this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2024
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This topic always reminds me of one of my co-op jobs where I was working with a piece of software to develop an importer for its file format. Getting the software running properly with its licensing system took a couple of weeks. We had the license all along, but it used a license server that needed to be set up on my machine, plus a dongle that it used.
Once it was up and running, I did like the software and one day decided to also use it to produce files for a personal project I was doing for fun at home. Downloaded a pirated version and had it running by that evening no issue.
The DRM just made for a crappy experience for the paying customer and wasn't even noticed by those it was meant to prevent using their software.
Though I now wonder if that was deliberate because they'd still catch that in corporate audits (I think? Not really sure how those work tbh), so allowing individual users to easily bypass the DRM could help them build market share that they get paid for by businesses buying licenses when users say it's their preferred platform.
The DRM is there so the managers at the software developer can say to their bosses they did everything possible to prevent someone stealing the software. And the same arguments goes on case of legal issues. Although some use it as a way to force substitutions these days.
It’s a lot like locks on a house.
Picking a lock is not prohibitively difficult. It’s just there to provide a form of friction to make clear that you should not expect to burgle homes.
However, a world that puts every single item of any value behind bulletproof glass and deadbolts because of pervasive thieves is oppressive. And yet, that’s what we aim for when everyone decides to take whatever they feasibly can. A good world would mostly rely on honor policy.
This is kind of a shit metaphor because if we extend it to how piracy actually works it highlights how stupid DRM is in the first place. A lock on your house has to be picked by each individual robber, unless they all show up on the same day. A cracked game would be like if only one person has to pick the lock on your house, but they don't actually take anything they just make a perfect copy of your house without the draconian 12 step lock you installed and gives copies to whoever wants one. If you never noticed all the people sharing magical copies of your house with each other you would never know you lost anything, because you didn't. Only your blind greed was injured by the thought that those people might have been willing to pay to use your house if only it had been locked down against those damn house copiers. On your next house you make the locks even more invasive and complex, to the point they block half the driveway or make the oven and bathroom unusable. Then that same one person spends an extra half day to pick it and makes a copy but without the crazy lock so they actually get a better house than you're selling. Whether people like it or not, digital media has always been on the honor system, and always will be. DRM just punishes people for doing the honorable thing and paying.
True, most metaphors around DRM related to physical items collapse reasonably quickly. The thing about home locks was only worthwhile for the topic of how dysfunctional society gets with locks on everything and no trust.
Most DRM metaphors start with “A person has X object, and is greedy for money” - nothing written as to how they obtained that object.
The more intricate comparison is that someone has produced a good that is easily copied, but required deep financial investment on their part to first create. It’s disingenuous to forget that part or imply all people selling something digital are rich by those or other means. People put large investments into the idea that their copiable works would be desired by other people. No one’s obligated to buy it, but they’re betting enough people will want it to pay for it and recoup costs. “It’s okay, we didn’t delete your copy from your hard drive” means nothing.
The extension to the thought about “we don’t put locks on everything because we trust most people act honorably” is this: If we naturally expected all players to pirate all games, then there would be much, much fewer artists dedicated to creating media. There are many cases of people writing software for donations, and they often need additional funding. Firefox is unfortunately a prime example of that, being primarily funded by Google.
By the way, Google puts out its free software thanks to ads. Don’t you love those? Makes you prefer a different financial relationship with consumers.