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DRM to force repurchasing

Adam Engst - 08:59am Mar 16, 2005 PST

<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=08013>

--- begin forwarded text

From: Colin Foster
To: "Adam C. Engst" <ace

tidbits.com>
Subject: Re: The REAL reason you should think DRM is evil

Here's a side of DRM I never seem to see, but I think is the real
reason DRM technology is being pushed so hard by the Content Cartel:
repurchasing power.

There are 3 groups of people in the media content marketplace that
DRM technology might affect: Illegal Media Providers, Illegal Media
Consumers, and Honest Consumers.

1.) Does DRM technology stop the Illegal Media Providers from
bypassing DRM restrictions or the mass distribution of DRM-free
binaries?

No. Not one piece of DRM protected media has ever been released that
couldn't be broken in minutes.

Some say it is still a 'speed bump' to illegal copying but this is
not accurate. A technology that only needs one person on the planet
to break it in order for all others to bypass, is an inconsequential
hindrance.

Some say the problem is just with the current generation of DRM and
that the NEXT generation will really stop the piracy. But by the
nature of encryption, you can't both give a person 'the message' and
keep it from them at the same time. The Content Cartel already knows
that DRM encryption will always be broken swiftly.

We have laws to make mass distribution of copyrighted material
illegal, but those laws exist independently of DRM. DRM technology
does not aid those laws in any way.

Therefore, the Content Cartel isn't interested in DRM for its ability
to stop people from ripping or distributing their content (because
they know it can't).

2.) Does DRM stop the Illegal Media Consumers from downloading movies & music?

No. By the time someone is downloading something the DRM has been removed.

Therefore, the Content Cartel is not interested in DRM for its
ability to stop the people from illegally downloading content.

3.a.) Does DRM technology stop Honest Consumers from using their
content in ways that are illegal?

No. They're 'honest' consumers, remember? They don't want to do
illegal things with their content. If they were dishonest then we'd
have to put them in the second group.

3.b.) Does DRM technology stop Honest Consumers from using their
content in ways that are legal?

Yes! There are a many examples one could give of the fair use of
digital media that is blocked by DRM (see below). So, if this is the
ONLY group that DRM affects, why would the Content Cartel do this to
the Honest Consumers?

I think the answer to this question is grounded in the fact that
digital media is lossless (that is, you can copy it an infinite
number of times, and still have the same file, unlike analog formats
such as records and tapes).

Consider how much money was made selling people music they already
owned but was worn out, or just available in a new format?
player-piano scrolls to 3-minute-waxes, 3-minute-waxes to 78's, 78's
to 33's, 33's to Tapes, Tapes to CDs

That last step was the mistake. CD technology is digital and that
means if someone makes a backup copy of that music before it wears
out, they won't just own it for the rest of their life, so will
anyone they bequeath their music collection to. Forever.

Even if there is a technology shift to a new medium, that new medium
will be digital, so the conversion will happen without the need to
repurchase the content.

It is this permanent ownership of perfectly reproducible content that
I think terrifies the Content Cartel. And it is Honest Consumer
repurchasing that I think the Content Cartel is really trying to
perpetuate with DRM technology. Honest Consumers are in the VAST
majority so forcing them put purchase the same content multiple times
generates far more revenue than finding a way to make Illegal Media
Consumers purchase it just once.

"But how does DRM force repurchasing?" you may ask. Here are some examples:

e.g., If you own North American DVDs but move to Australia, the U.K.
or any other differing 'DVD region' you will have to repurchase your
DVDs (or illegally buy a region-free DVD player).

e.g., If you 'authorize' a media device to play music, but it is
stolen/broken/lost/etc. you cannot de-authorize that device. Do that
3 times (by the current rules -- which are subject to change at the
whim of the Content Cartel) and you'll be repurchasing all your
music. This 'authorized for 3 devices only' rule is a nice fail safe
to make sure that EVENTUALLY music you once owned will have to be
repurchased. Maybe not by the first owner of the content if they are
very careful, but the content almost certainly won't be passed to a
new generation as a book or painting would.

e.g., If you want to make a VHS copy of a DVD so your kids can watch
it on the VHS player you have in the car, you can't. You'll just have
to buy a VHS version of the movie you already own.

This is the major reason I feel that DRM is wrong (though there are
many others). I don't believe the Content Cartel is interested DRM
technology for stopping illegal copying at all. They want to stop
LEGAL copying, and reap the staggering financial rewards of forcing
Honest Consumers to buy, and buy again.

-Colin.

--- end forwarded text

Mark as Read

Joe Mithiran - Mar 16, 2005 9:02 am (#1 Total: 12)

Posts: 1

Re: DRM to force repurchasing

Harking back to the original article:

It would be like car manufacturers outfitting all cars with limiters that could determine the posted speed limit on any stretch of road and prevent the car from driving faster than that, for any reason.

Actually it's like car manufacturers putting in speed limiters that only allow you to go 40km/h (24 mph) because that's all you can do in a school zone (in Australia).

As mentioned DRM technology can be circumvented in about 4 minutes, so it's not going to stop people violating copy write & selling other people's stuff, the ONLY thing it's going to do is stop people from "fair use" things like having the music on their computer, stereo, portable whatever & mobile phone.

I say again, the ONLY use of DRM is the annoyance & frustration of legitimate users.

kirklists (apparently) - Mar 17, 2005 10:28 am (#2 Total: 12)

via email

Posts: 73

Re: DRM to force repurchasing

On 3/16/05 5:02 PM, "Adam C. Engst" <ace

tidbits.com> wrote:

> e.g., If you own North American DVDs but move to Australia, the U.K.
> or any other differing 'DVD region' you will have to repurchase your
> DVDs (or illegally buy a region-free DVD player).

To respond only to this part of your otherwise interesting message... First,
it's not illegal to buy a region-free DVD player, at least not here in
France, and probably not in Europe. You can buy them in any store. Second, I
seem to recall that the movie studios are going to phase out region coding,
because they've found that they lose money, since they can't shift unsold
inventory to another market. (Shot themselves in the foot...)

Kirk

          Author of: The Mac OS X Command Line: Unix Under the Hood
               - - - - - -
             Read my blog: Kirkville -- http://www.mcelhearn.com
          Musings, Opinion and Miscellanea, on Macs, iPods and more
       Kirk McElhearn | Chemin de la Lauze | 05600 Guillestre | France

kh2 (apparently) - Mar 17, 2005 10:28 am (#3 Total: 12)

via email

Posts: 8

Re: DRM to force repurchasing

On Wed, 16 Mar 2005 08:02:53 -0800, Colin Foster wrote:
>Here's a side of DRM I never seem to see, but I think is the real
>reason DRM technology is being pushed so hard by the Content Cartel:
>repurchasing power.

As they said in All The President's Men, "Follow the money." This
whole battle is for the ownership of our culture, a grandiose way of
saying corporations want to own the content of our culture's creative
output and sell it back to us a copy at a time. The Content Cartel
are already the bottom feeders of our culture. Through the expiration
of copyright. they already bring us, royalty free, those budget
copies of Shakespeare and Dickens and other works that lapse into the
public domain. But through the active swindling of talent (John
Fogerty and Billy Joel are just two that spring to mind), they reap
the benefits of creativity they did not themselves produce. Add to
that the egregious extension of copyright into the distant future and
we have a corporate stranglehold on the soul of our people. Will
there even be a public domain when they're through? And who will
control the content we as a society are allowed to consume? As Bill
Moyers said of the Federal Communications Act of 1934, when giving
the Keynote Address to the National Conference on Media Reform in
Madison, Wisconsin, back on November 8, 2003, "The clear intent was
to prevent a monopoly of commercial values from overwhelming
democratic values - to assure that the official view of reality -
corporate or government - was not the only view of reality that
reached the people."

http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/views03/1112-10.htm

JolinWarren (apparently) - Mar 18, 2005 3:06 pm (#4 Total: 12)

via email

Posts: 150

Re: DRM to force repurchasing

At 9:28 on 17-3-05, Kirk McElhearn wrote:
> Second, I seem to recall that the movie studios are going to phase
> out region coding, because they've found that they lose money,
> since they can't shift unsold inventory to another market. (Shot
> themselves in the foot...)

Wow, that's great news! Do you have a link to more information on
this? The other reason it loses money is that different titles are
available in different markets. So there might be a movie or
television programme available in the UK that is not available in the
US. But a US visitor won't be able to buy it (I personally know of
this happening once, and I don't know many people that buy lots of
DVDs, so there must be other cases). Lost sale.

From a personal perspective, I just find it annoying. If I'm
travelling with my PowerBook, why shouldn't I be able to rent or buy
a DVD in another 'region'?

_________________
=> Jolin Warren, Edinburgh, Scotland

nick170 (apparently) - Mar 18, 2005 3:14 pm (#5 Total: 12)

via email - http://www.inmff.net

Posts: 73

Re: DRM to force repurchasing

At 9:28 AM -0800 3/17/05, Kirk McElhearn wrote:
>On 3/16/05 5:02 PM, "Adam C. Engst" <ace

tidbits.com> wrote:
>
>> e.g., If you own North American DVDs but move to Australia, the U.K.
>> or any other differing 'DVD region' you will have to repurchase your
>> DVDs (or illegally buy a region-free DVD player).
>
>To respond only to this part of your otherwise interesting message... First,
>it's not illegal to buy a region-free DVD player, at least not here in
>France, and probably not in Europe. You can buy them in any store. Second, I
>seem to recall that the movie studios are going to phase out region coding,
>because they've found that they lose money, since they can't shift unsold
>inventory to another market. (Shot themselves in the foot...)

Of course you'll still have to make sure you're buying PAL vs. NTSC
DVDs. Not sure if the encoding format can be modified to handle that
for all players.

Nick

Lewis Butler (apparently) - Mar 21, 2005 1:09 pm (#6 Total: 12)

via email

Posts: 989

Re: DRM to force repurchasing

On 18 Mar 2005, at 15:14 :39, Nicholas Barnard wrote:
> Of course you'll still have to make sure you're buying PAL vs. NTSC
> DVDs. Not sure if the encoding format can be modified to handle that
> for all players.

Computers don''t care AT ALL about PAL vs NTSC, and most DVD players
will play either, whether they tell you that or not.

(all my DVD players play PAL DVDs to my NTSC tv without a problem)

JolinWarren (apparently) - Mar 21, 2005 1:09 pm (#7 Total: 12)

via email

Posts: 150

Re: DRM to force repurchasing

At 14:14 on 18-3-05, Nicholas Barnard wrote:
>>> e.g., If you own North American DVDs but move to Australia, the U.K.
>>> or any other differing 'DVD region' you will have to repurchase your
>>> DVDs (or illegally buy a region-free DVD player).
>>
>>To respond only to this part of your otherwise interesting message... First,
>>it's not illegal to buy a region-free DVD player, at least not here in
>>France, and probably not in Europe. You can buy them in any store.
>>[snip]
>
> Of course you'll still have to make sure you're buying PAL vs. NTSC
> DVDs. Not sure if the encoding format can be modified to handle that
> for all players.

Actually, my friend's region-free DVD player can play either PAL or
NTSC without problem (connected to a PAL TV). I don't know how common
this is as I've never bought a DVD player (I use my PowerBook). But I
don't think my friend was specifically looking for this feature.

_________________
=> Jolin Warren, Edinburgh, Scotland

charlie_franklin - Mar 21, 2005 1:19 pm (#8 Total: 12)

Posts: 18

Re: DRM to force repurchasing

e.g., If you own North American DVDs but move to Australia, the U.K. or any other differing 'DVD region' you will have to repurchase your DVDs (or illegally buy a region-free DVD player).

In Australia, the one good thing we have managed to do right with Copyright and associated issues, is that by law all sellers of DVD players, must make them available as a region free model, or if asked provide instructions to make them region free. However I seem to remember that this might have changed with the introduction of the US free trade agreement on 1/1/2005 as I think we had to come into line with US laws.

On the other side of the coin, it is illegal to RIP a copy of a CD you own on to your own computer for listening to via the computer, or via an iPod, although thankfully unpoliced. I'm not so sure if we got this benefit back with the introduction of the free trade agreement.

Charlie

George Wade - Mar 22, 2005 10:35 am (#9 Total: 12)

Guest User

Posts: 1

Re: DRM to force repurchasing

On 21-Mar-05, at 12:09 PM, Google Kreme wrote:

> On 18 Mar 2005, at 15:14 :39, Nicholas Barnard wrote:
>> Of course you'll still have to make sure you're buying PAL vs. NTSC
>> DVDs. Not sure if the encoding format can be modified to handle that
>> for all players.
>
> Computers don''t care AT ALL about PAL vs NTSC, and most DVD players
> will play either, whether they tell you that or not.

I'm curious, because of enjoying travelling; how many standards does
my iMovie - iDVD / iBook support?

1) PAL
2)NTSC
3) x?
4) y?

And where would I look when my brain wakes up again, tomorrow at 4am?
It would be useful to know who, in our world wide organisation, could
read a DVD or videoCD to their own local TV set.

George

Christopher Schmidt (apparently) - Mar 28, 2005 10:18 am (#10 Total: 12)

via email - Redwood City, California

Posts: 29

Re: DRM to force repurchasing

> Computers don't care AT ALL about PAL vs NTSC, and most DVD players
> will play either, whether they tell you that or not.
>
> (all my DVD players play PAL DVDs to my NTSC tv without a problem)

Even absent region coding, consumers would be ill served by DVDs mastered for the wrong TV standard.

PAL and NTSC DVDs have different dimensions in pixels, frame rates, and audio encoding strategies. Resampling always means some degradation.

A detailed explanation of the differences can be found at:

<http://www.dvddemystified.com/dvdfaq.html#1.19>

I do agree that the differences should be less significant on a computer; essentially because both kinds of DVD will be compromised similarly by resampling and de-interlacing.

In the video domain, DRM won't be the force motivating repurchase of DVDs.

HDTV on big screens will do the trick. Having now spent a few months watching HD movies on a 7' screen, I can testify that old DVDs are looking blurrier to me with each passing week. (Mind you, I watch more DVDs than ever on the big screen, but never for movies I expect to appear on HBOHD in the coming year.)

And DRM won't even be necessary as the motivating force for the generation *after* that! Hollywood is already gearing up for twice the resolution (in both dimensions) of today's HDTV. HDTV DVDs are already technically obsolescent! (But they will be a good match for the displays of the coming decade). After that, I have no doubt consumers will demand the double resolution we're starting to see in theaters now. (Another problem with the current generation of HDTV is the backward-looking 1080i30 standard. It's a bad match for all the big screen technologies, none of which is intrinsically interlaced. 1080i yields de-interlacing artifacts to no good purpose. (I believe that even my 1080i WEGA tube utilizes a 2160p frame buffer internally, but I'll admit I can't see any artifacts; I think because it's only 36".))

This all stands in stark contrast to audio. While very few people can hear the difference between AAC and CD audio--and the DRM trick may serve some forced repurchasing agenda, HDTV doesn't even come close to maxing out the acuity of the human eye. Once most people own big HDTVs (10 years from now), the superiority of the following decade's double resolution HDTV will be as obvious as the superiority of HDTV to EDTV is today.

--Christopher

LKM (apparently) - Mar 29, 2005 8:34 pm (#11 Total: 12)

via email - Lucas K. Mathis

Posts: 80

Re: DRM to force repurchasing

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On 29.3.2005, space aliens observed Christopher saying:
>And DRM won't even be necessary as the motivating force for the
>generation *after* that! Hollywood is already gearing up for twice
>the resolution (in both dimensions) of today's HDTV. HDTV DVDs are
>already technically obsolescent!

That won't work ad infinitum. You're not sitting right in front of your
TV when watching those movies. There's only a certain resolution you can
actually see from your sofa, and there's only so much room for the
screen, so there's a given resolution after which higher resolutions
won't improve the picture.

Sooner or later, new technology will not automatically be an incentive
to buy new versions of your movies.

lucas

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Christopher Schmidt (apparently) - Apr 1, 2005 8:42 am (#12 Total: 12)

via email - Redwood City, California

Posts: 29

Re: DRM to force repurchasing

> >And DRM won't even be necessary as the motivating force for the
>>generation *after* that! Hollywood is already gearing up for twice
> >the resolution (in both dimensions) of today's HDTV.

>That won't work ad infinitum. You're not sitting right in front of your
>TV when watching those movies. There's only a certain resolution you can
>actually see from your sofa, and there's only so much room for the
>screen, so there's a given resolution after which higher resolutions
>won't improve the picture.

But that's 20 years from now, and if you are right they could still wait until double-HDTV to use the DRM gambit.

It bears noting that the visual composition of the content will change as resolution improves. Directors of TV programs have always used a lot of close-ups, but few wide shots, because faraway or small subjects in a wide shot render as blurry little blobs on standard TV. TV directors also assumed that your TV occupied only a small portion of your field of view, and composed their images accordingly.

By contrast, film directors use wider shots, and can count on details showing. One of the assumptions of the 16:9 aspect ratio of HDTV is that new sets will occupy a wider field of view in the home. Henceforward, subjects will occupy a smaller fraction of the typical frame, and REQUIRE the extra resolution just to be as detailed as a closeup is today on standard television.

It's kind of like software makers changing their products to require faster and faster computers!

I'll also note that I *do* often sit on the floor, close to the screen, when playing with my toddler, despite the large size. Since the projected image is reflected--not luminous--it isn't obnoxious to the eye to sit close. And since the speakers are in the corners of the room, it's not loud to sit there, either. An 8x resolution enhancement wouldn't hurt! You don't maintain a 10 foot viewing distance to most objects of interest in life. We do it with TV today only because today's resolution doesn't invite getting any closer.

I will add a concession to the original point, however. DRM may be useful to force people to repurchase video for other devices now, not for a future generation of TV. Cf. the Sony PSP plays only degraded video from memory sticks, presumably because they plan to sell movies on UMD discs. If DRM were more widely respected for standard def. video, it would be a more elegant way to achieve the same end than discriminating against certain media types.

--Christopher

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