Jelton at Slashdot asks:
If digital media was available for sale at a reasonable price, but
subject to a DRM scheme that allowed full legitimate usage (format
shifting, time shifting, playback on different devices, etc.) and only
blocked illicit usage (illegal copying), would you support the usage
of such a DRM scheme? Especially if it meant a wealth of readily
available compatible devices? In other words, if you object to DRM
schemes, is your objection based on principled or practical
concerns?
But this distinction doesn’t exist. Such perfect DRM is impossible,
and we’ve known it is for decades. Perfect DRM would have to allow
use of devices and technologies not yet conceived. It would have to
allow all fair such devices, but no unfair devices. It would have to
allow me to make a copy for backup, then make another after the first
was destroyed—but we know it’s impossible to prove destruction of a
copy.
Consider a program composed of three stages, A, B, and C, run in
sequence. A does something legal. C does something illegal. Can the
whole program run? It depends on whether B terminates. Perfect DRM
has to solve the halting problem.
There’s an equivalent proof using incompleteness.
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