Empirical Study Shows DRM Encourages Infringement 375
Hucko writes "Ars Technica has a story about a study by Cambridge law professor Patricia Akester that suggests (declares?) that DRM and its ilk does persuade citizens to infringe copyright and circumvent authors' protections. The name of the study is 'Technological accommodation of conflicts between freedom of expression and DRM: the first empirical assessment.'" The study itself is available for download (PDF); there's also a distillation here.
It's true! (Score:5, Interesting)
Empirical, right? (Score:4, Interesting)
I hope the adjective "empirical" is not there to hide unscientific or statistically weak methods... She's a lawyer professor afterall... sort of a scientist who talks her results out!
DRM is pushing me towards piracy (Score:5, Interesting)
I stopped buying PC games about a year ago due to DRM technologies such as SecuROM and StarForce, because of the faults they can cause when burning CDs, which is an essential part of my job.
Last month I bought a new mid-spec laptop and went shopping for an "old" game that would run on it, and I settled on Civ4. After buying it, I discovered that it too uses SecuROM so I will not install it. Instead, I think it's morally (and legally?) acceptable to download a pirate copy without DRM.
A couple of weeks ago my girlfriend and I both bought The Sims 2. Neither copy worked! I've since discovered that the copy-protection on the DVD is known to cause installation errors, and one of the recommended workarounds is to install the disk imaging software Alcohol, and this indeed allowed us to install the game. Alcohol can of course be very useful for people who want to pirate games.
I feel like games publishers are pushing me towards pirating their products. I don't want DRM to harm my system, and if the only way I can play a purchased game is to pirate it then how long will it be before I skip the purchasing?
Even BBC's Have Your Say has got the plot (Score:5, Interesting)
We're accustomed on Slashdot to saying that the general public is not aware of the issues surrounding DRM and file sharing. However, this debate [bbc.co.uk] seems to suggest otherwise. I know the HYS debates are often full of ranting morons but it is still an audience of non-experts. Looking at the most recommended comments there seem to be quite a few people who know what's going on.
Re:At last (Score:5, Interesting)
What happens when steam goes bust?
What has happened every time digital restrictions interfered with the desire to use some content: Someone will break the protection. In Steam's case this has already happened for many games.
Re:At last (Score:3, Interesting)
So you totally disagree with me that until your hypothetical situation whereby Steam dies and cuts users off we enjoy some positive benefits from the way Steam manages our digital rights to games?
I know I do.
I find more positive benefits in not having to worry about Steam, EA, or anyone else "managing my digital rights to games." The one advantage (able to download onto another system when away from the main one) is not remotely worth the losses
Headstrong.mp3 (Score:5, Interesting)
My daughter wanted Ashley Tisdale's Headstrong on her iPod. (Please no comments - I'm ashamed enough as it is).
We can't get it from iTunes because we use Ubuntu.
We can't get the mp3 from Amazon.com because you have to be US resident.
We can't get it from Amazon.co.uk because you have to have a UK billing address.
We can't get it from Amazon.ie because that doesn't exist.
So I have a choice, buy the whole album on CD from Play.com or pirate it....
I'm getting a bit sick of this malarkey where I'm told what I can and can't buy with my money. Obviously, I accept the principle that Xyz has the rights to sell something in this market, but if Xyz won't sell it to me then I say screw Xyz.
So this news doesn't surprise me - the more you tighten your fingers yada yada yada...
Re:Hurry... (Score:2, Interesting)
Their purpose is to represent the interests of the record industry. Not to force DRM on everybody unless that is in the interests of the record industry. This article insists that it isn't.
This is not to say the RIAA won't do this. just that it would be illogical.
Re:How much did this guy get paid to do this study (Score:2, Interesting)
When put like that it is obvious to almost everyone, but how many people have bought huge amounts of songs from Apple and didn't realise they couldn't use them on other machines or devices because of the DRM? The majority of the population don't care because they don't get bitten, and when they do they just assume there's nothing they can do and go in to another cycle of getting bitten by DRM.
Since most people don't get bitten to a degree they notice (e.g. "I have to use my iPod? Oh well, I guess I like it anyway so that's okay" rather than "What? I bought music and I can't use it how I want to, like I'd be able to with a CD? That's just ridiculous!") and so the industry carries ever onwards, implementing mechanisms that won't affect the illegal copies but may affect some legitimate copies.
A Zero DRM Experiment Is Successful (So Far) (Score:3, Interesting)
As I have mentioned before, I have written and am selling a book for entrepreneurs, salespeople, project champions, and others called Elevator Pitch Essentials (http://www.elevatorpitchessentials.com). After much debate, and with the encouragement of multiple
Since I released the eBook, my hardcopy sales have continued to hold up. In fact, sales through Amazon.com have been doubling every month and I just got a volume order for 50 books. I have also sold 53 eBooks.
I think this has been a successful experiment in part because of the relatively low price. It seems that people think that's a reasonable amount to charge. From my own experience, I know that I have absolutely no problem paying $1 for a song.
P.S. Please don't crush my buzz by telling me it's all over the torrents (although that really may not matter).
i was watching pbs a few nights ago (Score:4, Interesting)
i forget the guy's name, but he was a behavioral economist, and he was attempting to explain the recent economic meltdown in the terms of his profession, and why the whole notion of rational actors in a rational marketplace is a crock
one of his precepts was that all of these derivatives, while having an economic value, were not actually money itself, and so this abstraction allowed a layer of rationalization of immoral behavior by otherwise normal people
he crystallized this down to a simple experiment:
he put 6 cans of coke in a refrigerator in an office kitchen, unlabeled and unguarded. of course, the cans of coke slowly disappeared. then he put 6 dollar bills on a plate in a refrigerator in an office kitchen, unlabeled and unguarded. guess what? no one took the money
the whole point being: when value is made an abstraction, people can rationalize "theft" a lot easier than when the value of what you are taking is starkly presented. it explains a lot of the sticking points in the argument over "pirated" media
Re:It's true! (Score:4, Interesting)
This is the strange world of software and movies: when you're honest, you're hassled. If you pirate, your life suddenly becomes a lot easier.
To be fair, it's always been the case in every other field. It's easier not to pay taxes than to pay taxes. It's easier to steal your DVD than to wait in line for the cashier. That is, once you've defeated the stealing protection.
It's easier to follow no rules than it is to live by the law in general.
This is not entirely linked to DRM, you're stating here a fact of life.
Re:At last (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:and the pirates win again (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not talking about media you purchase, but media you rent.
Ripping it is faster, more convenient and removes the corporate propaganda. If I can't remove the propaganda, I won't watch it at all, and I won't let my kid watch it.
You would be surprised how jarring it is once you've freed yourself from it... like someone who grew up in the city going camping for a month in the wilderness, then coming home to realize that they've had people shouting in their ears their whole life and that they never realized how much their thinking had been muddled and their senses numbed by what was being done to them until they finally got free of it.
Once you actually experience it for yourself, you start to feel like someone who just realized they've been abused their whole life and didn't know.
Re:Headstrong.mp3 (Score:3, Interesting)
Waitaminute, here's what I don't get. What's wrong with buying the CD? Most (all?) CDs these days don't have any DRM on them. They just plain work, no matter what country you're in and without any proprietary software.
I understand movie piracy, where non-DRM content simply isn't on the market -- they simply aren't interested in selling playable content (presumably because they don't want any money). But for music, DRM was just an ephemeral experiment whose echoes have nearly died out. The music companies are back in business.
So why go the pirate route?
Is this an iPod issue, where you can't encode the CDDA into an iPod-playable file without violating a patent (because they still can't play Vorbis) or that you have to use iTunes to get the software into their directory, or something like that?
Re:i was watching pbs a few nights ago (Score:4, Interesting)
interesting about the dollars and cans of coke.
however, companies often provide soda for free for them employees. this complicates things as the employees could have thought those were from a company event (leftovers) etc. happens ALL the time where I work (bay area companies).
another problem with this is that the 'value' of a song is VERY debatable! its complicated to add in all the costs involved and assign 'reasonable' profits to those in the chain. I'd say its actually impossible to do this correctly. so what we have is a system that is now gouging the consumer and attempting to float some idea of fair price on 'song listening'.
for me, the right price is a few pennies per song. the industry sees that as 100x. we are not even on the same page, here.
until then, I will continue to get my music any way I want. until the pennies-per-song comes back (I miss the russian sites!) I won't be buying the overpriced 'dollar per song' that the industry demands.
once they become reasonable, I'll become reasonable. that's the lesson and that's all she wrote.
Barrier to entry: Money. Here's why.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Barrier to entry: Getting to the store with money.
People using the internet fall into 1 of 3 groups when faced with a 'paywall':
1) The people who CAN pay but DON'T just so they can keep their money in their pocket for later use out of greed or necessity. To a lesser extent, in this group are those who are TOO BUSY to stop what they are doing long enough to pay for the items they want.
2) The people who CAN'T pay but WANT to. They have just enough money for an internet connection or are borrowing the use of one, can't pay for anything and want the item anyway so they search for it online until they find it or give up and move on. The others in this group CAN pay but CAN'T due to the payment methods available to them for the items they want. Or they are simply blacklisted as a policy decision by the vendors of the items in question in resonse to fraud/theft commited against them.
3) The people who CAN and DO pay for the items they want, realize they are crippled with some form of DRM, and seek out and download a DRM-free version or 'patch' to use anyway as it is 'better' to them.
Excuses, excuses, excuses, eh?
The easiest way to make all these problems and wasted resources go all away is to:
1) Stop ALL use of DRM.
2) Make EVERYTHING online that is NOT a 3-dimensional object either free or easy-to-pay 'tipware' -- basically meaning PayPal or actual 'money in the mail'.
The only difference I see in 'poor starving artists' using the internet to make money and the successful ones with equal talent is the size of their advertising budget. It shouldn't be that way but sadly it is....
Re:Unethical? Hypocrisy? (Score:3, Interesting)
[quote]So, anytime someone creates anything, it immediately becomes "cultural content" and they automatically lose their rights?[/quote]
Yes. This is why we have copyright -- to [i]return[/i] some rights to the author.
Keeping in mind that copyright is temporary, DRM is intended to circumvent the public's right to the work after the authors rights have expired, effectively creating an unlimited copyright term.
Philosophically, DRM is a horrible horrible thing. The public has a responsibility to fight against it. After all, it's [i]their[/i] rights that are being violated.
Off topic, but still interesting: Excessively long copyright terms can also serve to take away the public's rights. As the Google Books case has shown us, authors and publishers don't necessarily have an interest in the preservation of works -- once a work ceases to be profitable, it can be allowed to disappear into time. They're under no obligation to keep the work available until the end of the copyright term. As rights typically come [i]with[/i] obligation, such a revision to copyright law should be considered. It would better serve the public interest.