Digital rights management
[2] DRM technologies govern the use, modification and distribution of copyrighted works (e.g. software, multimedia content) and of systems that enforce these policies within devices.
There is an absence of evidence about the DRM capability in preventing copyright infringement, some complaints by legitimate customers for caused inconveniences, and a suspicion of stifling innovation and competition.
It peaked in the early 2000s as various countries attempted to respond with legislation and regulations and dissipated in the 2010s as social media and streaming services largely replaced piracy and content providers elaborated next-generation business models.
The DMCA has been cited as chilling to legitimate users;[27] such as security consultants including Niels Ferguson, who declined to publish vulnerabilities he discovered in Intel's secure-computing scheme due to fear of arrest under DMCA; and blind or visually impaired users of screen readers or other assistive technologies.
Class action lawsuits were filed, which were ultimately settled by agreements to provide affected consumers with a cash payout or album downloads free of DRM.
According to Ren Bucholz of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), "You won't even know ahead of time whether and how you will be able to record and make use of particular programs or devices".
Nobody has yet stepped forward to provide a Compliance and Robustness regime for the standard, so it is not presently possible to fully implement a system, as no supplier of device certificates has emerged.
In an open letter, Musicload stated that three out of every four calls to their customer support phone service are as a result of consumer frustration with DRM.
[46] A notable DRM failure happened in November 2007, when videos purchased from Major League Baseball prior to 2006 became unplayable due to a change to the servers that validate the licenses.
It was a European Commission Integrated Project of the FP6, has as its main goal automating content production, copy protection, and distribution, to reduce the related costs, and to support DRM at both B2B and B2C areas, harmonizing them.
In mid-2008, the Windows version of Mass Effect marked the start of a wave of titles primarily making use of SecuROM for DRM and requiring authentication with a server.
[56] Although Ubisoft has not commented on the results of the "experiment", Tweakguides noted that two torrents on Mininova had over 23,000 people downloading the game within 24 hours of its release.
[65] Silent Hunter 5 was first reported to have been compromised within 24 hours of release,[66] but users of the cracked version soon found out that only early parts of the game were playable.
The only attempt to deter unlicensed copies was a letter emphasizing the lack of corporate involvement and direct relationship between artist and viewer.
The artist suggested that piracy rates were lower than normal as a result, making the release an important case study for the digital marketplace.
The "payment optional" DRM-free model in this case was adopted on Stevens' view that "there is a class of webcomics reader who would prefer to read in large chunks and, even better, would be willing to spend a little money on it.
[86][87][88] Websites – such as library.nu (shut down by court order on 15 February 2012), BookFi, BookFinder, Library Genesis, and Sci-Hub – allowed e-book downloading by violating copyright.
[103][104][105] Four main e-book DRM schemes are in common use, from Adobe, Amazon, Apple, and the Marlin Trust Management Organization (MTMO).
Bohemia Interactive have used a form of technology since Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis, wherein if the game copy is suspected of being unauthorized, annoyances like guns losing their accuracy or the players turning into a bird are introduced.
[76] Circumventing DRM on game devices is legal under some circumstances; protections cover only technological measures the interfere with prohibited actions.
[134][135][136] Other prominent critics include Ross Anderson, who heads a British organization that opposes DRM and similar efforts in the UK and elsewhere, and Cory Doctorow.
[138] Bruce Schneier argues that digital copy prevention is futile: "What the entertainment industry is trying to do is to use technology to contradict that natural law.
The United States Federal Trade Commission held hearings in March 2009, to review disclosure of DRM limitations to customers' use of media products.
"[145] The Association for Computing Machinery and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers opposed DRM, naming AACS as a technology "most likely to fail" in an issue of IEEE Spectrum.
[152] This is especially true for products that require a persistent online connection, where, for example, a successful DDoS attack on the server essentially makes the material unusable.
[154][155] However, in March 2018, PC Gamer tested Final Fantasy XV for the performance effects of Denuvo, which was found to cause no negative gameplay impact despite a little increase in loading time.
[156] DRM copy-prevention schemes can never be wholly secure since the logic needed to decrypt the content is present either in software or hardware and implicitly can be hacked.
[158][159] DRM opponents argue that it violates private property rights and restricts a range of normal and legal user activities.
[161] DRM restricts the right to make personal copies, provisions lend copies to friends, provisions for service discontinuance, hardware agnosticism, software and operating system agnosticism,[162] lending library use, customer protections against contract amendments by the publisher, and whether content can pass to the owner's heirs.
[167] DRM laws are widely flouted: according to Australia Official Music Chart Survey, copyright infringements from all causes are practised by millions of people.
