WEBVTT - The DRM Episode 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.800 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:12.080 --> 0:00:15.280 Hey there, and welcome to text Stuff. I'm your host 0:00:15.440 --> 0:00:18.360 job in Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio. 0:00:18.440 --> 0:00:22.360 And how the tech are you Today? We're going to 0:00:22.400 --> 0:00:28.400 talk about the history and evolution and scope of digital 0:00:28.640 --> 0:00:33.920 rights management or d r M. Recently, I was talking 0:00:33.960 --> 0:00:37.000 about n f t s, you know, non fungible tokens, 0:00:37.120 --> 0:00:40.280 and why I find that whole concept frustrating. But I 0:00:40.320 --> 0:00:43.840 also I made a I made a whoopsie an error 0:00:44.040 --> 0:00:46.680 when I was doing that, and so big thanks to 0:00:46.840 --> 0:00:50.400 Jason Stadler on Twitter for pointing this out letting me 0:00:50.440 --> 0:00:53.480 know also did it in a really cool way, like 0:00:54.440 --> 0:00:56.880 it could have said like you're an idiot, and didn't, 0:00:57.080 --> 0:01:00.560 so I appreciate that a lot. But in way, the 0:01:00.600 --> 0:01:02.760 mistake I made is that I had said, if you 0:01:02.760 --> 0:01:04.080 look at n f t s as a way to 0:01:04.120 --> 0:01:08.360 support artists, it's not really that effective because the artist 0:01:08.440 --> 0:01:11.120 only gets paid once on that initial point of sale. 0:01:11.160 --> 0:01:14.839 So let's say that I make you know a little 0:01:14.840 --> 0:01:19.840 piece of digital music, and I create a digital token 0:01:19.920 --> 0:01:22.720 and n f T to represent the ownership of that 0:01:22.760 --> 0:01:25.720 piece of music, and I sell it to you for 0:01:26.000 --> 0:01:28.320 a dollar and then you turn around and sell it 0:01:28.400 --> 0:01:31.000 for ten dollars. Then well you made money off of it, 0:01:31.040 --> 0:01:33.920 but all I made was the dollar. Well, Stabler, include 0:01:33.920 --> 0:01:36.120 me in that, you know, because you're talking about a 0:01:36.160 --> 0:01:41.920 blockchain approach where every single transaction becomes part of the chain. 0:01:42.080 --> 0:01:44.840 You can trace it from point to point and see 0:01:44.880 --> 0:01:48.840 how many times a token changes hands. You can actually 0:01:48.960 --> 0:01:52.720 code in essentially a royalty feature in n f t 0:01:52.880 --> 0:01:55.280 s so that the creator of the n f T 0:01:55.520 --> 0:01:58.200 receives a little payout every time the n f T 0:01:58.360 --> 0:02:01.480 goes through a transaction. So in that way, n f 0:02:01.520 --> 0:02:04.360 t s are actually superior to a physical piece of 0:02:04.480 --> 0:02:07.840 art because an artist can only sell an original work 0:02:07.840 --> 0:02:11.600 of art once. Uh. They could, you know, create copies 0:02:11.760 --> 0:02:14.959 and and and sell those as well, but the original 0:02:15.080 --> 0:02:18.400 they only sell once and then whatever happens after that, 0:02:18.600 --> 0:02:21.880 it's out of the artist's hands literally, So in that way, 0:02:22.000 --> 0:02:24.520 n f t s can be superior. U. I still 0:02:24.560 --> 0:02:30.160 think that they are wasteful, uh and speculative, but that 0:02:30.440 --> 0:02:32.760 is an important thing to actually note, So thank you 0:02:32.800 --> 0:02:36.720 against Tadler. Anyway, that got me to thinking about digital 0:02:36.840 --> 0:02:42.480 rights management, and the whole point of DRM is ostensibly 0:02:43.000 --> 0:02:46.600 to make certain that the party that holds the intellectual 0:02:46.720 --> 0:02:51.200 rights to a certain digital property is able to exercise 0:02:51.320 --> 0:02:55.600 those rights. Uh, you know, digital stuff is different from 0:02:55.600 --> 0:02:57.480 physical stuff. I mean, that's one of the reasons that 0:02:57.600 --> 0:02:59.800 n f t s are a thing, right, is that 0:03:00.880 --> 0:03:04.920 you can't treat digital the same way you would, you know, 0:03:05.000 --> 0:03:11.600 an analog physical thing, because you can copy stuff and 0:03:11.760 --> 0:03:16.120 easily distribute it wholesale, as opposed to if if I'm 0:03:16.120 --> 0:03:18.960 selling something physical that that takes a lot more effort 0:03:19.040 --> 0:03:24.320 to make a copy and transfer it. So that's the idea, 0:03:24.440 --> 0:03:28.040 but in practice it's typically used to prevent folks from 0:03:28.080 --> 0:03:32.920 gaining unauthorized access to hardware or software, particularly in the 0:03:32.960 --> 0:03:35.960 Internet age, though the concepts of d r M actually 0:03:36.040 --> 0:03:40.160 predate the Internet, and often folks will use the term 0:03:40.200 --> 0:03:43.200 as a blanket term when really they might mean something 0:03:43.240 --> 0:03:48.640 more specific like copy protection, which is one aspect of DRM, 0:03:49.200 --> 0:03:52.720 or they might mean technological protection measures, which I would 0:03:52.800 --> 0:03:56.400 argue is a little more broad than DRM. But anyway, 0:03:56.800 --> 0:03:59.280 it's meant to cut off people's ability to copy or 0:03:59.440 --> 0:04:03.440 steal stuff, or, as is frequently the case with tech 0:04:03.520 --> 0:04:08.720 like printers, for example, to go outside a company's ecosystem. 0:04:08.720 --> 0:04:13.040 By that, I mean companies like Cannon have incorporated DRM 0:04:13.080 --> 0:04:16.159 to prevent people from using just any kind of toner 0:04:16.279 --> 0:04:20.799 cartridge with their Cannon printers, something that the company recently 0:04:20.839 --> 0:04:23.160 had to walk back a bit. In fact, let's talk 0:04:23.160 --> 0:04:27.920 about that for a moment. So Cannon was using toner 0:04:27.960 --> 0:04:31.919 cartridges that had a little chip in them, and the 0:04:32.160 --> 0:04:35.640 Cannon printer would scan and look for that chip to 0:04:35.839 --> 0:04:40.320 verify that the toner you just put into the uh, 0:04:40.400 --> 0:04:42.919 the toner cartridge that you just put into the printer 0:04:43.480 --> 0:04:47.200 was in fact an official Cannon toner cartridge. And this 0:04:47.279 --> 0:04:49.880 is kind of a DRM. If it didn't detect the chip, 0:04:50.279 --> 0:04:52.760 then you wouldn't be able to use the toner because 0:04:52.800 --> 0:04:55.200 the printers like, no, no, no, you should only be 0:04:55.279 --> 0:05:00.240 using Cannon toner. Uh. We all know that printers the 0:05:00.240 --> 0:05:02.400 the where the money is in that toner, right, Like 0:05:02.760 --> 0:05:07.159 you can buy a printer for an amazingly cheap price 0:05:07.960 --> 0:05:10.480 as the toner that's gonna cost you, like just just 0:05:10.600 --> 0:05:12.440 after a year or two, you're gonna spend way more 0:05:12.480 --> 0:05:15.080 on toner than you ever did on the printer. So 0:05:15.240 --> 0:05:17.600 the only way that works, obviously is if you can 0:05:17.680 --> 0:05:20.880 lock people into that ecosystem, because if they have an 0:05:20.880 --> 0:05:23.800 option to go somewhere else to get the toner where 0:05:23.839 --> 0:05:26.800 they can get it more, you know, cheap than the 0:05:26.880 --> 0:05:30.280 official source, that's what they're gonna do. So the way 0:05:30.320 --> 0:05:32.799 Cannon was trying to get around that was by using 0:05:33.160 --> 0:05:38.800 little chips embedded in the toner cartridges so that users 0:05:38.839 --> 0:05:41.320 would be forced to get those cartridges to use with 0:05:41.360 --> 0:05:45.680 their Cannon printers. But now we're in a semiconductor shortage 0:05:45.920 --> 0:05:49.240 and Cannon can't actually get hold of the materials to 0:05:49.279 --> 0:05:53.560 make the chips to embed in their toner cartridges, which 0:05:53.600 --> 0:05:56.240 means that Cannon's had to produce toner cartridges that don't 0:05:56.240 --> 0:05:59.080 have the chip, And it also means that Cannon has 0:05:59.080 --> 0:06:03.719 had to instruct users on how to use those those 0:06:03.760 --> 0:06:08.360 cartridges and bypass the d r M systems that are 0:06:08.400 --> 0:06:11.800 otherwise in place. Typical technically, what that means is Cannon's 0:06:11.839 --> 0:06:15.360 teaching people how they can get a work around on 0:06:15.520 --> 0:06:17.960 the system that is supposed to lock you into the 0:06:18.000 --> 0:06:21.480 Cannon ecosystem, where you know, theoretically you can go outside 0:06:21.520 --> 0:06:23.760 of it now because Cannon's just told you how it works. 0:06:24.680 --> 0:06:27.240 But yeah, that's that's one of the downfalls of d 0:06:27.400 --> 0:06:30.599 r M. Now, the folks who hold intellectual property rights 0:06:31.040 --> 0:06:34.640 saw DRM as a necessity in order to actually, you know, 0:06:34.760 --> 0:06:38.680 profit off of the i P that they owned. So 0:06:39.240 --> 0:06:41.720 you can think of it kind of like a lock 0:06:42.080 --> 0:06:46.040 that's on some piece of technology, and only legit customers 0:06:46.080 --> 0:06:48.599 are given a key to use it and only under 0:06:48.640 --> 0:06:53.520 specific circumstances, or as the Free Software Foundation puts it, 0:06:53.839 --> 0:06:58.440 DRM isn't really about protecting copyright or i P, but 0:06:58.600 --> 0:07:03.240 rather controlling the use of i P, as is clearly 0:07:03.240 --> 0:07:08.080 the case with the cannon printers. Also, DRM really describes 0:07:08.120 --> 0:07:12.200 an overall philosophy and strategy, not a specific implementation. There 0:07:12.200 --> 0:07:15.880 are a few really popular implementations of d r M 0:07:16.760 --> 0:07:21.240 and a couple of flavors of that, but it's it's 0:07:21.280 --> 0:07:24.320 more of a this is what this technology does, as 0:07:24.360 --> 0:07:28.480 opposed to this is a very specific tech, uh, and 0:07:28.760 --> 0:07:33.640 some people use totally different DRM methodologies than others, so 0:07:33.680 --> 0:07:36.720 it's not a singular technology or anything like that. There 0:07:36.720 --> 0:07:39.880 have been so many bad DRM implementations that I think 0:07:39.920 --> 0:07:42.760 a lot of folks in the text space immediately associate 0:07:42.880 --> 0:07:48.920 DRM with frustration and anger and betrayal. A bad DRM 0:07:49.000 --> 0:07:51.600 solution can become a real pain in the patookas for 0:07:51.760 --> 0:07:56.160 legit users of tech. For example, there are video games 0:07:56.200 --> 0:07:59.200 that have DRM protections in it where it's been shown 0:07:59.280 --> 0:08:02.840 that the d r M actually negatively impacts the performance 0:08:02.960 --> 0:08:06.240 of the game on gamers machines, So you might have 0:08:06.320 --> 0:08:09.200 things like dropped frames, or you might not be able 0:08:09.200 --> 0:08:11.320 to set the graphics settings as high as you think 0:08:11.360 --> 0:08:16.840 you should based upon your hardware, because the the involvement 0:08:16.960 --> 0:08:21.560 of DRM is actually impacting the quality of your experience. 0:08:22.000 --> 0:08:25.600 And perhaps the most exasperating thing is that in many 0:08:25.640 --> 0:08:30.680 cases it doesn't actually solve the problem it's meant to tackle. 0:08:31.360 --> 0:08:34.200 So in our lock analogy, imagine you've got a gate 0:08:34.240 --> 0:08:36.280 with a lock on it, and you've got a key 0:08:36.320 --> 0:08:40.760 for that lock. But sometimes the lock sticks right, Sometimes 0:08:40.840 --> 0:08:42.840 the key gets stuck in the lock and you can't 0:08:42.840 --> 0:08:45.120 even turn it or pull it back out, and it's 0:08:45.160 --> 0:08:48.560 just a pain to operate. Meanwhile, you look over and 0:08:48.559 --> 0:08:50.760 you see a bunch of folks casually standing nearby with 0:08:50.800 --> 0:08:54.120 a big old pair of bolt cutters, and you realize, well, 0:08:54.280 --> 0:08:56.080 they just have to get the lock off once and 0:08:56.080 --> 0:08:57.560 then they can actually go in and out of the 0:08:57.559 --> 0:09:01.200 gate as much as they like and you know, that 0:09:01.360 --> 0:09:04.600 seems to be the preference. That's that's the better way 0:09:04.600 --> 0:09:08.000 of doing things. So d r M, a lot of 0:09:08.000 --> 0:09:10.800 people argue, not only does it not solve the problem 0:09:10.840 --> 0:09:15.640 of say piracy uh or or having ownership over i P, 0:09:16.800 --> 0:09:21.760 it also hurts the legit users or customers who are 0:09:21.600 --> 0:09:24.920 are purchasing this stuff. But let's not get too far 0:09:25.080 --> 0:09:28.480 ahead of ourselves. Let's well, we're gonna start by talking 0:09:28.520 --> 0:09:31.520 about the history of d r M and the various 0:09:31.600 --> 0:09:34.680 laws that have made an imperfect solution even more of 0:09:34.720 --> 0:09:37.599 a problem, because y' all, this starts to get absurd 0:09:37.960 --> 0:09:42.680 when you start really thinking about it. Now, many decades ago, 0:09:43.480 --> 0:09:46.360 even before the era of personal computers, we're talking like 0:09:46.920 --> 0:09:51.680 nineteen fifties nineteen sixties, you typically encountered computer systems in 0:09:51.800 --> 0:09:56.679 just a few environments. One might be academia like universities, 0:09:56.720 --> 0:09:59.240 you know, like Stanford and m I. T. They were 0:09:59.280 --> 0:10:02.840 working on uter systems and furthering the discipline of computer science. 0:10:03.880 --> 0:10:06.560 Another was in certain think tanks. They might have had 0:10:06.600 --> 0:10:09.880 access to computers, and a few businesses were starting to 0:10:09.920 --> 0:10:12.480 adopt them. So by the nineteen sixties you had a 0:10:12.520 --> 0:10:17.719 few big companies purchasing massive computer systems to run processes 0:10:17.720 --> 0:10:20.960 in the background. All right, this was not yet the 0:10:21.000 --> 0:10:24.520 era of desktop computers. That would take another decade and 0:10:24.600 --> 0:10:29.280 some change. Really, uh, you, we're really looking at massive 0:10:29.360 --> 0:10:32.640 main frames for the most part. Now, in the early days, 0:10:33.120 --> 0:10:38.880 computers and their software were tightly coupled. You had proprietary 0:10:38.960 --> 0:10:43.960 computer systems running proprietary software and it was only through 0:10:44.000 --> 0:10:48.440 that pairing with specific hardware and specific software that everything worked. 0:10:48.600 --> 0:10:52.280 Like you couldn't port the software over to a different 0:10:52.400 --> 0:10:57.800 computer system because it wasn't compatible. In fact, in some 0:10:57.920 --> 0:11:00.680 cases you were working with a hard wire system, a 0:11:00.720 --> 0:11:05.400 hard coded system, where the computer system could perform certain 0:11:05.720 --> 0:11:11.679 processes because it was hardwired to do that, and you 0:11:11.720 --> 0:11:16.160 couldn't separate software from hardware. It was effectively firmware. So 0:11:16.360 --> 0:11:18.880 the program would just live on a single computer and 0:11:18.880 --> 0:11:22.360 that was that. But towards the end of the nineteen sixties, 0:11:22.760 --> 0:11:26.319 things were starting to change and IBM saw that its 0:11:26.360 --> 0:11:29.440 customers needed more flexibility. There was a need to be 0:11:29.480 --> 0:11:32.800 able to move programs between machines, or to make backup 0:11:32.840 --> 0:11:35.560 copies of software so that you would have a backup 0:11:35.559 --> 0:11:39.600 available should something happen to your primary copy. But creating 0:11:39.600 --> 0:11:43.360 that kind of capability would also mean that customers would 0:11:43.360 --> 0:11:47.400 more easily be able to make illegal copies of software. 0:11:47.679 --> 0:11:51.160 What if someone were to give away copies of that 0:11:51.240 --> 0:11:55.160 software to colleagues, maybe even people in other companies, you know, 0:11:55.200 --> 0:11:59.719 companies that had not purchased the software, IBM would then 0:11:59.760 --> 0:12:02.320 be out of a customer. So we'll talk about what 0:12:02.360 --> 0:12:06.080 IBM did in just a moment, but first let's take 0:12:06.440 --> 0:12:17.880 a quick break. Okay, So IBM is looking at ways 0:12:17.960 --> 0:12:22.880 to allow customers more flexibility with their software, but also 0:12:23.160 --> 0:12:28.800 preventing the wholesale copying of software, so that IBM doesn't 0:12:28.840 --> 0:12:31.400 just sell one copy and then that's it, right, Then 0:12:31.440 --> 0:12:34.520 it just goes viral as people start copying. And of 0:12:34.520 --> 0:12:36.840 course these are this is the old days, is pre Internet, 0:12:37.320 --> 0:12:40.280 or at least pre Internet in any meaningful way, and 0:12:40.440 --> 0:12:43.760 so you know, we're talking about physical copies at this point, 0:12:44.400 --> 0:12:46.080 and one of the things they were looking at was 0:12:46.080 --> 0:12:49.120 a cryptographic approach. This would be like the lock and 0:12:49.200 --> 0:12:52.160 key technique I was talking about before the break, where 0:12:52.280 --> 0:12:55.240 only entities that have a legit key would be able 0:12:55.280 --> 0:12:59.280 to use that software. But IBM saw that this was 0:12:59.320 --> 0:13:01.959 a poor swan because it would make the software harder 0:13:02.000 --> 0:13:06.280 to use, and perhaps most important, it would be expensive 0:13:06.480 --> 0:13:09.959 for IBM to implement. And also there was a concern 0:13:10.000 --> 0:13:13.200 that if you were to update your system, the method 0:13:13.200 --> 0:13:17.000 of encryption may no longer be valid, that you would 0:13:17.040 --> 0:13:21.320 have to consistently update the DRM as well as whatever 0:13:21.360 --> 0:13:24.000 the operating system was. It was just it was becoming 0:13:24.000 --> 0:13:27.960 a nightmare. And so what s Humphrey, who worked at 0:13:27.960 --> 0:13:30.959 IBM in the nineteen sixties would end up saying, quote, 0:13:31.240 --> 0:13:35.080 because we could not devise practical physical security measures, we 0:13:35.120 --> 0:13:38.280 had to rely on the inherent honesty of our customers. 0:13:38.559 --> 0:13:41.720 Our hope was that legal protection and criminal prosecution would 0:13:41.760 --> 0:13:44.640 limit the piracy problem end quote. So in other words, 0:13:45.000 --> 0:13:51.640 IBM came to the conclusion that forcing any kind of DRM, 0:13:51.679 --> 0:13:55.440 although it wasn't called it that yet uh would end 0:13:55.520 --> 0:13:58.480 up causing more harm than good. So IBM decided not 0:13:58.520 --> 0:14:00.600 to go down that route that we would later call 0:14:00.679 --> 0:14:03.679 DRM because the downsides were greater than the positives. At 0:14:03.760 --> 0:14:06.040 least that's the conclusion the company came to in the 0:14:06.080 --> 0:14:10.040 nineteen sixties. If you flash forward three decades, the company 0:14:10.080 --> 0:14:12.440 who had a very different point of view, and we'll 0:14:12.440 --> 0:14:16.439 get there now. In the late nineteen seventies, Apple executives 0:14:16.440 --> 0:14:19.160 and managers were deep in a conversation about creating a 0:14:19.200 --> 0:14:22.840 solution to protect Apple software and prevent folks from being 0:14:22.880 --> 0:14:26.120 able to make copies of it. So this is the 0:14:26.240 --> 0:14:30.080 early age of personal computers, where you frequently would purchase 0:14:30.160 --> 0:14:33.160 programs on a floppy disk, and you would insert that 0:14:33.160 --> 0:14:37.200 floppy disk into a floppy disk drive attached to a computer, 0:14:37.640 --> 0:14:40.760 and then you would run a program off the disk. Well, 0:14:40.840 --> 0:14:43.840 with the ability to copy the contents of one disk 0:14:44.040 --> 0:14:47.480 onto a blank disc, that meant there was a risk 0:14:47.600 --> 0:14:50.240 that you would sell one copy, the customer would then 0:14:50.240 --> 0:14:52.800 produce a ton of copies on their own and then 0:14:52.840 --> 0:14:56.480 either undercut you or worse yet, distribute them for free 0:14:56.520 --> 0:15:00.680 to other people. I think of the children. So folks 0:15:00.720 --> 0:15:06.560 like Randy Wingington and Apple's co founder Steve Wozniak debated 0:15:06.680 --> 0:15:10.400 on solutions that could cut back on or outright prevent 0:15:10.920 --> 0:15:15.440 software piracy. They outlined different levels of DRM. Again, it 0:15:15.480 --> 0:15:18.120 wasn't called DRM. It was really was more like levels 0:15:18.160 --> 0:15:22.840 of copy protection. So if a copy protection were perfect, 0:15:23.160 --> 0:15:25.120 they would describe it as level one. It would be 0:15:25.120 --> 0:15:28.960 the most restrictive and it would prevent attempts to copy 0:15:29.000 --> 0:15:32.480 the software illegally. Uh, and it went all the way 0:15:32.560 --> 0:15:35.120 down to level five. This would be the least secure 0:15:35.720 --> 0:15:38.760 at eight percent effectiveness. So there's still some copy protection 0:15:38.800 --> 0:15:41.760 there um. And essentially what they were saying is we 0:15:41.880 --> 0:15:44.160 you know this, this level of copy protection. Eight out 0:15:44.200 --> 0:15:47.640 of ten computer users would not bother to try and 0:15:47.680 --> 0:15:51.000 work around it. But if you were determined, you could 0:15:51.000 --> 0:15:55.320 find your way around that copy protection. And again, this 0:15:55.400 --> 0:15:59.520 was just a way of classifying potential solutions. And we 0:15:59.680 --> 0:16:02.760 know about all of this because a person who goes 0:16:02.880 --> 0:16:07.400 by the handle of vader Mere on Reddit happened to 0:16:07.520 --> 0:16:11.800 come across a bundle of Apple internal memos, like the 0:16:11.840 --> 0:16:15.920 physical paper and ink kind of memos. They found the 0:16:15.960 --> 0:16:19.040 bundle of documents in a goodwill store, and those documents 0:16:19.080 --> 0:16:21.960 detailed the back and forth between various engineers and Apple 0:16:22.520 --> 0:16:27.720 about potential copy protection solutions, and nearly every proposal was 0:16:27.760 --> 0:16:31.080 dismissed as either being too easy to get around or 0:16:31.160 --> 0:16:35.000 too difficult to implement, or too expensive to consider, or 0:16:35.000 --> 0:16:39.080 too inconvenient for the end user, or some combination thereof. 0:16:39.760 --> 0:16:44.160 So again, these were very smart people all debating the 0:16:44.240 --> 0:16:48.600 possibility of creating various copy protection strategies and realizing the 0:16:48.680 --> 0:16:52.760 downsides might be greater than any kind of benefit they 0:16:52.840 --> 0:16:56.960 might grant. I actually remember computer games in the nineteen 0:16:57.000 --> 0:17:00.000 eighties that would have their own takes on copy protection, 0:17:00.040 --> 0:17:04.240 and these wouldn't necessarily count as DRN, but there is 0:17:04.280 --> 0:17:07.600 some overlap with DRM there. For example, I remember I 0:17:07.640 --> 0:17:09.840 had a game that would prompt you to provide an 0:17:09.840 --> 0:17:12.720 answer to a question early on in the game. Like 0:17:12.760 --> 0:17:15.560 you could start the game, you could start playing, but 0:17:15.640 --> 0:17:18.639 before very long you would get a question posed to 0:17:18.640 --> 0:17:21.840 you and the answer would be found in the game's manual. 0:17:22.240 --> 0:17:25.720 Like back then, games came with physical manuals that you 0:17:25.720 --> 0:17:29.320 would have. Uh. Some of those manuals would be printed 0:17:29.400 --> 0:17:33.399 on dark paper, dark ink on dark paper, because the 0:17:33.440 --> 0:17:37.359 game companies figured that folks weren't just copying video games 0:17:37.359 --> 0:17:40.119 onto blank discs, they were also going to the local 0:17:40.200 --> 0:17:44.560 photocopier and copying the manuals too, and getting around this 0:17:44.640 --> 0:17:48.560 kind of rudimentary copy protection strategy. So the dark paper 0:17:48.560 --> 0:17:51.159 with dark ink would foil most copiers. They would just 0:17:51.240 --> 0:17:53.800 produce black pages. I want to say one of the 0:17:53.840 --> 0:17:57.199 Wizardry games did that, but I could be wrong, But 0:17:57.280 --> 0:18:00.040 playing those games was kind of a hassle because you 0:18:00.080 --> 0:18:02.400 have to have the manual handy and flip through it 0:18:02.800 --> 0:18:04.879 while all you really wanted to do was just play 0:18:04.920 --> 0:18:06.800 the darn game. Let's say that you know, you went 0:18:06.840 --> 0:18:09.240 out there and bought the game with your hard earned money, 0:18:09.400 --> 0:18:13.320 like for me from cutting the lawn over and over again, 0:18:13.480 --> 0:18:15.480 even if it didn't need it. Gosh darn it, because 0:18:15.480 --> 0:18:19.680 I needs those games. And I end up handing over 0:18:19.760 --> 0:18:22.160 my allowance money or the law and more money, whatever 0:18:22.160 --> 0:18:23.879 it was, And and I get a game, and I 0:18:23.920 --> 0:18:26.720 come home and now it's just a pain in the 0:18:26.720 --> 0:18:29.200 butt to play because there's this copy protection I have 0:18:29.280 --> 0:18:32.320 to get around. Uh. That plays into the issue with 0:18:32.400 --> 0:18:36.960 DR and potentially being inconvenient for legit users. In fact, 0:18:37.440 --> 0:18:39.240 it would start to tell you that maybe I just 0:18:39.280 --> 0:18:41.400 want a cracked version of this game so I don't 0:18:41.480 --> 0:18:43.760 have to deal with that. It's not because I want 0:18:43.760 --> 0:18:46.920 to steal the game, but just because this is a 0:18:46.960 --> 0:18:51.120 barrier between me and experiencing the thing I want to experience. 0:18:52.040 --> 0:18:55.520 But we really shifted into high gear with DRM in 0:18:55.560 --> 0:18:58.399 the nineteen nineties. This is also when we saw the 0:18:58.440 --> 0:19:01.200 birth of the World Wide Web, which for many people 0:19:01.480 --> 0:19:04.760 was their first exposure to the Internet. And again, the 0:19:04.800 --> 0:19:07.359 Internet had actually been around for a while before the 0:19:07.400 --> 0:19:10.560 Worldwide Web came along, but really only a fraction of 0:19:10.600 --> 0:19:13.480 the general public were even aware that it was a thing. 0:19:14.240 --> 0:19:18.360 Most people didn't know. Unless you were, you know, actively 0:19:18.400 --> 0:19:21.159 working on our bonnet, or you were a college student 0:19:21.200 --> 0:19:23.760 at the time in in one of the computer labs, 0:19:24.240 --> 0:19:27.160 you probably didn't even know the Internet existed. The Web 0:19:27.240 --> 0:19:30.520 represented a new way to access information, and that included 0:19:30.600 --> 0:19:34.640 information that could be under copyright protection. And you know, well, 0:19:34.680 --> 0:19:38.679 folks say information wants to be free, the parties that 0:19:38.760 --> 0:19:42.760 hold copyrights might not always feel the same way. Now, 0:19:42.840 --> 0:19:47.399 I should add this is understandable if you were to 0:19:47.440 --> 0:19:51.600 pour your time and effort and talent into creating something 0:19:52.400 --> 0:19:55.280 like let's say it's a novel, and you wanted to 0:19:55.359 --> 0:19:58.000 earn money off your work. If you thought this is 0:19:58.080 --> 0:20:02.560 something worth paying for, I want to become a professional novelist, 0:20:03.359 --> 0:20:06.399 you would be concerned about folks skirting around the whole 0:20:07.040 --> 0:20:11.280 paying for your work thing. They'd get to experience your work, 0:20:11.760 --> 0:20:14.800 but you'd make no profit from it. Now, I say 0:20:14.840 --> 0:20:18.439 this because I know I tend to come down pretty 0:20:18.480 --> 0:20:24.080 hard against corporations and stuff and for lots of good reasons. 0:20:24.280 --> 0:20:28.480 Corporations often make bone headed decisions. But I also want 0:20:28.480 --> 0:20:31.160 to make it clear that I do see the need 0:20:31.280 --> 0:20:35.760 and value of copyright, like I see the reason for it. 0:20:36.119 --> 0:20:39.000 I don't think it needs to be nearly as extensive 0:20:39.040 --> 0:20:42.480 as what we have here in America, but I digress. Also, 0:20:42.520 --> 0:20:45.680 by the way, I say that as the son of 0:20:46.080 --> 0:20:50.520 two authors who have published numerous books, the way copyright 0:20:50.600 --> 0:20:53.640 law is right now, assuming that my parents were too 0:20:54.240 --> 0:20:59.080 uh to grant the ongoing rights to either me or, say, 0:20:59.200 --> 0:21:04.040 my sister, uh, we would be able to collect royalties 0:21:04.119 --> 0:21:07.880 on works for the rest of our lives. Uh. But 0:21:08.240 --> 0:21:10.840 you know, I don't care about that so much. I 0:21:10.840 --> 0:21:14.679 think it needs to be less expansive than it is. 0:21:15.240 --> 0:21:19.159 But I digress. So the ninety nineties hit and the 0:21:19.200 --> 0:21:23.359 web provided a new way to distribute information and files, 0:21:23.359 --> 0:21:25.760 so there was a need for some sort of mechanism 0:21:25.880 --> 0:21:30.600 to make sure folks couldn't just steal stuff. Like if 0:21:30.600 --> 0:21:34.560 you wanted to sell digital files on your website, you 0:21:34.600 --> 0:21:38.080 would probably want a method to keep folks from copying 0:21:38.119 --> 0:21:43.600 your products without limitations. But have no fear. A man 0:21:43.720 --> 0:21:47.560 with a degree in sociology will soon be here as 0:21:47.600 --> 0:21:58.160 soon as we take this quick break. Okay, before the break, 0:21:58.280 --> 0:22:03.200 I teased the entrance of Victor Shear, so in nine 0:22:04.400 --> 0:22:09.159 uh he founded a company called Electronic Publishing Resources, but 0:22:09.640 --> 0:22:14.479 soon they renamed this company inter Trust. Sheer had an 0:22:14.520 --> 0:22:18.880 amazingly prescient vision of what the Internet would allow. In fact, 0:22:18.920 --> 0:22:22.200 this is before Tim berners Lee had established the first 0:22:22.240 --> 0:22:26.480 web server. In fact, this is before the National Science Foundation, 0:22:26.840 --> 0:22:30.160 which had dominion over the Internet back in those days, 0:22:30.600 --> 0:22:33.600 had even lifted the restrictions on the commercial use of 0:22:33.640 --> 0:22:38.080 the Internet. The NSF wouldn't do that till and Sheer 0:22:38.160 --> 0:22:43.360 founded Electronic Publishing Resources the year before. So uh, he 0:22:43.400 --> 0:22:46.920 really saw where where the path was leading. He saw 0:22:46.960 --> 0:22:49.160 that the Internet was going to become the marketplace where 0:22:49.160 --> 0:22:53.600 people would buy and sell digital goods. But how do 0:22:53.640 --> 0:22:56.560 you make that work? How do you make a stable 0:22:56.720 --> 0:23:01.679 marketplace for the the per just sing and selling and 0:23:01.760 --> 0:23:05.160 transferring of digital goods so that it doesn't just become 0:23:05.200 --> 0:23:07.960 a chaotic mess. How can you assure that the rights 0:23:08.000 --> 0:23:12.200 holder to say, a certain song, will not see their 0:23:12.240 --> 0:23:15.919 song just copied and distributed across the entire Internet. What 0:23:16.119 --> 0:23:19.399 was needed was a method to wrap files up into 0:23:19.440 --> 0:23:22.719 a container of some sort, and the container would have 0:23:22.920 --> 0:23:26.600 special rules associated with it, rules that the container would 0:23:26.640 --> 0:23:29.959 only uh, you know, allow users to do so, Like 0:23:30.280 --> 0:23:32.240 if it was within the rule set, it was fine. 0:23:32.280 --> 0:23:34.760 If it was outside, it wouldn't allow access to the 0:23:34.840 --> 0:23:39.119 file inside the container. Rules like how many times the 0:23:39.160 --> 0:23:42.840 file might be accessed. It could be something like a 0:23:42.840 --> 0:23:48.000 a subscription service where you would have to continuously pay 0:23:48.000 --> 0:23:52.359 a subscription fee in order to have continued use of 0:23:52.359 --> 0:23:55.320 a specific file. Uh. Maybe it would be on how 0:23:55.359 --> 0:23:58.800 many machines you can install the file. We saw this 0:23:58.880 --> 0:24:02.679 a lot with music file else where companies were creating 0:24:02.760 --> 0:24:06.359 limitations on how many machines you could install a particular 0:24:07.320 --> 0:24:10.520 album before you would get a message saying sorry, you've 0:24:10.760 --> 0:24:14.119 you've put this on the max number of machines you 0:24:14.160 --> 0:24:16.760 can have it on. Same with video games like that. 0:24:16.760 --> 0:24:18.879 That was a big thing with video games too, where 0:24:19.240 --> 0:24:22.439 you could purchase a game and you might get a 0:24:22.440 --> 0:24:25.280 message saying, no, you've already got this installed on another machine, 0:24:25.280 --> 0:24:27.760 so you can't install it on this computer, which is 0:24:27.760 --> 0:24:29.240 a real pain in the butt if you're doing things 0:24:29.320 --> 0:24:32.800 like upgrading your computer system, or you happen to have 0:24:32.920 --> 0:24:34.960 multiple computers and you just want to be able to 0:24:34.960 --> 0:24:39.200 port the experience from one machine to another. DRM would 0:24:39.280 --> 0:24:43.840