Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2016/09/08/if-drm-is-so-great-why-wont.html
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If DRM is so great, why won’t anyone warn you when you’re buying it?
My experience is that all judgements are loaded terms. Whenever I hear that something is great, I always ask “great for whom?”
They do warn us for some things. Whenever something says “New! Improved!” I run the other way.
Look Corey, it’s simple.
Instead of providing people with useful information, mandatory DRM labels would only intensify the misconception that so-called “user hostile” Intellectual Property Protections endanger people’s freedoms. It’d be a disservice to the populace.
And in truth all your existing technology has always been using Intellectual Property Protection. Just as people who did not have access to wire recording technology in earlier ages could not record anything, people today who do not have access to licensing cannot record anything. It’s exactly the same, really, and that’s just Science.
Antagonism toward DRM also strengthens the stigma against technologies that have delivered enormous benefits to people in developing countries and promise far more. Children who might have received free technology products will suffer when DRM is labeled and mistrusted.
These debates are about so much more than slapping ostensibly simple labels on our technology to satisfy the anti-progress, anti-science segment of American consumers. Ultimately, we are deciding whether we will continue to develop immensely beneficial technologies, or shun them based on unfounded fears.
OK, I admit it, I just took the typical GMO shill’s anti-labeling screed and substituted DRM for GMO. I don’t believe any of the above nonsense!
Makes me think of medicine commercials listing the long list of possible side effects. Or ‘special offers’ with the lengthy list of “void where prohibited, some exclusions may apply, quantities limited, not valid with any other offer” disclaimers. No one pays attention to those.
Or that they would end up about as informative as “natural and artificial flavors” in an ingredients list.
It would be a good idea for them to tell us that their products contain DRM so that we can take suitable precautions to avoid ‘accidentally’ bypassing it.
I seek out DRM products on purpose and buy them to spite this sort of tin foil hattery.
My copy is kindle so its got my required DRM.
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