Finally someone from the film industry admits there’s something wrong with DRM. Sony Pictures Television president John McMahon said a couple of days ago:
DRM is one of the main reasons why people turn to file-sharing networks, instead of legal alternatives
Great insight! I wonder how many are pissed off on this guy right now?
Didn’t expect this statement from a Studio, especially not from a company like Sony (which has a tradition of doing things their way and enforcing DRM on eh..everything). It kinda swept away the arguments for DRM. How can you continue argue for a technology and business model that actually hurts your sales?
Now, if you expected him to follow up with a we’re-getting-rid-of-DRM-statement, sorry to disappoint. What they really want is a better DRM which they hope can come from the DECE initiative.
While it’s definately possible to make better DRMs than PlaysForSure, FairPlay and Css, it’s also a BIG waste of money. Development money will be spent on things that smart members of the Doom9 forum will spend days/weeks/months on and break. No. Question. About. It. AACS (the now broken copy protection on HD DVD/Blu-ray) is the perfect example. What was said to last 10 years was first circumvented by one man. Muslix64. And what took years and BIG money to develop took Muslix64 8 days to overcome. And to answer the anticipated argument from Studio people: “No, it’s not hard. Average Joe now does it with a click on a button”.
Sad maybe. But true.
