Expecting people to know and care about DRM, is like expecting people to read and understand the Table of contents in food.
The Hambuger seller:
1. A picture of an Hamburger $4 2.Sale, with just a tiny bit of arsnic in it, $8. Sale, Arsnic free, for maybe $12.
With this hypothetical Humburger product, most people will still pick option 2, not thinking about reading the table of content or understanding the effect arsnic has on the body (maybe they do not know what the word arsnic mean). They will look at the price and pick the cheaper one of two semi-looking identical products.
The way to get food arsnic free is not about teaching the average man what arsnic is, what its effects are on the human body, and that they might prefer the arsnic free food. That its their responsibility, and noone else, to identify food that are arsnic free.
DRM is by its definition a program, created to disrupt computer operation and gain access to private computer systems. This is an identical definition to that of malware. That DRM is indistinguishable from Rootkits should make it obvious to society as a sign that DRM is harmful.
DRM should thus be illegal in commercial sold products, identical to the food industry regulation. Consumers are protected from food that is directly harmful (like arsnic sprinkled hamburgers). If a program is written to be directly harmful, it too should be illegal to sell. If the goal of the program is to disrupt computer operation and gain access to private computer systems, it should not matter if a song is attached to it.
I actually really like your idea of comparing the choice of DRM-encumbered vs DRM-free files to choices we make with respect to how our food is produced.
I think many Americans have a general idea that the food they eat is the product of a corporate farming system that can be pretty sketchy. We expect the government to get involved when the practices of food producers create a food safety issue, but otherwise we leave it up to consumers to choose. And some consumers do choose to buy grass-fed beef, free-range chickens, and organic produce, and pay extra for it.
There are probably some parallels to be drawn with respect to product labeling. (Should Amazon and iTunes be forced to warn consumers that the movie they're about to buy includes some type of DRM?)
More importantly, though, both of these situations require consumers to be educated in order to make informed decisions about which product to buy. If we as a culture want our farming system to be more humane to animals and better stewards of the earth, we need to teach our peers how to read food labels and understand what they mean. If we as a technical community want DRM to not be forced into the files we buy, we need to educate our peers on the drawbacks of DRM and persuade them to make it an issue.
> DRM is by its definition a program, created to disrupt computer operation and gain access to private computer systems. This is an identical definition to that of malware. That DRM is indistinguishable from Rootkits should make it obvious to society as a sign that DRM is harmful.
I think you must be thinking of a different DRM. DRM means Digital Rights Management, and describes any technology that inhibits uses of digital content that are not desired or intended by the content provider. And that's it.
I'm guessing you're thinking of Sony's 2005 rootkit incident, which was an example of DRM implemented in a completely stupid and dangerous way. And it wasn't legal at the time nor is it now - Sony was forced to recall the CDs and settled a class-action lawsuit. But regardless of this, the fact that the program "gained access to private systems" was completely secondary to its goal of making the CD's content uncopyable.
I'm not saying I support it, but you're not helping your cause by telling hyperbolic lies about what DRM is.
The Hambuger seller: 1. A picture of an Hamburger $4 2.Sale, with just a tiny bit of arsnic in it, $8. Sale, Arsnic free, for maybe $12.
With this hypothetical Humburger product, most people will still pick option 2, not thinking about reading the table of content or understanding the effect arsnic has on the body (maybe they do not know what the word arsnic mean). They will look at the price and pick the cheaper one of two semi-looking identical products.
The way to get food arsnic free is not about teaching the average man what arsnic is, what its effects are on the human body, and that they might prefer the arsnic free food. That its their responsibility, and noone else, to identify food that are arsnic free.
DRM is by its definition a program, created to disrupt computer operation and gain access to private computer systems. This is an identical definition to that of malware. That DRM is indistinguishable from Rootkits should make it obvious to society as a sign that DRM is harmful.
DRM should thus be illegal in commercial sold products, identical to the food industry regulation. Consumers are protected from food that is directly harmful (like arsnic sprinkled hamburgers). If a program is written to be directly harmful, it too should be illegal to sell. If the goal of the program is to disrupt computer operation and gain access to private computer systems, it should not matter if a song is attached to it.