DRM: a pirate's dream

So what is the point of DRM and how does it work? The term basically covers a range of technologies that restrict access to hardware and digital media files. One example is DVD region codes. These try to prevent DVDs being played outside certain regions. The US is Zone 1, and the Middle East is in Zone 2 along with Europe.

The stupid thing about DVD zoning is that it discourages the purchase of DVDs at obvious points of sale, such as airports. A business executive about to make a 14-hour flight would seem an ideal customer: he has a long voyage ahead, he has a multimedia-enabled laptop, and he has disposable income. But if he's overseas, the DVDs on sale will probably be the wrong zone. So it makes far more sense - and it's far cheaper - for him to pick up pirated region-free DVDs from the local market.

Add to that the fact that most DVD players can be hacked to become multiregion, and most DVDs can easily be ripped into a region-free format, and one has to wonder why the film industry still bothers with zoning. The only people it benefits are video pirates.

Sony's XCP shame

Another notorious form of DRM, used on music CDs, was Sony's Extended Copy Protection on music CDs. When users played the CDs in their computer, XCP secretly installed a file that interfered with the way Windows played CDs, and opened up security holes. The result: appalling publicity for Sony and a slew of lawsuits.

Apple is currently forced to put DRM on all iTunes music due to its agreements with music publishers. This DRM, Fairplay, is supposed to ensure that people who buy songs from iTunes can't share them with friends, and can only play them on iPods. (The reality is that it's easily hackable through a number of different methods, but more on that later).

But several European countries contend that because Apple has such a strong monopoly in digital music, accounting for 70% of the US market, its DRM is an unfair use of power. Norway has already started legal proceedings to force Apple to make iTunes music playable on non-iPod devices.

So fear of anti-competition litigation is at least part of the reason for Steve Jobs' current anti-DRM fervour. But it's the response from much of the music industry that is so significant. A Jupiter survey of senior music executives found that two-thirds believed dropping DRM would increase digital music sales.

Files that "die"

By far the most ridiculous form of DRM is making digital media files disappear or become unplayable after a certain length of time. This is what the BBC is planning to do with its new on-demand service. People will be able to buy an episode of a TV series but just seven days after they watch it, the file will no longer play. And if they don't get round to watching it within 30 days, it will also become unplayable.

How absurdly stupid. Most popular BBC shows, such as Doctor Who, are already all over the internet just hours after broadcast, 100% free, and in high-resolution. Illegally, but that doesn't stop millions of people worldwide from downloading them. So where is the incentive to start paying for the official BBC version, if the official ones will vanish from your hard drive within a month?

But of course the greater irony is that they won't necessarily vanish at all. Because there is a slew of methods to defeat DRM, for example:

1. Rippers

The simplest way. Software that does the job for you: it takes the DRM video file, and rips it into an unrestricted file in the format of your choice. You can also use rippers to copy files off DVDs, and even websites such as YouTube.

2. Screen capture

Some video is harder to convert, particularly newer formats such as Flash/.flv (though plenty of rippers are now available for this too) and advanced codecs such as H.264. The motto is: if you can play it, you can save it. Screen capture software works a bit like the Print Desktop button on a PC, except that it records continuous movement and audio on your screen. So while your video is playing, it's being saved in another format to your hard drive.

3. Camera capture

If the above methods fail, one can "brute rip" a file by using a video camera to re-film it. Either directly off the screen, which produces mixed results, or by hooking up the computer to a TV monitor, and having the camera (or a VHS player) record the output. A lot of video pirates use this method to capture new films: they record directly off the cinema screen.
But of course the easiest way to evade DRM is not to buy restricted media files in the first place. No wonder the peddlars of pirated DVDs continue to do such a roaring trade. For Dh15 a pop, who cares if the latest Bond film comes with Korean subtitles and a poorly printed paper sleeve? At least it will play on any machine, in perpetuity.