EFF Releases Music DRM Guide

Chris Chiasson writes "The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) recently created a plain English guide to several fair use restrictions that major online music services, such as Apple's iTunes, force on their customers via Digital Rights Management (DRM) laden music files and End User License Agreements (EULAs). An excerpt from the guide follows: 'Forget about breaking the DRM to make traditional uses like CD burning and so forth. Breaking the DRM or distributing the tools to break DRM may expose you to liability under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) even if you're not making any illegal uses.' The EFF also lists four alternative music services which sell unrestricted files."

Comments

Independent music recommendation services?

[RAMMS EIN]

Ok, so I've had it with the musicians who have sold their souls to the corporations. With the advert of the Internet, they don't need anyone else to publish and distribute their music to the world. So now I want to get my music from independent artists. The problem is: I know what kind of music I like, and I know which mainstream bands make this kind of music, but I don't have time to go listening to every indie artist to find out what they make.

What I'm looking for is a site where I can enter or select names of bands or songs that I like, and get independent music recommended to me. You like Alanis Morisette? Try Jen Pitch. That sort of thing. Does anybody know of such sites?

By the way: the example above is just an association I know from the top of my head; I'm not very much into the kind of music at all.

Re:Independent music recommendation services?

[Anonymous Coward]

irate: http://irate.sourceforge.net/ lets you listen and rate independant music and will actually download free tracks by independent artists based upon your ratings of what you've listened to.

Derek Slater

[turnstyle]

fwiw, the DRM guide was written party/mostly (I don't know) by hard working blogger, Derek Slater.

Oddly, I couldn't seem to find credits on that EFF page.

It's a choice

[dirk]

I've never understood why so many people are against DRM in any format for anyone. I personally am not a fan of it, so I usually don't but anything with DRM. But I understand that if I want the benefits of buying from someplace like iTunes (lower price, being able to buy individual songs, etc), then that is the trade-off. If I don't want DRM, I will buy from someplace that doesn't use it, buy the CD (assuming it isn't broken), or not buy it at all. If you don't want DRM, don't buy it. But accept that there will HAVE to be trade-offs for buying music online (and at lower prices). If you don't want those trade-offs, that's okay, but plenty of people are willing to accept them. It's an agreement you enter into to get the music you want the way you want it. If you don't agree, don't enter into the agreement and go elsewhere for your music.

Re:It's a choice

[Anonymous Coward]

If you don't agree, don't enter into the agreement and go elsewhere for your music.

We don't agree, and we want the companies to make it such that we can by giving us back our fair use rights. If you give me my rights as a consumer, I'll gladly pay for your service. Until then, I guess I'll head right over to Piratebay then and get all my music for free.

Fair use not protected by law?

[RAMMS EIN]

``Breaking the DRM or distributing the tools to break DRM may expose you to liability under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) even if you're not making any illegal uses.''

So, does that mean fair use is not protected by law in the USA? I'm pretty sure that where I live, fair use is allowed even if the EULA forbids it or the technology prevents it. You can reverse-engineer the technology (a right protected by law), and an EULA that restricts your rights too far is not valid, even if you signed it.

Re:Fair use not protected by law?

[bladernr]

an EULA that restricts your rights too far is not valid, even if you signed it

That seems to me to prevent people from voluntarily entering into binding contracts, and as such is a government interference in freedom and commerce.

I, for one, don't want to government walking around declaring contracts I've made with another party as void because something is "too far." What if I sell my house to someone, and then the government comes back and says I charged too much (even though the person agreed to pay that amount) and makes me refund to what the government thinks is fair value?

Sorry, you can keep your government interference into private affairs, such as contracts entered into freely between two parties.

Take it on the other side.

[Anonymous Coward]

Come on guys, we all know what this is. Personally, I think it's kind of similar to the smoking situation. We have "Big Tobacco" saying one thing and people like Truth saying another thing. Yes, smoking is almost certainly bad for your health. But bobody is forcing you to smoke, or if you are addicted there are things to help you quit. Then we have "Big Music" saying one thing and people like EFF saying another thing. Yes, DRM is almost certainly bad for your fair use rights. But nobody is forcing you to use DRMd music, or if you are using it there is alternative unrestricted music. The fact is, most people don't think about the long-term health effects when they start smoking. Most people don't think about the DRM in their music, either.

Nobody seems to be bitching about Apple's DRM except the hard-liners, so I think there can be a reasonable comprimise.

Re:Take it on the other side.

[cnerd2025]

I agree that no one is *forcing* anyone to use the DRM'd music, but the way things are going, we will have no choice but to use DRM'd music and video.

Big Tobacco is completely different. Tobacco is addicting (rather nicotine in Tobacco is addicting) and once you're hooked it's hard to be unhooked. Of course, no one forced you to get hooked in the first place other than yourself. But the point is once you're on cigarettes, it's hard to get off of them.

DRM is no such thing. It is not a product and it isn't something that consumers would want at all. I don't like Apple's DRM because I'd like to store my music in a format that I like and not be restricted by it. I don't 'illegally' share it or anything like that. I use the JHymn software to remove the FairPlay DRM from it. Doesn't really hurt much, it's my Fair Use right to do so. The courts have determined that.

The problem with DRM is that companies will soon impose it on us. If you have been following the HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray wars at all, you will know that the two camps are trying to say that they have *better* DRM than the other, stating that their format is effectively more DRM'd than the other. Microshaft has stated that in Vista, it will be handling media files much differently from how they are handled today. This will limit users' fair use rights. DRM is going to be imposed on us. It is not like tobacco which is only imposed on us if we use tobacco products or live with those who do.

The time has come to make a choice. Do we want software that, while preserving the 'rights' of select few (mainly the RIAA and the Five labels), arguably infringes upon our rights as users and as consumers? The US Constitution, Article I, Section 8 Clause 8 enumerates that Congress has the right "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;" This is the legal stem of copyright. In the words of (former) Surpreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor:

The primary objective of copyright is not to reward the labor of authors, but [t]o promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts...To this end, copyright assures authors the right to their original expression, but encourages others to build freely upon the ideas and information conveyed by a work. This result is neither unfair nor unfortunate. It is the means by which copyright advances the progress of science and art.

Copyright is not an end for artists, it is an end for the immortalism of art and science.

Re:DRM Circumvention

[servoled]

Both are still illegal, their use still requires some kind of Robin Hood/civil disobedience line of reasoning to properly operate.

Re:Forget about breaking the DRM

[RAMMS EIN]

``Honestly. Buy a bloody CD then. You use a DRM'd music service you abide by the T+C's - what's so damn complicated about that that so many people just don't get it.''

The problem is that the ones selling the DRM'd content make every effort to conceal the restrictions. That's why people don't know they're paying but not buying. People expect that when they pay for something, they can do whatever they want with it. Now, these music stores are not going to tell them up front that this assumption is very much not true for the music they "sell". The media are not publishing anything about it. So how is J. R. Person supposed to know?!

``While I'd never like to see DRM'd files as the sole distribution method as this is to open to proprietry player lock-in, I have zero objection to it as an alternative method of purchasing music.''

The problem is that DRM is slowly becoming the standard. Most of the large online music stores that used to sell MP3s have either quit or switched to DRM'd formats. DVDs have protection mechanisms on them. Even CDs are often crippled these days (intentionally fscked up so that CD-ROM drives will barf on them).

All of this is happening under the radar, where J. R. Person doesn't notice it. After all, it still plays on his CD player or Windows machine! And when I tell them, they don't care, or they think it's not gonna be that bad. But I'm afraid their favorite music and movies are only going to be available in a very restricted format in the not too distant future.

Of course, there will still be people publishing things in unrestricted format. I'm supporting these people even now, and steering clear of any materials that have restrictive DRM or even just proprietary formats. But that does exclude a lot of popular music, movies, sofware, and information.

Re:DRM Circumvention

[RAMMS EIN]

``Both are still illegal'' ...in the US. What about Europe? Canada? Russia? New-Zealand? Brazil? I'd like to have these questions answered, so that I get an idea of how the situation is in various corners of the world. Is there some site that monitors this?

Re:Missing from list

[Anonymous Coward]

Usually when you first hear that a music download service doesn't have big name musicians, you figure that the music must suck. Magnatune has really, really great music and some of the most talented musicians I've ever heard.

I've bought a few Magnatune albums and downloaded them as WAV files so that I can write them to CD, then compress them into OGG/Vorbis for local hard drive storage. Perfect.

Re:preaching to the choir, blah blah

[knipknap]

You can't educate all people unless the media wants to. You'll hardly convince them.
IMO pushing for national culture freedom laws is the most promising approach. In other words, culture needs to be published using open standards.

Re:THIS JUST IN:

[Twid]

Commercial entities, in this case the RIAA, MPAA, and other organizations, are merely the enforcement agents for the artist, who voluntarily contracted with them to provide such enforcement.

Let us say you really enjoy listening to the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. They have an upcoming show. You show up with a rack of recording equipment, saying that you truly enjoy listening to them and want to record it for your own enjoyment. The symphony members themselves say no, and kick you out to the sidewalk. Were they within their rights as the artists? Of course! Could they add a soundproof wall to the outside of the venue, preventing free listening? Of course! But yet, we don't accept the digital equivalent when it comes to DRM.

Sadly, your message just shows that consumers of art feel they have a right to use the artist's creations in any way they please. But yet, the EFF uses these same laws to protect their own content. You can't have it both ways. Either you love freedom and hate the artist, or you love the artist and hate freedom. DRM itself can be art, an expression of the desires and wishes and creative programming of the creator of the DRM engine. Indeed, who watches the watchmen?