On 21/01/2011 09:05 AM, scott wrote:

>> Not always. And even if they were the reasons, it's not at all clear
>> that removing DRM does harm.
>
> The question is, if publishers gave an option to remove DRM (for free)
> when you bought the material, would they make as much money?

If you wanted to split hairs, actually removing the DRM doesn't do any 
harm by itself. It's what you do afterwards that potentially causes 
harm. (Presumably the only reason you removed it was to do something you 
couldn't do otherwise...)

> Surely they are not all wrong?

That's a rather weak argument, isn't it?

>>> you are not buying the right to unlimited personal use. If you were
>>> then you'd likely have to pay more.
>>
>> You keep saying that, and while logical, you have not supported
>> it.
>
> It's obvious if you think about it though. At the extreme when you rent
> a film (or pay-per-view TV or BBC license fee etc) you pay a relatively
> small sum for a product that is limited in the number of times you are
> allowed to view it or the length of time you can watch it for. It would
> be crazy if it were legal to then use that content forever for any
> personal use. IANAL but I'm pretty sure you'd get sued for this.

Renting something is a little different to *buying* it.

If I buy a ladder, I can use it as much as I want. I can use it in any 
way I please. I can cut it into bits, make a sculpture out of it, and 
sell it as modern art. I can lend it to a friend. I can rent it out to 
people. I can sell it to somebody. I can give it to a charity shop.

If I buy a CD, I can do any of those things with the physical object.

If I buy some DRM-protected digital data, usually I won't be able to do 
any of the things listed above. (Not that you can cut up a binary stream 
to make a sculpture out of it, of course.)

Then again, content is strange. If I hear a tune on the radio, and I 
spent two months sat at my keyboard and figure out how to play it, 
that's "reverse engineering". If I record myself playing it, that's 
"constructing a derivative work". And if I let another human being hear 
it, that's "public performance", at which point I'm likely to be sued 
out of existence. (And at this point, I haven't even used the word 
"digital" yet...)

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