Matchstick, The More Open Chromecast, Destroyed By DRM, Announces Plans To Return All Funds
from the drm-sucks dept
A year ago, a project called Matchstick launched on Kickstarter — designed to be an open, WiFi connected HDMI stick, built on Firefox OS, to let you stream over the top video to your TV. It was touted as a more open version of the Chromecast device. It got over 17,000 backers (including me) and raised nearly $500,000. It was supposed to be delivered in February of this year but was pushed back after the Matchstick team announced that it had decided to build in DRM support. This angered plenty of people who, quite rightly, noted that they had bought into the vision of an open platform, rather than one that furthered the cause of DRM. However, the Matchstick team had weighed that against the fact that many popular video streaming services, including Netflix, require DRM, and decided that it couldn’t exist without DRM. The plan, the team announced, was to ship in August.
Well, now it’s August, and… the project is dead and Matchstick is refunding everyone’s money. Because DRM.
After struggling with the DRM development based on Firefox OS for most of this year, we realize continued development of DRM, though showing early signs of promise, will be a long and difficult road. We have come to the conclusion that we will not be able to reliably predict the completion date of the DRM development without significantly more research, development and integration.
We feel the only responsible thing to do now is to refund 100% of the pledge money to our backers. You have been very patient with us, and we feel announcing another major delay in the Matchstick delivery would not be fair to our backers. We apologize for not being able to update you sooner.
Not surprisingly, many of the comments in response to this are asking why the team bothered with DRM in the first place. Multiple people are asking the Matchstick team to go back to its original promise and just ship a device without DRM, because that’s what they backed and that’s what they want. The vast, vast, vast majority of comments look pretty similar to the following:
Once again, can someone remind me of a single positive thing that has come from DRM?
Filed Under: drm, firefox os, matchstick, ott, streaming
Companies: matchstick
Comments on “Matchstick, The More Open Chromecast, Destroyed By DRM, Announces Plans To Return All Funds”
Define 'positive'
Once again, can someone remind me of a single positive thing that has come from DRM?
Well that depends, does any of the following strike you as a good thing?
– Infinite duration copyrights, no matter the current duration, allowing you to lock up a work forever.
– Allowing you to completely undermine the First Sale doctrine, barring any ability of a customer to resell what they bought from you.
– Similar to the above, being able to severely restrict what someone is able to do with your product, regardless of whether or not the actions desired would be legal without the DRM in place.
– Provides a single point of failure for your product, such that if the DRM fails to work for whatever reason, the product itself is bricked, and utterly useless.
– Makes piracy a much more attractive choice by only affecting paying customers, making the paid version noticeably worse and providing incentive for even those that want to pay to pirate instead if they want a working product.
And probably the #1 ‘benefit’ of DRM:
– Allows those selling it to rake in the cash like bandit kings, after they convince a company that the best way to build a professional relationship of mutual respect with their customers is to treat them as criminals by infecting their product with intrusive and restrictive malware/DRM.
Re: Define 'positive'
Those are “benefits” of the DMCA and not of DRM itself.
DRM’s only “benefit” is to quote some industry reps “keeping honest consumers honest”. And even that is eventually defeated.
Re: Re: Pirated experience > Honest experience
Well, except that then the experience of being dishonest is better than the experience of being honest, which we’ve seen not only from tedious authentication processes, but also honest versions of movies having large amounts of unskippable commercial content (which is actually an abuse of said honesty, not of DRM itself).
Both of these discourage the honest from staying honest, once there is a vector by which they can get dishonest material.
There’s also the factor of convenience: If I own an optical version of a movie, the business wants me to buy again for any new version of the movie or a replacement of broken media (even though it’s a license). And they don’t want me to rip the media to data form so I can play it on my mobile device.
I’m sorry, but no-one’s going to tell me I can’t put rum in my Coca-cola, or require that I use proprietary overpriced, poor-quality rum.
So yeah, there’s actually a lot of impetus for the honest to resort to pirate sources in order to get their movie on.
Re: Define 'positive'
More like “keeping honest consumers exasperated” and “keeping bootleggers out”, namely out of the temptation to meddle with legitimate copies that are likely to brick their systems, scan its contents and report them. Why pay money just to get the most expensive, invasive, and destructive malware on your systems?
Re: Re: Define 'positive'
You just nailed the incentive, almost always it’s for the challenge to win the included game. To beat the DRM FTW.
Re: Define 'positive'
Those are “benefits” of the DMCA and not of DRM itself.
Both I’d say. DRM without the anti-circumvention clause means you can break it without worry, while the anti-circumvention clause of the DMCA without DRM would be pointless. One requires the other, and vice-versa.
Re: Define 'positive'
While I’m hardly DRM defender, your points are nothing but FUD.
>> – Infinite duration copyrights,
That’s legal issue, not technical
>> – Allowing you to completely undermine the First Sale doctrine
No it does not. Legal issue, too.
>> – Provides a single point of failure for your product
You car have a lock. And your house. Is it “point of failure”?
>> – Makes piracy a much more attractive choice
I guess store counter is also very inconvenient, since shoplifting is match simpler.
In short – you don’t like DRM – don’t buy a product. Playing videogames is not a must. Open source software is a thing. Hollywood movies are not a “must have” too.
Re: Re: Define 'positive'
DRM does not have built-in expiry provisions, and after copyright ceases, DRM circumvention does not become legal. How much are you going to bet that being in possession of a DRM-encumbered medium with expired copyright will give you legal standing to sue the producer for copyright misuse?
Not a “single point of failure” because I can legally ask people to open the door and/or crack the door and/or put in a lock of my own choosing when I lose the key.
Yup. That’s what I do. And the industry attributes their loss of sales to “piracy” which makes as much sense as Chanel accusing me of piracy because I forego perfume.
Re: Re: Define 'positive'
That’s legal issue, not technical
You’re splitting hairs. Whether it’s technical or legal, it’s still something that DRM enables. In the absence of DRM, does a company/seller have the ability described? No? Then you can attribute it to the DRM
No it does not. Legal issue, too.
See above response.
You car have a lock. And your house. Is it “point of failure”?
Locks on your house and car actually serve a purpose, and benefit the owner. DRM punishes the owner, and if it fails it punishes them even more. A lock on a car or house provides protection for the car/house owner, DRM provides ‘protection’ against them, and ensures they never own what they thought they purchased.
I guess store counter is also very inconvenient, since shoplifting is match simpler.
Right, let me put it this way. Say a store had a problem with shoplifting. Say in response they set up a system that only affected paying customers, making their shopping experience drastically worse, and did absolutely nothing to even mildly inconvenience the actual shoplifters.
That’s DRM.
It’s not a matter of ‘inconvinience’, it’s a matter of who it’s affecting, and more importantly, who it isn’t. When the ones paying you are getting a worse product and/or experience that the ones who aren’t, you’re doing something wrong.
In short – you don’t like DRM – don’t buy a product. Playing videogames is not a must. Open source software is a thing. Hollywood movies are not a “must have” too.
Well, yes. Why would someone like malware?
As for ‘Don’t like it, don’t buy’? I don’t. If it has DRM, I give it a pass. If it might have DRM and I can’t tell? I give it a pass. Saves me a lot of money that I can spend on people and companies that actually deserve it.
However, this doesn’t stop me from being affected by it, because the same type of people that think DRM is a great idea also love to think of even worse way to screw people over, and they generally don’t pay too much attention to who is affected. It also doesn’t stop DRM from being an insanely stupid idea, thanks to the whole ‘Punishes everyone but the claimed target’ bit, a fact that always bears repeating.
Re: Re: Define 'positive'
DRM creates jobs. ‘nuf said.
Re: Re:
quote: DRM creates jobs. ‘nuf said.
Yes, a few temporary jobs for programmers and a bit more for lawyers. with the public paying for both.
It is really not something to be proud of.
Re: Re: Re:
Re: Re:
DRM doesn’t create jobs, it protects them.
Re: Re: Re:
DRM doesn’t protect jobs. It enhances profits by enforcing lock-in in cases where the legal system can’t.
Re: Re:
How many jobs did drm create with this project?
>Because DRM
Maybe, but I doubt it. It’s just another lofty Kickstarter that was made by individuals that bit off more than they could chew. Blaming DRM is a good scapegoat. Lucklily there are FOSS projects like Kodi and OSMC which have bigger communities than this would have ever dreamed.
It is a pity. We are lacking a good hdmi stick that simply streams stuff from your pc to another screen. I do hope DRM becomes highly toxic as soon as possible.
Re: Re:
There are a ton of Miracast sticks on the market.
Re: Re: Re:
He said good
Once again, can someone remind me of a single positive thing that has come from DRM?
The only thing that comes to mind is the saying “You can’t fix stupid” is one of the greatest scientific facts ever discovered by man.
Re: Re:
Even worse, not only can you not fix stupid, but the majority of all laws are the actively PROTECT stupid.
One single thing?
There is zero good coming from DRM (or Digital Restriction Management as Mr. Stallman would say). It is only a way to cause users serious pain and suffering. I can get that simply by asking my wife how her day went…
Re: One single thing?
You knew her profession before you married her. In a way, quite similar to DRM.
Re: Re: One single thing?
Similar, but not quite. After all, Analog != Digital…
The unfortunate side effect of not supporting DRM
The unfortunate effect of Matchstick not supporting DRM is that they’d have to miss out many parts of the web that are currently taken for granted in any respectable streaming device. Netflix is the obvious MIA, but there are also the rentals for YouTube and Vimeo, the movies from Apple and Google, and many audio streaming sites. Without DRM, the offerings such a device could offer would be very limited. Not their fault of course, it’s the way that the media industry defends its model, and prevents third parties from participating in full without submitting to the whims of said conglomerate. All in all, I understand why Matchstick preferred to close their project, instead of releasing a “crippled” device due to factors out of their control.
Loving the benefits
We all love DRM, because can’t modify your own car’s software because it’s to “keep you safe,” and you can’t benchmark games on EA’s Origin without them blocking you for 24 hours for swapping out hardware multiple times. I think the reason was for logging into multiple computers. The only difference is the legal issues you’ll have on the former.
Now obviously it should be clear of my sarcasm for loving DRM (otherwise it is now). Let’s all just get in the Pharmaceutical industry while we’re at it, since they are copyright/DRM pros. Specifically referring to (for those that don’t know), that they keep their expensive drugs on the market by delaying generics from joining the market. It’s like implementing DRM and saying you can’t do this because they said so, and you have no choice in the matter. Especially for the people who have to have the drugs.
It’s not enough to make it difficult (or impossible) to get, but they also have to kick them in the nuts too. Next up, they implement DRM (Diseases Ready for the Masses), so they can suck up more money. More sarcasm there of course.
Journalisnm
So, techdirt, when you reached out to the project owners to ask for their comments, what did they say?
Re: Journalisnm
“Journalism-free zone” was what I meant the subject line to be, before I somehow accidentally submitted the comment early.
Re: Journalisnm
Perhaps you missed the block quote in the article of what they said. Reading comprehension is a useful skill.
Let's cut deeper.
Can someone tell me with reasonable certainty of a single good that has come from copyright?
Re: Let's cut deeper.
As I understand it, in earlier times, it allowed legitimate publishers – the ones who had proper legal agreements and paid royalties to authors – to prevent the commercial book pirates of the day from completely hammering the market with unlicensed copies.
Back then, this meant the difference between authors benefiting financially from their work and authors – in some cases – dying in poverty.
It’s debatable – and I doubt anyone can honestly put figures to it – but I’m reasonably certain it incentivised the creation and publication of new work, provided a legal framework for the creators to be identified as such and provided creators with the chance to make a living from doing so, just as it was supposed to do.
These days, of course, the same middleman companies are now aggressive multinational corporations, synonymous with rampant abuse of copyright, with actual content creators and the general public being screwed over at every turn.
But that abuse doesn’t take away from copyrights ancient past, where it served as a positive force for the public good – and it’s a damn shame that corporate greed has so thoroughly destroyed both copyrights credibility and it’s ability to serve for the good of us all.
Re: Re: Copyrights origin, in May 4, 1557
It reduced the number of people that were unhappy with Queen Mary (*)
It also increased the number living in ignorant bliss, and made the guild of printers that got the copyright monopoly rich.
Queen Mary is the original creator of copyright, and she did so on May 4, 1557.
(*) The way she did it is why she is known as Bloody Mary
Recommended reading on the subject: http://falkvinge.net/2011/02/02/history-of-copyright-part-2-tudoric-feud/
Re: Re: Re: Maybe we should try cutting to the bone...
What good has come from intellectual property (including patents)?
I keep thinking of Charles Goodyear who made some critical advancements in vulcanization yet died penniless. Our system seems to less reward innovative inventions rather innovative ways for the business-savvy and financially enabled to steal ideas from their creative sources.
Re: Re: Re:2 Let me rephrase that...
Considering how IP is causing more damage to the public and to industries in general, while benefiting only their owners, is there any reason at this point for a society to continue to respect IP as a property?
Re: Re: Re: Copyrights origin, in May 4, 1557
I wasn’t referring to Bloody Mary. For all that it shares the same name, what came into being as a result of the Licensing of the Press Act 1662 bares little resemblance to modern copyright.
The legal right of a single company – literally just one – to determine, censor and publish all of Britain’s printed works is a far cry from what came into being later.
Copyright – more-or-less as we know it today – came into being with the Statute of Anne, which was a lot more civilised than its predecessor.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_of_Anne
Re: Re: Re:2 Copyrights origin, in May 4, 1557
Oops. Lost a sentence edit, sorry:
“For all that it shares the same name, what came into being as a result of the Licensing of the Press Act 1662 bares little resemblance to modern copyright.”
should read
“For all that they share similar names and terms, what came into being as a result of Mary’s Stationers Monopoly and the subsequent Licensing of the Press Act 1662, bare little resemblance to modern copyright.”
Techdirt and the edit button. When will they ever meet?
Re: Re: Re:2 Little resemblance to modern copyright
To be fair, copyright as described in the US Constitution bares little resemblance to modern copyright.
Re: Re: Re:2 Copyrights origin, in May 4, 1557
“I wasn’t referring to Bloody Mary. For all that it shares the same name, what came into being as a result of the Licensing of the Press Act 1662 bares little resemblance to modern copyright.”
Oh, please excuse us, we thought you wrote actually “in earlier times”. We all hate it when Techdirt changes what we wrote like that.
Re: Re: Let's cut deeper.
“It’s debatable – and I doubt anyone can honestly put figures to it – but I’m reasonably certain it incentivised the creation and publication of new work, provided a legal framework for the creators to be identified as such and provided creators with the chance to make a living from doing so, just as it was supposed to do.”
Yah, if it weren’t for copyright classics like Shakespeare’s works would have never been written. Oh, wait…
Another good idea destroyed by Digital Restriction Management software.
I don’t see any good reason why DRM of this kind should not be reclassified as malware and it’s use banned.
Tie it to the next copyright extension the maximalists demand – if they want the bad, they’ll have to take the good along with it.
Still confused
I did RTFA and I fail to see the benefit here. Netflix (the given example) doesn’t require DRM from my computer to the display. I’m not even certain how DRM would prevent ‘piracy’ as I am unlikely to try to send a copy of the signal to my neighborhood – given than the device is a relatively low power receiver and, one presumes, there is already a 1:1 pairing system. At least they are returning everyone’s money.
DRM Benefits
TONS of DRM benefits. I know you’d rather it not exist. But truth be told my iPhone (looking at it now for examples) has tons of things that are thanks to DRM. Apple Music (millions of streaming songs without having to buy them all), TiVo (stream and transfer shows recorded on my TiVo), Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and about 2 dozen streaming channels (NBC, ABC, ESPN, Disney, etc).
Let’s be honest. None of those apps would have been developed, and none of that content would be available outside of piracy without DRM. Nobody was going to get contractual rights to stream the content without some form of protection.
It’s that simple… it may be annoying. It may be cumbersome. It may limit your options… but without it… we’d still be renting from Blockbuster and rewinding VHS tapes.
Sure, I could open a VPN and Torrent away and have ultimate freedom, but as far as legal options go, I’m glad there are some, since I don’t mind PAYING for content, since if we all stopped doing that… there wouldn’t really be much content.
Re: DRM Benefits
…thanks to DRM, [we have] Apple Music (millions of streaming songs without having to buy them all), TiVo (stream and transfer shows recorded on my TiVo), Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and about 2 dozen streaming channels (NBC, ABC, ESPN, Disney, etc).
[citation needed]
Seriously that’s like saying we couldn’t have FM radio because someone might dare record it.
Not arguing DRM
Just asking why the project thought it was needed for a short distance wireless video link. I don’t believe my ChromeCast has one, for example, I don’t use DRM for the other ways I connect devices to TVs.
D R and M are pretty useful letters in the alphabet, The words Dodgy , Radical and Magical would not exist without them.
DRM
I was going to say that it reduces aerodynamic drag in order to increase top speed and promote overtaking in motor racing, but that’s wrong, right?
🙂
Well, it once stopped me from installing norton for someone.
Eliminate DRM
You can help eliminate Digital Restrictions Management (DRM). The first step is to agree that DRM is an inescusable injustice, and ought to be eliminated. The second step is to sign up at DefectiveByDesign.org. The third step, if you wish, is to join the Free Software Foundation at fsf.org.