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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?"
Not as long as I have any alternative.
I do feel "DRM in any form is ridiculous". It's that simple.
The Pragmatic Progammers sell the PDFs of their books with no DRM and they seem to be doing okay. That is to say, the books aren't all over Google.
http://www.pragmaticprogrammer.com/starter_kit/faq s/pdf_faq.html
Agile Artisans
I have no other choice, because the lemming-like "masses" have already been duped into buying all DRMed stuff, and buying/selling non-DRMed hardware is illegal, and comes with a 30 year jail sentence, and I've become nothing but a hollow shell of an old man/corporate consumer.
-Jesse
Nothing says "unprofessional job" like wrinkles in your duct tape.
I'm fine with any 'Digital Rights Management' that doesn't, in the course of said management, infringe on _my_ management of _my_ digital rights.
...if a company wants to sell me something, yet wants to put restrictions on that thing, then I am not likely to buy. If you want to sell me a subscription, then do that, but don't make it so that I can't move the content from place to place in my domain (ie, living room, portable devices, computer, etc.).
As it is, most content is unbuyable now, anyway, so I don't even buy that much. (I haven't bought a CD in years, and a DVD in months.) Media companies need to start making intelligent music and shows, and then let me do what I want with it. If they want income streams, fine - sell me a subscription. But if you're going to do that, and I'm willing to buy, then don't restrict how I use it.
DBA? Software Engineer? My company is hiring! Click
I'd accept DRM when it wouldn't restrict my fair use. That will never happen, so long as manufacturers and content providers are using DRM to lock people into their proprietary platforms and distribution networks (whilst claiming to use it to combat piracy).
London's finest organic fairtrade coffee
If I am purchasing music, paying per song or album, then it is MY music. I don't accept that at some date in the future my music will no longer be playable because some company went out of business or no longer supports my hardware/operating system, or because I moved all my files over to a new computer and can't get the DRM to work.
If I am renting music, for example paying $20/month for all I can listen to, then I can accept pretty much any DRM because I don't expect the music to be "mine". If something goes wrong with my DRM I would just switch to a different service and for $20/month have unlimited listening rights again.
Note that, for me, it's not worth $20/month to listen to music on my computer. I already have plenty of music I own on my computer, and there are free alternatives for radio-style listening.
But I get that it's a worthwhile proposition for some people.
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat
When the content is properly priced, what's the need for DRM anyway? If the download offers value for money then anyone should be willing to pay for that. If it's overpriced then DRM is a way to force the high price down the customer's throat.
To Terminate, or not to Terminate, that's the question - SCSIROB
The problem is not that when you buy some DRMed media that you do not really own the song, the movie, or whatever. The problem is that when you take part in a DRM system, you do not really own you computer any longer. I will not buy into a system that has my computer acting against me on behalf of others - not at any price, nor for any benefit.
Computers are not like cable boxes or satellite receivers, or even DVD players. They are our most fundamental and important devices of communication. To surrender control over those devices to others is a mistake we should pay for dearly...
- All "information" and "ideas", which includes music, software, text, and other unique works, should be allowed to freely flow between people in an unlimited fashion without any encumbrances of ownership;
I take it you aren't a fan of the GPL then. Take what you said to it's logical conclusion and the GPL becomes too restrictive even for you.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
The first DRM I was aware of was Macrovision.
/. comments but i figure most didn't see it the first time)
I remember a call from a friend of mine who remembered that I was knowledgeable in video editing and she contacted me to help her with a problem they had with a student project. (that was back in 1994)
They were student who selected very short extracts of scenes for their project for the last 20 sleepless hours and they wondered why they couldn't make copies of many of their extracts. When I finally arrived all I could do is explaining what was happenning and tell them to find some other scenes (Macrovision had a cyclic effect in which a few seconds would be copied all right) I didn't have any video filter at that time to go around it and it was too late to go and find/build one.
CONCLUSION:
It's simple, DRM prevented those kids to express themselves correctly, it was damaging their possibility to create.
Now, with DRMs much more insinous than Macrovision nowadays just try to imagine the artists who have been prevented to express themselves, imagine also the art forms that have been crushed before their own existences by these DRMs.
DRM is bad, it is evil, it MUST be banned for the sake of the human spirit.
( it's the second time I put this story in
The problem isn't really the restrictions now -- I will gladly grand the copyright holder the right to control the (re-)distrobution of their product. Copyright doesn't, and shouldn't, control or limit use, which a lot of DRM/copy protection does, and that I do object to. But having iTMS want to limit P2P reproduction -- to me, that's fair.
To me, the issue is instead what happens 150 years from now -- they copyright has expired, but Rights Manglement never dies....Do you like Japanese imports?
The real issue is that the media giants aren't willing to work within the new marketplace. It's like going to another planet where humans have already discovered they can breath without a space suit, and they come along and want you to wear one anyway. I think if they would release a lot of their old libraries, cut those prices, they'd have a market willing to buy new songs at decent prices. So much DRM today restricts moving songs from one place to another to prevent piracy at the expense of convenience. People have grown accustomed to taking a CD from car to home to friend's homes etc. now you want to lock them down. I understand the need for DRM I just think they need to rethink their methodology. I don't know the answer, but I am uneasy with a technology that is basically attempting to make an outdated business model fit into this new marketplace. This shows an amazingly naive understanding of the digital landscape. They need to change with the times and they just can't see it. That doesn't mean give away their music, but it does mean understanding your market.
dave, you seem a little bitter about last night's thread, but I won't hold it against you ;) You made some good points last night.
I could live with DRM'ed content if, as the article mentions, it is priced comparatively to a rental fee. However, if physical media were to go the way of the dodo and consumers were expected to accept DRM'ed downloads in lieu of owning physical media they could (by right) copy and manipulate for personal use, I don't think that would be an acceptable outcome. Several people mentioned last night that purchasing media give the purchaser rights to resell, copy, etc. Now if an EULA explicitly restricts you from doing these things and you still accept it, that's your problem. But if the day comes that consumers are given no choice (i.e. their rights to copy for personal use are negated by the fact that the only available format for purchase removes these rights), that's when DRM will start to smell funny to me.
Just my 2cents, and FWIW it seems like I fall somewhere in between daveschroeder's opinion, and the opinion of many other slashdotters who commented on the 'DVD Jon' story last night. But like you suggested dave, I do not patronize iTMS for the specific reason that DRM is not worth circumventing if the same media can be purchased on formats that don't restrict my personal choices.
May the threads progress competently.
Not me. My teenage years were in the 1980's, where I was able to purchase -- legally -- "perfect" quality CDs and high quality (for NTSC, anyway) LaserDiscs, both free of copy protection. Both CDs and LaserDiscs were touted to last a lifetime, and even though that's not true, the lack of copy protection enabled lifetime chain copying to preserve the recording for personal use.
I grew up accustomed to, after hearing or seeing something I liked, purchasing it, and playing it back at any time for one of two purposes: a) reflecting upon its content, b) recalling the time and place where I originally heard or saw the recording, for the purposes of sentimentality.
I've said it many times, and almost always get modded down, but I'll say it again. I consider it a form of mind control for a publisher to present something for my consumption, and then be able to at a later date forbid me from reviewing that material in the time, place, and manner of my choosing.
As I said, I believe this attitude of mine is due in part to my Gen X demographic. Baby boomers and older -- those presumably running XXAA -- grew up not expecting reviewing capability. Baby boomlets grew up expecting stuff for free via P2P. Gen X'ers are in the position of expecting lifetime reviewing capability, and expecting to pay a reasonable one-time fee for it.
But demographically, there aren't as many Gen X'ers as baby boomers and baby boomlets. And no one seems to care that books after 1924 are rotting away. So DRM and short memories it will be from now on.
I agree. I shelled out $5 for Debian on CD. I should be able to do whatever I want with it, including redistribute only the binaries to people, without any source code. Or modify the source code, build binaries, and ship only those binaries to people. Why not? I paid for it. Who the hell is this Stallman guy who thinks he can tell me what I get to do with something I bought? Sounds like another Jack Valenti to me.
Seriously, the "It's mine I paid for it, fuck you" attitude doesn't work in civilized society. There is a concept of "fair use" - sure, it's gone out the window in recent years, but it was called "fair use" for a reason. It wasn't called "fuck you, mr. artist".
There is no sig, there is only Zuul.
Just as the protecting freedom of speech means protecting speech you hate, protecting an open sharing society means sharing with people who don't want to share it forward. Once you share something, you should not have any control over what the recipient does with it. Sure, somebody might try to sell your code, but that doesn't diminish your ideas, nor does it diminish the ability of others to build and share.
I'm not pushing this concept, I'm just saying that some people definitely feel this way. Any opinion is a valid opinion, even when you don't agree with it.
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I wouldn't out of hand reject DRM, but it must be priced into my purchasing decision. Currently, $15 for a DVD that I know I can watch forever, play on any DVD player, backup if needed, loan to a friend, etc., is a good deal. Because of this I have purchased quite a few DVDs, and I think the DVD market has been very strong for that reason. Various forms of DRM, for example newer copy protection methods (might not play in some DVD drives), prevention of copying, possible other incursions to my anticipated fair use, all detract from the value of the disc. If the movie was a good buy at $15 with no DRM, I'll be damned if I would pay the same for something that essentially has had positive features removed. Things like convenience, freedom of use and fair use are all going to get priced into the total cost. If the only thing I can buy is a DRM'd $15 DVD, then I won't buy it. I think most consumers make also make this value decision. I think the problem will be when some of the new DRM systems are implemented, and consumers are not adequately aware or informed. Hopefully publishers will manage to keep DRM out of the user's way enough for us to keep shopping.
Mod me down, and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
The discussion seems to be blurred by the fact that DRM is invented to prevent unfair use and not to impose unreasonable restrictions on the honest consumers.
:-)
I don't think that the content providers are happy with having to do this.
I would accept DRM if:
* I find price is reasonable
* Does not impose restrictions on my personal use
* DRM Expires after a reasonable time
70 years after the death of the artist does not seem reasonable to me - I happen to like stuff created by people who died 69 years ago
There is no reason that music, text books etc. should be free, just as there is no reason that software should be free. The creator may choose either, and the consumer must then choose whether to support non-free content.
If I create something, then I can choose the conditions under which I will make it available, and you can choose whether you find it valuable enough to accept those conditions.
If ends don't meet then the product disappears - It's that simple.
Quit all that b*** about the companies charging unreasonable high fees - you are free not to use their product.
Just my 5 euro-cents
Erik
I can't foresee any occasion where I'd accept DRM, ever. Allow me to explain:
DRM only works if it's supported right down to the hardware, and I fundamentally object to my computer having a different agenda to mine. I will not buy hardware that I'm not in control of, and I view it as irresponsible and invasive to even try to control or artificially limit something I've paid (my) good money for.
If you don't understand this attitude, ask yourself why the government fines people for speeding but doesn't install mandatory speed-limiters in cars, or makes murder illegal but doesn't ban guns outright. Precedents both.
DRM without end-to-end hardware support is essentially impotent unless you are prohibited from cracking it by law. Legislating against technology like this is like legislating against bad weather, or against the tide - it's coming eventually whether you like it or not, and you only look stupid and/or put yourself in harm's way by trying to get between it and where it's going.
(As an aside, can anyone think of an example where a popular technology has been legislated against, and it's died there and then? I honestly can't think of one. In contrast, I can think of several cases where legal proceedings (and the attendant publicity) have launched a new piece of techology into mainstream usage, but I can't think of one counterexample. If anyone else can, please let me know...)
Short version - end-to-end DRM is fundamentally invasive and tramples on your rights as a consumer (First Sale, Fair Use, etc). Vulnerable DRM propped up by dubious lawmaking both cheapens the law and retards technology as a whole (e.g. banning P2P networks unless they pro-actively filter for copyrighted software effectively bands P2P as a useful technology).
DRM represents an attempt to graft concepts and precedent from physical property law onto digital "property". They are not alike, and this sets a false precedent which will (and is) harming both our technological and cultural development.
Everything in moderation, including moderation itself
"Still, the wide-open Stallmanesque idea of non-ownership for all IP eliminates any chance of someone with an appreciable level of talent in, say, music, to be able to quit their day job and be able to provide for themselves and/or families by making music."
True, but that has nothing to do with DRM. The record companies sold non-DRM vinyl LPs for over 60 years and non-DRm CDs for over 20 years. Not only did the record companies make billions in profits but a lot of musicians got very rich as well.
DRM *IS NOT* about "fight piracy". It *IS NOT* about "protecting intellectual property". The sole purpose of DRM is to fundamentally change the ownership of property that you have legitimately purchased -- "you don't own it, you've merely purchased a license to use it -- but you can only use it in the way that we dictate".
To respond in a general sense to multiple posts:
I'll only allow DRM on rentals, not on purchases
Reasonable - if you purchase, you have first sale right, format shifting rights, reverse engineering, etc. However, you have no right to distribute. People do distribute, however, and DRM is a reasonable way of stopping or limiting that. Another would be remove the DRM, but watermark all files with a generic tag, and have all ISPs monitor your uploads, looking for that tag - and when you do, they immediately notify the feds and shut off your stream. Would that be reasonable?
DRM is never acceptable. All ideas should be free
Which is a great idea, if ideas never cost money to implement. But, because they do (Pixar's multi-million dollar renderfarm, an author's bills as they take a year to write a novel, a programmer's Fritos and Coke as they program a new game), idea creators need to be subsidized for their ideas. Either that can be society or government subsidizing them (would you accept that? Or would that be too much like "communism" for most people?) or by charging consumers, which is our current system. DRM allows them to retain control such that consumers have to pay for use - which subsidizes the artist and pays their expenses.
Removing DRM removes their source of income which removes the incentive to create.
I know most Slashdotters will say "I don't pirate movies, software, or music. I don't distribute it" - in which case, they'll be solidly behind the first idea, right? Or, they will say "I don't want to pay for it, I just want it". In which case, they'll be solidly behind the second idea, right?
TANSTAAFL. Can't get the content if you can't pay the creator.
-T
Comment removed based on user account deletion
DRM isn't a bad thing if it did what they said it does as opposed to doing what their investors want.
The ONLY thing DRM is good at right now is keeping us locked into a device or proprietary service.
I have over 8000 mp3's. Three-quarters of them are ripped from cd's I legally purchased and the last quarter was ripped from friends, downloaded from napster (way back), winmx, or some torrent.
I've been adding to this collection since 1997. Over the years I've listened to it:
-on my home computer
-in my car burned as a standard audio cd
-in my car on a hacked virgin webplayer I mounted to the glove box
-in my car on an mp3-cd player
-at friend's houses streamed with andromeda
-on my archos jukebox
-on my PDA
-on my home stereo through a computer I had hooked up there
-on my home stereo through a D-link networked media player
-on my work computer
-on my laptop while travelling
As far as I'm concerned, that's ALL fair use. I WILL NOT buy music if I don't have the flexibility I had with MP3's. I really love my music, and the ability to play it anywhere with little or no effort. Initial cost aside, if I threw it all away, and bought all my music DRM-protected, how much OF MY TIME do you think I would have to spend TRYING to listen to it in all those places. I'd lose my damn mind fighting with it, and probably STOP listening to music altogether for some time.
From the other side of the fence, I can understand the record companies position. I'm sure those money-grubbing bastards can't sleep at night knowing ppl are listening to music they own for free. I can sympathize with this as I like to protect my own business interests as well, but I think they're going about it the wrong way.
Music is easily traded because there's essentially no difference between the cd I buy in the store, and well encoded mp3's of the album I can download freely. Give us added-value. Start bundling cool stuff in with the cd's we want. Some labels do this to some extent, but not enough. The last 5 cd's I bought retail were purchased because they came with bonus dvd's, booklets, or were some special edition release. I opened up my wallet and gladly dished out the 20 bucks every time.
I hesitate to post a counter-opinion, since doing so on these threads seems to be worth about (-2, I Disagree So You're A Troll), but what the hell. ;-)
What if the alternative is not being able to download legally at all? I don't know whether it's officially acknowledged or not, but it's a good bet that legit services like Napster's or Apple's are only allowed to distribute the content by the recording industry after agreeing to apply DRM technology to it. If they gave up, or the DRM proved to be ineffective, there probably wouldn't be any legal download services at all. At that stage, some people reading this may be quite happy to break the law and risk becoming a statistic/example case so they could still download music, but a lot of people would lose out through being unwilling to commit a crime.
Not everything in this world comes down to absolute ownership. The rental model has been working well for videotapes for years: if you just want to watch a film once, but don't want to keep the tape, you can pay a smaller amount but you have to give it back a couple of days later. Most of the arguments in posts like the parent would basically rule out such a model, despite the fact that it is welcomed by many and of benefit to them.
And I know two people, completely independently, who had trouble securing book publishing deals after draft content that they put on their web site temporarily for the benefit of those who were interested wound up republished (without their consent, or even notifying them) on so-called archive sites that have decided they are above copyright law (which I suspect may become an expensive mistake the first time they try this with a megacorp).
Neither of these people publishes anything whatsoever on the web any more, because the resulting tedious negotiations with their publisher's lawyers over distribution rights just aren't worth it. Ultimately, it's not the authors who have lost out here, it's the people who were benefitting from having their content at a much cheaper rate. That was the very distribution of work that copyright and similar concepts are intended to promote, and when copyright wasn't respected, it stopped. Go figure...
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Copyright law today rarely protects the financial interests of the people who created the work. It mostly protects the financial interests of the distributor who do not fairly compensate the artists. The artists themselves do not have the right to copy their own works. This is why all media publishing industries are so screwed right now. I remember when I was back in audio production school, I was told that most employers in the music business consider all work that you do (even at home on your own equipment) to be their property. This is written into the employment contract. Doesn't sound like a way to protect the interests of the people who are actually creating the works. If the creators of a work want to profit from their creation, they are far better going it alone and utilizing the power of today's technology for distribution. At worst, they could gain some notoriety if their work is any good. But as soon as they sign up with a label, they are going to get screwed. The statement you made hat I am nit-picking should be phrased:
So your proposal is to stop allowing the major labels/motion picture distributors to profit from their acquisitions?
If you were an artist, you'd "get it". Sound to me like you're a "suit" or a wannabe business person.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
I actually started a _small_ record label (6 active bands) for this exact reason - I was tired of seeing bands get screwed over. The general public knows nothing of what really goes on behind the scenes in production of an LP/CD or exactly how bad bands get screwed.
Perfect example: With recording, mastering, CD production, and printing - I can put out 1000 CDs @ $1.74USD each. We are as small as it gets - only 6 bands, two active people working on projects, and only 829 results on google. With only two releases under our belt we are a little nobody punkrock label that very few people outside the Tampa Bay area has ever heard of. If I can do it at $1.74USD per CD I know for a fact any "major" label can do it much cheaper. (Yes, I have factored in costs of distribution. I have world-wide distribution at my disposal, it's cheaper then you might think.)
One of the most active bands on my label decided that they wanted to sell every new CD they make for $5 each, then when they release something new they put the old CD on the net in mp3 format for free. Their fans have the option of downloading every track on the CD for free (DRM is never an option for our digital releases) and burning it OR they can pay $5 for a CD with the printed lyrics, pictures, and other info you would typically see in a CD insert.
The majority of fans choose to do both - have the music on their computer AND purchase a CD. They know the price is fair as it's easy to see we are not out to make money off the band by charging $15 to $20 for $1.74 worth of "work".
Fans generally want to support the band they like but at the same time they don't want to get ripped off. I guarantee that if you ask any member of a band on my label how they feel about working with us they will have nothing negative to say about how we do things. Music is the most important part to us, not making money - when the bands see that and the fans see that everyone is happy.
If the major record labels were to drop the CD/LP prices by 50% piracy would drop significantly. While the public might not know about the record labels and what happens to the bands, they DO know when they are getting ripped off.Any major label could do the same as I do if they were more worried about music then money, we all know that will never happen.