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Yahoo Music Chief Comes Out Against DRM
waired writes "It seem that a trend has begun in the music industry after Steve Jobs essay. Now a senior Yahoo chief has spoken out in favor of Apple CEO Steve Jobs' call for major labels to abandon digital rights technology (DRM). It points out that consumers are getting confused and that the Microsoft DRM "doesn't work half the time"."
Monkey see, Monkey Do
nce one major corp came out gainst DRM other would begin to speak up as well.
These people are not dumb, and slashdotter's aren't the only ones that understand the folly of DRM.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
So, when is itunes going to be drm free? With all of jobs' crusading against drm, you'd think he would start within his own company.
Is it sad that I am more likely to recognize you and your posts by your sig than your name or UID?
wow... that's about 25% better than I had expected.
It's the end of the world as we know it! Yeeeeeah yeah yeah...something like that. It was only a matter of time. If it takes Steve Jobs to kick start an industry wide backlash against DRM, then so be it.
I like to think of online DRM as something akin to a college -- you pay for lessons until you learn something.
I've never understood why tech companies listened to the music industry in the first place. Perhaps I'm wrong but I was under the impression that the tech companies are far bigger in monetary value and hence far more powerful than the music industry in the first place so don't understand why these companies supported, rather than fought DRM from day one.
If it weren't for this I'd believe these companies coming forward now were coming forward of their own free will and not because they're getting scared at the fact that governments and lawmakers, particularly in the EU are turning against DRM.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
I know many media execs, both music and film/video, here in Los Angeles and have had many discussions with them about DRM.
Every single one of them hates DRM, thinks it is a pain in the ass to deal with, would love to sell all of their content without DRM.
But they all live in the real world.
This Jobs invented "hating DRM" bullshit is as tiresome as all the other Apple "invented X" bullshit.
What bothers me the most is that we had to wait until these corporate executives spoke out. What we needed, at least in the United States, was every Jill and Joe American speaking out against having their rights "managed".
The very idea of "managed rights" flies in the face of the Constitution, the ideals of the Founding Fathers, and what it truly means to be American. It's difficult to say for sure why most people didn't take a far more active stance against DRM. The first reason is no doubt because it'd take effort to do effectively, and most Americans would rather watch the NFL or American Idol instead. The second reason is perhaps because they just don't give a fuck, and that's quite dangerous a stance to be taking.
Regardless, the American people as a whole should have stood up and said NO! to any sort of "rights management" system. DRM is just plain un-American.
They're like telcos: you can only hurt the RIAA/music licensors in one of three very basic ways:
1) legislation/lawsuit (unlikely as they own the legislatures and have armies of lawyers)
2) have a massive clientele defection (unlikely because they're a monopoly like the telcos) or
3) have their talent pool stop making revenue (crappy quality music, and so on-- also highly unlikely).
Bottom line: he's sucking up to his clientele (us, supposedly) and Wall Street, especially Wall Street who wants to pound the crap out of them for other foollish moves. They should have demanded that Mark Cuban stay with them for a few years after they bought his Broadcast.Com.
It's all PR. Nothing to see here.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
Hey! I just upgraded to Slashdot Vasta "Bedroom Premium" edition and your post came out:
(The second one was a false positive for "Let it be")
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
This is awsome news, and I commend Steve Jobs and the Yahoo exec for standing up in favor of abolishing DRM! I never thought I'd see this happen! I'm looking forward to seeing iTunes Store become DRM-freeeeeeeeeeee!!!! As soon as they do they will be getting a lot more of my $$$$! Yeaaaaaaa!
"But they all live in the real world."
Yet they sell DRM free CDs so they don't live in the real world.
Not only that, there are watermark solutions that have none of the disadvantages of DRM and are non intrusive, again they are not living in the real world.
Their stores don't sell, the independents, who live in the real world and DRM free, are selling.
Quit with those sideways DRM puff pieces, if you can't argue that DRM is necessary directly, don't try to pretend you are making an anti Jobs rant.
It's all fine and well for both Jobs and this guy to come out and say cast down the DRM, but it really is just pandering to the masses. If a deal to drop DRM is ever to be worked out, it will be through backroom deals, not in the tech press. I think we all know DRM doesn't work well and is a pain, but it is not up to these delivery vehicles (iTunes et al) to drop the DRM. It is a condition under which they are allowed to sell the licensed product. No DRM, no product to sell. It's that simple.
A lot of this is just saying, "it's them, not us". Fine for geek politics, but it probably is not going to make a pig's fart of difference to the RIAA/MPAA cabal.
I want DRM to go away to, but it isn't going to happen through these feel-good speeches. It's going to happen through things like the recent EMI announcement (which frankly only applies to a chunk of their catalog that isn't selling anyway).
Jobs finally decloaked, and stood up against the RIAA. Now Yahoo. And all I see is... people... calling them names.
Apparently nothing can satisfy you? Are you all just terminally apolitical? The enemy of the enemy is our friend. Back them the hell up.
[TFA] points out that consumers are getting confused and that the Microsoft DRM "doesn't work half the time".
...
So Microsoft's standard approach of writing software that confuses users and doesn't work very well is telling the public that this is what all DRM is like. We see this all the time, for example with viruses which are invariably reported as infecting "computers", not just "Microsoft computers". Similarly, the difficulty of learning to use the little beasts is a property of "computers", not of any particular brand.
It reminds me of the old saying: "Nobody is all bad. They can always serve as a bad example."
In this case, though, MS could well be doing us a service. By convincing the gullible public that "DRM is confusing and doesn't work very well", they are inadvertently helping in the fight against DRM everywhere. Even if someone will come up with DRM that works (for some value of "works"), it won't be used, because it won't run on Windows (and on non-MS systems, the crypto geeks will break it within hours of release). Most users will just accept that MS's DRM is what DRM is like, and will oppose its use anywhere as a result.
Of course, one could argue that a correct implementation of DRM is probably intractable. This is mostly because determining which "fair use" rules apply wherever the use might live is a seriously difficult AI problem. It can't actually be determined by a human-level intelligence, as demonstrated by the need to ask the courts rather than just reading the law books. So we need an AI that's much more intelligent than any team of human lawyers, and has deep understanding of all the "IP" laws of every jurisdiction in the world. Of multiple jurisdictions, actually, when Net transactions are considered. We won't likely see this level of AI in our lifetimes.
Discuss amongst yourselves
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
In the article it is stated the DRM free MP3 tracks sell faster.
In a well duh moment, they figured out the installed base of equipment that can play MP3's is just about everyting. A MS or Apple format locks out all other format players. People don't buy incompatible formats. DRM in any format is incompatible with the majority of media players out there. Before you jump on the iTunes bandwagon... Do you have a DVD player? Do you use Linux? Do you have a MP3 player? Do you have a CD player that can play MP3 CD's in your car or as a portable CD player? iPods are everywhere, but not nearly as everywhere as MP3 players.
Selling MP3's is a much bigger market than selling something that will play on a Windows PC and Plays for Sure devices or just iTunes on Apple and PC platforms and iPods, or worse yet Zunes.
The truth shall set you free!
I didnt know Yahoo was considered part of the 'music industry'...
They sign any good bands lately?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
"...would love to sell all of their content without DRM"
Their content? They wrote it? They sang it? They played backup in the studio?
Pepsi Lite, Budweiser Beer, Ford Focus, Motorola A1200...all products sold by the corporate entities that made them. 'Love, Love Me Do!' Licensed content. Not 'their' content'...and, yes, I've known my share as well. None of them cast a shadow taller than a rat.
'But they all live in the real world.'
Bullshit. Not one media exec has EVER lived in the real world.
"...and that the Microsoft DRM "doesn't work half the time" "
In other new, the Earth is round and the Sun is really far away.
That's your uncle talking!
Karma: Bad. (As in Good?)
Really that's what I read at first. For a moment I thought, "YEAH BABY! You find those DRM guys, you take those DRM guys down!"
Okay, time to lay off the Halo books for a while (and maybe of the caffeine).
Man is the lowest-cost, 150-pound, nonlinear, all-purpose computer system which can be mass-produced by unskilled labor.
The very idea of "managed rights" flies in the face of the Constitution, the ideals of the Founding Fathers, and what it truly means to be American
I don't think those things mean what you think they mean. "Digital rights management" != inaliable rights as laid down by the U.S. Constitution and liberal political theory. Lets be clear here, the two have absolutely NOTHING to do with each other. Digital rights management is essentially a technology mechanism to enforce (or hinder the breaking of) contract law. The only thing it flies in the face of is consumer convenience. DRM certainly annoys me as a consumer, but I think things like no-knock warrants, the drug war, idefinite detention without trial, and asset forfeiture laws fly in the face of the Constitution, the ideals of the Founding Fathers just a tad more.
No, they don't.
In the real world, they became media execs thanks to a lack of DRM. All they have to do, it look at where all their money came from: sales of non-DRMed media. In the real world, you don't tell customers, "fuck off, we don't want your money anymore," and replace a proven business model with a fantasy that some snakeoil/Macrovision salesman put into your head.
How can these execs claim they would love to sell content without DRM, as though it were some hypothetical possibility? They did it, and it was wildly successful. All those billions of dollars are what these "real world" people are saying they would love to have?
Ah, well. Execs get paid whether they live in the real world or not, but owners/stockholders don't. Sooner or later, they're going to want to get back into the having-customers-and-making-money business, and these execs will need to find new jobs.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
This guy already resigned....
t =rss&tag=2547-1_3-0-20&subj=news
Spanish http://noticiastech.com/wordpress/?p=26
English http://news.com.com/2061-10811_3-6158998.html?par
For the record (pardon the bad pun), David Goldberg from Y! Music was asking the labels for No DRM, Please last year (February 2006.) It's good to see more executive types speaking out about the idea, in my opinion.
Ok, Jobs saying no DRM in iTunes is a good thing, but DRM in OSX is a bad thing?
Read what you said:
"Pirates who want to breach the OSX EULA and run OSX on non-Apple hardware. That's the only real DRM contained within OSX to my knowledge (You can safely remove iTunes, and plenty of other apps as well). As much as we hate their decision, it is part of their license."
Well, if music has no DRM then it will have a license agreement as well. That means that it is up to the consumer to respect the EULA. So why can Jobs not do the same thing? Oh yeah I forgot, Jobs wants to make sure that he can sell overpriced hardware! Just like the Music producers want to make sure that they sell multiple copies of their music! There is no difference between DRM'd music and DRM'd OSX. The only difference is "who's getting the advantage perspective."
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
So let Jobs and Goldberg put their money where their mouths are - lets have a week (or longer?) where they will only sell non-DRMed. Any record company not willing to go without DRM won't have any sales for that period. I for one would be interested to see what the sales numbers would be.
Personally, I would be willing to pay for non-DRMed tracks (and I do from http://bleep.com/)
"letting people own their phones. Phones will always be leased becuase that's the way the phone industry works and there's just no way to run a successful telecom company otherwise."
Erm, dude, you can't legally sell a phone locked to a service in Belgium, it always has to be unlocked by law. The contract & sim are sold separately.
Handsets sell very well, phone companies make lots of money, everyone is happy.
Microsoft DRM does not work 100% of the time on any of my linux boxes.
Got Code?
I would agree, although not with your assessment of him personally, he's about as stuck as anyone. If he did though, and he could, it would place put tremendous pressure on the talent to complain to their distributors, *loudly*, and on consumers to do the same, because iTunes is now at the unique position of being topdog on legit download music. If they put up a notice that affected parties need to be proactive as well and lobby for unencumbered music,so as to be reintroduced to iTunes, it would get global press coverage and really put the whole DRM issue under the spotlight. And yes, the entire idea of DRM is blatantly illegal as to the original sense and design of it going way way back, as material "protected" by DRM will never come out of copyright in a legitimate useful and practical sense, as copyright, as long as the term is, is still supposed to be limited in time and eventually go to public domain/open.
Last century's business models are no longer useful or fair, and need to be radically changed. The cost of duplication now is incredibly cheap, they should adapt to changing technology and therefore offer *very cheap* copies to reflect tech changes, and make their profits on huge volume sales.
I have a friend used to own a lot of gas stations, but gas at the retail level only makes a few pennies a gallon, a rather pitiful small amount, yet he made lots of cash.. The deal is, he made a lot because he sold millions of gallons a year.
The music and movie industry could easily do the same, rather than trying to make those huge markups on each "unit" they push. Charge much much less, sell way way more, actually make more money than now and have happy customers with cheaper prices.
I know why they haven't done it yet either, simple psychology. Millionaires make the ultimate pricing decisions in those industries, they live at the highest end of the economic food chain, and simply have lost touch with what a ten or twenty dollars means to the other 99% of the population who aren't multi-millionaires, to them, a ten or a twenty is like one or two cents. They think it is about free-no frame of reference they can relate to. Sure, semi intellectually they might be able to consider it, but realistically, no, they can't, it is obvious. They really think 15-20 bucks for a plastic disk is some kind of "deal", or 10 bucks for a download ten song album is somehow a deal. Nuts, it is not, it is a huge markup over manufacturing costs. Maybe to their country club drinking buddies it seems a deal, to about everyone else it is a blatant pricing gouge. I am amazed they sell what they do now frankly.
Maybe you could volunteer to field all the support calls from every mouth-breather who wants to install OSX on some VIA MoBo with an ISA modem and a one-off integrated graphics chip? Or maybe you'll write OSX drivers for obscure architectures on your weekends?
There's a huge difference between DRM'd music and DRM'd software. The difference is that the musician doesn't have to eat the support cost for some idiot in Upstate Slobovia who can't get OSX installed on their RadioShack Model III. If you can't see that, you an idiot.
If you live in a universe where there is only one widely known operating system, then you have an expectation that everything else will work the same way and zero tolerance for anything different. Switch operating systems suddenly and, after any initial "wow factor" the next response will always be frustration and disorientation.
Now, if you've just dropped $2000 for a new Mac, you have a pretty strong incentive (plus a dose of new-computer-smell intoxication) to get over that hump.
If, however, Joe User has acquired a copy of OSX "have a go with" then - even assuming it runs reliably on a 3-year-old Dell - he is likely to "have a go" for ten minutes, get frustrated (which includes discovering that - oh noes - the Finder sucks a bit) and dismiss Apple entirely. At least with DRM that copy will have to be an obviously hacked DVD-R.
Now, if there was free competition in the desktop OS market then maybe:
...meaning that someone like Apple could sell an operating system that would run reliably on all "PCs" and actually stand a ghost of a chance of getting some market share. As it is, well, BeOS is dead for practical purposes, Linux - successful in a few niches, but crap marketshare considering its free, then there's NextStep, which showed what happened last time Steve Jobs tried selling a stand-alone operating system.
For pitys sake, even Windows Version N can't compete with Windows Version N-1 without breaking a sweat...
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
Everyday Americans have been speaking out. I'm such an American and I haven't been waiting for executives to speak on the issue. I've been speaking out to anyone who would listen/read on my local community radio station (I had a show for a few years until the station became remarkably undemocratic), on my blog (which I maintain to this day), to Jack Valenti's face in front of an audience (when he came to my town on his anti-"piracy" tour) and related letters to the editor, and with my friends while we discuss media matters (virtually weekly at a local bar).
Americans use a lot of non-free operating systems and software (which digital restrictions require), but if you take the time to teach them to value their freedom they'll listen and learn. On my radio program, I found it interesting to take a wide angle—people found it interesting to discuss how copyright and patent issues intersect with their everyday lives.
It's critical to not give up the freedom talk and not give into the people who would have you compromise your values in order to placate proprietors. There is a deep thirst for substantive talk and action about issues that matter.
Digital Citizen
This is big news! DRM works half the time?! I'd like to see a list of the 50% of digital commodities that are not available on P2P networks because they have been protected by DRM. Oh, that's right... it only has to be cracked once.
Although it is particularly dumb in the case of music where in most cases unprotected CDs are available (because CD DRM has been such a trainwreck) so that anybody who owns the CD can produce an unprotected MP3, yet you're not allowed to buy one.
I bet Macrovision and its ilk are loving this conversation.
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
...the Slashdot crowd?
Over the last five years, not a week has gone by that there hasn't been an anti-DRM screed posted to this forum. Yet, when finally some industry leaders come out publicly against DRM, the mostly highly modded posts are those claiming it's nothing but a cynical ploy.
You know, I'm just as cynical as the next guy when it comes to proclamations from the CEOs of giant multinational corporations. But, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Sometimes a statement isn't some carefully crafted strategic move based on hidden motives. DRM is a big pain in the butt to online music distributers and equipment manufacturers. The leaders of these industries are now making public statements on this matter. That's a good thing. If you are reading more into it than that, you've got too much time on your hands.
http://news.com.com/2061-10811_3-6158998.html?part =rss&tag=2547-1_3-0-20&subj=news/
He no longer works at Yahoo. Besides , David Goldberg (The exec) has been very vocal on this issue for over a year , so this actually might be the reason why he and his buddy "look forward to going back to our entrepreneurial roots" as was stated in Yahoo's press release .
My Starcraft 2 Blog
If Jobs is for openess he can open what is Apple's.
Removing DRM and allowing free copying of the OS (as Sun has done with Solaris) is the best recipe to get rid of the Pirates.
The only thing Apple would need to do is to say that there is no support for people without proof of purchase.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
.... that the big lables will not play that game? I'll do it again, in case the previous 1000 have not been enough.
They will sell only on fully DRM crippled shops.
They are not stupid, they use their cartel power in order to ensure a product with a clear competitive advantage does not share any "shelf" space with their wares.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
It's better than a link to a page that links to the article.
...about making many many copies of my Mac OS X Leopard OS update DVD!
you an idiot.
Normally I only laugh silently at the cowards. This time, though...
I don't really see this. Put a big 'UNENCUMBERED' notice next to all the DRM-free songs. Start giving priority to DRM-free music on the front page of the store. Only recommend DRM-free music. Pretty soon, all of the other labels are going to want to re-negotiate their contracts to allow DRM-free distribution.
All that is way confusing for the user - remember that one of the reasons ITMS has been as popular as it has is that the rules are clear, and the same across everything you buy from the store. What you are advocating not only clutters up the store UI but also leads to confusion on the part of consumers why they can do one thing with one song and not another.
We also do not know if Apple is contractually obligated not to elevate any one companies music above another, which selling and promoted DRM free tracks could easily be construed as doing.
Now what I could see happening is a few labels finally agreeing to sell DRM free music, and Jobs telling the holdouts they were going to drop them from the store unless they also went along. But ITMS can not become all indie just yet, or they loose all the power they have now to compel the labels to change.
Remember the longer Apple's DRM holds as the dominant form of DRM, the more power APple has to get companies to remove it.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I'm already having enough political smoke blown up my ass by the 2008 presidential contenders, Gavin Newsom, Bush/Cheney, and Scooter Libby. I don't have any room left for corporate smoke...
It was Bill gates who was the first major person dude to speak out agaisnt DRM. Fanboys suck.
Techie
I wonder whether Goldberg's statement provides any clue as to his future enterprises.
> Apple's plan is very honest and very forward, it's either all or nothing with DRM,
Actually, you mean "All DRM". If they allowed "all or nothing" you'd be able to but DRM-free music from Apple.
>> Microsoft DRM "doesn't work half the time"."
Wow. So its just like every other technology from Microsoft then. Acutally I think it actually working half the time is somewhat optimistic.
> Digital rights management is essentially a technology mechanism to enforce (or hinder the breaking of) contract law.
Not exactly, as there is usually no binding contract involved.
Should be:
"DRM is essentially a technology to enforce restrictions of use."
The restrictions do not align with the law (DRM knows nothing of fair use, or copyright limits).
The DRM restrictions do not align to some contract either.
These restrictions are a mis-place effort to increase sales from an ill-conceived notion that controlling use and clamping down on copying would increase interest and sales.
Digital Restrictions Mechanism
A 90+ year publishing monopoly, enforced with $500,000 FBI threats is already too much of a restriction.
More restrictions are obviously not necessary.
It is really not possible to show how DRM is necessary on legal grounds, starting with the constitutional purpose of copyright.
It is really not possible to show how DRM is necessary on moral grounds, showing how it helps the advancement of society.
Or a less radical step in the right direction be for the iPod and iTunes to actually support Ogg Vorbis.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
Oh yeah I forgot, Jobs wants to make sure that he can sell overpriced hardware!
This is just not true--at least not anymore. The price of any Apple Computer is completely in line with an equivalently equipped Dell, Gateway, etc. Sometimes, the price of the "PC" is even higher. True, Apple does not have a computer that competes with a $300-something dollar Dell price-wise; however, Dell's computers that do compete with Apple's computers feature wise are often more expensive than the Mac offering. Sometime ago, Apple sold hardware that could reasonably be called overpriced. Now it's just a troll to say so.
The rest of your argument is fallacious as well. Apple does not force consumers to buy a new Mac to run a new version of OS X. The most recent version of OS X runs just fine on Macs that are 5+ years old. Conversely, the RIAA want you to re-buy all of your music every 5-10 years when it becomes available in a different format. What Apple does is not even comparable.
my pet machine
Two events do not make a trend. I hate web reporting. Complete misuse of words.
I guess the obligatory music industry retort "well, if they'd just license the tech to other MP3 players we'd welcome that" is due to come in soon.
No - wait.
Jobs, as the largest shareholder of Disney, can try to get Disney to release its movies on unprotected BR discs, unprotected DVD discs, and unprotected online formats. Has he done so? No? Then who the hell is he to demand that others release their content unprotected when he refuses to do so with his own?
-- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000
why is parent being modded down?
The guy really did resign. Maybe Yahoo didn't like his stance on DRM?
Yeah right.
And in the process of doing what you prescribe, he would effectively shut down the iTunes Music Store, which has added $2+ billion in revenue to the Apple books since it was opened, as well as invite the already lawsuit-happy RIAA labels to file breach of contract suits with a guarantee of winning.
You do realize he has shareholders to answer to, right? His job as CEO of Apple is to keep Apple shareholders happy and profitable - not to be your anti-DRM loose cannon.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
I had an MSN Music account that I used to buy only 5 or 6 songs. It's a good thing I didn't buy more songs as that DRM site bit the dust thanks to Microsoft and Zune. Can you transfer files from MSN Music to Zune? No, of course not, that would be too easy. And recently after using a beta version of WMP 11, I installed the final release and guess what, I could not get the MSN Music software to install. Great, now my MSN Music songs will never play. I worked with their technical support team for a bit before I finally gave up and chalked it up as a loss. The funny part was when I asked if I could transfer my MSN Music to Zune, they said to burn the music to a cd and rip as MP3 so Zune could play the non-DRM MP3!!! This DRM stuff is crap.
DRM is evil, as long as it doesn't protect your own stuff. Of course he won't ditch DRM on OS X or Pixar movies, because that's his stuff, but DRM on other people's (e.g. the recording companies) stuff? No, now THAT'S bad...
I've always got the impression that DRM was only considered a necessary evil by the content providers such as Apple and even Microsoft, meant to appease the record companies cocaine-induced paranoia about us inherently evil people who, by the very dint of being computer savvy, are inherently prone to raping and pillaging their vaults.
DRM only makes their programming more complex and costly for music distribution and playback applications which they essentially give away for free. They only play ball with the studios because their rights to distribute the content are threatened if they don't use DRM.
Cheers
Who is this delectable creature with an insatiable love of the dead?
on any comment site that you could go to, anywhere, giant seething hordes of negativity always rules
it's some sort of rule
a credit to slashdot is that most of the truly egregious crap gets buried, but still, the general cynical tenor of the denizens of the web still shines through as you see
someone with better training in psychology/ sociology/ web social dynamics could probably offer some good reasons where all of the negativity comes from, but being as that would be some sort of positive statement of affirmation of mankind's knowledge, they'd probably be quickly shouted down and torn apart by hungry wolves for absolutely no good reason at all
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Um.
Installing on non-apple hardware is rather specifically unsupported. Actually, I think THAT's why the protection is there; make it too hard for morons that can't figure out what they're doing gets no support.
110100 1101000 1101000 1100110 0 1101111 1101000 1100011 1
Some people never have anything good to say.
I predict:
if iTunes starts selling some DRM free music, they will complain why not all?
if iTunes starts selling only DRM free music, they will complain well iTunes still doesn't sell XYZ or it's still $0.99...
It would hurt the GPL as much as anything else that's copyrighted. If that happened, Microsoft, for example, could take the source to Linux and release it as a their new OS. Sure, there wouldn't be anything stopping you from copying it freely, but it'd still be binary only. They'd still be building off of your work and not giving anything back.
What's cool about the GPL is that it gives everyone access to the source code. If you make changes, your changes must also be available to everyone under the GPL. Everyone is given the same freedom.
"It ain't a war against drugs.it's a war against personal freedom" --Bill Hicks
> Regardless, the American people as a whole should have stood up and said NO! to any sort of "rights management" system. DRM is just plain un-American.
What on earth do you mean? I've denounced DRM at every opportunity!
The problem is that almost no one was listening until some famous, big corporate types started talking. In other words, the problem was that no one was paying attention.
"They would rather not sell it at all then sell it without DRM."
And not only do they want to sell it with DRM, they want to sell you the compressed stuff with DRM.
Parent corrects a bunch of the pervasive misconceptions and fallacies.
"...objectivity resides in recognizing your preferences, subjecting them to especially harsh scrutiny." -Gould
digital rights management is essentially a technology mechanism to enforce (or hinder the breaking of) contract law. Enforcement of law is divided by the constitution among two government branches, the executive (raids/arrests) and the judicial (binding rulings). Nowhere in the constitution does it mention corporateor "robotic" (thats basically what drm is.. a robot) law enforcement.. don't think those things mean what you think they mean. "Digital rights management" != inaliable rights as laid down by the U.S. Constitution and liberal political theory. you mean like the right to do whatever you please with your property in the privacy of your own home on your own computer?
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Sorry.. my settings got screwed up while i was gone for an extended period of time.. so .. REWRITTEN PROPERLY! ; )
digital rights management is essentially a technology mechanism to enforce (or hinder the breaking of) contract law.
Enforcement of law is divided by the constitution among two government branches, the executive (raids/arrests) and the judicial (binding rulings).
Nowhere in the constitution does it mention corporateor "robotic" (thats basically what drm is.. a robot) law enforcement..
I don't think those things mean what you think they mean. "Digital rights management" != inaliable rights as laid down by the U.S. Constitution and liberal political theory.
you mean like the right to do whatever you please with your property in the privacy of your own home on your own computer?
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Sorry, sometimes I hear a whoose sound over my head.
In its purest DRM is a digitial extension of copyright: the ability of copyright holders to control the rights to their works.
Congress has the power to:
"To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;" (See US Constitution section 1)
Congress has the power to promote the arts by securing copyright. I don't think it's a stretch to include "providing digital content restrictions" as part of "securing" in the digital age.
I would include DRM as part of congress's ability to regulate and enforce copyright, rather than necessarily a contract. But contrary to the GP's assertion, copyright is IN the constitution and the ability to enforce it is completely American.
Whether or not DRM is useful/good is an entirely seperate argument, but as far as being legal or "flying in the face of the constitution", I don't think there's any doubt.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
I'm serious. I use napster, and I love my ability to get so many songs for just $15 a month. It's great. Much better than buying songs for 99 cents a piece. Much better than going through the hassle of trying to find the music for free on the internet. I just plug my creative labs zen player into my computer, click and drag the songs I want to hear, and that's it. I really do love it. So there. Flame me.
FouLox
it's also congress's right to secure order and to promote the general welfare..
along that line, i think it would be best for everyone's "general welfare" if we all had to wear shackles and were bound to a concrete pier in the center of each of our homes.
as for DRM.. it is unconstitutional.
Corporations are not allowed to act as unilateral police forces, that is the job of the executive branch.
Why not take this to its logical end, dissolve the police forces, and go back to old western vigilante justice!
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
This statement is completely empty of any argument.
it typpifies what politicians say.
how does it have a +5?
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
What do you mean by "if Microsoft tried to apply exactly the same reasoning to Linux"?
Do you mean opening up Windows? Or burning Ubuntu CDs? Or what?
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
World of Warcraft has a Windows version and a Mac version, but no Linux version. And this is a company which runs Linux on the backend, and actively cooperates with Cedega.
We already see a bit of this with OS X -- the Airport Extreme uses proprietary drivers from Broadcom.
If there was true diversity of OSes -- even the competition between Linux distros and kernel patches would be a start -- then we could expect hardware to use those higher-level, published standards. However, as it is, it seems infinitely more likely that we'll see what we see now with peripherals -- they rely on proprietary Windows and Mac drivers, and Linux still has to go reverse-engineer them.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
I see Flac as the source code to these other codecs. If there was a choice of formats to choose from, then everyone who didn't want to transcode could just buy mp3s. However, if there were flacs for everything, device manufacturers could support whatever codec they want -- ac3, aac, vorbis, wma, mp3, shn even -- and provide simple tools for transcoding to that format.
Basically, I'm thinking, I buy the flac and I own it -- and they let me download that file as long as I still have the username/pass to go with it (and am not obviously uploading it to others). That way, if the worst happens and I have my entire collection in mp3, and I buy a device that only takes vorbis, I can re-download my entire collection in flac, transcoding to vorbis on the fly (so I don't need terabytes of space), and lose no quality.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
It's not necessarily that I don't think Jobs is sincere.
It's that I don't see ANY action. We can talk about cigars and what they might be all day, but it would help if Jobs actually, say, pulled out a lighter.
I mean, come on -- ONE track on iTunes without DRM would at least show they're trying.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
http://netrn.net/spywareblog/archives/2005/01/03/m ore-on-adware-installed-though-windows-media-files /
http://www.edbott.com/weblog/archives/000340.html
"In an earlier post, I pointed to the fast-spreading but suspicious story alleging that a flaw in WMA files can plant spyware on your computer. This is a follow-up."
It looks like another reason to avoid WMA files entirely.
The truth shall set you free!