| Its fine to have an opinion on how things should be, but some of your assertions are not based on facts. >Virtually all major DRM-"protected" works are available on thepiratebay shortly after release. Sometimes before release. "Virtually all Server OSs get hacked/have had security bugs. Nobody should use them to host or store anything." All you're saying is that DRM isn't perfect. Nothing is perfect, and it isn't exactly a revelation. If it were impossible to pirate Windows, would all the pirates switch to Linux or another Free OS? If the answer is No, then a non-zero number of people will go out and purchase Windows. From a sales standpoint, preventing piracy is definitely going to drive sales. Also, if your answer is Yes to the question, then all the Free OS advocates should be making it impossible to pirate Windows. :) >The "better solution" is to treat your customers with respect and let them own their bought goods. Gog.com is a good example here, in my opinion. If we accept your premise that DRM == disrespecting customers, then you'll have to account for why people are still selling stuff with DRM, and continuing to make millions and millions of dollars. Do customers like being disrespected? >What definitely doesn't work is to burden your paying customers with digital locks and hurdles to enjoyment, that the pirates will shortly find a way to remove for the non-paying audience. The success of DRM'd products refutes your claim, entirely. |
DRM and servers are fundamentally different in that securing a server is an achievable goal. There is nothing fundamental that stops you from exposing an interface without any holes in it, even if it's quite hard. DRM is the polar opposite. Where servers are physically isolated from attackers in a manner that allows for perfect security* DRM is physically colocated on the attacker's machine in a manner that explicitly denies perfect security.
Servers are also broken into fairly sporadically for short periods of time and many of them never at all. Data stolen from servers usually slowly goes stale as people change their passwords and so on. On the other side of the fence I cannot think of a DRM that wasn't compromised relatively quickly and excluding anti-cheats once DRM is compromised it stays that way forever.
You can even see the discrepancy in the availability of files. I can pirate basically any game almost immediately after launch but if I want background production files lifted from server, even for an ancient game, the Half-Life 2 beta is almost the only example. One of them is certainly more niche but not enough to explain the size of the gulf.
Both are examples of imperfect things but there's always going to be a line between "imperfect" and "too imperfect to bother with" and personally I feel DRM falls on the "too imperfect" side of that line.
* = Assuming breaking into the data center is outside of the threat model, which it usually is.