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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."
Was actually availing yourself of music that 1) costs money and 2) is restricted.
You are, uh, aware there's mp3s out there on the internets?
I myself am so incredibly tired of people making "lesser evil" concessions and not phrasing them as such.
Apple's popularized the notion that music by popular artists can only be distributed online if the end users rights get saddled with enough limitations to utterly negate the cost savings and convenience. They've done little more than meet the bad guys of the music industry halfway, then used the stylish appeal of their products and branding to get the hip folk into it. And when the rich & cool are doing it, *simply everyone* wants to do it. This is one of the big reasons the industry was willing to deal with slightly lesser revenues than they'd originally anticipated. Afer all, how could Apple -purveyor of iPods, maker of sexy white boxen,favorite of artistic types, and champion of all things smug- fail in their endeavor to get the masses buying their music through their service?
That's it. It's really just a case of marketing leverage, and they got the bonus of duping the likes of yourself into thinking they've done something revolutionary yet again. It's still a cop-out.
"unlike media I own, for which any DRM is intolerable". You own the media. You dont own the copyright of the content. Copyright holders can impose any restrictions they like. Anything. It might be that you can only play this disk on a Monday and only if you are wearing lederhosen. Really. You find that intolerable? Well, then you can't play it. Read the small print. Carefully.
taste the irony