3 ms·

No, not really. You're thinking that every user has to copy a movie from the browser. But only a very tiny percentage of the people wanting to see the latest Ga

by mtgx 9y ago

No, not really. You're thinking that every user has to copy a movie from the browser. But only a very tiny percentage of the people wanting to see the latest Game of Thrones episode need to steal it so that everyone else who intended to pirate it can watch it as well. Whether or not DRM exists for those other 99.99% of the people is completely irrelevant. The show is already on torrents put there by those who could bypass the technical protection of DRM. So now those 99.99% of users can watch it for free, too, without having to know how to bypass DRM themselves.

logfromblammo 9y ago
The more difficult it is to strip DRM, the fewer pirate captains there are. You don't need to take out every pirate to end piracy; you just need to take out every captain. So if only Paisleybeard and VikingVik can crack the GoT DRM, you maybe only need to get cooperation from the Croatian and Swedish police for a few weeks, and then you get some amount of time when pirated shows are no longer available. But then Swashbuggerer and NotSoJollyRoger and Plaidbeard step up, and the pirate crews flock to their standards. But for a time, some people who might have otherwise pirated may have paid. But then you're back to talking to the American and Filipino and Scottish police. And if one of your captains is in a non-extradition country, you may have to talk to Pinkertons or ex-military contractors. If it is trivial to crack the DRM, everyone can be a pirate captain if necessary, with a crew of only themselves. You will never, ever stop piracy for longer than a few minutes in any pirate-friendly household with that kind of DRM. That's like the difference between posting your property and putting up an actual fence or wall. It is just a virtual boundary that has legal consequences in the out-of-band enforcement system. And don't forget that when pirate captains voluntarily retire, or are forcibly retired, they can still publish "how to be a pirate captain" guides for the media-seas they once sailed. They can distribute models for 3D-printing your very own pirate ship. So the DRM-makers have to put constant effort into changing tactics and updating technical countermeasures to fight that kind of fight. It gets to be expensive, because the defense has to be perfect, while the offense can breach it through any ant-sized hole. Furthermore, the analog hole will always be there, and every paying customer has the keys to your fortress gate.
- simion314 9y ago
  You do not need DRM to put people in jail for pirating, this thing happened before DRM.
  - logfromblammo 9y ago
    You do need DRM to strategically put specific people in jail for pirating, in a way that would not be dismissed by your consumer base as either petty or draconian. You need the DRM to go after one Kim Dotcom, instead of getting civil judgments from a thousand unremarkable people who were just doing the same thing that hundreds of thousands of other people do routinely and innocuously, without ever getting caught. You need it to narrow down the size of a class of people until it is safe to demonize and turn into examples, without alienating your potential customers. Without DRM, when grandma gets sued for $10000 because she sent a copyrighted video to all 8 of her grandkids, the rights-owner looks like a bad guy. But when a nerd cracks the DRM and seeds a torrent resulting in thousands of downloads, prosecutors can pile on the computer crime charges, and it looks like the hacker is a dangerous criminal, who was probably stealing your identity and browsing through your cloud photos, too. It's all about public perceptions. Shooting people in the head is somehow less acceptable if you didn't draw a line in the sand first. People get distracted from the main issue--which is people getting shot in the head--if the victims could have made some choice that would have yielded a different result. The public then gets fixated on where the line should be drawn, rather than taking away the shotgun from the homicidal maniac.
    - simion314 9y ago
      I agree with you that this law is harder then copyright law, but your comment is not clear what is your opinion if you think it is justified to have such a law.
      - logfromblammo 9y ago
        My opinion is that DRM-supporting laws are not only unjustified, but their existence is also an impediment to true copyright reform.
rhino369 9y ago
You drastically underestimate the amount of piracy that occurs from just “cntrl c cntrl V”ing files. The goal is just to make it just hard enough to pirate that the masses don’t spend the time to figure it out. My mom and her friends pass around cds and rip them on iTunes. Because it is easy. She’s pirated hundreds of cds. She didn’t know what what.cd is. She doesn’t know what the new version of what.cd. I don’t either.

by mtgx 9y ago

logfromblammo 9y ago

The more difficult it is to strip DRM, the fewer pirate captains there are. You don't need to take out every pirate to end piracy; you just need to take out every captain. So if only Paisleybeard and VikingVik can crack the GoT DRM, you maybe only need to get cooperation from the Croatian and Swedish police for a few weeks, and then you get some amount of time when pirated shows are no longer available. But then Swashbuggerer and NotSoJollyRoger and Plaidbeard step up, and the pirate crews flock to their standards. But for a time, some people who might have otherwise pirated may have paid. But then you're back to talking to the American and Filipino and Scottish police. And if one of your captains is in a non-extradition country, you may have to talk to Pinkertons or ex-military contractors. If it is trivial to crack the DRM, everyone can be a pirate captain if necessary, with a crew of only themselves. You will never, ever stop piracy for longer than a few minutes in any pirate-friendly household with that kind of DRM. That's like the difference between posting your property and putting up an actual fence or wall. It is just a virtual boundary that has legal consequences in the out-of-band enforcement system. And don't forget that when pirate captains voluntarily retire, or are forcibly retired, they can still publish "how to be a pirate captain" guides for the media-seas they once sailed. They can distribute models for 3D-printing your very own pirate ship. So the DRM-makers have to put constant effort into changing tactics and updating technical countermeasures to fight that kind of fight. It gets to be expensive, because the defense has to be perfect, while the offense can breach it through any ant-sized hole. Furthermore, the analog hole will always be there, and every paying customer has the keys to your fortress gate.

simion314 9y ago
You do not need DRM to put people in jail for pirating, this thing happened before DRM.
- logfromblammo 9y ago
  You do need DRM to strategically put specific people in jail for pirating, in a way that would not be dismissed by your consumer base as either petty or draconian. You need the DRM to go after one Kim Dotcom, instead of getting civil judgments from a thousand unremarkable people who were just doing the same thing that hundreds of thousands of other people do routinely and innocuously, without ever getting caught. You need it to narrow down the size of a class of people until it is safe to demonize and turn into examples, without alienating your potential customers. Without DRM, when grandma gets sued for $10000 because she sent a copyrighted video to all 8 of her grandkids, the rights-owner looks like a bad guy. But when a nerd cracks the DRM and seeds a torrent resulting in thousands of downloads, prosecutors can pile on the computer crime charges, and it looks like the hacker is a dangerous criminal, who was probably stealing your identity and browsing through your cloud photos, too. It's all about public perceptions. Shooting people in the head is somehow less acceptable if you didn't draw a line in the sand first. People get distracted from the main issue--which is people getting shot in the head--if the victims could have made some choice that would have yielded a different result. The public then gets fixated on where the line should be drawn, rather than taking away the shotgun from the homicidal maniac.
  - simion314 9y ago
    I agree with you that this law is harder then copyright law, but your comment is not clear what is your opinion if you think it is justified to have such a law.
    - logfromblammo 9y ago
      My opinion is that DRM-supporting laws are not only unjustified, but their existence is also an impediment to true copyright reform.

rhino369 9y ago

You drastically underestimate the amount of piracy that occurs from just “cntrl c cntrl V”ing files. The goal is just to make it just hard enough to pirate that the masses don’t spend the time to figure it out. My mom and her friends pass around cds and rip them on iTunes. Because it is easy. She’s pirated hundreds of cds. She didn’t know what what.cd is. She doesn’t know what the new version of what.cd. I don’t either.