4 ms·

That's because piracy is the excuse, not the reason. DRM is very successful at what it should do: Protect the content middleman from the device makers (not th

That's because piracy is the excuse, not the reason. DRM is very successful at what it should do: Protect the content middleman from the device makers (not the end users). They can, for example, enforce market segmentation: You bought the DVD in the USA and play it in the EU. Legal, but DRM stops you. Wait for the EU release and pay the different price. If the content middleman screams piracy, react as if a politician screams child porn. They want something else, but cant' get it without invoking the bogeyman. Hordes of (starving artists/concerned parents) will provide the necessary rope to hang themselves on command.

bambax 5y ago
> They can, for example, enforce market segmentation: You bought the DVD in the USA and play it in the EU. Legal, but DRM stops you. Wait for the EU release and pay the different price. Ok, but don't they risk discouraging people from buying disks? Who buys disks nowadays anyway?
- Nextgrid 5y ago
  The limitations enforced by the DRM are rarely disclosed upfront. "DRM" to non-technical people simply means anti-piracy protection which they don't mind because they don't see themselves as pirates, having just bought the media.
- sumtechguy 5y ago
  I buy disks all the time. Do not think streaming is going to make things better. That market is segmenting like crazy. They will enforce region boundaries and re-edit a movie if it suits them. Make no mistake they will edit movies to add pepsi/coke products all over the place. Then it will get very interesting and someone will pop off a hot take on twitter and they will be edited out of the movie. One of the 'uses' of VPN is to see movies in a different region that your service is not offering in yours. DVD DRM was designed for it (with its 7 regions). Bluray seems to be a bit more lax on it. That comes down to how a movie is budget is done and how the pricing split of who gets the money depending on where it is played. The real problem with computers and disks is these days most computers do not come with any sort of DVD/BR/UHD drive. You can find the odd one here and there and sometimes in desktop format. But in the mobile space they have pretty much disappeared, except as USB addon. Once apple ditched them everyone else did too. I had one of the cyberlink bits of software. It worked just fine for 6 years. The drive is fine. The certs on the software however expired. Once that happened no bluray would play at all. They wanted a decent amount to 'upgrade' so I could watch my movies again on my computer. So I used that money and bought some ripping software. So I rip and use things like VLC and KODI to play them now. Which is kind of 'meh' as the java emu layer is not there yet. Most of the time you can pick the right title out of the list. But sometimes (usually sony) they will throw several thousand titles on the disk that are not quite right but have the right size. These companies have not totally worked it out yet (they are well on their way though). With 100% streaming digital they have a decent amount of physical control, probably prefect pricing, and re-editorial control.
matheusmoreira 5y ago
> If the content middleman screams piracy, react as if a politician screams child porn. They want something else, but cant' get it without invoking the bogeyman. Hordes of (starving artists/concerned parents) will provide the necessary rope to hang themselves on command. I never made the connection between these two ideas before. Now I am wiser. Thanks for this.

bambax 5y ago

> They can, for example, enforce market segmentation: You bought the DVD in the USA and play it in the EU. Legal, but DRM stops you. Wait for the EU release and pay the different price. Ok, but don't they risk discouraging people from buying disks? Who buys disks nowadays anyway?

Nextgrid 5y ago
The limitations enforced by the DRM are rarely disclosed upfront. "DRM" to non-technical people simply means anti-piracy protection which they don't mind because they don't see themselves as pirates, having just bought the media.
sumtechguy 5y ago
I buy disks all the time. Do not think streaming is going to make things better. That market is segmenting like crazy. They will enforce region boundaries and re-edit a movie if it suits them. Make no mistake they will edit movies to add pepsi/coke products all over the place. Then it will get very interesting and someone will pop off a hot take on twitter and they will be edited out of the movie. One of the 'uses' of VPN is to see movies in a different region that your service is not offering in yours. DVD DRM was designed for it (with its 7 regions). Bluray seems to be a bit more lax on it. That comes down to how a movie is budget is done and how the pricing split of who gets the money depending on where it is played. The real problem with computers and disks is these days most computers do not come with any sort of DVD/BR/UHD drive. You can find the odd one here and there and sometimes in desktop format. But in the mobile space they have pretty much disappeared, except as USB addon. Once apple ditched them everyone else did too. I had one of the cyberlink bits of software. It worked just fine for 6 years. The drive is fine. The certs on the software however expired. Once that happened no bluray would play at all. They wanted a decent amount to 'upgrade' so I could watch my movies again on my computer. So I used that money and bought some ripping software. So I rip and use things like VLC and KODI to play them now. Which is kind of 'meh' as the java emu layer is not there yet. Most of the time you can pick the right title out of the list. But sometimes (usually sony) they will throw several thousand titles on the disk that are not quite right but have the right size. These companies have not totally worked it out yet (they are well on their way though). With 100% streaming digital they have a decent amount of physical control, probably prefect pricing, and re-editorial control.

matheusmoreira 5y ago

> If the content middleman screams piracy, react as if a politician screams child porn. They want something else, but cant' get it without invoking the bogeyman. Hordes of (starving artists/concerned parents) will provide the necessary rope to hang themselves on command. I never made the connection between these two ideas before. Now I am wiser. Thanks for this.