Hacker News Reader

Comment by jacquesm | Hacker News Reader

That's a dumb analogy. Bullying is one-sidedly bad, hence there being a bully-victim relationship which is non-consensual.

Content owners have - in principle, legally backed - the right to distribute their content in any way they see fit, and content consumers have the option to refuse that content if the format it is presented in is un-acceptable to them, this is a consensual producer-consumer relationship.

If you feel 'bullied' to consume content with DRM the problem lies with you, you do not have an automatic right to content in a particular format. If you do not agree with that the solutions are to be found in the political realm, not in the technical realm.

View on HN

>>Content owners have - in principle, legally backed - the right to distribute their content in any way they see fit, and content consumers have the option to refuse that content if the format it is presented in is un-acceptable to them, this is a consensual producer-consumer relationship.

you are giving content "owners" (and I use that term losely, because legally they are Copyright Holders not owners, copyright is not property) many more rights that are simply not granted by copyright law.

DRM is used in way to massively exceed the authority granted to creators by copyright, they abuse DRM and you claim the rest of society must just "take it" because "that's the market"

Well there is no "market forces" when it comes to content because the government grants upon a person a monopoly over a copyrighted work, this exhausts many market forces. Sure you can claim a general market of "Movies" but due to the nature of the product these are not interchangeable widgets that normally constitute a market.

>If you feel 'bullied' to consume content with DRM the problem lies with you

The "being bullied" is a weak argument, i will give you that, but what about platform or time shifters. Should the MPAA be able disable my bluray player with a code on all new bluray discs? Should MPAA be able to tell me which HDMI cable I must buy and which monitor on my PC is acceptable?

Should the MPAA be able to force me to use Chrome instead of Midori.

If I buy content today, that can play on Firefox, but then next year google revokes the Widvine license firefox uses, it is acceptable that now the content I paid for is unusable by me?

Don't buy blueray discs and don't use Midori, don't use any content at all that is DRM encumbered.

Yes, that will limit your choice but so what, if enough people do it the coin will drop.

That's my solution to this whole DRM issue and I've yet to find a 'must-see' thing that was DRM encumbered.

Copyright law gives rights-holders all kinds of options, and digital tools have given them options to make it harder to do some things that are not per-se violations of the law but that are also not explicitly granted as rights.

And that's a huge difference from a legal perspective.

What you don't realize is that the solution you suggest won't work if famous people like TBL publicly support DRM.

People wouldn't care about your opinions much, some would even call them dumb just like you call others opinions dumb. But when a respectable person like TBL says something people tend to take his words seriously.

This is why people were worried about what TBL did. A very few would have cared if you or I did such a thing.

You can also stop driving if you support the environment and stop buying phones if you care about child slavery and stop using electricity if you don't want nuclear wastes.

Personally I stopped eating meat, and just this is quite a cost in additional constraints in your life, because society is designed in a way and doing something different requires extra efforts.

Yes, boycotting something you don't want is a good move, but if you apply it to all things you want to protest against you will no longer be part of society.

So you can't only rely on that. It can't be the only answer. We need to take stand to also refuse those bad moves, especially before they happen.

Does this mean it's ok to sell food with poison in them because people have the option to just simply not eat them?

A figure like TBL openly supporting something like DRM sends a message, and it's not a good one.

Another pointless analogy. Food with poison in it is illegal to sell. Supporting DRM sends a message that you do no agree with (and that I do not agree with), we can agree that it's not a good message but we are not without power in this: you and I can simply decide never to use that feature and not to support companies that use that feature.

Copyright law is here to stay, rights holders will try to use technology to be able to squeeze every last $ out of their legally backed position and consumers have the collective powers to give those rights holders the finger.

The fact that consumers as a group don't care enough is the main problem, see also: privacy and many other items like this.

> Food with poison in it is illegal to sell

Is is not. Only poisoned food that kills you quickly. You have plenty of legal food that harms your body or gives you diseases that are legal. We just call them junk food, alcohol, and other names because they are morally accepted.

You accept DRM as fact of life. We don't. Because it isn't. It's just the next move pulled out by the majors to try to lock in the consumer. It brings zero benefits to society. No culture sharing restriction ever did, and all the stats in the world show that what they claim to protect against is a scam: majors are making more money that ever.

> The fact that consumers as a group don't care enough is the main problem

It can be said about any problem in society. Health, education, whatever. Regulations are not the solution, having people caring is.

Still, we do have regulations.

Idealism is not going to get you very far in the marketplace. Accepting reality as it is and your place and power within that reality is key to both not feeling continuously frustrated and actually achieving some measurable change.

You are essentially trying to ignore the fact that the Berne convention exists and that it (and not ideals) govern the position of rights holders. TBL is a pragmatist, first and foremost, that is why we have the WWW, not because he is an idealist who has forsaken his idealism.

As such, his benefits to society are such that few people can claim to have changed the course of history to such an extent, if you wish to argue that DRM is not a 'fact of life' then you are out of touch with life.

Major rights holders 'making more money that [sic] ever' is not automatic, they require our cooperation and consent.

And that consent and cooperation are ours to withdraw.

Any other changes are political and likely an uphill battle.

While I agree with your conclusions, I nevertheless don't think we should endorse a bad status quo.

When Firefox came around (as Phoenix), it didn't endorse ActiveX, making a lot of sites unusable. It chose fair standards.

What would have happened if they decided that they were too small and that Microsoft was so big that ActiveX would be inevitable anyway ?

Note that eventually the DRM won't affect me. I'm tech saavy enough, so I will always find ways to get around them. I think they arm society as a whole, and that you should say no.

I had an interview proposal with google some years ago. I refused politely. Google is inevitable, I still do have a few gmail addresses and use the SE. And it pays well. And their projects are cool. But I said no because I believe I should not be part of it.

I'm doing my part.

You don't get a democracy if you are not doing your part. Even if it means you will loose. Strategic vote is just promoting immobility.

I'm all for pragmatism, but it has to be used in conjunction with bigger goals.

Now you don't have to be perfect, I'm certainly not, but I still think that M. Lee decision sent the wrong message.

Have a read:

https://arstechnica.com/business/2017/03/drm-in-html5-is-a-v...

See if that changes your mind.

You were not responding to me, but sorry, it didn't.

> Moreover, a case could be made that EME will make it easier for content distributors to experiment with—and perhaps eventually switch to—DRM-free distribution.

I can't see how the author made this leap.

> It doesn't matter if browsers implement "W3C EME" or "non-W3C EME" if the technology and its capabilities are identical.

It matters as a matter of principle. It would have sent a message. Maybe this would have made the W3C irrelevant, but if it did, so be it, at least they would have gone without compromising.

I see you already discussed with sametmax about this, so I won't go further.

The whole rational behind abandoning the web is a scarecrow. Like saying rich companies are going to abandon a market if we don't do them a favor.

As long as there is a market, they will come.

The web is too big of a pie to let it go.

But even if they decided to go, it wouldn't be a bad thing. Proprietary things on proprietary platforms, and less people trying to destroy the open platform. I'm all for that.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com