Back in March, I posted about the media industry and the BORA principle, or break once, run anywhere. Info week has a DRM scorecard where the box score reads Hackers 1000, Industry 0.
This all goes back to the simple fact that all DRM is based on encryption, and that it’s illogical to give someone the decryption key that is required to enable what the media industry views as authorized behavior (media playback) without expecting someone else to utilize that decryption key for other behavior, such as making Fair Use backups or sharing it on a P2P network.
Encryption is defined as the science and study of secret writing. What is it that the media industry is trying to keep secret? While we may want I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry and Who’s Your Caddy to be some sort of secret internal referendum on the crap the entertainment industry regularly produces, we have to assume from their actions (theater release inevitably followed by mass DVD production) that they are proud of their works and wish to share them with the entire world.
They worried about piracy with VHS, and it turns out that may have in fact saved Disney and launched an entire consumer market for home video. They worried about it with DVD’s, which have brought in billions of dollars to the media industry despite the fact that CSS was broken in 1999. Their fear and illogical behavior impedes and irritates their consumers while having absolutely no effect on the spread of piracy (which they could easily defeat should they ever focus on the simple economics and technology of the pirating industry).
I would be happier if the media industry and the TSA were sadistic rather than incompetent. It would be comical to see these two groups meeting for the first time over drinks trying to one up each other:
“We made a list comprised of thousands of names. If you fly and your name is even remotely similar to one on the list, we do extra searches…every time you fly….over and over again. The kicker is we let anyone with Photoshop and a printer board under any name they want.”
“Oh yeah, well we sell malleable $.05 pieces of plastic for $20 and when it gets scratched or stolen, we force them to buy a new one because we don’t allow them to make backups. Even though anyone with technical skillz can download the same thing for free.”
“Oh yeah, well we found a way to make people who can’t even change at the gym without flip flops walk around barefoot in public. We tell them we’re screening for bombs and they just go with it. The terrorist can still strap whatever they need to their leg, just not their shoes.”
“We installed rootkits on people’s PC without their knowledge.”
“We banned water and baby food.”
“We sue the people who love our products the most.”
“We detain babies.”
“We…damn you! Stop playing the baby card, that’s not fair!”