דניאל Tech for His Glory

A few weeks ago, I asked for some help on twitter to pick a topic for an argument I was supposed to construct in the form of an essay for my Analyitical Skills course at SMU. The option was between arguing against DRM or for Net Neutrality. Because DRM was a lot easier to understand and argue against, I chose DRM.

I just got my essay back and I actually did relatively well for it (because, frankly, DRM is so obviously silly ) and thought I’d share it here. Feel free to critic it, and discuss it. In fact, I thought about it (because I think about this), and there might actually be some cases for DRM. What do you think?

Content providers should abolish digital rights management

There has been one form of technology that I have always been having trouble understanding its existence, and that is digital rights management, or DRM. DRM is a form of copyright protection that content makers of digital content such as digital audio, digital films, electronic books and nowadays, even computer games, have that impose limitations on its use in hopes to prevent piracy. Digital audio with DRM, for example, would require special hardware and software that recognizes it in order to play. Even within the recognized hardware and software, there is a limitation on the number of instances it can be played on. DRM, however, does not achieve any of its goals, and instead causes a lot of problems for the very consumer that wants to use the content legitimately. Therefore, content providers should abolish DRM.

There are many reasons why DRM has been problematic, and here are some of them.

Firstly, DRM hampers freedom on its consumers. In the past, one could buy a single audio CD, plop the disk into the disk player in the kitchen, bring it along and use it in the car stereo, and then put it into a Discman and continue listening it on the move. Today, unless the DRM is supported by all these hardware, there is no way that is going to happen. Even then, it commonly means having to buy hardware from the same manufacturer. This example is a legitimate use of digital content that becomes almost impossible with DRM.

Secondly, with DRM, consumers never know when they will lose their digital content. Every form of DRM requires that the hardware or the software to talk back to the DRM maker’s servers online at least once to identify itself. This is to make sure that it’s only played on a limited number of instances. Apart from the inconvenience that it would cause which is shown in the previous example, this also means that should the company one day close down, every copy of the digital content that uses their DRM would become unusable. One example of something like this that happened was when MSN music, which sold digital music that was on their DRM, closed down a few years back. Its customers then discovered that the music library that was painstakingly built up would become completely lost. The irony is that the very people that are being punished here are the people who genuinely put in effort and money so as to help the content provider pay the content maker, the excuse that content providers always use to promote DRM and anti-piracy. Today, there are CDs in my house that are older than me, containing music that is no longer on sale. That will never happen again thanks to DRM.

Thirdly, DRM hampers user experience. The number of steps required activating every device and every computer is quite a hassle, something that non-DRMed content, whether legitimate or not, would never face. The user needs to be consciously aware of the number of hardware his content is on, which hardware has been activated etc. In order to play the content on an additional hardware, they will need to decide which other hardware to deactivate first. Consumers without internet connection will also face lots of problems. While these consumers usually would not buy music, movies and eBooks online, they will still buy games and software from shelves. Games today have begun to come with DRM these days, posing problems to people who do not have internet access. In addition, like any software, DRM does not always work, resulting in people occasionally not being able to consume the content they rightfully own.

People who promote DRM always talk about how it is to prevent piracy. They always talk about how content makers need to be rightfully paid. The irony is that DRM has done nothing to stop piracy. There is no software today that pirates have not failed to crack, and this includes DRM. In other words, DRM only slows down pirates, but it does not stop them in any way from going around them. In fact, DRM only helps pirates, since there is now a benefit for consumers to purchase or download pirated content since they are DRM free, and can be consumed on any supported device in any number of times. As a result, the people that are actually getting punished are the very consumers who genuinely want to help the content makers.

Therefore, DRM hampers the consumers by treating them guilty by default, yet fails to stop pirates in any way. Fortunately, companies are starting to see the problems of DRM, and some have begun to abolish it completely. Apple, for example, who owns the largest digital music store in the world, announced in early 2009 that they have begun removing DRM from their music, and today, 100% of their music is sold DRM free. Just last week, Apple sold their 10 billionth song since they began 7 years ago, proving that they can be successful even without DRM. In fact, Amazon MP3, the no. 2 digital music store today, sold DRM-free music from the start as well. More and more companies need to realize that DRM is a hopeless cause, and the best way to ensure better sales is competitive pricing and, honestly, better quality content.

Argument in SAF form

(1)    DRM restricts where the content can be used

(2)    > DRM hampers consumer’s freedom

(3)    DRM relies on a server

(4)    > DRM can cause consumers to lose their content at any time

(5)    Consumers need to go through a lot of steps to authorize their device to use DRM content

(6)    DRM fails from time to time

(7)    > DRM hampers consumer’s user experience

(8)    > DRM is punishing legitimate consumers

(9)    DRM does not stop piracy

(10)> DRM is not fulfilling the cause it was meant to achieve

(11)Pirated content does not have all the restrictions DRM has

(12)> DRM is promoting the purchase or download of pirated content

(13)The top two online music stores are all DRM free

(14)> Content providers without DRM have been doing well

(15)> Content providers should abolish DRM