No need even to go so far. DRM by definition implies that they don't trust you, the user. So, I see no point to trust them in return. It's normal to assume that DRM is always a risk of privacy violation. Surely, it's a good ground for sinister abuses like your example as well.

> Then how do we deal with piracy?

DRM doesn't deal with piracy. Publishers and distributors don't even hide this fact these days. So what are they using DRM for? Guess yourself, but expect nothing good in there.

The recipe for dealing with piracy is ages old - increase quality to be competitive. I.e. some part of piracy which can be affected is caused by the fact that pirated content has higher usability (no DRM, regional restrictions and other such junk). By releasing quality products while being DRM free and delivering them with high level of convenience, distributors can compete with that sector of piracy. The segment of piracy which is caused by people being crooks and getting free stuff won't be affected at all. DRM doesn't affect it either.

I agree with you in principle on a LOT of the points, but the real issue is that most content producers (publishers are a different issue...) would LOVE to be able to do this:

"The recipe for dealing with piracy is ages old - increase quality to be competitive"

But realistically it's fucking HARD. Mainly because increasing quality to be competitive with piracy would generally require breaking tax and import laws everywhere.

Even if it doesn't require breaking those laws to be competitive, you have to at least pay enough people to be aware of them, for each and every country you want to be able to distribute your content in.

So decent* DRM isn't about stopping piracy, really. It's about slowing it down just enough that it's still worthwhile to jump through the hoops required to bring that content legally to other regions.

*: It's actually fairly hard to hit this goal on the head, and often I feel companies buy too far into their own bullshit and sense of entitlement with DRM. A lot of shoddy executives with poor understanding of software misuse DRM to the extent that it drastically lowers the value of the content (see: always on DRM) Please continue to bash them, they deserve it.

I'm not exactly sure why so? Take for example gaming. GOG sells DRM free games worldwide, without regional restrictions and no inflated pricing for countries like Australia for example. Why can't video be sold on similar terms?

>So decent DRM isn't about stopping piracy, really. It's about slowing it down just enough that it's still worthwhile to jump through the hoops required to bring that content legally to other regions.

In my view it never pays off. The downside of reduced usability is always worse than any potential gain in slowing down piracy on the period between some new DRM scheme is introduced until it's broken. Usually that period is small, and ever since that DRM becomes obsolete, while usability stays crippled for legitimate users. All those involved in production and distribution should always keep in mind that DRM means their voluntary reduction of quality for practically absent gain of shortly slowed down piracy. How are they planning to compete, when instead of increasing quality, they cripple their own products?