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jason

iTunes is indeed lacking many things. This is not, however Apple's fault. This is because many recording industry folks have yet to license music for download. Often, the contract for producing an album will not allow the recording label to re-sell the product to a third party. The future herein lies in the fact that new artists and music will be iTunes compatible.

As for local music, this will change as apple expands its network of content managers and iTunes will probably end up dealing with the artist directly.

This is perhaps why some albums will never appear in iTunes, the record label wants the boxed cd set to be sold and not the download.

I must mention another alternative, where many good artists are trying something totally different. I am of course talking about Magnatune, where music is not evil. You should really check it out

See Magnatune. http://www.magnatune.com/ - the music is under the Creative Commons license.

I feel the need to mention Magnatune.

They let you preview all of the songs on every album for sale, and though they may not have RIAA-signed artists, they've got a pretty good selection, and I try to shamelessly plug them every chance I get. Best of all, all you need is an mp3 player of some sort to listen to the 128kbps song previews (which are the full songs, not 30 second snippets). The prices are very reasonable, and 50% of the sale price of the album goes straight to the artist; so you can buy more music than you would on amazon, and the people who made it will get fairly compensated for their work and talent. You should check it out, you might like it.

For example recently I discovered http://magnatune.com/ which is a whole label following the same idea.

I think people should really encourage this and btw. they have some pretty nice music there.

(No, I'm in no way affiliated to them, I just like the concept and hand a fun afternoon recently listening through their offerings.)

And what else do you expect to happen when you host a site named "mp3s4free"?

Free as in speech or as in beer?
http://magnatune.com/
http://hebb.mit.edu/FreeMusic/

I bet there are a lot others out there. I believe there are even site with free books out there.

It's already been done.

http://www.magnatune.com/

The music they sell is not DRMed. It is good quality. You can download the music as lossless FLAC if you so wish, or VBR mp3, or ogg...

See for example Magnatune, which has tons of good classical recordings including some from world renowned performers, all under Creative Commons licenses. Granted they are mostly solo and small chamber performances, rather than full scale orchestral works. However, there are certainly professional classical performers willing and able to release stuff under CC. Note also that the BBC downloads are just a 7-day license and you're not allowed to share the files after downloading. It's not much better than a one-time radio broadcast that you can tape off the air.

I don't agree that is what the ruling says...

Hmm. That part didn't get quoted in the article referenced two levels above (or three, I can't find it in all the 2nd amendment debate that's taken over this sub-thread). Indeed, that DOES make a difference.

The one thing that I find worrisome is this: the objective that recipients use it to download copyrighted works and locating and playing copyrighted materials...

It's not illegal to locate, download, and play copyrighted materials. Making them available for download against the wishes of the copyright owner is the actual illegal activity, and the way P2P works you normally make them available when you download them, but... here: I'm about to help you locate, download, and play copyrighted materials. Follow these URLs:

http://magnatune.com/
http://www.lujorecords.com/
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/cuo/audio.html
http://www.pianosociety.com/
http://www.serg.vangennip.com/www/piano.html
http://zebox.com/woodmoran/music/

I realise this isn't the kind of "copyrighted materials" he's talking about, but I'd REALLY like to see words like "non-royalty-free" or "restricted distribution" in there somewhere.

P.S. I'm not affiliated with Magnatune in any way. It's just nice to see a music site that's not evil.

P.S. again.. By man pages I'm referring to UNIX manual pages and not gay porn. Although I guess soothing music would help with that activity too.

P.S. I'm not affiliated with Magnatune in any way. It's just nice to see a music site that's not evil.

P.S. again.. By man pages I'm referring to UNIX manual pages and not gay porn. Although I guess soothing music would help with that activity too.

I call BS on the survey and say it's a "we've already won" normalization propaganda campain. Telling "consumers" to shut up and be happy without the right to sample, share or even keep their music is what this is all about. The FUD and active warefare against file sharers will continue, but all of it is doomed to fail.

The whole DRM thing is going to backfire soon. People are not really going to be happy with these services when their devices start to fail. It's then they realize they have lost hundreds or thousands of dollars worth of music they thought they owned but were in fact renting. They will envious of people who took the time to translate the music they had to free formats on free systems. None of the FUD is true for music and media on these systems which lack both complicated, error proned DRM schemes and easy targets for the actively waged anti file scorched earth warfare. I've got my music, it's backed up, I can easily move it and I can play it on as many devices as I want. Apple may take care of people with ITunes but "Works for Sure" music boxes are sure to crap out and leave their users flat.

More importantly, there's still competition out there for the big three music publishers. Musicians don't like being screwed and know that's what they get from the cartels. The music industry killed mp3.com, but there are many other to take their place that will offer musicians and fans a much better deal. With Lessing creating an unambiguous legal framework, we can expect these services to be unassailable.

The concentration of power enjoyed by music publishers was a freak of history and will soon go away. People have been singing and dancing for each other throughout human history. I suspect someone will notice a chimp singing to it's young one day and that it sounds better than pop 40. Music copyrights and radio have only been around for 150 years or so. Government regulation of airwaves and music publication created the cartels in those 150 years. Many people have made money off the scheme, but the technology has been obsolete and the regulations overbearing for decades. Laws which keep Girl Scouts from singing around the fireplace are clearly out of line. Laws have gone from reasonable promotion of artistic work and sharing of public resources to blatant anti-competition tools, which thwart basic human desires. In ten years, we will look back on this madness and wonder how anyone dared keep people from singing to each other or sharing digital files.

Until then, visit places like Magnitune and sample the future.

$4.00 for a canned performance? You must be shitting me.

www.magnatune.com

"We are not evil."

You are not looking hard enough. There are many companies and bands out there selling/giving away non-DRM'd music. And some of it is even really good.

Magnatune
Creative Commmons Audio

How about CC license on Free and free MP3s? How about pay the amount YOU choose for an album of CD quality downloads? How about HALF of whatever you pay going straight to the artist? How about being able to download your music again if your hard drive crashes? How about excellent, innovative music in many genres?

All at http://magnatune.com/

"...and monopolizing all avenues of distribution, making sure that any artist who wants to have their music heard must go through one of the record labels."

Of which there are thousands, or perhaps tens of thousands. Some are big and huge and are members of the RIAA. Some are small and independent yet still belong to the RIAA. Some are small and independent and cool and don't belong to the RIAA. Some, like Magnatune, are virtual. Some, like CDBaby, specialize in getting your stuff onto the legit download sites even if you're not signed to a traditional label. There's a ton of non-RIAA and unsigned music on the Apple iTunes Music Store.

It's your music... do what you want. If you want to get the potential of mammoth exposure and sales, in exchange for a loss of control and a much smaller portion of the selling price of your music, sign a recording contract with a big label. If you want a little more control and a bigger share of the profits, but with less of a budget, go with one of the cool indie labels. If you just want a little assistance but want to do most of the promotion yourself, try Magnatune or CD Baby. If you don't think the service that any of them provide is worth it, and you're lucky enough to have the means to record, produce, and promote your work yourself, then more power to you.

The fact is that in the record industry, just as in the software industry or a thousand other industries, nobody's going to give you a million bucks to do with as you please in creating and promoting your work, without wanting something back. Is this unfair? You bet. Can it make it tough? Of course. But this is not a "monopoly."

Check these guys out:

http://magnatune.com/genres

That's the problem right there. When will someone wise up and give us lossless, reasonably-priced downloads? Until then I'll continue to use BitTorrent.

Stop trying to justify your copyright infringement. You don't care about paying anyone, or you'd just buy regular CDs and get your lossless music that way. You really don't understand how to get what you want as a consumer. You stop using the product until they give you what you want. Taking it without permission still perpetuates your reliance on their product.

There are artists who sell lossless, reasonably priced downloads. Put your money where your mouth is.

If you're paying $60 a year for music and buying a WMA player, what does hackers cracking the DRM have to do with anything?

By June 2005, we will have unlimited mp3's for $60 a year.

The only thing different from what's available now is "mp3". If you have a Windows computer and a WMA player, the restrictive DRM still lets you do everything you need to, namely play music. It's nice to be the first guy to say "I can't wait until they crack this," but chances are, nothing will change for you when they crack it.

$60 a year for music is cheap, especially for people like me who don't appreciate the value of building up a music collection yet. If their DRM allows you to do everything you plan to do with the music, then buy it. Novel concept, eh?

If the DRM doesn't allow you to do what you want, buy music from likeminded artists.

"If any of the stores wanted to, they could easily sell me MP3's, which would go onto my iPod no problem. But they won't, because the RIAA still haven't wised up that consumers don't want their DRM crap."

The iTMS has been a fantastically wild success, with something on the order of 20 million tracks sold.

Meanwhile, companies like Magnatune, which fit many Slashdotters' model of the right way to do music distribution (no DRM, standard MP3 format, payment optional, etc.) are flailing.

We Slashdotters can continue to stamp our little feet and proclaim that DRM is a failure, but the market is showing us otherwise.

Perhaps a more productive (but far more difficult) approach is for each of us to write to ten of our favorite bands and urge them to renounce their recording contracts and start publishing their work on Magnatune or another venue that provides authorized, legal, DRM-free MP3 files.

We constantly proclaim that there's a market for legal, DRM-free music -- now, let's make that happen. For the time being, Apple and a squillion record companies can show us twenty million reasons why we're wrong.

Yeah, no kidding.

a) Who said anything about "free"? I'd be happy to _buy_ MP3s

http://sampleme.org

I guess what they're really saying is that iTunes is the only online-music store that caters for iPod users. Not true of course, I know of at least one.

Well, I had Rhapsody for perhaps six months. A few days ago, when I realized I was paying for something I hadn't used at all for a few months, I cancelled. To do that, you have to call and talk to a human. This not only deters you from canceling, they get one last chance to talk you out of it. The droid I got, apparently in India, was very clearly programmed to do this.

Rhapsody's model is admittedly interesting: unlimited online listening to anything in their library for a flat monthly fee. That does fill a different niche not covered by the iTunes model of selling downloads of individual songs, and it doesn't cost you anything to explore music and artists you haven't heard before.

But aside from being tethered to a network connection to be able to listen to anything, the Rhapsody implementation of this model has two fatal flaws. First, you have to use their own proprietary user client, and it's only available for Windows. Naturally, I avoid Windows like the plague.

Second, their library is, as a Talosian might say, "shockingly limited". It seems that every time I'd look for a particular artist, either they didn't have anything at all, or only one or two albums. Sometimes I'd find an album only to discover that Rhapsody got rights to only a couple of songs, with the rest missing.

I still think the best way to build a usable personal online music collection is to buy the CDs you want, rip them onto your own server, and put the CDs into storage as an offsite backup. Oh, and if you want to explore new and obscure artists, patronize the more enlightened and progressive labels like Magnatune.

Some weeks ago I read about magnatune.com in another slashdot comment. They offer all their music for free download in pure mp3, no DRM. And if you buy the music you also get to download in ogg or the lossless flac format. Oh and yes, 50% of all sales goes directly to the artist.

I just love the entire concept, I get the feeling that they just have it all right. They seem like a true 21th century music label, and I hope and believe that they will find this buissness model successful. Infact since I started listning to music from them I have totaly lost interest in the ongoing "p2p pirates"/"music labels" that is going on in my country (sweden) right now. Because I feel that soon there won't be any needs to pirate music, lots of good music will be free to share anyways.

Of course the most important part is that magnatune do have good music. Mere hours after I found the site I also bought my first album of the year: Williamsson - A few things to here before we all blow up. Which is a lovely soft and relaxing electronic album.

Some weeks ago I read about magnatune.com in another slashdot comment. They offer all their music for free download in pure mp3, no DRM. And if you buy the music you also get to download in ogg or the lossless flac format. Oh and yes, 50% of all sales goes directly to the artist.

I just love the entire concept, I get the feeling that they just have it all right. They seem like a true 21th century music label, and I hope and believe that they will find this buissness model successful. Infact since I started listning to music from them I have totaly lost interest in the ongoing "p2p pirates"/"music labels" that is going on in my country (sweden) right now. Because I feel that soon there won't be any needs to pirate music, lots of good music will be free to share anyways.

Of course the most important part is that magnatune do have good music. Mere hours after I found the site I also bought my first album of the year: Williamsson - A few things to here before we all blow up. Which is a lovely soft and relaxing electronic album.

Besides, I haven't heard about any local "independant" group that isn't metal in some form or another (Death, Christian, Heavy, whatever) or punk. Frankly, I don't like metal, I prefer something with a melody. And I can't find it in the independant scene.

Try this recording company for your independant music. They offer the music online for free (in playlists too!) and with shipping and handling the purchase of a CD is cheaper than at your local retail. I recommend the "New Age" genre for your melody. Great music all around imo.

I would be hard pressed to find people who would be willing to give up music entirely. I think it's easier to get people to change what they buy, and if they can find a source of independent music that they find interesting it'd cut into their budget for RIAA goods.

iRate is quite good. I have bought a number of albums, either CDs or high quality downloads from sites like Magnatune, after hearing tracks on iRate.

The band I host a small, evolving, site for wants to put their first 6 songs up on the site.
I was considering posting some low bitrate samples and making the better ones available via another source like, Magnatune, if they're accepted.

Anyone had any experience with this?

Suggestions welcome (except for the type that imply impossible physical acts).

The "industry" or better the consumers, do _not_ have a choice with the iPOD on what store to purchase from.

The iPod plays tracks downloaded from Magnatune just fine. There are other examples as well.

If I made a great movie but only offered it under _very_ restrictive formats, there would still be a lot of people who buy it. Not because they "support" or "accept" my restrictive format, but because they wanted to see a very good movie and be entertained.

The only way they have to voice their desires in the market is to buy or not buy. If they buy into the above example, it is because the desire for the film, minus the distaste for the DRM, is still worth enough to them. All else is unverifiable, untestable, even if it's commonly true.

If DRM is really the only issue, why isn't Magnatune outselling iTunes? The selection, obviously. Magnatune sells a different product than iTunes. If you want major label stuff without DRM, you're out of luck, because it's not for sale anywhere. Your examples ignore the fact that not all music is equal in the eyes of the consumer.

"The market isn't the only factor. Just look at the iTunes Music Store. If it was just about what the market wants, there wouldn't be DRM."

I think this might be better phrased as what the consumers want, as a market includes both producers and consumers. In the digital music market, the producers overwhelmingly want DRM.

It would be great if consumers really were rejecting DRM and instead flocking to DRM-free sites like Magnatune, but the unavoidable fact is that stores with DRM dominate the market.

1. www.mindawn.com is pretty nice too. It's about the only place that sells songs in a lossless audio format (FLAC).

Thanks for the link, though for the record so does Magnatune. They even offer WAV files if you want them...though I can't think of a reason why since FLAC can be converted into any other lossless format.

Info

Distribution contract terms

Their model seems to be working very well for everyone involved--consumer, artist, distributor. I don't know that an artist would get rich just selling music on the site, but they get a lot more exposure that they probably would not have otherwise. And, getting 50% off of every sell is a far better deal for them then the conventional model, from all that I have ever read.

Info

Distribution contract terms

Their model seems to be working very well for everyone involved--consumer, artist, distributor. I don't know that an artist would get rich just selling music on the site, but they get a lot more exposure that they probably would not have otherwise. And, getting 50% off of every sell is a far better deal for them then the conventional model, from all that I have ever read.

http://magnatune.com/info/terms

WRT Royalties :
"50/50 gross revenue split on music: our main revenue sources are selling your music to consumers (at a price between $5 to $18 per album) and sublicensing your music for things such as games, ads and the web. We split the amount we collect 50/50 with you."

and

"50/50 net profits split on merchandise: for physical goods (Posters, T-Shirts, etc), we split the profits (i.e.: sale price minus expenses) 50/50 with you. Physical goods are a split on profits because we have to invest money in creating them."

Much better than what most record labels give their artists

The recording industry ARE a bunch of greedy bastards that are just in it for the money, so any place they can squeeze out a few more bucks, they'll do it. And they know the power of Intellectual Property © ® and all the fists full of money that can generate, so they do everything they can to extend and expand copyright, so they can retain monopoly rights on something they paid someone to create but somehow they own.

But the real question is how can you make it. Well, to make it on-line as a musician, this is what I would do:

• Make sure your website has features to keep and gain fan attention. Make sure you have available media such as:
  • MP3s, WMAs, OGGs, and AACs of your music in lower but still acceptable quality. I'd say 56k-96kbit, so casual listeners can listen but true fans would want to purchase high quality (192-512k) copies and lossless copies. Doesn't even have to be all your music. Imagine it like singles played on the radio. You can even have a tip section for each song so they can donate if they feel like it. And since you're distributing these files, you could have an introduction where you thank them for listening and direct them to your website, and put meta-data tags (ID3 tags and OGG comments, and I'm sure WMA and AAC have similar info blocks) on the files so it shows your information in iTunes, Winamp, Windows Media Player, XMMS, and so on.
  • Maybe setup a Shoutcast, or IceCast channel. "All $MYBAND! All the time!"
  • Videos of the band. Again, low quality, Windows Media, Quicktime, screw Real Player. Make them stream-only for free and offer to sell downloads of higher quality copies.
  • Sell swag from your website. Audio CDs, DVDs of shows you've played, music videos if you're inclined to make them; T-shirts, hoodies, baby-doll shirts and all that crap that Cafepress will make for you. Turn album covers into desktop wallpapers, and have band photos for download. Make cell phone themes and ring-tones, sell those for $0.99 or even $0.50. Find a local starving-artist to help with the media if you want.
  • If you've got the time and energy, have a band blog, podcast, or even for have those for individual band members.
  • Promote your site with other artists and promote them on yours if you like them or if you think your fans would like them. A couple of banner ads on your site (provided that they're not obnoxious) in return for a couple banner ads on someone else's site.
• Get signed with whoever you can, but make sure you retain copyrights and possibly distribution rights. Get your music on iTMS if you can. Look into on-line record companies/distributors like Magnatune or MP3 Tunes as long as they won't interfere with you hosting your music on your own if you want.

Make it easy for interested fans to find you, refer you to their friends, buy stuff from you. Make your website easy to find and accessible. If you're not so good with visual media or website design, you probably know of a geek or a family member who is good at that, you could have them make a site for you (Payment would be between you and them). Once you're big enough, see if you can setup some tour dates. Sell CDs there, give out business cards with your website URL on them. Give away CDs with a few singles on them. You can even have an introduction on the CDs and DVDs and direct them back to your website, especially on any CDs you give away. Put a data track on audio CDs and DVDs that has some promo material or music files for your band and a link to your website. Remember everything can be used to promote yourself/your band, so make sure you've got it there where you can. But don't be obnoxious about it. People understand self-promo

Go here, then here, then go here. Then you decide what works for you. And that's the bottom line, it's all about what works best for you.

Check out Magnatune. Motto: We're a record label. But we're not evil.

They [ISPs] are actively advertising to their customers to use P2P. Couldn't the music biz interpret this too as aiding file-sharing and destroying their business model? Perhaps [ISPs using such advertising] need to be shutdown?

No, because there is plenty of music available for legitimate sharing and downloading with the blessing of its copyright holders. (An example: Magnatune).

It is therefore a very legitimate feature for ISPs to advertise - and this is becoming more and more so as sharing-friendly licensing initiatives like Creative Commons take root.

Oh, and the music biz has no intrinsic right for their preferred business model to be protected. They have to compete on a fair playing field like everyone else - including artists using a sharing-friendly business model. Protecting copyright is not the same as protected one specific business model among the many built upon copyright.

-- Jamie

For those interested, check out the Tempus MP3s. Very good stuff!

PS MOD +1 Informative re: your take on DIY digital recording. There is so much involved. I can see a home-built system used to lay down idea track in the middle of the night when inspiration strikes you, but it would take a lot of cash to build a true production facility worthy of the name...

For those interested, check out the Tempus MP3s. Very good stuff!

PS MOD +1 Informative re: your take on DIY digital recording. There is so much involved. I can see a home-built system used to lay down idea track in the middle of the night when inspiration strikes you, but it would take a lot of cash to build a true production facility worthy of the name...

For those interested, check out the Tempus MP3s. Very good stuff!

PS MOD +1 Informative re: your take on DIY digital recording. There is so much involved. I can see a home-built system used to lay down idea track in the middle of the night when inspiration strikes you, but it would take a lot of cash to build a true production facility worthy of the name...

Maybe it is time for artists to rethink their position as well. I've heard one very successful group say that the majority of their income is from live shows--particularly from the merchandise they sell at the concerts. We also know from numerous reports that artists barely make anything at all off of album sales which usually has to go back to the label to pay off the recording debt. If this is the case then distributing music via P2P or through something like Magnatune under a Creative Commons type license would be helpful, not hurtful to the artist.

They could get their music out there to the masses quite easily. Perform live. Sell T-shirts, CDs, etc. and make money where it's really there to be made.

Artists need to consider their best interests before chaining themselves to a major label...

Who's going to front the money to produce your music? Who's going to pay for the studio time? Not everyone has a DAW in their house, let alone the acoustical environment necessary for quality production.

I am a huge proponent of leveling the media playing field with appropriate use of P2P technologies, business models like Magnatune and tools such as the Creative Commons Licensing. Still, recording ain't cheap.

"Creativity has been stifled by the labels' continuing drive towards commercialization. We have "artists" like Gwen Stefani releasing cover after cover, first covering Talk Talk's It's My Life then covering If I Were A Rich Man from Fiddler on the Roof, and both covers are atrocious. These are examples of an industry which is creatively bankrupt and where profit is the bottom line."

90% of commercially released music has always been crap. Some younger Slashdotters may think that they're the first people to discover this, or that it's only in the 21st century that music has become awful. This is the power of nostalgia in action.

"The Internet has rendered traditional music labels obsolete, they're aware of this, and they're fighting their eventual downfall tooth and nail. They will lose."

I've seen this claim a lot over the past several years, since the days of the original Napster. The Internet is going to put the traditional record labels out of business, yet Apple and the record labels have sold tens of millions of tracks online, while "new model" companies like Magnatune are struggling to find an audience. It appears that the traditional record companies get this Internet thing just fine.

But as I was saying, the "imminent death of the record industry" prediction has been going around for a while, but I rarely see somebody actually put a timeline to it. What's your personal estimate of when the record industry will breathe its last? No right or wrong answers, of course... I'm just interested in your estimate.

"Eventually the industry will have to come to terms with this fact and the fact that their distribution model is antequated and obsolete. We need people to continue proving DRM is an unsound technology so eventually they give up on it entirely."

This sounds a bit tautological. A small group of people keep working hard to break DRM to prove that DRM is unworkable, yet meanwhile, millions of consumers are gobbling up DRM-laden tracks. iTunes' success has been nothing short of phenomenal. It is neither "antiquated" nor "obsolete" by any rational standard. To be fair, you've made it clear that you'd rather that iTunes didn't use DRM, but choosing "antiquated" and "obsolete" to describe it is tilting at windmills. If you know of a better way to do it, why not start your own music distribution company? If you're right, you could be bigger than iTunes. That is true innovation. Don't try to crash the party -- throw your own.

You're being short sighted dude.

What? do you really think that these megalomaniacs infesting the recording industry are going to sit back and then have an epiphany -- "whoa! I just realized that monopolizing an artists rights and screwing over my clients is wrong! Let me change my evil ways!"

Yeah, right.

This is what is really going on in their heads: " Power. I must have power! This Swedish pansy is taking my Power! Must crush him with lawyers and bribed government officials!" (note the "bribed" part)

Read that article by Courtney Love. She describes that what these loons are about is power, first and foremost. They don't care about you and your ideals. All they care about is taking more cash for themselves - even at the expense of their own company! If you want to read that article, go here where you'll find a link.

The only way to stop jackasses like that is to stop buying their damn music That means you go to alternative sources, you sacrifice a little so that you don't get over-regulated by these power-hungry freaks.

1. Anyone that gives me back my legal rights, is someone who deserves encouraging.

A tip for you and others just in case you didn't know about this company.

1. Yes, yes, I'm sure it would be wonderful if Apple wanted or intended to sell music without DRM. But they, and the content owners - you know, those people who actually have LEGAL RIGHTS to the content - don't intend to do that.

Hold a moment! The content owners do indeed have a legal right to do as they please with what they own. Remember that point, I'll get back to it.

1. And it's their service and their content. Whether or not things "can" be technically done aside, does anyone realize that? Or is that just completely lost in the vacuum of "Information wants to be free"?

Not at all, though don't forget that there are multiple owners here; the artist(s), the producers/managers, the labels, the distributors, and the final buyer.

As one of those final buyers, I do indeed like to do what I please with what I own. I do have a legal right to it, though limited.

The whole media market is two faced;

* "It's a licence" - So, if my copy is destroyed or becomes lost, I have a right to it?

* "Erm...no, you purchased _THAT_COPY_!" - So, if it's mine, I can do as I please with it, including give it to others?

* "Not at all...it's uniquely licenced to you." - So, I can use it as long as I don't pass it along...why do you put restrictions on it then?

* "People will steal it!" - But not my licence...I can't duplicate my licence (between you and I), give it to someone else, and have it be effective. The licence is still in effect. I could normally transfer that licence to someone else and give up my rights, yet your DRM prevents that...

...and so on. Bottom line: You're right that the producers have rights. I have no sympathy for them, though, because I (a legal owner of a licence/copy/whatever) would have to suffer because they can't convince others to respect those rights.

It didn't and doesn't fly with software rights restrictions, and it doesn't convince me for media (music, movies, ...) either.

I respect the rights of others -- just as I respect the letter and the spirit of both the BSD and GPL-style licences -- what can I say; I appreciate those who respect me and don't immediately treat me like a thief.