DRM

From eg

DRM abbreviates Digital Rights Management, a type of technologies that ' acquire licenses and/or verify licenses typically to literal media.

issue: the public does not like DRM

position: soft DRM permits load,mix, or view with free software, by attempting to trap copyright violations after the fact, thus enabling fair use.

position: hard DRM is proprietary and necessarily prevents use of free software or open source to load, mix or view literal media. DRM is technically also crippleware that causes all users (even those it is not intended to affect) problems. It exposes ordinary users to copyvio lawsuits and customer privacy and potentially political privacy problems - see spy server. However, it remains the only solution acceptable to MPAA, RIAA and other major copyright holders to identify valid licensees and prevent massive copyvios. Even the publicly funded BBC has been forced to use it.

position: DRM makes it far easier to enforce copyright

argument for: There's no other reliable way to ensure artists get paid for their work

counter-argument: DRM is demonstrably not as reliable as an appeal for voluntary payments paid directly to artists that bypass the lawyers and liars people don't want to pay

argument for: Disrespect for copyright holder rights leads quickly to other forms of disrespect for property rights and individual capital, i.e. artists talent

counter-argument: Nonsense. There is no evidence that this actually occurs, e.g. that children who watch their parents "steal cable" will then rob variety stores.

counter-argument: This argument is propaganda based on ontological metaphors like "term:intellectual property" which confuse the six styles of capital deliberately to make it seem as if one's attitude to one type of asset is like one's attitude to another type. Copyright is not like trademark nor like patent and none of those is like domain names (though trademark is closest).

argument against: It only makes it easier to enforce copyright for powerful copyright holders, it does absolutely nothing useful for the smaller scale creator who is better off using solutions like Creative Commons and similar creator consortia.

argument against: No it doesn't. Hard DRM schemes are reliably cracked within a few weeks of their release, and quite soon, they'll be hacked to point "enforcers" at their own allies and friends. The technical capacity of the trolls in this case will exceed that of the sysops and continue to follow an arms race curve favouring the offense.

position: hard DRM is malware

argument for: Since there are better ways to do the same thing (pay artists) and the persons who benefit directly from use of hard DRM are preventing those better ways strictly to propagate dependence on a business model in which they personally remain involved, DRM can be viewed more like a Trojan Horse which allows lawyers and accountants to create new job opportunities for themselves an era in which they're useless.

argument against: Everyone involved is very nice and means no harm, they only want to enforce the law and keep driving SUVs and taking vacations to far places with the money they get from media users. They are no more parasitic or malicious than anyone else.

position: hard DRM feeds a hopeless technological escalation that artists can't win

argument for: DRM versus cracks follows an arms race curve favouring the offense, the "cracks", and will necessarily continue to, since lawyers can't write code and are restricted to operating per jurisdiction, while hackers don't read laws and are global.

argument against: Pro-DRM spy servers can easily infiltrate file sharing networks. Over time they will have the added advantage of global cooperation because similar tools also make it easier to detect child pornographers and child lurers and terrorist plots, and these techniques can also be used to bust file sharing hosts.

counter-argument: Citizens support the use of these technological methods to prevent bodily harm but as soon as they're used just to pay sleazy lawyers and agents, they'll rebel. Eventually the public will realize that they have to tolerate file sharing or risk technologies and subcultures evolving that are so opaque that very dangerous people can piggyback on them. evidence: turtle and similar secure F2F means.