Schneier on DRM

Digital rights management (DRM) is a hot topic. I admit that I can't comprehend why it's truly necessary. Granted, people pirate music and videos, and that costs content owners money in one perspective. And in another perspective it also generates a lot of revenue and free publicity for content owners too. This was proven to be true with the advent of the VCR.

Based on what I've read, when VCRs came to be, movie studios blew a fuse and were adamantly against their existance. They were convinced that people would pirate movies to such an extent that it would ruin movie ticket sales. But that turned out not to be true. What happened instead was that VHS movie sales actually increased because there are plenty of people who see a movie that want a legitimate copy. Said otherwise, those people have a conscience and it tells them the right course of action: Buy it from the legitimate owner. I think the same principle holds true for music CDs, movie DVDs, and other types of content.

In a similar vein, well-known security professional Bruce Scheier recently wrote an article for Forbes where he gives his particular perspective on DRM as it pertains to Windows Vista.

Read the two articles linked here and let us know what your opinion is about DRM - post your comments here in response to this blog entry.