Friday, April 27, 2007

DRM is bad, m'kay?

Hit the link for a nice article in the Economist to remind people why DRM is dumb.

The short version: DRM doesn't work. Treating every customer as a criminal pisses us off, and is really stupid when the real pirates make short work of every DRM scheme ever created. A better plan is to do some digital watermarking so that you can trace the origin of said content so if your content shows up on YouTube or something like that, you can tell where it came from and know easily that it isn't authorized. This then allows people to buy your content safe in knowledge that if they want to use it on any of their devices, they can.

I have no problem paying for content. But I'm not paying for content that I can't watch where I want just because it is digital and not tied to a disc.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yeah, I read the referenced judicial opinion shortly after it was issued (another IP lawyer sent it around to a bunch of us). A very well-written and well-thought opinion by the judge that just goes to show that some people in the entertainment industry have not only gone about trying to protect their copyrights in the wrong way, but gone much too far.

Unknown said...

I work for Napster, you all remember Napster right?

Well anyway.. I get to spend half of my day explaining DRM to people that dropped out of highschool and are now upset about "their music" not being "their's".

Personally I despise DRM usage, can't wait for it to be a thing of the past.

Ferrocene Cloud said...

Fully agreed that DRM is bad; no one likes being treated as if they are criminals, and at the end of the day, it makes things worse for everyone.

Sadly Microsoft does this was well Tom, with the crippling DRM on Premium Marketplace Content.

In Microsoft's case, one can't deny it's effective, because the 360 is more or less a closed platform, but when the system is as poorly implemented and inflexible, it hurts the manufacturer, and the consumer.

At least with the iTunes DRM system, whilst it's easily defeated if you take a bit of time to look online, at least you can authorise multiple computers to play the music.

One does long for the days where DRM, or at least, the really crippling, inflexible DRM, is history.

Anonymous said...

DRM is Bad!!
I recently purchased a Zune and purchased some music with some points. When I went to use it with my 360 to stream music it wouldnt let me use the Zune music. Purchased from MS not compatible with another MS product, figure that one out.