On 21/01/2011 06:16 PM, Darren New wrote:

> Basically, the music and film industry depends on it being possible to
> make copies but not cheap to make copies.

And now those assumptions have been brutally violated. You say the 
industry needs to "deal with that", but I'm really not sure where that 
leaves us. The only obvious solution is to just not sell content for 
money any more, since the model isn't workable. (This of course leads 
directly to high quality content no longer being made, which would be 
very sad.)

>> But then of course, the publishers think "OK, well if we embed this
>> computer program, we can stop people copying it". (Actually no, no you
>> cannot. But the CEO probably isn't smart enough to comprehend this.)
>
> Even if he is, the shareholders aren't. It's like the TSA - security
> theater.

What's TSA?

>> I have no problem with content creators expecting a return on their
>> investment. But I object to DRM, on a number of grounds. (Point #1
>> being "it doesn't work".)
>
> The real reason it doesn't work is that you only have to break it once.
> Once someone takes the copy protection off, they can distribute the
> broken version. So the DRM has to keep out the *smartest* attackers, not
> just the average attackers.

The other reason is that you *must* take the DRM off to use the thing. 
No matter which way the image data is encrypted, you /must/ decrypt it 
in order to see it. If you can see it, you can copy it.

About the only thing this potentially doesn't apply to is computer 
software. (Or anything similarly interactive, I guess.) Even then, if 
you can somehow pluck the decrypted data out of the computer's memory...

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