Re:The purpose of DRM is not to prevent copyright violations...
by the_af on Thursday May 15, 2014 @07:03PM
(#7752792)
> How would content producers possibly deter copying without exerting control on the consumption hardware and software? The only answer there is standardized DRM.
That's not the only possible answer. In fact, there are already content providers (music, games) selling non-DRM'ed content. Another way of deterring copying is for the author to connect with his/her audience, participate in the community and make it morally hard for all of them to copy his work. This works and I've seen it happen. Some guys will be jerks and pirate stuff anyway (they will do this even with DRM), others will think "hey, the author is a nice person, and he/she makes something I enjoy. I'll pay for it and support him/her". This happens all the time with small-scale communities.
Of course, this requires work from the author beyond merely creating something, and it mostly works in the small scale, and he/she will probably not get insanely rich this way. But I doubt -- philosophically speaking -- that there is any inherent right to sell something in the large scale, without direct author-audience interaction, and expect police-state measures to work. I reject the assumption that everyone in the audience is a passive consumer and a thief who must be watched for their own good, and that there is no other way to handle the situation.
That's not the only possible answer. In fact, there are already content providers (music, games) selling non-DRM'ed content. Another way of deterring copying is for the author to connect with his/her audience, participate in the community and make it morally hard for all of them to copy his work. This works and I've seen it happen. Some guys will be jerks and pirate stuff anyway (they will do this even with DRM), others will think "hey, the author is a nice person, and he/she makes something I enjoy. I'll pay for it and support him/her". This happens all the time with small-scale communities.
Of course, this requires work from the author beyond merely creating something, and it mostly works in the small scale, and he/she will probably not get insanely rich this way. But I doubt -- philosophically speaking -- that there is any inherent right to sell something in the large scale, without direct author-audience interaction, and expect police-state measures to work. I reject the assumption that everyone in the audience is a passive consumer and a thief who must be watched for their own good, and that there is no other way to handle the situation.