Debunking a DRM press-release

Last week, a reporter I know at the BBC forwarded me a press-release announcing a new DRM system that Sony, Matsushita, Samsung and Philips have all agreed to. He asked me if I had any comment, and so I sent him an email with a bunch of stuff, some of which made it into his article. I think it was a good response, and so I've put it online:

Not one of these systems has ever prevented piracy or illegal
copying. When pressed, these entities will surely admit that this
technology is not meant to be proof against a skilled attacker,
but rather it is meant as a "speed bump" that works on "average
users" to "keep honest users honest." If they are particularly
disrespectful of 52 percent of the world's population, they might
even tell you that this is the kind of thing that their mothers
can't defeat.

But counterfeiting gangs who engage in "illegal copying" and
"piracy" — that is, the sophisticated criminal enterprises that
operate in the former USSR and elsewhere to stamp out billions of
fake CDs and DVDs — are unfazed by these systems, because they
are, in fact, sophisticated attackers. They are, in fact, not
average users. This commercial piracy is the only activity that
clearly displaces sales to the studios and the labels, and it is
precisely this kind of piracy that DRM cannot prevent.

As to average users engaged in file-sharing, they, too, won't be
foiled by this. Rather, they will be able to avail themselves of
songs, movies and other media that have had their DRM removed by
sophisticated users. They need not know how to hack the DRM
wrappers off their music, they merely need to know how to search
Google for copies where this has already happened.

And that is exactly what they will do: they will bring home
lawfully purchased CDs and DVDs and try to do something normal,
like watch it on their laptop, or move the music to their iPod,
and they will discover that the media that they have bought has
DRM systems in place to prevent exactly this sort of activity,
because the studios and labels perceive an opportunity to sell
you your media again and again — the iPod version, the auto
version, the American and UK version, the ringtone version, und
zo weiter. Customers who try to buy legitimate media rather than
downloading the unfettered DRM-free versions will be punished for
their commitment to enriching the entertainment companies. That
commitment will falter as a consequence.