marilu’s blog
why should we be against DRM? It’s simpler than you might think
I’m not a tecnology student so I can’t explain why DRM is a bad idea from a scientific perspective. However, I’m the kind of person who likes understand what’s happening around me and DRM botheres me. I want to explain why that is, and I’ve collected my thoughts to make it clear why DRM is bad for society.
DRM is technology “used to control access to and usage of digital data”. It locks up your digital media. The vendors say that this is necessary to prevent the illegal duplication of artistic works. I doubt that. I believe DRM is a method to lock-up your digital data and to kill the free circulation of culture.
With DRM it’s hard to know what you’re actually getting with your money; it fundimentally treats every fan of art, music or culture as a criminal.
Let’s look at examples of DRM:
One is music. You buy a cd and when you return home you discover that you cannot reproduced it. You can’t make a copy in case the original is damaged, or one copy to keep in your car and one in your hi-fi. Worse than that it might try to install secret code onto your computer that allows viruses to take over your system and reports back to the vendor on when you use your CDs.
Another example are DVDs that you cannot play around the world because of regional restrictions. Worse still, DVDs can also be used to impose restrictions on your computer and also have the potential to insert secret code.
These are absurd examples of what’s happening in the computer and entertainment world.
It does not stop there though. DRM is controlled by a powerful lobby of multinationals. Their DRM has the potential to lock-out small hardware and software companies from the new DRM market. Small companies who cannot afford to be part of the lobby will simply find that they are unable to provide tools to users; their music players won’t work and their computers won’t allow access to on-line content.
Almost everyone will lose with DRM. People who buy music, movies or use artistic data will have their actions determined and reported to the DRM lobby. Small companies will simply not be able to make competitive products anymore. The only winners with DRM are the big DRM lobby companies.
I’m worried about that. I hope you will be too.