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Comment by johnfactorial | Hacker News Reader

> What did DRM promise this guy

From the article:

> Thanks to a technology called “Digital Rights Management,” sellers and buyers could negotiate a subset of rights and a reduced payment for same... In other words, we were told that we must reject the promise of unfettered digital in favor of locked-down digital, and in return, we would enter a vibrant marketplace where sellers offered exactly the uses we needed, at a price that was reduced to reflect the fact that we were getting a limited product. We got the limited product, all right – just not the discount.

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> "at a price that was reduced to reflect the fact that we were getting a limited product"

I've never in my life expected, or witnessed, a company to reduce prices once they had a stronghold on a market. To assume this would be different with DRM or other consumer-limiting tech is idiotic.

It wasn't an assumption -- it was (among other things) literally part of the sales pitch when trying to get the public on board with DRM.

So yes, it's a broken promise.

The promises DCP LLC makes are very carefully laid out in the HDCP License Agreement and related documents. They primarily target content producers, not consumers.

Here is their mission for clarity. "Digital Content Protection LLC (DCP) is an organization that licenses technologies for protecting premium commercial entertainment content."

There is not a single word about protecting consumers in this.

I would be interested in seeing an agreement anyone reached with any DRM licensing entity that was geared towards protecting consumers. The entire thrust of DRM was not to protect consumer rights, and every agreement these groups have come up with under which they undertake to promise various things is in line with that desire for control as far as I am aware. I'd love see a counter-example - and if we found one I would encourage using that scheme, but I am not aware of any.

Apple and Amazon have both pushed in various ways for broader user rights which have paid off commercially (apple made digital music much more usable than earlier efforts and as a result I think that helped their success). Apple's music store (not Apple Music) also pushed relatively successfully for DRM free offerings.

I'm not on HN enough to be as timely as I'd like - apologies for delay in response.

I was talking about the representations made in the industry PR campaign when DRM was first being rolled out, not anything in anybody's license agreement.

OK - can you find an example of this promise to consumers?

The big push in the rollout phase was around getting a lot of players to agree on a standard and hash out the $ flows for the tech etc. So my impression at time was again producers and also component makers were target of efforts and system design work.

Can DRM be used to offer certain things (all you can eat music for $10/month / tons of prime video for cheap)? Sure - and it can be used for that. Similarly with things like unlimited books. I have no recollection of any consumer protection promises - just that a variety of offerings might become available which they have.

Again though, some of the example promises might be helpful so we can discuss specifics.

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