Evil??? I dont think so.
Everyone likes free lunch but who will pay for the expenses. Content owners can earn by selling their content and DRM will prevent (in most cases) illegal usage of files.

The only debate is whether to create new DRM or to use existing DRM's.

Prashanth
http://linsupersite.com

Look, if i buy a music CD and give it to my friend my friend now owns the CD.

with DRM, i cant do that. and that sucks. I OWN that file – i paid for it!

Professional pirates will always find a way around DRM.

What DRM is doing is penalising the honest customer, who just wants to play their downloaded file anywhere and on ANY device.

As long as DRM is around, bittorrent and the P2P networks will still command the lions share of multimedia traffic.

Hmmm i'm really not seeing how DRM is *inherently* evil. These producers wouldn't put thier content out there if it wasn't protected in some way. Are we saying that publishers no longer are allowed to use the internet to make money off thier content without being evil? Thats a little pushy; no wonder online TV is taking so long.

online television is already here – its called bittorrent.

There's also the issue of remixing existing video content according to Fair Use laws. I don't know in how far Google Video allows me to cite a short clip from a video I own. It's my right to do so, but for that they need to offer a standard video file (like mpg). We got more and more powerful tools in the digital world, and yet we seem to be able to do less and less... with a double tape deck, anyone could make a mixed tape and pass it on to friends.

An interesting read – Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig:
http://www.authorama.com/free-culture-4.html

"Free cultures are cultures that leave a great deal open for others to build upon; unfree, or permission, cultures leave much less. Ours was a free culture. It is becoming much less so."

In response to Justin Flavin, your conclusion is a mistake many people make. When you buy a CD, you don't own the music, you simply own a license to play and listen to that music. That license restricts what you can do with the music. At root there, and with DRM in general, is how restrictive is fair? DRM isn't inherently evil...it's how it's used and how restrictive it is. Locking things down like the MPAA and RIAA want to do is, in my opinion, evil. Content owners and copyright holders wanting to protect their work isn't. The question is, where is the happy medium?

On a side-note, Master Yoda has an answer to everything, including the Google Video DRM: "The fear of loss is a path to the Dark Side." (Yoda also has quote on Google's extended Betas: "Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.")

DRM is inherently evil – by design it restricts the fair use rights of the media consumer. (Honest media consumers at that – the pirates will just go right ahead and do their thing regardless). Copyright is a balance between producers and society meant to achieve the greatest good for all. Producers have rights (a temporary monopoly on the content), but equally important are the fair use rights that members of society have.

Can I quote DRMed content to use in commentary? Nope. Make backup copies? Nope. Format shift? Nope.

When I buy content, I expect to be able to do what I want with it – play it on any device, make copies, and remix it to my heart's content. I'm not going to accept any restrictions on that just to placate a media company's fears that I'll go redistributing to a million other people. (Of course, if I wanted to do that, I wouldn't be buying it in the first place, I'd have just gotten it from the p2p networks to begin with).

Suffice to say I won't be buying any DRMed content from Google. I'm glad to see that there's plenty of open content though, which I'll be happy to consume and even pay for, if the producers decide to charge a fair amount for it.

In response to mandalor, while you are 100% correct concerning licensing, the real problem is that both online and brick & morter stores do not specifically explain that fact, at least not in a way that the typical consumer can readily see it. For example, when I see a DVD ad in the Sunday paper from Best Buy that specifically states, "Own 'Batman Returns' Today!", my expectation is that when I purchase it, it's mine, and I own it--done deal. There is no reference to licensing in any way. (And to me, fine print on the back of a DVD or CD case, does not cut it.) There is an expectation by consumers that when they pay for something, ownership is transfered to them. Yes, it may be an incorrect expectation in certain cases, but it is the reality of how most consumers perceive things. The likes of the MPAA and RIAA are simply leveraging the law against consumers' (often incorrect) expectations.