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Comment by ZenoArrow | Hacker News Reader

When will these idiots learn that DRM doesn't work? How hard will it be for pirates to remove these controls? Assuming a software hack is hard, the option still exists for re-encoding the audio based on capturing the source data in its audio form (whether analog line out or digital line out).

DRM encourages piracy. It means that the DRM-free pirated version has extra value, and punishes those who do not want to break the law.

Hopefully the Canadian government can talk some sense into the other TPP members.

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Most of them know that DRM doesn't prevent lost sales due to piracy (as you said, DRM actually increases lost sales), and they as well know that it's futile to try preventing DRM breaking - it will be broken no matter what.

However DRM + corrupted anticircumvention laws give them various control and ways of writing their own laws without any democratic process. That way they can poison standards (HDCP for instance), ban competition (mobile devices locking) and attack individuals when they really want to (like Geohot case). I.e. they get a lot power as a side effect of DRM.

That's why they push so much for this trash. It's about control and has nothing to do with any piracy. And that's why society should strongly reject DRM and its kin (DMCA-1201 and etc.) as unethical and unacceptable police state approach.

I think you are underestimating these folks. They are making it a criminal offence to remove Digital restrictions. It is their way of acknowledging that removal of DRM may always be possible (though looking at Apple's track record I think this assertion is questionable). Possibilities aside if you have the potential to spend a year in jail for jailbreaking your own hardware then that's a pretty big disincentive for many folks.

Of course, there's always the alternative of listening to music without DRM. There's a lot of good unencumbered music out there, and maybe all these restrictions will help give it a boost. I think the industry message should be as clear as possible: they are selling something dangerous that could land you in jail if you use it with the wrong music player. If they want to spread that message, help them.

To me that doesn't seem to be the problem. The problem as I see is that hardware manufacturers like Apple, Samsung, and etc will feel obligated to cover their rear ends and force consumers to verify their non-DRM content. So, if you can't verify it then you can't load it on their phones/players. The reason why they would do this sort of thing is to cover themselves in case of liability. If you can't load up non-DRM content then you can't sue said company for aiding piracy under something like TPP.

I sure hope it doesn't go in that direction. What will they do when I want to play the music I recorded myself or my friends' bands? It seems like this might actually discourage verification because it can be a criminal offense to change the name of the artist or track name, so it could introduce some huge liability for misidentifying music. Any verification system is going to have a few bad results, so they might have to just avoid doing it altogether to avoid liability for it.

I don't know if it's definitely going to pan out that way, but I wouldn't put it passed any of the hardware makers to put in some form of restriction. I believe Corey Doctorow talked about this in a more general sense where computers were compromised in how they could execute code. Meaning that computers in the hypothetical setting would be self-censoring.

The only element that keeps this from happening, at least in my view, is the fact that the same businesses depend on hardware and software to do their business. If applications become compromised such that performance cannot be guaranteed then they can't state any guarantee to investors. So, the whole thing hinges on greed which has a nasty way of twisting things. So, I won't bet on it either. Whatever happens is what happens.

Have you read TPP?

The current leaks specify that selling, buying, owning, using, inventing, planning, modifying, etc of devices, software, or methods that can be used or could be helpful for removal or circumvention of DRM have to be treated as a a crime.

That's what I don't grasp about this situation. Why can't content industries just accept that the gravy train of yesteryear is over? Just figure out a new business model. They've had well over a decade and a half to throw enough heads at the problem to figure out how to prevent further decline in their revenues. But it just seems they're as stubborn (if not more so) as an ox when it comes to accepting reality.

Why can't content industries just accept that the gravy train of yesteryear is over?

When you are a 60-70 year old media executive (or a shady cabal of dozens of them, each reinforcing their own viewpoints—sound familiar?) and your life has been money and success and everybody bowing down to you, why wouldn't you fight to keep it? They aren't in a business of generosity, they are in a business of taking your money.

To be fair, few software product companies have committed to do the equivalent thing: releasing all of their code as open source with instructions that make it possible for an average person to spin up an instance of the product with the push of a button.

If you are going to say that my comment adds nothing to the conversation, I would appreciate it if you would make an argument for why we should allow software engineers (and designers, DevOps, Admins, marketers, CEOs, etc...) to make money off copyrighting their work and claiming things as intelectual "property", but not allow musicians (and recording engineers, marketers, distributors...) to do the same?

Why are software engineers able to make money without constantly flying from conference to conference away from their families?

You do realize that Copyright does not apply for business logic or algorithms, so anyone can just copy those, too?

>Why can't content industries just accept that the gravy train of yesteryear is over?

Entrenched incumbents rarely can. And, economically speaking, if they reckon they'll be able to extract more longevity/revenue/advantage this way (lobbying to manipulate the playing-field in their favour, as opposed to coming up with innovations that would enable the business to adapt and thrive) -- then I guess that's the "rational" thing to do :)

It's about control and the very long game.

Think about it. Disney got started with works from the Brothers Grimm. Copyright terms were short then. Once Disney became an empire, they very quickly realized somebody else could compete with them. So they worked to extend copyright, and it's pretty much going to continue that way, keeping Mickey just out of the Public Domain.

Disney knows another Disney is bad for business, unless they own that Disney.

And there is where the control comes into play.

The people with empires today realize they can become extinct tomorrow. All it takes is a little competition and the barrier for entry has never been lower. People can put things out there and get a lot of attention and distribute for almost nothing compared to what it took to build the empires we see today.

If they get this, then they won't have to deal with competetors. It's going to be hard to do anything really, because the criminal risks associated with doing things with open tools and data will turn people toward, "safe" and "approved" means and methods. Those will just happen to align with approved distribution, meaning they get a cut, and or ownership ideally.

Given this perspective, reality is what they say it is. Has nothing at all to do with the tech and it's impact on the business model.

> "The current leaks specify that selling, buying, owning, using, inventing, planning, modifying, etc of devices, software, or methods that can be used or could be helpful for removal or circumvention of DRM have to be treated as a a crime."

They can't enforce that with music, it's beyond their control. To be able to control that they'd need to be able to restrict access to electronics components, restrict access to electronics education, confiscate all existing audio recording equipment, restrict access to purchase audio recording equipment (including equipment for musicians and the TV/film industry). Furthermore, once the music is DRM free, you'd need to be able to monitor the sharing of citizens around the world, not just through the Internet and private computer networks but through Sneakernets as well (an example of an effective sneakernet: http://www.fastcompany.com/3048163/in-cuba-an-underground-ne... ).

So with all this in mind, what's the point? Those who want DRM-free music are going to be able to get it and hide it from the authorities, and it'll have minimum to no effect on the industries it was designed to protect, and possibly backfire if enough people choose to resist the restrictions.

The whole things feels more like an easy way of putting (more) people into jail than anything else. Since the tech crowd isn't running around on the street smoking their joints (well, for the most part at least) it's far easier for law enforcement to shoot them down via the help of some random audio file on one of their devices.

TPP is as much a political agenda as it is a trade agreement. The US wants their "standards" around the globe, so they can get you anytime, anywhere without you having any chance of defending yourself. You cannot build a global surveillance state if there are still people around which can potentially undermine you by use of technology, so you need to get rid of them in a "nice and clean" way, and charging some cryptographers for illegal music will produce much less public outcry as if you were to put them into prison for doing their everyday work.

How sad it may sound, Cameron could learn a lot from these folks :/

As alluded to throughout many comments, the point is to be able to put any individual in jail at any time for any arbitrary reason.

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