Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

Larry McVoy
2003-04-30T13:47:05Z

On Wed, Apr 30, 2003 at 09:11:57AM -0400, Downing, Thomas wrote:
> > The DMCA, DRM, all that stuff is just the beginning. You will respond
> > with all sorts of clever hacks to get around it and they will respond
> > with even more clever hacks to stop you. They have both more resources
> > and more at stake so they will win.
>
> The point is that they don't (with a couple of clever and amusing
> exceptions) respond with "even more clever hacks", they respond with
> things like DMCA. This is also the danger of the motives behind DRM;
> just pass a law making it a felony to produce, use, etc. hardware which
> does _not_ enforce corporate controlled DRM.
>
> This is why in my first post on this topic I said it was a political
> issue, not a technical one.
>
> > The depressing thing is that it is so obvious to me that the corporations
> > will win, they will protect themselves, they have the money to lobby the
> > government to get the laws they want and build the technology they need.
> > The more you push back the more locked up things will become.
>
> Unfortunately, this may very well prove to be true. But laying it at the
> door of the open source community (or even piracy other than commercial
> piracy, viz. China) is buying into the FUD that MPAA and RIAA spew.
> Remember, that when the courts asked the MPAA to produce _any_ evidence
> of harm from DeCSS, they were unable to produce _anything_.

I'm probably the world's worst communicator because you're right at the
edge of getting the point and then it gets missed again. I think you're
outraged thinking that I'm saying the open source guys are all bad people
or whatever. I'm not trying to make a bad/good argument, I'm trying to
make a cause and effect argument.

Take everything that I said which is not an action on the part of the
corporations and just call it A. Ignore what A is or even if A exists
or is true, whatever. Concentrate on what I claim to be the reaction.
I tried to make the case that A is the cause, you got mad, the fact that
the reaction is the problem is lost in the anger.

Your post shows that you think that the reaction is bad and you even say
that the reaction is likely. You vigourously disagree with my conclusions
as to why the reaction is happening, I see that. OK, so let's try it
with a question rather than a statement: why are things like the DMCA and
DRM happening? It isn't the open source guys pushing those, obviously,
it's the corporations. So why are they doing it?

Your answer has to be interesting because it seems to me that they are
doing it to protect their products, their product is sometimes content,
sometimes programs, sometimes both. An answer which says that open source
is not part of the cause also says that open source is irrelevant.

You can't be both a force and not a force.
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Larry McVoy lm at bitmover.com http://www.bitmover.com/lm