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

Downing, Thomas
2003-04-30T14:40:21Z

-----Original Message-----
From: Larry McVoy [mailto:lm@bitmover.com]

>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.

No, I don't think you are 'the world's worst communicator'. First, I was
not alone in understanding you to say that the open source community as
a class were prone to theft. Now as to cause and effect, we may
disagree on causes (and as to that, did you here of what Nasrudin said
when the thief fell on him? - he fell off the wall, _my_ collar bone
is broken,) but the effect we do agree on.

> 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.

My A produces your B; I don't like B, so I won't A. This seems to be
your solution. Such simple reasoning is not always correct. For an example
we could only hope to emulate, Ghandi. Second, what is driving DRM
and DMCA is profits, and MPAA and RIAA see profits as at a maximum in
a pay-per-view world.

If this is not what you are saying, what do you see as a solution?
Or is it that you don't see any problems with what is being done with
DRM and DMCA?

> You can't be both a force and not a force.

I have no interest in being a force. I hope I can find the courage not
to submit to force.