The Dark Era of Publishing

It won’t last long, the established companies won’t be happy but most of the people will.

I, the content provider (= the entertainment company, like a book publishing house or a film studio or a music label), don’t trust you, my beloved customer. And I don’t want to deliver to you my content as it is. Who knows what the hell you idiot can fucking do with it!

I, the content provider, have leverage with the content distributors (= the tech companies), because they can’t legally distribute my copyrighted content to you without my permission.

I, the content provider, want your money. And you won’t pay up unless I give you my content, so I came up with an idea: I’ll use my leverage with the content distributors and I’ll force them to implement some technical hacks. In that way, you can enjoy my content, but only in a way that I can control…

The DRM was born.

The purpose of the DRM was neither to prevent copyright violations nor to fight piracy: it was always about market control and user lock-in; it was invented to give content providers leverage with the creators of the playback devices and any sort of control over the user experience.