> Was the delusion that you're protecting anything worth
Dude, that's just not how you make friends and influence people. He knows all the arguments, he said it. Wouldn't it be more interesting to try to find with him a way we can all work together towards a better future, without attempting to shame the counterpart into a public admission of moral failure which will, of course, never happen?
That's why Linux has been successful: beyond the zealots, there were significant amounts of people (including Torvalds) who did not ask anyone to repent their proprietary sins before joining. "We build A, you build B, let's see if we can make something together which is a bit more like A, because we honestly think A is awesome, but hey, we like your B as well! It's just that we cannot help you if you keep it to yourself..."
The thing is, "we" are currently not building anything that might allay studios' fears. "We" don't even understand those fears, or choose to disregard them entirely. Of course they'll go out and do their own thing. If there was a safe way to deliver what they want (encrypted tamper-proof streaming) in an open-source package, they would likely consider it. But there isn't, afaik. Are "we" building it? No, we try to slut-shame "them" into giving up. That ain't gonna work, when there are billion of dollars and millions of jobs at risk.
> If there was a safe way to deliver what they want (encrypted tamper-proof streaming) in an open-source package, they would likely consider it. But there isn't, afaik.
The problem is fundamentally that "encrypted tamper-proof streaming" is not possible regardless of whether the implementation is open source. It would be trivial to write free software that respects copying restrictions. And then people would be able to bypass it using the same methods used when the copying restrictions are enforced by proprietary software, i.e. by writing different software that doesn't respect the copy restrictions.
> That ain't gonna work, when there are billion of dollars and millions of jobs at risk.
There is no risk to money or jobs. There is literally more Netflix content on torrent sites than there is on Netflix. Netflix nonetheless makes substantial profits.
Eliminating DRM would reduce piracy by improving the experience of legitimate purchasers without having any effect on the experience of people who download from torrent sites.
> Are "we" building it? No, we try to slut-shame "them" into giving up.
When you encounter someone who is demanding that everyone look for water using a divining rod, you don't build them a divining rod. You teach them that it isn't possible to find water that way.
> The problem is fundamentally that "encrypted tamper-proof streaming" is not possible
In an absolute sense maybe not, but you can have decent approximations. As OP points out, music ended up being ok with watermarking. Hollywood might be ok with something like hardware tokens (which imho would be superior to "just download and execute this blob and shut up").
> There is no risk to money or jobs.
If that was the case, we wouldn't be hearing musicians crying foul about Spotify every other day.
> Eliminating DRM would reduce piracy by improving the experience of legitimate purchasers
At current prices, that's unlikely. The experience is not terrible with current players either; what drives privacy at this point is mostly price. Hollywood doesn't want to give up margins that are unrealistic in the digital age, which is why they fixate on DRM.
> When you encounter someone [...] You teach them that it isn't possible
There is teaching and there is shaming. Shouting at them that they are morally-corrupt buffoons is not "teaching".
> In an absolute sense maybe not, but you can have decent approximations.
No you can't. It's all inherently snake oil. The nature of the universe is such that if you can see something then you can copy it. Either you get people to respect copyright by believing in the social contract or you lose. There is no technological solution.
> As OP points out, music ended up being ok with watermarking.
Watermarking isn't DRM. (Though it shares a lot of the same failings in the sense that it reduces quality for legitimate purchasers and can be removed by pirates.)
> Hollywood might be ok with something like hardware tokens (which imho would be superior to "just download and execute this blob and shut up").
That kind of hardware is just software embedded in silicon. Any "hardware token" can be fully emulated in software as soon as you extract the keys out of it, which somebody is going to figure out how to do and then tell all their pirate friends how to do. By the time the hardware is in enough hands that you can require it to be used, it's already broken. And you can't patch silicon over the internet, so the pirates win for a decade. Then you come out with some new hardware that pirates have several years to break before it's in enough hands that you can require it again.
> If that was the case, we wouldn't be hearing musicians crying foul about Spotify every other day.
Spotify has DRM. Losing money to competition is not the same thing as losing money to piracy.
> At current prices, that's unlikely. The experience is not terrible with current players either; what drives privacy at this point is mostly price.
It's mostly not. A Netflix subscription is extremely affordable. The problem with it is that their app kind of sucks, and even that is rainbows and sunshine compared to the unmitigated horror of cable TV set top boxes. Movie companies should stick to making movies and leave the software to Canonical and Apple and Google.
> Hollywood doesn't want to give up margins that are unrealistic in the digital age, which is why they fixate on DRM.
Except that those two things have nothing to do with each other.
> There is teaching and there is shaming. Shouting at them that they are morally-corrupt buffoons is not "teaching".
That's because there are three different sets of people: The actual artists, the morally-corrupt buffoons, and legislators. Teaching is what the artists need. The others need something else.
Dude, that's just not how you make friends and influence people. He knows all the arguments, he said it. Wouldn't it be more interesting to try to find with him a way we can all work together towards a better future, without attempting to shame the counterpart into a public admission of moral failure which will, of course, never happen?
That's why Linux has been successful: beyond the zealots, there were significant amounts of people (including Torvalds) who did not ask anyone to repent their proprietary sins before joining. "We build A, you build B, let's see if we can make something together which is a bit more like A, because we honestly think A is awesome, but hey, we like your B as well! It's just that we cannot help you if you keep it to yourself..."
The thing is, "we" are currently not building anything that might allay studios' fears. "We" don't even understand those fears, or choose to disregard them entirely. Of course they'll go out and do their own thing. If there was a safe way to deliver what they want (encrypted tamper-proof streaming) in an open-source package, they would likely consider it. But there isn't, afaik. Are "we" building it? No, we try to slut-shame "them" into giving up. That ain't gonna work, when there are billion of dollars and millions of jobs at risk.