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> Breaking DRM for personal use should not and cannot be illegal Agreed, including fro other people's personal use. Companies should be allowed to protect dat

> Breaking DRM for personal use should not and cannot be illegal Agreed, including fro other people's personal use. Companies should be allowed to protect data by copyright or DRM, but not both, i.e. encasing something in DRM would remove its copyright.

ptudan 5y ago
I don't really track this argument. DRM generally exists to make it easier to protect copyright, no? They go hand in hand.
- sli 5y ago
  The argument doesn't really track but it's very much worth examining DRM and its relationship with/effects on copyright and the rights of consumers, anyway. DRM is frequently used not just to protect copyright, but to also completely control access beyond the purpose of copyright. See the recent Denuvo snafu for an example of this being done (presumably) by accident, noting that it can also be done on purpose to e.g. plan obsoletion. It doesn't just control copyright, it controls your actual rights to access content you legally own and hinges that access on running a service in perpetuity, which is not the least bit realistic. It's digital rights management but treats those rights like a privilege instead.
- gizmo686 5y ago
  Think about patents. If you get a patent, you are legally protected from people stealing your patented idea for the lifetime of the patent. However, in exchange for that protection, you must make the idea public. In exchange for the protection of law, a patent holder sacrifices the protection of secrecy. A simmiliar model could be applied to copyright, in exchange for legal protections, you must forgo technical protections.
logfromblammo 5y ago
Much like one cannot have a patented trade secret. The grant of patent requires disclosure, and using the court system to publicly resolve disputes. If one uses technical means to protect information, parent poster proposes that courts should decline to protect it under the copyrights regime as well. Certainly, they should not protect both the information and whatever technical device is used to do private enforcement. You can either use the public protection regime, or your own private protection device, but not both. The issue at hand is that copyright implicitly includes an agreement to allow the work to pass into public domain after the copyright term expires. Technology that prevents that is anathema to the agreement. At the least, such schemes should fail-open, such that archived copies may be read as plaintext when the copyright term expires.

ptudan 5y ago

I don't really track this argument. DRM generally exists to make it easier to protect copyright, no? They go hand in hand.

sli 5y ago
The argument doesn't really track but it's very much worth examining DRM and its relationship with/effects on copyright and the rights of consumers, anyway. DRM is frequently used not just to protect copyright, but to also completely control access beyond the purpose of copyright. See the recent Denuvo snafu for an example of this being done (presumably) by accident, noting that it can also be done on purpose to e.g. plan obsoletion. It doesn't just control copyright, it controls your actual rights to access content you legally own and hinges that access on running a service in perpetuity, which is not the least bit realistic. It's digital rights management but treats those rights like a privilege instead.
gizmo686 5y ago
Think about patents. If you get a patent, you are legally protected from people stealing your patented idea for the lifetime of the patent. However, in exchange for that protection, you must make the idea public. In exchange for the protection of law, a patent holder sacrifices the protection of secrecy. A simmiliar model could be applied to copyright, in exchange for legal protections, you must forgo technical protections.

logfromblammo 5y ago

Much like one cannot have a patented trade secret. The grant of patent requires disclosure, and using the court system to publicly resolve disputes. If one uses technical means to protect information, parent poster proposes that courts should decline to protect it under the copyrights regime as well. Certainly, they should not protect both the information and whatever technical device is used to do private enforcement. You can either use the public protection regime, or your own private protection device, but not both. The issue at hand is that copyright implicitly includes an agreement to allow the work to pass into public domain after the copyright term expires. Technology that prevents that is anathema to the agreement. At the least, such schemes should fail-open, such that archived copies may be read as plaintext when the copyright term expires.