they intend to 1. insult their legitimate users by treating them as potential criminals, 2. stifle innovation by controlling any new technology by DRM cages, 3. invade users' privacy with all kind of sick control mechanisms and etc. and etc.

sorry, I think this is delusional. They just want pirating a movie to be more trouble than it is worth for most people, so that they'll pay to rent or buy the movie instead. The reason they push DRM is because they don't have a better idea for how to prevent/impede people from distributing the movie for free before the studio can make its money back. If you're selling a movie, it's hard to compete with people who ae giving it away for free. If you can't make the money back, then you find the money o produce more movies.

I'm asking for suggestions on what you think would work instead of DRM.

That's exactly my point. It doesn't work for preventing piracy, which only leads one to conclude that since these studios push for DRM so fiercely, they have some other motives at play, while claiming that it's about piracy. This only doubles the reasons to oppose them, since they are hiding their motives, which are most probably not good for the public.

> The reason they push DRM is because they don't have a better idea for how to prevent/impede people from distributing the movie for free before the studio can make its money back.

If you claim they are so innocent, but just clueless, then there is a known rule for them - if you don't know what to do - sit and do nothing (until you figure out what to do). Doing the wrong thing (DRM) only makes things worse! They are naturally upset about piracy, but it's not a valid reason to push for unethical and crooked methods like DRM which achieve the opposite purpose - insult legitimate users and have zero effect on pirates.

DRM is always unethical. I'm not delusional about it. It's prone to abuse, like any kind of overbroad policing scheme. Such kind of examples are to be expected from DRM: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootk... I.e. users should never trust DRM schemes to respect their privacy, since DRM by definition doesn't trust the user. Trust is always mutual. I also explained why DRM is unethical in essence here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5381153 Please try to explain this idea to your contacts amongst studio execs, if they have hard time understanding that they are supporting such unethical practices (DRM).

> I'm asking for suggestions on what you think would work instead of DRM.

That's a valid thing to ask. The answer is well known. Treat customers with respect, and you'll get respect in return. It was proven time and again by various DRM free distributors (like GOG for gaming), which have a loyal following of users who respect them for treating users as normal beings, rather than despicable criminals by default. That's the way to reduce piracy - increase the legitimate user base using respect and encouragement to buy, instead of using preemptive policing stick. Make content easily accessible, instead of making it barely accessible with DRM electric fences.

> If you're selling a movie, it's hard to compete with people who are giving it away for free.

In order to compete with piracy, legitimate content has to, you know - actually compete! I.e. compete where it's possible to compete. Not in price (that's not possible, even though prices often can be lower than they are), but in usability and ease of access and etc. DRM always degrades usability and quality of the content. Always - let this settle in the mind of studio execs. DRMed stuff can not possibly compete with what pirates offer (quality and usability wise).

In practice, for film industry (or for any other digital industry - gaming, book publishing, music and so on), this would mean - start selling files. No DRM and strings attached. Easy and simple. People buy - they watch it where they want, on any device they want, whenever they want and etc. That's what pirated content offers. Streaming should be actually made a convenience, and not as a method to reduce usability. I.e. streaming service should explicitly offer an option to save the stream as DRM free file for time / device shifting and etc. Currently streaming is presented not as convenience, but as a restriction (i.e. come and see only here, only on this platform and only now, but not elsewhere or other time). This should go away if studios really want to reduce piracy. Let them offer the same level of usability as pirates do. Without such option, how do they possible even expect to compete with superior (but pirated) option? This will encourage people to buy, rather than pirate stuff. Since many are surely willing to support the creators.

There always will be some who pirate - they have to come to grips with that. But there is a big chunk of "pirates" who are simply put off by DRM idiocy and disrespectful behavior of distributors. These people can be won over to become legitimate users, if distributors would treat them with due respect. The idea is quite simple, but somehow it "escapes" the understanding of many distributors/publishing/content producing execs.

But to be honest, I'm not convinced yet that they are just clueless. Too many things point in different direction - i.e. some ulterior motives which drive them to push for DRM/DMCA. I'd be glad if that wasn't true.

Look, I used to run rave parties. We started with just a donation box, but eventually we switched to selling tickets because when we used the donation box we always wound up losing money on the costs of renting the soundsystem and the location. I hate to tell you this, but relying on the innate goodness of others - something that I naturally and greatly prefer to do - is a fast way to go broke.

Instead of going on and on about how awful DRM is - which I largely agree with but which frankly makes you sound a little unhinged - please show me some evidence that the honor system works on a larger scale. Because if I'm selling files for $5 with no copy protection and Joe Pirate is giving them away for $0 (but he doesn't want me to disrespect him by filing legal action against him or hurting his feeling by labeling him a pirate), tell me why people are going to give me $5 for the same thing that they could get for free?

'I hope people will do the right and give me the amount of money I ask for' is not a workable business plan. Nobody is going to write a large check for production costs based on that, because they're virtually guaranteed to go broke.

http://kotaku.com/everything-ive-learned-about-the-witcher-3...

"We are trying to get rid of DRM," said Szczesnik. "If someone wants to pirate a game, eventually he will." "Which is bad, of course," Badowski interjected. "But you can't do anything about it, so. We want to give the best user experience possible. When we removed DRM, people on those torrents were actually asking people not to download our game, because we [weren't using DRM]." While they were clear that they don't want people to pirate their games, both Szczesnik and Badowski said that invasive DRM isn't the answer.

> Because if I'm selling files for $5 with no copy protection and Joe Pirate is giving them away for $0 (but he doesn't want me to disrespect him by filing legal action against him or hurting his feeling by labeling him a pirate), tell me why people are going to give me $5 for the same thing that they could get for free?

I thought this is simple. People already can get it for free by pirating it. I.e. you have such choices:

1. Sell for $5 with DRM that reduces usability by limiting platforms where this can be used and etc. etc. By using DRM the distributor also offends paying customers by default by treating them as potential criminals. Joe pirate breaks DRM, and gives this out for $0 with no DRM, which can be used anywhere.

2. Sell for $5 with no DRM. It gives wide platforms availability and shows respect to the customer. Joe pirate gives out the same thing for $0.

Note, Joe pirate will give it away in either case. So what is better for the distributor, to act like a jerk, and still getting pirating in result, or to act decently and with repsect (and still getting pirating in result)? Obviously the second is better, since more people will in return pay, rather than pirate. That's how respect works - it's mutual.

I.e. what can be improved, is making it easy to buy and treating the buying customers decently. I'm repeating myself really. People will buy - out of respect in return, and naturally out of willing to support the creators. Since studio execs see everyone as a thief, they can't grasp this simple truth.

Great example is CD Projekt Red company, owners of the GOG.com games distribution service, and creators of the highly acclaimed Witcher games. They had multiple talks about piracy and complete uselessness of DRM. They sell only DRM free games on GOG - as a matter of principle. Search for their interviews if you are interested. People gladly support them, because they treat people with respect. They even brought an example, that DRM gives an incentive to pirate - i.e. people break DRM and pirate out of the opposition spirit. But when there is no DRM - there is less incentive to begin with. (Here is a great article about it: http://www.forbes.com/sites/danielnyegriffiths/2012/05/18/th... ).

If you want to put it in practical terms for video industry, let some studio become vocal about their opposition to DRM and their willingness to break this sick trend. And let them put it in practice (the way I described above). They'll see the increase in sales and the number of legitimate customers. I'm not joking. But such studio needs to be brave and bold when they come out with principal DRM free stance, because naturally others in the industry will try to attack them. But they should simply ignore and persist - and they'll be victorious.

I.e. to make it more formal - instead of focusing on reducing piracy (negative), focus on increasing the sales (positive). The second includes building the loyal fan base (fans gladly support the creators), producing high quality and unique stuff (people would rather pay for really good things, than for low quality) rather than following the "mass market" approach, treating people with respect (no DRM) and so on. This is proven to work. Note that CDPR whom are brought above excel in all these. They communicate with their fans actively, they pay high attention to details and don't ever produce mediocre stuff. They are original and unique. And really high quality. See their talk about their approach: http://en.thewitcher.com/forum/index.php?/topic/31748-cdprs-... I can agree that those who can't come up with something original and follow the "mass market" are at a disadvantage. But that's the nature of competition. Even DRM won't help mediocre stuff to become really good.

However DRM gives publishers/distributors the taste of power and control. And it's one of the basic lusts in people. Which is even greater than lust for money. So it's not so much about piracy - it's about them playing "the boss", or "the big brother" for that matter. So many aren't ready to give up the taste of power.

I'd also recommend your studio execs friends to listen to this very insightful talk from Cory Doctorow: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUEvRyemKSg - you should watch as well, if you didn't yet. He addresses the issue of DRM and how it affects the technology adversely, and especially how wrong are attempts to abuse the legal system to enforce DRM (i.e. DMCA and Co.).