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by chadgeidel 5461 days ago
The mind-boggling this is that a billion-dollar industry is bullying a (many?) trillion-dollar industry around. Say what you want about DRM, it's strange to me that software and hardware manufacturers actually put up with it.
2 comments
mikeash 5461 days ago
I agree, it's pretty amazing just how far above their weight the entertainment industry punches in that respect.
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tertius 5461 days ago
Not that I'm saying laws are applied correctly.

But I sure am glad that the music industry CAN "bully" an industry far greater in the same way that I am glad that I can (if I had time and money) to do it because of the freedom of litigation.

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mikeash 5461 days ago
The weird thing is that most of the bullying has nothing to do with litigation. DRM pops up all over the place in standards like HDMI, willingly put there by the electronics companies. If they wanted to, they could all go to the entertainment industry and say, "You guys want DRM, but tough luck, we're not building it. If you want to sell your stuff on the next generation of devices, you'll have to work with what we want to build." But they don't, even though in theory they should be able to.
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chadgeidel 5461 days ago
That's fair. Unfortunately the *AA's are writing the laws so they get their way.

Is it at all reasonable they get to force ISPs to enforce their rules without litigation? Is it reasonable to be legally able to charge me $250,000 in the US to circumvent the CSS "encryption" on a DVD?

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