DRM - What’s the point?
I really don’t see why the RIAA and MPAA insist on putting DRM into everything they touch. Digital Rights Management (DRM) is
the umbrella term referring to any of several technologies used to enforce pre-defined policies controlling access to software, music, movies, or other digital data and hardware.
The RIAA and MPAA use DRM to prevent users from doing things they don’t approve of — namely, copying digital content. The problem with this is that it restricts people from doing exactly what they want to do. Wouldn’t it be great if I could buy a movie online and play it on my PC, or display it on my big-screen TV or copy it to my portable device to wach on a plane? Without DRM restrictions, this would be trivial. Add DRM into the picture and now I have to worry if my portable device is compatible with the DRM in the download, if I’m even allowed to copy it there…
What’s puzzling is the fact that DRM does not protect content. According to Ian Brown, a senior research manager at the Cambridge-MIT Institute in England
the [DRM technologies] developed so far have been easily circumvented. It’s a technology that allows content owners to provide data to their customers with restrictions on how they can use it that aren’t justified by copyright law.
Lets recap. DRM:
- Restricts fair use
- Turns honest citizens into crimals
- Won’t protect the music and film industries
What’s the point?