Cory Doctorow correctly lambastes those soft on DRM for the umpteenth time. The following excerpt sparked a thought:
DRM isn’t protection from piracy. DRM is protection from competition.
Reminds me of airport “security” and similar. In the essay IDs and the illusion of security Bruce Schneier makes a case (not nearly as forcefully as can be done) that
Identification and profiling don’t provide very good security, and they do so at an enormous cost.
I’d argue that most measures justified by “security” actually make us less secure, in part because of their enormous cost. Another time.
Anyway, I think there’s a nice (ugly) symmetry in the arguments of apologists for Digital Restrictions Management and the national security state. Both are really much about restricting competition.
