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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
"...Apple's copy-protection technology makes media companies into its servants..."
...and Apple would have a problem with this why? Don't they want EVERYONE to be their servent?
... considering that this topic has been beaten to death here and every side of the argument has been discussed. It's a well known fact to any Slashdot reader that DRM is bad. Maybe this article should be posted on Apple's, the DMCA, and every other media monster's website. Here it's just telling us what we already know.
Sometimes the best solution is to stop wasting time looking for an easy solution.
What will happen when Apple goes bankrupt? Or when the next generation of mini-players comes out with a new DRM?
You must be thinking of the OTHER music companies, that re-authorize every month or what have you.
If Apple went out of buisiness, you music would continue to play on your current Mac until the end of time.
However, like you say eventually you'd want to move the music. Two options then:
CD's - I can burn any ITMS song to CD as much as I like (limit of ten burns a playlist, but I can always make new playlists...)
Hymn - I can convert protected AAC files into unprotected AAC files, which I can then play on anything that undrestands AAC (most PC players, not many portables) or convert it from there.
So yeah I feel sorry for anyone buying music from anywhere other than ITMS or AllOfMP3.com. I still don't like to use AllOfMP3 though as I don't feel it gives artists as much as it should. Perhaps in the future I'll buy from ITMS, then buy the non-lossy version from AllOfMP3. Too much work though, so I probably wont...
You are, uh, aware there's mp3s out there on the internets?
You are, uh, aware that this comes up out there in the articles?
KFG
Dead horse, go fetch a switch from that willow tree.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
I remember when an old friend told me back at school that he had the ultimate anti-copying technology ! He said let's go back to the vinyl discs! I remember that i laughed my heart out back then, but everyday now I wonder what would the market become if he's right? Not to mention the users...
What is best in life? To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you and to hear the lamentations of their women.
...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.
I'm so friggin' tired of his blathering on this subject. Apple's DRM has done more for the availability of music on the internets than anything except bittorrent. If it wasn't for Jobs having the cojones to square off against the music and movie congloms we'd all be renting our music by now. Without DRM iTunes would be eMusic.
The guy needs to try a spell in the real world.
And his novels SUCK. No wonder he has no need for DRM.
I'm not wrong. You haven't thought about it hard enough.
That is bizarre. If I download a cd, I should be able to burn 1000 copies and sell them on the streets for cash...
iTunes limit is like 7 burns or something. If I buy a cd and lose/break it more than 7 times, I'm a friggin idiot.
And this topic is dead and beaten, but I'm really bored at work...
re:"t Apple's copy-protection technology makes media companies into its servants"
Wasn't this the protection scheme that the media industry demanded over it's content before providing licesens for distribution - hence it's NOT Apple's? And if it's not Apple's - are you actually claiming that the media companies are making servants of themselves?
I buy the CDs and rip them.
No restrictions, no problem.
The revolution will NOT be televised.
So yeah I feel sorry for anyone buying music from anywhere other than ITMS or $PIRATESITE
I feel sorry for people getting music from anywhere but iTunes or eMusic or mp3bogs like 3hive or buying CDs in used music stores and ripping them or...
Don't buy the music through the iTunes store. It's really that simple. Buy it from another service, buy the physical CD, even pirate it, whatever. You don't have the right to complain about DRM if you buy products that implement it when so many other services are available.
Unless you disable your ability to listen to the "borrowed" tunes for the duration, ethically, that is stealing.
Don't forget emusic.com -- cheap, 100% legal and 100% DRM free-music. [I wish they paid me, but sadly, I pay them for access, just to be clear.]
Without Apple's DRM it'd all be "plays4sure" by now.
Which is stronger than Apple's "nudge-nudge-wink-wink" honor system DRM, and (since it's all under Microsoft's eye) has the potential of becoming as invisible and ubiquitous as DVD encryption.
Competition from Apple makes sure that DRM remains fragmented, difficult, and ineffective. And that's good for consumers even if they don't think so right now...
...."Word is protected only by market forces, while iTunes enjoys the protection of a corrupt law that gives Apple the right to exclude competitors from the market" and "For example, in the software industry, it's legal to reverse-engineering a file-format in order to make a competing product."
The article seems to be a generic troll by a recording industry lobbyist and his arguments are allover the place.
My Gripe no 1: ITunes does not need DMCA to hide behind and "market forces" does not make microsoft's products superior. What if ITunes patented the DRM file format and licensed it for 1000$ per track ? It would effectively kill competition. (can you patent a file format ? well yes and yes).
My Gripe no 2: Apple may be interested in ripping you off when you buy an Ipod, they certainly arent interested in ripping you off when you buy a music track. The article's title should be "Apple's DRM is bad for Ipod consumers", taking it a step further, if apple didnt have DRM it is bad for music consumers, because if apple didnt keep the recording industry in check, they will rip you off. Remeber the whining about variable pricing ?
Copyright is government intrusion into a free market. The only people who make money from distribution are *gasp* the distributors. If you eliminate copyright you have free competition for distribution. There are lots of ways artists can make money with out needing to ask the government for a monopoly. That artists need copyright is as silly as thinking that bakeries need the government to give them a zone in which no one else can compete. There is no such thing as intellectual property, the intellect is unlimited. No one loses anything by me using your idea. You still have the use of your idea thus I have no deprived you of use of it. (Otherwise known as stealing).
DRM is bad for business: True, unless you are the winner of the DRM lottery being the distributor of the DRM everyone is actually using. It creates a moat which makes it really hard to compete against. The deal is that there was an unwritten pact bewteen the music industry and Microsoft that the people sitting in luxury behind that DRM moat was supposed to be Microsoft.
So DRM worked just as intented inthe effect it had, it's just that the "wrong" company currently benefits from it.
Consumers: Actually they are better served than it would appear at first glance. Sure right now consumers have a harder time switching away from ITMS than they would have otherwise without DRM. But you have to consider the alternatives:
1) Someone else holds the DRM (say Microsoft). Do any of you think that prices would be lower or terms MORE lienient if anyone but Apple had a stranglehold on DRM? Think back on the no-burn restrictions of early online music stores. Given that, the Apple system is about the best (for the consumer) DRM system we could hope to see.
2) No DRM in place at all. An ideal world, that studios will not buy into - so this is the equivilent of saying there would be no major online music stores. Well what's the difference between that world and the one we have right now? I can still download songs via P2P if I like, or buy from eMusic (which I am a subscriber of). The only difference is that I can also "buy" songs with slightly more encumberance from Apple if I choose. It does not really reduce the choices that would exist if DRM did not exist, it only adds to them.
Furthermore, Apple's lock on digital music distribution can possibly lead to the desired end-state of large music companies distributing msuic free of DRM. It's the only way a music company has of avoiding Apple store fees by going direct to the consumer with a format that will still work with the iPod. Here, see Barenaked Ladies and other Canadian artists. I can also buy those songs on ITMS but I can buy plain MP3 (or even FLAC) BNL songs and concerts from thier site. In theory bands being successful with this approach along with the music companies desire to get out from under the thumb of APple to try thier own "creative" pricing models could drive studios to non-DRM formats sooner rather than later.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
We can thank all of the "but it's only a LITTLE DRM" users too. Now, DRM is on the rise and in the future you will not be able to obtain any mainstream music (IE, anything other than crappy folk) that is not rife with copy protection.
This situation may have been inevitable (then again, I think it may not, too), but the apple zealots certainly helped push it along.
There's a time and a place for fanatacism; four years ago was that time, DRM was that place.
Thanks for selling us all down the river, Jobs!
Remember when DVD's were not cracked? Man that sucked. I don't seen Apple's DRM anywhere near something like that. Infact it has not ever been a problem for me functionally.
members are seeing something, your seeing an ad
What will happen when Apple goes bankrupt? Or when the next generation of mini-players comes out with a new DRM?
.mp3 file - almost perfect, but no good for distribution - at least not if the publisher wanted to make money.
Either the files revert to their original rights holders (the record publisher) or, if it worth their while, some other company will quickly buy the rights to the DRM'ed tracks and handle the business.
I love this alarmist screaming - Doctorow's really got himself convinced that all it would take is Apple's demise to screw everyone who ever bought songs from the TMS. He didn't bother to do any research, but instead decided to scream from the rooftops about how bad the coming dark age of digital rights management will be.
In the old days, the physical medium was the DRM.
Then, consumers started demanding smaller and better sonic reproduction.
Then came the
Now, we have iTMS, windows media, etc. ad infinitium. Arguably, iTMS does a really good job - and I have a hard time believing no one would buy the iTMS IP if Apple were to suddenly go out of business. (Think about it, Cory - would the labels have let Apple run with this whole music store idea if they were the slightest bit afraid of the lawsuits that would results from a defunct iTMS?)
Doctorow either hasn't thought this through or more likely has let the more hysterical elements of the Anti-DRM crowd pollute his normally well-oiled brain with "what ifs" and half-truths. The real truth is that DRM is here to stay in one form or another, and with sufficient consumer protection laws, there will always be recourse against businesses who try to leave consumer holding the bag - but unfortunately, gutting consumer protection laws in deference to "out of control" lawsuits (which will be the next thing to get legislated out of existence) seems to be the political course lately.
Apple didn't invent DRM. They're not the only ones who use it. Then this topic belongs on the Main section. "DRM is bad for--" I'm in absolute agreement.
Why do these articles always talk about burning the tracks onto a CD and then ripping that CD to get mp3s? Can't you just use FAAC/D?
I don't have an mp3 player and have never used iTunes. If this means that I == dumb, I'll only need this explained to me once.
This post climbed Mt. Washington.
Apple is not the one to blame. The entire industry has DRM'd music if it comes from a profitable record label. It's not just Apple. Apple is targeted by alarmist articles like this because it happens to be the most sucessful. It happens to be the most successful because of a couple critical things:
1) Apple invented the industry of digitally distributed music from big labels.
2) They have software and hardware integration that is rivaled by no one.
3) They are "cool."
Apple doesn't have a need for DRM'd music, aside from it being the ONLY WAY for them to sell the music in the first place. Without DRM'd music, the labels won't sell their music to consumers. However, it's pretty retarded for a couple reasons:
1) People who want to steal will always steal regardless of method or industry.
2) People who will pay will always pay.
3) People who are on the fence will steal if they can not get affordable options.
The majority of people would just buy the damn music for 99 cents and be done with it regardless of weather they got it illegally or legally, if it was of the quality they wanted. That is what paying for your content will get you, though. Less viruses, higher quality compression, and freebies, and discounts on volume (record versus song.)
"Politicians find new names for institutions which under old names have become odious to the people."
This is a little off. 1201(a)(3)(A) defines circumvention as bypassing the controls without authorization from the copyright holder. If you, the copyright holder, authorize yourself to bypass the lock, then bypassing is not circumvention. This actually leaves some loopholes open, though I don't think they've been tested yet.
The problem is with tools. 1201(a)(2) and 1201(b)(1) prohibit trafficking in tools that are primarily intended to circumvent (and this is a subjective judgement call, so you can pretty much expect a hostile judge to rule against you), and 1201(b)(2)(A) defines circumvention differently so that the tool is illegal whether you have copyright holders' permission or not. (By a super-strict reading of 1201(b)(1), all DRM players for copyrighted content should be illegal, even the "blessed" ones such as iTunes or DVDCCA-licensed DVD players.) Thus, breaking your own locks on your own content with your permission, still might be pretty hard, since the necessary tools will be "underground."
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
From TFA: no one but Apple can sell you proprietary file-format music that will play on the iPod.
From me: Good!
Christ, Cory used to go on about how DRM was fundamentally unworkable. This kind of problem is one of the reasons why DRM is fundamentally unworkable. Why's he telling us that this is a bad thing?
Reverse psychology?
Err... why single out Apple? They have the most fair DRM sceheme I've ever witnessed (not that that is saying a lot). If someone is going to get all up in arms about DRM, let's take a look at some of the major DRM players. Microsoft, Sony, for example...
My biggest problem with DRM is that, if I shell out the money for their product, I should be able to do pretty much whatever the hell I want with it after that as long as I'm not making money off it. Whether or not I should care if what I'm doing is 'costing the company money' is debateable, because the legality of that has not been fully dredged out.
It's already annoying that I can only change the region encoding on my laptop DVD drive a limited number of times. I can't think of any logical reasoning behind that besides trying to pigeon-hole me into a market segment. How is that good for me as the consumer? "The more you tighten your grip, the more starsystems will slip through your fingers." It's true here, as well. IMHO, the more ridiculous restrictions goverments/corporations put on media via DRM, the stronger (and likely, smarter) the piracy movement will become, because people will no longer want to deal with it. And I'd say downloading an mp3 or ripping a rented DVD arguably falls under the domain of civil disobedience.
As far as mp3's in particular go, why should I pay roughly the same price for compressed, often proprietary audio as I'm paying for unadulterated WAV files on a CD that also include cover art and liner notes? Wired had it right a few years ago: slash the prices on mp3's and they'll make it up in volume.
Putting the 33k in G33k.
They have already tried to do this with the audio DVDs. They have better audio than CDs, include videos (lyrics too?), etc. but have flopped in the marketplace. Why? For the same reason that something like your HDCD would: compatibility. There are many millions of CD players out there and any new format that is not compatible with all of them will need to be orders of magnitude better in order to displace them. I doubt that that will happen any time soon...
Without Apple, it would be even more mainstream.
Instead of having two confusing and conflicting DRM schemes in use, we'd have one, licensed by Microsoft, that everyone used... like CSS on DVDs. It's CSS, more than iTunes, that opened up the "only a little DRM" floodgates. I'd love to believe that Joe Sixpack would care enough about DRM to refuse to use encrypted music files if Apple hadn't made it easy... but Joe Sixpack doesn't actually care that iTunes is "only a little DRM", he only cares if it works for him
By forcing the industry to accept his "second best" solution, Jobs stuck a huge stick in the muzzle of the DRM beast, because now they can't pick the most popular option and force every player to use it. He might have done it because he wanted to control the market and because didn't want to pay license fees to Microsoft for WMA, but no matter what the reason... it's kept DRM in everyone's face.
And that's bad for DRM's acceptance, long term. And that's good for consumers.
"Apple's DRM makes media companies its servants."
pity the poor media conglomerates, whose shareholder- and executive-bonus-driven business model determine which artists we will hear, and consigns the rest to obscurity.
Apple's entry into music distribution if anything has somewhat leveled the playing field and has a tendency (if only slightly) to keep the old-line media companies honest. Now they have competition. Apple is "David" and Warner and the traditional giants are "Goliath" here.
For the sake of what WE get to hear... and for the artists out there who may or may not be able to prosper as artists, depending purely on business and monetary factors outside their control... we want a David to go up against that Goliath.
There would be no legal online distribution of music without some kind of DRM. The question is how to make it as user-friendly and the least onerous possible. Perfection has not been attained. Lots of people will only think it's perfect when the music literally costs nothing. That is not a winning or acceptable solution. So let's talk within the scope of what will be acceptably beneficial, or at least spread the costs around fairly, to the audience, the artist and to a middleman where one is necessary.
Do have an honest counter argument or is insulting him the best you can come up with?
If it weren't for Apple, Creative Labs or Sony or Microsoft would be the #1 DRM'd music vendor, and we'd be bitching about their implementation instead. And the honest ones among us who dislike DRM no matter who makes it will still be doing what we have always done, buy our music from cool non-DRM'd labels and occasionally in that old fashioned "CD" format.
I tried out the eMusic free trial. I really liked the service and choice of plain mp3 for file format. I'd love to use eMusic more, except for one thing. I hate subscriptions. I refuse to sign up to be billed a regular monthly charge, when in reality my music consumption varies quite a bit from month to month.
The day that eMusic offers an a la carte purchasing option is the day that I become a devoted eMusic customer. For now I will stick with iTMS.
Sure, I hate drm. However it was Apple that opened the field for digital music. They used drm as the carrot for the record companies. What would have happened had there not been drm? Well there was and that was the only way anyone was able to get the record companies to play ball. Now drm is viewed as a panacea to "protect" content from unlawful use.
Personally, I see drm as merely a stepping stone from the old generation of technophobes to the next generation of truly flexible content.
I have blogged several times in the last 2 years about how much fun the iTunes music store is: spend some time, listen to free clips, and buy a track or two.
The problem, which Cory points out, is that when you de-DRM songs by burning an audio CD, and re-import as MP3, you have to manually re-enter meta data. I don't mind the slightdrop in quality doing this round-trip, but the meta data manual entering is a nuisance.
This also annoying when loading songs on my Linux laptop and desktop PC: when I rip my store bought music CDs, the meta data is there - but not for the iTunes exported audio CDs.
Apple does a lot of great things and it has certainly done an awesome job of bringing the music industry to online distribution. However, my major beef with Apple is that it is rising to a monopoly and dictating who can play what and where. I wouldn't care so much about the DRM if I actually had access to the music in my OS and if Apple licensed the format to other hardware suppliers (which of course, isn't really a good decision when you're in Apple's position, but still...).
Simply put, Apple is a trust by mating their software and hardware together in one package. In reference to OS X, it probably helps them to support less hardware. However, I do not want Apple closing me off to choosing the hardware I want to use, not for my media player and not in my computer. Am I making any sense?
That's an absolutely ridiculous statement. Your logic is off, as well, because you're conflating the idea of copyright with the execution of the laws.
There is absolutely a need for copyright, because there has to be a way for artists to protect the results of their effort, which is what art is. Every movie, book or song you like is the result of the work of an artist, or a group of artists. Without some legal form of protection which ensures the benefits accrued from that effort will go back to remunerating the artist(s), producing that art becomes much more difficult. I am a writer, which means (for now, hopefully) that I have to balance paying work and writing. Should I get published, I would very much like my writing to pay my bills, so I can devote more time to writing. Without copyright, that becomes much more difficult, as anyone can publish my work as their own and reap the benefits of my toil. Without some legal framework to ensure that I can be compensated for what I have created, it becomes very difficult for me to make a living.
As a fr'instance, suppose you had spent the last three years writing a movie script. Suppose you had been lucky enough to get interest from a producer and begin the production process. Now, suppose someone steals your script and makes the movie. The last three years of your life just went up in smoke. IN y our logic, there is 1) nothing you can do and 2) nothing you should do.
If you had said the application of the copyright laws have become more and more restrictive an in favor of corporations, I would have agreed with you. But saying that there is no need for copyright is plain silly.
I am a believer of momentum and curves.
But, the thing that caught my eye was this statement; The DMCA makes it a crime to circumvent "effective means of access control." To me, the key word, there, is effective . As far as I'm concerned, if I can circumvent it, it isn't effective, Q.E.D.. Ok, I'm a bit of a geek, or I probably wouldn't be here, right? But I'm no bigtime cracker, and there are plenty of security measures I can't circumvent. I consider those measures to be "effective". Anything else seems to be fair game, according to that act. I suspect most judges would agree, if it were explained that way. At worst, it would depend on the outcome of one heck of a battle over the definition of the word "effective".
I favor protection of my rights, obviously. I favor making archival copies. I also favor reality over holding my breath until Utopia appears. And the reality is that the article wasn't about your rights!
Cory's argument is that because of DRM, protected by the DMCA, iTunes puts Apple disproportionately in charge of their devices by preventing labels selling music for it directly. But that's just not true. It only stands up if you assume that AAC (the iTunes/Apple format) is the only format supported on the iPod, or that all tracks on iPods come from iTunes. But all iPods play MP3 files. And most podcasts are in MP3, which strongly implies that users do not feel constrained to AAC/iTunes files.
I don't know how Cory became an RIAA schill, but his whole argument is predicated on DRM being a requisite to selling music on the iPod. In short, despite his headline, he is arguing not that DRM is bad, but that single-source DRM is bad. Nobody but Sony is preventing Sony from selling their music hits in MP3 format.
They do offer a la carte options on top of any of the service plans (they're called "booster packs") -- I completely understand your reluctance to be sucked into a subscription system -- I feel the same way, almost... There's no contract (that's a big one for me) and so far, I'm still using all of my monthly downloads before the month is up.
Excuse me for going offtopic, it's not normally something I do.
/. at -1 for when I moderate so I tend to see a lot of this... what is the obsession? On the rare occaision I see a decent first post, the poster isn't screaming 'w00t w00t i gt fpst!' he is actually commenting on the article...
What is the obsession with first post? Do you think it makes you look cool? It always intrigues me to surf
So I ask you, in a legitimate non-flaming manner: What is your obsession with first post? And why do a lot of you feel the need to post as an AC?
Me failed English...
FreeBSD over Linux. If my comments seem odd, this may explain...
oops, forget the invisible part... I somehow mistook which DRM you were talking about
I am have been thinking lately about innovative ways to revamp that "classic" copyright argument. Under the classical distribution model, we get the following:
1. Work Created.
2. Copyright acquired.
3. Work sits quite nicely on the third shelf waiting for something to happen.
4. Creator grudgingly enters a contract with a Major Label, who rakes them over coals. Label acquires work, sells some copies, then buries it the following year. No one ever sees work again.
5. Artist is lucky to receive a pittance for their effort.
Well, we've SOLVED the distribution part. What we haven't solved is Cash-To-Artist part. EMusic is a good start. Other strange business models could be possible.
If the ARTISTS AND BUYERS unite, then the DRM media companies will croak. I currently avoid both Ipods, and all but the essential paid music. I am content for the moment with free tracks, remix communities, and I'm studying Emusic.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
First Response!! WOOT!! (Sorry in advance.)
I wrote an article about it- How to rip from vinyl or tape
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
There is a complex relationship going on between Apple, media companies, and DRM. Apple and media companies are both "winning" with DRM. They battle between Apple and the media companies is not if DRM is good or bad, but what form that DRM will be.
Media companies like DRM for obvious reasons - they feel that it slows down piracy. To a media company, the ultimate form of DRM would be one which is pirate proof and that works in all devices.
Apple has a slightly different objective. For Apple, DRM is useful for locking people into their proprietary hardware (iPods) and their media delivery mechanism (iTunes). To Apple owns a monopoly share of the MP3 player and legal online music delivery market (~80%). They want DRM that will help keep their monopoly share of the market. For them, they want a DRM that is unobtrusive on their own products, but which is utterly unworkable on other products. Further, they want their products incompatible with other music services. Apple has done exactly this. If you buy from iTunes, you can only use an iPod on your MP3 player. If you have an iPod, you can only download music online legally from iTunes or places selling raw MP3 files. Seeing as how the media companies all but demand DRM, raw MP3 files are rare (legally) from online services.
The idea is simple, once you are locked into Apple, their DRM keeps you there. You can't use Rhapsody or Napster which offer competing services and pricing alternatives (notably, they have all you can eat subscriptions) because the iPod only uses Apple DRM. Rhapsody and Napster can't sell using Apple DRMed music because Apple won't let them. Further, once you start buying from iTunes to fill your iPod, you are locking yourself into the iPod. Your Apple DRMed files won't work in your Creative Zen, so once you have a large collection of Apple DRMed music, you need to give up a hunk of your music collection to leave the iPod. Apple has you locked into both their hardware AND their music service via their DRM.
The interesting companies to watch will be Napster, Yahoo! Music, and Rhapsody. Those are three companies that desperately want a piece of Apple's pie. They can't offer their services to iPod users which make up the majority of the market so long as Apple refuses to let them use Apple DRM and the music companies refuse to let them sell DRM free music. They are being squeezed by Apple on one side and the music companies on the other side. Look to them to try and make some sort of move against DRM, as they have the most to lose from it.
Yahoo! Music in particular has already tried to float some DRM free music in an attempt to show its viability to music companies. Rhapsody on the other hand has reversed engineered Apple's DRM and is actively looking for a chink in Apple's DRM armor.
"Apple's copy-protection technology makes media companies into its servants"
and all the artists say "see how that feels"
Fine, let's say Apple had never built a music store. What then do you think would have happened?
Either some other DRM would have been in use, but probably less popular. Fine, so you could simply steal music or buy non-popular music from smaller online music stores that did not use DRM.
So how is that any different than what we have today. It's not like eMusic died because of ITMS. It's not like I can't use P2P to download any popular music I like.
You are angry at Apple simply because they have been successful please consider that few aspects of the world would be better off even if they had not been - or at least describe what you think would have been better about the world today without Apple.
Do not forget that by making a very popular online music store Apple has also given some much smaller labels alot of recognition to really good artists. Woould you truly give away Apple's form of DRM for a lot of other smaller DRM bases just as annoying, without a neutral online party sellign music to give smaller labels a chance?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
That's exactly what I'm doing. Let's face it, I'm old. I can pick up most of the music I ever really loved on CD before they get whacked by DRM.
The rest I'll just have to live with.
The revolution will NOT be televised.
The problem, which Cory points out, is that when you de-DRM songs by burning an audio CD, and re-import as MP3, you have to manually re-enter meta data.
Some of it, I guess, but this just didn't seem to match my memory... so I just did this as an experiment.
I took my latest 80 minutes worth of protected ACC files, putthem in a playlist, burned it, imported the CD.
Sure enough, all the ID3 information is intact. The only thing I lost was the cover art. I can live with that. What are you and Cory talking about?
Invisible? To everyone with an iPod, but what if you'd like to play music on another player? Or what if you use Linux exclusively?
Yes, that's why it's good.
That's the great thing about competition for DRM. It means you have to deal with the DRM.
If Apple didn't stick their foot in the door, It *would* be invisible, because everyone would be doing their cooperative cross-licensing until they were all doing whatever Microsoft did, just like they do with Office documents and everything else where the format matters.
However, I do not want Apple closing me off to choosing the hardware I want to use, not for my media player and not in my computer.
Neither do I. I've used a generic Mp3 player, and an iPod shuffle, to play the music I downloaded from iTMS. And the music I've bought from eMusic, or from the artists, or the samples I've downloaded through MP3blogs, or the CDs I've ripped, because there isn't a common DRM standard.
I hate having a stupid style-over-function Macbook to get a laptop running OS X, and I'll be right up there with you pushing for a decently priced generic OS X (I reckon $500 a copy would probably work). But when it comes to DRM, the worse the better.
The copyright holders think they can impose any restrictions they like, and the market has been letting them get away with it, but that doesn't mean it's true in any kind of moral sense.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Don't forget Lala.com and the other CD exchange services. I've exchanged hundreds of CDs for $1/piece. New releases and back catalog. More selection than allofmp3.com
So what?!
What our society seems to have forgotten is that the publisher does not have a God-given right to make money! If technology has evolved beyond the need for publishers -- and it has -- then publishers should be abolished, and good riddance to them! If they can't make their business model work without abusing the law, then they deserve to die.
We, as a society, will be much better off if we remember this fact, and the sooner the better!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
He claims that Apple iTunes works only with the iPod and while that is true it does not take into account one big fact. Nearly all Microsoft WMA music providers work with Windows only. They make no provisions for people with a non-iPod using a Mac to get and play their songs. These are the same companies that are trying to convince us that renting is better than buying.
Overall I think things are pretty balanced the way they are. Apple has done things right with the iPod/iTunes package. I think there are a lot of sour grapes from other MP3 player and music vendors. The guy pretty much hits that right on the head. I am sure Microsoft is pissed that they did not come up with it first and Apple has left them no way to copy it, so the only move Microsoft can make is its lame "Plays for sure" tactic. From what I have heard it should be renamed "Plays for sure, mostly".
If I give you property, I don't have it anymore. My wealth has decreased; yours has increased; the net difference is zero.
If I give you an idea, I still have it. My wealth has stayed the same; yours has increased; the net gain is 100%.
Ideas aren't property and they can't be property. By failing to realize that fact we are only hurting ourselves. It's as simple as that.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
...and that's the only reason I don't bitch and moan about Apple's DRM more than I do: without it, the overall situation would be even worse.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
If you don't understand FP, you should just leave right now.
what "rights and freedoms" are involved in not being able to "borrow" copyrighted music?
On legal grounds:
the same rights and freedoms granted to me by the AHRA of 1992, in which these record companies have explicitly exempted private copying using recording devices in exchange for a blank media levy. And NO, you didnt specify "over the internet" or "through use of computers".. the AHRA applies to all else, and does not apply to computers only because of a convenient loophole and some bought judges.
On moral grounds:
the same rights and freedoms involved in me being allowed to tape the same copyrighted music from the radio (functionally no different than "borrowing" it from a friend)
On idealogical grounds:
the same rights and freedoms involved in me being allowed to measure and build a copy of my friend's lazy boy recliner, lawn chair, high boy, or garden shed. (that is.. to spend your own money producing it rather than the record company's money.. if they dont pay for the pressing of the CD they have no right to bitch, and that's capitalism)
are there any more grounds which need to be covered?
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
I think you mean Napster. It changed music on the web more than any other technology. It popularized the mp3. It created a market for the first mp3 players. It made WinAMP popular, which had a huge effect on later players, and was the first time that people had a reason to use their computer for music. It caused the RIAA to take the position they have.
Music on the web didn't start with Apple, and it didn't start with BitTorrent. Both were fairly late to the game.
If it were up to Apple, they would rather sell high quality music files for 75 cents un DRM'd. It was the music industry that mandated some sort of "protection", and iTunes was the compromise (thank you Steve). I would hate to see what the music industry would have done if they had taken a shot at it themselves... *shudder*
And don't get me started on subscription downloads. At least I own the music I get from iTunes, can burn CD's that play everywhere (which I can then re-rip to get unDRM'd songs). I have yet to have an experience where the Apple DRM has gotten in my way. Not once. This is not about Apple, the only reason they are a target is because they have the largest market share due to customers liking their system the best. How is this Apple's fault again?
"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance - it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel Boorstin
It isn't Apple which imposes DRM. It's the content creators. It's the same way with Blu-Ray. The studios won't release anything unless they're certain the DRM works. The only advantage gained by Apple is the ability to lock out competing players by controlling access to the DRM. That's why Blu-Ray players won't go down in price the way DVD players did.
Yeah, like the time I sued Sony for no longer producing the players to play my Betamax collection.
Wait, I never did that. And neither did anyone else.
Unfortunately, Hymn no longer works with iTunes 6. I don't share my music, but I did use it to crack everything I bought over iTunes so that I would have permanently usable copies. Since iTunes 6 (and realizing Hymn wasn't likely to be updated), I've stopped buying from iTunes.
I consider weak DRM to be wrong, but a form of practical compromise. But I don't buy anything I can't crack pretty casually. If I've bought something, I want to decide for myself where I can play it, and not lose access to the content when someone else decides to stop supporting it. Otherwise, I'm just renting.
plus-good, double-plus-good
Just record straight from your media player into an MP3.
In Windows, go to Volume Control, Options, Properties, select Recording, check all boxes, hit OK. Check "Select" under Stereo Mix (it might be called "What You Hear"). Now any program that records (even if it says from microphone, usually it will respect this setting) will record anything that comes out of your speakers (so be sure to mute/close other apps and don't go doing other stuff while recording).
And that is pretty much the main reason DRM will ultimately have no impact on piracy. If you can hear it, you can record it. If you can record it, you can record it free of DRM.
I know that if you want to get around the DRM that Apple uses, you can burn to a cd, and then rip it from the cd. So why can't this process be virtualized? I mean, in theory, couldn't you burn it to a virtual cd drive (i.e., make an iso), and then rip it from that, and then take this whole thing and put it into one neat little packaged? At that point, you could automate it, so it would automatically "burn" a disk, rip it, delete the disk, and start over with the next group of songs. Right?
Yes...yes he is. We need a Doctorow checkbox now to add him to Dvorak, Jon Katz, and the whole pantheon of self-important blowhards making a living blowing smoke.
No, your argument is meaningless because you are falling into the logical trap of assuming that the-law-as-it-is-currently-implemented is the only way maximising society's benefit. That's flat out wrong. The RIAA likes to push this fallacy because they have an entrenched interest in maintaining the status quo but it's just self serving nonsense so they can maintain their parasitism.
In addition as history and the web has shown the reality is that people will continue to create regardless of what "protections" or otherwise that the law gives them.
Incidentally, who says you should be able to make a living from it? We now have sufficient books so that a person could read continuously for multiple lifetimes, there's simply not a big need for more books. Let's let supply and demand do it's thing.
The law is a creation of the mind and can be anything we want it to be. There are an infinite number of possible ways of balancing the rights of all citizens. Existing copyright is just one possibility of many and there is little evidence that existing copyright law is the best way to go. We should at least have some objective, scientific evidence for the net efficacy of whatever law is chosen.
---
Scientific, evidence based IP law. Now there's a thought.
I have posted a summary of Apple's response to the Norwegian Consumer Ombudsman's complaint filing on Apple's terms and conditions in iTunes, where they also are asked to defend their position on DRM protected content. The response is a 20 page letter of which parts have been blocked for view by the public on request from Apple. I have also provided a link to the response letter which is in Norwegian.
The future is in beta
It's clear to me you didn't read my post very well, because I said, " you had said the application of the copyright laws have become more and more restrictive an in favor of corporations, I would have agreed with you." So, given you haven't paid attention to what I said, I don't know why you're responding, other than to hear yourself speak.
I do. As does capitalism, which you attempt to reference with your solipsistic 'supply and demand' reference. Artists have as much a right to make a living from their work as does anyone else who works for a living, including yourself. Let's see you work for free for a while. However, I see there is no need to go forward, as I am talking to a wall. Anyone who claims that the law is solely a "creation of the mind" is living on their own, lonely planet.
I am a believer of momentum and curves.
Now I'm not an Apple fanboy, and I've never owned a Mac in my life. But I got this beautiful, reasonably priced, wonderfully sounding iPod 60G that plays my old sitcom DVDrips and music. DRM sucks, for all given reasons. But Apple has managed what noone else has in this market: To make legal MP3 music go mainstream. That means getting record labels to release their tracks online (even with the damn DRM), and creating a standard way (i-tunes) for Joe Public to buy/get music for his gadget without having to read a tome of howtos or web pages. And that's priceless in my book. Going DRM-less, that's going to be step 2 in the CD->MP3 transition for the record industry. It will come, the free market (and us techies) will make sure this happens. Because DRM has zero proven economic value for the industry, and immense economic value for DRM-making companies. Do you think record labels would ever license their music for i-tunes (or x-tunes for that matter) without DRM at all? Wake up people! One step at a time. So just leave Apple alone, alright. It's moving the industry forward.
<before>now</before>
You're conflating copyright and distribution, which aren't the same, although both are equally fucked in their own ways. The dividing line is 3/4: the artist doesn't have to sign with a major label or publisher. There are other options.
Not really. Even if I self-publish, I will would like a way to be remunerated for my work, and to make sure I am the only legal owner. So, I don't know if the DRM media companies will 'croak', although there may be a much-needed realignment.
I don't know why you avoid iPods, unless you do so because you don't want any attachment to a company which uses DRM. My iPod is about 95% DRM-free music, which the 5% the few albums I have bought off of the iTMS. Like you I download mostly from the remix community, although not for any political reasons. It's just the music I'm listening to right now.
I am a believer of momentum and curves.
I'm not a fan of DRM in general, and don't want to defend Apple in specific, apart from pointing out that today's solutions should be cross platform, mac, windows, linux.
But go back 20 years.
Some of us would spend hours making tapes. It would be quite hard to mix and match. It required skills you had to learn and technical hurdles. And you had to be careful not to degrade your material too much.
And it was illegal. So you would just give your tapes to your friends and that's it.
Now, you can do the same thing with digital music. It takes skill and there are technical hurdles to overcome, but you can do it, and you can still pass on the results to your friends. And today, without degradation, if you know how...
While I don't like all the restrictions, there is one thing I can't argue with: the right for musicians to be paid. I'll be the first to shout that the current model isn't musician-friendly, but that's more a redistribution issue than a real DRM failing.
So what I'm really saying is: who has a better idea? One that's nicer for consumers and is better for musicians?
I think, therefore I am...I think.
You don't even need to tie it to re-numeration to support the importance of the principle of copyright as an extension of property rights. Without copyright, the GPL would not only be toothless. It would be meaningless. There would be no mechanism whatsoever to insure that source was given back to the creator and the community when changes were made and distributed. This is the most important difference between the GPL and the BSD license or the GPL and the public domain.
Without copyright, everything that wasn't held as a secret would be public domain. And when you or I create some new code, we could either keep it a secret (or try as best we can) or we could "share", with no guarantees of reciprocation from others building and profiting on our ideas.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
Did you also notice how he links to a blog entry he wrote, but than he misrepresents what he originally wrote? He links to this, saying in the current story that it is about how Apple killed off the ROKR. But if you bother to read the actual blog entry, he points out that the main blame is supposedly with the cell carriers.
It's this sort of intellectually dishonest crap that turned me off of Doctrow a long time ago. He wants to be a Cringley (which some might argue is not a very lofty aspiration), but instead is firmly caught in a Dvorak transmogrification. I've lost all respect for Doctrow. Hey Cory, on the off chance you read this, I have one question for you: is that a real poncho or is that a Sears poncho?
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
Finally. Someone who read ALL THREE pages of the article.
The point of the article was not that Apple's DRM is bad. (Like the Slashdot headline says.)
The points of the article were:
DRM is bad.
Apple's DRM isn't as bad for consumers as other DRMs are.
Apple's DRM is worse for record companies than other DRMs are.
Apple's DRM effectively locks users in to iPods.
Most other DRMs are just there to get the record companies to hand over the content.
iPods are so popular now that record companies can't play hard ball with Apple any more.
Apple became the most popular by providing a better service, not because of their DRM.
The only way other providers can get their music onto iPods is to remove DRM.
The only way other comapnies can compete with iTunes is to provide a better service.
Most comments here seem to indicate that the Slashdotter only read the first page of the article; the bit about DRM being bad and how Apple's DRM is easily circumvented. We already know that stuff... it's been on Slashdot for years. The insight only comes on the third page where Doctorow suggests that the only way forward is to forget DRM altogether.
I suspect that point is aimed at record company execs and not at Slashdot punters. I particularly like the way he connected the failure of DRM (to be useful to consumers) in DVDs to Blueray and DVD-HD in an article about DRM on music sold at iTunes.
He's really asking record company execs to connect the dots; if you want to be as successful as iTunes/iPod then you need to forget DRM.
Sig matters not. Judge me by my sig, do you?
That may be true, but Doctorow is conveniently forgetting that it was the media companies who wanted the copy protection in the first place. If Apple could have sold unprotected AAC files, they probably would have done that instead, even if it technically kind of divorces the iTunes Music Store from the iPod - in the user's mind, the two would still be connected due to the integration between iTunes and the iPod.
If you want the best experience (usability-wise), you buy an iPod and use the iTunes Music Store, regardless of the DRM.
It's clear to me you didn't read my post very well, because I said, " you had said the application of the copyright laws have become more and more restrictive an in favor of corporations, I would have agreed with you." So, given you haven't paid attention to what I said, I don't know why you're responding, other than to hear yourself speak.
I paid attention to what you said. It's just that even with that proviso you're restricting the number of possibilities unnecessarily. Copyright law needs to be fixed for individuals as well as corporations.
I do.
Well you would, wouldn't you? You perceive current copyright law as benefiting you. Others perceive it as being at the expense of others in the community.
As does capitalism,
No it doesn't. Capitalism says nothing about this. Capitalism is merely private ownership. Maybe people should be able to own the copies they have and do whatever they like with them.
which you attempt to reference with your solipsistic 'supply and demand' reference.
Nothing solipsistic about it. Supply and demand varies depending on how the law and hence the market is structured.
Artists have as much a right to make a living from their work as does anyone else who works for a living, including yourself.
Nobody has the right to make a living by parasitising others. If what they are producing is not in demand because of a surfeit of availability then I'd suggest they start producing something that people do want.
Let's see you work for free for a while.
No thanks, I'm producing things in demand.
However, I see there is no need to go forward, as I am talking to a wall. Anyone who claims that the law is solely a "creation of the mind" is living on their own, lonely planet.
Since you've more-or-less ignored my main point and my sig (that current copyright law is only one of an infinite number of possibilities and that there is no reason to believe that current copyright law is the best alternative) then I suspect you are the wall. I also never said that law is solely a creation of the mind though whether you like it or not all law, like software, is a creation of the mind.
Please note that my main point is not that copyright should not necessarily exist, merely that the handwaving of people like yourself trying to justify the current law as the only possibility is just that. Handwaving. With little justification. It's time such wide ranging and major impact laws had a much more scientific and objective basis than "it feels good". It could well be that no copyright law, or something completely different like usage rights, contracts or DRM, might be a superior alternative.
Personally I'd like to see copyright law reduced to about 5 years (varying, depending on the form), requiring pro-active registration and renewal by the author (so that "can't locate author" doesn't stop a work from being used), expires on author's death, have a much more restricted definition of derived work (e.g. translations would be a new work), not valid for personal use for minors and the severely disadvantaged (for education), does not restrict the number of copies any one person can have (because they can only read/listen to one copy at a time), is invalidated if it becomes a standard (like trademarks), can be invalidated by a court of law if it can be proven the copy restriction is anti-competitive in any sense (e.g. by blocking reverse engineering and hence competition), exclusivity not transferable (meaning an author cannot give exclusive rights to a publisher though they can license publicati
I tried emusic. Some of the MP3's I got from emusic were of unbearably poor quality, with skips, occasionally gaps, and worst of all painful audio artificats that made me think my speakers were broken at first. What's up with that?
He states: "That obvious restriction: No one but Apple is allowed to make players for iTunes Music Store songs, and no one but Apple can sell you proprietary file-format music that will play on the iPod".
As far as I know, it's the other way around:
"only the iPod can play the proprietary file-format music that you can buy on the iTunes Music Store."
No one is forced to buy music from iTMS -- the iPod plays MP3s fine.
But you agree that when you buy a song you are basically "renting" them a song. But enough of apple bashing, DRM prove to be successful as software validation is successful (eg: symantec, macromedia/adobe, microsoft ). It has only prevented a small share of piracy to be done, and is just more annoying for legals users ( "no we don't say you are a thief but we want to check just in case ...." ).
However future medias prove that the future will be very dark, HD-Media DRM that can prevent your video player to work just because the compagny, who made it, made a mistake (in that case what happen ? do we get a refund on the player or do we have a 1000$ piece of junk player ?).
If allofmp3 is a pirate site, importing a CD is pirating.
This wouldn't require intrusive DRM, and could be entirely opt-in. The pay-off for opting in would be that you would have the legal right to any copyrighted music or video. This could only be introduced with government support, but it is entirely feasible. Russia has laws somewhat similar that allow allofmp3.com to operate.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
"As does capitalism, which you attempt to reference with your solipsistic 'supply and demand' reference. Artists have as much a right to make a living from their work as does anyone else who works for a living, including yourself."
Capitalism does not confer any rights beyond that of individuals being able to own property (capital) which is theirs to do with as they wish, within confines that the capitalist system imposes by its nature, so owning a gun for example does not mean one is free to shoot anything or anyone, because damaging or destroying the property of others infringes on their rights as owners (and this includes their lives and bits of their bodies, which they also own). No form of capital has any intrinsic value beyond what others are willing to pay for it, and that includes work, which is simply another form of capital -- the only "right" a worker has under a capitalist system is therefore to receive the amount of capital from others that they're willing to exchange for that work, or not doing it at all, in which case no capital exchange takes place (i.e. you get nothing).
What then would be the role of copyrights under a capitalist system? Actually, none at all, because they use the threat of force to prevent the natural tendency of markets to place less value on desirable commodities that are scarce than equally desirable ones which are plentiful. Why something is plentiful has no relevance, only the fact that it is, and using non-market forces to change this is profoundly anti-capitalist, while measures such as DRM that make it more technically more difficult difficult for others to "manufacture" an equivalent would be quite acceptable.
Note that patents are equally anti-capitalist because they again use non-market forces to maintain a temporary artificial monopoly. Trademarks on the other hand are something that serves to identify market entities, so infringing on them would be an attempt to artificially manipulate markets by pretending to be someone or something else instead of simply releasing one's own product or service that competes on its own merits (doing what IBM does better than them is fine, but pretending to be IBM isn't).
All of the above makes it rather ironic that the so-called capitalist US is determined to force countries like China and Russia to adopt "IP" protection measures that are intended to prevent that most capitalist of phenomena, i.e. home-grown entrepreneurs producing easily manufactured products more cheaply than overseas competitors!
I'm not going to change your sheets again, Mr. Hastings.
Painters, sculptors have it the easiest, they have a name, an style and they can authenticate their works (some artists are fingerprinting their works with their own DNA in several ways). If anybody copies a painting, big deal. If this happens after the artist is dead, who would be harmed then? Nowadays any plastic artist worth its salt will catalogue their work with excruciating detail. So this group would not be affected by a lack of copyright law.
Musicians? Performers are creating nothing, they can go and fsck themselves or do what they are suppossed to do: go out there and perform. Composers? Music circulating around would be the the advertisement for new tailored comissions or performances if they can play.
Writers? They could sell books in advance. I am pretty sure that good writers could announce they will write a book, request remuneration before publication and then publish. After they had made the money, who would care that the work is copied ad nauseam (actually that would be free advertisement for their next work). So no copyright needed.
I could go on, but I am pretty certain that artists would find ways to keep earning a living, bussiness models would change, but at least we would not starve the spreading of culture with draconian artificial constructs. Thing that many things created early last century are still untouchable. That mkes us all poorer culturaly because we cant create new works with them.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Gosh, I could've sworn that Blu-Ray and HD-DVD are high density storage mediums. If they're only "copy-protection technologies", then why are they making goofy claims about holding 25 GB on a disc?
It's quite simple, if you score a First Post, then all the bad karma you've gathered on slashdot is reset to 0.
What our society seems to have forgotten is that the consumer does not have a God-given right to have product! ...We, as a society, will be much better off if we remember this fact, and the sooner the better!
What exactly are you proposing? Distorting the market to try and push publishers out of existence, out of some misguided idea that you'll suddenly get all your music for free? The market (by which I mean the suppliers and the consumers) has arrived at the current distribution model over time. If major publishers die off, the result will not be today's music distribution system with artists at the top instead of publishers: it will be something radically different and much smaller.
If you take away major record labels, you destroy the economies of scale that allow them to efficiently move product to the mainstream music consumer. As a result, every brick-and-mortar record store would be in critical danger of going out of business -- even independents, whose model often depends on moving large quantities of mainstream product to stay alive and allow them to serve the niche markets in their community. At a minimum the cost of music would rise in proportion to the missing efficiency. Even online services would have a rough time, because instead of negotiating agreements with a couple of major labels, they'd have to go to thousands of individual artists. Artists would have to assume all the costs of their individual touring budgets, which means a lot of artists who currently tour nationally as openers for mainstream acts would never tour at all.
In a scenario like that, what happens? Artists start forming collectives to negotiate distribution agreements and split touring expenses. Over time, that's going to evolve back to record labels, who will then consolidate into a few majors and assorted minors and niche or vanity labels... just like today.
Face it: music is a commodity. Economics tells us that in the absence of outside intervention, commodities in a free market end up controlled by a few large players who shape the business landscape, and lesser players who serve niche markets and never grow beyond a certain size as a result.
-- Old Man Kensey
I've (only) downloaded just over 200 songs from them in the last three months or so and I haven't had any issues. I know that their FAQ says that if that happens you're supposed to download the song again (you can do that free of charge) and if that doesn't change things then email them through their contact form and they'll try to fix it. But all I can say is that I haven't had the same issues you have. If I did, I might not be a subscriber.
By the time you have the chance to buy or steal a CD, the artist and all the technical people you mention above have already been paid for the performance recorded on that CD, and most probably won't be paid for it again no matter how well it sells.
They wouldn't get paid at all if no one stood to make money from creating and selling the music.
1. If the consumer environment is such that people download music for free instead of paying for it in some way, no money flows back up the chain and no more music is made on a scale that pays any of those people. The music industry contracts to what individual artists can support out of their own budgets.
2. If the record labels make a reasonable effort to keep people from enjoying their product for free, then they can justify charging money for it to the people who are willing to pay. This is where we are now.
3. If, on the other hand, some people pay, and a large number of other people don't pay, and the producers allow that to exist without fighting the people who don't pay, eventually no one will pay and you're back in scenario 1.
-- Old Man Kensey
....but no good for distribution - at least not if the publisher wanted to make money.
This is completey untrue. There are companies making money today (emusic, magnatunes) using MP3 for distribution.
Naxos (classical music) is releasing all their stuff in non DRMed MP3 files.
The format has no problems, the ones with the problme are the big 5 that have got a mental block. People value convenience over many other considerations, most people could not care less about sharing something that is not copied.
Most people would share a non DRMed file with a few of their friends. how that would be a treat to the big 5 recording companies is a mystery.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Online music downloading is completely different. There's no art to it at all. It's not one-to-one where both people know each other and it's a one-time exchange. There's no guarantee that the person you get the song from paid for it themselves -- in fact rather the opposite probably tends to be true. Likewise somebody downloading stuff for free, and finding a track they like, is just going to go download more for free. So of course it's perceived much differently than mix-tape trading.
-- Old Man Kensey
Now here's something I've been wondering for a little while, about eMusic, that I wanted to know before I considered signing up. Obviously if they're distributing plain, non-drm'd mp3 files, they can't stop me from doing what I want with them, legal or not. But I'd still like to know A: whether I have the right of first sale over the music I purchase - that is, can I resell the tracks I download to someone else provided I delete my copy, so that it would be like selling a physical CD; and B: do any of my rights to the music I've already downloaded terminate when/if I end my subscription?
Because if I get *all* the rights that I would get if I had purchased the physical CD, well, that's a damn convincing argument to get me to sign up. I'm slightly concerned that if Apple ever opens up their DRM, eMusic might start using that, since they freely admit that they only chose the mp3 format for iPod compatibility and not out of any moral appreciation for unrestricted music. But if they ever do that I suppose I can just cancel the subscription.
Evidently, the key to understanding recursion is to begin by understanding recursion. The rest is easy.
Blue Skies, no.
However light or fierce, or non-existent distribution protections are, I for one count upon being able to listen heavily to "workhorse" tunes, to make up for not being able to dabble like the Wild Days of '99.
I often have a single song playing for five hours solid, as a background to work or projects. I can't imagine what THAT would cost. : (
As for the post 1 level up, I tried to parody the "bad old" distribtution model. That other options NOW exist in the digital age was precisely what I hope to explore.
--TaoPhoenix
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
The AC that started this thread a few posts up said that "Borrowing = Stealing", referring to allowing a friend to copy some songs off their Zen Micro....
That equates more to mix tapes than to online downloading.
However, my major beef with Apple is that it is rising to a monopoly and dictating who can play what and where.
How so?
I wouldn't care so much about the DRM if I actually had access to the music in my OS and if Apple licensed the format to other hardware suppliers (which of course, isn't really a good decision when you're in Apple's position, but still...).
Why not buy the cd's and rip them yourself?
Am I making any sense?
Not really. You can buy the same music found on the iTMS in other online stores or on a physical cd. You can buy other mp3 players that are similar in size to the iPod lineup, for similar or lesser prices. If you don't like Apple, there is nothing stopping you from having the same portable music experience with some other player while getting your music from some other source.
Downloaded music, OTOH, is nearly instantly delivered to you, and you have much more freedom over what you buy. You have instant access to far more music than is in any one store, and it is at a much better price. This is the market in which Apple is rising to a monopoly, and Apple severely limits consumer choice by only allowing one to play iTMS songs on an iPod. This isn't necessarily a crime, but it's just bad for the consumer in general.
As far as the other online stores go, AFAIK only MSN Music offers a music download service that could really be considered similar to iTMS ($.99 per track, a la carte downloading). Since MS actually licenses its DRM out, you do have more choice on the hardware end. But my point was, if Apple gains any greater hold on the digital music market, consumers would have NO choice but to use their hardware and iTMS if they wanted to have those conveniences.
That is all.