Marginally more effort makes a huge difference. Linux on the desktop takes marginally more effort to use than Windows or Mac. What difference does that make in popularity?
Effort also introduces time lag. If the next episode of Walking Dead takes 24 hours longer to show up on TPB, I'll probably see a bump in legitimate streaming and rentals.
I'm not arguing that DRM works, especially in the CS sense that it really makes things "uncopyable." (That's impossible.) I'm attempting to explain why people keep doubling down on it and what behaviors drive that. If DRM leads to 5% more sales and costs less than what they get in revenue from 5% more sales, they'll use DRM.
These companies spend just as much time staring at their spreadsheets as they do in any other industry. If DRM does not correlate with increased sales, now the bean counters ask "why are we spending this money to license this DRM technology?" It becomes a red cell on the spreadsheet, not a black one.
It's also about changing customer habits. Napster, TPB, etc. mainstreamed industrial-scale piracy and taught users that this is easier and cheaper than buying content. The studios and record labels and such were definitely asleep at the switch for the rise of the Internet (understandable as they are not in tech), but now they've woken up and created channels that make it just as easy to buy. Now if they make it harder to pirate too...
> Effort also introduces time lag. If the next episode of Walking Dead takes 24 hours longer to show up on TPB, I'll probably see a bump in legitimate streaming and rentals.
Popular TV shows are available on TPB within minutes, not hours or days.
Effort also introduces time lag. If the next episode of Walking Dead takes 24 hours longer to show up on TPB, I'll probably see a bump in legitimate streaming and rentals.
I'm not arguing that DRM works, especially in the CS sense that it really makes things "uncopyable." (That's impossible.) I'm attempting to explain why people keep doubling down on it and what behaviors drive that. If DRM leads to 5% more sales and costs less than what they get in revenue from 5% more sales, they'll use DRM.
These companies spend just as much time staring at their spreadsheets as they do in any other industry. If DRM does not correlate with increased sales, now the bean counters ask "why are we spending this money to license this DRM technology?" It becomes a red cell on the spreadsheet, not a black one.
It's also about changing customer habits. Napster, TPB, etc. mainstreamed industrial-scale piracy and taught users that this is easier and cheaper than buying content. The studios and record labels and such were definitely asleep at the switch for the rise of the Internet (understandable as they are not in tech), but now they've woken up and created channels that make it just as easy to buy. Now if they make it harder to pirate too...