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Right, and you point out something important which is that people who don’t want to pay, people who are pirates, don’t get bothered by the DRM, they go out and buy the cracked books or download the cracked books for free. It’s only people who are foolish enough to pay for them that get locked into these platforms.
Cory Doctorow
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Interpretation

What this quote means

DRM (Digital Rights Management) fails to deter those who seek free access to content, leaving honest consumers at a disadvantage.

Cory Doctorow highlights the irony of Digital Rights Management (DRM) systems in his quote. He suggests that those who are inclined to pirate content will bypass these protections effortlessly, while honest consumers, who are willing to pay, find themselves restricted by the very systems meant to protect them. This illustrates the often counterproductive nature of DRM and raises questions about consumer rights and the effectiveness of such measures in the digital age.

Themes

DrmPiracyContentRestrictionsConsumers

In practice

Example use cases

During a panel on copyright, this quote can illustrate the frustrations of legitimate consumers.

More from Cory Doctorow

Content isn't king. If I sent you to a desert island and gave you the choice of taking your friends or your movies, you'd choose your friends -- if you chose the movies, we'd call you a sociopath. Conversation is king. Content is just something to talk about.
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He hated it when adults told him he only felt the way he did because he was young. As if being young was like being insane or drunk, like the convictions he held were hallucinations caused by a mental illness that could only be cured by waiting five years.
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... the Kindle is a "roach motel" device: its license terms and DRM ensure that books can check in, but they can't check out.
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