All Hail DRM!

Written By
Jim Rapoza
Jim Rapoza
Published: Jan 17, 2007
Updated: Feb 2, 2021
1 minute read
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Boy, you really have to hand it to Digital Rights Management. Has any security measure ever been this effective? No wonder the pirates are all running away with their tails between their legs. Oh wait, that’s not what’s happening at all. It actually seems as if each new DRM and anti-piracy measure gets cracked by real pirates in practically no time. From the original “protection” for DVDs to Vista’s authentication server features, real pirates find DRM about as hard to get around as a one-foot high garden fence. The latest high-level protection to fall is the so called unbeatable DRM features in the HD-DVD format. Pirates recently posted a version of the HD-DVD movie Serenity, with all DRM protections removed, onto Bittorrent. So now the pirates will have no problem distributing the latest high-quality format. This is just further proof to what I’ve always said. Anti-piracy protections such as DRM or software activations really have nothing whatsoever to do with piracy. The companies that use these things know that real pirates will break it easily. DRM and its nasty cousins are all about one thing: controlling the ability of consumers like you to use content that you think you own in whatever fair use way that you might want to.

Jim Rapoza

Jim Rapoza, Chief Technology Analyst, eWEEK.For nearly fifteen years, Jim Rapoza has evaluated products and technologies in almost every technology category for eWEEK. Mr Rapoza's current technology focus is on all categories of emerging information technology though he continues to focus on core technology areas that include: content management systems, portal applications, Web publishing tools and security. Mr. Rapoza has coordinated several evaluations at enterprise organizations, including USA Today and The Prudential, to measure the capability of products and services under real-world conditions and against real-world criteria. Jim Rapoza's award-winning weekly column, Tech Directions, delves into all areas of technologies and the challenges of managing and deploying technology today.

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