[shmerl]

> I'm not anti-DRM, I'm just anti-BAD-DRM

This sounds like a faulty logic to me. Being anti DRM on the basis of comfort seriously misses the point. Because DRM can't be good. It can be comfortable enough to ignore though, and that's actually a problem.

[Karunamon]

Because DRM can't be good.

This is a philosophical position, not an infallible universal truth.

The problem with DRM, in general, boiled down to it's most salient point, is that it destroys value. It gets in your way, treats you like a criminal, and generally makes your life miserable so the people who made the attached product can feel like they're flipping off those eeeevul pirates.

Every system I can think of meets that definition, with one exception: Steam.

What's the benefit to me of SecuRom? There isn't one.

What't the benefit to me of Steam? I get all my games in one place, my save files synchronized across an unlimited number of machines, user-generated DLC automatically brought in (and synchronized the same way), in-home streaming, library sharing, the whole social network, in game overlay providing same and web access, some unheard-of-elsewhere sales, and quite a lot more.

What's more, if despite all of that you're still not interested and would prefer to go back to the dark ages, Steamworks is trivially defeated with an emulator program.

[shmerl]

> This is a philosophical position, not an infallible universal truth.

Not more than the claim that police state is evil. We aren't talking about moral relativity here however.

> The problem with DRM, in general, boiled down to it's most salient point, is that it destroys value.

Somehow ethical problems of DRM you try to devalue, while practical problems of DRM (like being infective against piracy and punishing legitimate users) you promote as the main issue with it. I don't think that's proper. However both are enough of a reason to never use DRM.

> What't the benefit to me of Steam? I get all my games in one place, my save files synchronized across an unlimited number of machines

Benefits of Steam have nothing to do with it having DRM. They could all be provided in a DRM-free fashion. Yet they chose not to.

[Karunamon]

We are talking about why your moral stance should be applicable to me, complete with comparisons to a police state (of all things..)

You haven't convinced me yet.

The fact that you feel there are ethical problems is again a philosophical position.

[shmerl]

The premise of DRM is the same as police state ideas, that doesn't require convincing, it's the very definition of it. Whether you find it acceptable or unethical is another question however.

See also updates above about other points.

[Karunamon]

You'll forgive me for regarding your implication that "Log in to play your games" is somehow equivalent to a police state, as utter nonsense.

[shmerl]

If that wasn't clear, here is a simple explanation.

DRM is built on the presumption of guilt and overreaching preemptive policing. These are quite standard features of some abusive police state ideology. It was well spelled out by one Sony exec: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_rootkit#Background

> "The industry will take whatever steps it needs to protect itself and protect its revenue streams... It will not lose that revenue stream, no matter what... Sony is going to take aggressive steps to stop this. We will develop technology that transcends the individual user. We will firewall Napster at source - we will block it at your cable company. We will block it at your phone company. We will block it at your ISP. We will firewall it at your PC... These strategies are being aggressively pursued because there is simply too much at stake."

Concise and to the point. That's what DRM is about. I.e. assuming everyone potentially criminal, and policing everyone preemptively in abusive fashion which violates one's privacy (because DRM is found in your private digital space). This core idea applies to any DRM by its definition.

I hope this makes the analogy with police state approach more clear.

[enraged_camel]

He's not comparing the two. He is not saying "DRM is like a police state."

He's saying that both DRM being a bad thing and a police state being a bad thing are self-evident truths.

(I'm not taking sides, just hoping to clarify.)

[horseemergency]

How is that faulty logic?

You can take the stance that DRM is a good thing if it's protecting creators' rights and doesn't get in the way of consumers using the product. I'd argue that most creators take this stance, because they want to get paid for the stuff they made so they can turn around and make more stuff.

Or you can take the stance that "DRM can't be good", because reasons. This is the stance that a lot of people take who don't create (or who aren't paying the bills by creating).

Personally I'm somewhere in the middle, but I see the validity of both sides. Creators want to get paid, and consumers don't want to be told how/when to use the things they own. Being anti-BAD-DRM is taking that middle ground, and in terms of Steam they're doing it pretty well.

[shmerl]

The problem with such approach is that it ignores the root of the issue - the unethical nature of DRM.

I.e. to draw an analogy, imagine someone objecting to the police state methodology not on the grounds that it's evil and abusive, but on the grounds of discomfort of such invasion. By that logic, if police state would employ covert methods, that would be acceptable since it doesn't disturb one's comfort.

I think such logic is pretty flawed.

> you can take the stance that "DRM can't be good", because reasons. This is the stance that a lot of people take who don't create

No, it's the stance of anyone with common sense. Those who create including.

Examples:

* http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/columns-and-blog...

* http://brutalgamer.com/2012/03/09/cd-project-red-drm-no-long...

* http://www.lexi-alexander.com/blog/2014/6/1/will-the-real-pi...

[lclarkmichalek]

If you don't believe DRM to be unethical, then surely it's perfectly consistent? You're argument seems to require DRM to be unethical a priori

[shmerl]

No, even if one assumes DRM not to be unethical, one can observe that DRM is nonsensical from the practical standpoint. I.e. because not only it doesn't reduce piracy while punishing only legitimate users, it even induces piracy! (See second and third links above).

[Arainach]

Does it, though? Even if you can't eliminate something, making it prohibitively difficult has an impact. In my younger days, at LAN parties where people could just pass around the installer of a game almost no one bought most of the games. As it became more and more difficult to find reliable sources of cracks/installers, the ratio of people deciding to purchase rather than put up with the hassle increased. Even if you CAN get a free version if you try hard enough, the level of trying required will cause more and more people to find it worth the purchase.

[shmerl]

> Even if you can't eliminate something, making it prohibitively difficult has an impact.

Technically adept pirates are actually encouraged by the mere presence of DRM, since they see breaking it as a sport. That happens fairly quickly, and the rest of the pirates never deal with it again.

So, there is an impact, just not the one you'd probably expect. Firstly, pirates are encouraged to pirate the material even if they don't care about the contents. I.e. DRM boosts piracy. Secondly, legitimate users are punished with this DRM degrading the quality of the product for them (while pirates enjoy the full quality, DRM-free pirated version). DRM is abysmally dumb from any common sense perspective of doing business.

> Even if you CAN get a free version if you try hard enough, the level of trying required will cause more and more people to find it worth the purchase.

Hard part of breaking it can be done by one pirate. The rest will use the DRM stripped version, nothing hard in it anymore.

I linked a few articles above where the point of DRM actually encouraging piracy is discussed. If you missed that, go through them:

* http://brutalgamer.com/2012/03/09/cd-project-red-drm-no-long...

* http://www.lexi-alexander.com/blog/2014/6/1/will-the-real-pi...

Another impact of DRM is certain amount of users who would simply avoid that product because they don't want to deal with any DRM to begin with.

[dragonwriter]

> You can take the stance that DRM is a good thing if it's protecting creators' rights and doesn't get in the way of consumers using the product.

You could, but there's a problem with that. Because DRM by nature can neither operate without getting in the way of consumers using the product, nor effectively protect creator's rights.

DRM is fundamentally and inherently bad, not as a moral proposition (though it may be that, too), but simply at what it is nominally intended to do.

[horseemergency]

My rebuttal to that is: Steam (which is appropriate because that's what got this discussion started in parent comments)

I've been a Steam user for 8ish years now, and it's never once gotten in the way of me playing games. The only downside that I can see is that you can't gift old games to friends (or sell them), and they're very upfront about that fact from day 1. They just recently made a change that allows you to share game libraries with friends/family actually, so that small gripe is going away.

It's hard to have a real discussion about DRM because it's like religion to a lot of people, and many are quick to dismiss DRM because it's not perfect. Saying "DRM is fundamentally and inherently bad...but simply at what it is nominally intended to do" isn't saying that DRM as a concept is bad, but that the past/present implementations have been bad. Dismissing the idea because a few implementations have failed doesn't seem very hackerish :)

The core of DRM is: Creators should be paid for the stuff they create, by the consumers of their stuff. There have been plenty of misguided attempts at this, for sure, but I think you'd have a hard time defending the counter position (especially if you want to have a morality discussion RE: DRM and not just a conceptual one)

[shmerl]

> The core of DRM is: Creators should be paid for the stuff they create, by the consumers of their stuff.

That's not the core idea, while it's often presented as such. The core idea is "we need to control consumers and limit what they can do with their digital goods, lest some piracy happens". That's why such idea is flawed from the beginning.

Saying that it failed because implementation wasn't perfect and more policing will help to solve the issue reminds me the story of the Watchbird: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/29579

Definitely read the whole thing if you didn't yet. What's hackish is not to be eager to implement even more draconian overreaching preemptive policing, but to understand from the start that it's a defective and unacceptable idea.

[shmerl]

> DRM is fundamentally and inherently bad, not as a moral proposition (though it may be that, too), but simply at what it is nominally intended to do.

Which often reflects the fact that DRM is used for completely other purposes. None of them good.

[dragonwriter]

It reflects the fact that DRM is a fundamentally incoherent concept -- you can't provide data and all the tools for legitimate users to access it freely and still deny illegitimate uses of the data.

[shmerl]

What I meant to say is, that often the real reasons behind using DRM are different from the stated ones (i.e. preventing piracy). And all of those reasons are bad. They usually are some of these:

1. Lack of common sense or just "following the herd" (Lysenkoism).

2. Covering one's incompetence. (Poor sales are blamed on piracy, and DRM is used as a demonstration that they are "doing something about it").

3. Controlling technology progress and direction (like standards poisoning and so on).

And etc.