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A gentle reminder to people that work at companies that produce/implement DRM: We live at a time with high demand for developers. Wouldn't your talents be of b

A gentle reminder to people that work at companies that produce/implement DRM: We live at a time with high demand for developers. Wouldn't your talents be of better use at some other company - working on something not ultimately hindering your users? It's OK to quit your job on moral grounds, and now is the best time ever to do so.

ChuckNorris89 5y ago
Oh please, get off your preachy high horse, and stop trying to guild trip devs into thinking that developing DRM solutions is like developing WMD or something. This is not some NSO-level spyware that can be used to spy and target people. Plus, some devs enjoy this kind work and some companies working on DRM are in areas that are not as hot as the Bay Area (small cities in Europe) so they might not have that many lucrative options you assume. Sure, no consumer enjoys DRM, like how no driver likes police officers issuing speeding fines, but demonizing devs working on such solutions is something I did not expect from the supposedly enlightened HN reader base. How about you target your disapproval at the Bay Area devs whos' generous compensation packages plastered around here depend on them building nefarious ways of siphoning and data-mining peoples' private data to get them addicted to consuming content and click on ads.
- tehbeard 5y ago
  > This is not some NSO-level spyware that can be used to spy and target people. Not exactly NSO level, but this certainly caused issues at the time.... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootkit_scandal https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_roo...
  - ChuckNorris89 5y ago
    Pointing out an infamous example of invasive DRM(trojan) that has nothing to do with the DRM in this topic is just whataboutism.
    - hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
      What do you mean by "has nothing to do with the DRM"?
- phoronixrly 5y ago
  Hey, not trying to make you or anyone else feel guilty. In fact I specifically chose my words to not do so. I just think developer talent is wasted on stuff that is ultimately useless at best, and making life harder for legal users at worst.
  - iqanq 5y ago
    DRM is very hard to get right, it's some sort of challenge. It's no wonder it attracts very bright minds and they probably are happy working on it.
  - ratg13 5y ago
    Your argument is predicated on the assumption that all DRM is bad, which is just simply not reality. Many companies implement DRM in ways that are poor, excessive, overreaching, needlessly restrictive, etc. .. and yes, while poor implementations are frequent, it does not mean that DRM itself is worthless or an enemy of society. In fact, good implementations of DRM are exactly what is needed in order to prevent hackers from stealing your most valuable digital assets. The issue is that in conversation DRM is used as a perjorative, whereas terms like data loss prevention are somehow seen as non-malicious, even though it is the same core idea.
    - iso1631 5y ago
      Could you tell us digital assets have been successfully protected by DRM?
      - ratg13 5y ago
        We use Microsoft Information Protection solutions for all of our important documents which includes things like sensitivity labels which ensure only the users that have been appropriate clearance can view them. People can e-mail the documents or do whatever they want with them, and Microsoft's DRM ensures that only the users that have access are able to view them. The whole thing is totally seamless and requires no extra effort on the part of the users. Our corporate documents can't be stolen without comprimising both someone's account and two-factor authentication. It's a great example of DRM done well.
- Sosh101 5y ago
  > How about you target your disapproval at the Bay Area devs whos' Whataboutism...
- DocTomoe 5y ago
  > This is not some NSO-level spyware that can be used to spy and target people. It isn't, until it is: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/10/adobe-spyware-reveals-again-price-drm-your-privacy-and-security https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/10/adobe-spyware-reveals-...
- donatj 5y ago
  I don’t know, probably an unpopular opinion, but I feel like working on a technology that wastes peoples time through un-skippable ads is akin to a small murder. You’re taking tiny chunks of many peoples lives. On a popular film, it almost certainly adds up to more than a lifetime. It’s the cigarettes of modern technology.
  - flyinghamster 5y ago
    Unskippable ads are just one of the things that ultimately have dropped my enthusiasm for movies to zero. I've never once bought a Blu-Ray of any sort. It's not that a boycott of one is going to make a bit of difference, it's that I'd rather spend my time and money on things that aren't hostile to me.
- chriswarbo 5y ago
  > Oh please, get off your preachy high horse, and stop trying to guild trip devs into thinking that developing DRM solutions is like developing WMD or something. The OP didn't make any such comparison; yet you make such a comparison, a few sentences later: > Sure, no consumer enjoys DRM, like how no driver likes police officers issuing speeding fines DRM props-up uncompetitive business models, to the detriment of customers and society at-large. It is in no way comparable to speed limits, which have literally saved millions of lives over the years (random Google link: https://www.who.int/news-room/commentaries/detail/reducing-speed-to-save-lives https://www.who.int/news-room/commentaries/detail/reducing-s... ).
- fnord123 5y ago
  > no driver likes police officers issuing speeding fines When will the US join the 2000s and get cameras so police can do actual work?
  - MMS21 5y ago
    Top Gear on Speed Cameras https://youtu.be/ZwEGlzGms4o https://youtu.be/ZwEGlzGms4o
sneak 5y ago
The same can be said about any technology any of us have hesitation working on: advertising, addiction-style IAP gaming, advertising masquerading as a blue social site for human connection, publishing censorship ("content moderation"), military weapons and adjacent AI targeting, etc... If you don't think doing your job every day is making the world better, please remember that what the parent comment says is true: it's never been a better time to make the switch! Your work matters, and we can all work to make the world better, or worse, a little bit every day.
- hnaccount_rng 5y ago
  In the first line I was constantly thinking: "So close, yet so far" since I expected you to come to "see it's not as bad". Not sure whether my expectation of the HN crowd is too low... Thanks for proofing me wrong :)
- mschuster91 5y ago
  > publishing censorship ("content moderation") > If you don't think doing your job every day is making the world better Actually, content moderation does make the world better. No one except Nazis will say that the presence of Holocaust denial on the Internet is a good thing. No one except pedophiles wants to see naked genitalia of children. For what it's worth, even this forum is moderated (pretty strongly, one might add) to keep discussions somewhat relevant and from devolving into endless threads of flame-warring.
  - rocqua 5y ago
    It depends on the form of content moderation. There is a risk in automated moderating being too stifling. There is also a risk of moderation pushing people on the fence into a victim role. Similarly, content moderation past the excesses becomes close to editatorialzing. That is a difficult and very subjective job not generally suited for tech companies.
    - mschuster91 5y ago
      > That is a difficult and very subjective job not generally suited for tech companies. It is, but given the scale these tech companies can reach we have seen way too much evidence that moderation is required for a stable society. People have been literally lynched because of viral fake postings [1] on messengers, not to mention the entire clusterfuck that is the coronavirus pandemic and the influence of propaganda peddlers and profiteers. [1]: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-44897714 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-44897714
netcan 5y ago
Not to contradict the individual side of your statement, but the high demand for developers in our time is closely related to the financial success of morally questionable practices. Data harvesting, monopolisation of bottlenecks, the whole advertising ecosystem, DRM and systems of IP/copyright domination, etc. These are the unbelievably profitable industries generating the current demand. Demand is fungible, so this doesn't mean you can't go find a job working on something else. It does however, put some perspective on it. Developers, via the current labour market, are major beneficiaries of said practices. Again, this does not contradict your comment.
- asimpletune 5y ago
  > the high demand for developers in our time is closely related to the financial success of morally questionable practices. I think it's more because the computer does most of the work, and that just has really good economy of scale.
- gchamonlive 5y ago
  I work at a company which main product is a co2 emissions management software. It is in dire need of software developers. It is hosted in Brazil, so probably not competitive in terms of salary, but that goes to say that you can find good jobs that won't hurt you morally. The alternative to making DRM is not necessarily working for Amazon or Google.
- benreesman 5y ago
  I very much don’t mean to single you out, and I also have deep reservations about user data collection/management, dubious labor practices in e-commerce fulfillment, gamification of options trading, etc. But to the extent that there seems to be any orthodoxy on HN around what is more and less ethical, there’s a lot of emphasis around the “unbelievably profitable” part. In my personal experience there is a world of difference between “all your data belong to us” and “pay for content by seeing this ad” which are far from joined at the hip, and to the extent that cryptocurrency has any demonstrated utility it’s pulling in yet a third direction and yet all three are often lumped together into the “trivially unethical” bucket, whereas having deep structural advantages before you’ve written much code via the YC old-boys network is not just “how the game is played”, but maybe even “living the dream”. I know I’ve personally been guilty of letting my righteous ethical indignation at X or Y get a little blurry with “it’s not right that so many programmers make xMM/year”. I don’t mean to say that you’re guilty of this (and I know you didn’t mention cryptocurrency or being a YC founder), but it is something I’m still trying to figure out a way to diplomatically add to the discussion and your comment felt like a not-insane place to do so.
onion2k 5y ago
working on something not ultimately hindering your users People who make DRM are paid by content producers, not content viewers. They're not hindering their users. They're doing what their users ask them to do. It's just that we aren't their users. If you want to influence DRM developers to stop making DRM, refuse to buy/view/stream DRM-protected media. Then they'll have to find new jobs because their customers will stop paying them.
- zozbot234 5y ago
  DRM screws over content producers just as much as users, if not more so. It creates a 'tragedy of the commons' situation throughout the content industries that ultimately hinders creators. Content creation benefits from openness as much as anything else, and DRM platforms are the opposite extreme to openness.
- azalemeth 5y ago
  Just to state the obvious: I've done this for all of my adult life. It's difficult, but possible. I buy my games on gog.com, mp3s (or flaacs) from hyperion-records.co.uk and I read either pdf or dead-tree media. I listen to the radio a lot and support my state-sponsored broadcasters in the two countries I split my time between, both of which are paid for by a license fee and produce material without DRM at all. I have a raspberry-pi based content box in my bedroom that will record legally free over-the-air digital TV (at 720p) and let me watch it later. I periodically write letters of complaint to broadcasters that provide online offerings only with Widevine. I haven't bought a Sony product since their rootkit fiasco in about 2004. I remove the Widevine library from Chrome when I'm forced to use it, unclick the box that says "Play DRM" in Firefox, and don't really use Safari. At work, I challenge suppliers who use activation to provide us software without it, and I run entirely Linux-boxes. Yes, I am one of those zealots. Yes, it makes life harder at times. Would I change it? No.
  - pid-1 5y ago
    Thanks for the guide!
- netcan 5y ago
alliao 5y ago
if for some reason you had to be where you are, you could otherwise aimed at their feet...
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
ClumsyPilot 5y ago
I think such appeals are futule, they are not gonna run out of employees. We created a system where employees have zero say in what a company does, so the rest of society has not deal with this issue.
freewilly1040 5y ago
It’s tiresome to see the DRM argument portrayed over and over again as a moral slam dunk. Anything consequential enough to make an impact is a trade off, with winners and losers. If all the employees listened and there was a universal collapse of DRM, I really highly doubt people who make content would be better off. Maybe some of these devs feel good about helping make sure people who make movies get paid. Maybe they feel like they are part of the moviemaking process (which they are!). It’s not as though it’s difficult for people who want to make their content free to do so. Why should someone who wishes to make content under a DRM model not be free to do so? It’s entertainment, you are not forced to consume it.

ChuckNorris89 5y ago

Oh please, get off your preachy high horse, and stop trying to guild trip devs into thinking that developing DRM solutions is like developing WMD or something. This is not some NSO-level spyware that can be used to spy and target people. Plus, some devs enjoy this kind work and some companies working on DRM are in areas that are not as hot as the Bay Area (small cities in Europe) so they might not have that many lucrative options you assume. Sure, no consumer enjoys DRM, like how no driver likes police officers issuing speeding fines, but demonizing devs working on such solutions is something I did not expect from the supposedly enlightened HN reader base. How about you target your disapproval at the Bay Area devs whos' generous compensation packages plastered around here depend on them building nefarious ways of siphoning and data-mining peoples' private data to get them addicted to consuming content and click on ads.

tehbeard 5y ago
> This is not some NSO-level spyware that can be used to spy and target people. Not exactly NSO level, but this certainly caused issues at the time.... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootkit_scandal https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_roo...
- ChuckNorris89 5y ago
  Pointing out an infamous example of invasive DRM(trojan) that has nothing to do with the DRM in this topic is just whataboutism.
  - hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
    What do you mean by "has nothing to do with the DRM"?
phoronixrly 5y ago
Hey, not trying to make you or anyone else feel guilty. In fact I specifically chose my words to not do so. I just think developer talent is wasted on stuff that is ultimately useless at best, and making life harder for legal users at worst.
- iqanq 5y ago
  DRM is very hard to get right, it's some sort of challenge. It's no wonder it attracts very bright minds and they probably are happy working on it.
- ratg13 5y ago
  Your argument is predicated on the assumption that all DRM is bad, which is just simply not reality. Many companies implement DRM in ways that are poor, excessive, overreaching, needlessly restrictive, etc. .. and yes, while poor implementations are frequent, it does not mean that DRM itself is worthless or an enemy of society. In fact, good implementations of DRM are exactly what is needed in order to prevent hackers from stealing your most valuable digital assets. The issue is that in conversation DRM is used as a perjorative, whereas terms like data loss prevention are somehow seen as non-malicious, even though it is the same core idea.
  - iso1631 5y ago
    Could you tell us digital assets have been successfully protected by DRM?
    - ratg13 5y ago
      We use Microsoft Information Protection solutions for all of our important documents which includes things like sensitivity labels which ensure only the users that have been appropriate clearance can view them. People can e-mail the documents or do whatever they want with them, and Microsoft's DRM ensures that only the users that have access are able to view them. The whole thing is totally seamless and requires no extra effort on the part of the users. Our corporate documents can't be stolen without comprimising both someone's account and two-factor authentication. It's a great example of DRM done well.
Sosh101 5y ago
> How about you target your disapproval at the Bay Area devs whos' Whataboutism...
DocTomoe 5y ago
> This is not some NSO-level spyware that can be used to spy and target people. It isn't, until it is: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/10/adobe-spyware-reveals-again-price-drm-your-privacy-and-security https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/10/adobe-spyware-reveals-...
donatj 5y ago
I don’t know, probably an unpopular opinion, but I feel like working on a technology that wastes peoples time through un-skippable ads is akin to a small murder. You’re taking tiny chunks of many peoples lives. On a popular film, it almost certainly adds up to more than a lifetime. It’s the cigarettes of modern technology.
- flyinghamster 5y ago
  Unskippable ads are just one of the things that ultimately have dropped my enthusiasm for movies to zero. I've never once bought a Blu-Ray of any sort. It's not that a boycott of one is going to make a bit of difference, it's that I'd rather spend my time and money on things that aren't hostile to me.
chriswarbo 5y ago
> Oh please, get off your preachy high horse, and stop trying to guild trip devs into thinking that developing DRM solutions is like developing WMD or something. The OP didn't make any such comparison; yet you make such a comparison, a few sentences later: > Sure, no consumer enjoys DRM, like how no driver likes police officers issuing speeding fines DRM props-up uncompetitive business models, to the detriment of customers and society at-large. It is in no way comparable to speed limits, which have literally saved millions of lives over the years (random Google link: https://www.who.int/news-room/commentaries/detail/reducing-speed-to-save-lives https://www.who.int/news-room/commentaries/detail/reducing-s... ).
fnord123 5y ago
> no driver likes police officers issuing speeding fines When will the US join the 2000s and get cameras so police can do actual work?
- MMS21 5y ago
  Top Gear on Speed Cameras https://youtu.be/ZwEGlzGms4o https://youtu.be/ZwEGlzGms4o

sneak 5y ago

The same can be said about any technology any of us have hesitation working on: advertising, addiction-style IAP gaming, advertising masquerading as a blue social site for human connection, publishing censorship ("content moderation"), military weapons and adjacent AI targeting, etc... If you don't think doing your job every day is making the world better, please remember that what the parent comment says is true: it's never been a better time to make the switch! Your work matters, and we can all work to make the world better, or worse, a little bit every day.

hnaccount_rng 5y ago
In the first line I was constantly thinking: "So close, yet so far" since I expected you to come to "see it's not as bad". Not sure whether my expectation of the HN crowd is too low... Thanks for proofing me wrong :)
mschuster91 5y ago
> publishing censorship ("content moderation") > If you don't think doing your job every day is making the world better Actually, content moderation does make the world better. No one except Nazis will say that the presence of Holocaust denial on the Internet is a good thing. No one except pedophiles wants to see naked genitalia of children. For what it's worth, even this forum is moderated (pretty strongly, one might add) to keep discussions somewhat relevant and from devolving into endless threads of flame-warring.
- rocqua 5y ago
  It depends on the form of content moderation. There is a risk in automated moderating being too stifling. There is also a risk of moderation pushing people on the fence into a victim role. Similarly, content moderation past the excesses becomes close to editatorialzing. That is a difficult and very subjective job not generally suited for tech companies.
  - mschuster91 5y ago
    > That is a difficult and very subjective job not generally suited for tech companies. It is, but given the scale these tech companies can reach we have seen way too much evidence that moderation is required for a stable society. People have been literally lynched because of viral fake postings [1] on messengers, not to mention the entire clusterfuck that is the coronavirus pandemic and the influence of propaganda peddlers and profiteers. [1]: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-44897714 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-44897714

netcan 5y ago

Not to contradict the individual side of your statement, but the high demand for developers in our time is closely related to the financial success of morally questionable practices. Data harvesting, monopolisation of bottlenecks, the whole advertising ecosystem, DRM and systems of IP/copyright domination, etc. These are the unbelievably profitable industries generating the current demand. Demand is fungible, so this doesn't mean you can't go find a job working on something else. It does however, put some perspective on it. Developers, via the current labour market, are major beneficiaries of said practices. Again, this does not contradict your comment.

asimpletune 5y ago
> the high demand for developers in our time is closely related to the financial success of morally questionable practices. I think it's more because the computer does most of the work, and that just has really good economy of scale.
gchamonlive 5y ago
I work at a company which main product is a co2 emissions management software. It is in dire need of software developers. It is hosted in Brazil, so probably not competitive in terms of salary, but that goes to say that you can find good jobs that won't hurt you morally. The alternative to making DRM is not necessarily working for Amazon or Google.
benreesman 5y ago
I very much don’t mean to single you out, and I also have deep reservations about user data collection/management, dubious labor practices in e-commerce fulfillment, gamification of options trading, etc. But to the extent that there seems to be any orthodoxy on HN around what is more and less ethical, there’s a lot of emphasis around the “unbelievably profitable” part. In my personal experience there is a world of difference between “all your data belong to us” and “pay for content by seeing this ad” which are far from joined at the hip, and to the extent that cryptocurrency has any demonstrated utility it’s pulling in yet a third direction and yet all three are often lumped together into the “trivially unethical” bucket, whereas having deep structural advantages before you’ve written much code via the YC old-boys network is not just “how the game is played”, but maybe even “living the dream”. I know I’ve personally been guilty of letting my righteous ethical indignation at X or Y get a little blurry with “it’s not right that so many programmers make xMM/year”. I don’t mean to say that you’re guilty of this (and I know you didn’t mention cryptocurrency or being a YC founder), but it is something I’m still trying to figure out a way to diplomatically add to the discussion and your comment felt like a not-insane place to do so.

onion2k 5y ago

working on something not ultimately hindering your users People who make DRM are paid by content producers, not content viewers. They're not hindering their users. They're doing what their users ask them to do. It's just that we aren't their users. If you want to influence DRM developers to stop making DRM, refuse to buy/view/stream DRM-protected media. Then they'll have to find new jobs because their customers will stop paying them.

zozbot234 5y ago
DRM screws over content producers just as much as users, if not more so. It creates a 'tragedy of the commons' situation throughout the content industries that ultimately hinders creators. Content creation benefits from openness as much as anything else, and DRM platforms are the opposite extreme to openness.
azalemeth 5y ago
Just to state the obvious: I've done this for all of my adult life. It's difficult, but possible. I buy my games on gog.com, mp3s (or flaacs) from hyperion-records.co.uk and I read either pdf or dead-tree media. I listen to the radio a lot and support my state-sponsored broadcasters in the two countries I split my time between, both of which are paid for by a license fee and produce material without DRM at all. I have a raspberry-pi based content box in my bedroom that will record legally free over-the-air digital TV (at 720p) and let me watch it later. I periodically write letters of complaint to broadcasters that provide online offerings only with Widevine. I haven't bought a Sony product since their rootkit fiasco in about 2004. I remove the Widevine library from Chrome when I'm forced to use it, unclick the box that says "Play DRM" in Firefox, and don't really use Safari. At work, I challenge suppliers who use activation to provide us software without it, and I run entirely Linux-boxes. Yes, I am one of those zealots. Yes, it makes life harder at times. Would I change it? No.
- pid-1 5y ago
  Thanks for the guide!
netcan 5y ago

alliao 5y ago

if for some reason you had to be where you are, you could otherwise aimed at their feet...

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

ClumsyPilot 5y ago

I think such appeals are futule, they are not gonna run out of employees. We created a system where employees have zero say in what a company does, so the rest of society has not deal with this issue.

freewilly1040 5y ago

It’s tiresome to see the DRM argument portrayed over and over again as a moral slam dunk. Anything consequential enough to make an impact is a trade off, with winners and losers. If all the employees listened and there was a universal collapse of DRM, I really highly doubt people who make content would be better off. Maybe some of these devs feel good about helping make sure people who make movies get paid. Maybe they feel like they are part of the moviemaking process (which they are!). It’s not as though it’s difficult for people who want to make their content free to do so. Why should someone who wishes to make content under a DRM model not be free to do so? It’s entertainment, you are not forced to consume it.