5 ms·

That makes no sense to me. If someone television or production company wants DRM on their website, sure, it's their right. Who's forcing me to put DRM on my sit

by spoiler 12y ago

That makes no sense to me. If someone television or production company wants DRM on their website, sure, it's their right. Who's forcing me to put DRM on my site if I don't want to? DRM is an option, it's not like someone's pointing a gun at your router telling you "go visit drmwebsite.com or else." I obviously fail to grasp why DRM is so bad, or its importance. I just can't fathom why everyone thinks it's so sinister. I mean, don't get me wrong, it coukd be annoying as fuck, but just don't visit that website? I don't do things that make me unhappy. Also, the point some people are making about distribution channels, I would like to point out that we, people who frequent HN, are sometimes too idealistic, which is good, but can be a fallacy sometimes (at least I belive so). Imagine you're Paramount, you spent years working on a movie, and you want the product of your hard labour (and that of thousands of your employees, probably) to be distributed the way you want and how you want it. I think that's fair. Yes, there's still gonna be piracy (and I thank God for that), but DRM gives them that option to protect themselves against it, if only at least legally. If someone is so horrendously against DRM, then they don't have to watch your movie? I find the whole affair as simple as that.

shmerl 12y ago
DRM leads to stuff like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_rootkit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_rootkit And like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Computer_Entertainment_America_v._George_Hotz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Computer_Entertainment_Am... But that's the result, not the reason why it's sinister. It's sinister because it shifts from presumption of innocence to police state method of "all guilty by default". Like the Sony exec quoted in the first link above expressed it: >>> The industry will take whatever steps it needs to protect itself and protect its revenue streams... It will not lose that revenue stream, no matter what... Sony is going to take aggressive steps to stop this. We will develop technology that transcends the individual user. We will firewall Napster at source - we will block it at your cable company. We will block it at your phone company. We will block it at your ISP. We will firewall it at your PC... These strategies are being aggressively pursued because there is simply too much at stake. And in practice it's always bad because it's not a theoretical "protection of content", but something actual running in your private digital space (your computer, your OS, your program), with the sole purpose of not trusting you and doing whatever (you usually have no clue what - DRM is a black box). Something not trusting you should be not trusted in return - i.e. always treated as potential malware.

by spoiler 12y ago

shmerl 12y ago

DRM leads to stuff like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_rootkit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_rootkit And like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Computer_Entertainment_America_v._George_Hotz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Computer_Entertainment_Am... But that's the result, not the reason why it's sinister. It's sinister because it shifts from presumption of innocence to police state method of "all guilty by default". Like the Sony exec quoted in the first link above expressed it: >>> The industry will take whatever steps it needs to protect itself and protect its revenue streams... It will not lose that revenue stream, no matter what... Sony is going to take aggressive steps to stop this. We will develop technology that transcends the individual user. We will firewall Napster at source - we will block it at your cable company. We will block it at your phone company. We will block it at your ISP. We will firewall it at your PC... These strategies are being aggressively pursued because there is simply too much at stake. And in practice it's always bad because it's not a theoretical "protection of content", but something actual running in your private digital space (your computer, your OS, your program), with the sole purpose of not trusting you and doing whatever (you usually have no clue what - DRM is a black box). Something not trusting you should be not trusted in return - i.e. always treated as potential malware.