DRM — It's Not Really About Piracy

shadowmage13 writes "Hollywood privately admits that DRM is not really about piracy. From the article: 'In a nutshell: DRM's sole purpose is to maximize revenues by minimizing your rights so that they can sell them back to you... Like all lies, there comes a point when the gig is up; the ruse is busted. For the movie studios, it's the moment they have to admit that it's not the piracy that worries them, but business models which don't squeeze every last cent out of customers.' You can take action on Digital Restrictions Management at DefectiveByDesign of the Free Software Foundation, Digital Freedom, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation."

It never was about piracy

[packeteer (566398)]

It never was about piracy. It has always been about controling your customer. The industry knows that they dont lose nearly as much through piracy as they do by not controlling their consumers. Remember a consumer is a customer with no choice.

Re:It never was about piracy

[aplusjimages (939458)]

But Ben Affleck says the reason his movie Dare Devil or Gigli didn't make a lot of money is because of piracy. Piracy is bad for everyone from the actors (making millions) down to the guy who sells you popcorn at the movies (making hundreds). I for one say forget all those anti-DRM organizations and keep pirating these 2 great movies.

Correction: Spin, It was about piracy by the ....

[OldHawk777 (19923)]

It was about real piracy, by the media industry and government, to rape human rights and pillage bank accounts of the unrepresented pitiful defenseless public.

OK more spin for US, EU, UN them; All megalomania persons in industry, government, and religion demand a semiliterate servile exploitable public or at least an oppressed fearful culture of hostages suffering with mass-hysteria Stockholm syndrome (identifying with the oppressors as good, fair, and reasonable).

Re:YET ANOTHER MISLEADING HEADLINE

[by Anonymous Coward]

Try reading the artcile a little more closely:

According to him, an unnamed studio executive said that a major reason why studios weren't jumping on board with the iTunes Store and other similar services is that their DRM is too lax. "[Apple's] user rules just scare the heck out of us."

Ars Technica's Ken Fisher adds: " It's not piracy that's the concern, it's their ability to control how you use the content you purchase."

It seems to me that is a reasonable interpretation of the "unnamed executive's" comment that the DRM is "too lax", because if "piracy" were a major reason for Hollywood's wanting DRM then its relative stringency or laxity would not be such an important issue for Hollywood. However, if what they are really after is the maximum possible control over users then the relative laxity of a DRM standard *will* bother them - because, for example, they mightn't want a customer to enjoy the content on more than one device without purchasing more than one copy.

Therefore, the summary by shaowmage13 -

"Hollywood privately admits that DRM is not really about piracy."

... and is, moreover, merely the same as Ars Technica's headline with a slightly different word order:

"Privately, Hollywood admits DRM isn't about piracy"

The comment from the "unnamed executive" _is_ as good as an admission of that, as has been shown above. The headline Slashdot used "DRM - it's not really about piracy" doesn't directly comment on what anyone has said - privately or not - but states an opinion on what DRM is "about". It's an opinion that is reasonably substantiated by the Ars Technica article.

As for the British gutter press you'd find far more offensive and dishonest articles there than at Slashdot. At least Slashdot sticks to technology and related matters and hasn't, so far as I know, been involved in concealing Stalin's purges from the reading public, as the British newspaper the Guardian was.

Re:Power to the artists???

[KDan (90353)]

No, that's a completely ridiculous suggestion, for several reasons.

1) Artists build upon other artists. Some of the best pieces of art are composites of other pieces of art (Shakespeare being the classic example). This super-DRM'ed world would contradict that fact and make it much harder for artists to do their work. It would also make it impossible to create such art forms as satire, abbreviation, etc.

2) This system would contradict one of the basic realities of this universe: ideas are infinitely duplicable at no cost other than the medium to store them. You can have all the DRM systems in the world - if your poem appears on my screen and I memorize it or write it down, I've made a copy. I can then repost it if I feel so inclined. Trying to control the technological gateways (enforcing DRM'ed hardware, etc) is ultimately a losing battle, like fighting the ocean with a broom.

3) Such a system, to work perfectly, would by definition require real-time, detailed monitoring of everyone's activities that have anything to do with so-called "intellectual property". Apart from the huge technical challenge that this would represent (can you even imagine any IT company implementing this when they can't even create a centralised system of patient records without screwing up - see NHS PfIT), this would be a huge infringement on everyone's privacy. Or rather, it would be a complete eradication of the very concept of privacy.

Daniel

Re:Power to the artists???

[Bloke down the pub (861787)]

Some of the best pieces of art are composites of other pieces of art (Shakespeare being the classic example).

You clearly haven't seen his work in the original Klingon.

Re:Power to the artists???

[dirk (87083)]

1) Artists build upon other artists. Some of the best pieces of art are composites of other pieces of art (Shakespeare being the classic example). This super-DRM'ed world would contradict that fact and make it much harder for artists to do their work. It would also make it impossible to create such art forms as satire, abbreviation, etc.

DRM in now way stops artists from building upon the ideas of other artists (copyright may stop this with the extreme measures it has been extended to, but not DRM). Shakespeare did not need to be able to make an exact quality of copy of other artists' works to build off of them. Neither did any of the musicians in history need to be able to make an exact copy of something they heard to use it and build off of it. The idea of art building off of arts means that artists hear/see what other artists have done and use it for inspiration, not that they make an exact copy of it. Artists have never needed to be able to make exact duplicates of other's work to find inspiration from other's work in the past anymore than they do now.

Re:Power to the artists???

[NoOneInParticular (221808)]

0) If I bloody pay for this piece of shite that this so-called artist created, *I* decide when, where and how I use it. It's sold, it's mine, my copy is no longer owned by the creator and he'd better keep his hands from it. The only thing I am not allowed to do is copy it in order to give it to someone else, that's the only right the artist retains.

Re:Power to the artists???

[cpt kangarooski (3773)]

Why not give all authors almost complete control over their works?

Why should we? How do we benefit from this? There are three types of public benefits with regard to creative works: 1) to have as many as possible original works created and published; 2) to have as many as possible derivative works created and published, and; 3) to have no or as few as possible (and for as short a time) restrictions on the public with regard to those works.

If it causes more works to be created and published, then I am prepared to accept some limited, temporary restrictions, but only provided that the public benefit of the extra works outweighs the public harm of the restrictions. E.g. a million years more copyright that caused only one more work to be created and published would pretty certainly not be worth it; no matter how good that work was, we'd be better off without it.

You are suggesting that we give artists the ability to un-create and un-publish works, which would largely try to erase whatever public benefit the creation and publication of the work had resulted in. It would also amount to a permanent restriction on the public, since the work would be irrevocably lost and could never enter the public domain. So I fail to see how there is any public benefit whatsoever. Because of that, I fail to see why I shouldn't deride this as an insane idea, and you as an idiot for having come up with it. You seem to be pretty selfish and short-sighted. The utilitarian model of copyright, which I've described above, and which is the foundation and constitutional justification for the whole thing, is interested in how we can better society generally, by spreading knowledge. You seem to not care about that, even though for any individual on the planet, they will always receive more knowledge from the amassed contributions of others, than they can ever possibly hope to generate themselves. They might generate something new, but never a greater quantity. We don't stand on the shoulders of giants; we stand on the shoulders of all the other people who came before us. You want to kick that over.

Frankly, if your idea was so hot, why not use it in the patent field? Patents operate under the exact same utilitarian model as copyrights (save that it is concerned with the spread and use of inventions, rather than knowledge generally), so if your idea was good for one, then it would be good for the other, right? Well, some human being invented the wheel. Another invented walking upright. Another invented language. Another tamed fire. Why shouldn't we allow them, or their estates, to retract those inventions, turning us into crawling savage brutes, just to satisfy your moronic ideology? I wouldn't allow it, since I want to cultivate the greatest raw material (i.e. the most works, and the most inventions) to help society thrive. I don't give a crap about authors or inventors, save in how they can be exploited in furthering this cause. Since it seems the best way to exploit them is to give them rewards that are enough to encourage them to work, but not enough to outweigh the benefits of their work, that's what I do, and I do it happily, since society still gets the better part of the bargain.

Have fun living in a cave, man.

Re:Power to the artists???

[nschubach (922175)]

Then imagine that there be a system that allowed the publishing artist to exactly and precisely control how their content was used and or was available so that the publishing artist could revoke something they put out there but for whatever reason now regret. What would be wrong with that? It would be total control in the hand of an artist. Afterall, it is their work. Why not give them ultimate control?

I always hated this argument. The reason being, no other industry works this way. When you buy your next car, does your dealer tell you that you can only drive it for three years and you cannot let more than 3 people drive it? (Leasing not included)

Sure, I'll give you the argument that you can't copy [or clone] a car (yet) but to let the originator decide exactly how their product will be played or not played is exactly what I don't want.

Don't buy the car analogy because they are in a different price bracket? Let's aim lower. Greeting Cards. You aren't given explicit instructions with your greeting card and told that you have to give the Happy Birthday card on your kid's birthday, and that day alone. You can buy the card and use it for any occasion if you want. It's always fun to give condolence cards for births, birthdays, or even weddings. :)

Re:Power to the artists???

[hesiod (111176)]

> Greeting Cards. You aren't given explicit instructions with your greeting card

Even though they don't tell you this, most greeting card text is copyrighted by the person who wrote it or the company that paid for it to be written. You cannot, for instance, legally make your own greeting cards that use the text from existing cards, just with different pictures.

Re:Power to the artists???

[geminidomino (614729)]

Would that be too much control in the artists' hands? It'd be like it was before technology, in the sense that the artist'd control all aspects of their fruits. Their fruits lived and died with them. the audience never had ownership of the artists' work. They only had the pleasure and priviledge to listen, see and enjoy in the moment.

Art != Music (Whether or not music, especially contemporary music, is even a subset of art is a matter of opinion). Some of the greatest works of art in history were done 'for hire'.

Unless you want to see an end to persistent recordings, you're advocating the same sort of BS "have thier cake and eat it too" setup we have now, except instead of some industry suits reaping the cash, it's the artist himself. If I buy a painting, I expect the right to put it on my bathroom wall, wipe my mouth on it, or have my picture taken in front of it. Same for a recording. If I want to listen to it in my cd-less car stereo, on my Neuros, or on my GP2X, I'm going to. I expect to control my own purchase.

Re:Power to the artists???

[Ash Vince (602485)]

These problem all reall stemmed from the Compact Disk and it replacing vinyl.

We all happily went out and rebought our existing music collection on CD as it was alot more convenient than LP's. And in the process we generated a constant revenue stream as stuff was gradually re-issued. The problem is that this is now coming to an end for the record companies as they have re-released almost everything. They have certainly run out of the stuff with serious mass appeal.

So they now have to look for a new way of extracting similar revenues that they have grown used to over the last 15 years out of a back catalog which most of us already own, possibly in more than one format. The problem is that they have already made it about as convenient as it needs to be and the quality is mostly there as well (Vinyl have better infrasonic performance).

So rather than try and go back to surviving off the revenues they get from new releases which would result in a huge drop in profits they need an alternative. Without an alternative the problems would be very far reaching. The stock market is used to constant revenue growth. If profits fall it is far worse for a company than if they had never risen in the first place, expecially if the fall is not likely to be temporary. This is frequently what drives companies under if they are unable to downsize quickly enough.

So faced with this dilemma the media publishing companies must find a way to keep the boon of the CD years going, and being that they didnt reinvest those record profits very wisely in new content production this is going to difficult. So they are choosing to try and keep the boom of the CD going by constantly selling us a new copy of stuff we already own indefinately.

If you contrast this with companies like BP (who sell Oil) you see that they have invested their profits much more wisely. BP are now the worlds largest producer of solar panels and have started describing themselves as an energy company rather than an oil company.

In a single phrase, "Diversify to survive".

Re:Power to the artists???

[nine-times (778537)]

Huh... that seems very obvious, but I've never thought of that before. When you first said the problem originated with CDs, I assumed you meant because it was the first digital medium available to consumers, and therefore the first to allow duplication without degradation of sound quality, which allowed better "piracy".

But, if I can try to sum up your post, you're suggesting that CDs were the first new medium that offered significant improvement to cause consumers to re-buy the music they already owned. Therefore, the copyright owners grew dependant on the revenue stream of people re-buying their works, in spite of the fact that they already owned copies. Now that people are done replacing their records with CDs, record companies are trying to devise a new way to force consumers to continually re-buy a product in order to maintain that revenue stream.

That sounds right to me. It seems like the intention is to get you to buy a new copy of each song for every new device you buy. One works with iPods, a different one with your Zune, yet another for your PlayForSure device, and a fourth for your cell phone. This also seems to be the intention with HD DVD media. People have finally replaced their VHS tapes with DVDs, and now they expect you to replace your DVDs with HD.

To me, it seems worth noting the obvious: this is not what copyright law was meant for.

Re:Power to the artists???

[Saint Fnordius (456567)]

Your argument falls flat when you take the print media into account. That is, unless you consider all technology and not just modern audio/video storage methods. Remember, copyright and publishing rights laws date back to the invention of the printing press.

Artists have always been at the mercy of their patrons. Whether it was aristocrats contracting compositions or keeping musicians on retainer, or writers accepting a commission to write a penny dreadful. Artists were often paid in advance.

There's also that dumb, dumb dream that you can take back what you said, or at least prevent it from being preserved for posterity. Much like how Tom Hanks tried to kill all reruns of Bosom Buddies, or how some composers like Richard Wagner tried to forbid others from playing their operas. Even your post here is now beyond your control.

Today, musicians earn more by playing concerts than by cutting albums. Most of the budding stars only make an album as a way of improving their image. Groups are discovering that non-DRM'ed music on the internet is an excellent way to generate interest.

No, the problem with studios is that they have grown accustomed to being the gatekeeper, and charging ruinous rates for using their distribution channels and production equipment. They are already losing control of production exclusivity. Now they are losing control of distribution. It's all about staving off the inevitable.

Re:Power to the artists???

[indifferent children (842621)]

If there were a total artist control type of rights management this idiot could retrieve (forever extinghuish the existence) the now-regrettable work posted to the Internet.

Unfortunately for DRM to really work, and based on industry attempts so far, the analogy of being able to 'revoke' a post from a webhost falls short. Rather, DRM requires that the content creator has a back-door into your desktop computer that will let them erase the text of their comment that you have cut-and-pasted and any screenshots of their post that you might have made.

I don't object to an artist being able to remove a song from their own download service. But their right to control file access stops at the edge of my machine.

Re:Power to the artists???

[walt-sjc (145127)]

Yes, but the thing is the artist could let the art lapse into public domain if they desired it so. If they didn't let it then, well, it'd be forgotten like many other works of ancient times.

I suggest you read up on the reason copyright laws have time limits. It is SPECIFICALLY so that works do NOT get lost forever.

I din't mean to imply this would happen tomorrow but a decade or two from now when certainly things could be watermarked (and recognized) appropriately and furthermore most vehicles of media would be connected one way or another. Given IPv6 it's not impossible.

So the only way to enjoy published works in your version of the modern world is to be connected 24x7x365 to the internet. No thanks.

And what would be wrong with being able to revoke/retrive an embarassing video or soundbite?

What would be wrong with rewriting history? Maybe we can pretend that Sadam was a kind and generous man that was good to his people. Maybe Paris Hilton wants to pretend that she is not a slut, or Mel Gibson wants to pretend that he didn't make anti-semitic remarks. There is nothing wrong with wanting to take back what you said, it's called an apology. There is nothing wrong with stupid teens posting embarrassing videos of themselves either, and later in life saying that we ALL do stupid stuff when we are kids. You learn from those mistakes. Your "system" attempts to eliminate consequences of doing bad / stupid stuff - sorry, that's just not a good thing for society.

Artists would have to reimburse the prorated amount owed the consumer.

So an artist that goes on a drug binge and goes crazy can take away my purchased right to listen to music he sold me back when he was sane? I don't want that, even if I DO get a partial refund. Considering how many artists are nuts to begin with, this is not a far-fetched scenario.

DRM is bad, M'Kay? There are no redeeming values. You can attempt to create some bizzaro perfect-world scenarios where it could possibly work with a gazillion exceptions and conditions, but we do not live in a perfect world.

Like Region Coding, Then

[cyclomedia (882859)]

Because THAT worked wonders for release timing, content control and market restrictions, didn't it.*

*Though having a decent TV that can handle PAL and NTSC helps, in the UK they're 6 bob a throw i can tell ye!

Re:Like Region Coding, Then

[arun_s (877518)]

When I look at the VHS examples of long back, and the more recent DVD-region-encoding failure, it just looks like one big, sad cycle repeating itself every generation or so.
Even if we get over the current mess (Trusted Computing, RIAA etc), it looks like as if the big media dinosaurs will never really learn to adapt. Each time a new technology pops up that threatens their stable position, they panic immediately and create a huge fuss in trying to maintain the staus quo.
If only they weren't so powerful already, they'd probably have died off by now; replaced by smarter, quicker companies that didn't have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the new world.

Re:

[melikamp (631205)]

Even if we get over the current mess (Trusted Computing, RIAA etc), it looks like as if the big media dinosaurs will never really learn to adapt.

True, since that's their last stand. We finally have the tools at our possession which enable us to promote and distribute digital content cheaper and more effectively than any corporation possibly could. Once they loose this battle, they are gone for good; they are aware of that, and so they are squeezing every penny out of the established customer base.

Re:Like Region Coding, Then

[Fred_A (10934)]

Once they loose this battle, they are gone for good; they are aware of that, and so they are squeezing every penny out of the established customer base.

They won't necessarily disappear. However they will be forced to adapt and therefore to change. And nobody likes to change, especially for something that hasn't been tried before and might prove to be expensive for an unknown return.

Something like the big studios are useful because they have the financial backing for large scale projects (in movies mostly, it's less necessary in music unless you have to heavily market something inherently worthless). If they were to die it would be problematic for that industry. The high budget films would be starved for funding. This could well translate into a decrease in quality and originality as only "safe" films would be produced.

Re:Like Region Coding, Then

[Total_Wimp (564548)]

This is insightful. In addition to the big funding, quality at the user level is also an issue. The 19 inch boxes in many home sjust wont cut it for a movie with a grand vision. Lots of people can't afford nice home theater setups, but they can spend 10 bucks to see a movie at the local cineplex. As soon as a viewing venue with limited supply comes into play(the movie theater) then distribution becomes an issue.

Though it's true that wide distribution over the internet could theoretically drive movie theaters to show an idie film, the actual practice is that distribution is difficult, even if you assume theaters are open to talking with anyone (not likely). Even if an indie film made enough money in home distribution to give theaters reason to believe they'd have a good audience, proper negotiation channels just don't exist between an indie film maker and the massive number of theaters in the country, or world even. The indie film has to partner with someone big enough to ensure the film will get a wide release.

The internet doesn't help in this environment. With such an important distribution channel locked up tight by the big guys, the movie maker who decides to avoid the big companies will miss out on about half of his revenue stream. Considering how hard it is for movies to make money (most films are not "Star Wars"), this kind of a loss is a real problem.

Music is a little different because bands control performances and the internet is a perfect distribution channel that doesn't require a big label. But how will people know the band exists and that new music is available? How are people going to find out what this new band sounds like? Podcasts exist now, and internet radio over wireless is at least a possibility, but which ones are the big podcasts or internet radio stations that large numbers of people listen to?

If you want to reach an audience larger than the neighborhood bars, you need your music to be heard by large numbers of people. Although that can happen virally, viral word of mouth only works for a small number of bands and songs at a time and only really works at all for people who have buddies who like to pester them about music. If you want to get the word out about your band, you have to go to an outlet that's popular enough that lots of people will listen to it. Whatever outlet becomes becomes most popular becomes a bottleneck. Whenever a bottleneck exists, large companies are going to try to, and will usually succeed in controlling it, just like they do with radio stations now.

Once again, a band certainly could go it alone, and I applaud those that do, but not being able to get that large listening audience is going to keep most small bands small. It will mean that labels will be able to continue to offer a very compelling service, for a very steep price, if a band wants to hit it big.

As long as you have scarcity and revenue, you'll have big companies trying, and largely succeeding, in controlling the two. I think indies can become much larger than they are now thanks to the internet, but it's highly unlikely they'll become the dominant source of entertainment.

TW

Re:

[somersault (912633)]

Once the main distribution method is streaming off the net, then they hopefully will calm down, as the only things that will change are file formats..

Re:Like Region Coding, Then

[pipatron (966506)]

in the UK they're 6 bob a throw i can tell ye!

Care to translate?

Re:Like Region Coding, Then

[ettlz (639203)]

Inexpensive.

Re:Like Region Coding, Then

[ettlz (639203)]

Could you dumb it down a notch?

Six bob a throw.

Re:Like Region Coding, Then

[Dogtanian (588974)]

Bob = informal name for a Shilling. Although no longer used (*) (since 1971, when British money went decimal), the shilling was worth 1/20 of a pound; that is, 5p in post-decimalisation money (**)

So the original poster was claiming we can buy DVDs for £0.30; he was quite definitely being tongue-in-cheek, unless he meant blank ones :-)

(*) Fascinating facts #1! Although the concept of a shilling disappeared in 1971, the one and two shilling coins remained in circulation until the early 1990s, as they were identical in size, composition and value to the new 5p and 10p coins. They disappeared when the 5 and 10p coins were reduced in size.
(*) Fascinating facts #2!!!!! That was 12 old pennies (12d)... pre-decimalisation there were 240 pence in the pound. No, I don't remember any of this, I'm not that old :-)

Re:Like Region Coding, Then

[$RANDOMLUSER (804576)]

having an uncontrolled yorkshireman moment

Care to translate?

Re:Like Region Coding, Then

[KoldKompress (1034414)]

This is almost like Region coded Slashdot..

Re:Like Region Coding, Then

[jrumney (197329)]

I was under the impression that pal VCRS were made to handle NTSC by slowing down from 30 FPS to 25

No, they just convert the colour representation to PAL and output a PAL signal at 30fps. Older TVs (and some newer cheap 14" and smaller TVs) are simple enough that this just works (with a black band top and bottom due to fewer lines on the screen) and newer TVs are designed for it, adjusting their vertical scan to fit the picture on the screen perfectly.

Pretty much all PAL DVD players will output either PAL60 or NTSC if you put an NTSC disc in (modulo region coding issues), and all but the cheapest PAL TVs these days will handle both.

In other news...

[AxminsterLeuven (963108)]

... "Tobacco industry privately admits smoking actually not very healthy at all."

RTFA?

[Cheesey (70139)]

"Hollywood privately admits that DRM is not really about piracy. From the article:

I just read the article - there is no cited evidence that anyone from Hollywood has ever said this. It may be true, yes, and I agree with the conclusions of the article itself, but this isn't some sort of sensational scoop.

MPAA executives have never admitted that piracy isn't the motivation for DRM. The current generation will never admit that: piracy is their excuse and they will stick to it. DRM is part of their business model and it won't go anywhere until it results in a shareholder-awakening loss of money.

If people prefer to pirate stuff, that means the DRM is not restrictive enough to stop them. That is the only thing they'll ever tell you, and the only thing you'll hear from the media outlets that they own.

IRTFALITFA

[Macthorpe (960048)]

I Read The F***ing Articles Linked In The F***ing Article, and there is still no such admission from anyone.

I do, however, also agree with the articles conclusion that DRM isn't about piracy, if only because it's so ineffective to be laughable. It's always been, and obviously so, to make the people who do spend, spend more than they should.

Why chase people who won't buy jack, when you can shaft the people who do for more? It's less effort.

Re:RTFA?

[Professor_UNIX (867045)]

MPAA executives have never admitted that piracy isn't the motivation for DRM. The current generation will never admit that: piracy is their excuse and they will stick to it. DRM is part of their business model and it won't go anywhere until it results in a shareholder-awakening loss of money.

I'm less concerned with piracy and more concerned with the death of the used movie and music market. With DRM, how am I supposed to resell music that I've purchased to the local place that used to buy my used CDs when I was sick of them? How do I sell my DVDs when I'm tired of watching that movie? I've paid either nearly full or even full price for the movie or music, yet I've lost the right to resell the content in the secondary market? Will the studio or record company unlock that content from its DRM chains so that I can resell it upon request?

Re:RTFA?

[richie2000 (159732)]

MPAA executives have never admitted that piracy isn't the motivation for DRM.

"DRMs' primary role is not about keeping copyrighted content off P2P networks. DRMs support an orderly market for facilitating efficient economic transactions between content producers and content consumers."
Dan Glickman, Motion Picture Association of America [bbc.co.uk]

Re:RTFA?

[heroofhyr (777687)]

MPAA executives have never admitted that piracy isn't the motivation for DRM.

From an interview with the Vice President of Technology at Universal Pictures, Jerry Pierce:

Different studios have different philosophies in this area. It is our view that we have to provide customers a rich experience so they can do what they want to do within their home. We don't expect them to make copies of HD DVDs for their friends. And we don't think customers want to do that either. So, DRM needs to give them some restrictions beyond what both the customer and we believe are the proper usage rules. That's what we need to achieve. DRMs enable business models, they don't stop piracy. And we want to make sure that we have a rich one without making it so easy so that you can violate what we agreed on when you purchased a movie.

The full interview is here [tgdaily.com].

Here is a quote from another interview with Fritz Attaway, an MPAA exec:

Consumers should have a choice to either own a copy of a movie for multiple viewing, or to just view it one time for a much lower price. And movie companies want to provide that choice, and many more. But without DRM, every transaction would have to be priced as a sale, not just of one copy but of many copies, in order to account for unrestrained copying...

With regard to your comment that many DRM technologies can be circumvented by commercial pirates, you are correct, but DRM is not intended to prevent commercial piracy. It is intended to insure that most consumers will keep the deal they make with movie distributors. Like the lock on your door, they are not a guarantee against theft, but they "keep honest people honest."

The source of that interview is here [wsj.com].

Re:RTFA?

[Technician (215283)]

DRM is part of their business model and it won't go anywhere until it results in a shareholder-awakening loss of money.


You mean like the leak that sprung up with emusic? Bands that are anit-DRM and tired of being ripped off by the RIAA are starting to go inde. Bare Naked Ladies and others have jumped ship. I wonder how far the bands and consumers will migrate away from the RIAA cartel?

DRM is incompatible with so much stuff, many items are still born. The DAT is a good example. Vista and Blu-Ray may be the next still born. Blue-Ray may be limited to just a few SONY titles and games for the Playstation. It's going to be too much incompatiblily to work on Vista as not enough people are going to spring for all the trusted DRM hardware to make it work. That nice high res monitor and sound system you have are incompatible with the DRM requirements. I have serious doubts the Blu-Ray and HD DVD format war will be won by either. Plain old DVD's will win this one by a landslide. They just work in the computer, in DVD players with your TV set, and portable DVD players.

HD stuff and it's DRM simply won't work in most hardware due to the lack of a full secure digital signal path all the way to the display. The wrong monitor or video card or bad combination will keep the adoption rate very low for a long time. Maybe it will sell as well as the DAT.

Trying to outcompete 15yo

[melikamp (631205)]

It's no news that a bunch of 15yo with P2P clients and MySpace profiles are able to do a better job at promoting and distributing music than the publishing companies. The answer? Make the distribution of the digital content difficult again! That reminds me of that time when my countrymen tried to make rivers run uphill.

Whaaa?

[martin-boundary (547041)]

Oh my god! They're so right! How come nobody on slashdot ever figured any of this out? Good thing I caught this story, I'm so logging off the net right now and writing to my congressman!

Bias

[kentrel (526003)]

This article forces you to believe the crap it's not telling you before it doesn't tell you it. The headline is entirely misleading. Hollywood hasn't admitted anything of the sort, and his source for this information is a reference to another journalist's unnamed source! What kind of journalism is that? From the following quote he extrapolated far too much:

"His user rules just scare the heck out of us"

Now, it's entirely possible that DRM is about exactly what they say it's about. What's not true however is that Hollywood is admitting this. The article is forcing you to accept the journalists bias hoping you don't exercise your critical thinking skills and question it. Whether it's true or not - the journalist needs to get his act together and get better sources than some other journalists dodgy source.

Now somebody might argue: "well we know they're doing it, what does it matter if the journalist exaggerates a quote from an unnamed source". I think it matters a great deal. When you're right you should be able to prove it very easily. Otherwise you have to accept that no matter how you feel on the matter you may be wrong, or there's just not enough evidence to imply anything.

Re:Bias

[richie2000 (159732)]

Hollywood hasn't admitted anything of the sort

"DRMs' primary role is not about keeping copyrighted content off P2P networks. DRMs support an orderly market for facilitating efficient economic transactions between content producers and content consumers. "
Dan Glickman, Motion Picture Association of America [bbc.co.uk]

Mirrors my views exactly

[grimJester (890090)]

DRM is meant to prevent interoperability, raise barriers for entry to markets and force "upgrades" of your media when playback devices are upgraded.

Just look at iTunes; you can burn the music to CDs and rip to mp3. This is no copy protection - only a mild barrier to make it more likely that the average customer does _not_ buy another brand of mp3 player.

As others have pointed out, the article headline is misleading. Hollywood won't admit any such thing.

mutiple sales

[mastershake_phd (1050150)]

They want to sell you the DVD version, the PSP version, the special edition, the remastered edition, the directors cut, the laser disc version, the VHS version. Next will be the HD-DVD, and Blueray versions. Followed by the hologram version, err, maybe. If anyone has been most successful at this, its George Lucas, how many of us own more than one version of the first Star Wars trilogy?

Re:

[tbo (35008)]

They want to sell you the DVD version, the PSP version, the special edition, the remastered edition, the directors cut, the laser disc version, the VHS version.

[rant] Honestly, who wants to watch a movie more than once or twice? Get Netflix or Zip.ca or whatever, rent it once or twice, and you don't have to worry about buying it over and over again. It's also cheaper. I have a really hard time getting worked up about DRM for movies if that's all it's about. I'm not going to buy a movie more than once, perio

Re:mutiple sales

[1u3hr (530656)]

Except, oh right, creating scarcity to allow creators to profit was the original constitutional purpose of copyright

Insightful, up to that point.

According to Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the U.S. Constitution, 1787: "the Congress shall have power . . . to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries."

You've swallowed Hollywood's line. Profit is supposed to be a carrot to "promote the progress of science and useful arts", not the purpose, though these days you'd never know that.

As for TFA, yes, what a load of crap. When did musings in random blogs become newsworthy?

Consumers losing control

[quokkapox (847798)]

The real risks of DRM come into play when consumers lose control of the devices they legitimately assume will have traditional functionality. Why on earth should my cellphone, a digital communication device be unable to share MY data freely with other networks? So I have to PAY for a ringtone or PAY to upload a picture I just took? Why should my wifi-enabled Zune not be able to "squirt" MY data to any nearby Zune?

That's bad enough, but the most dangerous outcome here is when I can no longer wipe and then reinstall a free operating system onto a general purpose computing device. The people might be forced to pay the microsoft tax, but we will not give up our free software.

What bothers me the most is that Congress ...

[WindBourne (631190)]

is partaking in this and pushing for DRM everywhere and lose of fair rights. It use to be the dems who pushed this. But anymore these days, the neo-cons (who are the majority of the republicans) are also behind it. It seems to be that rather than fight each and every one of these initiivies, we need to cut the beast off at the knees. The only way that I can think to do that is to prevent money flow from lobbyist to congress reps. And the only way to prevent all of the is to implement Joel Hefley's ideas on corruption prevention. All in all, if we want America to be the land of the people, and by the people, and for the people, we are going to have pony up the funding of the election process. Otherwise, this will remain the land of the high bidder, of the highest bidder, and for the highest bidder.

DRM - It's Not Really About Piracy

[suv4x4 (956391)]

TFA - It's Not Really About What It Says In The Title

Self-Defeating

[webrunner (108849)]

The main problem with DRM is how self-defeating the current model is. If they really want to do the whole thing right it needs to:

• Be a universal standard. DRM now is used mostly to lock users down to one class of devices. But it really needs to work between companies and between devices. That video you download off of iTunes should work on your 360 and on your TiVO and on your PSP.
• Allow users to do what they want with it, just prevent mass-sharing. But convenience sharing, like bringing it to a friends house, the companies don't realize how important that is.
• Work on people's current systems, or at most, require a minor upgrade. This is where HDCP breaks apart entirely. You need to build a new PC from the ground up, including your MONITOR, to be able to play HDCP content. That's just crazy.
• You can't put people in chains unless they've done something wrong

Unless ALL of these things come to pass, DRM is an unworkable mess and will cause the companies involved in it to fail miserably.

Re:Some thoughts.

[rucs_hack (784150)]

They used to have fits about tapes and vinyl copying too. It's always happened. Their main problem is that selling media in any form will always be a business which experiences lots of unauthorised copying of its products if you use their traditional distribution method (being monolithic companies selling media at high price through a limited number of channels)

The problem they have is that faced with this undeniable fact they have decided to focus on an unrealistic solution, being drm. The plain fact is that drm will only cause problems for legitimate users, not unauthorised copiers.
Circumvention being illegal is no problem. There will always be someone, somewhere who figures it out, and finding that person in time to stop dissemination of their solution is a game that will be lost before they start, every time.

DRM then is so they can continue to attract investors. It gives them something to say in pitches. 'We have solution x to this problem that will ensure a return on your investment' and so on. The fact that historically such solutions have a 100% faliure rate isn't something they can even think about, so they're trapped.

Looking at this from an evolutionary standpoint, they're screwed, and heading to extinction. Simply demanding that the world be other than it is can only have that result. What system will emerge in its place I don't know, but I strongly suspect that the current crop of p2p companies/products will form the basis of a new media empire.

The current media industries are trying to get into this feild, but for years all they've been doing is trying to stop it, whilst the p2p producers have been innovating like crazy. That means the p2p guys are already ahead in the next wave of media production/distribution, and very likely to stay there.