DRM is like Star Trek magic

[iago]

This is a really entertaining (and good) article on why DRM is braindead:

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-6189011.html?tag=nl.e550

[Ender]

Interesting. Unlike the case of a bank account and a credit card number, the user has nothing to lose by sharing his or her secrets, which is (as the article stated) the fundamental flaw in DRM.

It is however rather annoying as it takes time and work to get around it =P. Since iTunes obfuscated the DRM process so that Hymn doesn't work I now have to burn audio cds and rip them back to mp3s which costs $$ and takes awhile. Although I haven't really looked into Hymn since a year ago so maybe they broke DRM again... as stated in the article, DRM is theoretically insecure, but it does take work to do so.

I think it's also important to recognize that most things in life are inherently insecure, and that insecurity in any system is the result of trust extended to the user. For instance, suppose you're holding a licensed, legally purchased gun at some shooting range. What's to stop you from murdering the guy next to you? Sure, there are consequences, but the crime can't be prevented in the first place if the gunholder chooses to shoot the other guy. Yet society and the government allows these conditions to be encountered in shooting ranges all over America, as they trust the gun holder not to shoot the guy next to him, due to various moral and legal reasons and consequences.

Don't get me wrong: I'm not equating DRM to murder : ) My music's all indie, so I buy nearly all of it, but I de-DRM stuff for friends all the time. Also, if I were to buy a song off iTunes and didn't have an iPod, but instead some other DRM-incompatible mp3 player, I'd de-DRM the stuff to get it to work on my mp3 player. I'm just saying that although it's fun to laugh at the music industry about DRM, you have to admit it's a pretty good solution: it doesn't incur smart chips built into computers that fight back against the user to protect artists' rights, and it also doesn't cripple the various industries out there such as the music industry, book publishers, etc.

I think it's also important to note that I have no regard for law whatsoever. I see it as an abomination born out of necessity, due to the inevitable majority of stupid people in this day and age. I just follow my morals and weigh consequences :P

[iago]

Well, the thing about laws is that people have to understand and respect them, otherwise they don't work. And people have absolutely no respect for copyright laws (with good reason). I still think the record companies should try to compete with piracy, not lobby to make it illegal.

The one analogy that this guy didn't use, that I really like, is saying that DRM is equivalent to giving somebody a lock and the key, and hoping they don't figure out how to open the lock.