https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/api.php?action=feedcontributions&feedformat=atom&user=68.97.40.133explain xkcd - User contributions [en]2026-07-10T08:27:12ZUser contributionsMediaWiki 1.30.0https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=86:_Digital_Rights_Management&diff=3307386: Digital Rights Management2013-04-10T02:30:57Z<p>68.97.40.133: /* Explanation */</p>
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<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 86<br />
| date = April 7, 2006<br />
| title = Digital Rights Management<br />
| image = sony_microsoft_mpaa_riaa_apple.jpg<br />
| imagesize = <br />
| titletext = If you're interested in the subject, Lawrence Lessig's 'Free Culture' is pretty good<br />
}}<br />
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==Explanation==<br />
{{w|Digital rights management}} (DRM), is a class of methods for controlling digital files, such as by preventing media from playing on any device besides the device from which the purchase is made. It is used by several major companies, as it makes it more difficult to pirate media, which they claim cuts into their profits. Those companies typically also lobby for laws forbidding circumvention of DRM-teknikes, like the {{w|Digital Millennium Copyright Act}} (DMCA).<br />
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However, DRM is usually disliked by consumers, as it makes it difficult to use their purchased media. For example, if they buy a new computer, there's no guarantee their DRM-covered media will be usable on the new computer. Thus, [[Black Hat]] is suggesting to the pro-DRM organizations {{w|Sony}}, {{w|Microsoft}}, the {{w|Motion Picture Association of America}} (MPAA), the {{w|Recording Industry Association of America}} (RIAA), and {{w|Apple Inc.|Apple}} that they stop their DRM-fiddling and lobbying, and he'll stop his inexorable ice-wall. Sounds like a fair deal.<br />
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The title text refers readers to law professor {{w|Lawrence Lessig}}'s book '{{w|Free Culture (book)|Free Culture}}'.<br />
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==Transcript==<br />
:[Hat Guy is standing on an advancing glacier]<br />
:Hat Guy: Dear Sony, Microsoft, the MPAA, the RIAA, and Apple: Let's make a deal. You stop trying to tell me where, when, and how I play my movies and music, and I won't crush your homes under my inexorably advancing wall of ice.<br />
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{{comic discussion}}<br />
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[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]<br />
[[Category:Comics with color]]<br />
[[Category:Computers]]<br />
[[Category:Internet]]</div>68.97.40.133