Digital Rights Management. Few things raise the hackles of PC gamers more than those three words. Granted, it’s not always terrible. DRM can, when done right, protect the intellectual property of a developer without making legitimate customers feel like criminals. The trouble is, it’s almost never done right anymore. Virtually the only example I can call to mind of DRM that actually works is the Steam distribution platform(due in no small part to the convenience of digital distribution and the reputation of the developer, Valve)- everything else is either too cumbersome or too invasive and drives a number of people, who might otherwise be satisfied customers, towards piracy.
Plus, DRM is treated by some people as a challenge. Just look at what happened to the ‘uncrackable’ DRM on Assassin’s Creed 2. It was cracked within a day. We’re not even going to talk about the shoddy, half-cocked attempts of the music and entertainment industry to protect their properties- their arrogant, ignorant, and entitled attitude has probably caused piracy to become more rampant than it ever was before they took notice of it.
After all, who wants to support an industry that thinks it’s okay to treat its customers like cattle, and behaves as though they don’t actually own the content that they rightfully purchased?
But we’re getting off track. Where did this all begin? Exactly when and why did organizations begin fighting an uphill, losing battle against piracy? When was it decided that treating everybody like a criminal would be better than simply accepting that some people will pirate no matter what you do?
Let’s have a look back.
The First DRM
Although the term “Digital Rights Management” didn’t really come along until the DMCA, it’s actually been around for a while, in some form or another. A very primordial form of DRM was invented way back in 1983, by a fellow named Ryoichi Mori- though the underlying principles were far, far different from the software protections we see today. Known as the Software Control System, its development was grounded in something known as Superdistribution: essentially, the idea that software, ideas, and information should all be able to flow freely and unrestricted through the Internet.
Superdistribution included protections for content owners, allowing the creator to know whenever their product was copied, a system for tracking the usage of the product which allowed the owner to control the terms of their product’s use, and a payment system that allowed users to make secure transactions with the content owner. It’s a far cry from the sort of distribution models we know today, and the protections developed by Mori were unobtrusive, simple, and particularly effective.
So….what happened, exactly?
Next time, we’re going to look at the first content protections installed by the computing, multimedia entertainment and gaming industries, how they went over with users, and how the ‘content war’ escalated after their introduction (and later ineffectiveness).
Image Credits:[Geekadelphia]
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