-- On 9 Jul 2002 at 1:01, Anonymous wrote:
If DRM hardware and software are widely available, they reason, it will be that much easier to get legislation passed to make them mandatory. [....]
This argument makes superficial sense, but it ultimately contradicts itself on one major point: if DRM is so successful and widely used as would be necessary for its mandate to be low-cost, then there is no need to require it!
Voluntary DRM can never stop piracy. With voluntary DRM, people can break once on one machine, then run the latest Napster replacement on the every machine on the internet in non DRM mode, and copy that file that was ripped on one machine, to every machine. Voluntary DRM is only useful to the content industry as a stepping stone to compulsory DRM Voluntary DRM is only useful to the industry to reach the point where they can say "Only copyright pirates, terrorists, drug trafficers, child pornographers, tax evaders, and money launderers need to run their machines in non DRM mode." --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG 7lDwxyaNMRyW/fnz+MbZtTkvvLQYa1vgZGkK9sHP 2Efd0J6T+9nNeRMcg3Djz42yiJGtYagAGVb1mkkkE