Comment Number 539814-00475

Comment Number:	539814-00475
Received:	1/11/2009 6:40:50 AM
Organization:	None
Commenter:	Gonzales
State:	ND
Agency:	Federal Trade Commission
Rule:	FTC Town Hall to Address Digital Rights Management Technologies - Event Takes Place Wednesday, March 25, 2009, in Seattle
Attachments:

Comments:

I do understand the desire by manufacturers to use DRM to protect their intellectual properties but I personally think it as being highly flawed. I understand that if I (for example) purchase a game digitaly on the Internet through a company, i'm not so much paying for the software as i'm paying for the right to USE it. There is the old argument of, "Well I payed for it, I deserve the right to use it as I see fit." They are correct to an extent. I believe that DRM should be lifted as it has caused more headaches than good. I've heard of cases where people have legally purchased a computer game in the stores (a physical copy, mind you), but after having to reinstall their operating system due to system errors, after 3-4 installs the game is unable to be installed again. DRM was instituted in order to try and combat piracy but it's only a pipedream. In this technological day and age, it's virtually impossible to make anything 100% safe from pirating. There are people out there who dedicate (in my opinion) too much of their time trying to break any kind of encryption or DRM on properties just so they can say that it's not 'un-hackable'. I am not advocating that we should remove the DRM to make it easier to pirate as it'll be pirated anyway; but i've heard of more cases of DRM hurting legitimate consumers than stopping many illegal downloads. While we're at it, we should get rid of international region coding on DVDs and video games. You can play it in your own native country if you import them anyway. You just have to buy the foreign players or play it legit on your PC. Region coding does nothing for anything. I can't think of one positive and dozens of negatives at once. I'm positive that DVD/video game region coding is against the international trade fairness outline.