Arguments supporting the use of DRM?

Strong supporters would claim that the jobs of the video game developers would get paid fairly as those who “rip” are practically taking away from those who work rigorous hours putting together animation, storyboards, pixels etc. together

i mean i have to structure and present the argument myself clearly. I already have points, I just wanted other opinions. it’s not a final paper; i just have to talk about it

DRM makes it possible for publishers to force customers to use specific distribution platforms (see i-tunes), which not only enables the industry to brainwash them into brand-loyal drones, which is a good way to make them amiable to higher prices, but also provides a stable advertising platform for third party advertisers.
Ring-a-ding-ding, baby.

Sadly, that is a losing side on that battle as the really real world is full of mountains of evidence not only refuting, but outright disproven every point in support of DRM as it causes many problems for legitimate users while barely even inconveniencing the pirates it’s supposed to stop.

Honestly, there are no good arguments. All DRM does is make things needlessly difficult for legitimate users while doing absolutely nothing to curb piracy.

Some of our circuits have an integrated form of DRM. If the device is being used in a manner inconsistent with its intended purpose, location and time frame, a higher than normal current is sent through the IC to burn out some critical connections that permanently alter the program flow. Rather than issuing a diagnostic or NOP command the device continues to work – incorrectly.

well sense the resounding conclusion seems to be “there is no argument for DRM, it sucks”, is there a way I could argue FOR the concept of DRM and not necessarily implementation? Like maybe ways to rework DRM yet admit current uses aren’t the best? I just ask because this is the side of the argument I have to do and if I don’t form a good argument in support of it, I will a bad score. I need to sound convincing…..I just don’t know how. It’s unfair really; my professor picked a topic where there is clearly more evidence stacked in favor of one side than the other

@cutiepi92 – Try standing in the shoes of a musician or some creative individual whose work is being pirated. Perhaps a new band who aren’t raking in the dough or an indie moviemaker that’s just trying to make ends meet. As an example of why DRM could work, or be ideal: I told my brother that it’s pretty easy to illicitly download ebooks for the Kindle these days. He said he’d never do it because he’s a struggling author. If you look at it from that perspective, maybe it will get your juices flowing.

Would authors create works if they knew they would be stolen? What happens to creativity in such a case?

@LuckyGuy Creative types will still create regardless of financial incentive. Humans have been creating art, music, stories, etc for pretty much as long as we’ve been around. The idea of making a living doing so is only a fairly recent notion.

^ People will still create stuff even if they don’t get paid. Yup. Technically, this is true, but only due to semantics. You could say the same thing about any other job. Let’s stop paying doctors and teachers. It’s true that some people will stick around and continue to work in those professions, even though they’re forced to live a life of monk-like poverty, but there will be a lot less of them. The same is true for people who create digital media – yeah, there will be some production going on, but there will be a lot less of it and it’ll look like the low-quality shareware stuff. Sounds like a big loss to society, even if it’s technically true that some people will stick around and keep doing it.

not my words, taken off of reddit, but i completely agree. I do digital art, and I definitely wouldn’t do it as much as I do now if I didn’t think I would get paid for it

Whoever said anything about artists being “forced to live in monk-like poverty”? Hell, I personally know a few folks who create art everyday even though it’s not their means of living and they’ve never really made a dime off of it. And I assure you they are not living in monk-like poverty.

^ but thats the thing; it’s not their primary source of income. Someone who has/produces art as their life’s work is going to produce a different type and level quality of work. They aren’t living bad because they have other jobs. That isn’t the case for everyone. I don’t agree with DRM, but saying that people will make the same stuff anyway is a poor argument

D.R.M. is an effort to protect a long dead business model. The music, art, film or whatever is not the product anymore. It is the advertisement and the old guard in media just can’t see it yet. There is no good argument for D.R.M.

There’s no reason to think DRM means that the creative types are getting well compensated for their work. If they get compensated at all as a result of DRM it is very little.
The folks who are protected by DRM are the corporate middlemen.

If you want to argue for the benefit of the corporate middlemen then DRM is on your side. If you want to support some artists then go see some live music, buy a painting from the artist, commission a poem.

As @jerv points out, the arguments against DRM are pretty compelling. This doesn’t change the fact that you are assigned a position in a debate and must defend it as best you may. Imagine if lawyers were only able to argue sensible positions- the profession would be dead in the water (though the rest of us might well be better off.)

So, you can’t afford to fight fair. Fortunately for you (and for lawyers everywhere) debate isn’t about finding the truth between disparate positions; it’s about beating the opposition. For this reason, there is a field of knowledge called Rhetoric which is all about these dirty tricks. If you can learn to effectively use logical fallacies, appeals to emotion, dilemmae and other such devices, then you can win even when you’re dead wrong.
It also pays to know about such things that you may detect when the opposition is trying to put one over you.

@cutiepi92 Are you really trying to argue that profitability = better art?

It is usually the other way around; profitability = shitty ‘art’
See pop music and hollywood. The good music/movies usually make little money, because the dumb masses are unable to appreciate quality.

@rexacoracofalipitorius Aren’t logical fallacies what keeps DRM around in the first place?

I would try to argue that profitability = the ability to let people pursue their art full time. Therefore, giving people a chance to produce more and focus on their work.

If you could actually link profitability and DRM. Remember, pirates aren’t stopped by DRM, but people who want to copy a song from a CD they purchased and put a copy on their phone are… which, in turn, ups the demand for pirated goods.

@cutiepi92 They might produce more, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the work they produce will be quality (quality in art being, of course, entirely subjective).

Not to mention that there are some people who will refuse to buy anything that has DRM. Some even consider Steam (the game store) to be DRM; the recent game Shadowrun Returns lost a few sales that way, only to snag them once they cleared the licensing to release a DRM-free version. This is more likely in software than art, but still, DRM loses sales. Just one possible point your opposition might bring up. More expense plus lost sales though…

@jerv I know that I’ve certainly not bought games I might have otherwise purchased because of DRM.

just so you guys know, you haven’t helped at all lol except for @rexacoracofalipitorius. I get that DRM is bad yaddayadda that was my point of the question. I need GOOD things. Only oppositional points are being brought out

Certain things also almost force you to pirate games.
Take Sleeping Dogs, for example.
Steam only has the massively censored German version for German customers.
Which in itself would not be a problem.
But the German version only got patched up to v1.1, while the english version is now up to v2.1. Which means the German version is not only still full of bugs, but also most of the DLC that have been released will not work with the German version, including the HD texture pack.

@cutiepi92 Unfortunately there are no good things to be said about DRM. It doesn’t protect the artist’s interests, it doesn’t curtail piracy, it only makes things more difficult for legit purchasers. It sucks, but you’re tasked with defending an indefensible position.

@cutiepi92 The thing with debates is that your opposition will bring up arguments that you will need to counter.

We are bringing up the arguments we think you may run into, hoping maybe another one of us can think of a counter to that we cannot see ourselves. Bouncing ideas around.

Going into a debate blind, without knowing what you will probably be facing, is to lose before the debate begins. Forewarned is forearmed… and the fact that nobody here has thought of a good (or even a good-sounding) counter to any of the anti-DRM arguments shows me that even Johnny Cochrane would have a hard time here.

Seeing as none of us can think of a fact-based argument, @rexacoracofalipitorius is correct that your only real chance here is something along the lines of “the Twinkie defense”. There’s no way to dazzle them with brilliance, so you’ll have to baffle them with bullshit.

Nobody said school was easy.

@cutiepi92 We are not here to do your homework for you. I have given you some guidelines on where to look for tricks you can use; it’s up to you to find them out and to implement them.
There are pro-DRM sites on the Internet. With a moment’s thought and a modicum of searching, you could find them and crib their arguments. Just be sure you understand them and anticipate possible rebuttals.

Remember the structure of debate. Use the number and length of turns to your advantage. Above all, cheat. It’s the only way you will win this one. If you do well, you could have a lucrative career ahead of you as a lawyer, speechwriter, publicist or political campaign manager.

@jerv Damn straight logical fallacies are all that make DRM look good. The sharks have to muddy the waters before they can feed…

i wasn’t asking for my homework to be done for me (yet I have seen that on here a number of times). I have mentioned that I HAVE been doing research and I’m the one that has to present the argument at the end of it all; the issue is that during my research, every positive point I have found about DRM can easily be refuted with sufficient evidence. I just wanted some outside ideas. Maybe someone has thought of something that I haven’t. That’s called simply asking for help.

@cutiepi92 No issues there. Even the smartest people sometimes need an outside opinion or a fresh perspective.

This particular issue is nasty though since you’ve been put into a no-win situation. I think “The Earth is flat” may actually be an easier position to defend.

Facts are against you, public opinion is definitely against you, so the best you can honestly hope for is to impress the teacher with your thoroughness and the showmanship of your presentation, since to be honest you really don’t have a chance of actually winning this debate on merit.

Then again, your grade isn’t really being based on the merits of your position so much as it is on how well you debate anyways. You’re not actually trying to convince people that DRM is good; you’re trying to convince your teacher that you know how to find facts and present them in a manner that can sway opinions.