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> set up their own redistribution channels and steal your customers and your revenues. And DRM prevents that how exactly? > A third lesson you will learn is t

> set up their own redistribution channels and steal your customers and your revenues. And DRM prevents that how exactly? > A third lesson you will learn is that a lot of people may quite innocently assume that if they can do something then it's allowed I would take this as a hint that it probably should be allowed then. If lots of people innocently assume that something is perfectly legal, the way of tyranny is to build a police state, the way of democracy is to make it legal.

Silhouette 9y ago
And DRM prevents that how exactly? It depends on the form of DRM and its effects. One practical scenario is that most of the revenue from a new work may be generated in the early days. This is often the case with things like computer games, pop music, and big ticket movies. If DRM delays those trying to set up copycat channels, even by a few days or weeks, much of that revenue may already have been collected. Another is that fingerprinting techniques may allow for things like automatic takedowns on the major hosting services, or identification of the source of a major leak so full legal action can be taken against the right targets. I would take this as a hint that it probably should be allowed then. It's not that simple. To give an obvious example that upset a lot of people, Google added a video download icon in Chrome a few months ago, right there in the controls alongside changing the volume and so on. A lot of people running small web sites that provided video content saw a spike in people who were sharing that content in violation of their terms, and it turned out that many people assumed the download button was a new feature on the site without realising that it was Chrome that had changed. This caused big problems for web developers working in this area, and a lot of complaints to Google about actively encouraging people to violate copyrights. And simply changing the way videos were served so Chrome couldn't provide that facility in the same way then fixed the problem again. If lots of people innocently assume that something is perfectly legal, the way of tyranny is to build a police state, the way of democracy is to make it legal. Democracy only works when the population is properly informed and understands the implications. That's hardly the case in the sort of situation I mentioned above.
- zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 9y ago
  > Democracy only works when the population is properly informed and understands the implications. That's hardly the case in the sort of situation I mentioned above. And so we install draconian enforcement technology in everyone's home ... in order to make people more informed on the issue?
  - Silhouette 9y ago
    Who said anything about draconian measures? Most modern DRM is almost completely transparent to legitimate users, particularly the technologies used with rental models rather than permanent purchases (where as I've said elsewhere I think both the ethics and practicalities are somewhat different). It's easy to snipe from the cheap seats, so let me ask you some questions now instead. Do you believe that financial models other than a complete, permanent purchase of a copy of a work are useful? And if so, how would you propose to set up a realistic rental/library/PPV scheme for digital content without relying on anything that could be called DRM?
    - zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 9y ago
      > Who said anything about draconian measures? DRM is a draconian measure, by necessity. > Most modern DRM is almost completely transparent to legitimate users What do you mean by that and how is it relevant? > Do you believe that financial models other than a complete, permanent purchase of a copy of a work are useful? Maybe. > And if so, how would you propose to set up a realistic rental/library/PPV scheme for digital content without relying on anything that could be called DRM? By just leaving out the DRM?
      - Silhouette 9y ago
        By just leaving out the DRM? I once thought as you do. Then I ran a business that invested significant money, some of it my own, in making original content. We really tried to avoid going down the DRM path, because I didn't like the idea of risking inconveniencing any legitimate customers. Today, in light of the experience doing that, I am much, much less sympathetic to claims that DRM doesn't do anything or should be abolished or whatever. The degree to which some people will just blatantly rip you off and even lie to your face about it afterwards is staggering. The arguments that if people are going to copy your stuff then they're going to get it somewhere else anyway so taking steps to make it harder have no benefits are simply wrong. There is nothing hypothetical about this. It is not conjecture or thought experiment. It is based on cold, hard data and experience with real money at risk. Incidentally, in the entire history of that business, as far as I'm aware we've never received a single complaint from a legitimate user that any of our safeguards was interfering with their normal enjoyment of the content. There have been one or two cases we couldn't absolutely prove but were pretty sure about, and otherwise basically 100% of people who complained about not being able to do something turned out to be trying to violate our terms and getting upset when our safeguards stopped them. BTW, in case you think we're just being paranoid, we have literally had people asking us why they couldn't access our material with well-known ripping software, to give one example of how blatant the abuse can be.

Silhouette 9y ago

And DRM prevents that how exactly? It depends on the form of DRM and its effects. One practical scenario is that most of the revenue from a new work may be generated in the early days. This is often the case with things like computer games, pop music, and big ticket movies. If DRM delays those trying to set up copycat channels, even by a few days or weeks, much of that revenue may already have been collected. Another is that fingerprinting techniques may allow for things like automatic takedowns on the major hosting services, or identification of the source of a major leak so full legal action can be taken against the right targets. I would take this as a hint that it probably should be allowed then. It's not that simple. To give an obvious example that upset a lot of people, Google added a video download icon in Chrome a few months ago, right there in the controls alongside changing the volume and so on. A lot of people running small web sites that provided video content saw a spike in people who were sharing that content in violation of their terms, and it turned out that many people assumed the download button was a new feature on the site without realising that it was Chrome that had changed. This caused big problems for web developers working in this area, and a lot of complaints to Google about actively encouraging people to violate copyrights. And simply changing the way videos were served so Chrome couldn't provide that facility in the same way then fixed the problem again. If lots of people innocently assume that something is perfectly legal, the way of tyranny is to build a police state, the way of democracy is to make it legal. Democracy only works when the population is properly informed and understands the implications. That's hardly the case in the sort of situation I mentioned above.

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 9y ago
> Democracy only works when the population is properly informed and understands the implications. That's hardly the case in the sort of situation I mentioned above. And so we install draconian enforcement technology in everyone's home ... in order to make people more informed on the issue?
- Silhouette 9y ago
  Who said anything about draconian measures? Most modern DRM is almost completely transparent to legitimate users, particularly the technologies used with rental models rather than permanent purchases (where as I've said elsewhere I think both the ethics and practicalities are somewhat different). It's easy to snipe from the cheap seats, so let me ask you some questions now instead. Do you believe that financial models other than a complete, permanent purchase of a copy of a work are useful? And if so, how would you propose to set up a realistic rental/library/PPV scheme for digital content without relying on anything that could be called DRM?
  - zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 9y ago
    > Who said anything about draconian measures? DRM is a draconian measure, by necessity. > Most modern DRM is almost completely transparent to legitimate users What do you mean by that and how is it relevant? > Do you believe that financial models other than a complete, permanent purchase of a copy of a work are useful? Maybe. > And if so, how would you propose to set up a realistic rental/library/PPV scheme for digital content without relying on anything that could be called DRM? By just leaving out the DRM?
    - Silhouette 9y ago
      By just leaving out the DRM? I once thought as you do. Then I ran a business that invested significant money, some of it my own, in making original content. We really tried to avoid going down the DRM path, because I didn't like the idea of risking inconveniencing any legitimate customers. Today, in light of the experience doing that, I am much, much less sympathetic to claims that DRM doesn't do anything or should be abolished or whatever. The degree to which some people will just blatantly rip you off and even lie to your face about it afterwards is staggering. The arguments that if people are going to copy your stuff then they're going to get it somewhere else anyway so taking steps to make it harder have no benefits are simply wrong. There is nothing hypothetical about this. It is not conjecture or thought experiment. It is based on cold, hard data and experience with real money at risk. Incidentally, in the entire history of that business, as far as I'm aware we've never received a single complaint from a legitimate user that any of our safeguards was interfering with their normal enjoyment of the content. There have been one or two cases we couldn't absolutely prove but were pretty sure about, and otherwise basically 100% of people who complained about not being able to do something turned out to be trying to violate our terms and getting upset when our safeguards stopped them. BTW, in case you think we're just being paranoid, we have literally had people asking us why they couldn't access our material with well-known ripping software, to give one example of how blatant the abuse can be.