Let's start calling these "smartphones" and "tablets" what they are: computers.
It's not okay to tell someone what they can or cannot do with the 1's and 0's on their machines. DRM sucks and so do companies that would seek to restrict rights on how you can use your computer.
FWIW, during this same round, the Software Freedom Law Center was attempting to push an exemption covering "personal computing devices" (which I submitted supporting comments for, along with these exemptions) and failed (largely due to claims that the arguments were too speculative, and seemed quite hurt by Microsoft announcing a $99 "sign your own OS" option).
"The Register additionally observed that granting an exemption for such a sweeping class would be without precedent in the history of Section 1201 rulemakings."
One of the specific issues with relation to these classes is that they be narrowly defined so that it can be fully understood; I was at the hearing in LA when one of the people on the panel seemed almost angry, asking whether the "tablet" class applied to "e-readers", such as a Kindle he personally owned (and seemed to feel would benefit from not having such an exemption).
Agreed. I don't see how copyright comes into the picture if I buy a piece of hardware, erase whatever is in its memory, and put what I want there instead.
Of course, I could see hardware going the way of e-books: You don't own your phone/tablet/laptop, you merely license it from the Corporation who reserves the rights to control what you install or not and to erase it/take it back at any time.
I'm ok with DRM if it's confined to a particular application and the content it manages, like the Kindle app, for example. You can always choose not to install that app.
But I reject system-wide DRM for the same reasons you describe. More and more people interact online primarily through mobile devices so these rights are more important than ever.
The problem is an app-specific DRM scheme is impossible to implement. The user would be able to intercept any API calls the app makes to an external program, at the very least capturing/spoofing the signal to the I/O drivers. The only way to make a secure system in this sense is if the software can establish a chain of trust and be confident that it is not running on top of 'compromised' software. An solution to this, which I believe is common on phones with official support for rooting, is to have a cryptographiclly secure way for a software to verify it is running on a non-rooted stack (I assume through signatures). At least this way, the only thing that disabling the system-wide DRM will cost you are the apps that specifically request the system-wide DRM. A better solution that I have not seen implemented, is to be able to run both a rooted stack, and a provably non-rooted stack at the same time. I am not sure if this is technically feasible to do for the kernel (maybe with firmware support?), but it seems completly doable for userspace programs.
To make a really robust DRM system, perhaps. But DRM really just needs to put enough of a speedbump in front of the average user to make it less of a hassle to pay. iTunes Movies and the Kindle Store are both good examples of this.
Sure but consider Kindle ebooks, for example. Finding a pirated copy of a book, dealing with the hassles of torrenting or some kind of download site, manually loading the book over, risking all kinds of phishing scams or viruses on the sites that serve this stuff - this is all way too much hassle. I'm happy to pay the $10 for the book even though I know I don't have to.
Making money selling digital goods is all about making paying easier than stealing.
I don't believe that DRM deserves the credit because I have yet to observe any such deterrent effect, while conversely, I have heard of many who turned to piracy due to feeling cheated by DRM.
I'm just curious, but have you ever observed anyone give up and buy something because they failed to pirate it?
It's not okay to tell someone what they can or cannot do with the 1's and 0's on their machines. DRM sucks and so do companies that would seek to restrict rights on how you can use your computer.