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by Matt3o12_ 3734 days ago
Why do companies still want DRM. I can understand that they wanted it when it was new but DRM has been proven to be worthless in terms of adding copyright protection and be a pain in the ass for the end use (I can't watch Netflix on my PC because the VGA adapter does not supper DMR). It is only a matter of hours before a cracked movie lands on torrent sites. So what is the purpose of DRM?
2 comments
zerocrates 3734 days ago
It seems that the intent is just to raise enough of a barrier to prevent casual copying: so, make it so there's not some 1-click program you can install that can dump all of House of Cards to your desktop.

Of course, this doesn't do anything about torrenting which can accomplish just that. I don't know if they're attempting to target people who are scared or morally opposed to torrenting, but would copy off a subscription service?

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shmerl 3734 days ago
DRM has nothing to do with preventing copying. I'm surprized some still assume that's the reason it's used.
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Matt3o12_ 3734 days ago
What is it used for then?
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shmerl 3734 days ago
Various crooked reasons. Some common ones include:

1. Covering incompetence. Poor sales of bad product are blamed on pirates, and those who were responsible can say "but we don't sit idle, we put another DRM in place".

2. Control over the market (standards poisoning, excluding competition, lock-in and etc.). That's what mobile carriers did to prevent people from switching to competitors.

3. Satisfying their hunger for power and ability to tell others what to do or not to do. DRM allows creating new "laws" without any democratic process. As soon as something has DRM attached to it, they can forbid what they don't like using DMCA-1201.

And so on and so forth. Those who use DRM know perfectly well that not only it can't reduce lost sales, it only increases them. So they use it for very different (and crooked) reasons, unless they are simply completely clueless.

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tombert 3734 days ago
While I think DRM is largely a load of BS, it has been implemented with some efficacy (see: Darkspore), which has still not been cracked.

So I do think the intention is to reduce piracy....Whether or not that's effective is a philosophical discussion.

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shmerl 3733 days ago
> see: Darkspore

Wasn't its DRM broken? They always are. Some observe, that the mere presence of DRM is an incentive for some to break it, since they see it as a sport.

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muddi900 3734 days ago
People used to say about PC games, but the Denuvo encryption is unbreakable right now. The hackers and the studios are not on equal footing anymore.

This will happen to web DRM as well.

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