You might as well be claiming that making private home ownership illegal would strengthen property rights.

No sane person would agree to such state of affairs but somehow now because our books are digital it's all off a sudden okay with almost everyone?

[1] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.en.html

In the case of DRM, many people have been talking about this problem for a long time. It's not a matter of consumers not listening, it's a matter of alternatives not developing in the market.

DRM in video games is a lesser problem as alternatives did develop. Steam, the #1 platform, doesn't enforce DRM. GOG and Humble Bundle have been running their platforms on mostly DRM-free games.

Who do you fault for alternatives not developing/not catching on in the ebooks/video world? Consumers for making the wrong choices? Companies for not trying hard enough? Governments for not regulating consumer rights?

So ... you should only take advice from people who put in extra effort to specifically reach you?

> constantly takes absolutist stances

The concept of an absolutist stance as an accusation is nonsense, as it's orthogonal to whether it's right. If you are not willing to compromise on slavery, you are taking an absolutist stance. So should people have fought for only partial slavery in order to not harm what they defended?

> Governments for not regulating consumer rights?

How about governments not destroying consumer rights by making it illegal to understand how your own computer works?

What I completely don't understand is how people seem to derive from that that he owes them a certain style of communication before they agree with the content of his arguments, even though they seem to somehow understand the problem, and that the problem affects them just as much as him.

No matter how much of a nutjob or asshole or whatever else someone appears to be (or possibly is), that's not a reasonable reason for rejecting their argument once you have understood it, against all odds, especially so when they are arguing for something that is in your interest.

I think the problem is the content itself, not its delivery. RMS seems unable to separate the good arguments from the stupid ones. For example, don't have kids because of overpopulation (good argument), and also don't have kids because parents have to do whatever someone with money tells them to do instead of what's right (breathtakingly stupid argument).

The life RMS has chosen to live is inspiring on some level, but has also warped his perspective, and therefore his arguments often miss the mark.

Meanwhile, absolutism, while not a proof, is a pretty powerful heuristic in the messy real world of economic policy. And yes, this is also a human rights issue, but mostly in the same way that a food or housing shortage is a human rights issue: the roots are economic.

Slavery in particular is a red herring. In almost any other question, compromise is the way to go, so bringing up the extreme case of slavery adds more heat than light.

If this debate were taking place just prior to the civil war, there would be significant debate over whether slaves had human rights, and many making the economic case for slavery.

RMS is trying to tell you the same thing right now: that DRM is a tool that takes away some basic human rights, and instead of taking a moment to think about it, you simply dismiss it out of hand merely because you can see an economic case for it.

So take a few moments to consider the worst possible outcomes of adopting DRM, and whether history will regard the economic case for DRM as harshly as it regards the economic case for slavery.

Also, you yourself haven't made an argument that DRM is anywhere near as bad a problem as slavery was. It's nowhere close, and to imply otherwise is to cheapen the suffering of slaves in America. Is that enough of an argument that it's a red herring?

This judgment was made with perfect hindsight in one case, and no hindsight in the other, so the conclusion is immediately suspect.

Like I said, consider the worst possible nightmare for DRM, and then judge whether the comparison is actually fair.

Finally, whether RMS is the best source on it is itself a red herring. If he makes a reasonable case for a nightmare outcome, his perspective is absolutely worth considering when weighing the pros and cons of DRM, regardless of how absolutist you think he is.

And those are the people who have plenty of resources to tailor their message to you because they are funded by some marketing department and therefore are easiest to digest?

> Meanwhile, absolutism, while not a proof, is a pretty powerful heuristic in the messy real world of economic policy.

A heuristic for what exactly? That you shouldn't consider an argument at all?

> And yes, this is also a human rights issue, but mostly in the same way that a food or housing shortage is a human rights issue: the roots are economic.

I am not sure I understand this point, and maybe you can explain, but I think DRM is much closer to privacy and control over your own life as far as its human rights aspects go than to lack of resources.

> Slavery in particular is a red herring. In almost any other question, compromise is the way to go, so bringing up the extreme case of slavery adds more heat than light.

I disagree. Because the concept of "almost any other question" doesn't really make sense. How do you partition the world into distinct questions that you then somehow count to determine what percentage needs a compromise as the answer?

The questions that you actually ask yourself are not useful for this, because you don't ever ask the questions where the status quo is something that you find acceptable and where everyone else agrees with you. But for anything that you think is perfectly fine in this world, you could easily construct a hypothetical world in which our current status quo would be deemed absolutist. So, arguably, everything that you are ok with as it is is actually an absolutist position and not a compromise. Whether something is considered absolutist has absolutely nothing to do with the merits of the demand itself, but only with how far out it is from the current mainstream consensus. As soon as the consensus shifts, there is nothing absolutist about it anymore.

Also, you can trivially transform any absolutist demand into a compromise by simply replacing it with a completely crazy demand. I, for example, advocate for killing everyone who has ever said a positive word about DRM. But I would be willing to compromise to only outlaw DRM for the future, so I am not an absolutist, right?

Also, how is it even relevant that it is in almost every other question when you are trying to determine whether it is in the case of this specific question?

No.

> A heuristic for what exactly? That you shouldn't consider an argument at all?

No.

> How do you partition the world into distinct questions that you then somehow count to determine what percentage needs a compromise as the answer?

Sample the ones that come up in practice. We're all friends here, or should be, so it doesn't need to be perfectly formal.

> you don't ever ask the questions where the status quo is something that you find acceptable and where everyone else agrees with you

You sure know a lot about me. Oh wait, no you don't. I do my best to question things, which is all you can ask.

> Also, you can trivially transform any absolutist demand into a compromise by simply replacing it with a completely crazy demand.

Yes, lots of terrible things happen when you argue in bad faith. This isn't even the worst one.

> Also, how is it even relevant that it is in almost every other question when you are trying to determine whether it is in the case of this specific question?

Not much, which is another good reason not to bring up slavery. It's not relevant, which is basically all I was trying to say about it.

But?

> You sure know a lot about me. Oh wait, no you don't. I do my best to question things, which is all you can ask.

Which is besides the point. Whether it's all I can ask or not, it doesn't give you a useful answer. And yes, I am pretty sure I know about you that you are a human being, and therefore, general human psychology most likely applies, nothing more, nothing less.

Have you ever asked yourself whether it is a good compromise that your left thumb has not been removed when you were a child because of your hair color?

You haven't, right?

You haven't because it's just a completely crazy idea that there would never be any reason for you to consider it. One of presumably at the very least millions of equally crazy ideas that you could make up that you have never thought of, because, why would you? That is, except for the completely crazy idea that one should remove part of the genitals of children because of their gender. You probably have thought about that one, right?

And that is my point: The things that you have thought about are in no way a meaningfully representative sample of the set of all facts about how society operates, simply as a result of basic human psychology.

> Yes, lots of terrible things happen when you argue in bad faith. This isn't even the worst one.

Yeah, it's even worse when people reject arguments as "absolutist", you can't really get much more bad faith than that.

> Not much, which is another good reason not to bring up slavery. It's not relevant, which is basically all I was trying to say about it.

Well, except it is. That is, not slavery itself is relevant, but what is relevant is the way how people thought and argued about slavery before it became the consensus that slavery is bad. And if you agree that they were wrong about slavery being a good thing, then maybe it would be a good idea to understand how their thinking went wrong at the time. To understand how they convinced themselves that slavery was the right thing to do. Because if the method of reasoning that they used lead them to the conclusion that slavery was a good idea, then that probably means that their method of reasoning was unreliable, right?

So, if we can understand how they arrived at their conclusion, we can maybe use that understanding to see whether there are any conclusions that we arrive at today using the same kind of reasoning, and to then examine whether those conclusions maybe are also unreliable, and possibly wrong.

Whether slavery was in any way comparable to whatever conclusion we are examining now is completely irrelevant to this. The point is not to determine whether something is as bad as slavery. The point is to determine whether the method we use to conclude that something is right is the same that people used to conlude that slavery was right. And the reason why slavery is used as the reference for this is not because it was terrible, the reason is that it's something that is familiar. People nowadays generally have some understanding of how people back then justified slavery. Noone knows how the unfair distribution of bread in the year 1537 in some spanish village was justified, so it's a useless reference point, even if it might be a closer analogue to whatever we are discussing now.

Do you know the time limits for how long your games can run in Steam's offline mode?

This DRM scheme is probably not very solid, though, as I recall replacement versions of steam_api.dll bundled with some bootleg titles.

I used to feel the same way quite a long time ago before I sat back and asked myself "what is the root cause of my distaste for his method of communicating his ideals?" I found that it was because I hadn't fully grasped his views on an emotional level. This argument that "even though RMS was right, the way he said it was reason not to listen to him" falls back to an appeal to emotion -- the fact he has very strong convictions is not relevant to the discussion of whether his arguments are valid.

But to explain why he is so absolutist, look at things from his point of view. From his view, all proprietary software is an injustice with no exceptions. Any attempt to take away user freedom is similarly an injustice. Now, if you fully accepted that view, how would you act as RMS? Would you make concessions on your sense of morality and ethics? Personally, I wouldn't and I don't.

> In the case of DRM, many people have been talking about this problem for a long time.

And RMS has been talking about the more general problem of user freedom since the very beginning. Not sure what your point here is. RMS is the single reason why we have the free software movement, and that movement came from a philosophical view that is fundamentally inseparable from the other pro-user-freedom sub-movements.

> Steam, the #1 platform, doesn't enforce DRM.

That's blatantly false. steam_api.dll implements DRM.

> Who do you fault for alternatives not developing/not catching on in the ebooks/video world? Consumers for making the wrong choices? Companies for not trying hard enough? Governments for not regulating consumer rights?

Governments pandering to publishers for several decades in strengthening the power of copyright through WIPO and similar treaties. Those publishers then had an enormous amount of power over artists. Combine this with the propaganda campaign by those publishers of "intellectual property"[1] to indoctrinate people into thinking that the ethics of property are at all applicable to things that aren't property.

So, at the end of the day, it's the fault of publishers making the government write laws that then unfairly strengthens the publishers' grip on the industry (where the industry is basically any artistic industry), and then using that control to convince the public that the status-quo is entirely justified and not unethical.

By the way, publishers mistreat artists all the time. So literally the only people that benefit from this system is publishers, not the people who actually make the things that you enjoy.

[1]: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.en.html

It's optional for the developer in most cases (apparently writing code without it can be harder if you want to interface with Steam's APIs[1]), but not for the user.

Not to mention that the majority of developers do use Steam's DRM, so it's a bit of a moot point. Even if they don't force developers to use it, they are hardly an "alternative".

> there is no drm free content on iTunes.

That is absolutely false -- all music on iTunes is DRM-free. That may have been true before 2009, but it is not true today. In 2007 Steve Jobs wrote an open letter about Apple's use of DRM and announced they would stop doing it, and in 2009 they had signed all of the necessary agreements with publishers to make all iTunes music DRM-free[2]. It is believed this was in reaction to an anti-trust lawsuit that started in 2005 (that eventually ruled in Apple's favour in 2014 partly because of their decision to no longer use DRM).

Since 2009, iTunes allows you to download any music you've ever purchased as a DRM-free mp3 (which is now patent-encumbered as well). Apple Music is an unfortunate reversal to that previous position (it uses DRM), and interestingly came out the year after the lawsuit was finished.

[1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/1v3dej/im_an_indie... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FairPlay

http://reddit.com/r/stallmanwasright

By making the DRM-protected purchase the easiest, most frictionless method of initial acquisition, consumers are encouraged (often without realizing the risks) to buy DRM protected content, simply by being presented with an opportunity to do so.

I think the only thing we can really do to solve this problem is what we've been doing: educate our fellows, shout it from the rooftops, and work to make consumers aware of the rights they're giving up when they purchase content protected by DRM.

A neighborhood library lending books out to people, under this DRM-mentality scheme, would be illegal, because everyone should have to buy their own copy of the books, not borrow from others.

How did the libraries get by this? Do they agree with the publisher to pay a premium price for the book, seeing as they'll lend it out? Or were the publishers OK with this model because it meant more exposure of their content to users, who may in turn want to own their own copy?

I think the answer is, libraries predate publishing industry. They existed much longer than print. Governments worldwide managed to secure the role of libraries while publishers were still figuring out their business model. OTOH, audio and video recording, and all the digital media, popped up when publishers already knew how to make money with creative works - hence they managed to secure their moat quicker than society could respond.

It is still not wholly your own property. It depends on the mires of the draconian copyright system, but there are things I can buy and then duplicate - if I buy a generic pill of a drug, I am fully within my right to use that pill to produce more pills like it, and nobody can sue me for infringing their IP.

Probably the scariest thing is that probably none of us can even reasonably conceive of how the world would be without this spectre hanging over everything. It influences our brain development extraordinarily fundamentally to contextualize that nothing we interact with is truly our own to learn from, because someone else almost always owns the idea behind it.

Is that true or can you just not sell the copies?

"You cannot take passages from that book and reuse them as your own, unless given permission by the author."

Again, pretty sure that's only when selling things.

I think the comparison is entirely fitting if you remember that in this model you (the consumer) don't own the property and therefore DRM is not about protecting your rights either.

Viewed from the perspective of a non-owner, the effects of DRM look quite similar to the effects of physical property protection.

People are working on fields, in factories and in offices they don't own, with equivalent they don't own and produce things they don't own. They live in space they don't own and increasingly use transportation they don't own. I don't find it hard to imagine at all they'll also consume entertainment and knowledge they don't own.

Continuing the private home ownership example, the landlords would certainly see it as a bold defense of (their) property.

The difference, of course, is that it is very hard/impossible to break the restrictions set by DRM, whereas the restrictions set by leases are hard to enforce.

The problem that I see is that the language around DRM needs to change - you aren't buying that Kindle book, you are renting it from Amazon under a digitally-enforced lease.

So DRM is protecting property - it's just not protecting consumers' property, since they effectively don't actually own the media in the first place.

But the reality is that there is no such thing as "owning" a copyrightable work of expression like Bob Dylan's lyrics. Instead, some people have temporary legal control over who may copy those lyrics and for what purpose. There is no moral or legal sense in which someone else "owns" those words on the page in front of me and I am not in any way "leasing" or "borrowing" the words. However, they may still try to restrict what I can do with those words.

So DRM is about technologically limiting others' rights, usually in some way above and beyond legal limitations. For example, if you buy a DVD, you legally have the right to make copies for personal use, or e.g. use 30 seconds of footage in your own work of art. But DRM may prevent you from exercising those rights.

However, I completely agree that it is misleading of companies to use the word "buy" when what you're acquiring remains under their control, not yours.

I think we are on the same page about the questionable moral standing of copyright for digital artifacts.

No, it doesn't. Copyright has concepts such as fair use. DRM does not enforce fair use.

Not even remotely.

At best, copyright law sets conceptually equivalent restrictions on licensed works as leases set on rented property.

DRM sets conceptually equivalent restrictions on infested media as a gun-wielding robot that's installed in rented property with cameras in every corner that feed into the robot and with all of that remote-controlled by the landlord would set restrictions on your use of the rented property. Oh, and also, it's a criminal offense to try to do anything that would hinder the robot in doing its job.

> So DRM is protecting property

Just as a ban on private home ownership would be protecting property, yes. But not of the people that the propaganda is directed at.

I've gotta say that 10 years on HN has taught me not to trust the general opinions of hackers on legal matters and copyright especially, because few of them are interested in familiarizing themselves with the history and economic developments of the subject, which makes discussion about it almost impossible.

In other words, you might be surprised at what would be enforceable legally if all cases could be fully worked out; it would likely be better than you expected in some regards and worse in others. DRM enforcement isn't isomorphic to legal enforceability, but it's a reasonably good approximation.

I am not arguing in defense of the copyright system we have, which I would like to drastically change. I'm just saying that I think you're underestimating the legal complexities. This isn't your fault; I feel our legal institutions are failing partly because they have become so ridiculously complex and impenetrable to most people.

I actually meant legally, not practically, that's why I wrote "legally". As in, you could not convince a judge to decide in your favour.

> DRM enforcement isn't isomorphic to legal enforceability, but it's a reasonably good approximation.

Nope, it's absolutely not.

How would you legally prevent someone from diagnosing and fixing their own tractor if there were no DRM to do it for you?

In business, property rights seem to be seen primarily, if not only, as a money-making asset - if you own something then you can license it and thus make money from it.

It works well for media companies, which is why I feel their primary business is moving property rights and licenses around, with any end-user benefit being a side effect.

A good place to start the analysis would be an assumption that all software is freely copyable, so suddenly nobody wants to pay for any of it other than for bespoke purposes. Consider how projects like NumPy and so on are only now getting funding after becoming so widely used that people are dependent on them and it takes a threat to retire from further work on it to make people put their hands in their pockets.

If you're against copyright, then you need to be for something like a basic income and universal service availability, to create the conditions in which creativity has an opportunity to flourish free of market pressures. Otherwise you're just saying you want media to be free as in beer. The biggest barrier to creativity is not the inability to iterate on existing work. People already do that, it's fun and some of the results are great, but innovation is more complex than that.

What made you think that I objected to copyright?

I'd point out that generally copyright protects only executions of an idea, not the idea itself. This is pretty much on what for example the existence of GNU and Linux hinge on; they implement the idea of UNIX despite AT&T claiming copyright on UNIX.

Patents, on the other hand, do extend to ideas, and are completely different story.

Why is this? Because software is different from literature and visual arts. In a copyright-free world, once you copy a work of literature you have the whole work at your disposal to copy, modify and redistribute however you see fit. For music it's a bit different because you may need to reverse-engineer the music sheet, for example, but there's a lot you can do with just the recording of a piece of music.

With software, the only thing you could do is copying it, or try and modify the binary, because you still don't have the source code. Sure, you can reverse-engineer it (which is already legal in some situations in certain jurisdictions), but the software wouldn't be free in today's understanding of what many consider free software (i.e., software that respects the four freedoms outlined by the fsf). This means, you get your copy of, e.g., AutoCAD, but it would still be hard for you to modify it, because, despite the absence of copyright, you'd still have no way of getting source code to work on (unless someone leaks it).

So I'd say that, at least, absence of copyright wouldn't help with software. It will just create a situation where those who want to incorporate your source code into their products without publishing their source code will be able to do just that, and you'd have no recourse.

I'm not sure what "share publicly" has to do with anything. GPL doesn't apply until you do share the software, and even then doesn't require you to do anything publicly.

Right. And you can already refuse to accept a job if all the code you produce isn't open sourced. Good luck with that on most companies, though.

That being said, right to repair goes hand in hand with the abolition of IP to resolve these edge cases. The problem of not providing the manual to your distributed invention goes far beyond just intellectual property, and is largely an independent issue, but good right to repair legislation is all encompassing, and is a consumer protection that naturally fits with IP-less software as well.

I don't know about that. Most significant software packages require ongoing maintenance (bug fixes, security patches, compatibility with other software) and add new features over time. A one-time leak certainly would be damaging but not necessarily fatal since most businesses want to have assured support and upgrades.

After the leak, anyone can.

Prices would adapt to the reality, and the original vendor would have a hard time demanding the rates they are used to when suddenly faced with competition. Especially competition that kept changes open, which instills more confidence in consumers of the software.

And not to get sued into the ground.