We tech people are only obsessed with routing around DRM... it's management that is obsessed with DRM.

It is vitally important not to conflate technologists with the tech industry and not to confuse a criticism of the industry as a criticism of ourselves personally.

That's why the "big" qualifier is important.

Work at a place that made expensive physical objects. Customers calling in because they could use the objects because they plugged the hardware key into a different machine was all the time ...

Like the hardware had to be wired to the computer running the software. An extra hardware key that needs to be plugged into the computer as well doesn't do anything!

This gives me a fun hardware idea:

Make hardware keys that have the shape of real keys, and that you have to turn to engage the USB key.

The key shape isn't security, just a hint at what needs to plug where. You sell both keys and receptacles that can be put into a metal case or an otter box

This is basically what a security key (e.g., yubikey) is? I'm actually surprised I can't get a door lock that can be opened by one, yet. Could even be NFC capable, so that you don't have to plug in anything.

Similarly, this is effectively what many car keys are, nowadays.

I'm old enough to remember it has almost always been publishers pushing drm.

And yes, I remember serial port keys that tried to lock cad software. Some were keyed to physical sectors on hard drives.

Anyone who works with music software, to this day, deals with the pain of physical hardware keys. A few of the software players are moving from that to cloud based drm… which is at least less annoying since it doesn’t tie up a previous USB port.

It’s called iLok.

>Anyone who works with music software, to this day, deals with the pain of physical hardware keys.

And anyone who works in the automotive industry, sadly.

Also the engineering industry. And Architecture. And mapping/GIS sphere.

Creators as well. Talk to anyone who works in a creative field that isn't programming. They want DRM. They love it. And the reason why is simple: DRM works. It does the job. It doesn't stop all piracy, but it greatly attenuates it allowing the creators to make a buck. I remember discussing this with a writing group in the 90s, when the first e-readers came out. They vastly preferred the DRM-encumbered platforms because they could make money with lower risk of piracy.

And this is why DRM will never go away. Take DRM away, and creators will just stop releasing things digitally. Programmers in general need to learn to suck it up when it comes to things like this. Without DRM, pirates win, creators lose, legitimate audiences lose.

> Take DRM away, and creators will just stop releasing things digitally.

Is that guaranteed?

Album sales rarely made money for musicians; they made their money from live performances and merchandise. Plenty of musicians have released their music online as MP3s to drive folks to their concerts.

And long before DRM, we used to record things off the radio.

It's easier than ever to share music but instead people pay monthly subscription fees to streaming services.

Folks will pay for convenience. A lot of "piracy" was driven by an inability to get something _at all_ or only at an absurd price. And despite the protestations of the music and movie industries (both with long records of screwing over the artists), it's unlikely that "piracy" cause much financial loss.

In the 90s I really wanted this one song by REM. I can’t even remember what it was. The band had just rounded out their deal with one record label and moved to another, and the old label closed out the deal with a “greatest hits” record from everything up and including Document, I think.

That CD cost me $16. That’s $30 today. For an hour of music. Record label culture reeks of greed.

> Album sales rarely made money for musicians

Before Napster they definitely did. The saying is that you used to tour to promote the album, now you make the album to promote the tour. Artists have always been last in line to get paid, but there was much, much more money in it before 2000.

Yeah...

That's why Good Old Games and CD Projekt RED is doing so incredibly well... because of it's robust DRM that's nearly impossible to break.

Non-shortened link:

https://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/18/business/technology-a-tal...