8 ms·

I'd say DRM works really well for some definition of "works". It certainly doesn't make it impossible to pirate anything, but the technology and the laws make i

I'd say DRM works really well for some definition of "works". It certainly doesn't make it impossible to pirate anything, but the technology and the laws make it difficult enough that I rarely bother anymore and just pay for Hulu, Netflix, etc. I don't think they're attempting to stifle competition, and if so they sure are not succeeding at that because there are new streaming services all the time. It's so they can prevent a commercially viable piracy business.

weeksie 9y ago
Yeah, this right here. DRM might be technically impossible to get 100% right but you don't have to get it 100% right if you have regulation to back it up. The alternative is that there is no way to protect IP on the web, which means that there is no incentive to transmit IP over the web which takes a shitload of value off the table. These anti-DRM arguments smack of blind ideology.
- esigs 9y ago
  "But if someone goes around your DRM and doesn't violate any other laws, the non-aggression pact means that you couldn't use the W3C standardised DRM as a route to legally shut them down. That would protect security researchers, it would protect people analyzing video to add subtitles and other assistive features, it would protect archivists who had the legal right to make copies, and it would protect people making new browsers." This is a major part of the argument being made here and helps to close the gap between blind ideology and serious issue.
  - weeksie 9y ago
    That's a perfectly reasonable point (which I agree with). It's naive to dismiss the concerns of content creators out of hand, but surely there's a middle ground we could get to legally over what constitutes fair use (or fair cracking?) when it comes to DRM.
    - esigs 9y ago
      Agreed. I think what the EFF is saying her though is that the claimed protections for content creators is just a cover for anti competitive behavior. If they would agree to only enforce DRM/DMCA laws on people abusing copyright laws it would be easier to get behind it. Unfortunately, we have no protections on one side, and anti competitive shinanigans on the other.
- wolco 9y ago
  IP delivered in other forms will be converted to online by smaller players if that activity was legal. We would see more content not less.
- simion314 9y ago
  IT is ideology, you should check the gog.com entry in wikipedia, DRM does not work, the movies and games still get cracked so what DRM gives the users? DRMed games are slower, cause issues for legitimate customers, add the risk that in future the game will stop working and it will be illegal to patch or mod it. For video it adds hardware requirements like I must buy a new CPU from Intel. There is no benefit for the users, content is still easy to pirate. the only advantage is that they can now use the law to cause problems for people that want to use their legitimate copy as they want and for software maybe they want to also modify it(If I bought this game it should not be illegal for me to mess about install a mod or fix a crash)
  - weeksie 9y ago
    Nobody said they don't get cracked but it's far easier to pay $10/month for a Netflix subscription than it is to hunt down rips of everything on there. If there was no DRM you could just save the movie to your HD with little effort. Enough people pay for streaming services to make them a viable business model. That's all the empirical data you need to show that DRM does work for its indented purpose.
    - AnthonyMouse 9y ago
      > If there was no DRM you could just save the movie to your HD with little effort. ...after subscribing to the streaming service. At which point they have your money. And it's not like you can cancel your subscription after that because then you wouldn't get new content, which is the entire point of having a streaming service instead of watching the same pile of old DVDs you've had since 1998.
    - yorwba 9y ago
      I'm pretty sure people would pay for streaming services even if a DRM-free copy were easily available. Why? Because streaming a movie is no fun when the server can't deliver the necessary bandwidth. Maintaining an infrastructure that can handle streaming at the scale of Netflix costs money no pirate bay will ever be able to afford. So streaming services could still compete with the free offering based on quality of service.
- AnthonyMouse 9y ago
  > DRM might be technically impossible to get 100% right but you don't have to get it 100% right if you have regulation to back it up. You do if you don't want the material to show up on pirate sites, which is why they claim they want it. > The alternative is that there is no way to protect IP on the web Protect it from what? It can't be posting the material to pirate sites because it's already there. It can't be preventing users from making a fair use copy because that isn't a thing to legitimately want protection from.
- fragmede 9y ago
  There simply is no way to protect IP on the web, and refusing to understand that is burying-your-head-in-sand levels of myopia. If that takes "value" off the table, then it can come off the table, capitalism be damned. You can try and legislate DRM all you want, but like a law to make pi=3 or enacting laws to declare that water not be wet, it is the wrong thing to legislate.
api 9y ago
> It's so they can prevent a commercially viable piracy business. I think it's exactly this. They know they can't stop DIY hackers from pirating, but they can stop the next Napster.
- esigs 9y ago
  " -- all trace their success to business strategies that shocked and outraged established industry when they first emerged. Cable started as unlicensed businesses that retransmitted broadcasts and charged for it. Apple's dominance started with ripping CDs and ignoring the howls of the music industry (just as Firefox got where it is by blocking obnoxious ads and ignoring the web-publishers who lost millions as a result). Of course, Netflix's revolutionary red envelopes were treated as a form of theft." That's exactly the point of the article.
kalleboo 9y ago
Cheap and easy to use services work. I first check Hulu and Amazon video, if it's not on there I pirate it. I can't remember the last time I heard of anyone being burned legally for pirating, and torrents are not difficult to use. If you can't find a movie on hulu/Netflix/etc, do you then buy it on DVD?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- ctdonath 9y ago
  Rarely do I want to see a particular movie that's not included in a flat-fee or free service. Having saved enough from those cost-cutting measures, most of those few are available for $2-6 from Redbox, iTunes, or Amazon Video; as I'll pay that much for a cup of coffee, and far more often, the convenience of shelling out a few bucks far exceeds the benefits of relenting to the annoyance of pirating. For the very few movies I otherwise can't get free/cheap, I likely want them enough that actually buying at retail is satisfying. Torrents aren't difficult, but typically I'll burn more time trying to get what I want, uncorrupted, than my available time warrants. Legal burn is unlikely, but burned by bugs or malice is likely enough to waste time I could have spent just watching it via inexpensive legal sourcing. And then there's that little issue about ensuring content creators actually getting paid, so there is actually content worth consuming.
  - CaptSpify 9y ago
    > And then there's that little issue about ensuring content creators actually getting paid, so there is actually content worth consuming. This is something creators need to get better at. Creators need a "Pirated my media but want to make sure we still get paid? Click here!" button. I want to pay a lot of artists, but I also don't want them to think I want to pay for the DRM'd form.
    - ctdonath 9y ago
      No way their distribution contracts would allow that.
Freak_NL 9y ago
Does it though? Ten years ago it was trivial to surf to your local bay of pirates and get a copy of just about any popular film or series. This is still possible (hypothetically of course), but it takes a lot more effort (finding and joining trustworthy private trackers or setting up newsgroups), precaution (VPN, OPSEC), and diligence. But that's not because DRM works. Getting a digital copy of some bit of media is still trivial. Netflix forcing its DRM on its customers doesn't mean that you can't illegally download Stranger Things in excellent quality, and their DRM doesn't slow anyone dedicated to doing so down at all. In fact, Netflix could stream all their stuff without DRM, and nothing would change (with one exception I'll come to in a bit). What's made piracy harder is a combination of factors: * The legal way is often easier (just pay Netflix a small monthly sum and watch stuff) * The legal way suffices for a lot of people * Getting caught infringing copyright has serious consequences in many countries * Downloading files from shady sources puts your computer at risk (Windows in particular; e.g., ransomware) If Netflix turned off all their DRM tomorrow, then perhaps some pirates would have a slightly easier way to source their material, but otherwise nothing would change. Except that the end-user gets a better experience. At this moment Netflix is refusing to serve 1080p video content to anyone who uses a free operating system and free browser, because 'the DRM isn't good enough'. For 4k the rules are even more stringent; you need Microsoft Windows, Edge, and pre-approved trusted-platform capable hardware (which includes the monitor/TV). For the rest of us, Netflix and the major content studios begrudgingly allow us to watch 720p video on our way too open computers. This isn't about protecting the media streams from piracy, this is about making sure that the future of media consumption means consumers will run the media producers' software, using their rules, on hardware they control. We are not supposed to run our own HTPC, or do clever things with media we pay for (e.g., letting an algorithm watch ahead to warn the user of scenes with strobe light effects for epileptic patients, as the EFF mentions, or simply controlling a string of LED lights behind your screen for added effect, or downloading the streams to watch on holiday, or cut fragments out of a stream to use as samples in a lawful manner (e.g., a blog about films, or some cultural analysis), or …).
- annabellish 9y ago
  Huh? It's still trivial to pirate media. Grab a copy of the Tor browser, go to the same pirate bay you used ten years ago, download the same content you did then. Zero investment, it's just as straightforward. The legal options have improved, but the illegal ones are still there and just as good.
shmerl 9y ago
> I'd say DRM works really well for some definition of "works". Well, it works only for crooked purposes, and that's exactly the point EFF is making. DRM is therefore unacceptable, including in the context of the Internet. And you are still missing the point. DRM doesn't make any pirating difficult. All it does is giving power to undemocratically extend copyright law in arbitrary directions by slapping DRM on something, and saying that breaking that DRM is illegal. It's a power grab tool. Just take a look how this garbage was used to prevent users from switching mobile carriers, claiming that unlocking the mobile phone (i.e. breaking its DRM) is illegal.
pdpi 9y ago
You're on target, but I think you missed the bullseye by an inch. Netflix, Steam and Spotify made it incredibly convenient to obtain content legally and at a reasonable price. They removed most of the incentives for piracy. There was a surprisingly long period when piracy was hands down more convenient than buying stuff legally, and services like these were responsible for reversing that trend. More specifically, Spotify deserves a special mention, as it has been single-handedly responsible for massively changing my listening habits, because of the way the Daily Mix/Discover Weekly features keep pushing my boundaries. It gives me something valuable that I couldn't get otherwise.
white-flame 9y ago
DRM _technology_ isn't the problem at hand, and yes it does "work" to effectively keep honest people's behavior constrained to corporately approved actions. The real problem is DRM _law_, which is a gross overcriminalization of justifiably legal activity, like repairs, format shifting (both to and from DRM devices), security research, tinkering with your own possessions, etc. And on top of that, then demanding that all countries in the world follow suit.
minusSeven 9y ago
Thing is companies like Netflix want to believe people are paying for seeing content, while truth is most people are paying for convenience. This needs to be drilled down to them.

weeksie 9y ago

Yeah, this right here. DRM might be technically impossible to get 100% right but you don't have to get it 100% right if you have regulation to back it up. The alternative is that there is no way to protect IP on the web, which means that there is no incentive to transmit IP over the web which takes a shitload of value off the table. These anti-DRM arguments smack of blind ideology.

esigs 9y ago
"But if someone goes around your DRM and doesn't violate any other laws, the non-aggression pact means that you couldn't use the W3C standardised DRM as a route to legally shut them down. That would protect security researchers, it would protect people analyzing video to add subtitles and other assistive features, it would protect archivists who had the legal right to make copies, and it would protect people making new browsers." This is a major part of the argument being made here and helps to close the gap between blind ideology and serious issue.
- weeksie 9y ago
  That's a perfectly reasonable point (which I agree with). It's naive to dismiss the concerns of content creators out of hand, but surely there's a middle ground we could get to legally over what constitutes fair use (or fair cracking?) when it comes to DRM.
  - esigs 9y ago
    Agreed. I think what the EFF is saying her though is that the claimed protections for content creators is just a cover for anti competitive behavior. If they would agree to only enforce DRM/DMCA laws on people abusing copyright laws it would be easier to get behind it. Unfortunately, we have no protections on one side, and anti competitive shinanigans on the other.
wolco 9y ago
IP delivered in other forms will be converted to online by smaller players if that activity was legal. We would see more content not less.
simion314 9y ago
IT is ideology, you should check the gog.com entry in wikipedia, DRM does not work, the movies and games still get cracked so what DRM gives the users? DRMed games are slower, cause issues for legitimate customers, add the risk that in future the game will stop working and it will be illegal to patch or mod it. For video it adds hardware requirements like I must buy a new CPU from Intel. There is no benefit for the users, content is still easy to pirate. the only advantage is that they can now use the law to cause problems for people that want to use their legitimate copy as they want and for software maybe they want to also modify it(If I bought this game it should not be illegal for me to mess about install a mod or fix a crash)
- weeksie 9y ago
  Nobody said they don't get cracked but it's far easier to pay $10/month for a Netflix subscription than it is to hunt down rips of everything on there. If there was no DRM you could just save the movie to your HD with little effort. Enough people pay for streaming services to make them a viable business model. That's all the empirical data you need to show that DRM does work for its indented purpose.
  - AnthonyMouse 9y ago
    > If there was no DRM you could just save the movie to your HD with little effort. ...after subscribing to the streaming service. At which point they have your money. And it's not like you can cancel your subscription after that because then you wouldn't get new content, which is the entire point of having a streaming service instead of watching the same pile of old DVDs you've had since 1998.
  - yorwba 9y ago
    I'm pretty sure people would pay for streaming services even if a DRM-free copy were easily available. Why? Because streaming a movie is no fun when the server can't deliver the necessary bandwidth. Maintaining an infrastructure that can handle streaming at the scale of Netflix costs money no pirate bay will ever be able to afford. So streaming services could still compete with the free offering based on quality of service.
AnthonyMouse 9y ago
> DRM might be technically impossible to get 100% right but you don't have to get it 100% right if you have regulation to back it up. You do if you don't want the material to show up on pirate sites, which is why they claim they want it. > The alternative is that there is no way to protect IP on the web Protect it from what? It can't be posting the material to pirate sites because it's already there. It can't be preventing users from making a fair use copy because that isn't a thing to legitimately want protection from.
fragmede 9y ago
There simply is no way to protect IP on the web, and refusing to understand that is burying-your-head-in-sand levels of myopia. If that takes "value" off the table, then it can come off the table, capitalism be damned. You can try and legislate DRM all you want, but like a law to make pi=3 or enacting laws to declare that water not be wet, it is the wrong thing to legislate.

api 9y ago

> It's so they can prevent a commercially viable piracy business. I think it's exactly this. They know they can't stop DIY hackers from pirating, but they can stop the next Napster.

esigs 9y ago
" -- all trace their success to business strategies that shocked and outraged established industry when they first emerged. Cable started as unlicensed businesses that retransmitted broadcasts and charged for it. Apple's dominance started with ripping CDs and ignoring the howls of the music industry (just as Firefox got where it is by blocking obnoxious ads and ignoring the web-publishers who lost millions as a result). Of course, Netflix's revolutionary red envelopes were treated as a form of theft." That's exactly the point of the article.

kalleboo 9y ago

Cheap and easy to use services work. I first check Hulu and Amazon video, if it's not on there I pirate it. I can't remember the last time I heard of anyone being burned legally for pirating, and torrents are not difficult to use. If you can't find a movie on hulu/Netflix/etc, do you then buy it on DVD?

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
ctdonath 9y ago
Rarely do I want to see a particular movie that's not included in a flat-fee or free service. Having saved enough from those cost-cutting measures, most of those few are available for $2-6 from Redbox, iTunes, or Amazon Video; as I'll pay that much for a cup of coffee, and far more often, the convenience of shelling out a few bucks far exceeds the benefits of relenting to the annoyance of pirating. For the very few movies I otherwise can't get free/cheap, I likely want them enough that actually buying at retail is satisfying. Torrents aren't difficult, but typically I'll burn more time trying to get what I want, uncorrupted, than my available time warrants. Legal burn is unlikely, but burned by bugs or malice is likely enough to waste time I could have spent just watching it via inexpensive legal sourcing. And then there's that little issue about ensuring content creators actually getting paid, so there is actually content worth consuming.
- CaptSpify 9y ago
  > And then there's that little issue about ensuring content creators actually getting paid, so there is actually content worth consuming. This is something creators need to get better at. Creators need a "Pirated my media but want to make sure we still get paid? Click here!" button. I want to pay a lot of artists, but I also don't want them to think I want to pay for the DRM'd form.
  - ctdonath 9y ago
    No way their distribution contracts would allow that.

Freak_NL 9y ago

Does it though? Ten years ago it was trivial to surf to your local bay of pirates and get a copy of just about any popular film or series. This is still possible (hypothetically of course), but it takes a lot more effort (finding and joining trustworthy private trackers or setting up newsgroups), precaution (VPN, OPSEC), and diligence. But that's not because DRM works. Getting a digital copy of some bit of media is still trivial. Netflix forcing its DRM on its customers doesn't mean that you can't illegally download Stranger Things in excellent quality, and their DRM doesn't slow anyone dedicated to doing so down at all. In fact, Netflix could stream all their stuff without DRM, and nothing would change (with one exception I'll come to in a bit). What's made piracy harder is a combination of factors: * The legal way is often easier (just pay Netflix a small monthly sum and watch stuff) * The legal way suffices for a lot of people * Getting caught infringing copyright has serious consequences in many countries * Downloading files from shady sources puts your computer at risk (Windows in particular; e.g., ransomware) If Netflix turned off all their DRM tomorrow, then perhaps some pirates would have a slightly easier way to source their material, but otherwise nothing would change. Except that the end-user gets a better experience. At this moment Netflix is refusing to serve 1080p video content to anyone who uses a free operating system and free browser, because 'the DRM isn't good enough'. For 4k the rules are even more stringent; you need Microsoft Windows, Edge, and pre-approved trusted-platform capable hardware (which includes the monitor/TV). For the rest of us, Netflix and the major content studios begrudgingly allow us to watch 720p video on our way too open computers. This isn't about protecting the media streams from piracy, this is about making sure that the future of media consumption means consumers will run the media producers' software, using their rules, on hardware they control. We are not supposed to run our own HTPC, or do clever things with media we pay for (e.g., letting an algorithm watch ahead to warn the user of scenes with strobe light effects for epileptic patients, as the EFF mentions, or simply controlling a string of LED lights behind your screen for added effect, or downloading the streams to watch on holiday, or cut fragments out of a stream to use as samples in a lawful manner (e.g., a blog about films, or some cultural analysis), or …).

annabellish 9y ago
Huh? It's still trivial to pirate media. Grab a copy of the Tor browser, go to the same pirate bay you used ten years ago, download the same content you did then. Zero investment, it's just as straightforward. The legal options have improved, but the illegal ones are still there and just as good.

shmerl 9y ago

> I'd say DRM works really well for some definition of "works". Well, it works only for crooked purposes, and that's exactly the point EFF is making. DRM is therefore unacceptable, including in the context of the Internet. And you are still missing the point. DRM doesn't make any pirating difficult. All it does is giving power to undemocratically extend copyright law in arbitrary directions by slapping DRM on something, and saying that breaking that DRM is illegal. It's a power grab tool. Just take a look how this garbage was used to prevent users from switching mobile carriers, claiming that unlocking the mobile phone (i.e. breaking its DRM) is illegal.

pdpi 9y ago

You're on target, but I think you missed the bullseye by an inch. Netflix, Steam and Spotify made it incredibly convenient to obtain content legally and at a reasonable price. They removed most of the incentives for piracy. There was a surprisingly long period when piracy was hands down more convenient than buying stuff legally, and services like these were responsible for reversing that trend. More specifically, Spotify deserves a special mention, as it has been single-handedly responsible for massively changing my listening habits, because of the way the Daily Mix/Discover Weekly features keep pushing my boundaries. It gives me something valuable that I couldn't get otherwise.

white-flame 9y ago

DRM _technology_ isn't the problem at hand, and yes it does "work" to effectively keep honest people's behavior constrained to corporately approved actions. The real problem is DRM _law_, which is a gross overcriminalization of justifiably legal activity, like repairs, format shifting (both to and from DRM devices), security research, tinkering with your own possessions, etc. And on top of that, then demanding that all countries in the world follow suit.

minusSeven 9y ago

Thing is companies like Netflix want to believe people are paying for seeing content, while truth is most people are paying for convenience. This needs to be drilled down to them.