<html><head><style type="text/css"><!-- DIV {margin:0px;} --></style></head><body><div style="font-family:'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif;font-size:12pt"><div><div style="font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:12pt"><div style="font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:12pt"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Tahoma" size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">Oh yeah, bring the noise.</span></font></div><div style="font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:12pt"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Tahoma" size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br></span></font></div><div style="font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:12pt"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Tahoma" size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">1. If I can play music I can record it. Worst case I can place microphones
in front of speakers and just record it all over again. A little bit of technical knowledge and I can skip the actual speakers and microphones.</span></font></div><div style="font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:12pt"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Tahoma" size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br></span></font></div><div style="font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:12pt"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Tahoma" size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">2. When laws start making criminals out of generally honest people it is a sign that something is out of whack with your legal system. In the early 80s the Canadian government "tried to reduce cigarette smoking" by massively raising taxes on cigarettes, creating an enormous financial incentive both for consumers to buy bootleg cigarettes and for organized crime to buy Canadian cigarettes in
the States (where prices were ~20% for the same cigarettes) and resell them in Canada. When I noticed that all of the little old ladies at work were smoking bootleg cigarettes (the proceeds from which were funding running gun-battles between criminals in speedboats and police) it sank in that the law had created criminals where none had existed before.</span></font></div><div style="font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:12pt"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Tahoma" size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br></span></font></div><div style="font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:12pt"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Tahoma" size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">3. DRM systems *can be* bad for business in that they institutionalize distrust between producer and consumer. The logic is that consumers are intrinsically dishonest and will
steal products if they are able, therefore producers must force compliance on them. The statistical reality is that the majority of people will willing pay what they perceive to be a fair price for a desired product.</span></font></div><div style="font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:12pt"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Tahoma" size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br></span></font></div><div style="font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:12pt"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Tahoma" size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">4. DRM is bad for artists if for no other reasonn than it makes them believe that the kinds of business models that require DRM will be best for them. I strongly believe that artists should embrace the broad distribution of their digital content and build business models that leverage that.</span></font></div><div
style="font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:12pt"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Tahoma" size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br></span></font></div><div style="font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:12pt"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Tahoma" size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">-chris</span></font></div><div style="font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:12pt"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Tahoma" size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br></span></font></div><div style="font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:12pt"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 13px; "><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">From:</span></b> Imri Goldberg <lorgandon@gmail.com></span></div><div style="font-family:times new roman, new york, times,
serif;font-size:12pt"><br>
<div dir="ltr">Hi<br><br>It seems to me there are some good points to be made on both sides of the DRM debate.<br><span>As a starting point, you may want to pursue "A DRM Dissertation" (<a target="_blank" href="http://www.debiantutorials.org/a-drm-dissertation-off-topic-230">http://www.debiantutorials.org/a-drm-dissertation-off-topic-230</a>) by Cory Doctorow from 2004, that recently I found on proggit (</span><a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.reddit.com/r/programming">www.reddit.com/r/programming</a> ). <br>
The main (relevant) points there are:<br><br>1. DRM systems don't work.<br><br>2. DRM systems are bad for society, mostly by making criminals out of generally honest people: <br><br>" in Norway the studios put the local fuzz up to bringing him up on
charges of *unlawfully trespassing upon a computer system.* When his
defense asked, "Which computer has Jon trespassed upon?" the answer
was: "His own."
<p>His no-fooling, real and physical property
has been expropriated by the weird, notional, metaphorical intellectual
property on his DVD: DRM only works if your record player becomes the
property of whomever's records you're playing."</p><div dir="ltr"><br></div>3. DRM systems are bad for business, mostly because they prevent the growth of new markets, and creating law-backed monopolies <br>"There's a company that's manufacturing the world's first HDD-based DVD
jukebox, a thing that holds 30 movies, and they're charging <em>$30,000</em> for this thing. We're talking about a $300 hard drive and a $300 PC -- all that other cost is the cost of anticompetition."<br><br>
4. DRM systems are bad for artists, mostly by holding back new ways of making art: "To abandon invention now robs tomorrow's artists of the new businesses
and new reach and new audiences that the Internet and the PC can give
them."<br clear="all"><br>I hope I'm doing his article justice. I tried to present Cory Doctorow's points as I understood them.<br><span>There was also a short discussion of this article on proggit at <a target="_blank" href="http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/8ll9d/a_drm_dissertation_cory_doctorow_speaking_to/">http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/8ll9d/a_drm_dissertation_cory_doctorow_speaking_to/</a></span><br>
<br>It is easy to counter some of his points, and there have obviously been many developments since 2004. Anyone interesting in discussing this?<br><br>Cheers,<br>Imri<br><br>-- <br>Imri Goldberg<br>--------------------------------------<br>
<a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.algorithm.co.il/blogs/">www.algorithm.co.il/blogs/</a><br>--------------------------------------<br>-- insert signature here ----<br>
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