Doctorow on DRM announcement
Via BB, Cory Doctorow has an interesting response to a recent announcement by Sony, Philips, Matsushita and Samsung that they are developing a common DRM system. He makes a concise argument explaining how DRM systems punish normal consumers rather than actual pirates.
Not one of these systems has ever prevented piracy or illegal copying. When pressed, these entities will surely admit that this technology is not meant to be proof against a skilled attacker, but rather it is meant as a “speed bump” that works on “average users” to “keep honest users honest.”
As he goes on to explain, DRM does nothing to thwart large pirating operations or file traders, all it really ends up doing is limiting fair use and imposing restrictions, like region coding, that have nothing to do with copyright.
Cory Doctorow has previously given what’s now the most popular argument against DRM, laid out in a speech to Microsoft employees.