Argument: Content providers should abolish DRM
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. Read more