Nice choice of topic vigge! Be prepared to defend yourself big time if you really want to hammer down the debates
. Since a lot of us are nerds here, I'm sure you should do great on this topic. I fugured something like this would come around this site sometime or another.
I'm personally a hater of DRM here as well. Sure, I use Steam which is DRM itself, but if you've ever used that program, Steam is an extremely lightweight DRM system. Basically, it's a system that lets you download your games as many times as you'd like, install it on as many PCs as you want, and even play your games offline while you're not connected to the Steam network for any duration. Steam however, has had to get DRM added on top of itself by the companies, and Valve themselves have apologized for such actions from the companies who are letting them host the games on Steam. Because of Steam's DRM and how lightweight it is, that is the only DRM I have ever used; ever, and I personally like it a lot. Never given me a problem one bit.
SecuROM however, that's one thing I will always say no to. Sure, companies have tried over and over again to prevent piracy, but that is basically as impossible as impossible can be as all DRM really is, is software, and any and all pieces of software can and will be hacked, often within minutes to hours of getting in the hands of a hacker (and then getting a non-DRM version of whatever on the P2P networks very shortly after). I've had my share of issues with SecuROM, stating that it couldn't launch games because of, say it can't read a certain sector of a CD. SecuROM has even prevented me from copying my own disk for my own personal backups. One of these games is Sim Theme Park. That was one of my most favorite PC games a while ago, and the disk has gotten quite beat up. Since I'm pretty sure they won't exchange my disk for a new one anymore, my only option is to make an ISO image of the disk with some info missing to make a backup of it.
That mishap Sony had was definately a bad one, and they sure had to pay quite a large sum of money for screwing up people's computers for even those who don't have CD burners on their PCs. Millions apon Millions of tainted CDs is what was given out, and these did everything from locking out people's PCs to preventing them using their CD drive for legit purposes.
As stated on another forum I go to, DRM is going to be the downfall of everything. Look at Spore for example. Spore had a record amount of downloads recorded on The Pirate Bay on the first few days simply because hackers had gotten a hold of the game, hacked the DRM out of it, and seeded it to the torrent sites. What happened to all of those sales? EA apparently responded to that by releasing a patch days later that released some of the grip of DRM or something else. Well, EA took a move similiar to Sony by stating that 1, the disks cannot be copied for backup purposes (perfectly legal in the copyright laws the last I checked), 2, you get three installs, and 3, you must be connected to the internet to activate the game, or no game for you! Yeah, you can call up EA for more activations, but I've heard that's just a pain to do, and besides, don't a lot of people now days have multiple computers on which they play games on? You know, gaming PC, laptop, spare PC, work computer maybe?
So yeah, I truely hate DRM. One of the benefits about running the 64-bit version of Vista on my gaming computer is the fact that every DRM software like StarForce and SecuROM for games, won't be able to install themselves into my system kernel for me to have to fish out there in the long run because of the locked kernel, or even onto my computer. It at least gives me assurance. Otherwise, I forgot to state before about DRM. When it comes down to games, DRM (excluding Steam!) is well known to just wasting CPU cycles and RAM. That's why people often times say the pirated versions of games run better than the retail versions of games. But honestly, DRM is the downfall of media sales. People now a days thanks to global telecommunications and word of mouth know what DRM does. I buy every single thing, movies, music, games, software, you name it, and I shouldn't have to be forced with backdoor software installing itself and playing screw-up with me on things I've bought. Now a days, I look for non DRM'ed software, or I buy my stuff on Steam. If anywhere I hear there's DRM, I don't buy it. I was also going to buy some new games from Steam as well, however since Valve stated there was 3rd party DRM on it and they are sorry for that, I keep my money for other things such as video card upgrades or paying for the internet.
EDIT:
May I add, I found this online as well. Scroll down a little bit and you'll see Steve Jobs saying that he personally feels that EMI selling DRM-Free music on iTunes is a step in the right direction. I couldn't agree any more with Steve.
http://www.emigroup.com/Press/2007/press18.htm
