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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)

#261

Post by DarylZero »

kube-system wrote: post #250
DarylZero wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it does, because of the effect just mentioned. 99.999% of people can take the path of least resistance while the 1 in 100,000 exception bears all of the friction for all of them. Perhaps though the real friction is not exactly technical but that the piracy sites don't have the same attention-capturing "feed" or recommendation mechanisms set up. Just the friction of having to make choices.

"99.999% of people" aren't pirating media. The profits of the media industry speaks for their own success. They are doing fine.

I didn't say that 99.999% of people are pirating media.

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

#262

Post by kingcharles »

DeWilde wrote: post #32
shmerl wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stated intent ≠ real intent. I doubt they'll openly admit real crooked reasons behind it. That's besides simple stupidity of some possibly indeed thinking that DRM increases their sales.

Especially in large corporations where each level of the hierarchy lives in a bubble of sort, meaning that the people OP interacted might have actually believed it was to prevent piracy while the people in that corp some level above them had a different motive to getting DRM pushed.

We, as a company, interacted with people at every level of these labels. We had regular meetings all the way to the top. For the most part though, the staff were universally non-technical. They loved music, knew music, but their technical infrastructure was fairly limited. We had to rip CDs (250,000 of them) like everyone else because they didn't have any of their data in any easily accessible form.

There was never any hint of any conspiracy or any other motivation than to limit piracy. They saw that DRM files could not be traded on Napster or any other file-sharing system du jour and that was all they wanted. Sales be damned.

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

#263

Post by shmerl »

kingcharles wrote: post #262
DeWilde wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Especially in large corporations where each level of the hierarchy lives in a bubble of sort, meaning that the people OP interacted might have actually believed it was to prevent piracy while the people in that corp some level above them had a different motive to getting DRM pushed.

We, as a company, interacted with people at every level of these labels. We had regular meetings all the way to the top. For the most part though, the staff were universally non-technical. They loved music, knew music, but their technical infrastructure was fairly limited. We had to rip CDs (250,000 of them) like everyone else because they didn't have any of their data in any easily accessible form. There was never a…

I guess sometimes lack of common sense is indeed the reason. But I suspect that's not the most widespread case.

Here is an interesting related story: https://www.gog.com/forum/general/introducing_gogcom_drmfree...

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

#264

Post by darawk »

warkdarrior wrote: post #248
darawk wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "The purpose of DRM is to give content providers leverage against creators of playback devices." What does this actually mean, though? What is it that the playback devices are doing that they don't want other than playing unauthorized material? Framing the problem as "it's not about copying, it's about unauthorized playback" is meaningless. That's just another word for copying in this context. They want control ove…

> They [content providers] want control over when and how their IP is played. Yes, that is indeed the case. Who is in a position to enforce those controls over playback? The device manufacturers! So we are in a scenario where device manufacturers want to commoditize the content ("play anything on as many of our devices as you want"), while content providers want to restrict the content so they can monetize access to…

Right, I agree. I just think all that is encapsulated by the prohibition on copying. The purpose of IP law was always to protect the owners right to choose when, and in what manner, that IP may be used/redistributed. E.g. an owner has the right to say "you may only copy my IP if you watch these ads first".

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

#265

Post by fxtentacle »

wbsss4412 wrote: post #172
netcan wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Netflix & Spotify are currently worth $275bn & $45bn. I think it's quite unlikely that such results would be achieved with a pay-x-get-y store model. Even Disney & Universal, themselves enormously valuable companies, are greedily eying the platform model. It has everything they want. Recurring revenues. Content pushing abilities, which is usually the most strategically important asset. Platform monopoly potential, wh…

You’re severely discounting the value Netflix and Spotify provide in discovery and ease of access. I vastly prefer those services because I don’t have much interest in managing my own library.

To people like me, "discovery" is worthless. Most of the day we do things together in the real world as a family. Like building a Lego marble run for the umpteenth time. Kids have a lot of energy. That means us parents are willing to "waste" maybe 1 hour every evening to watch TV together.

My wife's friends watch Emily in Paris. My friends watch Expanse and Silent Sea. So I already know the 3 series that I'm watching in the near future so that we can gossip about them with our friends. And if I want a movie, I can ask that one friend who has been giving me great movie recommendations for the past 10 years...

When I think about using Netflix discovery and going down the rabbit hole of watching random stuff recommended by a robot, it kind of makes me feel pity for the lonely people who have nothing better to do than watch TV alone. I really can't imagine how that could be beneficial to the human doing it.

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

#266

Post by fxtentacle »

gambiting wrote: post #105
fxtentacle wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My take: "The purpose of DRM is to give content providers leverage against creators of playback devices and their own consumers." How have I regretted purchasing Blu-Rays in the past. They require an update to the drive firmware, they require their own GPU driver version, they require an update to the player software, and they try to sneak spyware onto my PC anyway. It is almost impossible to legally watch an authent…

I mean, it might not be legal where you live(definitely not illegal here) but MakeMKV takes about 20 minutes per disc and you can just watch the movie in VLC, works 100% of the time. Why bother with any special players.

I believe it's a legal gray area where I live, but I have also done that many times. Purchase the blu-ray, rip it myself. That way I feel like I did the morally correct thing by supporting the people who made the movie. But it might still be technically illegal because I circumvented the DRM.

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

#267

Post by fxtentacle »

jevoten wrote: post #127
fxtentacle wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My take: "The purpose of DRM is to give content providers leverage against creators of playback devices and their own consumers." How have I regretted purchasing Blu-Rays in the past. They require an update to the drive firmware, they require their own GPU driver version, they require an update to the player software, and they try to sneak spyware onto my PC anyway. It is almost impossible to legally watch an authent…

> I don't quite know why they hate me so much, but whenever I try to be nice to movie companies and purchase their stuff, they treat me like shit. It's called "paying the Danegeld".

That's a great Wikipedia rabbit hole. And I like this quote with s/dane/DRM/.

"if once you have paid him the DRM-geld, you never get rid of the DRM".

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

#268

Post by phendrenad2 »

jorams wrote: post #162
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).

The connection to DRM is a bit tricky to see, but I'll try to go into depth:

DRM raises the bar to casual copying from "copy a file to a USB stick" to "figure out how to run bittorrent, and find a reputable pirate site that doesn't have viruses". In order to receive pirated content, you will have to pass that hurdle, or have someone in your friend network who can pass that hurdle. If none of them can, then you're blocked from pirating.

If people think that isn't a hard hurdle to pass, then they just need to step outside the silicon valley echochamber, and spend more time around normal computer users.

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

#269

Post by peoplefromibiza »

acdha wrote: post #246
peoplefromibiza wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes, such as when you use someone's creative work contrary to their express desire. No, that's not theft. That's infringement of rights. But I speak with many artists and creators, they are more mad than me, I have a job where I get paid no matter what the result is, because they pay for my time. they are between a rock and a stone: accept to work for these platforms and get paid shit, while they nmake billion, or…

> they are between a rock and a stone: accept to work for these platforms and get paid shit, while they nmake billion, or don't and get paid shit, but at least own your work. Guess which way many are starting to take... Again, I'm not saying that the current situation is great but if you were really concerned about artists being fairly compensated you would not take the action which results in them not getting paid.…

> Again, I'm not saying that the current situation is great but if you were really concerned about artists being fairly compensated you would not take the action which results in them not getting paid.

Are you saying that if I ask an artist to make a painting for me and the painting get stolen AFTER they made it, I am allowed to not pay the artist?

That's a really strange POV.

Media companies should pay artists, not me.

I am only paying for their services, not for the content, which I can get in many other ways or not get it at all, which is an option too, but by your logic not watching the content would lead to artists not getting paid so I should feel bad about that too...

I am not the one monetizing artists' work and they are not doing it because I am paying, but because media companies hired them to do their job.

Again: sorry, not sorry!

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

#270

Post by peoplefromibiza »

BlueTemplar wrote: post #143
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…

Why "used to" ? Have the new "owners" made the experience worse ?

It's blocked in many places nowadays.
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