Realistically, DRM keeps the majority of users from pirating content(otherwise I'll venture to guess that BigBadCo would have found via their research it was a losing proposition).

The internet dorks who frequent HN and Reddit who know how to easily circumvent said DRM are the minority.

The majority of users don't break the DRM themselves. They just download a torrent / go to some shady streaming site, where they get the content DRM free.

DRM doesn't work because it only takes 1 internet dork to provide a DRM free copy for everyone else.

uTorrent & BitTorrent Surge to 150 Million Monthly Users[1]

That's almost double the unique hits on Reddit, and those are just two P2P applications; there are plenty more that are extremely popular among other populations.

otherwise I'll venture to guess that BigBadCo would have found via their research it was a losing proposition

Only if you assume that controlling the paying users is not the real purpose. It's much easier to get suckers to pay three or four times for the same content if you lock'em up with platform-specific DRM.

[1] http://torrentfreak.com/bittorrent-surges-to-150-million-mon...

>Only if you assume that controlling the paying users is not the real purpose. It's much easier to get suckers to pay three or four times for the same content if you lock'em up with platform-specific DRM.

When has charging $15-25 for a DVD/BluRay become a suckers bet? Sure most of us here like all digital platforms, but many don't, and happily shell out that amount of money. Also because it is easy to pirate a digital copy of a BluRay (if you are technically inclined), doesn't mean that somehow all digital copies of BluRay releases should somehow approach $0.

You seem to be replying to a post I didn't write. I never said any of that.

Realistically: Users use what's available, affordable, and easy to use. That's why Netflix is successful not because of DRM. You could get every bit of Netflix from Pirate Bay without DRM for free as in beer.

When Apple dropped DRM from music their revenue didn't go down. It increased instead.

DRM is to prevent content being available outside of the official/legal channels in the first place. This is clearly not working, as pretty much everything that's available legally with DRM is also available illegally without it.

The majority of users would not be capable of getting the URL of the actual movie out of the HTML source, saving it to disk and sharing it with friends.

The majority of users is, however, capable of going to thepiratebay and downloading the same movie through bittorrent.

It takes one 'internet dork who frequents HN and reddit' to circumvent the DRM and upload it somewhere where the average user can easily get to it.

Really? At least half of my "normal" friends know how to torrent stuff.

That any normal people would torrent anything says a lot. Normally convenience wins. Maybe torrenting actually is the easiest way to get some content? For me, it's a no-brainer[1], but it's more surprising if this is the case for normal people as well. That should open the eyes of some content providers, but of course it won't.

[1] - Meaning that for me as a technical user, torrenting is really easy. Some things have just started to compete, like spotify, netflix and hbo online, but they are often crippled in other ways.

Everything you're downloading has already been stripped of the DRM by someone else. You're not stripping the DRM yourself, and I doubt most torrent users know how. You're just proving their point.

The point is that DRM doesn't effectively protect content, since hundreds of millions of regular individuals can rather easily access "pirated" copies. Whether the protection is broken by their grandmothers or by a single über cracker is irrelevant.

I don't believe that anyone thinks DRM effectively protects content, even the companies employing it.

I'm confused, 3 comments above this you say he is proving their point because the majority of people can't break the DRM but instead get a version that has already had the DRM removed.

"Their point" to reiterate was "Realistically, DRM keeps the majority of users from pirating content".

Yet then right here you say "I don't believe that anyone thinks DRM effectively protects content, even the companies employing it."

Which is the exact opposite of the point they are making....