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Lawsuit could be the beginning of the end for DRM

defectivebydesign.org

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Re: Lawsuit could be the beginning of the end for DRM

#91

Post by zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC »

6stringmerc wrote: post #79
zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As in, what is the "motive" to change the law? Is it completely altruistic? Is it capitalistic? Well, the motive probably varies person by person, but in any case probably can't really be reasonably summarized in a single word. > I'd like to think you'll grant me that the article is very one-sided, in that there's not a single mention of the arts industry's concerns with why they would fight so hard (almost psychot…

No, I understand, and I am no RIAA or Irving Azoff apologist. I want both sides to at least reconcile - in public - that they are at odds with one another and playing extensive PR games. I mean, I don't think we as a society, as voters, can make effective thoughts regarding compromise when simply being fired propaganda into opposite ears. Or, to put it more bluntly, just because these entities can talk past one anoth…

> Or, to put it more bluntly, just because these entities can talk past one another doesn't mean they should do so. If they both act in this manner, should I just go ahead and give them both a pass?

I don't really think them talking past each other is the fundamental problem. From all I can tell, the "digital freedom" side (for lack of a better label) generally understands pretty well the reasons for why some people want to have DRM, and they even address all of those reasons publicly if you go and look for it. But the "art industry" has a vested interest in ignoring all the arguments, and that, indeed, seems to be mostly about profit (and to some degree a lack of understanding of the technical possibilities and of their side effects). That's why a serious and productive argument between the two parties doesn't work, and why the "digital freedom" side is forced to use similar propaganda strategies to counter the unwillingness to even engage with the arguments on the other side.

As for whether you should give them both a pass: If you think that that's going to get you to the world that you want to live in?

> The first "side," I think, to "rise above" the cherry-picking statistics and hyperbolic "negatives" will draw more support and eventually have the upper hand in negotiation. Not overnight.

Well, one wishes.

> But cases like this try to sledgehammer something - to enact drastic change overnight - and in my opinion, that's not a prudent course of action with respect to most functions of Federal Law.

And yet, that's exactly what was done with the DMCA. It's not like the counter-arguments were invented after the DMCA was put in place. They were simply ignored, and the DMCA was, as you put it, sledgehammered into place.

Re: Lawsuit could be the beginning of the end for DRM

#92

Post by Natsu »

Yetanfou wrote: post #25
throwaway1974 wrote: post #3

If it was not for DRM removal tools I would have recently been screwed by Amazon, here is my story: I was a longtime customer (easily 10 years or more I think) and have bought every version of Kindle to have come out over the years (unfortunately they break easily) and have build up a large collection Recently I replaced the debit card on my account as the old one expired, placed and order for a digital game code for…

Don't rely on any 'official' solution to maintain your digital library as those are sure to stop working in one way (company goes bankrupt or gets bought) or another (planned obsolescence, forced upgrade, etc) in a few years time. Configure your own using one of the existing tools; if you use Owncloud or Nextcloud you could use my OPDS Catalog app ( https://apps.owncloud.com/content/show.php?content=168132 ), possibl…

You make me wonder what I should do to preserve my Steam account now... Maybe there's some way to get a VM image of the computer in offline mode?

Re: Lawsuit could be the beginning of the end for DRM

#93

Post by TeMPOraL »

hsod wrote: post #60
bad_user wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is of course that we as humans don't like to rent, we like to own and for good reasons. We only prefer to rent when overall the price is much better than owning or when we don't have a choice. Netflix and Spotify don't have a problem with their subscribers because the price is fair. $10 per month is fair for unlimited access to TV shows that you like. $10 is also fair for unlimited access to all the music…

What makes a price fair?

The general perception of the marginal cost of a vendor of stocking and selling the good, as compared with the price they ask you and the value-added service they offer. With digital goods, the marginal cost of delivering you a copy is pretty much zero. As for service provided - it depends, but most of the time, the service itself doesn't seem to be costing much more than "pretty much nothing".

What matters is perception. To use Amazon Kindle Store as an example - the primary service they (and most on-line merchants) offer you is... a payment gateway. It doesn't seem expensive. They also host the ebooks, but again - downloading digital goods is free at the margin. You could say that e-book prices also subsidize Kindle R&D and/or manufacturing (not sure if that's true, but assuming it for the sake of an example) - but at this point I have to ask, why should I care?

Businesses like to move around costs and profits and do anything but transparent pricing in order to maximize profits. Koerig sells you coffee machines at a loss for price X, and then tries to make it up with DRMed, overpriced coffee pods. I feel it's unfair because - why should I care about the coffee pods subsidizing my coffee maker? They didn't tell me up-front they're doing it, they just sell me a coffee maker for X.

Similarly with ebooks. The marignal costs to the retailer are zero, so the price should be low too - if they're subsidizing something with ebook sales, that's not my problem. I'll call expensive ebooks unfairly priced. If they want me to think the price is fair, they need to work on my perception of their cost structures, instead of obfuscating everything.

Re: Lawsuit could be the beginning of the end for DRM

#94

Post by patrec »

pdkl95 wrote: post #39
patrec wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This battle is lost and the reality is already much worse than just DRM. It is increasingly impossible to actually own digital content and all content is moving to digital. You only lease at the revocable pleasure of some multi-billion dollar corporation. No resale, no inheritance, no right of refusal of obnoxious TOS changes if you want continued access. Yes, for some technical books it is still possible to buy a DR…

Yes, you might have to do without some things. This is why some of us were making a lot of noise about this problem 20+ years ago, when sending the message that "leasing"/DRM isn't acceptable didn't require a significant sacrifice. Unfortunately everyone - including engineers that should have known better - was more interested in the media industry's shiny baubles than investing their future property rights. So now t…

You seem to imply I have a moral obligation to make sacrifices for the cause of consumer rights, but realistically any call to collective action that imposes comparatively large costs to the individual for very slim chances of success is doomed to failure and a misdirection of energies that would better be spent elsewhere.

I will continue to seek out and prefer non-DRM, non-leased content where available at acceptable cost, but consumers voting with their wallets is not going to solve this.

Re: Lawsuit could be the beginning of the end for DRM

#95

Post by TeMPOraL »

pdkl95 wrote: post #39
patrec wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This battle is lost and the reality is already much worse than just DRM. It is increasingly impossible to actually own digital content and all content is moving to digital. You only lease at the revocable pleasure of some multi-billion dollar corporation. No resale, no inheritance, no right of refusal of obnoxious TOS changes if you want continued access. Yes, for some technical books it is still possible to buy a DR…

Yes, you might have to do without some things. This is why some of us were making a lot of noise about this problem 20+ years ago, when sending the message that "leasing"/DRM isn't acceptable didn't require a significant sacrifice. Unfortunately everyone - including engineers that should have known better - was more interested in the media industry's shiny baubles than investing their future property rights. So now t…

Well, we had Stallman saying those things for decades, and everyone in tech mocked and ignored him instead.

Re: Lawsuit could be the beginning of the end for DRM

#96

Post by zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC »

6stringmerc wrote: post #81
zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Using your reasoning, only a small subset of people are genuinely affected by the Section 1201 implications - security researchers in particular. Using your reasoning, only a small subset of people would be genuinely affected by a ban on medical research - medical researchers in particular. Security researchers don't do security research for the sake of it, but to make information technology more secure. When they…

Interesting perspective, and unfortunately I do not even remotely share the "scope" of the effects being claimed, which is why I time and again argue for effective reform. You've framed this as an incredible societal harm, which I simply don't see from a practical standpoint. I'd feel a lot better about your perspective if you would agree that "effective reform" can be possible in this instance without over-arching s…

> Equivocating DRM with murder is ludicrous to me, it just is from a rhetorical standpoint.

Except I didn't say anything of that sort? I mean, I didn't even compare DRM to murder. So what the heck have you been reading?

Re: Lawsuit could be the beginning of the end for DRM

#97

Post by swsieber »

icebraining wrote: post #61
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is the greed and narcissism on both sides. The content corps make a ton of money by exploiting creative people. They used to be able to justify this by claiming that they sponsored and nurtured talent. That was always a stretch, even when 15% of a CD sale - maximum - went to the original creator, and the rest to the rest of the industry. But advances did happen, and they were the only way creatives could…

How many pirates have made any effort to sponsor creators, or pay creators directly for original content? Studies in Norway, the UK, Australia and the US have shown that pirates actually spend more than the general population on digital products like music and films. The idea that you're either a Buyer or a Pirate is not, and has never been true. The fact is that a lot of people simply can't afford to buy all the con…

Citations please? I agree, but would like to have sources to back up my own observations.

Re: Lawsuit could be the beginning of the end for DRM

#98

Post by JoshTriplett »

kefka wrote: post #86
vidarh wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Second this. While I do occasionally buy Kindle books, I only buy them as long as the DRM is straightforward to remove. The moment they get aggressive about DRM, it'll be the last time I ever buy one. I don't feel strongly enough about it to avoid books I want to read that are only available with DRM, but I do insist on having an unencumbered copy. And when a book is available from a source I know are good about not…

>The only form of "DRM" I don't mind are the e-book stores that provide you with a personalised copy that includes my name/e-mail, but otherwise leaves the book unprotected. And that also implies that you give up right of resale. I can sell a physical book after I have it. I can choose to write my name in there... Or not. Having my name plastered as you indicate is OK, means giving up my own guaranteed rights of resa…

> And that also implies that you give up right of resale.

I'd love to see that tested.

Re: Lawsuit could be the beginning of the end for DRM

#99

Post by comex »

kefka wrote: post #86
vidarh wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Second this. While I do occasionally buy Kindle books, I only buy them as long as the DRM is straightforward to remove. The moment they get aggressive about DRM, it'll be the last time I ever buy one. I don't feel strongly enough about it to avoid books I want to read that are only available with DRM, but I do insist on having an unencumbered copy. And when a book is available from a source I know are good about not…

>The only form of "DRM" I don't mind are the e-book stores that provide you with a personalised copy that includes my name/e-mail, but otherwise leaves the book unprotected. And that also implies that you give up right of resale. I can sell a physical book after I have it. I can choose to write my name in there... Or not. Having my name plastered as you indicate is OK, means giving up my own guaranteed rights of resa…

Not really. You can still legally sell a physical book if you've written your name in (if the buyer doesn't mind), and you can always remove your name from a non-DRMed eBook (though there may be more subtle forms of tracking left in).

The first sale doctrine is a legal matter, and unfortunately in the US it's been found essentially inapplicable to digital copies [1] whether there's a watermark or not. In other jurisdictions it may be applicable, but again probably regardless of the presence of a watermark.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitol_Records,_LLC_v._ReDi....

Re: Lawsuit could be the beginning of the end for DRM

#100

Post by rspeer »

lmm wrote: post #30
derekp7 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The recourse for anyone else would be a lawsuit in small claims court. That would at least get their attention, and possibly an issue resolution.

Credit card chargebacks for every kindle book you bought? Would probably remove all chance of reconciliation, but it would send a message.

Your credit card company needs Amazon more than they need you. They would side with Amazon.
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