Forget poor starving artists, one legged record bosses etc, Dan Glickman reveals the true reason for DRM and its got nothing to do with the above.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060210-6153.htmlMr. Glickman, I have a question for you (and I know one of your underlings will read this): if DRM is about helping honest users, then why does your DRM make fair use impossible? Why does your DRM make it impossible to backup movies that I have bought? Why is it impossible to legally put DVDs that I've purchased onto my iPod? Why is it impossible for me to extract clips from your movies for educational purposes? These are all things I have a legal right to do, but can't, because of the DMCA: a law that your organization cheerleads for.
Perhaps I don't need an answer from Mr. Glickman. He also told the BBC that DRM aims to "support an orderly market for facilitating efficient economic transactions between content producers and content consumers."
Hold up now. Which is it? I don't remember Jack Valenti and friends saying anything about new economic transactions, really. I do remember plenty of talk about terrorists and drug dealers thriving off of piracy, however, and I remember those kinds of hyperbolic arguments being used to justify draconian laws. Is this the kinder, gentler side of the MPAA? Who knows, but it is surprising to see Glickman essentially admit what's going on: DRM is about economic transactions, that's for sure. But the notion of "facilitating economic transactions" would be better expressed as "legislatively creating a market" for those economic transactions, because that is what DRM is all about. First you make it illegal to circumvent DRM (hello, DMCA), then you put DRM on everything.
It's the double-dip, the "pay for this a few times" approach to business. That's why we can't make backups, and that's why they absolutely hate the idea of taking DVD content and putting it on a mobile. You should pay for that. And that. And that there, too.
Indeed, one only has to look at the concept of "customary historic use" to see the dismantling of fair use spurred in large part by the MPAA. Or consider the Digital Transition Content Security Act of 2005. This legislation wants to see something you have been able to do for more than 20 years (namely, record TV) reduced to another method of "facilitating economic transactions" by stripping you of that historical right. Hollywood never got over Betamax and VHS being legal, and DRM is their plan for an 11th hour victory.
Folks this author has hit the nail 100% on the head, this issue is all about theft, the theft of your rights by stealth.
Simple question here are we purchasing the music or licencing it, because if its the latter why do they not replace damaged media or allow us to tranfer it to new formats and if its the former why does it need DRM restrictions ?
It seems the coke fuelled industries have hatched DRM purely to steal from us all, I hope they choke on the idea of folks sharing content they have no control over.
The wholesale theft of artistic ouput by this business monopoly is morally indefensible.
If we like it we buy it and if its DRM damaged folks turn to P2P, feel free to cut your legs off to spite your knees guys.
