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The purpose of DRM is not to prevent copyright violations (2013)

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Re: The purpose of DRM is not to prevent copyright violations (2013)

#161

Post by ryandrake »

coldpie wrote: post #157
quietbritishjim wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that the purpose of copyright is not moral rights, even in theory. But I disagree that the theoretical purpose is profit (i.e. economic benefit to the creator). The idea (again, this is just in theory) is economic benefit to society overall. The idea is that if there's no copyright then creators would have no economic incentive to create anything, so they wouldn't bother. Profit to copyright owners is just a…

> The idea is that if there's no copyright then creators would have no economic incentive to create anything, so they wouldn't bother. And yet, we've had creative works from all of human history, despite copyright being barely a hundred or two years old, and our modern effectively-infinite conception of copyright is only now reaching 50 years old. This theory doesn't hold up to even a couple seconds of scrutiny.

Not only historically, but today too. If there is one thing in the world that requires no external incentive to motivate, it’s art and creative work. The entire internet is stuffed full of people making and posting creative work, 99% of the time with no expectation of economic benefit. It would all exist anyway, without copyright “nudging it along”. Every garage band in existence would also exist without copyright. Every performer on the street corner would still perform without copyright. Every fanfic site would still have heaps of content without copyright. This idea that “oh, nobody would ever make art if we didn’t give them a near-infinite monopoly on distribution rights” is totally absurd.

The only “art creation” scenario copyright seems to promote is “Corporation hires army of workers to make $100M 17th Spider-Man Sequel”. No, those specific kinds of work probably would not exist without government-mandated monopoly, but to say it promotes art in general is kind of exaggerating.

Re: The purpose of DRM is not to prevent copyright violations (2013)

#162

Post by jorams »

phendrenad2 wrote: post #26

Why the conspiracy theory? It works very well to stop piracy (since it's a hassle to have to pick a bottorrent program, install it, deal with it's annoying popups and ads (because you're a normal user and chose a popular bittorrent client), avoid the popups on the pirate bay, know what a magnet link it, find a player for .mkv files. It's easier to pay $15 to buy the show on Amazon. Anyone who disagrees hasn't tried t…

Nothing you mention has anything to do with DRM. I wish I could just pay $15 to get high quality DRM-free files for a season of a TV show, but the only thing on offer is a streaming copy full of DRM (which I can't play at full quality), or a physical copy full of DRM (which I can't play without extra hardware).

Re: The purpose of DRM is not to prevent copyright violations (2013)

#163

Post by gruez »

jtbayly wrote: post #135
throw0101a wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Lots of people don't mind paying for one or two, but probably not five or six. Especially when some just have one or two good programmes. 'Subscription rotation' may become a thing: you pay for a service for a few months, catch up on any shows that were released on it that you haven't seen, and then cancel and move onto the next one. A year later you come back to the first one and do a new catch-up. There may be on…

People will Pirate before they do this.

Disagree. Turning subscriptions on/off (assuming that doesn't require phoning in) seems much easier to the layperson than figuring out how to torrent something without getting viruses and/or copyright strikes.

Re: The purpose of DRM is not to prevent copyright violations (2013)

#165

Post by rocketbop »

jtbayly wrote: post #135
throw0101a wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Lots of people don't mind paying for one or two, but probably not five or six. Especially when some just have one or two good programmes. 'Subscription rotation' may become a thing: you pay for a service for a few months, catch up on any shows that were released on it that you haven't seen, and then cancel and move onto the next one. A year later you come back to the first one and do a new catch-up. There may be on…

People will Pirate before they do this.

I do it. I'm sure a lot of people do it Nd will increasingly as number of services grows...

Re: The purpose of DRM is not to prevent copyright violations (2013)

#166

Post by nescioquid »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #90
peoplefromibiza wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

popcorn-time used to work ten times better than any paid streaming service of today. also, no ads. there is nothing inherently difficult in watching unlicensed content. and downloading has been a thing since I can remember. Everyone in my age range or younger than me (mid 40s) should know exactly how to do it. the main two reasons people watch paid services nowadays are: 1 - they have kids and don't want to do parent…

When you're young being excluded from the principle cultural medium film/television cause social exclusion to done extent. When you can't afford to pay I think this provides a genuine moral reason for copyright infringement. With morally defensible copyright terms it might not. As you age (30s-40s), generally your can afford more and so access some of these most popular cultural artefacts without copyright infringeme…

To complement your argument, with the rise of mass culture and mass advertising, marketing to children and youth proved to be lucrative. U.S. culture is mostly youth culture. Market cigarettes to children, and you'll have customers for life. Make and market your movie franchise to young people, and you can keep making predictable profits for as long as you can punch out sequels.

But who has the disposable income? Who is being catered to, really?

Re: The purpose of DRM is not to prevent copyright violations (2013)

#167

Post by jen20 »

acdha wrote: post #128
vetinari wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't get the pre-roll ads? A button to skip them eventually appears, but it is still annoying.

Not here in the U.S.

I definitely see them in the US. Trailers are just as unacceptable as ads.

Re: The purpose of DRM is not to prevent copyright violations (2013)

#168

Post by gruez »

cloogshicer wrote: post #115
bni wrote: post #110

DRM currently works very well to prevent copying of PC games during initial sales window. There is a long list of not cracked Denuvo games. Some have been on the list for years. I think it is interesting that this is the case now since 5+ years ago games were cracked within days, always.

I think part of this change is just that there is such a high number of new games coming out every day. Also, with sales going on all the time, there is much less incentive for many people to torrent. It's also more convenient to own the game on Steam due to automatic updates, mods, etc. As Gabe Newell said, piracy is a service problem. Provide a better service and it'll go away. I think this is largely what has happ…

> I think part of this change is just that there is such a high number of new games coming out every day.

The "high number of new games coming out every day" are overwhelmingly indie titles that don't use denuvo. It's not like crackers are being overwhelmed with hundreds of indie titles per year.

Re: The purpose of DRM is not to prevent copyright violations (2013)

#169

Post by otrahuevada »

The purpose of DRM is ultimately asserting the will of a couple corporate ghouls over your use of the thing they basically cheated you into renting.

Which wouldn't even be a thing if intellectual property rights, which are at the core of the whole debate, were untransferable and only endured for the lifetime of the creator.

If anyone were able to lobby those simple, clear changes into law, the effects of that would probably be Earth-altering.

Re: The purpose of DRM is not to prevent copyright violations (2013)

#170

Post by ryandrake »

peoplefromibiza wrote: post #133
acdha wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m far from a proponent of the big media companies but isn’t this argument basically “my theft is okay because they’ve stolen too”? Arguing that those companies are abusive seems like a much stronger argument for watching something else or voting for legal reforms, not taking advantage of other people’s work without compensation.

would you download a car? theft is when you take something from someone, when you download a movie, Netflix users can still watch it, Netflix can still stream it and they don't lose anything. In fact their profits have gone up, despite helping piracy by releasing more and more content easily sharable outside of their platforms. Netflix alone made 7.5 billions in the third quarter of 2021, up from 6.4 billions in the…

> would you download a car?

If someone ever one day invents the Star Trek replicator, it would end scarcity of physical goods overnight! This would be an amazing thing for humanity (and would likely be opposed/outlawed by the same moneyed interests that oppose the sharing of non-physical goods). This hypothetical invention would utterly change humanity for the better.

I would download a car! No question. If the alternative is needlessly spending money on the exact same product, of course I would, and so would nearly everyone posting here. What an absurd campaign that was! In a world without physical good scarcity, there would be nothing ethically wrong with doing it.

Oh, and we’ve only been talking about cars and movies—luxury goods. Notice how the argument is never “would you download food?” Or “would you download insulin?” I think even EvilStudioExec might have a hard time arguing against downloading necessities or life-saving medicine.

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