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Apple's DRM Is Bad For Consumers and Business
BoredStiff writes "Cory Doctorow, noted sci-fi writer and Boing Boing editor, marshals a strong argument against digital rights management in a recent InformationWeek article. His assertion is that there's no good DRM and that Apple's copy-protection technology makes media companies into its servants. Other copy-protection technologies, like Blu-Ray and HD-DVD, are just as bad."
There are some things that I prefer renting over buying, and movies are one of those things. With the exception of a few "classics", movies don't have enough replay value for me to justify paying more to buy them. Heck, if DVD's were as cheap as rental I wouldn't buy them because they would just be one more thing cluttering up the house.
However, the concept of rental clashes with the nature of the online and digital world. Everything that exists can be copied in exact form. You can't return data - you have a copy, not the original. The way I see it there are two options, the concept of rental can be preserved artificially with the introduction of DRM, or it can be abandoned in favor of purchases.
As a consumer I don't have a problem with the general idea of DRM on a rental - my fair use rights aren't being violated, because I don't have the right to backup, timeshift, or format shift rentals to begin with (unlike media I own, for which any DRM is intolerable). Where the problem occurs is the proprietary nature of DRM. At best, the rental DRM would be an "Open Standard" meaning anyone who pays RAND* patent fees and signs an NDA will be allowed to implement a device, and be given keys (specific to them) to decode the data. Then I could buy online rental devices or software from any number of manufactures, and it would be guaranteed to work with any number of online rental stores. This is similar to the legal workings of DVDs, Blueray, WMV. At the worst you have proprietary technologies, where each company has it's own format and player, like with Apple or DVIX (the first one). In both cases there will never be an open source player - the best we could hope for is something like the new Real Player that has an open source core with proprietary plug-ins. Even that is unlikely, as the movie industry is demanding end-to-end security (HDMI, Trusted Computing) which an open source operating system would not provide.
In the other option, the internet utopia dream was that the price of media would drop to the point of making rental unnecessary and removing the allure of piracy from the general public. The media industries are strongly opposed to this model of the future, and the only way it will ever happen is if independent media producers embrace it with success, and eventually put the current media companies out of business. This is also unlikely given the weight that the media companies have in government. Therfore, media purchases will also be hindered with DRM for the conceivable future, and will continue to be priced at traditional rates.
So given DRM on rental verses DRM on purchase, I definitely prefer the previous, but there is another potential risk with DRM rental and it is a biggy. The media companies have shown themselves very fond of the idea of DRM rental, as seen with Napster. They like the model where people don't own copies of media, but instead just subscribe to services that provide them. If too many people embrace these services, we could end up in a situation where everything is locked up. We continue to hear stories about how the original archive copies of important cultural media is being lost due to the extreme length of copyright, and the mismanagement of the copyright holders (Dr Who, classic films). But in most of those cases, at least lower quality copies exist in the form of consumer media. However, if we can no longer record broadcast media, and there are no purchased copies of media, the copyright holders will be the only ones capable of preserving the records of our popular culture. Time and time again they show themselves inept at doing so.
Anyway, I plan on sticking to buying CD's and renting locally for as long as those options exist, and continue to support those independent producers who treat their customers with respect. I'll keep trying to inform my representatives about the issues. But I'm not optimistic. We'll see what happens.
* For the uninitiated:
RAND = Reasonable And Non-Discriminatory
NDA = Non-Disclosure Agreement
...and realizing that DRM sucks. Recently a non-techie friend asked me if his ipod could "talk" to my Zen Mirco:M so he could borrow some music for a few days. I said "sure, they are just mp3s" - she wanted to know how that was possible...that it was so easy to copy and duplicate a file back and forth from my computer to my music device without any hassles...and after our discussion, she was flabbergasted that she had been locked into iTunes and how her rights and freedoms were restricted by its DRM.
Many other people are waking up to the fact that DRM is shorthand for "you really don't own this piece of music you paid $1 for, and that you can't share it, or copy it, or use it on a different computer." People, and the information they rely and enjoy, desire true freedom.
"Stupid but honest question: if DRM is bad, is the production of music only profitable through DRM also bad?"
There is no such thing as "the production of music only profitable through DRM". I believe, as do many anti-DRM activists, that the average person is more than willing to pay a fair price for anything they want or need, they do not need to be forced to do the right thing.
The problem is that the media giants have decided that they want more than a fair price for their product, so many people look elsewhere to get the things they want. This then results in the media giants deciding that they need to protect their products from theft... so they spend an ungodly amount of money developing and deploying ineffective technologies that do nothing but further alienate their customers while increasing their overhead. Now they have fewer customers, lower profit margins, and more theft occuring... so what do they do, the same stupid thing all over again!
What needs to happen is that these media giants need to start TRUSTING THEIR CUSTOMERS!!! We are in a web of distrust... we don't trust them, and they don't trust us. If an entertainer were to get most of the proceeds from their work, while the record company took a fair share, we could trust them. The cost of their wares would drop and most of us would buy the stuff without thought. But $20 for a CD of music I don't care much for, by an artist who I know only get's pennies of my money. It's bullshit. I would rather steal the music and send the artist a dollar or two.
Fortunately I don't like music, so I don't bother stealing it... talk radio is more entertaining.
Sometimes the best solution is to stop wasting time looking for an easy solution.
If it wasn't for Jobs we'd be buying cds and downloading mp3s, as many of us still are.
The guy needs to try a spell in the real world. And his novels SUCK. No wonder he has no need for DRM.
How is he not in the real world? He's practicing what he preaches. And no his books don't suck. I know that popularity doesn't equate to quality, but if an author can give away his books and still make money selling them, it should be obvious that he's doing something right.