Bonus: As technologists and developers, we are actively creating this dystopia! I'm sure a non-zero portion of HN's audience is hard at work implementing DRM, locking users out of products they own, and coming up with new roadblocks for users. Perhaps someone reading this very comment implemented this exact Blu-Ray DRM in a devices's firmware. To the rest of us, it's dystopia, but to that person, it's just another JIRA ticket Boss says they need to implement, so they do.
Blame the evil managers all you want, but you, dear reader, are the one writing the code and hitting Commit.
Because if you don't implement DRM, then you simply raise the marginal price that it costs a company to do so, and you make another engineer – who is willing to implement it – marginally richer, thus indirectly rewarding behavior you despised in the first place!
The only ways to eliminate things like DRM are to either globally coordinate all software engineers' efforts (probably impossible), or somehow... socially change the incentives such that DRM is a net-loss for content producers? Also seems probably impossible.
I still refuse projects and jobs I consider unethical, but realize it's pissing in the wind until there is some larger coordinated framework (like a Hippocratic Oath for developers).
And of course there's always the whole, "Well actually the government has the final say in everything so does it count that you 'own' something if the government can simply take it away from you." but that's a whole other can of worms!
DRM is as anti-consumer as Apple and Tesla's policy saying the owner of a product can't repair their own product. Having physical ownership and removing drm is the only meaningful way to take ownership of a movie that doesn't rely on the good grace of an outside party. The US has laws against unrightful search and seizure and due process. The government can't "simply" take things away from me, at least in the US. True digital ownership of media requires the ability to playback things without relying on a third party. That's only possible having a dedrmed rip/reencoded copy. In practical terms, my legal rights on how I can view content is tangential to owning media, what matters is my actual ability to view it.
Yeah, maybe calling it "simple" was a mistake, but here I'm thinking about exactly such things as search & seizure and eminent domain where you can be legally deposessed of literally anything that you "own".
This works for them as most people do not how the technical know-how to break through the DRM and most people are therefore discouraged by it.
Although what is the alternative in a world where producing digital copies is a matter of pressing a button?
The whole idea of IP is to protect content creators. Those content creators sell their IP to large corporates to maximise their earning potential. Corporates subsequently take steps to protect those rights. Taking the ability to take those steps away from corporates by extension means taking those rights away from content creators. Is that what you're advocating for?
* I pay $10-25 for a movie
* I can then personally view that movie with myself and my family on the display I want (the last hotel I stayed at didn't have a HDCP compatible TV so I couldn't display my purchased film on the TV)
* I am not forced to watch advertisements or piracy warnings before the film
* I can put the film on other devices I own to watch via more convenient methods (my phone, tablet, home theater setup)
Are those requirements fundamental to having a legal system that protects the rights of copyright owners? Honestly I don't think they are! Because the DRM schemes that enable the above situation clearly aren't stopping pirates in the first place. But who knows, maybe there's an alternate universe where content creators allow all the above bullet points and – as a consequence – very few entities invest in creating art! In the end if I had to choose between that universe and the one we have today, I'd still take the one we have today where art is legally well protected enough that we have a plethora of it.
I find this phrasing quite fascinating. What does it even mean to "own" a movie? If you torrent or rip it, you now simply possess a copy and with the ability to watch it without any artificial restrictions, but I'd hardly say that you "own" it at that point.
I find it so depressing that our legal system does not even have the concept of an individual having access to a movie such that they can play it for themselves conveniently without restrictions. Even when you physically own a DVD there is no "sanctioned" way to watch it without being forced to watch the commercials and legal disclaimers at the beginning.
Which reminds me of the irony always repeated in these threads, that the folks who rip or torrent the film never see these legal disclaimers and only the folks who obey all the "rules" and don't need to see the disclaimer are constantly exposed to it.
Why can't we have nice things? This world is so distopian.