How Big Tech uses DRM to build and maintain strangleholds on hardware

Digital Rights Management (DRM) - or "digital restrictions management," as its many critics like to call it - is being once again exposed for the harm it represents, while marketed as a form of protection.

This time, it was the ongoing manufacturing supply chain disruptions that have shown DRM to be merely a tool of an industry exercising control over the customer and the market.

All this came out plainly in the example of Canon, who have introduced DRM into their printers' toner cartridges, with no evident reason other than to be able to keep competition at bay.

But when the supply chain drama hit, particularly with the chip shortages, Canon realized that there were things more important than keeping a proprietary foot at the neck of its users and the market - namely, that those printers can still be used, i.e., continue to be sold. When push came to shove, Canon quickly explained how DRM restrictions can be bypassed, unwittingly admitting that the technology's declared purpose is not necessary.

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