Story from - Gamepolitics

"Digital activist group the Electronic Frontier Foundation has called upon the Federal Trade Commission to mitigate the harm caused to consumers by digital rights management (DRM).

An EFF press release quotes staff attorney Corynne McSherry (left) on the DRM issue:

DRM does not prevent piracy.

At this point, DRM seems intended to accomplish a very different purpose: giving some industry leaders unprecedented power to influence the pace and nature of innovation and upsetting the traditional balance between the interests of copyright owners and the interests of the public.

The best way to fix the problem is to get rid of DRM on consumer products and reform the [Digital Millenium Copyright Act], but the steps we're suggesting will help protect technology users and future technology innovation in the meantime.

The EFF press release adds:

Industry leaders argue that DRM is necessary to protect sales of digital media, but DRM systems are consistently and routinely broken almost immediately upon their introduction.

The group filed public comments with the FTC in advance of the government agency's Town Hall on DRM, which is scheduled for March 25th in Seattle."

I don't think dropping all forms of protection would be beneficial, but giving your consumers a heacache for trying to own your software currently isn't the way to generate sales. Looks like we'll have to see what happens March 25th.

The big question about the efficacy of DRM schemes should be- does it increase sales?- rather than does it make marginally more difficult for pirates? If it doesn't increase your sales, then there's absolutely zero point in having it as you're just alienating parts of your customer base.

Of course the big idea is to kill the second hand market and the PC's being used as a trial ground for it. I'd love them to try something similar on the consoles- the first time Johnny Sixpack Jr finds he can't trade in his copy of Madden/ FIFA/ Halo/ whatever, the shit will really hit the fan.