6 ms·
The problem is more the licensed content such as movies and music. They likely can't provide it to you in a format sans DRM. So even having the option to downlo
by ganoushoreilly 6y ago
The problem is more the licensed content such as movies and music. They likely can't provide it to you in a format sans DRM. So even having the option to download the file, will likely require the media to verify online to unlock at playtime.
- ryanwhitney 6y agoFairly certain all music sold through iTunes has been DRM-free since like 2010. Amazon too, I think. (Movies, not so much.)
- sircastor 6y agoYeah, that was a happy accident of market forces. Apple had become the juggernaut of music sales and the industry was desperate to get out from under them. They started letting other licensees go DRM free and Apple negotiated it from them at a markup. I think the reason we never saw a similar model for movies and TV shows is because Hollywood was terrified of what Apple had done to the music industry.
- eloisant 6y agoIt's too bad because music proved that DRM doesn't make any difference for piracy. Spotify and competitors are successful despite piracy. Movies piracy is still just as big with DRM.
- ErikVandeWater 6y agoThe happy accidents of market forces are what make markets great!
- josephcsible 6y agoI'd be in favor of the law having a clause like the "No Surrender of Others' Freedom" clause of the GPL. Basically saying "If you provide movies like this, then you must make them available without DRM. If you have other legal or contractual requirements that forbid you from making them available without DRM, then you can't make them available at all."
- pbhjpbhj 6y agoMoreover, DRM prevents copyright content from entering the public domain. In my personal opinion, anything that's not available without DRM shouldn't get copyright - otherwise it subverts the deal at the centre of copyright. The way around this would be to have a way to lodge a DRM free copy, which would be released to the public domain when the copyright expires, or on abandonment (so people wouldn't be denied access if the company didn't keep their servers running). Copyright is not a natural right, the balance is totally out of whack. Copyright terms have become abusively long; the deal is not fair anymore.
- MereInterest 6y agoAbsolutely agreed. I'm of the opinion that anything under DRM, and any closed-source software, should not be eligible for copyright. When a work enters the public domain, society is allowed to build upon that work. If extant copies of the work are not in a form that allows others to build upon, then that right is infringed.
- Silhouette 6y agoany closed-source software, should not be eligible for copyright This is how you get software companies running almost everything on their own servers, subscription-only, updates-mandatory, so no-one ever gets a copy of the work themselves and copyright is irrelevant. I think it is abundantly clear by now that this is not necessarily a beneficial direction for the industry to be moving, at least not from the point of view of purchaser/user rights and future-proofing.
- josephcsible 6y agoSo make that illegal too. Basically write the AGPL into the law.
- Silhouette 6y agoOK, so now only foreign software companies are providing these services and you aren't even getting the tax revenues or employment. That doesn't seem like an improvement.