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DRM Is Toxic to Culture

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Re: DRM Is Toxic to Culture

#71

Post by maxerickson »

izacus wrote: post #60
maxerickson wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least for the US, I think you are overestimating the restrictions on private establishments. Stores don't do invasive things because it doesn't make business sense, not because the legal system particularly enjoins them. Like if I opened a candy shop that required agreeing to an NDA for entry, what law do you think would make me let people in without signing the NDA? It might not be enforced, but there isn't anyth…

It was just an analogy to make it easier to demonstrate the disproportionate effect DRM has on paying customers. I don't particularly care about entering into a debate about what kind of abuse of people US laws allows.

Fair enough.

The disproportionate effect DRM has on paying customers doesn't seem to be obscure or difficult to think about though.

Re: DRM Is Toxic to Culture

#72

Post by zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC »

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #49
0xcde4c3db wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Beyond that, one can't be against DRM and for GPL enforcement at the same time and remain logically consistent. One can absolutely do that. Technical restraints and legal remedies are not the same thing, and it's completely consistent to say that DRM should be unavailable to both proprietary and free works while legal remedies should be available to both.

> Technical restraints and legal remedies are not the same thing, and it's completely consistent to say that DRM should be unavailable to both proprietary and free works while legal remedies should be available to both. "legal remedies should be available to both" was tried for media; that was the era where the studios were suing individuals for copyright violations. Needless to say, that proved to be impractical for…

> you're going to have to admit that the existence of IP rights implies that that other IP rightsholders are permitted to build some mechanism that works to enforce their rights.

Yes. And not one bit more. Show me a DRM system that would never overstep the legal boundaries of their legally enforcable rights, and your argument maybe makes some sense.

Re: DRM Is Toxic to Culture

#73

Post by coldtea »

_jal wrote: post #45
coldtea wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I still agree with you, though; times change, and nobody "deserves" business-model protection. Is that true though? Because laws against theft (physical theft of actual products I mean, let's not get into whether "copying" is theft here) are a business-model protection too. As are most business laws (e.g. contract law). Why pay at a restaurant when you can just walk out and run for it? Isn't making it illegal a "bu…

Laws against theft, contract enforcement, etc. are general laws for the benefit of everyone. (They also derive from common law, which dates back over a thousand years, as opposed to statutory laws that are routinely bought by lobbying, but let's put that aside.) They are a sort of 'legal primitive' - don't cheat, don't steal - that attempt to provide a baseline of trust in society. Mandates that computers must respec…

>If you want to go down that path, you're going to be "picking winners and losers" - something I hear we are supposed to dislike. Which business models "deserve" protections?

I'd say that should not be up to the availability of the relevant technology to decide, but up to society.

Just because we can obliterate or replace something doesn't automatically mean we should, or that it would be better for us if we did.

So I'm perfectly OK with society picking winners and losers, and not OK with a jungle race where "invisible hands" and market forces (including the one's people forget, like lobbies, monopolies and under the table deals) decide.

Re: DRM Is Toxic to Culture

#74

Post by TeMPOraL »

coldtea wrote: post #28
izacus wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get this - why is DRM is friggning' NECESSARY? What makes it this forced law of nature? The current multi-billion media conglomerates grew at times when being able to copy a piece of content from TV was encoded in the LAW. Content providers earned billions of dollars at times when you could press REC on your VCR and ("THE HORROR" now every content provider shill screams) rewatch the show many times and ( GASP…

> The current multi-billion media conglomerates grew at times when being able to copy a piece of content from TV was encoded in the LAW. Content providers earned billions of dollars at times when you could press REC on your VCR and ("THE HORROR" now every content provider shill screams) rewatch the show many times and (GASP) give the tape to your friends to watch too! Yes, but you couldn't give the content to everybo…

> And you had to waste 1 hour or so in real-time to make a copy (which was degraded anyway).

No, you didn't. You either watched while recording, or just started recording, went to do something else and came back in an hour. Either way, the time wasn't wasted.

Re: DRM Is Toxic to Culture

#75

Post by type0 »

maxerickson wrote: post #52
izacus wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're making false comparison here. DRM is extremely invasive - it's akin to being forced to wear handcuffs inside a store to prevent theft, or perhaps being strip searched every time you walk past a store. Both of those actions can also be sold as "business protection against theft", but our legal framework currently says that we're ready to tolerate some amount of shoplifting and we're not going to allow stores to…

At least for the US, I think you are overestimating the restrictions on private establishments. Stores don't do invasive things because it doesn't make business sense, not because the legal system particularly enjoins them. Like if I opened a candy shop that required agreeing to an NDA for entry, what law do you think would make me let people in without signing the NDA? It might not be enforced, but there isn't anyth…

But DRM isn't NDA so what is your point here?

Re: DRM Is Toxic to Culture

#76

Post by maxerickson »

type0 wrote: post #75
maxerickson wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least for the US, I think you are overestimating the restrictions on private establishments. Stores don't do invasive things because it doesn't make business sense, not because the legal system particularly enjoins them. Like if I opened a candy shop that required agreeing to an NDA for entry, what law do you think would make me let people in without signing the NDA? It might not be enforced, but there isn't anyth…

But DRM isn't NDA so what is your point here?

I don't like analogies.

Re: DRM Is Toxic to Culture

#77

Post by _jal »

coldtea wrote: post #73
_jal wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Laws against theft, contract enforcement, etc. are general laws for the benefit of everyone. (They also derive from common law, which dates back over a thousand years, as opposed to statutory laws that are routinely bought by lobbying, but let's put that aside.) They are a sort of 'legal primitive' - don't cheat, don't steal - that attempt to provide a baseline of trust in society. Mandates that computers must respec…

> If you want to go down that path, you're going to be "picking winners and losers" - something I hear we are supposed to dislike. Which business models "deserve" protections? I'd say that should not be up to the availability of the relevant technology to decide, but up to society. Just because we can obliterate or replace something doesn't automatically mean we should, or that it would be better for us if we did. So…

> So I'm perfectly OK with society picking winners and losers, and not OK with a jungle race where "invisible hands" and market forces (including the one's people forget, like lobbies, monopolies and under the table deals) decide.

Uh, I specifically called out lobbies and monopolies.

And in theory I agree with you. In practice, "society" doesn't serve that role. The "invisible hands" are exactly the actors doing the picking.

Don't get me wrong - I love me some theory, it is so much cleaner than the real world. But we don't get to live there.

Re: DRM Is Toxic to Culture

#78

Post by type0 »

gaius wrote: post #38
comex wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strangely, I couldn't find any of these reports available for free download and in the public domain... No, but I bet if you pay for them you get them as PDFs, unencrypted, which you can view on a vast breadth of devices and OSes and applications, annotate/modify, clip parts out of, convert to other formats, and otherwise manipulate as you please, with no arbitrary technological restrictions getting in the way. (Comp…

with no arbitrary technological restrictions getting in the way How does the arbitrariness of those technological restrictions differ from the arbitrariness of the legal restrictions which I'm sure the author would insist upon, should you decide to republish their work? To me they are the same thing - mechanisms for saying "you might've bought this but the original owner still has a say in what you do with it". The w…

> Yes there is poorly written DRM (Sony, we're looking at you) but that is a problem of execution, not one of concept.

So you mean that there are Rootkits that are written in a good way?

Re: DRM Is Toxic to Culture

#79

Post by zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC »

gaius wrote: post #38
comex wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strangely, I couldn't find any of these reports available for free download and in the public domain... No, but I bet if you pay for them you get them as PDFs, unencrypted, which you can view on a vast breadth of devices and OSes and applications, annotate/modify, clip parts out of, convert to other formats, and otherwise manipulate as you please, with no arbitrary technological restrictions getting in the way. (Comp…

with no arbitrary technological restrictions getting in the way How does the arbitrariness of those technological restrictions differ from the arbitrariness of the legal restrictions which I'm sure the author would insist upon, should you decide to republish their work? To me they are the same thing - mechanisms for saying "you might've bought this but the original owner still has a say in what you do with it". The w…

> How does the arbitrariness of those technological restrictions differ from the arbitrariness of the legal restrictions which I'm sure the author would insist upon, should you decide to republish their work?

One of those is decided by a democratic process, the other is dictated by one party.

> but that is a problem of execution, not one of concept.

Actually, it is a problem of the concept. It is asking for computers to be robbed of their defining characteristic, and to be put under dictatorial control.

See also Cory Doctorow's talks on the topic, like maybe this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbYXBJOFgeI (he gave this and similar talks in many places, you can find quite a few of them on youtube, I have no clue whether this particular one is good)

Re: DRM Is Toxic to Culture

#80

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo »

cygned wrote: post #65

Lately, I wanted to buy an eBook. I usually buy prints, but this time I needed it as soon as possible. Upon searching, every book store told me, I would need to install some Adobe stuff on my computer to read the file. I am neither a fan of Adobe nor of the idea of being locked in to an application to view a book. After realizing that there is no other digital way, I simply bought the printed version and waited the t…

Yeah that's how it works I had to do that when I rented an eBook from the library. DRM removal tools are a godsend.
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