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NYT Opinion Piece on DRM And P2P

Posted by Zonk on from the good-morning-music dept.

bsartist writes "The NYT is running an opinion piece written by a working musician who has a pretty healthy dislike of copy protection and DRM. From the article: 'As for musicians, we are left to wonder how many more people could be listening to our music if it weren't such a hassle, and how many more iPods might have our albums on them if our labels hadn't sabotaged our releases with cumbersome software.'"

4 of 367 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Quit wondering and drop the label! by DoorFrame · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I think the even bigger problem is that you haven't heard of 99.999999% of non-label bands. You at least have a shot when someone's paying you to put out an album. When you're on your own, you're out of luck.

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    RumorsDaily
  2. Flawed Logic by AC5398 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    **Record company executives reasoned that because we appeal to college students who have the high-bandwidth connections necessary for getting access to peer-to-peer networks, we're the kind of band that gets traded instead of bought.**

    This is a stupid argument. EMI's "protective software" overwrote my sound drivers when I tried to rip a purchased Leahy CD to mp3 so I could then listen to the music on my portable mp3 player. The lesson I learnt? Don't purchase EMI and/or Leahy CDs -- I didn't really need the CD or the hassle in the first place.

    If I absolutely have to have the music, I now know it's far safer to download EMI mp3s from the flavour of the week p2p program than it is to purchase the CD.

    EMI's "protective software" encourages piracy, not discourages it.

    And at least Sony's "protective software" gave you some sort of a heads-up that there was 'extras' on their CDs; EMI didn't tell me a damn thing. I had to figure out what in hell happened to the sound card on my own.

  3. Re:"how many more people could be listening..." by Red+Flayer · · Score: 5, Informative

    " Um, we are listening to your music. We're just not paying. That's the point. "

    No, that's not the point. The point is that the less net-savvy people are not listening to the music, since they can't download it to their iPod due to copy protection.

    Did you read TFA, or are you just spouting garbage because you feel so proud of yourself for getting songs for free?

    --
    "Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
  4. Backfire! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    From the article:

    Luckily, my band's recently released album, "Oh No," escaped copy control, but only narrowly. When our album came out, our label's parent company, EMI, was testing protective software and thought we were a good candidate for it. Record company executives reasoned that because we appeal to college students who have the high-bandwidth connections necessary for getting access to peer-to-peer networks, we're the kind of band that gets traded instead of bought.

    You know what? It was hearing "A Million Ways" on NPR, then a P-2-P download of the song, that CAUSED me to purchase the entire album! If I had not been able to dig the whole song a couple of times, I would have never have purchased it. "Oh No" was the first CD I've bought in 2 years. (I just haven't found a lot of music lately that appeals to me.)

    So the very avenue that the record companies fear, generated a sale. How many others has it generated?