Slashdot Mirror
Intuit Drops DRM from Future Products
MisterKoffee writes "ExtremeTech has a story about Intuit dropping Product Activation and Digital Rights Management for most of its future products, including TurboTax, in response to a customer backlash."
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
If your customers threaten you enough, you'll eventually lose bad schemes like DRM.
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
Their DRM was so potentially dangerous it was silly. Good to see that they are pulling back from their stance. I don't see microsoft taking the hint, though.
It's all well and good hoping that other companies will follow their lead, but unfortunately some companies can afford to hold out on DRM until their customers are forced to accept it; though Intuit may have gone out of business from the customer backlash if they had kept this up, the same may not be true for other companies.
Note to M1-ers: a curt but otherwise insightful message is not "Flamebait" or "Troll".
Thank goodness enough people got pissed about this. Intuit justified the DRM scheme by exaggerating their software losses. They said they sold x copies of TurboTax, yet 2x tax returns were filed using their software, implying that piracy cut their sales in half. They didn't mention how someone might legally do their own taxes and their mom's taxes on the same piece of software.
Ironically, H&R Block, the main benificiary of the consumer ire towards Intuit, is considering adding DRM to their TaxCut software for next year.
Don't forget that Friday is Hawaiian shirt day.
You won't see Microsoft take a hint from Intuit or anyone else. They're far beyond the level of market share where they have to concern themselves with trivialities like consumer satisfaction.
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
"Adding digital-rights-management software to the company's tax preparation neither paid off financially in attracting new customers, nor in consumer satisfaction, Intuit spokesman Scott Gulbransen said."
Just how was adding DRM supposed to attract customers and increase customer satisfaction? This sounds distinctly like a marketing/public relations spin attempt.
--Ben
This is excellent news for the paying customers of Intiut products. Unfortunately, this is probably excellent news for software pirates everywhere.
I believe Intuit may see a drop in the sales of TurboTax next year if they remove product activation. Around small offices, I know that the software would be passed around like a bad cold if they didn't have to register the software to actually print out their taxes.
This is a perfect case of a company bending to the demands of its customers. Intuit is probably not going to kill DRM though. Any idiot can tell that making a product naked before the world will make it much easier to pirate. Probably Intuit will come up with a different way to enforce the license on its software, perhaps something like Microsoft's Product Activation or something equally intrusive. At least they're not dancing in my boot sector any more.
I'm shocked that the so called backlash has caused Intuit to do this. It flies in the face of yesterday's earnings news. According to the news Intuit sales on its tax preparation software increased dramatically over the same period last year. My assumtion being that the copy protection was indeed effective and caused many more people than usual to fork out their $14~$35.
This Slashdot story comes as a real shock after yesterdays market news. I'd really like to know some more accurate details on the decision.
They've already lost me as a customer. I will not be returning, due to their lack of respect for me.
There are other tax software vendors, and lots of other financial packages, and I will continue to look to their competitors. It's not like their software is far and away the best out there, and I'm forced to use it.
Am I the only person who feels that this entire argument should be moot? The IRS is perfectly capable of allowing consumers to file online tax returns. Several states, including DC (my home is in the district) allow online tax forms to be filled out. All are quite advanced, allowing deductions and the proper calculations to take mere seconds. Most are relatively error-free.
The IRS though, caving to groups like Intuit and full-service prepares like H&R Block, has taken the novel approach of allowing people to submit taxes online, but only if approved through a private company. Yes, there are a few folks who can use telefile, but for anyone making any decent wages, there's no free equivalent to telefile for federal forms. I'm don't itemize my deductions, yet even taking the standard deduction makes it "impossible" to use telefile.
This is one area that the government could step in and provide a useful service for free, just as the states have done so. There's no reason for them not to, except for frantic lobbying by certain interests.
They're far beyond the level of market share where they have to concern themselves with trivialities like consumer satisfaction.
This just goes to show that companies like Microsoft are short-lived in the grand scheme of things. Intuit responds to customers to survive as a business...it really shouldn't be any different for Microsoft. It's just that, for Microsoft, it is a matter of long-term survival, otherwise they will simply burn up in their arrogance after just a few more years.
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
There constant marketing to me and cross-marketing over the years already let me know Intuit viewed me as a profit center not a valued customer.
This DRM silliness was the straw that broke my back. I tried H&R blocks software and found no real difference. Now H&R has me as a customer. And, I strongly frightened my family and friends awy from TurboTax.
The big problem is that Intuit, H&R et al aren't bound by the same sacrosanct statutes as the IRS. So, there is no legel provision stopping them from selling/giving away your person informaiton and your income statements.
With them treating me as a profit center (as opposed to a customer) I have lost faith that they're not (at least capable of) storing and selling my info either when I use electronic filing or when the software silently phones home.
I always accepted that such behaviour was technically possible, but not something they would do, until the DRM coupled with excessive cross-marketing.
My relationship with them was based on trust and now they've lost that.
Something tells me that Intuit isn't going to see continued growth and profits next year, though.
I'm glad to see that Intuit finally came to their senses. Too bad they did it so late, as I've already switched to H & R Block's TaxCut. Now all my data has been switched over, I see no reason to go back. Who should I support: The company that changed it's mind about screwing me, or the company that never tried to screw me in the first place?
The tragedy is that anyone with half a brain could have told them their scheme wouldn't work. Moreover, they've aliented not only millions of potential customers, but millions of formerly loyal customers as well. I had used MacinTax (the Mac version of TurboTax) for seven to ten years. Now, unless H&R Block does something stupid or discontinues the product, I have no compelling reason to switch back.
It's good to see Intuit come to it's senses, but the damage is already done.
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
Another reason why copy protection will never really exist.
Don't you just love the way they call it "copy protection", rather than "copy prevention", a more accurate term?
The reasons why are clear - "protection" makes it sound like a feature that the customer will benefit from, whereas "prevention" makes it more obvious to the average Joe that it's not their interests that are being protected but that of the software/CD/whatever vendor.
Yes, I respect a company's (or an individual's) rights to prevent me from mass redistribution of their work but, where the copy prevention mechanism is sufficiently complex as to require user interaction and/or impacts on reasonable customer expectations, I think it would be more honest if the relevant details were made clear up front so that customers could make more honestly informed decisions.
I'm not just thinking about the DRM used by Intuit here but of DRM in all shapes and sizes. A prominent warning on the box that a software product may require the user to do x, y and z in order to work properly, or that a "CD" does not adhere to established standards and thus won't work in any PC, Mac, games console, most in-car stereos or any newer hifi system that is sufficiently advanced (and why this is so) would be more preferable than the current situation.
A tiny, obscure little message in 10 point font hidden on the reverse of the packaging somewhere near the copyright notification just doesn't cut it. If companies are really interested in the rights of the consumer (which is something that they always say but rarely ever show) isn't honesty up front the least that we can expect from them?
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
intuit and complained, you should notify them and let them know you appreciate there removal of drm.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Their total sales went up, but I recall reading that their Market Segment Share (how they did relative to competitive products) went down. So More people used software to do their taxes this year, so the pie was bigger, but Intuit got a smaller percentage of the pie. While total sales are important, MSS is JUST and if not MORE important. Here's a referance. Intuit wants to stopp the loss in MSS.
The annoying opinion of an drooling anti-Microsoft linux geek?
It correlates with one of the Liberatarian things ESR says that actually makes sense. Monopolies are unstable in a free marketplace, because, eventually, people will find new options or new ways of doing things. Microsoft can piss off only so many people and so many nations before, well, they either wise up or go out of business completely.
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
If you file paperwork, the IRS is required to keep a copy of everything you send them. So every year, I send them the majority of what they would request during an audit, bank records, etc.
I've used software to prepare my return, but always file by mail. That way, they have more to deal with. I am not about to pay, to go through a private company for a filing. If the IRS makes it simple to file digitally, then I might ease up on them. Right now I say Choke 'em on paperwork.
I used to wonder what was so holy about a silent night, now I have a child.
"In addition, we didn't get the revenue and profit growth we expected."
I think they'd be trying to find a way to keep DRM while resolving it's problems if their bottom line had been better. I don't think it's as much about the backlash as we'd like to believe.
That's not the point. The point is when someone buys a product, they should be able to use it however they want. If I want to print out the tax form immediately after I fill in my first name, and then print it again after filling in my last name, and then continue to print it out again after each field I fill in, I should be able too. No company should have the right to tell me how many times I should be allowed to print out a form.
Haven't we already talked about the difference in power between a company with a monopoly on the market and one that is in a competitive market?
I'm a die-hard GNU/Linux and Free Software advocate (even to the point of occasionally prefixing "linux" with "GNU"), but seriously, what alternative to Microsoft exists in the marketplace?
The home user gets a copy of Windows on the PC s/he buys through virtually every common outlet. (Wal-Mart on line offers Linux based PCs, but not in their stores yet). The games they want to run are Windows-only.
In business, it is hard to find OEMs pushing Linux for desktop machines. Sure, you could go to one of the Linux-friendly VARs, but most of them aren't geared up to provide sales and support to large corporations.
I'm not saying this situation is forever. Linux is gaining ground in all markets. But, for the present, Microsoft still has their effective monopoly power. They're strongarming the motherboard OEMs into implementing Palladium. They'll have it in a future version of Windows. And what choice will consumers have? There won't be a choice. And that, my friends, is what monopolies and cartels do.
A plan for consumer friendly computing:
1. Educate. Talk to your friends about DRM and what it means.
2. Agitate. Join the EFF. Write your congressional delegation. Boycott companies (like Intuit) that use DRM.
3. Have integrity. Don't violate copyright. Don't copy software illegally. Don't copy music illegally. Don't copy anything illegally. This is the least popular thing I have to say, but it is IMPORTANT. Every copy is bullet in the other side's arsenal. Evey copy is an argument for them to push legislation that takes away our freedoms. We must not be hypocrites if we want to have the moral ground to expose their hypocrisy.
4. Exercise the rights you have. Rip every single one of your CDs to mp3 or ogg files. Copy them onto every kind of media you have. Make use of your fair use rights. Return hardware that doesn't let you do this. Return (or better, don't buy) copy protected media. Even if that Macrovision protected DVD is your favorite movie (here you are hampered by the fact that products are not labeled adequately -- that's where writing congress comes in -- lobby for consumer protection laws. Our opoonents have lobbyists -- be one yourself for our side. Believe me, letters make a difference).
5. Talk. (Actually a variation on item 1, but it is really important, so I'll repeat it). Spread these ideas. Put up a web site. Join in onine discussions here and elsewhere. Get the "idea" of digital freedom into the popular conciousness at every opportunity. True, this isn't slavery or Jim Crow, but this is a civil liberties issue, and it is time we started drawing people's attention to it.
1. Print
2. Find Errors
3. Print
4. Find Errors
5. Print
6. Find Error
7. Print
8. Find Error
9. Profit! (for the software maker selling more printing)
Neither printing to PDF nor paper and copying will help this problem. If you wanted to be a smart ass, you should have told him to use his monitor to look for errors. My taxes take over a dozen pages, I don't print mine to check for errors.
This is just my idea, as I'm a bookkeeping trol, as all Intuit sells is accounting software odds are they are all a bunch of accounting/bookkeeping trols. As far as bk/Trols go I'm fairly laid back, but most of us are spasmotick number freeks that want everything right to the last $0.00001, even though our curency only works in $0.01. Aneway, if they are permeated with bookkeepers this would explain there attitude. And that woud also explain there obssession with copy protection, and other such stupidness.
ok, I'm done
You know, unless you have a small business or some other complicated feature on your tax return, it's pretty easy to do your own taxes by hand. For a normal wage slave with a T4 or two and normal deductions (tuition, RRSPs, etc), doing it yourself doesn't take much longer than following Quicktax's interview process.
I'd used Quicktax for several years before this one, and I decided to skip it because of the restrictions in this year's edition, and because I was curious as to whether the software actually saved any time. As it turned out, the software would have saved me about forty-five minutes over the course of doing returns for my wife and myself (from what I recall from last year with Quicktax).
Now, both telefiling and efiling are free, but telefiling takes a lot longer, since you have to enter in the data from a bunch of lines by hand. So add another fifteen minutes extra to the total to telefile. Since I don't make more than $30/hour, I figure I came out ahead doing them myself, and I got my refund just as quickly as someone who'd efiled.
Intuit responds to customers to survive as a business
They have to because there is competition in the tax prep business. The desktop and office product business does not. I believe going into this, Intuit truely felt they could bully the customers a little bit and get a way with it do to the market share they had in the past and its close tie in with other products used by customers throughout the year. They now see their grip was not as tight as they thought.
Bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly.
It correlates with one of the Liberatarian things ESR says that actually makes sense. Monopolies are unstable in a free marketplace, because, eventually, people will find new options or new ways of doing things. Microsoft can piss off only so many people and so many nations before, well, they either wise up or go out of business completely.
I have always said that a free market/capitalist system is a self regulating system. I *know* MS will lose marketshare and be a shadow of its former self in 10 years because EVERY other monopoly has done the same. IBM was busted for monopolistic policies in the 70s. By the time it was over, IBM did more damage to itself in the marketplace than the courts did. Now, they are a responsible corporation, perhaps party due to the fact that they have been humbled in the past. They are even the biggest corporate contributor to OSS now.
The self correcting aspects may not be instant, or even fast, but it happens. Most 'monopolies' from 30 years ago are no longer, courts or no courts. Xerox, AT&T, all US car makers combined, the big 3 tv networks, CNN, etc. They are all still viable businesses that at one time had near or total monopolies. The market place decided they should no longer be, NOT the courts.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
I hate DRM as much as the next geek, but DRM only needs to imply that there may exist a customer that is a thief, not that every customer is a thief.
Since perfect copies are free, one thief can be just as damaging as 1000.
IMHO, this is why DRM is doomed to failure in the long run, since every DRM scheme is ultimately breakable.
Right, but I think they misread the consumer response, which is unfortunate. They think people are telling them to get copy-protection off their products. Actually, most of us (I think) were saying, "Stay off our boot sector."
Problem there is that those of us who don't like software that screws with boot sectors and AV protection get lumped in with software pirates in their eyes. They've said that they think there were ulterior motives behind the "no bootsector" complaints, sort of in the same way that pot smokers support the hemp fabric industry - and it ain't because they have any vested interest in rope.
It would be nice for somebody like the EFF or whatever to really sit down with companies like Intuit and convince them that most of us don't at all have a problem with copy protection that doesn't reduce the functionality of the software or cause security/stability problems.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Hey fool, it's the price of being in the software business.
If you open a store, SOMEONE is going to get away with a little shoplifting. Get over it. If you try to stop *each* article from being shoplifted, your resultant Soviet-style atmosphere will drive your good customers out, probably to your competitor across the street, and cost you more in the end. Much more.
This is what Intuit found out.
Further, there is profit in your software becoming warez. It is called market share. There is little doubt that, if Microsoft had implemented DRM long ago, they wouldn't have the 90% share of desktop OS they do now.
DRM is nothing but the salesmanship of DRM vendors, to software CFO's who believe in the zero-sum game. "Hey the pirates are STEALING 50 Million Worth of your software a year. Implement this in v2.0, and you will get all of that in cold hard cash!"
They end up with losses instead. They don't get that a) The pirates don't have the money to spend, and b) losses from pissed-off current customers who leave.
Intuit should be made to feel pain, and I mean deep hurting
..deep hurting"?
So if a friend of yours has done something wrong to you, but then stopped, do you continue to punish them until "they feel pain..
Or do you say "ok, you've stopped, I'm glad you understand, now lets move on and make things more positive."?
Intuit ought to be rewarded for moving past DRM. This will encourage other companies to do the same. Sure, don't use their software while they are using DRM. But once they drop it, its time to go back with open arms and welcome them back. Be happy that they've seen the light.
For more on this line of thinking read "Don't shoot the dog".
It'll blow your mind and get you much further than continual punishment.
Cyno,
( $money - $tax_bracket_cutoff_amount) * $tax_percentage = $tax Subtract the amount you paid from the amount you owe. But somewhere in there you need to subtract the taxes you paid to your state, etc. Its really quite simple.
I'm glad you can file a 1040-EZ, where what you say is entirely true.
But in many cases, "the amount you owe" is not a simple calculation. Depending on your situation, you may be able to deduct your mortgage interest, various other expenses relating to business activities, and other things.
Then, of course, if you are 1099ed, you have to add that income to your gross, and you'll may to pay additional Social Security and Medicare because of the 1099ed income.