5 ms·

Sure, adding a safe isn't taking away my freedom, but putting a safe in my house and putting anything in there, then telling me I can't touch IS taking away my

• boucher 18y ago
  Taking up space isn't the same as taking up freedom. And, the analogy doesn't hold up: Power meters are in your house, but you're not allowed to tamper with them. So are mailboxes. Laws don't go away when you enter your front door. You can't murder, you can't beat your children, and you can't steal from people, even electronically. Being inside your house does grant you some rights, like to privacy, and against unreasonable searches. It isn't completely obvious, though, whether or not DRM violates those rights. Again, I don't like DRM anymore than the next guy, but it's not a black and white issue. And it's made worse by the fact that the laws it seeks to protect haven't been updated for far too long.
  • jgranby 18y ago
    Exactly. DRM is usually there to make it difficult to do something that is illegal anyway. With music, it's just as illegal to copy (copyrighted) non-DRM music as it is to copy DRM-protected music. The reason the DRM is there is because people still share music, even though it's illegal. It's the same reason we put locks on our doors: if everyone were law-abiding law, we wouldn't need them, but we do need them because people do break the law. It's not about freedom at all -- it's about stopping people breaking copyright (and other) laws, laws which still apply even when DRM isn't used.