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DRM Is Toxic to Culture

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Re: DRM Is Toxic to Culture

#171

Post by TeMPOraL »

jdormit wrote: post #136
pharrington wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stallman's a philosopher, so his precision and consistency in how he interprets the digital world is actually mandatory. Do you know the time limits for how long your games can run in Steam's offline mode?

I'm pretty sure you can just go to the steamapps directory and run the .exes directly

You can, but - as they're linked to Steam library, like 'pharrington wrote - whether or not the game will actually launch depends on Steam's opinion on this topic. The game may e.g. refuse to launch until you log in to Steam (and refresh whatever magic DRM sauce it needs on-line).

Re: DRM Is Toxic to Culture

#172

Post by benchaney »

rhino369 wrote: post #102
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…

DRM and other anti-piracy measures are all about making piracy harder, not impossible. It's not an all or nothing venture. Every little bit you make copying harder results in fewer people copying. Cntrl C Cntrl V makes it so my mom can pirate. And she did during the Napster days. But she can't figure out BitTorrent on her own. Well, she could, but there is a learning curve, and most people aren't interested in it. Th…

The DRM approach to piracy is an all or nothing thing. Once one person cracks a DRM setup they can distribute any movie protected by that setup to as many people as they want in whatever medium they want.

I think propagandizing piracy has had a lot more to do with its decline than ease of use. Try using popcorn time. It is incredibly easy.

Re: DRM Is Toxic to Culture

#173

Post by TeMPOraL »

chiefofgxbxl wrote: post #158
type0 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The physical book comparison is interesting. Imagine there would be a way to publish physical books with DRM that all publishers would embrace. You open such a book without authorization and it's all gibberish. To read it you would need to have bought a special strip that you lay over the pages in order to read (don't matter the technical aspect, it's gedanken-experiment so let's consider such a strip magic for now).…

That would mean that even the concept of a library would be illegal, right? A neighborhood library lending books out to people, under this DRM-mentality scheme, would be illegal, because everyone should have to buy their own copy of the books, not borrow from others. How did the libraries get by this? Do they agree with the publisher to pay a premium price for the book, seeing as they'll lend it out? Or were the publ…

> How did the libraries get by this?

I think the answer is, libraries predate publishing industry. They existed much longer than print. Governments worldwide managed to secure the role of libraries while publishers were still figuring out their business model. OTOH, audio and video recording, and all the digital media, popped up when publishers already knew how to make money with creative works - hence they managed to secure their moat quicker than society could respond.

Re: DRM Is Toxic to Culture

#174

Post by TeMPOraL »

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #146
jdormit wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, "ownership" isn't really what's at stake here. I guess, "consumption" would be a better term? DRM limits the ways in which consumers' can consume media - specifically, it enforces copyright. I think we are on the same page about the questionable moral standing of copyright for digital artifacts.

> DRM limits the ways in which consumers' can consume media - specifically, it enforces copyright. No, it doesn't. Copyright has concepts such as fair use. DRM does not enforce fair use.

Put simply, DRM is a publisher's mechanism to restrict the use of a digital good in whatever way they like, which usually includes enforcing a subset of copyright laws that's beneficial to the publisher.

Re: DRM Is Toxic to Culture

#175

Post by TeMPOraL »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #152
musesum wrote: post #89

Some background: I developed a software binary sandbox, in the 90's; patent cited 500+ times ... mostly by developers of DRM. Now, I am working on an open source project. IMO, DRM extends a presumption of scarcity. Hunters share their meat, whereas farmers guard their harvest. For the hunter, the kill is a short term abundance of value; if it isn't shared, it will spoil. For the farmer, the harvest is a long term sto…

There is no presumption of scarcity, because scarcity is a real phenomenon. There is a vast qualitative difference between the output of ten thousand amateurs and one highly trained and exceptionally talented artist (working in whatever medium.) This an immensely unfashionable idea. But the real problem with DRM isn't that it does or does not enable copying, but that it presupposes that artistic output is a commodity…

> But the real problem with DRM isn't that it does or does not enable copying, but that it presupposes that artistic output is a commodity that can be copied.

But does it? I thought one of the bigger arguments studios use is that art is not a commodity, hence licensing (enforced by DRM) and copyrights and please pay us.

> This is even more true of science. Ten thousand PhDs do not add up to one Newton or Einstein.

> And politics. Ten thousand mediocre politicians do not add up to one Nelson Mandela or Gandhi.

I'm less and less convinced of that. "Breakthrough discoveries" in sciences seem to be very incremental steps. That's, I think, the reason so many of those achievements were made simultaneously by different people in different parts of the world. When scientific knowledge reaches a given level, some discoveries become ripe for the taking, and they get plucked by whichever smart guy manages to figure it out first. I suspect the similar may be true of politics - even though history lessons tend to focus on individuals, it seems to me that big events were always much more about the environment than any individual decision.

That is to say, if anything, science is much bigger a commodity than creative arts - by very virtue of being constrained by reality. All practically useful maps of the same territory will look alike, after all.

> DRM is barely a footnote here. It's nowhere close to being the main problem.

I'm having trouble seeing what is the main problem you think about. If I try to do a root cause analysis of DRM, I always end up concluding the main problem is that content creators have to create content for a living - i.e. if creative work were to be entirely decoupled from monetary interests, more people would have access to more and better cultural works.

Re: DRM Is Toxic to Culture

#176

Post by nine_k »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #152
musesum wrote: post #89

Some background: I developed a software binary sandbox, in the 90's; patent cited 500+ times ... mostly by developers of DRM. Now, I am working on an open source project. IMO, DRM extends a presumption of scarcity. Hunters share their meat, whereas farmers guard their harvest. For the hunter, the kill is a short term abundance of value; if it isn't shared, it will spoil. For the farmer, the harvest is a long term sto…

There is no presumption of scarcity, because scarcity is a real phenomenon. There is a vast qualitative difference between the output of ten thousand amateurs and one highly trained and exceptionally talented artist (working in whatever medium.) This an immensely unfashionable idea. But the real problem with DRM isn't that it does or does not enable copying, but that it presupposes that artistic output is a commodity…

Considering your views, how would you describe the great rises of (European) culture e.g. in 15-17th centuries? What kind of system collected and rewarded talents like Michelangelo or Mozart? (Both made numerous gigs.)

Re: DRM Is Toxic to Culture

#177

Post by rmrfrmrf »

I would love to see some use cases of what people want to be able to do with DRM'd media that 1) can't be done with current DRM limitations and 2) is within the guidelines of what the distributor allows (or within the rights given by the user's local government).

For example, my local library buys a set number of digital licenses for ebooks, so there's a waitlist system for ebooks and each digital copy is time gated to a certain number of days before becoming unusable. In that time, though, you can read the ebook offline once downloaded through the library's app. Annoying sometimes, but overall seems reasonable.

How would that example translate to a non-DRM version while making sure that the library isn't distributing an unbounded number of licenses to customers?

Re: DRM Is Toxic to Culture

#178

Post by TeMPOraL »

scarface74 wrote: post #120

The usual spiel about DRM is that you don't own what you "bought" but in the case of subscriptions and rentals, why would anyone think they have a right to ownership when they are clearly paying for access ? Why should I have a problem with paying Apple for DRM free music from iTunes and paying for a subscription to DRMd music for Apple Music? I haven't pirated music since the iTunes Store opened in 2003. Even from 2…

I suppose people in general are not yet used to have everything in their life be some kind of service. With DRM, the part of the issue is how quickly we went from ownership (buying paper books, or even music/video on physical media) to renting.

Personally, I'm not sure what to think about it. On the one hand, one could argue that everything becoming a service is a sign of a maturing society. On the other hand, it makes individuals less autonomous, and society more fragile. Currently I lean more towards thinking that service-oriented economy is a problem, and in particular that SaaS and DRM are cancer.

Re: DRM Is Toxic to Culture

#179

Post by anigbrowl »

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #165
anigbrowl wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hyperbole isn't helpful. DRM is simply the mechanization of the already-existing social relations. The coercion was already there, it's just automated now.

No, it is not, that is exactly the point. There are tons of use cases that would be totally unenforcable legally, but are constantly being enforced through DRM nonetheless.

Conceivably, but 'what would be enforceable legally' is often a function of practicality and transaction costs - that is, there are many infringements that publishers would ideally like to prevent, but don't bother because of the impracticality of doing so. Nobody tries to collect royalties from a street musician banging out Beatles tunes on a guitar, for example.

I've gotta say that 10 years on HN has taught me not to trust the general opinions of hackers on legal matters and copyright especially, because few of them are interested in familiarizing themselves with the history and economic developments of the subject, which makes discussion about it almost impossible.

In other words, you might be surprised at what would be enforceable legally if all cases could be fully worked out; it would likely be better than you expected in some regards and worse in others. DRM enforcement isn't isomorphic to legal enforceability, but it's a reasonably good approximation.

I am not arguing in defense of the copyright system we have, which I would like to drastically change. I'm just saying that I think you're underestimating the legal complexities. This isn't your fault; I feel our legal institutions are failing partly because they have become so ridiculously complex and impenetrable to most people.

Re: DRM Is Toxic to Culture

#180

Post by coldtea »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #88
coldtea wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because a business model (e.g. retail sales) is so prevalent as to be invisible as such, and laws that enable it seem like natural laws or obvious for the common good, doesn't mean it's not a business model like any other. Just that some are unable to see it as such. There has been criticism of the prevalent model too (e.g. from the "property is theft" type to money-less sharing communities etc).

Contract laws and laws forbidding theft (and establishing the private ownership of physical objects) are literally cornerstones of almost all human societies that ever existed. Protecting retail is incidental. Consider this thought experiment: we invented Star Trek replicators and made them as expensive as computers or microwave ovens. Retail business would, and IMO rightfully should, literally stop existing that ver…

>Consider this thought experiment: we invented Star Trek replicators and made them as expensive as computers or microwave ovens. Retail business would, and IMO rightfully should, literally stop existing that very moment. Trying to restrict replicating everyday object would be wrong, and would go against the very nature of replicator-enabled reality.

I don't see why it would be inherently "wrong". Wrong is for humans to decide.

Consider this alternate though experiment: we invented a device giving people the ability to murder anyone in the world without anybody having proof of who did it. Would it be wrong trying to restrict that machine's sales and use, and would it go against the very nature of killing-without-evidence-machine-enabled reality?

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