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Former Apple Exec Speaks Against DRM
Wysz writes "Mike Evangelist, former Director of Product Marketing for Apple's "Pro" applications, has blogged his thoughts about DRM. Like many of us, he is offended by the fact that the record labels and movie studios treat their customers like criminals.
While he notes in the comments section that iTunes is the best of the worst, he admits to using third-party tools to remove the DRM from iTunes tracks."
Easy for you to say; you've already bought everything!
Just kidding.
Seriously, good luck with that. I'm sure, like when Homer Simpson told Moe that he wouldn't buy any more "Flaming Moe's", Apple and others will be able to hear your "You just lost yourself a customer!" declaration over their excited, yelling customers and ringing cash registers.
You know how just about every department store puts a don't-steal-me tag on the clothes that has to be removed before you can wear it? They're treating you like a potential criminal, too. Just something to think about before you boycott an industry that takes irritating measures to keep their stuff from getting stolen.
For what it's worth, although I avoid buying CDs that aren't real red book Compact Disc (I want to rip my music with no limits), I have no problems with Apple's DRM.
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
From his blog:
I agree. This has been my philosophy for a long time. Unfortunately, you can only find out after the fact you've bought something with crap built in. If there is any disclaimer at all on the packaging, it's microscopic (look at the recent Beastie Boys CD). The first thing I do with a new CD is rip it, verify it plays on all of my PC's, and all of my CD and DVD players. If it doesn't, I return it. (And, yes, I even erase the ripped music.)
iTunes is the best of the worst
That's like commending Syphilis for not being AIDS.
Trolling is a art,
I bet the mic evangelists are pissed!
Yet I bet it comes with more protection next release.
Let us use OUR downloads as WE want. That means any player, any time, as long as I own it. Until then I will download for free or rip from CD.
Preach it, brother!
The Tools Of Ignorance wanna be a tool?
...former Apple Exec sued by the RIAA...
If I could, I'd destroy you all.
The fight against DRM cannot be won. Visions of a future where media companies and other copyright holders kowtow to consumer demand and release all of their content in an unprotected format to be infinitely copied are ludicrous. The only reason this occurs now is due to the consumer technology gap. If I buy a Britney Spears CD, it has to work in the CD player I bought in 1990. Companies can't implement any real DRM without breaking backwards compatibility.
Expect this to change, soon. Your content will be encrypted at the source and will only be decrypted by the hardware, at the last possible phase, using your personal key and with proper authorization from the license server. As long as we put copyright law on the books, technology will be developed to allow it to be enforced. Live with it.
domain combinatorics
he is offended by the fact that the fact that the record labels...
Did anybody else notice the disturbance in the Matrix?
Bradley Holt
Personal music copying is legit, and bought and paid for through media levies. Why would I ever buy from Apple/other DRM music provider for an extra 99 cents what I've already bought from my friends on BitTorrent. Faster, better selection, and a more flexible format.
With all the discussion of blogs recently in the news, this is just another example of it. The past month's issue of Fortune featured "Attack of the Blogs" as the cover story.
Where art thou RIAA? He voluntary admits it and all! Sue! Sue! Sue! I hear there's an attorney named THompsons whose case just went away. Maybe he can help you out...
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
Would hire "Mike Evangelist" as Director of Product Marketing.
I hear their CEO really gets the 'Jobs' done...
When you buy clothes from a department store, the tag is removed and you are free to wear alter, and lend out the clothing however you see fit.
When you buy media with DRM, you take the tag home with you so it can tell you how to use the product you bought and try to get you in jail for shutting it up.
Like many of us, he is offended by the fact that the fact that the record labels and movie studios treat their customers like criminals.
Well, I'm not sure why he would be offended, since most of their customers *do* display a propensity to steal their music.
It's like being offended that walmart has stolen goods detectors at the exits.
I'm sorry. The number you have reached is imaginary. Please rotate your phone 90 degrees and try again.
What I really dislike about DRM is the general consensus that everything actually will have DRM in the future. Even many hardcore geeks at Slashdot seem to reason DRM is here to stay and, if anything, we should try to use the lesser of all the evils. Well, I don't agree (and I didn't vote for Bush either, *shrug*) and the sooner the consumers unite somehow and nicely tell the record- and movie industry we don't want their freaking DRM the better.
Microsoft, being a maker of software based DRM-solutions, plays along nicely by reinforcing the record/movie industry's "threat" that they are "forced" to use DRM if future content should be playable at all in the future. This is _untrue!_ Even if many content industries want DRM, it's not needed, and we shouldn't give up and let them have it that way. Think about it, if a CD can be played in a stereo, even if the stereo has some kind of DRM, any competent taiwanese manufacutrer should be able to create a player for the computer, regardless if RIAA, MPAA or Microsoft likes that or not. That's the way it should be.
I am worried someday, somewhere, some freaking moron political figures will rule the computer is an "entertainment device" and must be managed with DRM (think Vista, Trusted Computing etc). That's the day we are all fucked, even if don't actually listen to music or watch TV.
Come on. Are we really supposed to believe that they had a Director of Product Marketing named Mike Evangelist? And I suppose they've got an engineer named Dave Engineer too. And users named Joe Sixpack. And an HR guy named Steve Jobs.
Software sucks. Open Source sucks less.
Mike Evangelist, former Director of Product Marketing for Apple...
You're shitting me.
http://www.magnetbox.com/riaa/
With a last name like "Evangelist" I wouldnt trust him. The religious fanatics are plotting...
Fascism is the greatest political ideology ever conceived. Sorry.
I only know of one tool: hymn (Hear Your Music aNywhere) (formerly called PlayFair) http://hymn-project.org/
if you want to use a link as a reference, make sure it's not more than 5 years old.
Published: August 6, 1997, 3:05 PM PDT
They want to pretend to 'sell' us their product, but they don't want us to actually have it.
I like the way he put that.
I'm usually very 'liberal' with respect to the way companies protect their IP but as a customer I deffinately feel alienated by some of their tactics. I've been harping for a while that I wouldn't mind DRM as much if I didn't notice it. That is, if I bought a song off iTunes and I could transfer it to any device capable of mp3 playback (iRiver, PDA, whatever) everything would be fine. As is the case now, its iPod, iTunes, CD or nothing.
So I choose nothing.
Yes, it's true that the RIAA, MPAA, and related labels and studios are a bit excessive with the DRM stuff, but I don't think he should complain that they are treating their customers like criminals. Truth be told, many of their customers *are* criminals and are either downloading or distributing content illegaly.
If people *can* steal something, they will. The honor system doesn't work. In the old days of vinyl and open reel tapes, sure people could still copy the media, but the distribution network did not exist. Then, if you started selling and advertising pirated media, you ran a big risk of being discovered and shut down. Today, it's nearly trivial to rip a cd or dvd and post a torrent and let anybody with access to google find and download it. They just can't allow that to happen and still expect to recover the costs of producing content worth recording, let along make big bucks doing it.
Mod me troll but that what I really think. DRM will be a fact of life someday, and customers will either go along or listen to scratchy old albums of "Uriah Heep" while everybody else is enjoying "Sexcapades: 2010!".
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Someone better tell DVD Jon about that. As long as he (and folks like him) are around, something will be done to counteract this.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
Why yes, Steve Jobs does work in HR. He's real good at blowing up balloons at company birthday parties. Everyone at Apple calls him Steve Blow Jobs...
And I refuse to buy any CDs that won't fit in my tape deck!
I suppose it's interesting that a former Apple guy should be taking a stance against Apple's current policy, but this isn't a particularly well-reasoned article. He's basically fed up with format change, and he's ticked off that there are things he thinks he ought to be able to do with the new format (copy it freely to every digital device) that he can't do.
There's nothing new in this article. He's trotting out the usual complaints about DRM without addressing the usual responses. The usual responses may or may not be adequate, but the article is less "Here's a new argument against DRM from a guy who knows" and more "Yet another guy is pissed off."
What I really like is that how you go out and fork over $20 for a new DVD, then as soon as you put it in the player you are forced to watch a short video telling you such crap as "You wouldn't steal toys, you wouldn't steal shoes, why would you steal a movie?" I own the stupid thing, and they make me so mad I rip a copy just to get rid of their garbage. And by the way, "Own it now!" is their line...so I guess if we own it, we can do what we want with it...
Does the name George Orwell mean anything to you people. Wake up and smell the coffee! Big Brother is coming, and we need to stop it now before its too late. I'm serious...stop laughing dammit...ok now I'm ticked! Seriously though, we as Americans and citizens of other Free Nations need to stand up and say that "we will not allow corporations to take away our rights and freedom no matter what". Send a clear message to the RIAA, boycott their products, and spread the word that you can boycotting them and why. All that's needed to start a landslide is a single pebble. Are YOU that pebble? Think about it.
Michael "TheZorch" Haney
thezorch@gmail.com
http://thezorch.googlepages.com/home
"While he notes in the comments section that iTunes is the best of the worst, he admits to using third-party tools to remove the DRM from iTunes tracks."
oh, the Irony!
Why is it that someone hasn't proposed a reasonable alternative to DRM.
The record companies want to make money, people want to control their stuff. So instead of bitching about it, then bending over and taking it, why doesn't someone come up with an alternative.
It seems like the extremes of this discussion are all I ever hear anymore. What is being proposed by people who see a business opportunity in a good compromise that satisfies everybody? Is there such a thing?
How pathetic are you that you follow me from topic to topic and waste all your mod points at once modding me down?
And currently if you buy stuff with iTunes 6 from the ITMS store, JHymn can't obtain the key(s) required to remove the DRM, and so is limited in use.
Does anyone else find it slightly ironic that the last name of a Directory of Marketing is 'Evangelist'?
I'm a developer who contributes both to closed and open-source projects and I don't see the use of DRM is necessarily a bad thing. There are an awful lot of people who are being hurt by content/software piracy these days and the mac platform is http://www.macserialjunkie.com/>no exception. Apple (and nearly every other developer I know of) is aware of this forum and the thiefs that hang out there. Moreover, everyone expects the problem will only get worse as the market share increases.
I agree that DRM isn't the whole solution to this problem, but I don't think it should be dismissed outright. What is wrong with wanting money for working?
Yeah, the people who bought alcohol during Prohibition were "criminals" too. But they beat the teetotalers, just as we can beat the greedy bastards.
If an act ISN'T WRONG, then yeah, people will do it. Does society consider filesharing wrong? The vast numbers of people doing it should clue you in.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Jobs was sleeping with the enemy?
You mean Gates and Jobs ganged up to thwart the Linux desktop in it's infancy?
Tried to kill the baby in the crib?
Say it ain't so !!!!
Now shut the fuck up and go join the rest of the sheeple at the mall.
Sincerely,
The RIAA
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
If the geniuses that write operating systems haven't figured out a foolproof way to keep unwanted parties from hacking in, how will the bufoons at the big record companies figure out how to lock there content without creating such a horrible product that they will give up their markets?
If I have to enter a key to play a song, I won't play that song. DRM creates more headaches for consumers than problems it solves for media companies. And now that companies can see what a marketing disaster it can be for them (Sony rootkit anyone?), I predict they will flee from it.
The biggest problem with all DRM is that it is mereley a speedbump for the professional pirates. They have incentive to break it, and someone always finds a way. For the typical media consumer aka The Customer, it is an inconvenience at best. If iPods stunk, then iTunes Music Store would's sell diddly. Why? Because you could only play what you bought on your computer.
We sell unlocked downloads at our site and we don't see a big piracy problem at all. Unlike the big media companies, we value our customers and give them the best service we can. Our customers absolutely love our product.
"Like many of us, he is offended by the fact that the fact that the record labels and movie studios treat their customers like criminals."
That sentence may be technically correct, but the double "fact" in that sentence is throwing me off. Fix it!
- Pedantic Slashdotter
There's millions of filesharers, versus a few hundred record company execs. Let's get the torches and pitchforks, and then we'll see who wins!
In other words, no, there probably isn't a compromise that'll work for the RIAA, because they're a bunch of insane, greedy fuckwads. What they'd better do is sit down, shut the fuck up, and leave us alone before somebody starts bombing their headquarters.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
i think a lot of people miss the point. DRM doesn't really scare me much because of what it is designed to protect. utter garbage. it's funny that measures are being taken to protect (the profits) "music", movies, etc. that are becoming increasingly trite and just downright mind-numbing and nauseating.
if an artist is dumb enough to do business with a major label (or distributer)that makes use of DRM they probably aren't worth listening to in the first place because they don't make music--they make a neatly packaged commodity. don't try to plead ignorant you know when you are selling out. only in the absurd realm of capitalism do you get people expending large amounts of resources to protect something of little REAL value. it is no wonder that the kinds of artists that are on labels that make use of DRM also hold large, impersonal, and vacuous life performances.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
if you want to read the 75 or so responses posted to his blog, you're out of luck here...
________
The latest episode in the war between music companies and their paying customers (the one where Sony decides it's OK to surreptitiously take over your PC so you can't make a copy of the music you thought you bought from them) has finally pushed me over the edge.
I've been a big buyer of prerecorded 'media' for over 35 years. I have two or three hundred vinyl LPs, several dozen 45's, a hundred or so audio cassettes, and roughly 60 prerecorded reel-to-reel tapes. They are jammed in my closet with a couple hundred VHS tapes, 450 CDs, and 500-odd DVDs. (Mercifully, I skipped the 8-track, Betamax and laserdisc formats.)
< image > media closet
Part of my media collection
I have to believe the record companies and movie studios would consider me a good customer. But with every day that passes it becomes more and more obvious that the greedy bastards who run these media companies prefer to treat me (and all their customers) like criminals. They continually expect us to pay more for less, and even then they are not satisfied. They want to pretend to 'sell' us their product, but they don't want us to actually have it. Well I've had enough.
From this day forward I will never spend a another dime on content that I can't use the way I please. If I can't copy it to my hard drive and play it using the devices I want, when and where I want, I won't be buying it. Period.
They can all take their DRM, and their broadcast flags, and their rootkits, and their Compact Discs that aren't really compact discs and shove them up their bottom-lines.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
If people walk away from DRM media, and tell their friends to do the same thing, then they'll go away. Period. If people blindly let themselves get suckered into this process and put up with it, then they'll continue to get shafted.
You get what you put up with. it was true when workers struck against nasty employer tactics in the '20s and '30s and it's true now with DRM. When people stopped putting up with the nasty stuff, the laws finally got changed to something that recognized the source of the unrest.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
As Much of a geek I am, I actually do not rip music, Well not in the past 4 years. I listen to my cd's in the car, and listen to xmradio in the house. (one day I will buy XM for the car.)
SimonTek
If you take a look at their top 100 list at:
. asp
http://www.magnetbox.com/riaa/zeitgeist_topamazon
You'll quickly notice that 95 of the 100 selling records are associated with the RIAA. Hell, the first "RIAA free" album is ranked 34.
It's like being offended that walmart has stolen goods detectors at the exits.
No. It would be more like if Walmart put a goods detector in your house to check to make sure you weren't bringing in competitor goods or in fact making use of your goods in ways they did not want in order for you to pay twice for them.
Oh noes! It looks like you just used the plunger to clean the bathroom upstairs and it clearly states in the EULA that the plunger you purchased at Walmart must be used only for the licensed bathroom downstairs!
In that scenario, I would be very offended.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
I understand that this guy wants to live in a world where entertainment data (audio CD, DVD, downloaded audio, etc) is released without DRM. He can create that world today. All he has to do is produce content that everyone wants and release that content with no DRM at all.
The best way to win over the hearts and minds of the people is to live your life as a shining example of the good behavior that you want emulated. That's going to be much more effective world change for DRM than whining in a blog.
The war on drugs is so Ronald Reagan. It's the War on Terror now! Personal Freedoms still lost.
Copyright 2005 - Mike Evangelist - all rights reserved
And the graphic shows a passage that begins, "It was the best of times," with no attribution to Dickens!
DRM and plagiarism! -- I... said "Good Day" sir!
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Steve flies into a rage, and in a whirlwind of black turtlenecks, fires him!
Oh wait, you said former exec...
How many more Apple related taboos can I violate?
Last Post!
My orange juice container had another seal hidden under the lid. The orange juice maker claims that this is to keep out people who haven't paid for the juice. But it just causes a lot of extra headaches for me.
(Just playing devil's advocate *hopefully* with a fresh perspective >8*)
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
If you don't like DRM, suggest another way for them to sell music.
Ok, here's one: sell music without DRM. CDs, mp3s, DVDs, whatever floats your boat.
CD burners have been available for nearly a decade now. Mass copying of digital music has been feasible, and known to your average Joe, for years now. Broadband is pretty standard in most countries. Yet people still buy CDs by the millions.
Why?
Because the vast majority of people are honest. They'd LIKE to pay for things. I know it's easy to assume everyone is out to steal from everyone else, but the numbers simply don't reflect this. Mass copying of free digital music has been available and easy to use for years now, and yet people still buy CDs by the truckload.
You're always going to lose some sales due to piracy, sure. Maybe even a decent percentage (10-20%). But overall, most people are quite willing to give up some money for a quality product. Don't believe me? Here in Canada, copying CDs for personal use is 100% legal. Most interpretations of the law say that sharing/downloading mp3s is also 100% legal. Yet CDs still sell, and sell well. Record stores aren't going out of business in droves, people still have a collection of CDs in their cars, and the music industry is still making a profit.
Should copying be illegal? Maybe. That'll stop the casual users. DRM will never stop the dedicated. They're just not interested in buying your music. Short of not releasing it, you'll never stop these people. But the masses will happily pay for unencumbered mp3s.
It's kind of like bottled water. Water is free, right? Then why is bottled water a multi-million dollar industry?
Convenience. Imagine a music store with everything, and no DRM. I'd be paying thousands every year for music at the rate I chew through it, even though I could easily get it for free. DRM doesn't stop music from getting onto P2P networks, and it never will. All it does is stop me from buying music from iTunes, etc.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
On se Internetz nobody noes your German.
I think the "focus" of the problem is the real issue with DRM. Technology just made the old distribution channels obsolete, like it has always done. DRM is the attempt to shore up a business model that has gone the way of the buggy whip. They are trying to artifically create a gatekeeper need in the digital age.
At the risk of sounding simplistic (this is slashdot after all. . .) you are seeing another "death of the middleman". This is aparant in the movie industry, TV, newspapers, etc. Basically all industries that act as gatekeepers on information. The information bottle neck has shifted, just as it did with the printing press. (more people literate, knowledge more widely available than just select persons, etc.)
What is the solution? Those formerly highly porfitable companies will go the way of lard factories. The artists will make their scratch from live performances, where the majority of their $$ comes from now anyway. Music files will trade as advertising goodies to create demand for live shows.
All DRM constitutes the death throes of a dying business.
Pessimists.net - as if life wasn't depressing enough.
MOD PARENT DOWN for the "rap 'music'" part of his comment. At best this is offtopic as this is not a musical tastes forum. At the worst, the guy is being offensive and making me want to go hop in my Escalade on 22" rims and drive through his neighborhood playing hip hop beats with violent, obscene rapping on my beatsystem with 1000 watts of subwoofers from dusk to dawn every night.
I'll be your candy shop of infinite deliciousity if you'll be my discotheque of endless rump-shaking.
The problem with DRM, for me, is that it's impossible to have both strong software-based DRM and an open operating system *. The whole point to DRM is to give someone a copy of an encrypted message, AND the key to decrypt it, and to enforce a policy on when and how they can decrypt it.
The only way to make this happen is to:
1. Deny them access to the key except through your software, and
2. Deny them access to the output of your software except through controlled hardware.
The only ways to implement 1 are to obfuscate the mechanism by which the key is extracted from their software (which has proven to be unworkable), or to put the key in a physically secure repository in their computer AND deny them access to any parts of the operating system that mediate the communication between your software and the repository (which is incompatible with an open operating system).
The only way to implement 2 is to deny them access to any parts of the operating system that mediate the communication between your software and the controlled hardware. This is incompatible with an open operating system.
* By this I mean an operating system for which source code is available and this source code can be used to modify the behaviour of the OS, or one for which source code is unavailable but full documentation of all internal APIs is available in a form compatible with modifying the behaviour of the OS.
Using analogies to compare the Internet with real life is like trying to rationalize the universe with a bag of marbles.
It's all a load of balls?
that isn't their top 100, that is Amazon's top 100. It's a tool to verify which artists/albums are associated with the RIAA. This way, you can avoid the RIAA if you'd like. Even type in an artist you like who is with the RIAA and it will make non-RIAA recomendations for you.
I have no problems with Apple's DRM.
Until you decide not to purchase a proprietary hardware mp3 player from apple. Then you can realize the media you purchased is worthless for itunes will not allow you to put your music on any device other then their ipods.
Go die apple bigot.
The human race is artificial intelligence created using object orientated programming.
I reached the same conclusion about three years ago. I've not bought any CD's since. I did try out iTunes and bought a few tracks on-line. The trouble with iTunes, is that it was a hassle to move the music to my MP3 player or to create mix CD's for my car. Possible yes - but ultimately too much trouble. So, I cancelled my iTunes account.
I think with the Sony Rootkit and the publicity it's been getting, that we're reaching a tipping point. Music sales are down. People are already frustrated that they can't use music that they paid for, in devices that they paid for. Now they have to wonder - is this going to damage my PC? Expose it to malware and possible attack? The industry shot themselves in the foot years ago. They are continuing to do so, and have switched to heavy caliber weapons. It will be interesting to see how well music sells this holiday season.
[Insert pithy quote here]
An what about independent media producers using semi-pro to pro equiment for recording. Will digital content production only tied to mega corps?
They cant stop individual use of media from personal use or have to ban digicams and every other personl recording device as well.
'Farwell for your wedding video not approved by MPAA'
Have you not bought any games lately? "so now copy protection on games is pretty pedestrian and generally kept minimal" is just not true. For example, buy Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory and watch in sadness as it installs a kernel-mode driver and disables all your CD burning software (regardless of what you intended to use it for).
I returned my copy to Walmart and yelled at a manager there until he gave me a refund, but it was a close call between that and taking the thing out in the back yard and setting the fucking box on fire. I'm now boycotting Ubisoft games after that experience.
I just died, that's the funniest thing I've read in a while.
"goodbye and hello, as always" ~Prince Corwin, from Zelazny's Amber series
Have any recording artists come out against this whole business yet? Recording artists are always forcing their opinions about issues that are none of their business down our throat, why not form an opinion about something that actually matters?
Where in the entry does he claim that it is intended as a force for social change? Blogs are mostly just a medium for self-expression. While it is possible that he is trying to contribute to the anti-DRM movement by speaking out, your assumption is unfair on him, especially since he isn't a musician.
What I really dislike about DRM is the general consensus that everything actually will have DRM in the future.
While I think most devices will have some form of DRM, I am not as worried about devices having DRM as having to use it.
I don't care if Blu-Ray has the most ass-backward DRM the universe has yet devised - as long as I can burn my own content on a Blu-Ray disc and play it using that player, and give it to other people to play. Similarily while the iPod supports DRM it also supports ways to use the iPod that involve no DRM whatsoever. The DRM does increase device cost but that is an up-front and one-time cost I can roll my eyes over, and watch as at times that cost becomes too great and prevents adoption of what would otherwise be a good device.
As long as there is a path for free content to flow through a system I am not as worried about DRM because it lets media producers willing to relinquish controls compete on the basis of freedom to use media. If mainstream media becomes locked down too tightly, new avenues of media will spring up that are more open. You can see that today with online movie sites, even with news video fed from various bloggers. Not all producers of media are interested in a total lockdown of thier work, and those people will have the benefit of a wider natural distribution rather than having to pay people to take something.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
...that circumvention of DRM techniques is trivial for pirates, while it restricts the usability of the product for people who've honestly purchased the intellectual property.
A better technique would be to attach the people pirating the IP while loosening up on DRM restrictions. (Is the RI/MPAA the lesser of the two evils here?)
For a boycott to work, there needs to be extremley high awareness of a problem by the populace and a large takeup in the boycott program.
DRM is something that users will NEVER understand to the level that gets you enough people to make a boycott effective. Sorry, that's just how it is. What is more effective is a Buycott, where you take a product that is moving the direction you like best and help promote the hell out of that thing. Since nowadays word of mouth is work quite a bit of marketing, a small number of users can exert quite a bit of leverage to move people to buy one product over another.
The other problems boycots of DRM have is that you are not sending a clear message about what you want. The person on the other side of a DRM boycott does not think of a DRM-free world as a valid solution at all, and so a boycott will just leave them to try another stab using the same techniques and get you nowhere in a vicious cycle.
So promote and buy open media when possible. For mainstream media nudge them towards the weakest form of DRM possible (which is why I like buying from ITMS). We need to lead media producers to understand that opening up media can still be profitiable, you cannot just expect them to understand this overnight.
Fight a battle you can win!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
There are fairly successful artists - White Stripes, Franz Ferdinand - whose music is already available for legitimate (paid) download on good old MP3. That pretty much proves that you can become at least a millionaire without having to embrace restrictive DRM. (Yes, I know it's mostly from physical sales, but those are also on good old CD).
Simply put, it will eventually become a sales point - look, we are on the side of the young and free against The Man.
'Capitalists of the world, unite! Oh
In my middle 30's I rarely find new music that I actually like. If I never am able to add a single song to my 80 gigs, I can still die a happy man......74 days of music, with no dupes. /. can't go a couple days without em....
Yup. And "consumer" basically means cattle. And how much respect does the cattle owner have for his cattle? Just enough so that they all get slaughtered. You are a resource. Not a person and certainly not a customer who has anything close to equality with the all powerful owner of those sounds/visuals and data bits. You are their cattle.
Enjoy.
Facebook is billions of individual "Skinner Boxes." And if you use it you are the pigeon!
First of all, piracy does not equate to lost sales. The vast majority of people who consume pirated software/music/movies are people who couldn't/wouldn't pay the retail price in the first place. There's a simple reason that piracy is mostly rampant on college campuses: students are poor.
Secondly, since when did the purchase of a CD change from "owning a copy" to "being licensed to experience the content"? I haven't seen a licensing agreement printed in any of the CDs I've bought. When I buy a DRM-unencumbered CD, I am owning that copy of the content. I can (and will) do whatever I want with it. Just because iTunes comes along and starts "licensing" the content in DRM-encumbered form, that doesn't mean that the nature of purchasing a raw CD has suddenly changed.
Thirdly, the entire public debate about copyright law, DRM, the DMCA, piracy, etc, all really boils down to one simple thing: what is ethical is not the same as what is legal, and vice-versa. The government is supposed to serve the people by refining the law until it accurately reflects what is ethical. Unfortunately what we have right now is a body of law that is radically divergent from what is ethical. Throughout history, whenever the government and the law have gone against what is ethical, civil unrest has resulted and has in fact been the only way to set things right. Digital piracy is just the latest form of civil unrest. Since the government is clearly in the pockets of rich special interests, piracy is the only form of civil unrest and demonstration the public has left at its disposal. So from an ethical stance, piracy is a good thing because it is the only counter-force fighting to swing the law and government back toward what is ethical.
Moderator hint: a comment is neither "Flamebait" nor "Troll" if it is true.
I think part of the problem these days is that "DRM" has come to be viewed as the root of all evil, something that's 100% bad. The reality is, there's a few different arguments and concerns that are all being jumbled into one term, causing a debate-that-never-ends. Here's my attempt to make some sense of things:
First of all, you have to look at the original intent of copyright law. And, while we're at it, remember that laws are, in theory, "rules" that _the people_, in majority, agree upon and believe are to the benefit of everyone.
So, let's say you're out with a bunch of friends, and one of them comes up with this hilarious joke about a talking horse. The next night, you and him and a different group of friends are out at the bar. You remember that great joke about the horse, and, excitedly, you tell the joke to everyone, as if you had just come up with it. Needless to say, this is pretty disrespectful to your friend. But okay, let's say you tell the joke but give him credit for coming up with it. This is arguably still a rather disrespectful thing to do. Maybe your friend was planning to tell the joke himself. Maybe your delivery of the joke sucked and you've now totally ruined _his_ joke. Might you have been in the clear if it's a few months or years after your friend first told the joke? Maybe. But in this case, he just told the joke last night. Maybe the next time he has a good joke he'll be careful not to tell it to someone as disrespectful as you.
These are two of several rationales that make up the ideas of copyright law. Society recognizes that the creative contributions individuals make should be respected, and those individuals should be rewarded. That means it's not in society's interest to condone plagiarism of creative materials, and that society considers it "fair" to give the original author "dibs" on his own material, to a certain degree and for a reasonable period of time.
And then of course, there's the profit side of things. Some people make a living from the crazy and creative ideas they come up with, from the music, artwork, games, etc, that they lovingly create. For the same reasons as above, society recognizes that in order to encourage such creativity, it's only fair that, in the short term, the author have "dibs" on benefitting from his work. Let the author benefit first, then, eventually, let everyone else benefit from his work, both directly and indirectly.
I don't know of many people who disagree with the above premises. These are all concepts that we accept as fair in our own small social circles, and they are no less fair on a broad scale. Copyright laws encourage authors to share their ideas with the world (by granting them a temporary monopoly on those ideas), but then, eventually, those ideas must literally be "shared with the world" by becoming public domain. This is a fair balance in theory.
Fast forward to the present (skipping over copyright law's mirky history...)
Using DRM to prevent things like Napster from happening, is an understandable intent. If you share the music you bought with hundreds of other people, that's quite unfair to the music's author, assuming the author's desire was to profit from his music.
Where DRM is taking a lot of heat today, is in a realm where its application to copyright law seems more a mere technicality rather than in keeping with the spirit of the law.
If you buy a song on iTunes, you've now paid the author for the privilege of listening, as many times as you like, to his song. The author set his price at $0.99, and you paid him. Now you want to listen to the song on this new MP3 player you bought, so you use a third-party tool to strip the DRM from the file and put it on your MP3 player.
Is this unfair? On one hand, this doesn't change the spirit of your original terms of purchase: you're going to listen to the song as many times as you want. You're not giving it to anyone else.
On the other hand, there are plenty of analogies to what you're doing where it might not look
"So the artists who are good enough to sign with labels do so, and the labels remain the most likely source of music with the potential of mass appeal, because the only performers not signed with them are the ones who were either judged to be not good enough" -Good enough meaning marketable enough? (Ashley Simpson) or talented enough?(but not young and pretty enough)
We are all just people.
Check these out:
http://www.phlow.de/netlabels/index.php/Main_Page
http://www.archive.org/audio/netlabels.php
http://numia.scene.org/n2/yellowpages.php
http://www.rowolo.de/labels
http://www.acowo.org/labels.php
The CD is going nowhere. They are still the dominant format for music, something that the record companies can do nothing about. It's going to be hard to push a new format, because CDs provide a more-than-adequate format for mass music (the more advanced DVD Audio is the reserve of people with high-end equipment). In terms of audio quality, it's reached the peak.
Of course, the music industry might like to have dial-home media, but I don't seriously expect customers to like that idea - it gives no benefit to the customer and is most likely to disrupt their listening.
It's like being offended that walmart has stolen goods detectors at the exits. Except I don't have a Star Trek replicator, so I can't very well make an exact duplicate of the good. And the stolen good detector doesn't follow me home. And the stolen good protector won't prevent me from using my shirt, as say, toilet paper. You get the point by now.
The unfortunate result of all this DRM mania, is that many people will not buy media anymore. Not everyone of course, but lets assume 10%. Sales will go down by the same percentage, or even more (some people buy more than others). Media companies point the finger at piracy. Government issues more stringent laws. More people abandon media sales, because it's just not entertaining having police conduct spot searches in your home.
Let's go back to standing around the piano with the family, singing the old (copyright free, public domain) songs. That's the sort of entertainment the RIAAs of the world cannot control.
Thank you for being the 35th person to point this out. I also love that fact that you are still modded funny by someone.
Good hell...
"They've sold millions of DRMed tracks, and yet you don't hear about P2P networks being flooded with stripped tracks."
.flac from P2P, which would you rather? Songs are so tiny, that with broadband, the difference between a 4M or 16M file is a few seconds, so its not the download. And hard drives are approaching a terrabyte of storage, so the more "complete" file is always preferred. And music from iTMS is pretty much bottom of the barrel when it comes to quality. And before you start whinging let me give you the hierarchy of music formats in terms of most desirable to least desirable
.wav file .flac/.ape .mp3 .mp3 .aac (.m4a) .mp3 .mp3 .m4p
Because nobody wants them.
Think about it...if I can take a 128kb/s DRM'd file from ITMS, or a
CD / Full Quality
320kb/s
224kb/s VBR
192kb/s
192kb/s
160kb/s
128kb/s
poking sharp stick in ear
anything from Real Media
"Like many of us, he is offended by the fact that the record labels and movie studios treat their customers like criminals."
This type of comment irritates me to no end. People have proven they are criminals through using the old Napster, Gnutella, etc., so why are you surprised by DRM?
Vote for Pedro
I work at a university where most of the students own more expensive cars than the faculty and staff. These kids are from well off families and no doubt can purchase cds and dvds whenever they want. Why is it then that file sharing is still such a big problem at our university? Are you suggesting that only the "poor college students" are the ones who partake in this?
I'm no better myself, despite being a musician trying to sell music. The fact is, it's often more convenient to get my hands on music online through illegal channels than it is to go to a store and get a cd/dvd. And while I do buy things from iTunes like exclusives and things I can't find elsewhere, I never buy from iTunes if I can get it anywhere else. Why pay money for lower quality?
This equates to lower sales. File sharing is not limited to those who wouldn't or couldn't buy it anyway, and you know it. jd
Technology has made it fantastically easy for the entertainment business to rip off the people because despite the fact of drastically reduced manufacturing costs for pre recorded media, they hold the same pricing models for years and years after they should have dropped. This is something one can see or remain in denial of. It is much cheaper to manufacture media now. I understand production costs, so I require no lectures on that front, what they don't seem to be able to grasp is volume pricing and sales and human nature.
They want all the possible profit potential of better tech, but don't want you to have any benefits, either directly or indirectly by dropping prices. The reason they do this is because they can, they are and act as an onerous cartel, with massive price fixing, payola, market manipulation, bribes to officials, and etc. This has been going on for decades, they get busted periodically, but for some reason, the "penalities" they are struck with never seen to *stop* their cartel actions or practices. This is called the "slap on the wrist" then back to crooked business as usual.
They insist that only the industry should be allowed to have modern technology, and they would legislate that you as a consumer be only authorised to have crippled hardware and over priced product, now with new and improved trojans and various other malwares, in effect, a sort of protectionism for their old standard business model, perpetuating buggywhip sales. I wold say most people can readily see this now. Some can't or are in denial, but most people can see it.
They could have easily avoided most file sharing "piracy" several years ago if they had consistently dropped prices as technology made that possible, and made the same or more net profits merely by increasing volume sales, thereby having more and happier customers. That is the business model they need to adopt. So there is your answer.
Instead,pompous coke addled greedy and drunken idiots that they are,(I have worked in the industry before, so again, no lectures needed, this is more true than not, research it anecdotally yourself) they see it as an adversarial condition, with the results that are in the news now. The anecdotal in the article is *typical* of most media consumers,at least in my circle of adult friends with some money to spend, people by and large were quite content to purchase pre recorded, as long as it was not a severe ripoff gouging experience and as long as they were free to use the media normally. Now, well, people are annoyed, jst like they are with the oil gougers. I am in a very similar situation, I *used* to buy quite a bit of pre recorded, starting in the late 1950s with records until the late 90s, until it became just so completely obvious that it had turned into a pure gouging business that I was forced to "say no" from personal ethics. I honestly don't want them rewarded as honest bsinessmen, because they aren't honest bsinessmen. Exactly the same way I feel about MS now, although originally I didn't feel that way, they changed my mind about them merely by their actions. Crooks. No other words or phrases for it other than they suck the big one and are jerkoff thieves. That industry-back to music and movies- is apparently made up of mostly *thieves* at the production and distribution levels. I see no other credible explanation for their actions. Now I purchase very little over the year, whereas ten years ago and previous I purchased something weekly, now it is 2 or 3 times a year maybe, and then only from the drastic mark down bins, where the prices are at least closer to something more credible. And it is mostly inertia, I have movies I purchased last year I haven't viewed yet. Music CDs I completely stopped, those are just way over priced. Just not worth it any longer. 2 or 3 bucks maybe, 15-20$?? Excuse me?? They can bite me. I have almost completely stopped caring. I don't download nor share, but I won't purchase their products in near the volume I used to, either, and it wouldn't bother me any to just completely stop either.
What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. If Apple object to the music companies using DRM to their customers detriment, then surely Apple won't treat their own customers that way and use DRM in OS/X x86! Or will them? ;)
--I thought I was wrong once, but I was mistaken.
while I agree with your sentiment, I would allow for the fact that the record labels are now no longer simply there to distribute music. they play a very pivotal (not necessarily a positive, but central) role in the creative process by making it standard to have spent millions of dollars producing a noteworthy album. Even thought that does mean that we end up with jessica simpson and endless reams of pop-punk, it would be incorrect to deny their place in the process. While they continue to spend millions of dollars to produce each big hit, artists not playing their game cannot hope to compete on a large scale, becuase they lack means of distribution.
The recording industry uses its monopoly on distribution to determine what we listen to and they are trying very hard to use it to determine how we listen to it. Any threats to that monopoly will naturally be threatening. hence the attempts to legislate their business model into perpetuity.
and hence me saying they can go fuck themselves.
for business to defend market-based solutions to lifes problems by touting the adaptability of the market, how will naturally simply react to situations in the most effecient manner possible because of the wonderful mediating properties of currnecy, and then turn around and display such a remarkable lack of adaptability as to legislate the past into the future rather than innovating new ways to make money is just rather sickening. If big business had once, ever, in the history of modern capitalism, actually walked the talk about "letting the market decide," well, I'd be one surprised individual.
Come read my stupid blagablog. Rants and Giggles
So.. Instead of being useful to the world, you just don't care.
As someone who claims to know better, and do nothing, you have an even worse excuse than those who are ignorant.
If you remember Spider-Man: With great power comes great responsibility. This also applies to Knowledge. It helps nobody to roll over and be beaten, or watch someone else get beaten while shrugging that it would happen anyways.
The whole point of this life is that you are here. Don't let it all go to waste.
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
The answer is "Its a just a joke, and its not worth getting upset over a joke"
Which translates pretty nicely to:
"Its a nothing little pop song and its not worth the government throwing people in jail over it"
Just because you do not follow the trend, that doesn't make my statement any less true. I said "the vast majority". You're just not part of the majority.
Moderator hint: a comment is neither "Flamebait" nor "Troll" if it is true.
If it breaks functionality, people will start to notice. It's up to us geeks to get the meme out there that things are breaking because the manufacturers are delivering hostile software.
There is a schism in what you are saying - people will notice, but we need to spread the meme. If people are noticing there is no need to spread the meme!
I agree that IF people notice they will take action. But I am saying that an attempt to spread this meme is very difficult exactly because not enough people are noticing, or will notice in the near future with DRM that has been proposed on mass-market systems. A meme needs a base experience to stick on.
I think people are noticing the DRM issues with "Plays for Sure" music stores and that's one reason they stay away. The DRM Apple places on music are in effect invisible to most users, which is why they are comfortable with it and continue to reward Apple. Interestingly I think that the new Apple video store might have some difficultly with traction since it does not allow burning of DVD's from the media you bought.
On Blu-Ray, it will be accpeted and no meme will hurt it because the DRM will be invisible to people. They will buy discs, they will buy players that will play the discs. Just like DVD today.
Now note that overseas where they generally did not get discs in a timley fashion, the consumer En Masse rejected region controls because they could not watch more current US releases on them. So even large department stores abroad sell region-free players. The people noticed because it did effect them, yet the same consumers in the US had no reason to care whcih it why it's hard to get a region free player here.
You can't get people to understand anything they are not experiencing already. You can reinforce frustrations but that's about it. Since most DRM is not generally frustrating ENOUGH a boycott or meme will generally fall flat.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
All the analogies I read in this forum, and have read elsewhere/elsewhen, fail to reach their goal on this topic.
Many appear in the same post with a statement alluding to the "new world" of distribution via the internet.
So these analogies, despite some of them being quite good in their attempt, fail us in the same way the media companies have failed us: none has yet captured the essence of the internet.
More specifically to this issue: none have discovered (or at least "deployed") the killer app for electronic (perhaps "mediumless"?) distribution of intellectual property.
To stimulate conversation:
I work for a church (graphic designer/webmaster NOT pastor/theologian, so...). As a registered nonprofit organization, when someone gives us money and does not receive a tangible "thing" in return, or gives more than the market value for a "thing", the amount is tax-deductible, or the "overage" is in the case of a "thing" (physical item or not, such as a conference or camp).
However, should not a business (simple definition being: intent to profit) have the power to place what ever controls/limits/etc. on their "widget", physical or not?
Obviously, I haven't taken much of the current laws into consideration simply because my knowledge is limited to my understanding of layman's interpretations of those laws.
Thoughts???