The music industry has been banging us over the head with it for years. The movie industry has been pushing it for ages. And now the games industry is giving it a go too.

Well, if you get DRM on a product you’re selling me, then I want CRM on the money I’m giving you. That’s “Customers Rights Management”. Here’s the idea: when I buy something from you, we are in agreement that I own the product I purchased, and you own the money that I payed for it. So if you get control over the product I purchased, then I want control over the money I gave you.

For example:

• You told me this DVD was great but I really didn’t like it? I’m taking half my money back.
• I bought your CD and I hear your company is not eco-friendly? You can only use my money to invest in green projects.
• Your game was great, but a patch made it less enjoyable for me? I get to freeze my money in your account until you make it fun again.

*shaking fist* So how does that sound? Unfair and ridiculous? Unwarranted? It’s overkill and in the end it doesn’t really address any relevant issue?

Hmmm, sounds familiar… I wonder what CRM rhymes with.

DRM (Digital Rights Management) is, in short, a way for the publisher who sells you a digital product to control the way you are using it. Where you can play a movie, how many times you listen to a song, stuff like that. To be fair, there are legitimate uses to DRM. But many also think they are counter productive, and only really hurt legitimate customers, not copyright infringers.
I also know that this analogy doesn’t really stand close scrutiny (or any scrutiny at all really). The point is merely to express the customer’s frustration in a way that the rights’ owners might relate to a bit more. As if they care…