Attempts To Stop Music Sharing Pointless?

job0 writes "An interesting paper (Word document) has been submitted by some Microsoft employees (although they are careful to state that that the views are theirs and not necessarily Microsoft's) to the 2002 ACM Workshop on Digital Rights Management stating that attempts by the record industry to stop music copying will fail simply because a) the growth and availability of affordable broadband and cheap data storage devices and b )ability of users to circumvent any DRM measures means that the number of people willing to swap is growing and will soon outstrip attempts to shut them down. The paper goes to suggest that the record industry should concentrate their efforts on trying music cheaper and easier to get hold off. I wonder if Hilary and friends have had a read. The BBC is also carrying the story." (OpenOffice has no problem with the paper, btw.)

Comments

The digital file isn't the only thing people want

[Kirruth]

A product like, say, a movie DVD gives the buyer a number of benefits. One of these, the ability to watch the show in high quality on demand, comes with the digital file, and this file will always be copiable.

The physical commercial DVD offers a number of other benefits though. There are the sleeve notes, photographs, the idea that the item is part of a collection, or provides some kind of link to the people who made the show or its stars.

There will always be people who just want the digital file, but there will also always be others who want the other benefits. Just as in the same way that some people will drink water from the faucet whereas others buy branded bottled water.

Re:Makes sense....

[SmallFurryCreature]

What many people don't seem to realize is that this is the RIAA, and the MPAA job. It is like asking a crack dealer to accept that crack is bad for youre health. But that is what he is therefore. These trade organisations where created by the industry to fight these kind of battles so the the music businesses themselves can go on with day to day business. If you look at the different companies then you will see that all of them seem to be trying their own little thing to follow the trends.

Don't forget that most music companies are giants. While to us a year may seem an awful long time to a multinational it takes that long to decide on the brand of coffee machines installed in the cafeteria. You can imagine how long it will take them to come up with a complete revamp of their business model. If you don't believe me try finding an example where a industry has changed their way of doing business in less then a decade. About the only one I can come up with is that "Prepay" on mobile phones. And this was a bloody long development wich went from prepaid cards for phoneboots to now Prepay for landlines.

Re:The Future...

[octalgirl]

If the big labels continue to impose restrictions on CDs, the bands that are really into music will simply leave the label.

No, they won't. Because they have iron-clad contracts and they are not allowed to leave unless the label kicks them out. The labels have full control, and the artists will be just as trapped as the music lover. Look at Dixie Chicks, they tried to leave Sony, and after a long court case they finally settled and came to better terms (Sony realized how bad it would look to let them win, esp after earning over 200mil off of them while the girls only got 50k each). Anyway, they are still with Sony, that's how strong those contracts are.