Cloud computing and DRM: a match made in hell

Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/09/19/huxley-v-orwell.html

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“Buying” any intellectual property and then keeping it in the cloud is never buying it. Unless it’s in your cloud.

I’m always amazed at how casually on my cable TV box, Verizon can refer to “buying” a video online and all the “choices” one has (Buy, Buy HD, Rent 3 days, Rent 3 days HD). If Verizon goes out of business, changes its business model, changes its terms of service, forgets to update the RAID arrays, is taken over by another company, do I still “own” the movie? But the much more likely hypothetical is: what if I decide to leave Verizon for a competing cable company (gee, I really shouldn’t do that, should I?)

The companies that figured out how to meet and possibly exceed the convenience of piracy still fail miserably at the whole “making an honorable agreement with the customer” part of things. They’ve propped up the piracy ecosystem as a result. Given the conceptual falsehood of “intellectual property” and the complete subversion of copyright into some perpetual garbage with no public domain offerings anymore, I say good. Keep on keeping piracy legitimate and pervasive, media companies.

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My takeaway is that, if a seller of DRM’d digital media uses words like “purchase” and “buy,” they have at a minimum an obligation to…

Oh no they doooon’t!

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I suspect that this wouldn’t fly, Because Reasons that don’t even reach the Anatole France standards of majestic equality; but this sounds like a situation where a shell company in a favorable jurisdiction to be the nominal ‘buyer’ of all such things would come in handy.

No need for them to know about my move from one market segmentation licensing precinct to another when their dealings are with Fungus Functions LLC. an ageless and steady resident of one of the fine places where only literal sunshine is permitted to reach the residents.

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– But of course, da Silva didn’t do this, because no one does, because no one has read the fine print…

Don’t need to.

I’ve seen the reports over the years and make absolutely certain to download and strip everything I pay for.

But that’s just me.

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