Is DRM doomed to fail?

DRM, Digital Rights Management, has reached another milestone with the recent creation of the MovieLabs consortium.

The idea is to develop technology to protect the film industry.

Ed Felten published a comment, picked up by Boing Boing, in which he considers this initiative dumb and doomed to fail.

The truth is that the argument is rather flimsy, because the example of the auto industry and the perpetual motion machine seems arbitrary, and the conclusions illogical.

DRM is doomed all the same, but for a simpler reason:

Every time a song is played, or a movie is shown, it is in danger of being copied. Unless someone develops an invasive technology that injects the content straight into our neurons, I see no way of protecting content in the unbeatable way the Hollywood companies dream of.

In any case, it’s a lovely way to spend money, and I congratulate those who will work on this project, because they are off to a great start, with 36 million dollars to spend.

I think the best DRM there is, is low prices. ;)