(no subject)

[andrewducker]

Cory "Quite Smart" Doctorow has a fantastic piece here on why digital rights management (that is, copy protection) is a terrible, doomed idea.

Of course, you all think it's a terrible, doomed idea already.  But if you know someone that doesn't, get them to read it.

Comments

[diffrentcolours]

I got someone who doesn't to read it, and she couldn't see the point, because music isn't books.

[andrewducker]

Is this because she doesn't care about music?

Or because she doesn't think ebooks will ever catch on?

[diffrentcolours]

Neither, she just doesn't see DRM as being a bad thing.

[andrewducker]

But why not? Looking, for instance, exclusively at music, why doesn't she think that the arguments work?

[diffrentcolours]

Because record companies won't shoot themselves in the foot. People will put up with DRM because they don't have any other option, and if it damages their profits they'lls top doing it.

[andrewducker]

Record companies _are_ shooting themselves in the foot. Illegal downloads vastly swamp both record sales and legal downloads. Restrictive DRM means that a fair chunk of people are simply ignoring legal routes and going straight to eMule, etc.

Hopefully they will eventually spot the fact that it's not working and open up to the point where people can download non-DRM music - EMusic has a whole load of unusual/older music as legally download MP3, while Wippit has Franz Ferdinand and other newer 'alternative' music in the same form.

[diffrentcolours]

Well, there's no point telling me this :)

The point is that while articles like the one you mentioned are great for preaching to the converted, they don't exactly do very much to convince people of the anti-DRM position.