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Twenty-five years ago it was cryptography, today it's model weights

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Re: Twenty-five years ago it was cryptography, today it's model weights

#21

Post by dijksterhuis »

belinder wrote: post #12
aftbit wrote: post #11

The same argument applies to DRM and piracy. DRM only disadvantages people who want to consume content legally. Only one person has to bypass it (be it through cryptographic or software failings or the good old fashioned analog hole ala telesync) then upload the resulting unencumbered media file to a piracy site. As a result, it's not just cheaper, but also easier and more reliable to steal media than it is to buy it…

Drm is not targeted at the hardcore pirate, it's targeted at a potentially larger percentage of people who would be tempted to get the thing for free if it was easy. Drm may be circumventable, but any complex set of steps for doing so is enough to deter that target audience.

> Drm is not targeted at the hardcore pirate, it's targeted at a potentially larger percentage of people who would be tempted to get the thing for free if it was easy

spotify and netflix are both prime examples of making it easier for a larger population to access drm enabled content compared to pirated content (at the time they started getting popular anyway).

with the advent of streaming services you no longer needed to download potentially dodgy files to your computer (viruses/malware), wait for the download to finish, realise they’re a dodgy video cam recording of the cinema screening, download another one etc.

napster/limewire et. al were originally examples for the opposite case. pirating via those was super popular. there were fewer steps to access the media compared to going to a physical shop to buy a CD/DVD. (*)

(*) i can’t remember when the itunes store came along. might have been after these services? or around the same-ish time?

Re: Twenty-five years ago it was cryptography, today it's model weights

#22

Post by [deleted] »

Cider9986 wrote: post #16
belinder wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Drm is not targeted at the hardcore pirate, it's targeted at a potentially larger percentage of people who would be tempted to get the thing for free if it was easy. Drm may be circumventable, but any complex set of steps for doing so is enough to deter that target audience.

But why would this larger percentage of people rip it themselves when the hardcore pirate already did it and made it accessible[1]? [1] https://fmhy.net/video#streaming-sites

[deleted]

Re: Twenty-five years ago it was cryptography, today it's model weights

#23

Post by DrewADesign »

Cider9986 wrote: post #16
belinder wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Drm is not targeted at the hardcore pirate, it's targeted at a potentially larger percentage of people who would be tempted to get the thing for free if it was easy. Drm may be circumventable, but any complex set of steps for doing so is enough to deter that target audience.

But why would this larger percentage of people rip it themselves when the hardcore pirate already did it and made it accessible[1]? [1] https://fmhy.net/video#streaming-sites

The average user would probably pay more for a different video streaming platform if their current one started requiring 4 or 5 more clicks per view. “Complex set of steps” for most people could involve finding a website that wasn’t explicitly advertised to them, using an interface that wasn’t AB tested into oblivion, and inexplicably having to “update their flash player” every single time they want to watch Barney Miller. Never mind bit torrent: you might as well ask them to build themselves a TV from scratch. They could figure it out— they aren’t (necessarily) dumb— but they really don’t want to have to figure it out. They just want it to work without friction.

Re: Twenty-five years ago it was cryptography, today it's model weights

#24

Post by tptacek »

belinder wrote: post #12
aftbit wrote: post #11

The same argument applies to DRM and piracy. DRM only disadvantages people who want to consume content legally. Only one person has to bypass it (be it through cryptographic or software failings or the good old fashioned analog hole ala telesync) then upload the resulting unencumbered media file to a piracy site. As a result, it's not just cheaper, but also easier and more reliable to steal media than it is to buy it…

Drm is not targeted at the hardcore pirate, it's targeted at a potentially larger percentage of people who would be tempted to get the thing for free if it was easy. Drm may be circumventable, but any complex set of steps for doing so is enough to deter that target audience.

DRM also intensively targets the new-release window during which much of the returns on any piece of IP are made; the latency with which high-quality copies hit mainstream sites has monetary value as well.

Re: Twenty-five years ago it was cryptography, today it's model weights

#27

Post by [deleted] »

tptacek wrote: post #24
belinder wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Drm is not targeted at the hardcore pirate, it's targeted at a potentially larger percentage of people who would be tempted to get the thing for free if it was easy. Drm may be circumventable, but any complex set of steps for doing so is enough to deter that target audience.

DRM also intensively targets the new-release window during which much of the returns on any piece of IP are made; the latency with which high-quality copies hit mainstream sites has monetary value as well.

[deleted]

Re: Twenty-five years ago it was cryptography, today it's model weights

#29

Post by matheusmoreira »

belinder wrote: post #12
aftbit wrote: post #11

The same argument applies to DRM and piracy. DRM only disadvantages people who want to consume content legally. Only one person has to bypass it (be it through cryptographic or software failings or the good old fashioned analog hole ala telesync) then upload the resulting unencumbered media file to a piracy site. As a result, it's not just cheaper, but also easier and more reliable to steal media than it is to buy it…

Drm is not targeted at the hardcore pirate, it's targeted at a potentially larger percentage of people who would be tempted to get the thing for free if it was easy. Drm may be circumventable, but any complex set of steps for doing so is enough to deter that target audience.

Piracy is a service problem. Copyright monopolists always defeat themselves with their obnoxious greed.

Things were easy enough when Netflix had a complete catalog, now every studio wants to roll their own shitty streaming services in order to cut Netflix out. Result is a fragmented mess where you want to watch a great film but you have no idea where the hell it even is, and even if you find it you discover it doesn't work because your computer isn't locked down to their tastes, and even if you buy a TV appliance they stream you some shitty horribly compressied "high definition" video with artifacts in pure black frames, all on their homegrown laggy borderline unusable video players with zero features.

Meanwhile the pirates offer Blu-Ray remuxes with commentary tracks, subtitles for every language, DRM free files that just work on your video player of choice. It's the sort of thing that makes me feel like a total moron for giving money to these corporations.

Re: Twenty-five years ago it was cryptography, today it's model weights

#30

Post by coretx »

starrybreak wrote: post #17
aftbit wrote: post #11

The same argument applies to DRM and piracy. DRM only disadvantages people who want to consume content legally. Only one person has to bypass it (be it through cryptographic or software failings or the good old fashioned analog hole ala telesync) then upload the resulting unencumbered media file to a piracy site. As a result, it's not just cheaper, but also easier and more reliable to steal media than it is to buy it…

Users hate it, but DRM is vastly more powerful than that since you ultimately control user access. DRM - which all online services with user profiling automatically have - can also let you ban users, retarget users for ads, abuse, and other things beyond the basic function of running the software.

Such as bypassing parliament -the people responsible for managing your rights-. And subverting democracy and the rule of law too, by punishing you or otherwise manipulate you into desired behavior without going to court. Code is Law. DRM is violence.
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