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> What I've described is intricately intertwined with piracy, and piracy is a major problem which DRM seeks to disincentivize. Just because it can be broken, so what? Banks get robbed in spite of having security, does that mean security is therefore a waste of time and they should just let everyone wander in and out of the vault? What a stupid argument.

You said it's economics, yet your comparison doesn't make any sense economically. Banks analogy is not similar at all. The fact that DRM can be broken makes it completely irrelevant because of the nature of the digital space. Once it's broken, duplicates of DRM-free pirated material are shared ever since. Purpose defeated. As Cory Doctorow often points out, one of the core mistakes of DRM proponents is trying to measure the realities of the digital world applying the physical world logic.

Anyway, I thought we already agreed above that DRM is not used for the purposes of preventing piracy. So why are you going back to it?

> Are you going to put up money to buy territorial rights for content which the publisher is going to give away DRM-free? Of course not

You still didn't explain why. DRM has no effect on piracy. Content with DRM which the publisher A agreed to sell through distributor B will be pirated the moment it will appear from B. So, why can't that agreement involve DRM-free content? The result (piracy wise) won't be worse.

> there's a high risk that you'd never recoup your investment.

How is that risk high when there is no DRM, and low when there is one? I don't see any connection between DRM and risk. It's like saying that sailing on a ship with broken lifeboat which is beyond repair has less risk than sailing on a ship without one. Risks are the same because the lifeboat is irrelevant (in our case that's DRM).

> All those markets are different, which is why distributors exist in the first place; they know their local markets better than any individual studio or producer can, and they have the cash flow to write a check based on the budget and the quality of the cast attached to the project.

That's fine, but again, what does it have to do with requiring DRM? With all your attempts to explain why publishers or distributors might require DRM, you still didn't provide any sensible reason for the root cause of requiring it so far. I get the reason of "We need DRM because the other side requires it", even though it's a bad justification. But I'm asking about the root. I.e. who requires it first. Publisher? Distributor? We already agreed that it's not because of piracy. So why can't they drop DRM from all this then?

Banks analogy is not similar at all.

It's very similar, because of the abstract nature of money. Think about it.

You keep offering your premise 'DRM has no effect on piracy because it be broken' - as an argument, but it's only your opinion, not a fact. You don't put up with DRM because it's technically easy for your to circumvent, but a lot of people do and are even willing to forego consuming something until it becomes affordable or accessible. By your logic, DVD sales and streaming revenue should already be zero because pirated versions are available. Since people are clearly still willing to pay for these products and services, how do you explain that?

We already agreed that it's not because of piracy. So why can't they drop DRM from all this then?

You keep saying this, but I don't agree with it. DRM makes piracy more difficult, which imposes a delay on the time between release and the availability of pirated versions; it limits piracy to those who know how to break the DRM, making it easier to identify vectors of piracy; it distinguishes pirated from non-pirated content and so has an evidentiary function in copyright infringement cases.

It also provides a way of tracking distributors' activity and preserving publishers' options to serve media to new channels on a timescale of their choosing, allowing them to figure out how to market it, package it, and charge for it, which are reasonable sorrt of things for businesses to want to do.

I'm not going to keep up with his conversation if you just keep repeating your own opinion over and over and trating it as fact. It isn't.

> You keep offering your premise 'DRM has no effect on piracy because it be broken' - as an argument, but it's only your opinion, not a fact.

Sorry, but you are wrong. It's not an opinion, but fact which can be demonstrated by observing how fast pirated materials with DRM stripped off appear after DRM-ed releases come out. Q.E.D. DRM never deters piracy. And as you said, dropping DRM can gain as much as 1/3 of sales which are otherwise lost due to users opposing it. So not dropping DRM is simply insane from any business standpoint.

> You don't put up with DRM because it's technically easy for your to circumvent, but a lot of people do and are even willing to forego consuming something until it becomes affordable or accessible.

No, you didn't get what I was saying. That's not how it works. It works like this:

1. DRM-ed release comes out.

2. A few pirates who know how to break DRM break it and make the content available DRM-free to other pirates.

3. Any subsequent pirate who is interested in that content takes it from that DRM-free pirate source never dealing with any DRM.

4. Legitimate users on the other hand are left to deal with DRM junk.

That's it. I'm perplexed that so many people don't get this.

> By your logic, DVD sales and streaming revenue should already be zero because pirated versions are available.

No, not all people are pirates. However dropping DRM will turn part of the current pirates into paying customers increasing current sales of the same content. Plus it will gain sales from those who aren't pirates but simply oppose DRM. Total gain overall.

Thanks for links to the papers. A common tone in them is that there is a significant amount of people who are opposed to DRM. More than I expected at least. That's good. But I guess it's still not enough to eliminate DRM.

Some mention the same idea I brought above:

> DRM systems were widely resisted by many other interviewees. They were quite openly considered rather as a cause to piracy than a tool to inhibit it.

Like I said earlier, about 1/3 of people find it obnoxious enough to alter their economic behavior. So you have to weigh the possible additional revenue from that 1/3 of people if you abandon DRM against the equally possible loss of revenue from people from people who would have been willing to purchase but now suffer no loss of convenience if they choose not to do so.

You would think they'd consider to drop DRM to gain 1/3 of users who they otherwise lose. But they don't do it. That doesn't make sense to me.

Bank security is a poor comparison. Bank security doesn't significantly inconvenience the customers. It primarily causes extra work for the employees and, of course, potential robbers.

DRM, on the other hand, causes the most inconvenience for customers, and little to none for pirates.

It's also a bad comparison for another reason. Bank holds limited goods. I.e. even if robbers break the security, they'll just get those goods, and all other robbers will have to go through breaking in again when they decide to rob it. That actually deters most of them.

Digital content is easily duplicatable. When DRM is broken, pirates redistribute it to all others without limit. In the bank analogy (to make it comparable), it's like becoming an infinite fake bank, so all subsequent criminals don't need to rob the original bank anymore, but can take from that secondary source as much as they want to. That's exactly what makes DRM completely irrelevant in reducing piracy.