Re:DRM Broke Its Promise
by AnthonyMouse on Wednesday September 04, 2019 @06:20PM
(#20881960)
> DRM has lived up that promise and more.
When the WIPO treaties were being lobbied for, Netflix didn't even exist, Amazon was a tiny internet bookstore that people made fun of and Apple was a slowly dying proprietary workstation company. The authors, TV networks and record companies who lobbied for the DMCA didn't do it so those companies could eat their lunch, but that's what happened.
It turns out that a studio has a lot more negotiating leverage dealing with many competing retail stores than with a small number of big and powerful tech companies whose customers are locked into their platforms by DRM.
It did what Sony and Paramount expected it to -- entrench the middle men -- only the old incumbents are not the middle men it entrenched. And if they would wise up to that and stop pretending they're the beneficiaries rather than additional unwitting victims, it would be a lot easier to undo this colossal screw up.
When the WIPO treaties were being lobbied for, Netflix didn't even exist, Amazon was a tiny internet bookstore that people made fun of and Apple was a slowly dying proprietary workstation company. The authors, TV networks and record companies who lobbied for the DMCA didn't do it so those companies could eat their lunch, but that's what happened.
It turns out that a studio has a lot more negotiating leverage dealing with many competing retail stores than with a small number of big and powerful tech companies whose customers are locked into their platforms by DRM.
It did what Sony and Paramount expected it to -- entrench the middle men -- only the old incumbents are not the middle men it entrenched. And if they would wise up to that and stop pretending they're the beneficiaries rather than additional unwitting victims, it would be a lot easier to undo this colossal screw up.