DRM is Dead
(I may have to rename this the “Death Blog”, so often am I predicting the demise of one thing or another. But then the media space, in particular, is riven by radical change right now, so perhaps obituaries are on the ordre du jour.)
I hereby officially predict the eventual disappearance of annoyingly restrictive client-side DRM for media content. Some evidence:
- David Berlind’s widely cited “Declaration of InDRMdependence” on ZDNet.
- Lest that be too far outside the mainstream, Wall Street Journal gadget god Walt Mossberg encourages consumers to boycott DRM-infected media files.
- And today, Wired publishes a laundry list of influential folks condemning Apple’s supposedly kinder, gentler FairPlay technology.
Hmmm, what did I forget?
Oh yeah, Sony. Didn’t I read somewhere that they too are experiencing a DRM-related backlash? This, more than anything, reminds of the bad old days of destructive software copy protection, a parallel that I fleshed out in great detail in my open source/open media essay. Believe it or not, companies used to “protect” their software by hacking floppy disk drivers and the like on a very low level. Horror stories of broken hardware and lost data abounded, and eventually vendors abandoned these practices.
And this despite the fact that it’s a lot easier to lock down software, since it never has to pass through an analog phase. It make take a while, but I believe the media companies will eventually give up.
Update: Just noticed that David Berlind put up another anti-DRM diatribe yesterday.
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