And, Ian Hickson enters the fray…
Discussions about DRM often land on the fundamental problem with DRM: that it doesn’t work, or worse, that it is in fact mathematically impossible to make it work. The argument goes as follows:
- The purpose of DRM is to prevent people from copying content while allowing people to view that content,
- You can’t hide something from someone while showing it to them,
- And in any case widespread copyright violations (e.g. movies on file sharing sites) often come from sources that aren’t encrypted in the first place, e.g. leaks from studios.
It turns out that this argument is fundamentally flawed. Usually the arguments from pro-DRM people are that #2 and #3 are false. But no, those are true. The problem is #1 is false.
The purpose of DRM is not to prevent copyright violations.
The purpose of DRM is to give content providers leverage against creators of playback devices. …
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