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This is a misrepresentation of the problem here. You're restating the corporate arguments. > There just isn't enough user demand for freedom to overcome the l

This is a misrepresentation of the problem here. You're restating the corporate arguments. > There just isn't enough user demand for freedom to overcome the loss to businesses of losing control of their content. DRM doesn't prevent businesses losing control of their content. Orange is the New Black has, AFAIK, only ever been distributed through EME, but it's all over the Pirate Bay, every single episode. > maybe it means coming up with alternate ways to monetize We have alternate ways to monetize. The simplest being doing exactly what they are doing except not DRM-ing their content, which demonstrably has worked for multiple content distributors. There are others. DRM isn't about controlling content or monetize that content. It's about maintaining an outdated business model because business executives don't understand the internet. Which would be fine, except that it's hurting the open web.

mikeryan 12y ago
Orange is the New Black has, AFAIK, only ever been distributed through EME This isn't even close to true. Netflix has a ton of non browser delivery mechanisms. It may only have been delivered with drm but that's a different thing and I don't know enough to know if that's true.
- copsarebastards 12y ago
  > This isn't even close to true. Netflix has a ton of non browser delivery mechanisms. It may only have been delivered with drm but that's a different thing and I don't know enough to know if that's true. Maybe that’s a bad example. But I’ll put out this challenge: find me a reasonably popular TV show that’s supposedly completely covered by DRM, and I’ll find you a torrent for it. My point is that DRM does nothing to prevent piracy.
cwyers 12y ago
Is Netflix an outdated business model? Because it's not possible without DRM. Is any sort of video rental or subscription model outdated? And why is it outdated? DRM may not be able to provide 100% ironclad copy protection, but it provides roughly the same level of copy protection that video rental has before, probably better if you're comparing to VHS or DVD. The idea that any sort of rental arrangement for video content is "outdated" reflects your own wishes, not the facts on the ground. The technology exists to provide good enough guarantees for the content providers, and it remains a popular choice with consumers. You're right that pirates have figured out how to break the DRM on Orange Is The New Black and distribute copies of it. What they haven't figured out is a new business model where consumers buy the majority of their content a la carte rather than getting much of it from subscriptions (Netflix/Hulu/Amazon type subscriptions or cable/satellite subscriptions) and rentals and theatrical exhibition.
- copsarebastards 12y ago
  > Is Netflix an outdated business model? Because it's not possible without DRM. [citation needed] > Is any sort of video rental or subscription model outdated? I’m not sure why you’re asking me that, I never said that. > And why is it outdated? Because DRM does exactly nothing to prevent piracy, and hurts users. > DRM may not be able to provide 100% ironclad copy protection, but it provides roughly the same level of copy protection that video rental has before, probably better if you're comparing to VHS or DVD. And how much copy protection is that? Here’s a fun experiment: go on The Pirate Bay and search for Orange is the New Black, then tell me how effective you think DRM is. Piracy is far easier now than it was in the VHS or DVD eras. In the VHS or DVD eras you at least had to have some access to a controlled version of the content in order to copy it. Now you can go on a torrent site and search for something you’ve never heard of and people you’ll never meet will serve it to you for free. So no, DRM does not provide roughly the same level of copy protection as video rental.
orblivion 12y ago
You keep telling that to yourself, and yet the businesses go out of their way to do something that you're so sure doesn't do them any good. Do you really think they're stupid? Do you really think they are wasting their energy, to support a system that possibly even hurts their bottom line? Are you in the entertainment industry? Do you know better? I'm not saying they can't be stubborn. But I have a trouble believing that as outsiders we can really see all of the factors involved in these business decisions. Maybe there are different levels of sophistication from this camp, but I also remember people saying that piracy would actually help CD sales because it spread the word about artists. How many platinum records have there been in the last 5 years? I'm inclined to think there's something at play here, something that really hits their bottom line, that we're not considering. "Business people are stupid", while possible, is a hard line to swallow, they didn't get rich by being stupid.
- copsarebastards 12y ago
  > You keep telling that to yourself, and yet the businesses go out of their way to do something that you're so sure doesn't do them any good. Do you really think they're stupid? Do you really think they are wasting their energy, to support a system that possibly even hurts their bottom line? Are you in the entertainment industry? Do you know better? I’m not saying they’re stupid. I’m not even saying that the insistence on DRM is stupid, I’m just saying it’s wrong. It’s an understandable mistake—it’s hard to understand the capabilities of the internet. > Maybe there are different levels of sophistication from this camp, but I also remember people saying that piracy would actually help CD sales because it spread the word about artists. How many platinum records have there been in the last 5 years? This is a completely irrelevant point. Of course piracy hurts sales. But DRM doesn’t solve this problem, and I see no purpose pretending that it does. I’ll be happy to revise my opinion if a DRM scheme emerges which actually works. > I'm inclined to think there's something at play here, something that really hits their bottom line, that we're not considering. Well, yes. There’s something else at play here, which is that having closed-source access is useful to corporations for reasons that have nothing to do with DRM. For example, having more closed-source access to users’ machines means that they can collect more data on their users without their users knowing. Yes, there are things we don't know, but it's a pretty big leap to assume that these unknowns are good reasons to concede on an open web. If there are unknown reasons that companies want closed internet, there is nothing stopping them from presenting those reasons in the court of public opinion. I suspect the reason they are fighting the DRM issue is that it comes across as defending artists' rights, and the real reasons companies want to run untrusted, unaudited code on our machines are things you'd feel less sympathetic about.

mikeryan 12y ago

Orange is the New Black has, AFAIK, only ever been distributed through EME This isn't even close to true. Netflix has a ton of non browser delivery mechanisms. It may only have been delivered with drm but that's a different thing and I don't know enough to know if that's true.

copsarebastards 12y ago
> This isn't even close to true. Netflix has a ton of non browser delivery mechanisms. It may only have been delivered with drm but that's a different thing and I don't know enough to know if that's true. Maybe that’s a bad example. But I’ll put out this challenge: find me a reasonably popular TV show that’s supposedly completely covered by DRM, and I’ll find you a torrent for it. My point is that DRM does nothing to prevent piracy.

cwyers 12y ago

Is Netflix an outdated business model? Because it's not possible without DRM. Is any sort of video rental or subscription model outdated? And why is it outdated? DRM may not be able to provide 100% ironclad copy protection, but it provides roughly the same level of copy protection that video rental has before, probably better if you're comparing to VHS or DVD. The idea that any sort of rental arrangement for video content is "outdated" reflects your own wishes, not the facts on the ground. The technology exists to provide good enough guarantees for the content providers, and it remains a popular choice with consumers. You're right that pirates have figured out how to break the DRM on Orange Is The New Black and distribute copies of it. What they haven't figured out is a new business model where consumers buy the majority of their content a la carte rather than getting much of it from subscriptions (Netflix/Hulu/Amazon type subscriptions or cable/satellite subscriptions) and rentals and theatrical exhibition.

copsarebastards 12y ago
> Is Netflix an outdated business model? Because it's not possible without DRM. [citation needed] > Is any sort of video rental or subscription model outdated? I’m not sure why you’re asking me that, I never said that. > And why is it outdated? Because DRM does exactly nothing to prevent piracy, and hurts users. > DRM may not be able to provide 100% ironclad copy protection, but it provides roughly the same level of copy protection that video rental has before, probably better if you're comparing to VHS or DVD. And how much copy protection is that? Here’s a fun experiment: go on The Pirate Bay and search for Orange is the New Black, then tell me how effective you think DRM is. Piracy is far easier now than it was in the VHS or DVD eras. In the VHS or DVD eras you at least had to have some access to a controlled version of the content in order to copy it. Now you can go on a torrent site and search for something you’ve never heard of and people you’ll never meet will serve it to you for free. So no, DRM does not provide roughly the same level of copy protection as video rental.

orblivion 12y ago

You keep telling that to yourself, and yet the businesses go out of their way to do something that you're so sure doesn't do them any good. Do you really think they're stupid? Do you really think they are wasting their energy, to support a system that possibly even hurts their bottom line? Are you in the entertainment industry? Do you know better? I'm not saying they can't be stubborn. But I have a trouble believing that as outsiders we can really see all of the factors involved in these business decisions. Maybe there are different levels of sophistication from this camp, but I also remember people saying that piracy would actually help CD sales because it spread the word about artists. How many platinum records have there been in the last 5 years? I'm inclined to think there's something at play here, something that really hits their bottom line, that we're not considering. "Business people are stupid", while possible, is a hard line to swallow, they didn't get rich by being stupid.

copsarebastards 12y ago
> You keep telling that to yourself, and yet the businesses go out of their way to do something that you're so sure doesn't do them any good. Do you really think they're stupid? Do you really think they are wasting their energy, to support a system that possibly even hurts their bottom line? Are you in the entertainment industry? Do you know better? I’m not saying they’re stupid. I’m not even saying that the insistence on DRM is stupid, I’m just saying it’s wrong. It’s an understandable mistake—it’s hard to understand the capabilities of the internet. > Maybe there are different levels of sophistication from this camp, but I also remember people saying that piracy would actually help CD sales because it spread the word about artists. How many platinum records have there been in the last 5 years? This is a completely irrelevant point. Of course piracy hurts sales. But DRM doesn’t solve this problem, and I see no purpose pretending that it does. I’ll be happy to revise my opinion if a DRM scheme emerges which actually works. > I'm inclined to think there's something at play here, something that really hits their bottom line, that we're not considering. Well, yes. There’s something else at play here, which is that having closed-source access is useful to corporations for reasons that have nothing to do with DRM. For example, having more closed-source access to users’ machines means that they can collect more data on their users without their users knowing. Yes, there are things we don't know, but it's a pretty big leap to assume that these unknowns are good reasons to concede on an open web. If there are unknown reasons that companies want closed internet, there is nothing stopping them from presenting those reasons in the court of public opinion. I suspect the reason they are fighting the DRM issue is that it comes across as defending artists' rights, and the real reasons companies want to run untrusted, unaudited code on our machines are things you'd feel less sympathetic about.