maximize best case, worst case, or average case? (TCPA

xganon nobody at xganon.com
Sun Jun 30 17:25:31 PDT 2002


Ryan Lackey provides a detailed analysis, but he gets off to a bad start
right at the beginning:

> DRM systems embedded in general purpose computers, especially if
> mandated, especially if implemented in the most secure practical
> manner (running the system in system-high DRM mode and not allowing
> raw hardware access to anything at any time on the platform, rather
> than trying to allow concurrent open and closed operation a la CMW),
> and in a closed manner for revenue protection purposes (only
> rich people get to sign the code, or at least only the keys of rich
> people are widely distributed by default, and anything else requires
> special operations by the user), are evil.

So DRM systems are evil?  Why?  What makes them evil?  There is no
justification offered for this claim!  Are we all supposed to accept it
as obvious?

And note that when someone says X is true, especially when Y, they also
mean that X is true even if not Y.  Therefore, Ryan is claiming that DRM
systems embedded in general purpose computers, even if not mandated, even
if not implemented in the most secure manner, even if not in a closed
manner, are evil.  That is, even voluntary and not all that secure DRM
systems are evil!

How can any software which people adopt voluntarily be evil?  If Alice
releases music with DRM restrictions, and Bob runs DRM compliant software
to play it, which of them is evil?  Is it Alice, for releasing her music
with restrictions?  Is it just because she encoded them in a file format,
or is it evil to release any creative product and ask people not to
copy it freely?  Or is Bob evil, for voluntarily choosing to run DRM
compliant software in order to listen to Alice's music?  Or perhaps the
software developer is the evil one, for giving people more options and
choices in the world?

One other point must be mentioned while we wait for clarification:

> What I'm genuinely in terror of is #5.  I'd be fairly comfortable with
> (1,2) from philsophical grounds (and actually, some of the uses in #2
> are things which interest me).  1,2,3 are probably tolerable even from
> a wanting-widespread-piracy standpoint, and really, anything but #5
> (and to some extent, #4) is tolerable in terms of protecting computers
> for anti-government use.

Are we to read this as an endorsement of the "wanting-widespread-piracy
standpoint"?  Is the implicit assumption here that widespread piracy
is GOOD???  Well, that would certainly explain why DRM is evil in
Ryan's eyes.

If so, in Ryan's ideal world, every creative artist has no choice but
to do nothing, or release their works with permission that anyone can
copy them for free.  This is not just an unfortunate consequence of
technological reality, in this view.  It is an outcome to be desired and
even fought for, to the extent that voluntary technologies which would
give people other options must be opposed from the beginning.

The only evil here is the viewpoint that people must not have choices,
that they must be forced into a Communist from-each-according-to-his-
ability system where creative people have no choice or control over the
products of their minds.  Surely a libertarian such as Ryan can see the
horrific evil involved in taking away freedom and choice from creative
people, and he will clarify his words above.





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