I agree, DRM should not be a part of any standard, and they don't fool me by saying it's just allowing for DRM, not implementing it. It is implementing it, but not all of it, the companies do the rest.

[rant]
DRM is not going to lead anywhere good. I think problem is that you need trust in any relationship and interaction. The trust between consumers and the entertainment industry no longer exists. I'm not sure who struck first, but both are guilty.

The entertainment industry is guilty for putting out overpriced garbage for us to buy and looking for all sorts of aggressive schemes to make more money ... such as advertising everywhere, claiming that it pays part of the cost. They want too much of a profit margin and have decreased the quality of their work significantly.

The consumers are guilty of piracy, not all of them, but many or most. Part of it is a natural reaction to the increasing prices and decreasing wages, but some of it is a break of trust and malevolent. I don't think the entertainment industry recognizes both of these, and they focus on the latter.

If there were only some way to implement a ceasefire. The govn't should step in, but they don't care. I guess it's up to us, the people to do something.

For sure boycotting DRM is a good thing to do, but it won't stop them. If only there were some way to prove that we are not malevolent pirates, and to convince them to let go of some of the profit, because they can live well enough still without their 10th vacation home, 9 vacation homes should be enough.

I don't know if any solution will be found before something collapses, but I will try for whatever solution is plausible.

I think people should be more aware of what they are buying, of its quality and if it has DRM. Do not buy DRM, and do not buy low quality garbage. Also fight against their manipulation of movie ratings on imdb and other places.

I'm afraid that I am of two minds about this ... because I make a noticeable part of my living by selling a software product (as I have done for fifteen years now). This product has a rather simple-minded license control feature that is, nonetheless, very important ... by virtue of it exists.

During the first few months of the product's availability, you could try it in hobbled mode for 10 days. During that time, over 8,000 downloads occurred (and since these were using 1200-baud modems, that's saying something). The little light popped on in my head: "if I had just $10 for every one of those downloads ..." So, I changed the policy so that you had to buy a trial edition, the cost of which would apply to the full-version purchase. Problem solved. I no longer had to "hobble horse" the product, and I could afford to provide technical support. (Furthermore, since this is a repair-tool that people perceive to need only occasionally, the so-called "trial" edition was by far the most successful one, and many people knowingly purchased it more than once.)

The simple fact of the matter is, if a product is free, it's not "a product." If the perceived (expected ...) value is unsustainably low ... say, 99¢ payable just one time ... it's not "a product" either. If there is no visible obligation to make a purchase, then you are in the (non-)business of charity. This is what has happened to so many mobile-apps and even well known games. Atari had a very long run, at 25¢ a pop, whereas the makers of Farmville are about to go belly-up. C'est la guerre. If you don't have a revenue-plan that actually works, then you'd better be polishing your resume instead of investing in office furniture.

The mechanisms that require you "make a purchase" can in fact be trivial to circumvent, and yet they will still achieve their purpose splendidly because most people in fact are honest when slightly prompted to be.

DRM systems simply make it clear to the buyer that this is intended to be a commercial transaction. A good friend of mine once owned an expensive 12-string guitar which he kept in a cardboard case with the tiniest padlock imaginable. The lock was there, as he put it, "to keep the honest people out." I never forgot that.

I wouldn't mind drm that much if it means I can watch netflix and co on linux

Same. I'm all for HTML5 DRM. It's what's needed to kill Flash.

And "DRM" doesn't necessarily mean "rootkit", although it sometimes does on Windows.

So I guess the entertainment industry really has everyone by the balls so to speak. Not me tho.

I recommend thinking on the subject a bit. You're saying you are desperate to replace the optional Flash player, with DRM integrated into the HTML5 standard ? How is this solving a problem and not making it worse ?

Do not talk down to me.

Depends on what you mean by "The problem". For me, "the problem" is that subscription video services (which I do enjoy) require browser plugins, and those plugins on Linux are perpetually underperforming and undermaintained. Making video playback the responsibility of the browser manufacturers, as opposed to the browser plugin manufacturers, will of course solve that problem, and not make it worse.

The other "problems" honestly do not matter to me.

This is pretty much my perspective also. It might also mean the death of Silverlight -- the product meaning that almost all streaming services here in the UK are inaccessible to Linux without a lot of messing around, some incantations, some luck, and the hope that MS don't change anything at all on a whim.
I also don't see how having the ability to implement DRM for (mainly) steaming media services has any impact on those who don't use streaming media services. In a lot of ways DRM is already on the web in two defacto standards Silverlight and Flash.
If you have watched TV or a DVD in the last decade you've likely used DRM in some form or another, by the way.

Neither Silverlight, nor Flash are standards according to any standards organization that I know of.

How is DRM included in my TV viewing ? ... other than Netflix, which I don't use.

A commercial DVD does include an older attempt at DRM = CSS. However, every media player can bypass it, so it has failed.

DRM of today is much harder to crack and has begun a trend towards self-destruction.

I suppose this won't concern most people, all they care about is food and entertainment no matter the cost. So be it, all will get what they deserve in the end.

Modern cable boxes obviously have it, and use it to provide services such as pay-per-view-ordering and PVR'ing.

Whether we like it or not (I certainly don't) Flash and Silverlight (particularly Silverlight) have become de-facto standards of content delivery on the web. Getting any commercial video without is almost impossible and a heck of a lot of audio relies upon Flash too.
As for TV -- most digital TV systems use encryption of some description including "do not record" bits. Of course, since HDMI isn't ubiquitous they're largely ineffective.
As to DVD, if you truly want to make a political abstention from DRM you should not pay for DVDs with CSS regardless of how poor the DRM is. If not you're no better than the rest of us.

Maybe for PPV, but not for regular viewing. Sure, the signal is probably encrypted, and it has to decrypt it, but that's not really DRM.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_rights_management

I can record just fine from my cable box, and I can keep and do whatever I want with what I record. Clearly it doesn't restrict me in this, so it is NOT DRM.

I'll start a new post in case somebody is replying.
One thing I forgot to add is that one of the proposals I have seen for DRM in HTML5 is one which I think gives a good compromise and that is a "libdrm.so" file which could be installed in the same ways libflashplayer.so is now. If that could be implemented then, to my mind, it would be great as it doesn't mean rendering people's systems "tainted" if they don't want it.
I do agree that making DRM part of the kernel or anything which isn't an optional ad-on is a bad idea.

I'm not quite that philosophical about it. I care if I can do whatever I want with what I pay for. That's what I care about, and not the DRM itself. CSS is broken, I don't care about it because it doesn't hinder me. DRM on the other hand, hinders me, so I am against it ... until it is broken too.

That's not the test. The test is whether you can use a third party or homemade cable box.