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When Would You Accept DRM?
twigles asks: "Following on the heels of Apple closing DVD Jon's end run around its DRM and a British TV station offering DRM'd downloads it seems fair to ask, what DRM would you accept as a consumer? Personally, I take the view that if a song, movie, book, etc. is DRM'd then it isn't truly mine. On the other hand, if a particular piece of digital media is priced correctly (a la' rental fee) would that be satisfactory, or do you feel that DRM in any form is ridiculous?"
...it doesn't interfere with my privacy or ability to do whatever I want with the product. Be that copy, play, or backup.
(though they may dream of it, in the end, most of them only end up doing it for the passion)
You think it's easy to do music full time while keeping a day job? There IS a life outside Slashbot-land. I think you need a change of perspective.
-mkb
Yes, which is the reason why it has to be reflected upon before it reaches the commercial level.
BEcause of the Internet, we don't need a comemrcial circuit, we need communication aver what is being made.
That's why I created GNUArt: To give creators a possibility to get their stuff circulating with no restrictions other than ensuring their contribution would remain known as theirs.
Now, if the gallery gained popularity it would help benevolents distributing their creations.
Trolling using another account since 2005.
Well hey, you feel free to live life on some hippy commune where you barter for everything, but I've got bills to pay, and if my company started charging ludicrously small amounts for consulting, I wouldn't be able to pay them. Your "free everything" idea is nice, but totally unrealistic.
To answer your points:
First, you need to be careful defining what you "own". If I rent/lease a car I can't do anything I want with it. Even if I own the car, I can't use it in a reckless manner or give it to someone to use in a crime. If I rent a DVD from a store I can't do anything I want with it. For example, I am not allowed to melt the DVD itself or scratch it so it is unusable.
As to your second point, there is a lot of software that is hideously complex and expensive to create and cannot just be made "free". How many companies can create controller software for a cellular base station (I used to work at Motorola) and then give it away free? It doesn't work well as an open source project since there is no way to test the software without purchasing specific hardware that costs US$100k or more. So how does a cellular provider get this software? Develop it themselves? Oh wait, then their competitors get it for free (according to your premise) and they can undercut your price because you had the cost to develop it in the first place.
Third point - so if I have a world changing idea then I should just give it away? Unfortunately, I have to eat and prefer to live in a house instead of a tent (winter can be harsh in my part of the world) so I need some money for those things. Sorry, but that is just the way it is. If you will guarantee to give me food and shelter then I might give it my ideas for free. Communism tried this and it didn't work out (at least in the USSR).
DRM is flawed, but since people prefer free to costing something it is required if you want any compensation for what you do. Imagine making music and only being able to sell 1 copy of your music and everyone on Earth then gets a copy. Who is going to pay US$10k for a song to cover the cost of the recording equipment when everyone else gets it for free? If I wait for a few days I can be the one who gets it for free.
Final point - spoken like someone who never had their roommate "borrow" some of their software/movies/pictures/etc. My wedding pictures are my property and I don't want someone else to have/look at/post them without my approval.
Personally I think DRM is hideously broken in our current state of law/society. However, I think it is required since most people prefer to get something free instead of paying for it.
Reading code is like reading the dictionary - you have to read half of it before you can go back and understand it.
You can have iTMS tunes registered on up to 5 machines at once. If like me (and most people here) your "upgrading OS" involves a full uninstall/reinstall, just remember to deregister the old installation before you start, so you don't waste one of those 5 times.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
I think that expecting the record companies to stop their price fixing is unrealistic. They've already settled one case out of court for peanuts, so of course they're going to do it again.
It's up to five computers now, not three.
As an artist who has wrestled with many corporate members of the *AA, I can assure you that the companies exist to make sure that the artists do NOT get paid, or if they do, at least they get paid poorly, and late. That is their business model.
Agreed. There are alternatives out there. It does suck that we have to search for them, but they are there. Not to spam the forum here, but that was the whole reason for creating my Music Store. I wanted an Alternative, and couldn't find one, so we made it happen. We are trying to help bands, and consumers alike by doing things differently (or trying to anyway). See my sig for more info...
I have nothing clever to put here...
You don't have any alternative.
There's a deli here in Portland where the owner has a big stack of cd's with a sign taped to them saying that he's no longer allowed to play them without paying royalties.
Even with a cd there are limits on what you can do with it. It's not a question of whether or not your rights are being managed. It's just a question of where the line is drawn.
He's not a hyprocrite; he's exactly right. You can't own music. You can't own the words in a book. You can't own a movie. You can own copies of all those things, and/or you can own the copyright on all those things. When I buy a DVD, I own the DVD, and I own the copy of the content on that DVD. What I do not own is the copyright on that content. The ownership of the two is distinct, and an interest in one does not in any way affect an interest in the other. Just read section 202 of US copyright law:
You know why there is piracy?Because the big labels screw their customers out of $20+ for a piece of plastic while they screw the artist and through them less than a dollar of it,if anything. I've been their.I watched as a buddies band got screwed and the band members bankrupted because after the label got done with "creative bookkeeping" they handed them a bill for $5000!They paid for the album themselves,Got NO promotion from the label,stayed in fleabag hotels,And sold out every club they played.I watched the local record shops have to restock THREE times because they couldn't keep their albums on the shelves and i know they were doing just as good elsewhere because i toured with the with my former band. The bill had things like "misc promo fees" and "creative artist devlopment" WTF?They fought for three years and never saw a dime!I will care about the poor theiving record and movie companies when it's a cold day in hell!How can you care about a business that whole goal in life is to screw everyone they come in contact with?You sir,Are a dumb@ss.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
This is a great point. Unfortunately few media companies are interested in giving the consumer something, they are mostly focused on taking away.
In Soviet America the banks rob you!
I was gonna stay out this one, but my head will explode if I don't comment on this.
* you don't OWN all rights on the content on that disc, only those rights copyright holder grants to you.
WRONG!!! I have all rights that the copyright system of my country allows me, as well as any additional rights that the copyright holder may grant me. That's what "fair use" is, and, here in the U.S.A. at least, it specifically states that I can make copies for personal use or my personal "archive" of music (which happens to sitting on the floor beside me at the moment, I bring it with me on long trips so as not to risk losing/breaking the originals).
--Ender
Loose things are easy to lose. You're getting your hair cut. They're going there to see their aunt.
Those concerned about DRM invading computers should check out this article on BBC News Website, which says that computers available now from Dell, IBM, Toshiba, HP/Compaq or Samsung already contain an extra chip called the trusted platform module (TPM) that can be used for a range of hardware-based security features, including DRM.
Their strategy is to get the public to unknowlingly buy hardware with these chips before the DRM is activated. Once the hardware DRM is widely distributed among the public, they will activate the DRM through software upgrades.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4360793.stm
But for Jhymn, I'd never buy from iTMS. But a very acceptable (for me) DRM for eBooks is from http://www.ereader.com/, which used to be Palm Digital Media. Considering books are much smaller in size and costs more than music, I am happy with the DRM offered there. No centralized server that keeps authenticating the client. The "key" is the Credit Card number that was used to buy the book. That, to some extent disallows putting the book in P2P networks. And the client is available for Win32, OS X, PocketPC and Palm OS. They even have an ebook maker software that can convert txt files to eBooks. http://www.manybooks.net/ makes Gutenberg books available in eReader format. That, I say is even less restrictive form of DRM than iTMS, which many consider to be the least restrictive. (The price of eBooks from ereader.com is not much cheaper and some time higher than the dead tree versions. Odd.)
That means: - I can lend it to a friend, not listen to it in the meantime and when I get it back listen to it again - I can copy it onto all sorts of music carriers that don't need adjusting for it, such as mp3, cd, cassette tape and so on, so I can enjoy it in any form and at any place I like to - I can modify the song to my own request - I can reacquire it without payment since I already paid for it - I can choose which songs (not albums, songs) I get - It wouldn't be overly expensive (say, 0.60 per song or something around that) Since this is all pretty impossible to do, I go for the company that sells them without copyright protection software. If they make it possible for me to do these, I will not go around these things. If they make it impossible to do any of these, I'm not going to care much about their copyright (since they don't care about my use right).
Technically, the license of use on the older style of media was exactly the same as what they're trying to do with DRM. They simply didn't have any useful way of stopping you from doing what you wanted. Don't get me wrong, I'm against DRM, but don't try to kid yourself that you ever truly 'owned' the content on your older stuff, either. You were buying licensed content, with all the crap TOU we're dealing with now. If they wanted to, they could have gone after you for every cassette or VHS tape you ever copied. What stopped them was cost/benefit. The only ones who ever got busted were people doing it as large operations. So, it really comes down to more of a misunderstanding about what you had then and what you're getting now. Again, I hate DRM, but you're not helping anyone with this rhetoric.
Don't use the Troll mod just because you disagree with me.
Don't be so sure of that.
From DNA Lounge blog:
Which label? At least let others benefit from your friend's misfortune by telling them who to stay away from.
I'll take "All of them", for $500, Alex.
TFOAE.
You responded:
Moron. I'm a musician! (insert "insensitive clod" here.) Don't worry, I'm not taking the "content producer" high road. Because I'm a music junkie, I don't want to rent music, unless I'm deciding if I want to buy it or not. Movies, on the other hand, I like to rent 'em, because I never want to see 'em more than once (except for FLCL, which I'll buy). My music, however, must remain as available to my kids as my parent's LPs were to me. Therefore, in order to get me to shell out for music that might evaporate when Apple changes their minds about our licensing agreement, you have to bring the price down so low that I don't care if I lose it or not.
It's nice to listen to a record before I buy it. What the majors would do, if they wanted to sell to me, was give away lossy music, and sell me 24/192 lossless digi audio. (That's far better than CD quality, for those of you who don't recoginize the 24/192.) Chances are...? (hollow echo)
This is not what's going on here. It doesn't matter whether or not it's available via BT for free; this doesn't effect my willingness to pay. I'm not pretending to ignore the availability of, say, Boards of Canada stuff for free, in order to justify buying it. I DON'T WANT LOSSY MUSIC, and that's what is available to pirates. The only people I find trading FLACs are trading live shows they've taped, and most are fairly serious about not trading shows of bands who have expressed reluctance regarding having their live shows traded online. (Yes, we ask 'em, yes, their responses are usually available.)
If wishes were horses... Hey, I want to be free, too, but I also want to be able to pay the rent.