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Comment by sbuk | Hacker News Reader

"DRM doesn't solve this problem"

Again, no wish to goad, but why?

Because there is always a way to extract the "protected" work. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analog_hole.

If you're a photographer, I can always make a screenshot, or record the video from my HDMI/DVI cable to the monitor or take a very precise photo of my screen, and I WILL get the photo from your website or app.

There is plenty of evidence that DRM doesn't stop copying: millions of torrents ripped from crunchyroll/hulu/netflix/Blu-Rays, all of those have some sort of DRM, all of them were circumvented. There are people who think that DRM is not designed to stop copying, but it's designed to control how legitimate users consume your product (see: DVD ads).

Edit: Please don't assume that this is the only argument I have, it's just the most obvious argument from the top of my head. There are plenty of people who explain the negative sides of DRM and reasons it doesn't solve the problem you described. They do it in a very eloquent way with rigorous arguments, and I don't believe that I need to repeat those arguments. I'd like you to listen to Cory Doctorow: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUEvRyemKSg

Thanks. It's an iteresting discussion that needs to be had. As I said, I often see things along the lines of 'It's just bad, m'kay' without any reason. Your explanation is reasoned and cogent. Again, Thanks!

Producers don't watch BitTorrent statistics. They send a document asking stuff like: will my product be DRM protected? If you answer no, then farewell pal, they won't allow their content to be on your platform.

Because it's literally impossible. If you want someone to be able to read your text or view your image, in the end the light has to reach the viewer's eyes, and that means it can be recorded. At best, DRM can be an annoyance. It can never stop unauthorized redistribution of material.

Don't Copy that Floppy.

Perfect example from the 80's, an arms race to prevent copying of software, which ended up doing what ?

Software still got copied while increasing the publishers cost.

Now 30 years later, efforts to preserve are stymied by copy protection on failing hardware. In an ironic twist, the protection broken by the pirates is salvageable.

How can you expect anyone without a time machine to explain what it ended up doing?

For example, we live in a world where companies like Adobe or Autodesk can sell software licenses for thousands of dollars. Would that be true if software piracy became the norm decades ago? Would we be better off one way or the other? Who can say?

What if piracy was never invented and we all just paid our dues. What a happy little libertarian utopia.

>Would that be true if software piracy became the norm decades ago?

How many decades ago? I built my first computer and installed pirate Windows and Photoshop versions back in 97. Warcraft had questions you had to answer during installation that were answers from the lore in the manual. Do you think people in the 80s with the first personal computers would see their friend use a new software and then wait 4-6 weeks for their own floppy disk to arrive in the mail?

Not to detract from your argument, but most libertarians support either substantially scaling back or entirely eliminating IP law, including copyright law.

Internet piracy in general seems to be culturally quite left-libertarian.

They didn't anyway. But all of that is irrelevant. The point is that questions like the one I originally responded to are fundamentally unanswerable. Don't get too caught up in the specific example. It could just as easily be "maybe walking across the street on a different day causes RMS to be hit by a bus". Or Microsoft taking a different path delays the Gates foundation from eradicating polio by 30 years.

Because it works in a similar way to general security - it's reactive to the state of the art of those looking to get around it. Once someone has dedicated time to getting around it, those wanting to get around it have a free pass with that content to use it in the ways they want, whereas those who have no intention to are restricted in their use (which is usually more locked down than it needs to be for genuine users, thus more inconvenient).

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