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Canadian Music Stars Fight Against DRM
An anonymous reader writes "Some of Canada's best known musicians, including Avril Lavigne, Sarah
McLachlin, Sum 41, and Barenaked Ladies, have formed a new copyright coalition.
The artists say in a press
release that they oppose file sharing lawsuits, the use of DRM, and
DMCA-style legislation and that they want record labels to stop
claiming that they represent their views."
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I am from Quebec and finally proud to be Canadian ! Way to go guys !
If Sarah McLachlan opposes DRM so much why did she have it on one of her CDs? As a matter of fact the CD I'm talking about was one of the Sony rootkit CDs.
Why don't American artist replicate this type of coalition? We let Canada beat us!! Canada!
Purple, because ice cream has no bones.
However my guess would be that it is something along the lines of
- Her label did it, not her
- She is opposed to her label having done it, and
- This is why she is starting a public pressure group specifically designed to get her label to stop doing such things.
Perhaps you will suggest that Sarah McLachlan should have used her leverage as an artist with the label to prevent them from engaging in such practices with her music at the time the CD was released. If you do this, I will laugh until I pass out from lack of oxygen.I took it back to Woolworths the week I brought it. It skipped badly on my Sony Vaio - my computer is my audio rig, and with the speaks I had hooked up at the time, I certainly wanted it to stay that way.
Just last week I saw the Sarah McLachlan DVD and thought, "stupid drm" and not about the artist. I will force myself to see her in a better light now, but if she's not touring near me, I can't exactly give her the money I want to (by buying her material) because although she's going the right away about things _now_, her cds on the shelf are still DRMed.
In the end I was forced to I download Afterglow. I became a pirate because I couldnt experience the music on my, and on my creative zen.
For an artist I discovered via napster a long time ago, this sure does suck. Are they trying to lock me out of the market, or really fence us into a no-rip-no-choice era? Either way I see it, when I can't use WhateverAMP and my mp3 player, they've lost me as a customer.
Matt
Wow, that represents about 80% of my beat-off fantasy time right there.
No need to post as AC to admit that. Now, if you'd said Gordon Lightfoot and Bryan Adams on the other hand...
Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
TFA: "Canada's leading artists to speak for themselves."
Yet there is no mention of Bryan Adams.
What kind of a hoax is this?
I was going to blog about this, but I'm feeling lazy tonight.
First of all, like RMS, I hate applying the term "piracy" to non-commercial copyright violations, so I won't use that term. Instead, I'll call it what it is, unauthorized copying.
Unauthorized copying is to the RIAA what "terrorism" is to the Bush Adminstration, namely, a scapegoat and a straw man argument with which to justify draconian legislation and to garner (barely) sufficient public support for any new legislation favoured by both institutions.
As the Bush Adminstration maintains the conditions (ex: War on Iraq) to indirectly promote terrorism, it justifies renewing the Patriot Act on the basis that it will "help stop terrorism". To make a blatantly obvious statement, the goal of the Patriot Act does not in any way, shape, or form have anything whatsoever to do with stop terrorists, but is instead intended to grant the government the ability to further spy on and control its citizens.
In the same vein, I believe that the RIAA wishes to maintain a certain level of unauthorized copying because it will allow them to justify legislation such as the DMCA and the broadcast flag. The goal of such legislation is not to eliminate or even substantially reduce unauthorized copying, but to maintain control over the industry and keep out fledging competitors, such as independent artists who would have otherwise been promoted through P2P, and to maintain their antiquated business models, which for all intents and purposes should have become obsolete.
So, it's all an elaborate shell game on their part.
This space left intentionally blank.
from their record contracts.
p /DRM
Several of Sarah McLachlan's CDs are DRM'd:
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004144.php
http://hcs.harvard.edu/~freeculture/wiki/index.ph
(data unavailable for the other members, but it wouldn't surprise me), and almost all (Broken Social Scene and possibly a couple others being exceptions) are currently signed to RIAA/CRIA member labels. Most have released albums with those labels in the last couple years - i.e., since the campaign of lawsuits started.
Put your money where your mouth is, folks.
"...we wouldn't have to download torrents!"
"But we would download torrents! In fact, we'd just download more!"
ShortFormBlog: Writing a little. Saying a lot.
Nothing gets me hotter then listening to 'The Sinking of the Edmund Fitzgeral' sung by Bryan Adams.
yikes.
Gordon Lightfoot did the worse thing for his song that anyone could do. He bequethed it to the famil members of the men that dies.
So now to get permission to use it, you half to tlak to dozens of people abut the worse day of their lives. Effectivly locking it up.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
>> Avril Lavigne
I don't know anything about the person or her music, but that name always sounds like a feminine hygiene product to me.
For security, the MD5 hash of this message and sig is 09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0.
It's no surprise that Avril Lavigne would do something like this... given her huge punk heritage and following, her fans would definitely get pissed off and leave her negative® text messages if she didn't rebel.
Here's what these artists are saying...
On DRM: "Consumers should be able to transfer the music they buy to other formats under a right of fair use, without having to pay twice."
On P2P file sharing: "Fans who share music are not thieves or pirates. Sharing music has been happening for decades."
On DMCA "the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act is one of the world's most draconian pieces of intellectual-property law."
On Lawsuits: "Suing Our Fans is Destructive and Hypocritical. We do not want to sue our fans. The labels have been suing our fans against our will, and laws enabling these suits cannot be justified in our names."
Members include: Sum 41, Blue Rodeo, Barenaked Ladies, Avril Lavigne, Sarah McLachlan, Our Lady Peace and Sloan to name a few.
I don't know about the other artists but BNL's contract with Reprise Records expired in 2003. Technically they're independent (again), although the records are still being distributed by Warner.
And there's no sign of DRM on 2004's Barenaked For The Holidays. That's the album that was re-released on a USB key full of DRM unencumbered (but still lossy) MP3s last year...
It looks like at least a few artists have come to realize that the music industry cartel's stand on DRM is not helpful to artists. If they can get more artists on the bandwagon, they may be able to influence the debate. It's a helluva lot more difficult for the labels to convince people that DRM "helps artists" when the artists themselves are against it.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Their last ("You forgot it in people") album had a limited initial run with the copy protection. When the band found out they put a stop to it. See this link for an interview excerpt. Mind you, they're the biggest act on Arts&Crafts' label so that probably had a huge influence too.
I actually bought the copy-protected one (which wasn't labeled as such) and the label offered to replace it. HMV wouldn't.
Wearing pants should always be optional.
If there ever was a use for Fark's tags on Slashdot, this is one that deserves a big spankin [Hero] tag.
Or you could have gone to https://www.werkshop.com/sarahmp3/index.jsp where you can purchase a few of her cds in mp3 or flac format and avoided DRM altogether.
link
Wearing pants should always be optional.
Shows how much you know. Avril Lavigne didn't even release her first album until 2002...
Anyone remember... We fooled you, huh? We're sneaky like that.
It's almost enough to forgive them for inflicting Celine Dion on us....
From this article. I remember reading this in the Toronto Star as well, which I haven't forgotten since:
The Barenaked Ladies' Ed Robertson also wades in with, "I'm totally fine with people downloading music, as long as they steal everything that they want. If you want pants, go steal them. If you need gas in your car, you should steal it, because you can. As long as people are consistent I don't have a problem. As long as they see themselves as thieves in general then I don't mind if they steal everything that they like. But it irks me that it's only okay to steal music."
So at least one of them is against sharing/downloading.
Wearing pants should always be optional.
I just sent them a short email thanking them for understanding that their fans are mostly NOT thieves. Is it any wonder that I in fact already own most of the CDs from most of the artists in that coalition?
:)
Proud to be a Canadian today.
P.S. I especially like what's on their front page as the #1 bullet:
1. Suing Our Fans is Destructive and Hypocritical
Well duh?! When was that last time you saw a successful business model where you sue the pants out of your customers?
AirSpeak - http://itunes.com/apps/AirSpeak
It's funny... you love her music, and you wanted it, so you went out and bought it - came home, found that the DRM killed the experience, and...
returned the product and pirated it instead.
That's funny, because you could also just as well have pirated it without returning the product - that way you'd still be supporting the artist (in a very small way, and yes - you'd also be supporting the label, the drm guys, the shop owner, the guy driving the truck with packages of CDs/DVDs, etc.). All in all, though, nobody really forced you to truly pirate.
Also, you say they have lost you as a customer - that's a good definition, as they didn't lose you as a consumer. You still get to enjoy the end-result of people's work, without rewarding them in the way they have chosen to be wanting to be rewarded (i.e. $$$).
The sibling poster was right - could've bought it legit in a reasonable online store if you really, really felt strongly about returning the DRM-crippled CD/DVD.
Just my 2cts..
I suppose the title uses the term "music" loosely.
4 words buddy.
Britney Spears and nSync
Don't throw stones when you live in a glass house
And you know what we're filling them with? Some of the most popular bands among my friends have been The Arcade Fire, Death From Above 1979, Controller Controllor, Broken Social Scene, Hawksley Workman, Joel Plaskett Emergency, Jimmy Swift Band, Matt Mays, and countless others. Many of them allow their live shows to be traded on etree.
You want to know why these groups are popular? They tour a lot, play a lot of gigs, put on great live shows and are overall in it for the music and the fans. We've identified with the artists that put the music before the money and appreciate the innovative sounds and artistic views that they bring.
The true Canadian music scene is alive and prospering already without the help of the major music labels, with or without all their evil tactics. Anyway, at the very least, just check out these bands!
Seems like the usual suspects fighting on the side of consumer rights again. This isn't the first time the growing artistic community around Nettwerk Music Group has attempted to make an impact, even the Nettwerk CEO saying "Litigation is destructive, it must stop .... as per Nettwerk copyrights, we have never sued anybody and all our music is open source to encourage fans to share it with others and help us promote our Artists. As per those Artists we manage on other labels (Majors), we take issue with those labels claiming that litigating our fans is in our interest, as it clearly is not."
None of the major labels would dare utter sacrilege like this. But to be fair, in Canada even the Recording Industry Association (CRIA) is not as virulent as it's ugly cousin to the south. They moderate their message somewhat with more honesty, for example recently releaseing a study showing:
CRIA's own research now concludes that P2P downloading constitutes less than one-third of the music on downloaders' computers, that P2P users frequently try music on P2P services before they buy, that the largest P2P downloader demographic is also the largest music buying demographic, and that reduced purchasing has little to do with the availability of music on P2P services.
(words of Prof. Michael Geist, University of Ottawa)
This is kind of off topic, but it's fresh in my mind. I just got back to my hotel from the EMC World conference in Boston where the Barenaked Ladies were tonight's entertainment. The skinny lead singer guy was talking about how the band was like-minded with the technical crowd. He said, "I've got Windows XP running on my Macbook with an Intel Pro Duo processor". He said it was only so he could update his GPS. That comment got a lot of applause. The wider guy mentioned ethernet and how it was really just tiny pneumatic tubes like at the drive-up bank teller. They were pretty funny guys.
...and with those words, the great Slashdot Canada/USA Music Flamewar of '06 broke out. It was truly the "post read 'round the world."
This is all great. What I would really like to see is, these artists stands up for this when they are at the negotiation table with the recording companies for their next album. Lets see how much of their dislike for DRM remains on their pay day. Lets see them walk their talk.
Understanding this is key. BNL is known for trying other tactics to *persuade* fans to buy their stuff, rather than retaliation via lawsuit, and it's exactly this distinction that much of the music industry seems to be missing at the moment.
Tweet, tweet.
As a previous poster already pointed out, Nettwerk's own Werkshop sells unencumbered MP3s for $0.99 per track, or $9.99 per album. Lossless FLACs are also available for $10.99 per album and, in some cases, $1.09 per track.
They also sell the Canadian, Nettwerk releases of her CDs, which carry no DRM.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Unfortunately Rush Limbaugh is only one man. However, I had no idea that he was in a rock band in an earlier life. I'm kind of surprised. :)
Does God treat us as servants or friends? Check my homepage.
The Partridge Family. Full House. Mini Pops. Ricky Martin. Bob Barker. Fox News. Everybody loves Raymond. McDonalds. American Idol. Oprah (and Dr. Phil). Paris Hilton. That Kato guy. The list goes on
We exported Celine Dion and Avril Lavigne to see if you'd get the joke. People keep buying tickets, so apparently not.
Oh, and BTW, you can keep Howie Mandell and Alex Trebeck too. We want Shatner back though.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
CRIA stands for Canadian Recording Industry Association. RIAA stands for Recording Industry Association of America. No "A" in either group's acronym stands for artists. I am glad they are finally forming organizations of their own. Boycott the big labels!
How ya like dat?
Well, I'd expect that when some of the biggest names in Canadian music speak, the Ministry of Canadian Heritage might just listen. They're about to embark on another attempt to come up with a somewhat less objectionable version of the DMCA, spurred on by lobbyists from the big American record labels.
This isn't about convincing the labels. It'sz about ensuring that the government hears the other viewpoint.
You see, it's not that easy.
When they sign these record contracts, they are at the will of the label, and not the other way around. The label invests money in them, and oftentimes give advances to the artists. Artists are obligated to fulfill the terms of their contracts, and they can't just "walk away" from their record contracts.
We generally don't tend to riot against the democratic process here.
Of course I am being sarcastic. We all know that Haliburton, at Dick Cheney's command, used stolen CIA time travel technology to go back and rig the election. That's a given.
And noting one thing. (I was shown by a tech friend over there) that the locally pirated copies of DVD's and CD's for sale were DRM protected using the exact same protection as the original. You see when you do a bit for bit copy you get an exact copy. DRM only prevents fair use it doesn't even come close to slowing down the back alley black market.
I'm sorry, I'm to tired to be witty at the moment so this message will have to do.
You want to talk about f*cked up.... The conclusion I came to was that the public were the only losers... to the tune of a ridiculous sum of money.
Of course, we won't even bring up the rather odd discrepancies in counting resulting from Diebold Systems' electronic voting in which thousands of votes in Florida were mysteriously appearing and disappearing in ways that were never adequately explained. Don't get me started on how totally botched the 2000 elections were. 2004 was just as bad, if not worse.
Now Hanlon's Razor would say, "Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence." So I'm not saying that the votes were rigged. I'm just saying that there is plenty of reason to be suspicious, and that in the next election, citizens of the U.S. should demand better oversight over the electoral process.
To get us back on topic, though... yeah, DRM bad, Celine Dion worse, Lars Ulrich clueless. That pretty much sum it up? :-)
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
How is this not just a publicity stunt? If they have so many artists, they should start their own label.
Yeah that's a good idea... these people Sarah McLaghlan, the Barenaked Ladies, and others could start a label and call it Nettwerk or something. Except it seems like some other chick names Sarah McLachlan and some other band called the Barenaked Ladies already did.
Bout time somebody without bazillions has a say. Makes sense why come down hard on the fans. I say just make downloaders pay $50 fines when caught. Like speeding tickets. You can NEVER stop people from speeding or downloading p2p, but you can give them a little fine to make them be more cautious. Plus paying $50 from time to time is not big deal. It is not what Shawn Fanning had in mind, but it can work. Paying $5000 for a hard disk with a few hundred songs of music is just insane, and makes people like me ready for a full out boycott. I have not purchased a single CD since they shut Napster down. Poor RIAA dudes don't even know there is a boycott going on, they think illegal downloads are the cause for stale sales. Mostly, I find it ironic and moronic that the record lables laughed in Shawn Fanning's face when he mentioned $5/mo. for unlimmited downloads, and now this is a reality at Yahoo, that's crap. Things like this should not happen. Shawn Fanning was the founder of P2P and he should be as rich as Bill Gates for pioneering a technology, not abused and left out to dry. The RIAA and all supporters of Nazi DRM deserve whats coming to them. Best bet is to BOYCOTT, BOTCOTT, BOYCOTT until this "fair use" deal is resolved in a manner that is acceptable to ALL.
Having Access to information is "theft"... ...while dumping 180 litres into your Hummer H2 while munching on a big mac grown
in a field that USED to be amazon rainforest is "your fundamental right"
in our free market dream-land...
you don't think hoisting that flag of yours is rationalising your Theft ??
The American have a secret weapon though. We will enter one of your clean cities fully armed and then when confronted we will start to litter. As you Canadians desperately try to pick up our empty cans of shitty American beer and bring them to a recycling station you will be completely vulnerable to our cop killing FMJ semi-automatic assault rifles, grotesquely large hand guns, and the odd red neck wielding a bazooka or machine gun that he bought before they were made illegal.
Canadians fleeing to the recycling station with shitty American beer cans in hand will be easy picking off by our highly skilled red neck population. While our gansta/thug population might be a little questionable in their aim, they will make up for it with round output and shear enthusiasm at being given the chance to bust a cap in yo cracker ass. To the Canadians defense though, our skinny white guy wanna be rappers from the 'burbs will likely take out a few Americans as they hold guns bigger then their head sideways and shoot like fucking retards.
We will send then send in the upper middle suburban punks dressed in 200+ dollar outfits of pre-ripped black jeans, black shirts with an obscure band on it, and metal studs randomly glued on to their clothing to clean up the mess. They will hunt down the surviving Canadians in a desperate attempt to retrieve the empty cans of shitty American beer in the hopes of draining the last drops of swill that might be left at the bottom of the can. The wrist scarred (across the street style, not down the highway) teenaged girls , feminine teenaged guys, and sketchy 40 year old men goths at that point will come out to add insult to injury by read shitty poetry about death and try to one up each other by doing grotesque things to the corpses.
Have no fear though, us Americans are not without compassion and mercy. We will blast some shitty (is there any other type?) emo music over the battlefield and send the emo kids out. They will promptly start to cry. True, they are crying at the memory of their long lost sixth grade girlfriend and lamenting at the difficulty of their inhumanly difficult life living in suburban America, but we can pretend they are crying for lost Canadian souls.
Oh hell, what is a little karma. At least I amuse myself.
Ha ha silly Americans! You think that by dropping shitty American empty beer cans on our pristine cities and heavenly nature reserves that we Canadians will respond with a recycling program ... well then, you should have picked plastic as your litter of choice!
:)
The mere sight of crappy American beer cans {empty or not} brings out the deeply cherished Canadian Hockey Fan in every person who has spent at least one hockey season in Canada.
Sticks will appear {seemingly from nowhere}, pucks will fly faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a speeding locomotive {yeah the big "S" was invented in Canada}, and to add insult to injury skate blades will be used to run over your multitudes, twitching, soon to be remains.
After this induced frenzy has calmed, we Canadains will then politley bandaged any surviving Americans {not many}, administer Tim Horton's coffee and donuts to stablize them, and return them to their home state for medical care.
On the bright side though, the American emo kids will still be there to cry over your remains - primarily because we Canadains are polite and so don't pick on the whiners. Oh that and we'll need the emo kids to carry the empty American beer cans back across the border!
Both your and my karma are now rapidly dropping, but at least you amused me!
I understand the sentiments of people objecting to DRM or PATRIOT, but claims that these measures won't work are unsubstantiated . They WILL give the immediate result they intended. The problem is that those measures will give many side effects discussed here many times.
Brutality is very effective.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
People who lives in glasshouses should f*** in the basement
ze dog has no nose
I will not admit that they are programmed to discard votes for Democrats or in any way systematically favor Republicans.
Whether you beleive it or not isn't the issue. The issue is that we shouldn't have to take it on FAITH that the voting process isn't being screwed with with those machines.
No democracy is safe from tampering if the voting process isn't open, if the voters can't be genuinely assured their votes are being counted properly. Otherwise the whole thing is a farce. Even if the "mistakes" were "innocent".
As for DRM, I honestly don't give a shit. I am a reasonably strong supporter of a free market economy, and if some company wants to sell me music that I can't copy, then so be it.
DRM and DMCA have nothing to do with the free market, and everything to do with *control*. Who owns your computer and its contents? Who controls it? Who has the right to run programs on it? Who has the right to choose not to run programs on it? Who has the right to decide the program can refuse to run if you own certain other programs?
It used to be *you*. DRM/DMCA have transferred those rights to external corporations, in the name of "protecting their assets".
Start down this slippery slope and its only a matter of time before your car dealership will have the legal right to come into your house and tow your car in for its regular maintenance, and while doing so they will check the onboard computer to see if its been driven over the limit and report you to the police and your insurance company, they will also log your driving habits, and will demand additional fees if you drove it more than 6000 miles since their last inspection, even though you "own" the vehicle; finally they will have the right to search your house and refuse to release your car back into your possession if they discover you have tools that would be capable of modifying the car in anyway, especially its logging and reporting functions, or even just capable of performing the oil change at home. (Which may be "unsafe", as you are not a factory certified technician).
Or perhaps next time you enter the mall you will be asked for identification papers, not from the government, but from the merchants association representing the mall, to ensure the safety of their employees and security of their property. They'll also reserve the right to search your person, and require you to have a microchip implant... and anyone that refuses to submit will be tagged and reported to the police as a likely criminal, or perhaps "terrorist".
Of course, you could choose not to buy those cars, or shop at these malls, or from members of these "merchants associations"...
To that I say "Good luck with that". I expect you'll be as successful with that as finding cable providers with commercial free content...
Frankly, I think these celebrities are a bunch of attention-whoring narcissists who want people to care more about this crap then they honestly should.
Frankly I think DRM/DMCA is FAR more important than most of the things celeb's protest about, and one of the few things they protest about that actually impacts them directly.
There's a big difference between a clusterfuck and a conspiracy. What I've never been able to get over is people's inability to differentiate between the two.
And it means that artists who can't cut the mustard on stage go to the wall. Which is a bad thing because...
ian
Ok dude... Just because the English tried to eradicate the French 300 years ago does not mean everybody is out to get you! I have lived in Quebec, married a Quebecer, and now live in Europe, in a small country that has managed to live quite well with four languages (Switzerland).
... STOP ... What does a stop sign say in Quebec? Hmmm, could it be stop? No that would be too easy. It says Arret, which is stop in French. Right there you see that Quebec has a chip on its shoulder.
The Quebec people need to take a downer! And Quebecers need to realize that the union they seek a'la EU would actually take away rights that they have now. The EU looks like a rag-tag bunch of countries, but in fact there are many common laws and rights. You just don't hear about it. If you want to know about the EU common laws ask a Brit and they will cry you a river of regulations.
Now about being outnumbered and being flooded. Oh give me a break that is an overused argument. In Europe there are countries that have less people than Quebec (Luxembourg) and yet have no problem in keep their culture and identity.
The problem that I see with Quebec is that they have a chip on their shoulder and keep feeling sorry for themselves. They need to get over it. For example, we all know how the French of France are "Vive la France". Yet when there is a stop sign in France it says
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
"Frankly, I think these celebrities are a bunch of attention-whoring narcissists who want people to care more about this crap then they honestly should."
:s ). When copy protection stuff starts to get in the way of normal usage, then I think it's actually going to force people to start using illegal methods to play their music/games (I certainly would rather download a crack for my legally bought game so that I dont have to find a CD to put in the drive). These 'celebrities' are just people too, and they probably have the same problems with DRM as us.
You'd have to apply that to most slashdot posters also. DRM just 'feels' wrong, though if it is only stopping you from doing something illegal, then really it's not bad. Giving other people music which they've not bought is wrong, though I and many people do it sometimes.. I dont think DRM should have to be necessary though, and I dont have a problem with sharing CDs with friends etc, though if it means that the artist makes less money, that's a shame (though it seems to be the record companies screwing over the artists rather than the public). It's maybe something that shouldnt be such a big deal as it has now become, but it's also something that we shouldnt just let continue without making sure they're not going 'too far' with it etc. I like to play games, but I get fed up if they need me to swap a CD every time I want to play that game (and in some cases have chosen not to play a game just because I didnt want to swap out a CD
which is totally what she said
Blame Mexico for Ricky Martin. He was in Menudo long before he regained popularity in the 90s.
And you can have Shatner back if we can keep Evangeline Lilly and Elisha Cuthbert. Deal?
It's like sex, except I'm having it!
Do you content that the Diebold voting machines are programmed in a way that makes them favor Republicans over Democrats?
That is really beside the point. The fact that they make wholesale tampering so much easier and so less traceable. When Diebold comes in and "upgrades" the machines with un-certified code before an election, they could really hand the election to whomever they wanted. Is this a good situation as long as they hand the election to the highest bidder or the candidate least likely to regulate voting machines?
Actually, a government law that obligates a company to change how they do business is anti-free market. All the DMCA does is give formal protection to DRM software that precedent normally gave them anyway.
The DMCA very much obligates companies to change how they do business. The DMCA was needed because these controls were not at all supported by precedent. If I wanted to evaluate wall safes, I could buy a bunch and try to break into them. While the DMCA can't currently prevent me from trying, it can certainly prevent me from sharing my findings.
By your definition, all IP, and really all law in general, is anti-free market.
At any rate, you've been quite thoroughly convinced that copy protected music will lead a multitude of other things. Is there anything other than speculation to back any of those up, or is it just hyper-paranoia?
You obviously haven't been paying close attention. DRM is already extending much further than music. The DMCA has already prompted law suites in areas such as printer catrideges and garage door openers. Trusted computing has a lot of potential change how computers can be used.
Now, if we could get Bob Barker, William Shatner, Pat Sajack, and Richard Dawson in a tag-team, caged death match... That would be worth paying to see. :)
Method of processing duck feet
The Arcade Fire, Broken Social Scene, Stars, Feist, Most Serene Republic, Tapes N Tapes, Rufus Wainwright, Metric, The New Pornographers, Destroyer, Belle Orchestre, The Unicorns, Wolf Parade, Islands, The Stills, Death From Above 1979...
I personally think Canada seems to be producing more interesting music than both America and the UK at the moment, you've just got to know where to look.