Wednesday, May 2, 2007

The futility of DRM

[Once again we are seeing an open rebellion against the attempts by the MPAA and RIAA, under the DMCA act, to censor and control the publication of keys for HD-DVD discs. When will these guys ever learn that DRM will never work in a large scale distribution of content. They continue to want to protect a failed business model through flawed DRM technologies, lawyers and take down orders, rather than develop new innovative marketing strategies. A classic example is that most of the Internet movie download services like NetFlix, iTV, etc are only available in the US because of the Byzantine marketing restrictions on distribution of content where licensing is the basis of a country and mode of distribution. In the content industry this is known as "windows" where you need a separate license for location and mode of distribution as well as negotiate the plethora of overlapping rights claims i.e. broadcast, cable, streaming, download, etc. Clever kids, outside of the US, have already figured out the use of proxy services to get around these idiotic restrictions. And the studios are wondering why unauthorized P2P movie downloads are so popular. Duh. It is easier to blame your potentially biggest customers of theft rather then question their own idiotic and antiquated business models -- BSA]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6615047.stm