5 ms·

I would take posts like this from the FSF more seriously if they proposed or endorsed a solution, rather than simply proposing a protest. FSF may claim to be a

by aspir 14y ago

I would take posts like this from the FSF more seriously if they proposed or endorsed a solution, rather than simply proposing a protest. FSF may claim to be about "Free as in Speech, rather than Free as in Beer," but DRM straddles both of these points. Yes, we're restricted in the products that can utilize DRM files, but DRM also exists to protect ownership rights. Its a complex system, and one that can't simply be "abolished" without some suitable alternative to protects both interests. There are lots of theories and examples of alternatives to DRM that protect the rights of both the creator and end user. I'm just disappointed that the FSF didn't propose one of these, or their own, as a viable solution. It's easy to point fingers, it's tough to propose meaningful solutions.

rrreese 14y ago
Very true, especially as the FSF has been so instrumental in creating and encouraging the creation of free software. While the FSF have "been against" non free software they have at least helped provide the alternative. In the case of DRM, not so much.
- mkr-hn 14y ago
  GPL and other licenses are the alternative. The only functional difference between a license and DRM is that enforcement is in the hands of the rights holders until the DRM is broken. GPL is hoping no one steals it. DRM is trying to keep people from stealing it until you make enough to cover expenses and some profit. Law is the fallback for both.
tsewlliw 14y ago
Like what meaningful solution? Pre-digital DRM was essentially the difficulty of copying, and that is no longer "difficult", and you can't undo that because DRM on media people care about will be broken.
samdk 14y ago
[DRM] can't simply be "abolished" without some suitable alternative to protects both interests. It can be and in the music industry largely has been. iTunes has no DRM. Amazon's mp3 store has no DRM. Bandcamp has no DRM. The solution is getting rid of DRM. DRM does not prevent people intent on pirating their media from doing whatever they want. It hurts legitimate users. The existence of DRM has nothing to do with preserving the freedom of content creators. Your presentation of it as something that does is naive. It exists to protect the interests and power of media publishers. The publishers--not the creators--are the ones making the choices about DRM. Its use is an attempt to prop up outdated business models, because that's easier--and, in the short term, safer--than change.
- aspir 14y ago
  In my earlier post I was referring to publishers -- they are partial owners on the content. I agree that their business models need an overhaul, but simply pointing a finger from afar, and telling these entrenched organizations to change won't get far. These industries are too big and entreneched to just dies either. The most practical answer is to have some sort of compromise. It'll be hard to go back to pre-DRM, too. You can't unshift a paradigm like DRM for big media
  - samdk 14y ago
    You can't unshift a paradigm like DRM for big media Yes, you can. DRM was pervasive in the music industry. It no longer is. DRM was pervasive in the ebook industry. We are beginning to see signs from publishers (Tor books being the most recent example) of a willingness to sell ebooks without DRM. "DRM-free" has become a selling point for smaller companies in the games industry. It is not easy, and it is not fast, but it is possible, and it is happening.
    - securingsincity 14y ago
      DRM-FREE is happening in many ways and it's a great thing. But in the music and movie industry they are leveraging streaming technologies like Netflix and Spotify to create solutions that still have DRM that just feel less intrusive then others. For E-books I think companies like O'Reilly are not only making users who are aware of DRM happy, they are taking a competitive advantage of a segmented DRM market(Nook vs Amazon vs Kobo vs whoever else) by going DRM-FREE.
JoshTriplett 14y ago
> protect the rights of both the creator and end user Take a look at https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/misinterpreting-copyright.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/misinterpreting-copyright.htm... . The FSF holds a consistent position on this: "copyright privileges can be justified only in the name of the readers, never in the name of the publishers"; in other words, we permit limited copyright restrictions because we want more works produced, and that represents a tradeoff. The same thing applies to DRM: tolerating DRM means we might get a few more works produced (though widespread evidence would seem to suggest otherwise), but we lose a lot of rights over those works. That tradeoff doesn't seem worth it.
billsix 14y ago
There are lots of theories and examples of alternatives to DRM that protect the rights of both the creator and end user. Such as?
holri 14y ago
Richard Stallmann proposed a internet access tax that is distributed to producers in a cube-root function of the measured popularity (number of downloads etc.) of their works: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/freedom-or-copyright.html http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/freedom-or-copyright.html The German Chaos Computer Club proposed a similar system using a cryptographic micropayment currency: http://irights.info/?q=ccc-konzept-kulturwertmark http://irights.info/?q=ccc-konzept-kulturwertmark (sorry only German)
skerrit_bwoy 14y ago
"It's easy to point fingers, it's tough to propose meaningful solutions." Precisely. When The Singularity (TM) comes, and all work is executed by software and robots, I can easily wrap my head around the idea that we would have no DRM, yet a vibrant creative ecosystem - after all, an artist wouldn't have to sell his wares in order to eat. The FSF position seems to amount to little more than realizing this potential future ideal, and then stubbornly insisting that we should act this way about intellectual property right now. It is completely divorced from the practical considerations of the life of h. sapien on Terra in the early twenty-first century. I actually wrote a research paper several years ago that predicted the demise of DRM in music as the hassle of piracy vs. the cost of legitimate music consumption reached a point where it made more sense to buy a song for $0.99 than to try to torrent it. This prediction obviously came true, viz our present day Amazon and iTunes music stores. And I think that, generally speaking, so long as the cost of the media in question is below the "who cares" threshold for the mass market, DRM will be moot. The free-marketeers insist that economic progress will continually raise that threshold, theoretically straight on through to The Singularity (TM). This implies a "wait and see" approach, as one day $50 will seem like nothing for the average citizen to drop on a vidya game, which at that point will be DRM free. Not an air tight case, but it at least has a few empirical data points in its favor. On the other hand, what the FSF has is a secular techno-liturgy that is highly seductive to a certain kind of mind - one which is very well represented in the techie parts of the world. I'm as guilty of that as anybody. I remember being 17 and voraciously reading and espousing every iota of output from the GNU crew. I /facepalm about that now, but c'est la vie. Perhaps this is just our demographic's homologue for The Communist Manifesto - a phase that everyone goes through, but that some never leave.

by aspir 14y ago

rrreese 14y ago

Very true, especially as the FSF has been so instrumental in creating and encouraging the creation of free software. While the FSF have "been against" non free software they have at least helped provide the alternative. In the case of DRM, not so much.

mkr-hn 14y ago
GPL and other licenses are the alternative. The only functional difference between a license and DRM is that enforcement is in the hands of the rights holders until the DRM is broken. GPL is hoping no one steals it. DRM is trying to keep people from stealing it until you make enough to cover expenses and some profit. Law is the fallback for both.

tsewlliw 14y ago

Like what meaningful solution? Pre-digital DRM was essentially the difficulty of copying, and that is no longer "difficult", and you can't undo that because DRM on media people care about will be broken.

samdk 14y ago

[DRM] can't simply be "abolished" without some suitable alternative to protects both interests. It can be and in the music industry largely has been. iTunes has no DRM. Amazon's mp3 store has no DRM. Bandcamp has no DRM. The solution is getting rid of DRM. DRM does not prevent people intent on pirating their media from doing whatever they want. It hurts legitimate users. The existence of DRM has nothing to do with preserving the freedom of content creators. Your presentation of it as something that does is naive. It exists to protect the interests and power of media publishers. The publishers--not the creators--are the ones making the choices about DRM. Its use is an attempt to prop up outdated business models, because that's easier--and, in the short term, safer--than change.

aspir 14y ago
In my earlier post I was referring to publishers -- they are partial owners on the content. I agree that their business models need an overhaul, but simply pointing a finger from afar, and telling these entrenched organizations to change won't get far. These industries are too big and entreneched to just dies either. The most practical answer is to have some sort of compromise. It'll be hard to go back to pre-DRM, too. You can't unshift a paradigm like DRM for big media
- samdk 14y ago
  You can't unshift a paradigm like DRM for big media Yes, you can. DRM was pervasive in the music industry. It no longer is. DRM was pervasive in the ebook industry. We are beginning to see signs from publishers (Tor books being the most recent example) of a willingness to sell ebooks without DRM. "DRM-free" has become a selling point for smaller companies in the games industry. It is not easy, and it is not fast, but it is possible, and it is happening.
  - securingsincity 14y ago
    DRM-FREE is happening in many ways and it's a great thing. But in the music and movie industry they are leveraging streaming technologies like Netflix and Spotify to create solutions that still have DRM that just feel less intrusive then others. For E-books I think companies like O'Reilly are not only making users who are aware of DRM happy, they are taking a competitive advantage of a segmented DRM market(Nook vs Amazon vs Kobo vs whoever else) by going DRM-FREE.

JoshTriplett 14y ago

> protect the rights of both the creator and end user Take a look at https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/misinterpreting-copyright.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/misinterpreting-copyright.htm... . The FSF holds a consistent position on this: "copyright privileges can be justified only in the name of the readers, never in the name of the publishers"; in other words, we permit limited copyright restrictions because we want more works produced, and that represents a tradeoff. The same thing applies to DRM: tolerating DRM means we might get a few more works produced (though widespread evidence would seem to suggest otherwise), but we lose a lot of rights over those works. That tradeoff doesn't seem worth it.

billsix 14y ago

There are lots of theories and examples of alternatives to DRM that protect the rights of both the creator and end user. Such as?

holri 14y ago

Richard Stallmann proposed a internet access tax that is distributed to producers in a cube-root function of the measured popularity (number of downloads etc.) of their works: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/freedom-or-copyright.html http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/freedom-or-copyright.html The German Chaos Computer Club proposed a similar system using a cryptographic micropayment currency: http://irights.info/?q=ccc-konzept-kulturwertmark http://irights.info/?q=ccc-konzept-kulturwertmark (sorry only German)

skerrit_bwoy 14y ago

"It's easy to point fingers, it's tough to propose meaningful solutions." Precisely. When The Singularity (TM) comes, and all work is executed by software and robots, I can easily wrap my head around the idea that we would have no DRM, yet a vibrant creative ecosystem - after all, an artist wouldn't have to sell his wares in order to eat. The FSF position seems to amount to little more than realizing this potential future ideal, and then stubbornly insisting that we should act this way about intellectual property right now. It is completely divorced from the practical considerations of the life of h. sapien on Terra in the early twenty-first century. I actually wrote a research paper several years ago that predicted the demise of DRM in music as the hassle of piracy vs. the cost of legitimate music consumption reached a point where it made more sense to buy a song for $0.99 than to try to torrent it. This prediction obviously came true, viz our present day Amazon and iTunes music stores. And I think that, generally speaking, so long as the cost of the media in question is below the "who cares" threshold for the mass market, DRM will be moot. The free-marketeers insist that economic progress will continually raise that threshold, theoretically straight on through to The Singularity (TM). This implies a "wait and see" approach, as one day $50 will seem like nothing for the average citizen to drop on a vidya game, which at that point will be DRM free. Not an air tight case, but it at least has a few empirical data points in its favor. On the other hand, what the FSF has is a secular techno-liturgy that is highly seductive to a certain kind of mind - one which is very well represented in the techie parts of the world. I'm as guilty of that as anybody. I remember being 17 and voraciously reading and espousing every iota of output from the GNU crew. I /facepalm about that now, but c'est la vie. Perhaps this is just our demographic's homologue for The Communist Manifesto - a phase that everyone goes through, but that some never leave.