p2pnet - rss feed: The boundaries of DRM
p2pnet.net news:- John and Jane Doe (that generic couple who spend all their time being sued by vested entertainment cartel interests), buy a music / movie CD/DVD. They take it home and because it costs and arm and a leg, they make a back-up copy which they lend to a couple of friends who like it too. So they buy a CD/DVD for themselves. Or they think it’s trash and save their money.
That’s the way it should be and for the most part, that’s the way it is. But, THIS HAS TO STOP !!! - say the cartels. Because bad actors tend to assume everyone else has same mind set as them. Consequently, the corporate music and movie (and sofware) perspectives go like this:
Consumers will rob us blind if we let them. They’ll copy everything and sell it on- or offline and we’ll lose bazillions of dollars. So we have to lock products up tight and get severe laws passed making it illegal for consumers to do anything at all with their purches beyond strict confines pre-determined by us.
The result is DRM (Digital Restrictions Management) consumer control technologies and an endless stream of DRM laws which do nothing for us but everything for the corporations.
But now, slowly but surely, thanks to the Net and increasingly free communications, we customers (’consumers’ until the tide started to change) are forcing the cartels to do what they should have been doing all along: treat us like the reasonable, honest people, that we are, not potential crooks out to steal their metaphorical shorts.
DRM never has and never will be a possibility, of course. It’s a simple and incontestable fact that anything you can see or hear can, and will be, copied. And rightly so.
EMI seems to be seeing the light. But, believe others, there must be industry enforceable ‘rules’ defining exactly how people are allowed to enjoy product they’ve bought and paid for.
“Consumers can find ways to get our content anytime they want to,” says a Hollywood technology executive, quoted in the Los Angeles Times. “They get it from a friend, [or] the Internet. By putting on an onerous DRM, it’s making an honest person want to go to the illegitimate side.”
DRM is onerous by definition, and it’s one of the things which is making people resort to the p2p networks. Bad product and exorbitant prices are other reasons. However, according to the cartels, it’s not them. It’s you.
Hollywood is “cautious,” says the story, because, “Many executives believe online distribution will boost the rental category”. That’s because, “A movie purchased online for single-use viewing, or for multiple viewings in a 48-hour period, costs considerably less than a movie purchased to keep. Without digital rights management on the cheaper movie, consumers would essentially be on an honor system to delete it after one viewing or whatever terms they had agreed to.”
Honour system? Who really wants to see a movie more than twice? Three times at the outside, maybe, for 99.9% of the viewing population. And if they did watch three times, would that really represent a loss in income for the studios? Would they otherwise have paid for two more downloads, rented the DVD twice more, or gone to the cinema again?
“Without DRM, it becomes very difficult” to lay out the boundaries for consumers,” the LA Times has Chris Cookson, chief technology officer at Warner Bros stating.
“Lay out the boundaries for consumers.” Think about what that says and what it implies.
Meanwhile, what to do about people who upgrade their computers or video players?
“Some studios favor finding a way to let consumers move their previously purchased movie from device to device,” says the story, giving credence to the cartel idea what we need permission to do so.
“Others believe each upgrade represents a sales opportunity for the same content that was on the older device.”
And that’s the crux of it.
Also See:
seeing the light - EMI still pondering DRM, February 9, 2007
Los Angeles Times - Hollywood Weighs Copyright Protections, February 9, 2007
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Tired of being treated like a criminal? They depend on you, not the other way around. Don’t buy their ‘product’. Do bug your local politicians. Use emails, snail-mail, phone calls, faxes, IM, stop them in the street, blog. And if you’re into organizing, organize petitions, organize demonstrations and then turn up on your local political rep’s doorstep, making sure you’ve contacted your local tv/radio station/newspaper in advance. Don’t just complain. Do something!
