Does DRM have a future?

Its tricky, if I buy a song I want to be able to play it in my room, in the kitchen, on my phone, in the car, on my laptop on the move etc.

I dont think we are going to see DRM going away, I think we will probably see a change in the way rights are managed, for example more and more people are using a centralised storage in their home which, in theory makes it a lot easier to manage.

Then if we are to believe this hype about "The Cloud" all our files will be stored centrally and DRM wont be a problem as it will be like having your computer with you.
 
I'll admit to not reading the paper besides a cursory glance at the introduction - which suggests we're roughly on the same page.

I accept the need for copy protection/licensing restrictions for high-value assets (I have to, since I wrote such a facility for our software), and I also have no problem at all with efforts to catch and deal with prolific con artists who either purport to be selling the real thing when they aren't, or dupe people out of their money with substandard knock-offs. In most cases involving software, a serial key and if necessary a quick 'phone home' to check for duplicates is more than adequate for that. That obviously doesn't work for music, for example.

But, at the same time, I think that there has to be an element of trust that the vast majority of people aren't going to be a 'knock off Nigel' and just want to be able to watch or listen to what they've bought when they want, where they want, in whatever format they want.

Sony BMG's rootkit antics are a case in point. They got so paranoid that they actually released media into the wild that almost certainly proved more costly to them in the end than not bothering with DRM at all. Nice way to make a complete PR ****-up. :/

I'd like to be able to move my files around and make multiple copies (desktop, laptop, mp3 player, mobile phone), and while I'm fully aware that this would be a technical breach of UK IP laws as they currently stand, I know of no case where an industry insider (RIAA and their ilk excepted) has said they are against this - indeed quite the opposite seems to be the case, at least among the artists.

As a result of my views, I'd rather not touch anything containing DRM even with a very long bargepole. I've made exceptions, and will continue to make them, but almost exclusively only if the content is offered for free (e.g. BBC iPlayer).
 
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Please be more specific, DRM in general, or DRM for a certain media... DRM is a very broad spectrum to cover.
 
AcidHell2 said:
I think drm has a future but it's sill. It will always be cracked and the only people it infuriates are legitimate users.

I think it will look like Itunes currently is.

DRM enabled files = cheape
DRM free files = more expensive but more popular.

However saying that if the new law comes in which I hope it does. which allows users to copy and change media type for personal use. It could put another dent into the usefulness of DRM.

Has anyone heard anything more on this law?
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The DRM free from itunes is great. I actually love it and get all my music from there now.
 
Digital rights management only serve to restrict the very people who actually spent money on the products, while those who pirate them almost always completely and wholly circumvent them. Ironic, no?
 
DRM in its current form has been proven to be next to useless and nothing more than a nuisance to the legitimate consumer, does this mean itll die, no, copywright holders are always keen to find new ways to protect their product, it just means its back to the drawing board on how to do it WITHOUT screwing the consumer
 
DRM doesn't work. It just annoys the legitimate customer. Pirates, who it is meant to stop, crack it anyway. The cracking groups do it for the fun of it so more DRM is just going to motivate them to break it more. It's like trying to paddle upstream. The way content works is changing and the music/game/movie industry needs to change with it or die.
 
KNiVES said:
Digital rights management only serve to restrict the very people who actually spent money on the products, while those who pirate them almost always completely and wholly circumvent them. Ironic, no?
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It stops the small time pirates sharing it with friends, which is actually free advertising for them...

I personally can't wait for a massive legal library that you pay a monthly subscription that offers unlimited DRM free access to movies and music.
 
Is that column layout a standard for your course, or a personal choice? It's really annoying. :/

EDIT: Also the justification. :\
 
No there isn't a future for DRM but it will be around for a while until the current Music and Movie corporations either die a slow death from treating their customers like criminals or adapt to the new sales models.

When I buy a CD or MP3 I want to be able to use i in my car, iPhone, iPod, stereo. I most certainly do not want to buy a license to listen to the music. That's simply a way for the cartels to sell us the same song (or movie) multiple times. The biggest shame is that software companies have seen how much cash there is to be made and so SaaS was born. Joy.
 
LordSplodge said:
No there isn't a future for DRM but it will be around for a while until the current Music and Movie corporations either die a slow death from treating their customers like criminals or adapt to the new sales models.
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as long as it makes money there will be a future for it, and sadly there always will be money in it, companies that produce IP's genuinely believe it will boost their sales and reduce piracy and will well into the future.
 
Tefal said:
as long as it makes money there will be a future for it, and sadly there always will be money in it, companies that produce IP's genuinely believe it will boost their sales and reduce piracy and will well into the future.
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I disagree. Look at the backlash that is building against DRM and the rise of DRM free sales. Sure it's small(ish) at the moment but like a snowball rolling down a hill...
 
My belief is that DRM will work but only with a centralised, non-corporate, non-country specific database of licences where you simply have a boolean flag if you have been granted the rights to listen to that song.
 
LordSplodge said:
I disagree. Look at the backlash that is building against DRM and the rise of DRM free sales. Sure it's small(ish) at the moment but like a snowball rolling down a hill...
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backlash or not the majority still buy it. and there will almost certainly be a profit in it from now till kingdom come.
 
The problem is creators of these media used to do it because they had a genuine passion, now it appears to be solely about making money. This is evident in the quality (I know this is a subjective term, but whatever) of said media. I only need to look at the PC games out there and see most of them are the same old clones with no depth, or how dumbed down Spore is compared with Simcity.
 
KNiVES said:
Digital rights management only serve to restrict the very people who actually spent money on the products, while those who pirate them almost always completely and wholly circumvent them. Ironic, no?
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Sadly, this is so true. Even if all the music on iTunes (using iTunes as an example) was DRM free, it would be unlikely that the serial suppliers of pirated music would buy a song from iTunes and then share it. They will most likely have another source (maybe someone inside the music industry) who could get the music before release, and this is the copy that would be shared. I can't imagine any piraters would resort to buying a song themselves, just so they can share it with the masses.
 
There's DRM and there's DRM.

On the one hand, you want to stop casual copying - installing a game, lending your CD to a mate who installs it on his PC. That's sort of the definition of a lost sale. This is currently achieved by registering a CD key online. However, it's fundamentally flawed since you need to allow multiple reinstalls by the original owner. It's also done by forcing the user to have the disk in the drive. This just annoys people who don't want to flick through shelves of disks to find the game they feel like playing. Go Steam :D


Then there's the more hardcore pirates. They probably won't go out and buy the game anyway. They'll download it and a crack for it.

DRM doesn't stop them. Whatever one person can create, another can bypass. There will always be a crack within days of a release (if not before, depending on which country it comes out in first).

Then there's the third group. The idealists. The people who pirate because they disapprove of DRM in general or because of a specific feature of DRM that they're not prepared to spend their money on. The 5-install limit of Spore, for example. The frankly ludicrous amount of work it takes to install GTA-IV. The "you must reactivate online every couple of months or it stops working" feature of some game or other (or did that get pre-emptively dropped?)


Clearly companies don't want to get their work taken for no payback. But punishing the average customer for the actions of the middle group isn't acceptable and only turns more people towards the third group.
 
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