- Discussions about DRM often land on the fundamental problem with DRM: that it doesn't work, or worse, that it is in fact mathematically impossible to make it work. The argument goes as follows:
1. The purpose of DRM is to prevent people from copying content while allowing people to view that content,
2. You can't hide something from someone while showing it to them,
3. And in any case widespread copyright violations (e.g. movies on file sharing sites) often come from sources that aren't encrypted in the first place, e.g. leaks from studios.
It turns out that this argument is fundamentally flawed. Usually the arguments from pro-DRM people are that #2 and #3 are false. But no, those are true. The problem is #1 is false.
As mentioned, my problem with DRM isn't that I am concerned about information that wants to be free, but that it prevents me from using content as if I owned it. There is value in owning content, and I would like the option to pay for that premium. However, oddly enough, DRM-free content, although more valuable, becomes less expensive due to increased availability. I wonder what the market effects of DRM that expired would be.
Exactly this. As a result I've declined to put any DRM on any of the formats my novel is published in (if there's a copy out there with DRM on, the site was sold from did it without my knowledge or permission. I was really pissed off to find out that I couldn't even take a screenshot from a move I bought (not rented - bought outright) from iMovie. Next time if it's available on the torrents that's where I'll go. In the end I photographed the screen with my iPhone, after even SnapzPro gave me a blank black rectangle. my problem with DRM isn't that I am concerned about information that wants to be free, but that it prevents me from using content as if I owned it
Only related tangentially, but I find myself breaking DRM simply because it is such a colossal pain otherwise. I didn't really care about DVD DRM as it was broken easily so I never created rips that I uploaded to the internet. I could pop it in and the software would do the magic for me. But for Blu-ray, most decent media players cannot read them. Even with libaacs, newer discs are often unreadable. So I find my self dumping keys, decrypting the contents and copying them to a BDMV structure, encoding them and then finally enjoying whatever I paid for. Which is faster than trying to get it to work normally.
I received a DVD of Perks of Being a Wallflower for Christmas. I downloaded it on TPB the next day. I couldn't get the legal site's download to function correctly without giving them my credit card info. Physical media is becoming more and more worthless.
I was referring to "mastered for web" releases, like with Netfilx or iTunes, not Blu-ray rips. Web-DL usually refers to media downloaded from the internet, as opposed to ripped from disc. SD Netflix download < SD encode made from DVD. You don't need to tell an encoder about encodes :p
Is Google therefore "leveraged by proxy" because they don't license the content but they do want to make it available, so they effectively are bound by the same rules? Do you reject my premise that in this instance, Google's direct content licensing is immaterial? Or is there a third explanation? a comment quoted from the post. Does Google have a dog in this fight?Peter KastingMar 19, 2013
What about Google, who is arguably "pushing for DRM" in the sense of supporting the HTML media EME; but who in this context are basically just creating a "player" (Chrome) -- at least in the sense in which Chrome (software) or Chrome OS (hardware) implements the decryption modules. Yes, I am aware that one could drag in the larger company context about the Google Play Store or whatever, but I really don't think that's at issue here: I would say that e.g. Netflix is in the role you describe (licensing content and creating a software player) and Google is in some sense a proxy who perceives content as only being available through "leveraged" companies, and is trying to act on the user's behalf to make those companies' content available.