DRM Is Toxic to Culture • Hacker News Board

Re: DRM Is Toxic to Culture

#241

Post by scrollaway » Mon, Jul 10, 2017, 5:04 AM UTC

cyphar wrote: post #238

scrollaway wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm getting a little exhausted in every thread about DRM and the likes to read about how "people don't listen to RMS". People don't listen to RMS because he makes no effort to be listened to and constantly takes absolutist stances which only harm what he defends. In the case of DRM, many people have been talking about this problem for a long time. It's not a matter of consumers not listening, it's a matter of alterna…

> People don't listen to RMS because he makes no effort to be listened to and constantly takes absolutist stances which only harm what he defends. I used to feel the same way quite a long time ago before I sat back and asked myself "what is the root cause of my distaste for his method of communicating his ideals?" I found that it was because I hadn't fully grasped his views on an emotional level. This argument that "…

Implementing optional drm isn't the same thing as enforcing drm. There is plenty of drm free content on steam, there is no drm free content on iTunes.

Re: DRM Is Toxic to Culture

#242

Post by naasking » Mon, Jul 10, 2017, 5:05 AM UTC

andrewflnr wrote: post #222

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People don't listen to RMS because he makes no effort to be listened to So ... you should only take advice from people who put in extra effort to specifically reach you? > constantly takes absolutist stances The concept of an absolutist stance as an accusation is nonsense, as it's orthogonal to whether it's right. If you are not willing to compromise on slavery, you are taking an absolutist stance. So should people…

I can only listen to so many people. It makes sense to focus my efforts on people who are going to provide the best return on my investment of time. Meanwhile, absolutism, while not a proof, is a pretty powerful heuristic in the messy real world of economic policy. And yes, this is also a human rights issue, but mostly in the same way that a food or housing shortage is a human rights issue: the roots are economic. Sl…

I think the other poster sufficiently deconstructed your argument one way, but I want to point out that you haven't made any case that slavery is a red herring. Like, at all.

If this debate were taking place just prior to the civil war, there would be significant debate over whether slaves had human rights, and many making the economic case for slavery.

RMS is trying to tell you the same thing right now: that DRM is a tool that takes away some basic human rights, and instead of taking a moment to think about it, you simply dismiss it out of hand merely because you can see an economic case for it.

So take a few moments to consider the worst possible outcomes of adopting DRM, and whether history will regard the economic case for DRM as harshly as it regards the economic case for slavery.

Re: DRM Is Toxic to Culture

#243

Post by cyphar » Mon, Jul 10, 2017, 5:31 AM UTC

scrollaway wrote: post #241

cyphar wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People don't listen to RMS because he makes no effort to be listened to and constantly takes absolutist stances which only harm what he defends. I used to feel the same way quite a long time ago before I sat back and asked myself "what is the root cause of my distaste for his method of communicating his ideals?" I found that it was because I hadn't fully grasped his views on an emotional level. This argument that "…

Implementing optional drm isn't the same thing as enforcing drm. There is plenty of drm free content on steam, there is no drm free content on iTunes.

> Implementing optional drm isn't the same thing as enforcing drm.

It's optional for the developer in most cases (apparently writing code without it can be harder if you want to interface with Steam's APIs[1]), but not for the user.

Not to mention that the majority of developers do use Steam's DRM, so it's a bit of a moot point. Even if they don't force developers to use it, they are hardly an "alternative".

> there is no drm free content on iTunes.

That is absolutely false -- all music on iTunes is DRM-free. That may have been true before 2009, but it is not true today. In 2007 Steve Jobs wrote an open letter about Apple's use of DRM and announced they would stop doing it, and in 2009 they had signed all of the necessary agreements with publishers to make all iTunes music DRM-free[2]. It is believed this was in reaction to an anti-trust lawsuit that started in 2005 (that eventually ruled in Apple's favour in 2014 partly because of their decision to no longer use DRM).

Since 2009, iTunes allows you to download any music you've ever purchased as a DRM-free mp3 (which is now patent-encumbered as well). Apple Music is an unfortunate reversal to that previous position (it uses DRM), and interestingly came out the year after the lawsuit was finished.

[1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/1v3dej/im_an_indie... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FairPlay

Re: DRM Is Toxic to Culture

#244

Post by zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC » Mon, Jul 10, 2017, 5:43 AM UTC

mwfunk wrote: post #240

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People don't listen to RMS because he makes no effort to be listened to So ... you should only take advice from people who put in extra effort to specifically reach you? > constantly takes absolutist stances The concept of an absolutist stance as an accusation is nonsense, as it's orthogonal to whether it's right. If you are not willing to compromise on slavery, you are taking an absolutist stance. So should people…

I am much more likely to pay attention to someone who makes at least a token effort to communicate his beliefs to human beings (including ones with very different backgrounds or values), yes. Of course. When people don't do this, it doesn't just make it harder to find common ground with them- it's evidence that they themselves are not credible or motivated by reason. The more outside the norm their message is, the mo…

You know, I agree with you that RMS might not be the most effective communicator and that maybe he should present his arguments differently in order to reach people more effectively.

What I completely don't understand is how people seem to derive from that that he owes them a certain style of communication before they agree with the content of his arguments, even though they seem to somehow understand the problem, and that the problem affects them just as much as him.

No matter how much of a nutjob or asshole or whatever else someone appears to be (or possibly is), that's not a reasonable reason for rejecting their argument once you have understood it, against all odds, especially so when they are arguing for something that is in your interest.

Re: DRM Is Toxic to Culture

#245

Post by andrewflnr » Mon, Jul 10, 2017, 5:45 AM UTC

naasking wrote: post #242

andrewflnr wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can only listen to so many people. It makes sense to focus my efforts on people who are going to provide the best return on my investment of time. Meanwhile, absolutism, while not a proof, is a pretty powerful heuristic in the messy real world of economic policy. And yes, this is also a human rights issue, but mostly in the same way that a food or housing shortage is a human rights issue: the roots are economic. Sl…

I think the other poster sufficiently deconstructed your argument one way, but I want to point out that you haven't made any case that slavery is a red herring. Like, at all. If this debate were taking place just prior to the civil war, there would be significant debate over whether slaves had human rights, and many making the economic case for slavery. RMS is trying to tell you the same thing right now: that DRM is…

You're responding to a bunch of things I didn't say and don't believe. I'm not a fan of DRM, just defending the position that RMS isn't the best source on it.

Also, you yourself haven't made an argument that DRM is anywhere near as bad a problem as slavery was. It's nowhere close, and to imply otherwise is to cheapen the suffering of slaves in America. Is that enough of an argument that it's a red herring?

Re: DRM Is Toxic to Culture

#246

Post by andrewflnr » Mon, Jul 10, 2017, 6:01 AM UTC

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #228

andrewflnr wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can only listen to so many people. It makes sense to focus my efforts on people who are going to provide the best return on my investment of time. Meanwhile, absolutism, while not a proof, is a pretty powerful heuristic in the messy real world of economic policy. And yes, this is also a human rights issue, but mostly in the same way that a food or housing shortage is a human rights issue: the roots are economic. Sl…

> I can only listen to so many people. It makes sense to focus my efforts on people who are going to provide the best return on my investment of time. And those are the people who have plenty of resources to tailor their message to you because they are funded by some marketing department and therefore are easiest to digest? > Meanwhile, absolutism, while not a proof, is a pretty powerful heuristic in the messy real w…

> And those are the people who have plenty of resources to tailor their message to you...

No.

> A heuristic for what exactly? That you shouldn't consider an argument at all?

No.

> How do you partition the world into distinct questions that you then somehow count to determine what percentage needs a compromise as the answer?

Sample the ones that come up in practice. We're all friends here, or should be, so it doesn't need to be perfectly formal.

> you don't ever ask the questions where the status quo is something that you find acceptable and where everyone else agrees with you

You sure know a lot about me. Oh wait, no you don't. I do my best to question things, which is all you can ask.

> Also, you can trivially transform any absolutist demand into a compromise by simply replacing it with a completely crazy demand.

Yes, lots of terrible things happen when you argue in bad faith. This isn't even the worst one.

> Also, how is it even relevant that it is in almost every other question when you are trying to determine whether it is in the case of this specific question?

Not much, which is another good reason not to bring up slavery. It's not relevant, which is basically all I was trying to say about it.

Re: DRM Is Toxic to Culture

#247

Post by cyphar » Mon, Jul 10, 2017, 6:12 AM UTC

anigbrowl wrote: post #147

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the really weird part is that while the propaganda puts it as "protecting property", it really has exactly the opposite effect. When you buy a physical book, that book is indeed your property, and you can do with it whatever you want. Now, with DRM-infested ebooks, you are actually just licensing it for very restricted use. You might as well be claiming that making private home ownership illegal would strengthen…

That's all true, but these analyses always seem to skate over the fact that the copyright system exists because without it it's hard for authors to get paid. Don't talk to me about a world free of intellectual property rights unless you can also offer practical suggestions for what creative people are supposed to live on while they're working. Regrettably, the cult of celebrity has blinded people to the fact that cul…

I was going to write a comment and walk through the full history of copyright, but I realised that it would be a very good blog post (which I'll get around to writing this week). RMS has talked about this in the past, but I believe there's a lot more interesting stuff in the history of copyright that does change how you think about modern copyright law.

Re: DRM Is Toxic to Culture

#248

Post by millstone » Mon, Jul 10, 2017, 7:08 AM UTC

sedachv wrote: post #215

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Your entire comment boils down to repeating Sturgeon's Law over and over, which can be summarized as "ninety percent of everything is crap," which is to say, your comment is obnoxious and off-topic to the discussion of Digital Restrictions Management and its negative consequences (DRM only has negative consequences). However, there is an idea there. HN user https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=maxxxxx made a very ast…

It's not that 90% is crap, it's that there's inherently expensive classes of content that won't be produced without a revenue stream. Pewdiepie could still do his thing on a shoestring, but Star Wars could not be produced.

> Copyright and IP (and probably real estate) are pretty much the only way for capitalists to make money the more things like internet, 3D printing, AI, robotics and so on are available to the masses

I tried to warn the capitalists, but they were too busy counting their $s from tracking you with AI and replacing your job with robots.

> Liberating knowledge from rent-seeking should be the prerogative of everyone that wants to improve the human condition and advance humanity.

A discussion of "knowledge" is important, but DRM is 99% about entertainment.

Re: DRM Is Toxic to Culture

#249

Post by millstone » Mon, Jul 10, 2017, 7:16 AM UTC

Bjartr wrote: post #226

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> If you want quality as opposed to quantity, you need to set up a feedback function that makes some effort to reward and support quality, based on a more sophisticated metric than a lowest-common-denominator unit sales count in a mass market. This only holds true if you start with the assumption that the output of those driven only by passion of the art is insufficient in either quantity or quality and must be suppl…

> the output of those driven only by passion of the art is insufficient in either quantity or quality and must be supplemented with additional output driven by capitalism

Isn't that obvious? "Passion for the art" is utterly incapable of creating something like a Pixar movie, which requires millions of dollars in compute costs.

This doesn't mean capitalism is the only funding source: maybe the government funds them, or crowdfunding, etc. But it should be obvious that modern appetites demand content that cannot be produced by a few passionate-but-broke individuals.

Re: DRM Is Toxic to Culture

#250

Post by millstone » Mon, Jul 10, 2017, 7:32 AM UTC

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #244

mwfunk wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am much more likely to pay attention to someone who makes at least a token effort to communicate his beliefs to human beings (including ones with very different backgrounds or values), yes. Of course. When people don't do this, it doesn't just make it harder to find common ground with them- it's evidence that they themselves are not credible or motivated by reason. The more outside the norm their message is, the mo…

You know, I agree with you that RMS might not be the most effective communicator and that maybe he should present his arguments differently in order to reach people more effectively. What I completely don't understand is how people seem to derive from that that he owes them a certain style of communication before they agree with the content of his arguments, even though they seem to somehow understand the problem, an…

Well, people love the nutjobs, and want to love the assholes. Is the style of communication really RMS's problem?

I think the problem is the content itself, not its delivery. RMS seems unable to separate the good arguments from the stupid ones. For example, don't have kids because of overpopulation (good argument), and also don't have kids because parents have to do whatever someone with money tells them to do instead of what's right (breathtakingly stupid argument).

The life RMS has chosen to live is inspiring on some level, but has also warped his perspective, and therefore his arguments often miss the mark.