Digital Rights Management (DRM) sounds pretty innocuous and not something that you would think could be the biggest deal breaker between consumers and the entertainment industry. After all, DRM could have meant ways for you to manage all the entertainment media you have paid for.
Instead though, it has been used as a weapon by the entertainment industry and parts of the software industry, like gaming, to brow beat us into using the product the way they want us to. It doesn’t matter that we pay a pretty penny for these products or that we have this belief that when we buy something we own it and can do what we want with it.
No, when it comes down to the bottom line, anything like DRM is only meant to increase the profit of those supplying the product while removing our rights as to what we can do with the product.
One of the biggest players in DRM has always been Microsoft. Whether releasing software or creating means by which other companies could enforce an MS brand of DRM, the Redmond giant has been a proponent of digital rights management.
Then today we hear from Mary Jo Foley that Microsoft is further muddying the DRM waters by announcing the fact that they are joining the Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE). This consortium of businesses that includes Cisco, Warner Brothers, Sony, Best Buy among a host of other companies; with the exception of Apple, proposes a policy of buy once, play anywhere.
Before you get all excited at the prospect of a time when you might actually be able to do what you want with something you have paid for, you might want to ask the same questions that Ms. Foley did:
Will the DECE come up with some kind of new DRM scheme, one that will require brand-new, DECE-enabled devices? And will Windows somehow be part of this new mix? Engadget is reporting there will be some kind of “rights locker,” where digital purchases will be stored. If that is the case, what does that mean for the forthcoming “Skymarket” Windows Mobile 7 app store, the Zune VideoX initiative or even Live Mesh?
The problem is that nobody is answering those questions at this point.
The thing is that no matter what kind of consortium all these companies might want to create to protect their profit margins, none of them will work in the long run. As quickly as each effort at new forms of DRM are thought up, they are just as quickly broken.
The fact is that people quite rightly feel that if they pay out good money for something then it is theirs and they will do what they want with it. This mentality has has also been compounded by the increasing attitude that stuff available on the Internet should be free.
It doesn’t matter whether or not someone has spent months or years on a product - the moment it hits the Internet it is suppose to be free and if it isn’t is will soon be made that way - especially for the more net savvy people. It doesn’t matter if we block the ads that are supposed to pay for the product you have downloaded - it’s free and it’s your right to have it without any cost.
We are building this attitude of entitlement into the very fabric of the Web and there isn’t a company around that is going to be able to combat that with any type of DRM.
Just as there are people who say that the advertising supported business model is headed down a slippery hill, the same can be said of companies who are relying on any kind of DRM technology. It’s just a matter of time.
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