Comment Number: 539814-00792
Received: 2/13/2009 6:25:26 PM
Organization:
Commenter: Chris Taylor
State: PA
Agency: Federal Trade Commission
Rule: FTC Town Hall to Address Digital Rights Management Technologies - Event Takes Place Wednesday, March 25, 2009, in Seattle
Attachments:
Comments:

DRM is quite simple THEFT of personal property rights. When I purchase something it is my PROPERTY. DRM is theft of my property. When I steal something I get arrested. DRM is "legal" theft. I can buy a car. I can modify and resell that car. I can hack it to pieces and rebuild it any way I want (safely) and resell it. I can put Citgo gas in it or Exxon gas. I can put Ford parts in it or "no name" brand parts in it. I can use Dollar store or Or Mobile 1 synthetic. The dealer with very few exceptions has NO SAY in what I do with my own personal property. Why? its simple. Its my Property. NOT theirs. What is so hard to understand about this concept? Its been working fine for thousands of years. When I purchase a CD. I do not LICENSE anything I do not RENT anything. I accept NO EULA I accept NO terms of service. its my Personal Property I can and will do with it as I please. NOW if I try to copy that CD and SELL the copies now its NOT personal. NOT I am infringing there property rights. Just like if I bought a ford went over to china and said "copy" this and put my own logo on it. Again I am violating their property rights. DRM is THEFT of my property. Especially current day DRM. it effectively means I am "renting" with NO option to purchase because they can "turn it off" anytime they please. It is also physically IMPOSSIBLE for DRM to ever have any real impact on piracy. DRM effect only one person. the Legitimate customer. You see when you download a "hacked" game the DRM is gone. its been "hacked" out of the game. Its a pretty scary thing when legitimate users download the "hacked" copy of games because the "legit" copy they bought does not work properly because of the DRM. DRM is a self full filling prophecy. Someone who is used to pirating games is always going to pirate the games. Nothing you do is really going to change this. Ever. That is a fact of life. The problem with DRM is it turns LEGIT customers "into" pirates. Once they go online and complain about the problems with a program and some other user (the pirate) says hey just download this and you won't have any problems (and it will be the truth) well the NEXT time a new game comes out this legit user may simply decide why put up with the headache's and just go get the pirated copy. When the free pirated copy is a SUPERIOR product to the purchased copy you have a problem. Myself. I refuse to cross that line. For example I WANT spore. I refuse to buy it. I refuse to allow them to install invasive and dangerous software onto MY computer. I refuse to allow them to cause MY property to dictate TERMS to me. This is literally tantamount to you buying a Chevy and it REFUSING to run unless you buy CHEVY gas to go with it. We would never tolerate that. SO why is it tolerated in our Computers. On mine it is not. My computer is my property. I set the terms. NOT apple or EA or whoever. The problem is most people simply have no idea and this invasion and THEFT of property rights gets worse by the day. DRM should be outlawed. Its immoral and it is illegal (theft is illegal regardless of whether its recognized as such by the state) Please put an END to it. BAN DRM in ANY "active" roll. ANY copy protection is wrong but at least with PASSIVE copy protection I stay in command of my property.