- Joined
- Jul 21, 2005
- Messages
- 10,478
DRM = digital rights management. It essentially refers to the protective measures placed on various electronic media. It has recently become somewhat of a hot issue in regards to the newly released Blu-Ray and HD-DVD formats. The primary DRM intent is to prevent piracy. That sad part is that DRM only hinders pirates temporarily and brutally restricts legitimate customers. Not long after the new formats were introduced to the market, the HD-DVD DRM was cracked. Less than a month later, the Blu-Ray DRM was also circumvented. So, now pirates essentially have free reign while customers are left behind frustrated with media player compatibility issues. On top of that, pirates are spreading illegal copies while honest money-spending customers are unable to make legitimate backups (the most common reason being to prevent damage from young kids in the house).
So, the issue is not necessarily whether it's legal to implement DRM; companies obviously have the right to implement these protective measures into their products. However, the question I present to all of you is this: is DRM really necessary? It would seem that the pattern goes something like this: security systems become more sophisticated; pirates rise to the challenge and overcome it; security systems rise again in hopes of overpowering the pirates; pirates prove to be too intelligent once again; meanwhile, normal customers are left behind to suffer. The people implementing the DRM seem to have this belief that they are infinitely smarter than the rest of the world and that no one will ever circumvent their defenses. Surprisingly, they have admitted that DRM isn't even what's preventing piracy these days.
So, the issue is not necessarily whether it's legal to implement DRM; companies obviously have the right to implement these protective measures into their products. However, the question I present to all of you is this: is DRM really necessary? It would seem that the pattern goes something like this: security systems become more sophisticated; pirates rise to the challenge and overcome it; security systems rise again in hopes of overpowering the pirates; pirates prove to be too intelligent once again; meanwhile, normal customers are left behind to suffer. The people implementing the DRM seem to have this belief that they are infinitely smarter than the rest of the world and that no one will ever circumvent their defenses. Surprisingly, they have admitted that DRM isn't even what's preventing piracy these days.