Okay so this topic has polluted several posts in the past so I wanted some clarification. In what capacity is the community against DRM.
Before you say all drm, you are wrong, the community is pro-locking unauthorised users against changing our heater temperatures. This in itself is digitally managing rights to use the printer.
Passive management of non compete open-source licenses is also allowed, another form of rights management (take down requests and buyer be ware protection of knock off printers is common).
Personally types that I am against are: locking files to specific printers, forcing files to be authorized before printing. Files that self destruct on print. Forcing single source for feedstock
Things I am okay with placing stls in encrypted zip files and only giving passwords to trusted users. Selling stls and only allowing people who have payed to download.
Please know I am not in any way pushing drm, there just appears to be alot of people (myself included) who are ignorant about how drm came to become a cardinal sin here.
@Camerin_hahn that’s security, not DRM. DRM is the crippling of files in order to control who can print them, or limit their ability to be printed more than once, making proprietary formats that are only usable with a specific set of software, etc.
DRM already has a meaning, and it doesn’t fit your examples of “good DRM”. DRM is any scheme where the content is encrypted to restrict how it’s used after it’s delivered to the user. Securing files in transit so only the recipient can decrypt them isn’t DRM. License terms that aren’t enforced by technology isn’t DRM. Even distributing things to print in printer-specific file formats, while inconvenient, aren’t DRM. Because anyone with the file and a printer that supports that format can print the content, forever.
What actually is DRM is encrypting a file so that it can only be utilized through the official player/app, so that it can only be printed a limited number of times, then self-destructs. Or can only be printed by the single authorized user. Or only on a particular printer, etc.
So ignoring your confusing attempt to redefine the term DRM to be so broad as to be unrecognizable, you’re saying that you don’t like DRM, but you’re fine with non-DRM mechanisms for content owners to protect their IP. I think plenty of people would agree with you.
On a more productive front, I’d suggest that to support your argument you’d likely get a fairly number of people to even agree that DRM with simple, relatively generous restrictions, is OK. Most non-technical People don’t seem to hate Apple’s App Store or Google Play, iTunes, etc., because the terms are simple and relatively generous, even though it’s clearly DRM.
What people really hate is DRM that imposes arbitrary limits, or which are so complex that people don’t know what they are allowed to do, or which is so complex/unreliable that it interferes with users’ ability to use what they’ve bought. Look at how Windows Media Player and EA’s DRM have been crashing failures, for example.
Amazon mp3 is the best example of acceptable drm imho, the distribution mechanism has drm (you cannot install it on infinite computers, if you in license a computer you cannot relicense it for 30 days) but the files are free to use, it is an mp3.
Steam is one people don’t complain about, you have to log on to access your games or download games, but you don’t have to have internet to play most games (clearly some games would not work without internet)
Both of these are considered drm in some respect. I am not aware with how wmp(xbox music maybe) is drmed, but ea/Ubisoft do hold the title for worst drm offenders.
I works argue that itunes was the worst drm platform, as you could only buy music for apple products through their service, and you cannot transfer songs off of your apple device. It has become less terrible over the years, but is still the worst way to buy songs.
Problem with DRM that people don’t mention is the data they collect from you. If its a free registration to the file holders site they tend to data mine you.
And looking at the answers people don’t see that side of it.
@Camerin_hahn Lol you miss my point. Amazon do “free” music by data mining.
Now you’ve built a open source printer…set it up with custom settings and they read those settings to help develop a closed source printer.
You can use programs to block lots of apps from receiving data for mining. But others like DRM will not let use their apps without being able to receive the data they want.
DRM isn’t needed in the draconian way its often used.
It should be liecenced to the person not the device …as a device isnt an entity in a legal sense.
@Camerin_hahn Oh people still hate steam, if you buy a game through some other method (e.g. a physical disc) but need to install steam and have steam running on your PC the whole time just for one game its a PITA. Amazon MP3 can piss off too, why I need to install some windows software to download an MP3 is beyond me… Google only allow you to download any given song you own from the web TWICE…
Also amazon ebooks are a load of crap, why can’t I just have them as a non-DRM-PDF/Epub or at least in ANY non-DRMd format so calibre can at least convert them. No I don’t want your overpriced useless kindle. I’ll stick to my cheap and hackable Nook thanks.
PDF’s I’ve got from the Uni library that I can only open on my laptop in Adobe reader, not on my NOOK, and only when I have an internet connection and can’t print pages off… Then stop opening after a week…
This is the kind of shit we need to avoid. ‘Amazon object store’ needs to sell in a format that can be downloaded at ANY time, will work on ANY printer, be printed ANY number of times and sent to anyone.