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Music Execs Think DRM Slows the Marketplace
MacGod writes "From BBC News comes a story about a Jupiter Research survey conducted before Steve Jobs's anti-DRM essay, indicating that most music industry execs see DRM-free music as a way to expand sales on digital tracks. The survey covered large and small record labels, rights bodies, digital stores, and technology providers. To summarize: 54% of music execs think that current DRM is too restrictive and 62% think selling unencumbered music would be a way to boost sales. Even limiting the survey to the record labels themselves, 48% believe this. Yet, many also believe it's not going to happen without significant governmental intervention — even though most insiders think DRM is harmful, the labels are keen to stick with it. Is this yet another sign of the typical media industry 'head in the sand, refuse to change' approach, or might we be seeing the early stages or some actual change?"
So record company execs are saying:
1) DRM is bad
2) It hurts the market
3) Doggone it, let's get rid of it!
But then they say....
4) But we're not going to get rid of it
5) We're hoping the government will force us to get rid of it?
I may not be as bright as some of you guys around here, but this doesn't make any sense.
They really seem to be saying:
1) DRM *THE WAY WE'VE DONE IT* is bad.
2) No way will we get rid of it, we'd rather have bad DRM than none. We need to be able to resell Elvis tracks every 5 years to the same consumer.
3) What we're hoping for is the government mandates a technical solution, since Apple has really screwed us up, and we don't seem to be able to work together to come up with a viable solution on our own.
Seriously, if you're the government, isn't it reasonable to say "Gee, selling music to consumers is not a core function of government. You guys figure it out. We've already given you eternal copyrights and the FBI to enforce it, what else do you need?". But I guess that won't happen.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
if DRM is removed and piracy jumps, the cause-effect logic will be very hard to refute. It probably CAN be refuted (all that has to happen is to have a file successfully ripped once and it's all over the internet) but an observed jump post-DRM removal would undoubtedly end some careers. Nobody wants to take that chance.
The music industry seems to be doing quite well (which is not to say the artists are getting all they really should, but that's another post) since they have money to spend playing around with copyright law. There is no "we need to try DRM-free music before our profits dry up!" imperative which might drive people to take risks and the company to accept risks, so DRM (which is easy to make sound good, whether it is or not) won't go anywhere until the case for it hurting sales AS A CONCEPT (not just a bad implementation) becomes obvious enough to convince anyone.
The only way I can see that happening is an "open source music" phenomena that replaces corporate music trends, star generators, and hits with something just as good (or "effective" if you don't think it's good) but community controlled. That's hard, because opinions are subjective and can apparently be influenced by ads. We need a central site, lots of sources of music people want to listen to (not what they SHOULD want to listen to, mind you, but what they DO want to listen to - no running people down for their (lack of) taste), and quality control that people can trust. When THAT emerges, DRM will become too much of a liability. I don't see anything else that can do it.
"I object to doing things that computers can do." -- Olin Shivers, lispers.org
I'm not sure if they are mistaken or not.
A few people revel in ripping things off. The music industry (MI) will lose some money on them.
A lot of people have absolutely no morals and will do what costs them the least. MI will lose some money on them.
A lot of people are as moral as they can afford to be. MI will lose some money on them if people feel swapping non-drm'd titles is okay.
The folks folks who are very moral, it won't really matter unless the basic morality of the action is redefined by the culture (which I see a strong incentive to occur).
It might turn out to be the last big blast of sales income before music sales dry up.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Your problem is that you're assuming that DRM has something to do with preventing piracy.
That is a fallacy. It is something the music companies would like you to think, but it is not really true. DRM is about "maximizing revenue," principally by allowing the record companies to sell the same piece of music over and over, in different formats. Basically, is purpose is to eliminate format-shifting altogether, because that way they can charge independently for a song on CD, as a digital file for an iPod, as a digital file for a cellphone, as a ringtone, etc. etc.
The music companies have realized that digitization basically means the end of formats that wear out over time, and it will also mean that it's pretty trivial to move your music from one type of playback device (e.g. iPod) to $NEXT_YEARS_DEVICE without them seeing a dime. Since their business model historically has derived a lot of revenue from the repurchasing of music in new formats (45s, 8-tracks, LPs, cassette tape, CD), they want to stop this, even though it's allowed by Fair Use as a simple format shift.
DRM is only nominally about piracy; in truth, it's about squeezing more money from honest consumers.
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