DRM – What is it ? What does it mean ? Why do I care ?
All really good questions I keep asking myself.
DRM stands for Digital rights management. In lamens terms it is the protection in place so that you may not copy and redistribute media.
It also prevents you from creating a back up of your media, it prevents you from playing your media on certain devices or reading it on others. It essentially single handedly can control what you purchase as a consumer. This sounds like legally mandated monopolies.
Now some of you may think I am regurgitating propaganda from another individual. I am not. I am slowly learning through my refusal to boot into windows how DRM is effecting me.
The problem I think the DRM is trying to solve is illegal sharing of music movies and other products that individuals pay for. It doesn’t work – it is having the opposite effect on me. Because of DRM I can not view the movie I want to pay to view. I refuse to let the copyright industry dictate to me what my Operating system must be. I KNOW they could offer the service to me for my operating system, I know this because others offer it for free.
Copyright laws are no longer there to prevent people from photocopying books. They are there to prevent the exchange of media and the trading of files.
We have all seen the adds ” You wouldn’t steal a car …..” you know the rest.
Lets go back to books again. I do not know how many of you grew up in a textbook starved school district – I did. My math instructor in one of my schools had ONE math book. One math text book for 25 students. He photocopied it. I can be certian he did not ask premision to do so. I can also be certian the text book company expected the school to purchase one for every student. It never happened. There was no magic paper that refused to be photocopied and my teacher was never arrested to my knowledge.The industry did not go broke. I am certain my math teacher was not the only one doing this. English teachers photocopied short stories. I worked for a university and the professors there would photocopy text books for students all the time. Only 3 chapters of a text book were needed – why make the student purchase the text.
This was over 15 years ago now, things I am sure have only gotten worse. I have worked in underfunded school districts – expensive programs were purchased, only one license – 35 lab computers would run the program.
Sharing of information and knowledge is not a new thing – its more wide spread and easily accessible with new technologies.
Does any one know how the copyright industry responded to the photocopy machine ? All articles I seem to find on it are in accessible unless I pay. I suspect they responded negatively.
So here is a question: Is it possible for the copyright industry to prevent users from pirating their work while still allowing users to utilize the media any way they see fit ?
I think the answer is No. The DRM is doing nothing – people just break them.
How can the industry change? How can the industry respond and keep up to consumers desires ?
I think people will always want to see movies on the big screen. Box office sales will always be popular. If movies can be downloaded and copied some one will purchase them. Some people may even wish to purchase a blue ray disk or a dvd. As soon as you marry a studio to a viewing device – you are demanding that consumers purchase a particular brand of hardware over another brand of the same hardware. What is to stop studios from teaming up with device manufactures to push out other device manufactures ? Do we end up with the best product ? or do we end up with the only product we can buy? Do we end up with a government mandated monopoly?
Now I am going to switch gears and talk about womens clothing. Womens clothing is a frustrating thing for me and here is why. I am not sure WHO decides what the color of the season will be, or if Pastels are back in. I do know that there have been years I have not purchased a single article of new clothing. Some one got it in their head that pastel pink and orange and violet where the colors of the season. It becomes impossible to find anything that is not in those colors. I grit my teeth and make it through the season – go to value village and buy some ones used clothes. At least they are in a color I WANT.
An inevitably I am not the only one who has cringed by some designer trying to bring back pastels (* I think THEY should be illegal ) a new season comes and the sales racks are full of horrible colored shirts marked down from $40 to $5. I might buy when then – you know one can never have enough painting clothes.
I am almost certain the person who made that call to make 1 billion pastel tank tops - gets fired or reprimanded and there is a loss in sales. The womens clothing industry not only needs to worry about the econ0my they also need to worry about what the changing desires of their client is and they MUST respond accordingly. Failure to do so would bankrupt them.
The media consumer – wants to purchase their music, videos etc. and DO What they want with them. Play it on what ever device they choose and lend it out to as many friends as they want.
Back to the clothing industry. I once lived in a dorm with 6 other girls – were all close to the same size. We shared everything but our underwear. Well sometimes even a bra. It was like having a wardrobe 6 times larger then before. The clothing industry did not come in and arrest us. The shirts and pants did not self destruct when being worn by some one who did not purchase them.Its even possible I borrowed a pair of pants from some one – enjoyed the fit and felt I wanted my own. I went out and purchased a pair.
I know I am not alone in this experience. Yes I understand guys do not share clothes but girls do ALL the time.
How about cassette tapes – how many cheesy mixed tapes where made in the 80′s.
This is a cultural norm they are fighting and I think they would better profit from attempting to exploit the cultural norm instead of changing it.
The Question is: How ?