Comment by iamandrus | Hacker News Reader

Comment by iamandrus | Hacker News Reader

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I never said that Apple was right. There are a lot of things I disagree with in regard to Apple (I hated the first iPhone, I really did). I said that you're comparing two completely different models and range of products.

You're also assuming that everyone who uses a computer knows how to modify it and not break it. Understand that a lot of Apple users want a device that just works. They don't want to have to mess around with the operating system or type a lot of intimidating commands into a terminal just to change something. They want to go on Facebook, play some games, listen to music, or type term papers. DRM does nothing but prevent things from "just working." It locks down where you can watch DVDs, how you can watch them, how you can use things, and can even lock you out of something if there's a problem on the developer's end (example: Assassin's Creed 2 included a DRM that needed an internet connection whenever you played the game, so if Ubisoft's servers went down or you don't have access to Internet, you can't play the game). To say that DRM is for the user's benefit and totally not for the developer's is insane.

Comparing the MPAA's restrictions with Apple is a bit unfair, and their success is only due to almost a complete monopoly in that area. The MPAA executives look at their audience with dollar signs in their eyes. Apple looks at them with those same dollar signs, but also with care and pride for the products they push out. They want to get a good product out. They adopted new business models like iTunes, iCloud, and even Siri. The MPAA is the antithesis of innovation and doesn't care about the products it pushes out, it just wants money.

Sorry for the long rant, but I needed to do it.

Do you perhaps see the Apple glass as half full, and the MPAA glass as half empty? As the GP argued, one could just as easily argue that every MPAA policy is for your own good. Further I think it's incredibly unfair to say that the MPAA member companies -- and the many artists and professionals behind it -- don't care about their product. I'm hardly an MPAA booster (when a blu-ray has unskippable ads I hate them just a little more), but I have yet to see an argument that excuses Apple policies that isn't just as applicable to the MPAA, which is exactly why I asked the original question regarding Marco. I found his entry odd given his history.

Of course you can argue that, but you'd be wrong. Ask anyone on the street what they think of Apple locking down their products and not allowing you to modify them, and you'd get mostly positive responses about Apple. Now ask them about DRM (in an understandable way, of course), like how they might buy a song on one music store and not be able to listen to it on their iPod. You'd get negative responses, guaranteed. I don't mean to say that artists don't care about the product they created. Artists deserve a lot for the stuff they make. But the MPAA just uses these artists to make money. Has their ever been an MPAA album, or has the MPAA itself (not the artists) released a single? The executives just care about money, not the music or the culture behind the music. If they actually cared about the audience, they wouldn't use DRM and lawsuits to make people pay for their product.

Replace "consumer" with "musician" or "filmmaker", and every argument in support of Apple's locked down systems also applies to the RIAA and MPAA. To hear them speak, these policies are the only think keeping the ravening barbarian hordes of Internet users from destroying the all of the art and culture in our society.

The MPAA views Internet users in the same way that Apple views people attempting to unlock or jailbreak their device. They have nothing but contempt for those of us who dare to use the products that we've purchased in a way that they have not envisioned. In their world, they tell us what we are and are not allowed to do, and we meekly submit. Both MPAA and Apple have this mentality and I find it rather hateful.

Apple's restrictions do nothing but prevent things from "just working". It locks down where you can obtain apps, what you can do with them, and can even lock you out of something if there's a problem on Apple's end (example: iOS 4 was widely considered to be unusable on the iPhone 3G, yet it was impossible to downgrade unless you had the foresight to use circumvention tools in advance of iOS 4's release).

One could argue that DRM is required for there to be a thriving market in media, and therefore is to the user's benefit. Now, you don't believe that, I don't believe that, and maybe even the MPAA doesn't believe that, but the argument isn't invalid on its face. It's clear that restrictions which only limit users can be considered to be good for them. Apple's restrictions only limit users, yet you and many others argue that they're good for users.

I don't really care about Apple's intentions, care, or pride. I see Apple as pushing the entire world to a much worse model of computing. The MPAA, on the other hand, is fading into obsolescence one way or another.

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