HTML5 Finally Released as W3C Recommendation

[Toddwjp]

I hope everyone that said the iPhone was doomed because of no flash and that Jobs was wrong about HTML5 is crying quietly in a corner somewhere.

 

Strange how Apple always manages to stay so far ahead of the curve...

i criticized apple for not supporting it due to alot of the webs content using it at that time, but still wanted html to take over

[Redliub]

i criticized apple for not supporting it due to alot of the webs content using it at that time, but still wanted html to take over

Yes but it's a horrible standard. Always has been, always will be. The fact that in attempting to create a platform with near-perfect security they decided not to include a buggy, unstable, and insecure plugin should not surprise you.

[Hazy125]

All this time, and still tables just never work. One can still dream though, for a time when tables actually work

[El_indian]

why do i get tearing on you tube vids?

 

[LAwLz]

TL;DR:

1) There is no evidence to support the idea that DRM stops piracy. There is a huge amount of evidence that shows that it doesn't stop piracy at all.

2) Many successful businesses don't rely on DRM (CD Project Red, GOG, iTunes).

3) A lot of people like GabeN, CD Project Red, Ubisoft etc will agree that DRM degrades the user experience since it limits people from using the things they bought.

 

A slip up is one thing, but being able to break the DRM Netflix uses entirely is another. The encryption used is too strong to be broken as of right now (keys are stored server side). The closest you can get is screen capturing.

Well I don't know how they do it, but you can get any NetFlix exclusive show without having NetFlix through piracy. That is undeniable proof that the DRM NetFlix uses does not stop people from pirating their shows.
It does absolutely nothing to stop piracy.
 
 

 

If you change computers you will have to re-buy it. Tho my software is licensed to under 20 customers at the moment, it's not intended for a wide scale of usage (it's a game hack). The DRM I have in place is enough to keep people at bay from trying to break it. I'm not saying nobody could because surely someone could, tho with my experience in breaking code daily I know how to keep my content pretty safe from being reversed. As for a widely adopted peice of software, I would never lock licensing to hardware. That's just not an intuitive approach at handling piracy. I would rather have license keys that communicate directly with my own custom licensing server. From there I could lock keys to regions so even if you shared it you wouldn't be able to use it unless you lived in the same local area (possible even global keys for travelers at a higher expense). So don't get me wrong, I only locked down this one piece of software to keep it from being leaked into others hands (keep in mind it's being sold to and among hackers and crackers).

I knew your software would be used by only a handful of people, and that's why you can't use that as an example of how DRM lowers piracy.

DRM does not prevent piracy. It might work as long as your software is flying under the radar for crackers with enough knowledge, but as soon as it becomes slightly high profile they will pick it up, crack it and offer a better user experience to your lost customers

It makes me sick that you now suggest region locks as a DRM solution for more widely adopted software. I've said it before and I will continue to say it. Region locks do not work, and neither does any other kind of DRM (except the Diablo 3 one which rendered the game unplayable for pretty much everyone). The more obnoxious DRMs you add, and region lock is a very big pain in the ass, the more reasons people will have to just pirate it. The only thing you're doing by adding things like region locks is creating a distribution problem.
Don't take my word for it, GabeN had this to say about it:

In general, we think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem. For example, if a pirate offers a product anywhere in the world, 24 x 7, purchasable from the convenience of your personal computer, and the legal provider says the product is region-locked, will come to your country 3 months after the US release, and can only be purchased at a brick and mortar store, then the pirate's service is more valuable. Most DRM solutions diminish the value of the product by either directly restricting a customers use or by creating uncertainty.

Not to appeal to authority or anything, but it's pretty safe to say you're wrong when you're arguing against Valve in how to best fight piracy and distribute your programs.

 

 

 

Not all DRM is great but most of it is good. Even license keys used in software like WinRAR are a form of DRM. You need to understand that without DRM, all software would ultimately be free. The software ecosystem would collapse and we wouldn't have the majority of the software we have today.

Well it doesn't really matter that you keep repeating "not all DRM is great but most if it is good" because I disagree. I think 100% of all DRM is bad. You are wrong about software being free without DRM. Just because someone can pirate something doesn't mean they will.

The people who buy games on for example GOG don't do it because "oh shit that DRM totally prevents me from just pirating it!". They download it from GOG because they want to buy it. I can only think of 1 game you can't pirate and that's Diablo 3. Every other game is "free" in the same way it would be free in a world without DRM. By your logic that "No DRM = the business collapses" we wouldn't have studios like CD Project Red, because they don't have DRM on their games. We wouldn't have stores like GOG either because they only sell DRM free games. Do you remember when HumbleBundle went under because most of the games in their are DRM free? Yeah, neither do I.

The idea that the software "ecosystem" would collapse without DRM is completely illogical and just a bad excuse to remove control from the customers and give it to the distributors. It has nothing to do with "we have to stop piracy!".

 

Here is a quote from CD Project Red:

 

DRM is the worst thing in the gaming industry. It’s limiting our rights to play games owned by us. Let’s imagine that you have a game that requires internet connection to prove that you actually bought it. What if you lose your connection because of your internet provider? You can’t play anymore. It is worth mentioning that many people in Poland or even in the US and other countries still don’t have an internet connection or have a very slow one. I was in such a situation once and I really didn’t understand why I couldn’t play games that I had bought. I believe that as long as people feel that companies are cheating them by selling games they cannot play freely, limiting their rights, and making unfair DRM, then they will fight against that.

And yes I picked that source because a lot of people won't be able to see it, because Yahoo has region locks on some of their videos. Here is another source.

 

And here is what Ubisoft has to say (yeah I know, Ubisoft saying something good? Impossible!):

 

I don't want us in a position where we're punishing a paying player for what a pirate can get around. Anything is going to be able to be pirated given enough time and enough effort to get in there. So the question becomes, what do we create as services, or as benefits, and the quality of the game, that will just have people want to pay for it?

It's just a shame Ubisoft doesn't practice what they preach.

 

Even Apple don't use DRM on for example iTunes music. I wouldn't be surprised if that has actually increased the number of sales they get.

 

 

DRM in no ways destroys the end user experience. Explain to me how DRM has made Netflix bad, how DRM has made Windows bad, or how DRM destroys any software user experience at all. The only thing DRM does is stop you from being able to use something you clearly haven't paid for. Don't get me wrong, like said before I am not praising DRM tho it has been around for century's why complain about it now. It serves its purpose in protecting content creators.

DRM makes NetFlix bad because of region locks and not being able to play videos without a constant Internet connection. It doesn't even let you cache a video locally for crying out loud!

Hmm how does DRM make Windows bad. I guess we could ask Linus why he doesn't use registered Windows versions on his test bench, right? Pretty sure he uses it because he can't be bothered to go through the terrible reactivation process you have to do when swapping hardware.

Want more examples? Diablo 3 was unplayable for ages because of the terrible DRM.

The new SimCity was awful because of the DRM.

Not being able to resell games on Steam is very very bad for the customers.

The DRM in WinRAR is just plain annoying. All it does is make you have to click 1 more time to use the program. I really doubt they have gotten any extra sales because of it.

The DRM for Spore punished a ton of legit customers because they could only reinstall the game a certain number of times. So if you bought the game and then installed it on your laptop and desktop, then had to reformat your laptop you would have used up all your installs and had to buy the game again. The ones who pirated the game did not have this restriction at all.

If I buy an ebook I might only be able to read it with a specific app and on a specific platform, instead of reading it with anything I want and however I want.

If I bought a song with DRM I might not be able to remix it, or use it as my ringtone, or listen to it in whichever program I want, or maybe not even use equalizer settings I want (because the music player they force me to use don't have it).

 

 

 

DRM in no ways destroys the end user experience. Explain to me how DRM has made Netflix bad, how DRM has made Windows bad, or how DRM destroys any software user experience at all. The only thing DRM does is stop you from being able to use something you clearly haven't paid for. Don't get me wrong, like said before I am not praising DRM tho it has been around for century's why complain about it now. It serves its purpose in protecting content creators.

DRM does not stop piracy. Please stop repeating this as if it was true. There is 0 evidence to support that crazy idea. On The Pirate Bay you will find hundreds of thousands of examples proving that it does not stop piracy.

The idea that DRM only punishes people who pirate is ludicrous as well. I have plenty of examples above. GabeN disagrees. Linus disagrees (pretty sure he ranted about region locks before, and advised people to use HotSpot Shield to circumvent it). Ubisoft disagrees. CD Project Red disagrees and pretty much every other person in the world will disagree.

 

 

 

DRM does prevent piracy, my hardware locked software is a prime example. It hasn't been broken yet and I still get people who want to purchase it from time to time. This means my method of DRM has been successful in keeping pirates away and bringing my customers to me. Tho even if it were "cracked" there's no way they could offer a better user experience to the end user. I compile to FASM optimized machine code for a reason. I think your entire argument is over the fact that you don't like content being locked down (I don't blame ya, neither do I), tho from a content creators point of view it's one of the most feared situations that exists if you're developing premium software.

It doesn't prevent piracy. Again, go and check on The Pirate Bay and then tell me it stops piracy. Your program is irrelevant because it does not accurately depict what happens to big programs. You can't use a single program with less than 20 users as an example to disprove hundreds of thousands of examples of the opposite being true. What you got is a single anecdote that can't even be double checked, not evidence or facts.

Sure I don't like content being locked but that's not what I am arguing about. I am saying that it only punishes paying customers and give people more reason to pirate. I back this up with quotes from important people in the industry and facts you can easily check for yourself.

Your entire argument is based on your own program which has less than 20 users and you even admitted uses a method that can't be scaled. Everything else you have said have had 0 evidence to support it, and if you ask me it has been disproved by the mountain of evidence I have brought forth.

[LAwLz]

But @LAwLz you were pirating and like @Opcode said: "when you're paying for a Netflix subscription you aren't buying content to begin with only the ability to access to it via streaming" so don't complain about Netfilx you must have known what you are paying for.

I know what I am paying for and clearly I am okay with it on some level (since I keep paying for it). I would think even better about NetFlix if they didn't have DRM though. Without the DRM it would have worked on Linux since day 1, I would be able to use whichever player I want, and people wouldn't have to use services like HotSpot Shield to circumvent the region locks.

The service would have been much better without DRM.

 

 

@cesrai

@Opcode

 

There's no point in arguing with lawlz. He believes he has a right to other peoples' creative works that the creators don't have and likes to think of himself as the public intellectual of LTT. I've seen him do it before and he'll do it again.

 

And yes lawlz, of course the EFF and DbD hate DRM. At least for DbD it's their core business. The EFF is mostly nuts. They're GPL-enamored basement-dwelling software engineers that get mad when silly artists tell them they can't have their art for free. Because everyone knows that art is overvalued, amirite???

 

If not for their defense of actual internet freedoms they'd be irredeemably faulted by that flaw but as such I still donate to them year after year.

Calling someone who disagrees with you on something "GPL-enamored basemen-dwelling software engineer" is nothing more than name calling. Your first part of the post was nothing more than name calling either.

If you disagree with me then please do so either silently or with proper arguments. I don't agree with Opcode but at least he posts contradictions to my statements.

[cesrai]

I know what I am paying for and clearly I am okay with it on some level (since I keep paying for it). I would think even better about NetFlix if they didn't have DRM though. Without the DRM it would have worked on Linux since day 1, I would be able to use whichever player I want, and people wouldn't have to use services like HotSpot Shield to circumvent the region locks.

The service would have been much better without DRM.

 

 

Calling someone who disagrees with you on something "GPL-enamored basemen-dwelling software engineer" is nothing more than name calling. Your first part of the post was nothing more than name calling either.

If you disagree with me then please do so either silently or with proper arguments. I don't agree with Opcode but at least he posts contradictions to my statements.

Hierarchy_of_Disagreementen.png

Which is wrong you can't pirate TV shows and movies and say it's okay I'm paying for my Netflix subscription, but I do it sometimes because there isn't any other way to watch the TV show and I'm not always online, without DRM it would became easier to put the file on the Internet for people to pirate them.

[Toddwjp]

Which is wrong you can't pirate TV shows and movies and say it's okay I'm paying for my Netflix subscription, but I do it sometimes because there isn't any other way to watch the TV show and I'm not always online, without DRM it would became easier to put the file on the Internet for people to pirate them.

you have no idea how easy it is to break drm. yes its a small hurdle but to easy to avoid, and with tv shows they dont even bother half the time, they just have a capture card record the tv show as they watch it. and upload that

[cesrai]

you have no idea how easy it is to break drm. yes its a small hurdle but to easy to avoid, and with tv shows they dont even bother half the time, they just have a capture card record the tv show as they watch it. and upload that

Is it the same quality as you watch it from Netflix I don't think so.

[Toddwjp]

Is it the same quality as you watch it from Netflix I don't think so.

 

yes you can get 1080p or 720p, its the exact same quality

[cesrai]

yes you can get 1080p or 720p, its the exact same quality

Really, that is amazing, where can I get that ??

[Toddwjp]

Really, that is amazing, where can I get that ??

 

i cannot tell you due to coc

[Redliub]

I know what I am paying for and clearly I am okay with it on some level (since I keep paying for it). I would think even better about NetFlix if they didn't have DRM though. Without the DRM it would have worked on Linux since day 1, I would be able to use whichever player I want, and people wouldn't have to use services like HotSpot Shield to circumvent the region locks.

The service would have been much better without DRM.

 

Steam has DRM you know. Very strong DRM. That's kind of the whole point. DRM done well is a good thing. That's GabeN's point. If you want to make people use a product with DRM it has to be good enough for them to ignore its flaws.

 

Netflix didn't work on Linux because of Silverlight, which you can blame Microsoft for. It was never a question of the DRM.

[cesrai]

i cannot tell you due to coc

PM me.

[LAwLz]

Steam has DRM you know. Very strong DRM. That's kind of the whole point. DRM done well is a good thing. That's GabeN's point. If you want to make people use a product with DRM it has to be good enough for them to ignore its flaws.

 

Netflix didn't work on Linux because of Silverlight, which you can blame Microsoft for. It was never a question of the DRM.

Yes and I dislike Steam for that. If games are on GOG and Steam then I buy them from GOG, even if they are more expensive. The only reason why I like Steam is because the games are cheap. Pretty much everything else about it is bad.

Steam's DRM is not absolute garbage (see Diablo 3, SimCity, Spore etc) but it's still really bad. I am pretty sure a lot of people here would be really happy if they could resell games on Steam, but Valve's DRM hinders that.

 

 

NetFlix not being on GNU/Linux was in fact a DRM issue. Moonlight is an open source version of Silverlight and it could have been able to play NetFlix video if it weren't for the DRM. In fact, Moonlight even supports DRM for video but Microsoft just flat out refused to license the PlayReady DRM needed, and that's the reason why NetFlix didn't work on GNU/Linux.

If it weren't for the DRM, it would have worked many years ago flawlessly.

[Redliub]

Yes and I dislike Steam for that. If games are on GOG and Steam then I buy them from GOG, even if they are more expensive. The only reason why I like Steam is because the games are cheap. Pretty much everything else about it is bad.

NetFlix not being on GNU/Linux was in fact a DRM issue. Moonlight is an open source version of Silverlight and it could have been able to play NetFlix video if it weren't for the DRM. In fact, Moonlight even supports DRM for video but Microsoft just flat out refused to license the PlayReady DRM needed, and that's the reason why NetFlix didn't work on GNU/Linux.

If it weren't for the DRM, it would have worked many years ago flawlessly.

You only like Steam because of it's largest selling point but you'd rather spend more? Which is it? Those two statements are in contradiction.

 

Of course you must call it GNU/Linux because whiny Stallman didn't get the credit he wanted. Too late. The world doesn't care.

 

So yeah, Microsoft didn't license the DRM. You blame the DRM for that? That's just bullshit. It's clearly a case of Microsoft just trying to be an asshole to get more people on Windows which if I'm not mistaken you're a pretty big fan of, right? Microsoft INVENTED DRM. If you hate DRM you probably shouldn't be using Windows. Hell even Apple is better about DRM than Microsoft and you hate them even more. Such a damn fucking hypocrite.

[LAwLz]

You only like Steam because of it's largest selling point but you'd rather spend more? Which is it? Those two statements are in contradiction.

 

Of course you must call it GNU/Linux because whiny Stallman didn't get the credit he wanted. Too late. The world doesn't care.

 

So yeah, Microsoft didn't license the DRM. You blame the DRM for that? That's just bullshit. It's clearly a case of Microsoft just trying to be an asshole to get more people on Windows which if I'm not mistaken you're a pretty big fan of, right? Microsoft INVENTED DRM. If you hate DRM you probably shouldn't be using Windows. Hell even Apple is better about DRM than Microsoft and you hate them even more. Such a damn fucking hypocrite.

Lots and lots of strawmaning in this post...

 

Yes, Steam's biggest selling point for me is the low prices. However, if I have the option I am willing to pay more to get a game DRM free. The biggest benefit of Steam are the low prices, but I value being DRM free more. It is possible to take more than one thing into consideration when buying something, and that's why my statements don't contradict each other. If I for some reason had said "the only thing I care about is the cost of a game" then it would have been a contradiction though.

And before you think of strawmanning again, no I would not be willing to pay like 100 dollars more for a game just to get it DRM free. Pricing on Steam and GOG are usually pretty similar though.

 

Yes I call it GNU/Linux. I don't like Stallman (at all) but credit where credit's due.

 

Well the blame is on Microsoft for being dicks and not licensing it, but the fact remains that the DRM itself is bad and if it didn't exist we wouldn't have this problem.

Like I've said a million times already, DRM does not stop piracy at all. Everything on NetFlix is pirate-able so clearly the people who buy NetFlix are willing to pay for things they could get for free. So why even bother with the DRM?

 

Yes I hate DRM but that doesn't mean I will refuse to use things with it. Like I said before I got a Netflix subscription, I use Windows, I got 171 games on Steam and I will probably buy many more games in the future even though it has DRM which I hate. I won't stop using something just because it's not perfect. Hell if that was the case I wouldn't use Windows for like 20 reasons other than DRM. My world is not as black and white as you try to depict it. Just because I tolerate DRM in some forms doesn't mean I like it or wouldn't be happy if it disappeared.

[Redliub]

Just because I tolerate DRM in some forms doesn't mean I like it or wouldn't be happy if it disappeared.

If it disappeared you wouldn't have those 171 games, Windows, or Netflix though. You'd be forced onto Mac or Linux, which are both DRM free these days. (Of course licensing is another question. DRM wise though, (encryption) OS X no longer has any.)

 

DRM is the raison d'être for those services. Without DRM none of them have a business model. 

I apologize for any perceived strawmanning but if you spend any time in a Linux channel on freenode it's literally only Stallmanites that call it GNU/Linux. Mainly because it's a Stallman construction. If his team's failure to produce a working microkernel in (what, 25 years of work now?) isn't enough for Linux to be the true name I don't know what is. GNU is GNU and Linux is Linux.

 

QED

[LAwLz]

If it disappeared you wouldn't have those 171 games, Windows, or Netflix though. You'd be forced onto Mac or Linux, which are both DRM free these days. (Of course licensing is another question. DRM wise though, (encryption) OS X no longer has any.)

Of course they wouldn't disappear. Just because you remove DRM doesn't mean things like Windows and Steam would cease to exist. I have no idea where you got that idea from.

 

 

DRM is the raison d'être for those services. Without DRM none of them have a business model.

Why? What makes you think that without DRM those business models wouldn't exist? Because people would just pirate it? Well they can already do that so it's not like removing DRM would make people go "oh wow I can just pirate it!" all of a sudden.

I can count the number of pirates that have been stopped by DRM (on well known software, not some program with less than 20 users in total) on 1 hand. The reason I can do that is because the number is 0 (not counting Diablo 3, which is pretty much unplayable for even the paying customers). If someone wants to pirate Windows they can just go to the pirate bay and do it. If someone wants to pirate a movie available on NetFlix they can do that. If someone want to pirate any game on Steam they can find it on an illegal website.

You have to stop believing the completely illogical idea that DRM somehow stops piracy. It doesn't. There is 0 evidence to support that idea, and there are millions of evidence to contradict it.

Your entire argument is based on two ideas which both are wrong.

 

1) DRM hinders pirates. This is false because like I have said ad nauseam (see I can use foreign languages as well), you can pirate any software you want. If you want to pirate something, DRM won't stop you. If you want to buy something, DRM will put artificial limitations on you that the pirated version don't have. DRM is bad for the customer and the creators. The creators also has to invest a lot of money into developing the DRM, which at best might give them a few days more before it's cracked.

 

2) DRM is needed to sell software. Again this is false. People will buy software if they want to. They will pirate it if they want to. Most games on HumbleHundle are DRM free. CD Project Red games are DRM free. All games on GOG are DRM free. iTunes and Bandcamp music is DRM free. O'Reilly ebooks are DRM free. I can go and on and on but you get the point. None of these stores use DRM and all of them are doing great.

[dalekphalm]

I know what I am paying for and clearly I am okay with it on some level (since I keep paying for it). I would think even better about NetFlix if they didn't have DRM though. Without the DRM it would have worked on Linux since day 1, I would be able to use whichever player I want, and people wouldn't have to use services like HotSpot Shield to circumvent the region locks.

The service would have been much better without DRM.

 

 

Calling someone who disagrees with you on something "GPL-enamored basemen-dwelling software engineer" is nothing more than name calling. Your first part of the post was nothing more than name calling either.

If you disagree with me then please do so either silently or with proper arguments. I don't agree with Opcode but at least he posts contradictions to my statements.

Hierarchy_of_Disagreementen.png

 

Just a note:

Netflix region locks their content for one reason, and one reason only: Licensing and Distribution rights.

 

Netflix would LOVE to provide their entire library to every region. But they can't, because they don't own the rights to do so. This is a problem with the Movie/TV Industry, NOT with Netflix specifically.

 

Netflix has to negotiate with the studio that owns the rights to a particular content (Lets use the TV Show 'The Big Bang Theory', for example... NBC I think?) to have that content in their library. They then have to RENEGOTIATE with the studio for every single region. Hell, they may even have to deal with multiple companies for the same damn content, because the studio will contract out the distribution rights internationally in many cases. (Example: A movie might be made by Warner Brothers, but the international distribution rights might be owned by Sony).

 

Furthermore, Netflix has to deal with A LOT of rights holders who simply won't license the content, because they already have a more lucrative deal with Cable TV providers. OR even worse, they already have their own online distribution mechanism (HBO 2 Go, but thank God HBO is going to finally allow non-cable subscribers to subscribe to the web streaming).

 

Look at Canada for example. Everyone complains about how shit Netflix is in Canada compared to the USA. Most of the shows that Netflix can't show in Canada are ones that the two Cable TV providers (Shaw and Rogers), and the main Satellite Provider (Bell) own the distribution rights to. They refuse to license to Netflix because they make more money by being exclusive to their own traditional TV package. Furthermore Shaw and Rogers recently teamed up for a Netflix competitor called 'Shomi', which will further erode Netflix's ability to fairly compete, because Rogers and Shaw own a TON of exclusive licensing deals that Netflix can't get because they won't license them out.

 

I'm not saying that this makes DRM OKAY. But what I am saying is that there's always more to the story. The problem with a lot of these issues goes far deeper, and is rooted in the backwards "stuck in the past" mentality of the Movie and TV Industry.

[Redliub]

Why? What makes you think that without DRM those business models wouldn't exist? Because people would just pirate it? Well they can already do that so it's not like removing DRM would make people go "oh wow I can just pirate it!" all of a sudden.

I can count the number of pirates that have been stopped by DRM (on well known software, not some program with less than 20 users in total) on 1 hand. The reason I can do that is because the number is 0 (not counting Diablo 3, which is pretty much unplayable for even the paying customers). If someone wants to pirate Windows they can just go to the pirate bay and do it. If someone wants to pirate a movie available on NetFlix they can do that. If someone want to pirate any game on Steam they can find it on an illegal website.

You have to stop believing the completely illogical idea that DRM somehow stops piracy. It doesn't. There is 0 evidence to support that idea, and there are millions of evidence to contradict it.

Your entire argument is based on two ideas which both are wrong.

Windows and Steam would never have existed in the first place if DRM was illegal because neither Valve nor Microsoft have a business if they can't control the distribution of their content.

 

Apple has already realized this, hence why they've stopped really trying.

 

I don't believe either of those things. But the fact of the matter is that Microsoft and Valve and the rest of the media industry pretty clearly do. DRM isn't needed to sell software, it's needed to force people to pay for it when they otherwise wouldn't.

 

It's also an entirely different question. Microsoft is a gargantuan MNC with tens of thousands of employees that they have to support and a literally enormous product that they've based their business off selling.

 

You contradict yourself a few times:

"Well they can already do that so it's not like removing DRM would make people go "oh wow I can just pirate it!" all of a sudden."

If they removed the DRM it would no longer be piracy because the creator is no longer making an attempt to control the distribution.

 

Valve's point, GabeN's point, and my point, is that you have to make paying for a product with DRM actually more enjoyable and more worth it to the consumer to get them to stop pirating their entertainment. Spotify, Netflix, and Steam haven't directly stopped piracy with DRM. I'll agree with that. What they've done is made paying for the content a more convenient experience with a more reasonable price to the consumer. For $12 a month, you can have unlimited access to almost all music in existence and a ton of TV shows and movies. 

Here's where your argument starts to fall apart though. DRM is not an inconvenience, nor is it even a noticeable flaw, to anyone using those services. They've transcended the inconvenience DRM presents by getting it right, and treating the consumer like a person instead of a dog.

 

The pirated version is no longer more convenient than what you pay for beyond being free, (and I think most people will agree that 12 bucks is a measly price to pay for what used to cost hundreds) so your argument now boils down to "I don't want to pay for it! Waaaaaaaah!"

[LAwLz]

Windows and Steam would never have existed in the first place if DRM was illegal because neither Valve nor Microsoft have a business if they can't control the distribution of their content.

They can still control their distribution even without DRM.

 

 

Apple has already realized this, hence why they've stopped really trying.

Yeah I know... Remember when iTunes removed DRM on the music? It was chaos, and now 7-8 years later all the music on iTunes is free. Oh wait... Barely anything changed when the DRM was removed from iTunes, except the customers got a far better experience when they actually pay.

 

 

I don't believe either of those things. But the fact of the matter is that Microsoft and Valve and the rest of the media industry pretty clearly do. DRM isn't needed to sell software, it's needed to force people to pay for it when they otherwise wouldn't.

Good! So you don't believe that DRM stops piracy, and you don't think you need DRM to sell software. So what do you think you need DRM for exactly? Just now you were arguing that you do need DRM to sell software because otherwise Valve and Microsoft wouldn't have any control.

 

 

It's also an entirely different question. Microsoft is a gargantuan MNC with tens of thousands of employees that they have to support and a literally enormous product that they've based their business off selling.

So Google, Amazon and Apple aren't big companies? All of them have DRM free products that are selling well. O'Reilly and many other medium sized (or I guess you could call them big) companies also have lots of DRM free products that are selling very well.

Microsoft doesn't even make most of their money from Windows anymore. It's only something like 20-25% of their revenue, and they could keep that even without DRM.

 

 

You contradict yourself a few times:

"Well they can already do that so it's not like removing DRM would make people go "oh wow I can just pirate it!" all of a sudden."

If they removed the DRM it would no longer be piracy because the creator is no longer making an attempt to control the distribution.

Yes it would. You clearly have no idea what DRM is if you think it's not piracy to download it without paying. Just because music on iTunes is not DRM protected doesn't mean it's not piracy to download those songs without paying.

Just because The Witcher games don't have DRM doesn't mean you can just download them off TPB and go "it's not piracy because they don't have DRM!". Piracy is still piracy, no matter if the thing you're downloading has DRM or not. I am tempted to just leave the conversation right here because you lack even basic knowledge about the subject. I won't though because hopefully more people will read this and realize what a terrible and useless thing DRM is.

 

 

Valve's point, GabeN's point, and my point, is that you have to make paying for a product with DRM actually more enjoyable and more worth it to the consumer to get them to stop pirating their entertainment. Spotify, Netflix, and Steam haven't directly stopped piracy with DRM. I'll agree with that. What they've done is made paying for the content a more convenient experience with a more reasonable price to the consumer. For $12 a month, you can have unlimited access to almost all music in existence and a ton of TV shows and movies. 

Here's where your argument starts to fall apart though. DRM is not an inconvenience, nor is it even a noticeable flaw, to anyone using those services. They've transcended the inconvenience DRM presents by getting it right, and treating the consumer like a person instead of a dog.

I don't see how that makes my argument fall apart. DRM is an inconvenience. Not being able to watch NetFlix however I want is an inconvenience. My friend don't even want to review his contract because if he did he would have to get a lower data cap, and he watches a lot of NetFlix over cellular. If NetFlix allowed him to just download the episodes he could download stuff at home/work and then use 0 data on the trips back and forth. However he is forced to download what he wants to watch while watching it. That's a huge inconvenience.

For people who don't have fast Internet connections it also means they can't watch at high quality. With a DRM free service they could just have something download overnight and then watch at high quality. Now they have to settle for whichever quality their connection can handle in real time. Also, I spend an unhealthy amount of time researching and tweaking my video player settings. The subtitle renderer I used to use didn't even have a proper installer, so you had to install it through a CLI. Then NetFlix comes and says "sorry but you're going to have to deal with our bad upscaling algorithm and piss colored subtitles that looks like they were processed by a meat grinder".

 

With music from Spotify you can't do remixes, you can't play the songs in whichever music player you want. I don't even think you can set it as ringtones. A quick Google search shows that there is a huge number of people who want to convert Spotify music to formats such as MP3. The DRM won't let them do that though. It was such a big inconvenience for the iTunes music that Apple removed it.

 

Not being able to resell games on Steam is a major pain in the butt. Having to start Steam (which seems to fail to login 10% of the time and is super slow at starting the other 90% of the time) is a big inconvenience as well, especially when some games requires Uplay as well. First you have to start Steam, then start Uplay, and then you can finally start the game. It takes a longer time starting up all the DRM infected services than it does to actually start the game.

Having to download the games multiple times is an inconvenience as well. Imagine being on a LAN party with a poor Internet connection. Instead of having 1 person download the game and then just pass around a USB memory stick or CD/DVD with the game on it, everyone has to download it one after another and install it. If you got 10 people and it takes 1 hour for each person, all of a sudden it would take 10 hours to install the game, instead of maybe 1 hour and 15 minutes.

 

 

The pirated version is no longer more convenient than what you pay for beyond being free, (and I think most people will agree that 12 bucks is a measly price to pay for what used to cost hundreds) so your argument now boils down to "I don't want to pay for it! Waaaaaaaah!"

Well I agree to disagree. I often think the pirated version is more convenient and offers a better experience (see examples above).

It's nice to see that you're back to strawmanning again though. I have not once said anything about wanting things for free. The two arguments I have to why DRM should be abolished are:

1) DRM is useless. It doesn't stop piracy which is the supposed reason why it exists to begin with.

2) DRM protected things are worse for customers than DRM free products, and that's non-debatable. If two things are exactly the same but one has any kind of restriction on it (no matter what the restriction is) then it is objectively worse than the one without restrictions.

 

My argument is that DRM has 0 benefits and a ton of drawbacks. Spotify don't need DRM to offer the convenience it does. Steam don't have to either. Neither does NetFlix. You can offer DRM free services and as long as you offer a good enough service, people will use it. Just look at GOG, iTunes, HumbleBundle, Bandcamp, O'Reilly and any of the hundreds of DRM free stores that are doing well.

 

Just answer this for me. If you agree with me that DRM don't stop piracy at all, and you agree with me that you don't need DRM to sell software, why would anyone use DRM to begin with?