DRM isn't super hard to break, it is just annoying. But for piracy, only ONE person has to break it, and suddenly it is available, DRM free, for everyone. Legitimate readers continue to be forced to deal with DRM annoyance while pirates get a DRM free experience.
How does this help the situation of content creators not getting paid?
Students usually have the choice of the brand new print edition $$$ that they can resell for $, the ebook edition ($$) that expires after the term and you cannot resell, or fighting for one of the two copies of the book on 2 hour loan from the main campus library. Some professors do not let you use an older copy, and for some classes, they make you do your homework on proprietary publisher websites that charge for temporary access codes. So even if you pirated your book you would still have to pay McGraw Hill their cut to get full points in the class.
Curious how well textbook prices correlate to the maximum federal loan you can apply for.
Not saying I'm some Mother Teresa type.. but I'm against online ads, and I don't run an ad-blocker. I simply don't visit sites which feature blaring in-your-face ads. I filter Google results to exclude domains which I will never visit because of their ad policy.
Some of these things that people want to charge fees for are things that you can participate in for free naturally, so long as nobody is gate-keeping you. So it's very hard to justify spending money on them... particularly if you consider them bad for you, (like, say, binging on Netflix.)
Which isn't to say there's anything wrong with copyright laws, per se. What I'm saying is that it is not 'entitlement' on the part of the copier, but entitlement on the part of the copyright holder to expect to hold dominion over other people's capabilities. That is the negotiated result of social processes.
Well, you can do anything you like with the freedoms you have as enshrined in the legal framework that applies to your domicile. Do you also respect the freedom of a creator to choose a license and a distribution method of their liking for their works? It seems like you don't.
> What I'm saying is that it is not 'entitlement' on the part of the copier, but entitlement on the part of the copyright holder to expect to hold dominion over other people's capabilities.
But the fact is that one of those people is on firm legal ground, and the other one isn't.
>Which isn't to say there's anything wrong with copyright laws, per se.
Well, your comments seem to indicate that you find many things wrong with the copyright law.
It seems like you want to peddle a narrative. Otherwise you wouldn't be jumping to conclusions about things you have no knowledge of.
>Well, your comments seem to indicate that you find many things wrong with the copyright law.
My comments are not referring to the merit of copyright law. In fact, I explicitly said that I'm not arguing there was anything wrong with it per se in order to highlight that. So if that's what you're looking for, stop. You are missing my point. Don't accuse me of trying to make a point that I am explicitly telling you I'm not trying to make. That is beyond uncharitable.
>But the fact is that one of those people is on firm legal ground, and the other one isn't.
Copyright law was invented in the seventeenth century. The vast majority of human history has taken place in a world where humans were rewarded for copying and sharing any information they could find. I have the lyrics to a copyrighted song stuck in my head at this very moment! I don't want it, but it is there.
My objection is the use of the word 'entitlement,' which is nothing more than a propagandist term here.
> Real life doesn't have any policy either, if you have the capability, you're free to copy & distribute what you have access to or not. It is a third party that is trying to interfere with these native abilities.
Your comment indicates that you feel its your right to be able to infringe on copyright.
>My objection is the use of the word 'entitlement,' which is nothing more than a propagandist term here.
Okay, I won't use that term, what term would you prefer?
Couple counter-points:
1) It's reasonable that I'm expected to compensate the creator for the content. It's not reasonable for the publisher to dictate how I get to consume that content, especially not by forcing me to use particular format, software or hardware. DRM is enforcing the latter, not the former.
2) Having personal wishes wrt. content distribution is part of the market game. There is huge demand for bullshit-free content distribution, which is evidenced by the success of Steam and Netflix (especially relative to Torrents!), who cut out most of the crap and left the "you're now renting the content, not buying it".
3) Most content is non-substitutable. You can't just "take your business elsewhere", because there's nowhere else to take the business to! If Disney decides that the newest Star Wars is DRMed, there's shit all I can do - it's going to be DRMed everywhere, I can only choose from providers that enforce that DRM, and I can't exactly go and watch some cat videos on PeerTube instead - I wanted Star Wars, not smelly cats. This applies to books, movies, TV shows, video games, and to a large extent, to music.
2) I agree. I avoid DRM and other BS as much as possible. I went out and purchased affinity photo when photoshop went to a subscription model. I'm going to cling on to my CS6 for as many years as I can. Yes, I'm going to lose out eventually when plugins stop working or when I buy a new camera whose RAW files cannot be opened by CS6, but thems the breaks.
3) Yes, that sucks! I don't know what else to say. You can either be principled and avoid DRM, or be a realist and accept DRM in as few places as possible. I'm objecting to the "I'm entitled to pirate it because they didn't sell it or stream it without DRM" mindset.
3) I can be principled realist and accept DRM whenever it's convenient, and find ways to break it or alternate sources whenever I prefer it.
A principled person would follow their own principles which may be different from yours.