Comment by NoMoreNicksLeft
3 months ago
That law should be changed. If you distribute your intellectual property with DRM, that work should forever be exempt from copyright protection. You get to choose one or the other, but never both, because DRM effectively removes the work from the public domain in perpetuity.
Even accidentally releasing a demo or preview with DRM should invalidate copyright on that software/movie/book/whatever.
> because DRM effectively removes the work from the public domain in perpetuity.
This doesn't make for a good anti-DRM argument because the concern can simply be addressed by requiring a DRM-free copy to be deposited at the library of congress (or similar[1]) so it can be released in 150 years (or whatever) it actually becomes public domain.
Moreover how would you even define what "DRM" is? Is spotify refusing to provide a .mp3 file download for their streaming service a "DRM"? What if they implement streaming via webrtc, to make it extra-annoying to manually download? For games, is it "DRM" to add mandatory online requirements even for single player? What if there's an ostensible reason for the online requirement, like if the gameplay is computed server-side a-la world of warcraft?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_deposit
>This doesn't make for a good anti-DRM argument because the concern can simply be addressed by requiring a DRM-free copy to be deposited at the library of congress
Then do that. It's not my job to try to argue your side of things. No one does that, as you well know, so my argument not only stands, but wins.
>Moreover how would you even define what "DRM" is?
Anything that interferes with copying the work in question.
>Is spotify refusing to provide a .mp3 file download for their streaming service a "DRM"?
Yes. This is an obnoxiously juvenile question. The nature of streaming services is that they send the media to the node (on demand). If that is done in a way that makes it difficult to play it a second time except to "stream" it again, you can hardly claim this is incidental. They go to great lengths to prevent it.
>For games, is it "DRM" to add mandatory online requirements even for single player?
Again, yes. There is no other purpose to such a requirement, and no one makes it a secret that this is done specifically to thwart so-called "piracy" attempts.
>What if there's an ostensible reason for the online requirement, like if the gameplay is computed server-side a-la world of warcraft?
You mean like with Blizzard, where they sued the programmers who did bnetd and prevented people from connecting to third party servers which computed gameplay? That wasn't even done to further piracy, by the way, they were just being dicks.
> Moreover how would you even define what "DRM" is? Is spotify refusing to provide a .mp3 file download for their streaming service a "DRM"?
This is a nonsensical complaint, because the actually existing DMCA already conditions legal consequences on whether DRM is present.
Would private fan servers qualify as fair use once wow is in the public domain?
yeah, in 150 years Disney bought all rights to library of congress
Potential issue: what EXACTLY DRM is? Is "you can only read this book/view this video on tivoized device which have it's own cellular connection to mothership and no USB/Ethernet/WiFi" counts as DRM for this purposes? What about "you can only buy this book at some obscure store which have it's own obscure reader which only work on specific versions of specific OS"? What if said OS is out-of-date? What about "you can buy only from specific store, store provides you reader app als specifically allows you to gift reader and books to friends,etc but reader app is personalized and will tell your name on start up"?(btw,I did buy some books protected this way in 00s)
Not extreme enough. Copyright itself should be abolished straight up. It's the information age, the AI age. Artificial limitations nonsense like copyright does nothing but hold us back. Even the corporations think so: they violate copyright at massive scales on a daily basis just to train their AI models. Why rules for us but not for them? That particular hipocrisy should have caused the elimination of copyright worldwide.
>Why rules for us but not for them?
Fair use exists for both people and corporations. Just because a corporation copies something in a way that is fre use, that doesn't mean that people should be able to freely copy it.
How could training of AI models possibly be considered fair use?
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> Copyright itself should be abolished straight up.
I wouldn't go that far. 18 months is long enough though.
Analogously to the choice between trade secret and patent.
The law is especially difficult to change because the law is based upon copyright treaties that the country (e.g. the US) has entered into.