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Comment by chwahoo | Hacker News Reader

"One factual error that the article makes is that DRM'd content is harder to pirate. That is simply not the case; every piece of content ever released is easily pirate-able. The only thing that DRM does is hurt legitimate users."

That's hardly a "factual error". I can email an mp3 to my friend and have them play it. I can't do the same with a DRM'd song. Is that not harder? Instead I have to make extra efforts to strip the DRM or find a non-DRM'd version elsewhere. For non-technical users, it might actually be "hard" to pirate DRM'd content.

While the article could/should have taken care to make the subtle point that you allude to, I find it's phrasing less disingenuous than yours.

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I think the point the parent was making is that all it takes it one person stripping the DRM and the content is on the Internet (torrents, usenet, private ftps, etc). It might not be easy to share person-to-person (for non-technical users), but if one just searches the Internet the content would be there somewhere.

Non-technical users are almost every single user in the world. So, if DRM prevents just those people from being able to simply email a video to a friend, then it actually is preventing most "pirating".

It prevents person-to-person sharing for non-technical users of the original content. The real question is: How hard is it for a non-technical user to find and download a pirated version from the Internet?

It's the difference between:

  Hey! This track is awesome lemme email it to you.

and

  Hey! This track is awesome. Google for a pirated version
  of it!

Most people I know outside of programming circles would find the latter to be WAY too much bother.

How much of the world lives in programming circles? Is it large enough for the labels to bother suing users? Regular joes/janes are more resourceful than you give them credit for.

Almost everyone on the internet doesn't know what a torrent is, and would stop at trying to email it to a friend. The larger share of the market IS being prevented from sharing by DRM.

They don't have to know what a torrent is to search for "How do I watch season 4 episode 2 of MY_FAVORITE_SHOW for free?" and eventually find a torrent or working video stream.

>That's hardly a "factual error". I can email an mp3 to my friend and have them play it. I can't do the same with a DRM'd song. Is that not harder? Instead I have to make extra efforts to strip the DRM or find a non-DRM'd version elsewhere. For non-technical users, it might actually be "hard" to pirate DRM'd content.

If by piracy you mean the kind of content sharing that everyone has been participating in since the 1970s, then sure. But if by piracy you mean torrenting a hundred albums, then absolutely not. The only kind of 'piracy' DRM hurts is the kind everyone likes and nobody wants to ban.

>nobody wants to ban.

Except for the industries. They absolutely do want to ban this kind. Almost every single person on the internet is non-technical and doesn't even know how to torrent. If DRM prevents them from emailing a friend a copy, then DRM is doing exactly what the inventors want it to. That's the largest market share.

Also, emailing a song or video to a friend is far easier than handing a person a DVD, CD, or even a casette tape used to be. The old kind of sharing was tolerated because it still used to be easier to go buy an album than to get a copy. Today, that's not the case.

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