We Created DRM

September 11, 2006

Sorry if I made you spill your coffee, but it’s true. We geeks, nerds, and gadget fiends are spoiled. Yes, you too. We demand every inch of functionality out of everything, and I do mean everything.

Back in the day, (I’m talking early 90s here people) when we missed a television show or forget to tape it, we were frustrated, but content. We knew that we’d have to wait until that episode of the Martin came on again in order for us to get our fix. Back in day, (still in the late 80s, early 90s people), when we wanted to hear that great new song by that band we love so much, we listened to the radio until it came on. When we couldn’t take it anymore, we’d convince our friends to buy the CD, LP, or cassette. We’d all “dub” the song we wanted and were happy with a sub par reproduction of the song. Back in the day (Yup, same period), when that movie we loved so much came out at the theatre, we spent our money to watch it over and over again. When the VHS/DVD came out, we were all over it… back in the day. The worst case scenario involved the black market where you still paid for illegal copies of existing songs, shows, and movies.

Flash forward to 2006. When we miss a television show, we must see it the same night if not the next night. Tivo has spoiled us into instant gratification of television. If we don’t have a Tivo, then we download it. We download it from anywhere that has it available on the internets. When we hear a song we like, we must have it within the hour. We don’t want to leave the house to get it, but rather download it from the internets. We justify why we shouldn’t have to pay for this convenience or suffer any drawbacks or limitations because we want it now!!! Movies, we demand to see in our homes the day after release into theatres. If the movie is available on the internets, then by golly we have to right to watch it. Justification pending. Who cares about if its legal, we declare that it is our right to have this stuff that we want, how we want it, when we want it.

Technology has killed all forms of self control and patience.

Information and media are so easily obtained through the, wait for it, internets, that we feel it is our human right to have this information with zero waiting time. Now! Now! Now! (Somebody please call the Super Nanny, or Nanny McPhee). So how is this all related to DRM? Our impatience has forced those in (seemingly) control of this data to panic. Consumers are demanding everything right now for less than the price paid previously. Ga-gillion dollar organization such as the RIAA and MPAA did not get that way by being nice. If you expect them to be any other way, then I’m sorry for the harsh sting of reality. They are out to make money. The quickest way to keeping money is control. DRM is about control.

So how did we create this? We abused the convenience of the internets.

Napster came about and we downloaded all the music we could and justified it with “fair use”. Kazaa, Gnutella and other social networks came about we downloaded movies, music, and software at our heart’s content with no intention of ever paying for it. That’s abuse. You cannot expect to abuse a system already in place and not expect backlash. The **AA will strike back and strike hard. Strike fast, Strike hard, No mercy sir. Now we are faced with controls such as the DMCA and all kinds of DRM. It stinks for those of us who want to buy this data but are limited. Well, I say this to you. You did it. All of you who abused the freedoms we have to move our data around, have created this monster called DRM. And you know what’s worse? It’s not going to get better because every day that passes, we become more impatient for the things we want. We are spoiled children that need a wake up call and need to drop the notion that we deserve anything.

Let’s get one thing straight, I don’t like DRM, the DMCA, or any unreasonable kind of control on things that I “purchase”. But I’m not going to sit here and pretend like we did everything right and are being punished for nothing. Organizations such as the EFF are doing good damage control regarding our “rights” but we brought this on ourselves. Wake up people, you created DRM.

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Comments to “We Created DRM”

Phillip Green said:

September 13th, 2006 at 9:24 am

Ahoy matie!! Arrrrrrrrr! Scurvy knave that wrote this post might be absolutely correct, aye. Just let me say that not everyone is complaining. Arrrr!!

Reginald Reed said:

September 19th, 2006 at 5:39 pm

DRM is just another evolution of greed by the RIAA and friends. Its all about the all-mighty dollar and the only thing the big players pushing DRM *think* they understand is control. They think DRM will control how media is distributed, but its all temporary. A much better solution is to determine a fair way to distribute media where everyone wins - not just the “controllers” and that includes *every* artist, not just the top names.

Just my nickle.

Brownspank said:

September 22nd, 2006 at 9:39 am

DRM is just another evolution of greed by the RIAA and friends.

When you’re being robbed of your intellectual property, you have every right to “be greedy” and (have someone help you) protect what is rightfully yours.

While I agree that better solutions exist, it may not necessarily fit into the system of artists making a living, and what we need is not an iteration of the belief of an existence of it, but rather the solution itself.

Very insightful article, I must say.

rshakin said:

September 22nd, 2006 at 11:16 am

But as always, there is going to be some geek who will figure out a way to undo any possible DRM and the RIAA and Other people will look into even more way to get their money from us. It’s a threadmill you run but you do not get anywhere.

Jorge said:

September 22nd, 2006 at 12:54 pm

There’s no doubt that the insatiable appetite for instant gratification created DRM. It is an unfortunate fact that with advancement in technology, acts of piracy will continue to advance as well. I think there were a number of major factors:

1) The biggest technological contribution to music piracy was the introduction of high-quality lossy audio compression. This made the downloads much smaller, on the order of around 5MB a song. About 10 times smaller than an uncompressed audio file.

2) The #2 factor was the introduction of high-speed access to the internets from home. Before DSL and broadband cable became widely available, most folks getting their hands on MP3s were on university campuses or in large offices with broadband connectivity.

3) I would say that P2P networks are probably next in line, in terms of their contribution to piracy. Before they came along, piracy was still rampant in IRC and Usenet. P2P networks made it easy for non-geeks to get their hands on their favorite music and movies. Before they came along, the underground networks were there and they still are. It seems that even since Al Gore invented the internets, regulatory agencies have grappled with dealing with those networks.

4) High-capacity recording media was also a major contributor. When CD-Rs hit the scene, the CD-R discs were flying off the shelves and friends were trading CD collections. By the time DVD-Rs hit the scene, you didn’t even need friends. You just needed to get on the internets to find all of your favorite movies. I would also lump in recording software in here with recording media. Without advancements in convenient software for copying CDs and DVDs, things wouldn’t quite have progressed as well as they did.

5) Mobile MP3 playing devices. Around the same time the P2Ps came to be, the iPod was born. I hate to say it, but Apple probably indirectly contributed to the music piracy movement as well. If everyone and their grandmother didn’t have an iPod, there probably would be fewer people out there on the P2P networks.

Of course, the evolution of technology is not entirely to blame. The technology isn’t of much use without people using it. It is human nature to always want more. The recording and film industry always wants more. The consumer always wants more. The recording and film industry is more than glad to give consumers what they want. However, it is not right when consumers obtain digital property without permission of the entity that maintains the rights to that property. As cheesy as it may sound, it IS stealing.

The consumer always wants more for less, as it is what makes this economy thrive. It stimulates competition and inspires innovation. But when some consumers begin to violate intellectual property laws, they are not playing fair. Making an illegal copy of software, music, videos is just the same as plagiarizing a written work. Just because one work is on paper and the other is on a disk or chip doesn’t make it right.

Many companies have begun to realize the potential of new technologies as a manner for delivering legal content to consumers at a lower price. It certainly reduces many of their expenses such as manufacturing, packaging, shipping, etc. I hope that the trend continues, and eventually we will all be paying pennies for our music and movies.

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We Created DRM

September 11, 2006

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We Created DRM

September 11, 2006

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