Prepare to get screwed by digital rights management

Written by tinfoil on Tuesday, 26 October 2004 01:59

Digital Rights Management *is* coming and people in control of these schemes *will* tell you what you can and can not do with things like CD's or DVD's or even TV shows you record onto your bad-ass new personal video recorder... you know, the one with the built in DVD burner so you can burn the shows you recorded onto a disc to watch later without cluttering your PVR's HD. What are consumers doing about it? Sweet f*ck all, or at least according to Charlie Demerjian over at The Inquirer, and I am starting to agree with him. Read more here then hit Read More for my take.

Take no offense. There are certainly no small number of you who read this page that don't get pissed about things like DRM, broadcast flags and any other measure used by the entertainment industry to control us. However, you and everyone like you are only a small fraction of consumers out there.

The bulk of consumers are entranced by glowing blue LEDs, shiny discs and LCDs. They don't give a rat's ass about DRM or shit like that and they won't until it is too late. There's probably even a number of you who read this that look twice at the latest tech gear without realising a monster is hiding inside. I know I do occasionally.

What are we, the people who actually care, to do? Beats the living hell out of me. I've been trying to educate people since the days of RIAA vs. Napster and I doubt I've had much impact. What about the sites far larger than mine? The Boycott-RIAA's or Gnutella.org's and such? Same shit, different pile. Ya, between us we get millions of visits a year from concerned people, but that's not enough by far. Optimistically, 5% of voting Americans have visited a site like those mentioned. Fewer visit regularily to keep informed. Even fewer will vote (and don't get me started on that). Fewer still realise that there may be some hope in one candidate and his recent remarks regarding the DMCA.

Can we educate the masses? Can we distract them from their TiVo's and plasma HDTV's long enough for some sense to sink in? Being the eternal fucking optimist I am, I'm going to say there may be hope yet, but it's going to come down to the wire. You see, HBO has begun encrypting their stuff with a scheme called CGMS-A. They allow you to 'copy' a program that you record from their signal once. Once the regular consumer tries to burn Six Feet Under to a DVD from their new PVR with DVD burner, they will be shit outta luck. Only then will people listen. Will that be too late? No, it will be too late once the big three (or is Fox in there now too? CNN?) start pulling the same thing or when DRM-enabled CD's out-number real, standard-conforming discs.

So, go out there, tell your parents to run, not walk, from that new PVR..

For more info and a much better written rant, read more here.

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