Is DRM defective by design?

Do you know about Digital Restrictions Management (DRM)?

If you’re into anything electronic, you’re bound to have bumped into DRMed content, at one point or another.

The basic intent of DRM is to limit people’s use of digital content, wether it’s for books, music, video or any other type of content, even video games (such as those from EA, notoriously bent on DRM).

When consumers purchase such digital goods, they assume they own whatever they paid for but that’s far from being the case if they’re “protected” by a DRM scheme. In fact, the person who purchased a DRMed song might not even be able to transfer it to another device so if the first one breaks down, it’s almost impossible to “save” the content that’s already been paid for!

The “entertainment giants” are heavily sponsoring the current DRM push. They feel that by adding a layer of “protection” around the content they sell, they can ensure it’s only used for its intended purpose.

Obviously, this is a major drawback from a consumer’s perspective.

Since DRM adds digital shackles to purchased content, it’s safe to say that people are paying to be restricted in their use of what they paid money for, which in many ways is a fundamental nonsense.

Smart consumers aren’t the only ones pointing out the relative idiocy of DRMing content. The Free Software Foundation (FSF) has launched a well presented campaign against DRM and their arguments are rock-solid.

DefectiveByDesign.org is a broad-based anti-DRM campaign that is targeting Big Media, unhelpful manufacturers and DRM distributors.

The campaign aims to make all manufacturers wary about bringing their DRM-enabled products to market. DRM products have features built-in that restrict what jobs they can do.

These products have been intentionally crippled from the users’ perspective, and are therefore “defective by design“.

It would be very naive to think the price of content will go down because of DRM. In fact, the price of paid digital content has remained stable or on the rise. Furthermore, the DRM implementation’s price is factored in every single “protected” piece so consumers actually pay to fund their own “content prison”.

• What’s the use of buying something if you’re not buying the right to use it freely?
• Do consumers really want a future where any type of content they purchase is both artificially and systematically made to be severely limited, in its use?

You need to think about these things before you waste your money on content you can’t use (as you intended).

Wherever you read “protected”, regarding digital content, you can safely assume some type of DRM scheme is being used to make your life more complicated, expensive and frustrating.

As such, DRM really does renders digital products defective, by design.