Lately it has become less obtrusive - buying games on Steam, music on iTunes and e-books on Amazon, does feel all right, even if you end up completely locked in with vendor, it will run only on their platforms, devices and software. And require internet connection at all times. I guess vendors have just became, how to put it best, less dumb on how they implement their DRM. That does not mean it is nice, though.
Do not get bored - this is not just another blog rant about evils of DRM. No, quite the opposite in fact.
Problem is not in DRM itself, problem is in whose Digital Rights does it 'Manages'. Purpose of DRM in its current form is to protect content creators/owners/distributors from people illegally copying protected digital goods and in the same time provides them with nice proprietary lock-in and all the opportunities it brings. It does not however protects rights of me as a customer. My rights to actually own the digital goods.
Owning something is nice - I do want to pay for stuff that other have spent their time and energy to create, I do not want to 'steal' it, if I can avoid it. I do not want to give copies of it away to other people, if I have paid for it. But, I also do not want to pay full price of product once more just because it has been released in new type of disc, cassette, tape or vinil. Or because of moving to new device vendor, with my music library being locked away with old phone with no way of moving it. I do not want vendor to remotely delete or alter content I have bought. I do not want to have to buy again a game just because it has '3 activations' policy and after upgrading my PC three times, It wont work any more.
In short - I want my rights of ownership to be managed. Digitally.
DRM should be there, it should work globally. And it should be set in law that what I have bought, is mine and stays mine. And no-one has a right to ask me to pay for it again. If it can be considered a theft, when someone copies it, then it should be likened to physical good in other senses as well.
How would that work? There should be global, distributed DNS style system - maybe with not so many nodes, but still - that would aggregate what does everyone own electronically. And yes, it is obvious that there are huge privacy issues stomping around the room with lifted snout and scary tusks. Yes, but as I wrote in my previous post - better methods of identification in intertubes can not be avoided and has to be embraced as our loving and caring overlords of the future.
So, if there is a system that clearly identifies what I own, then no-one will ever be allowed to ask me to pay for the same thing away. Done with the Nook and want to move to Kindle? No problem - get the device and your book collection should be already there. And web book store managers can actually create innovations, increase productivity, widen their offerings - do some actual competition with service against service, instead of just trying to reach large enough locked in customer base.
Imagine the competition if each and every vendor will compete only in quality of service, selection, ease of use?
And of course, such system would have to be global. And as we see with example of Internet, such global distributed systems are possible to make and they can be very hard to break after they have grown fully. Imagine if someone would want to lure you over from Internet to AooleSoftNetwork or something like that, owned by single corporate entity? The same feeling you would feel when someone would want to take away your real DRM and replace it with cloud stored, remote wipeable, content-you-do-not-really-own-but-are-licenced-to-use nonsence.
With such a system, governments will not be that easy to lobby into creating laws like additional semi-private tax for empty storage media, additional tax if you listen to music you own 'publicly', or even make it illegal if you simply listen to your own music, in private, but with a method 'they' do not like.
Of course, comparing to system like Internet, there are mountains of legal problems to overcome - rights to distribute content is country based, different countries have odd laws on what is allowed to be sold and what is not (e.g violence = ok, sex = bad type of laws).
And no, various types of open/free content licenses are not the ultimate answer. Creative Commons work would fit ok within Real DRM schema though, it will not be that useful to ascertain your rights to something that is free though. And maybe governments will be more keen on them as well.
Problem with those licenses are that they are for work that creator wants to to be free. But what if I, as a creator, want to charge every single user of my work? Even if it is pay as much as you want scenario, I still want (and need) to earn money, and for that, creative commons does not feel well suited. If I want to enjoy protection (albeit limited) of protection laws, it will not be possible with such license.
And given that more and more of global economy is becoming services as opposed to goods goods, and digital services/digital goods (hard to draw a line there I guess) are also getting larger and larger share of the economy, It feels certain, that all of that will never be for free, hence the need for proper ownership control.
And yes, if there is re-re-release of Starwars: Episode IV, I do not want to pay full ticket price. Just the price for added value since last time I have seen it.
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