DRM - Pirating - Digital Rights Management and the current Media culture shift

There are a lot of assumptions being thrown around these days.  If you aren't already aware of the issues and their implications, this might be a good chance for you to quickly get up to speed.  The implications are important, and despite the propaganda at the start of very DVD, this is NOT a "done deal" this is an area of legislation that needs updating in a reasonable respectful way.

DRM explained in 57 seconds. (Video)


The value customers are paying for is being degraded as control over the media is wrested away from customers.

And this from XKCD a tech savvy comic

Not only is there the potential for the value of media to be degraded, but there is the very real and likely potential that the corporations will destroy customers ability to access / use and enjoy the media they have paid for.  Online gaming has experienced this on numerous occasions including DRM outages in 2010 where game publishers DRM servers have gone offline effectively preventing paying customers from playing the games they have purchased.  WalMart shut down their DRM servers effectively rendering the DRM music purchased through them unusable (unless you burned it to CD).  WalMart is a pretty big company, so thinking a company is "going to be around" doesn't hold water.  The company has to continue to want to support you. Once they have your money.... Where is there motivation?

Digital Rights "Activists" or "really smart people who understand the real issues behind DRM in the digital age"  like these guys are fighting to educate politicians and the public.  It is an uphill battle since the public is constantly bombarded with DRM propaganda.  Before the start of every movie, on the back of every CD and on and on and on.  Threats of fines, of jailtime etc etc. all without a fair balanced discussion of what reasonable use would be. Not only is the public being indoctrinated, but most of our politicians are poorly informed and ill equipped to evaluate technology issues while being subjected to constant propaganda from well financed DRM lobby groups.

In addition to the media itself being affected with DRM, many customers are unwittingly purchasing hardware that comes crippled by DRM constraints.  The most recent visible examples of this were with the Ipad launch which precipitated an information campaign http://www.defectivebydesign.org/ipad

You can sign their petition at the address above.  Of course the image is from the movie 1984 where an "George Orwell" describes a world under the totalitarian control of a government that even wants to control what people think.

We are living in a different world.  One where the business models are changing, and that is not a bad thing.  Most major companies and their current business models did not exist 50 years ago.  And will not exist in 50 years.  Change is natural, the idea that a corportation or group of corporations can insist that society FREEZE in its tracks.

Here is a brief presentation on the economics of abundance which are in contrast to the traditional economics of scarcity.


Finally there is an excellent presentation from TED on "Laws that choke creativity", which ends by questioning the social implications of having draconian legislation in place because it causes a society to spurn the law as an institution. (In a nutshell, bad laws reduce the authority of the governing authorities and ultimately weaken the respect for law, leading to lawlessness.)


"It is technology that has made them different, and as we see what this technology can do we need to recognize you can't kill the instinct the technology produces; we can only criminalize it. We can't stop our kids from using it; we can only drive it underground. We can't make our kids passive again; we can only make them, quote, "pirates." And is that good? We live in this weird time, it's kind of age of prohibitions, where in many areas of our life, we live life constantly against the law.Ordinary people live life against the law, and that's what I -- we -- are doing to our kids. They live life knowing they live it against the law. That realization is extraordinarily corrosive, extraordinarily corrupting. And in a democracy we ought to be able to do better. Do better, at least for them, if not for opening for business."


Lets THINK.  Lets LEARN.  Lets DISCUSS.  This is NOT a "done deal".  This is a societal contract subject to negotiation by all parties.


Cheers!  Let freedom and honour reign!
Greg.