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  crade (profile), Feb 7th, 2011 @ 4:11pm

  
  

  It's the blind + shotgun approach to fighting piracy.

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  crade (profile), Feb 7th, 2011 @ 4:11pm

  
  

  Re:

  blindfold even

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  Steven (profile), Feb 7th, 2011 @ 4:26pm

  
  

  Of course.

  Everybody knows that razor wire is where it's at. Much better than barbed wire.

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  monkyyy, Feb 7th, 2011 @ 4:28pm

  
  

  Re: Of course.

  lol

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  Anonymous Coward, Feb 7th, 2011 @ 4:38pm

  
  

  And then there's

  Barb Wire with all its Hep-C goodness.

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  AR (profile), Feb 7th, 2011 @ 4:48pm

  
  

  2 Questions

  1) Does the barbed wire (DRM) keep people out or keep people in?
  
  2) Which came first? The barbed wire or the wire cutter.

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  Steven (profile), Feb 7th, 2011 @ 5:19pm

  
  

  Re: 2 Questions

  1) Original design of 'wire' (barbed is one of the newer variants) were designed to be unidirectional (keep people out). This has become out of style now as many companies have seen the great benefits of bidirectional wire (keeping people either in or out). In fact this new approach of bidirectional wire has become so desired that many companies string various types of wire all over their items to create arbitrary sections and charge various fees per section.
  
  2) That is a misleading question. Wire cutters are an abhorrent technology that does not currently exists... I SAID DOES NOT EXISTS!!

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  DOlz (profile), Feb 7th, 2011 @ 6:06pm

  
  

  Re: Re: 2 Questions

  Actually the original purpose of barbed wire was to keep cattle in. Which is how many of the media and some hardware companies view their customers (cattle).
  
  Barbed wire is not very effective for keeping people (pirates) out since they can figure out how to climb over it, climb between the strands, or cut it.

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  Anonymous Coward, Feb 7th, 2011 @ 6:36pm

  
  

  Re: 2 Questions

  I don't know, what I do know is that in this case people are using Bangalore Torpedo's to clear out the barbed wire.
  
  It works wonders.

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  Anonymous Coward, Feb 7th, 2011 @ 5:30pm

  
  

  "The digital lock is comprised of both the lock and key, already fit snuggly inside the lock. In order to open the lock you must turn the key and in order to turn the key you must have the password. The password is written on the back of the digital lock. It is 1-2-3-4. In order to use the password to turn the key to open the lock you must pay a small processing fee. The only thing stopping you from bypassing this digital system is magic. Thank you and have a nice day."

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  Anonymous Coward, Feb 7th, 2011 @ 8:18pm

  
  

  The sooner the MPAA and RIAA fall the better. And, I'd rather see them fall than smarten up.

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  Anonymous Coward, Feb 7th, 2011 @ 9:32pm

  
  

  the congregation will all rise, please turn your bibles to the book of Masnick, chapter 7, verse 11, the evils of business.
  
  Can't wait to see what the choir says to this one.

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  The eejit (profile), Feb 8th, 2011 @ 1:13am

  
  

  Re:

  DRM is, at its heart a bureaucratic nightmare. And it turns into an absolute chore when it goes wrong (see, for example early SecuROM).
  
  Pointing out its inefficiencies is akin to choir-singing? Must be awful here for you.

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  Not an electronic Rodent, Feb 8th, 2011 @ 2:30am

  
  

  Re:

  Productive.... A well argued point. Masterful in it's elegance and pith. A true work of art in the anals (sic) of scholarly debate.

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  techflaws.org (profile), Feb 8th, 2011 @ 3:45am

  
  

  Re:

  Same as always. DRM never worked and never will.

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  Anonymous Coward, Feb 9th, 2011 @ 6:17am

  
  

  Re:

  Hi Bob!!

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  lens42 (profile), Feb 7th, 2011 @ 10:31pm

  
  

  No surprise when you consider that the executives at record and movie companies are really not at all interested in the future of their organizations. They are working only to preserve their bonuses and departure packages for the next 3 to 5 years. When you realize that, the "barbed wire" schemes make a lot of sense. Of course the shareholders of these companies should be mad a hell, but they ignorantly believe what managements tells them.

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  Zacqary Adam Green (profile), Feb 7th, 2011 @ 11:07pm

  
  

  Jon Evans comes off like PETA in this; I agree with what he's saying, but the way he's saying it makes me kinda hate him.

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  Bill, Feb 8th, 2011 @ 8:04am

  
  

  So …

  So, what are the non-barbed wire empires that have lasted?

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  PaulT (profile), Feb 8th, 2011 @ 3:09pm

  
  

  I read a couple of interesting articles today. The first was a blog entry of the EU Playstation blog explaining why so many PS1 titles were either US only or not available at all as yet (essentially, regional or expired licensing or incompatibilities in PAL DRM that don't cause problems with the PS3's emulator in NTSC versions - not incompatibilities with the game itself, just the DRM). These stop Sony from offering the games for sale, despite there being heavy demand for some titles.
  
  The second was a look at Last.fm's continual shrinking by the removal of free radio playback facilities (again down to regional licensing and restrictions from content providers).
  
  This is the real problem, and one ignored by the maximists out there. Legitimate product is hampered by legal, technical and other flaws that stop legal purchasers from accessing and enjoying content. "Pirates" suffer from none of these flaws and can offer a superior experience, even if price is not taken into consideration.
  
  Until the content industry realises this problem and attempts to rectify it, they're doomed, no matter how many "pirates" they shut down or wave DRM in front of.

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  Dave Freer, Feb 9th, 2011 @ 2:44pm

  
  

  DRM we luv it (not)

  As a writer (Science Fiction - you know, those imaginary utopias with no DRM and no petty data theft (not piracy. Pirates sail around on boats and board ships off the coast of Africa)) what really irritates me about DRM is not just that it is futile and wastes capacity, it's that it's my bloody fault. Well, people blame authors. Who - with rare exceptions - have nothing to do with it and are not actually anything other than minor beneficiaries (and it can be argued that as petty data thieves would never buy the books, but might if they actually read them, not even beneficiaries, 'cause they lose the advertising. Oh yes it hurts bestsellers like JK Rowlin'-in-it, but not ordinary joes like me that publishers don't spend money on advertising). All DRM succeeds in doing is making my books harder to read, more expensive, and if your reader breaks, difficult to transfer legally. Yeah that's a win for me, and of course my name is on the cover, so it must be my idea. It isn't. It's the publisher or retailer's idea, because they assume that all their customers of thieves. I assume that people who enjoy my books would like to reward me for writing them, thereby keeping me writing more. I'm gradually putting more of my backlist up myself - at what I think of as reasonable prices - lower than a paperback (how the hell does anyone accept an e-book can cost more than a paperback?) - and I'll get 70% of the income and not 8% which I get from publishers for that paperback. There will be no DRM (unless inserted by a retailer, in which case you could buy it directly from me, sans DRM, because we hates it, we does.) and none of this regionalisation crap either.
  And I bet petty data theft is a very minor issue.

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  Rich Norris, Feb 20th, 2011 @ 11:09pm

  
  

  Great Article...

  Enjoyed reading your excellent piece here friend!
  
  Much Peace,
  Rich

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  painkiller1961, Oct 13th, 2011 @ 8:32pm

  
  

  DRM was made by the rich to get richer off the poor

  drm was first invented to track sheep.
  
  Blind support of monopolies is everything wrong with the world today.

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