlight to use amazon prime video in Safari). My hope is that movie and series content owners will wake up the same way as music studios and book publishers. Selling music without DRM didn't hurt the music industry. Selling ebooks only with DRM led to the strong market position of Amazon with the Kindle.

tremon 10y ago
The only people that are hindered are legitimate costumers. No, also third parties that have nothing to do with the content industry. At work, we have massive 60" touchscreen in all our conference rooms, and we use them daily for presentations/meetings. Those presentations are regularly interrupted by 20 seconds of black screen. The problem? HDCP handshake incompatibility between the newest batch of laptops and the TVs.

AnthonyMouse 10y ago

> Theoretically if all the customers stood up and boycotted DRM we could have an effect, but in practice that would mean not being able to see the latest premium content for some period of time. Are people really going to give up their Game of Thrones to strong arm the industry? Ordinary people aren't organized. They won't suddenly all stand up and sign some kind of petition. What they're going to do -- what they are doing -- is that when DRM sucks, they go watch cat videos or argue with people on the internet instead of watching your content, and that money disappears out of your pocket.