Despite all the negative effects most have seen with DRM, according the MPAA, DRM prevents prevent honest users from turning into pirates. They claim that DRM is there to help guide users based on the content's usage rights and that with out it; consumers may end up totally disregarding copyright, thus turning them into pirates, not to mention the devastation this would have on content creators.
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most proposed anti-piracy DRM systems are causing a lot of controversy such as new systems proposed to prevent the recording of flagged radio / TV content, being incompatible with other systems, etc. not all DRM systems are that bad either. For example, Apple's iTunes DRM is relaxed to the point where few customers complain since it allows CD burning, transfer to an iPod (since Apple make this also) and yet still prevent sharing online to a certain extent. This is also clear by how successful iTunes has been with almost a billion tracks sold. DVDs also have anti-piracy measures (although long defeated), which most consumers take for granted until they try to re-record something.
However, one thing the MPAA clearly don't want to take into account is all the legal uses DRM is blocking out, not to mention that the DMCA in-turn makes illegal! For example, one cannot transfer a DVD to a portable device without breaking at least one form of copy protection, whether it is the Macrovision signalling protecting the AV outputs or the CSS protection that protects against ripping. The main reason appears to be money, since one can no longer exercise their fair use rights to back up a disc without conflicting with the DMCA and also the MPAA is trying to plug the problem they encountered when VCR's were declared legal back in the early 1980's.
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"Content owners use DRMs because it provides casual, honest users with guidelines for using and consuming content based on the usage rights that were acquired. Without the use of DRMs, honest consumers would have no guidelines and might eventually come to totally disregard copyright and therefore become a pirate, resulting in great harm to content creators," he said. Without DRM, you might become a pirate. Welcome to this Brave, New World, friends. The MPAA is here to save us from ourselves. We would recommend reading the full article here. Some further info (such questions about regioning) can be read on this BBC article. |
In my opinion, with the way the movie and music industry are going about with all their DRM anti-piracy technology and 'improved' new systems, one of these days, something's got to give. We already saw what happened when Sony BMG stepped too far with their DRM. At the moment, a lot of consumers who went out early in seek of a HDTV display (before HDCP was being applied to most sets) are still not aware that their set is already obsolete, long before they even get to finally make proper use of it! The main problem is likely to occur when consumers start forking out on the next generation of DVD players, which will enforce HDCP.
The PC sector is likely going to be heavily affected also, since as very few PC monitors are HDCP compliant, chances are that even if all monitors on sale were to suddenly become compliant tomorrow, very few consumers would end up replacing theirs by the time Blu-ray and HD DVD launch. Even still, their graphics card may also be incompatible. Anyway, until the next generation of DVD players hit the market, HDCP is unlikely going to start showing any problems until then, since most current digital or HD broadcasts don't make use of it yet.
Source: Ars Technica
