[Gigachad]

Is it dumb? Many manufacturers already do this. Samsung had a case recently where they bricked all of the stolen smart TVs. Apple would do this as well. Basically any technology product company has or is considering having the ability to brick stolen devices.

And I'm not against this either. The law can provide a strong set of rights for actual owners, but if your product is stolen, you have no rights over it.

[curtain]

A GPU is a component, not a complete system.

For laptops and smartphones, sure being stolen a common risk, and that kind of functionality grants the end-user some protection, and perhaps a chance to recover the good.

For TVs and motherboards, GPUs, printers, etc it's basically superfluous DRM that typically only serves the manufacturer.

Overall Smart TVs have been the polar opposite of user-respecting technology.

[Gigachad]

Of course anti theft serves the manufacturer. And I think that is ok. If you have a stolen product, you have 0 rights to use or posses that product.

Once you purchase the product legitimately, you now have legal protection so that the OEM may not lock you out. Products should respect the owner. Stolen products are still owned by the OEM and not the person physically holding the product.

[ClumsyPilot]

99.99% of TVs aren't stolen, why am I forced to run this DRM on my property?

[pmontra]

Almost appropriate. 99.99% of houses are never robbed and yet everybody locks them. Of course we can leave our doors unlocked and that's the difference: choice. We should be able to turn off DRM. I can accept that without DRM I can't watch that streaming service (even if there are many ways to circumvent and/or to prove a purchase) but not to use a product for my own sake (eg: run my software on it.)

[brulard]

Maybe more like 99.0% of houses. a year. And there are places where people don't lock their doors at all

[Gigachad]

Without going to entirely FOSS TV firmware, I'm not sure how this matters at all. It will never trigger for legitimate buyers and if it ever does somehow, you call the company. If they do not cooperate, you take it up with your consumer protection agency and they fine the company for you.

But the reality is that it never will activate and you wont ever know about it so it can't possibly impact your life and there are appropriate safe guards against misuse. It's about as useful as asking why you are forced to use a specific brand of flash chip on the image processing board.