Macrovision Responds to Steve Jobs on DRM

An anonymous reader writes "Macrovision Corporation, best known for its long history of DRM implementations, (everything from VCRs to software copy protection), has responded to Steve Jobs open letter regarding DRM. With ample experience and despite the obvious vested interests, it's great to hear their point of view. In the letter they acknowledge the 'difficult challenges' of implementing DRM that is truly 'interoperable and open'. At the same time they also feel that DRM 'will increase electronic distribution', if implemented properly, because 'DRM increases not decreases consumer value', such as by enabling people to rent content at a lower price than ownership, and lowering risks for content producers. While I'm impressed they responded, I can't say I'm impressed by lofty goals that might not be reached for years. The reality is, current DRM implementations often leave users with the bad end of the deal. What do you think? Should people give DRM manufacturers more time to overcome the challenges and get it right?"

Comments

renting content

[ravenspear]

DRM increases not decreases consumer value', such as by enabling people to rent content at a lower price than ownership

Well, if the consumer recognizes that as a value at all. So far the trend (at least in DRM systems used in internet distribution) has been clearly indicating that people generally don't want to rent their content.

The media companies certainly want this however, as it gives them more opportunities to get the consumer to pay for the same content multiple times, maybe in different formats or for different devices or uses.

Re:renting content

[dangitman]

The wanker-in-chief Fred Amoroso says:

Quite simply, if the owners of high-value video entertainment are asked to enter, or stay in a digital world that is free of DRM, without protection for their content, then there will be no reason for them to enter, or to stay if they've already entered. The risk will be too great.

Quite simply, this is bullshit. Some of the greatest (sorry, "High value") music and film was produced in an era when there was no DRM. The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Charlie Chaplin, B.B King, Billie Holiday, Miles Davis, Martin Scorcese, Stanley Kubrick, even Steven Spielberg created their work in a pre-DRM era and somehow managed to sell their work.

Are we really to believe that people such as these would not pursue their art if there were not DRM? It doesn't even make sense from a hardcore businessperson's point-of-view. If someone stamps their feet and says "Fine, I'm not going to make my brilliant movie because I cannot use DRM," then there is no loss. Someone else with more sense will simply step up to the plate and make their movie instead, and profit from it. To think that one cannot make money on media without DRM is ridiculous. History has shown this. If there is money to made, somebody will do it.

Some will argue that less profit would be made without DRM due to piracy. Even if this were true, less profit does not equal no profit. But various studies have shown that piracy does not affect sales much, and nobody has ever been able to demonstrate that DRM prevents piracy. In fact, it is more likely that DRM reduces profit, because companies have to pay a "DRM tax" to the ridiculolus companies who make crappy DRM, like Macrovision. It's basically an extra cost that doesn't even prevent piracy.

We offer to assist Apple in the issues and problems with DRM that you state in your letter. Should you desire, we would also assume responsibility for FairPlay as a part of our evolving DRM offering and enable it to interoperate across other DRMs, thus increasing consumer choice and driving commonality across devices.

Macrovision even think they can do a better job than Apple, and offered to "take responsibility" for Fairplay. This is hilarious. They are obviously jealous of Apple's success, and would love to be given access to Apple's products. Does anyone think that Macrovision could do a better job? Apple is one of the top software producers in the world. Macrovision is a bunch of hacks, a one-trick pony who has made a living from a stupid analog video hack. I doubt they are even competent to write software. We've all seen the kind of shit that bottom-feeding companies like this produce, and it ain't pretty. (think Sony rootkits)

Re:renting content

[MMC Monster]

I've got a pretty nice library near me. Selection is not as nice as Blockbuster, but the prices are somewhat better.

Give to your local library. Either media (originals, of course) or via donations. Your entire community will benefit.

DRM increases not decreases consumer value

[bug1]

"such as by enabling people to rent content at a lower price than ownership"

Consumers don't get the opportunity to "own" media, consumers get no ownership rights at all, we cant resell, get a refund etc like you can with a TV you buy.

Consumers get usage rights as granted by the copyright holder, DRM makes it easier to restrict these usage rights which takes us further away from what they would call "ownership".

Smells like fud to me.

Added value

[QuickFox]

Of course DRM adds value! You get an interesting pastime, a puzzle to solve.

A new job for starving stunt men

[codefrog]

Those starving stunt men who show up in front of otherwise legitimate movies to warn us about how we (the theater-going evildoers of the world) are denying their kids a college education...
I SAY LET THEM EAT CAKE. Let's take up a collection... and hire them to drive cars off cliffs ...said cars to be filled with DRM executives and other such indispensible consumer-value-enhancers.

Re:A new job for starving stunt men

[AC5398]

Nothing irritates me faster than being forced to watch that drivel BEFORE I get to watch the movie I PAID FOR!

Re:A new job for starving stunt men

[Legion303]

The really hilarious part here is that I've never seen those infomercials before movies, because I stopped paying for the movie theater "experience" (i.e., douchebags with cell phones, sticky floors, and 25 minutes of car commercials on the screen) long before the studios started adding them. So the people like me--who might actually feel a smidgen of guilt at seeing the infomercials--don't actually see them, while people who are doing the right thing by paying instead of stealing get to be annoyed by shit that doesn't apply to them in the first place.

I guess I just defined irony.

Re:DRM adds customer value ???

[Anonymous Coward]

As far as I am concerned there is no value in a product you buy and can't use as you see fit. The one thing that doesn't want to be admitted here is that it isn't what a company sets the price and value at that has meaning. It what the customer is willing to pay for it that sets the value. You can make all the thousand dollar matches you want, if your customers won't buy them then you go broke waiting for the sale.

While the example may be a good bit overextended, it makes the point no less applicable. Selling a nonphysical product at the price of a physical one and then limiting what can be done with it lowers the value that is already seen as near nil by the majority of the public.

Translation from PR-Speak to English

[sunya]

Here is John Grubers translation. Spot on.

if you can't compete with free

[DrSkwid]

then you're in the wrong business

Looking for a silver lining...

[tkrotchko]

because 'DRM increases not decreases consumer value', such as by enabling people to rent content at a lower price than ownership

That's like being happy you got into a car accident because you met a nice nurse at the hospital.

Parasites versus pirates

[Walt Dismal]

It seems to me that the DRM people are basically parasites. They do not create the original source material, they would have no function if the source material did not exist. Now I admit that if original works that are expensive to produce (movies) were heavily pirated, then no one could afford to make them and they would generally not come into being. (Although machinima is pointing to the future when maybe you won't need to spend $50 million to produce a movie, with a $10 million paycheck for some actor.) But I think that neither parasites nor pirates have an honorable role in society. Maybe we need new models for the arts that make both irrelevant. Look at the great animation that came from projects sponsored by the National Film Board of Canada. Then look at the latest Hollywood stinkbomb produced by the existing bloated system. Somewhere there's something wrong.

And on a side note, if we have a system where DRM is needed to protect Kevin Federline or Britney, it begs the question of why lock up turds in a vault anyway.

Facts

[tomstdenis]

1. DRM costs the consumers money. That is, the producers license shit technology (that going by their track record they're batting .000) that they then pass the cost onto the consumer/customers.

2. DRM doesn't actually work. Every single form of DRM from CSS to WDRM to Fairplay has been in one form or another broken or circumvented. Including the many methods (and millions of dollars that went into) CD and video game protection schemes

3. Despite the ability to circumvent DRM, media says continue to increase.

4. DRM often attempts to circumvent fair use rights preventing the social order.

5. The introduction of the DMCA was a *crutch* introduced by lobbyists to do what DRM could not do.

6. DRM vendors have no souls.

7. Media studios leverage their market share to unfairly harm competition (see: payola).

8. Media studios will boldly lie about revenue and other statistics to gain power over citizens of "free" nations.

9. I ran out of facts.

Tom

Re:If you are asking that question on /.

[TheRaven64]

The GPL and DRM are very different, both conceptually and in terms of implementation. The GPL is based on copyright law, DRM is not. The GPL says you have bought (or had given to you by someone who is either the copyright holder or their authorised distributor[1]), and you may use it in any way you wish. If you want to distribute it, then the GPL imposes legal, but not technical, limitations on you (such as requiring you to pass on the same rights that you have to anyone you distribute the code to).

DRM, in contrast, says 'you have paid for this material, now you may do any of this small list of things (which are usually smaller than the list of things copyright law allows you to do anyway) with it.' Do you see the difference? The GPL (and copyright law) are exclusive, while DRM is inclusive. You can use GPL'd (or copyrighted) material for anything that the GPL (or copyright law) does not expressly prohibit. You can only use DRM'd material in the way that the DRM vendor authorised; no transcoding, no playing it on unauthorised devices, and often no fair use rights, such as extracting clips for academic discussion or using a music track as the sound track to your (not for distribution) home video.

[1] In the case of the GPL, this is anyone who has a copy of the code and accepts the GPL.

Jobs didn't call for the death of DRM...

[RalphBNumbers]

Macrovision's CEO's argument with Jobs seems to rest on a faulty foundation. Jobs didn't call for the death of DRM, at least not directly, he called for the big 4 to license their music for sale online without DRM.

If, like most people reading this, you consider DRM a negative for the consumer, then you'd naturally think DRM-free licensing would obviously lead to the death of DRM, at least for music. But if, like Macrovision's CEO, you claim that DRM actually adds value for the consumer, then you should have nothing to fear from competition with non-DRMed sales. If a consumer thinks it is a better value to rent music with DRM, then they will do so regardless of weather music available for sale elsewhere has DRM or not.

The idea that DRMed music cannot be successfully sold when non-DRMed music is also available is only valid if you assume that DRM has a negative impact on the consumer large enough to overwhelm any positives it might offer (like the ability to facilitate online rentals). The fact that Macrovision's CEO equates allowing DRM-free sales opportunities to denying DRMed sales opportunities, while asserting that DRM is a positive for the consumer, would seem to indicate that he is either arguing dishonestly or hasn't really thought this out (or both).

That said, Macrovision's CEO's position actually suggests a compromise (if we assume that Macrovision's CEO is honest in his assertion that he believes DRM adds value for the consumer, and that decision makers at the big 4 agree with him, both of which are far from certain imho):
If Apple were to license the RIAA (and it's international equivalents) the right to sub-license FairPlay DRM to anyone they liked, in return for the RIAA's members giving Apple license to sell all their music DRM-free under terms no worse than their current ~70% cut, then everybody wins (after a fashion).
Apple gets to sell music DRM-free, the RIAA&co get to sell/rent DRMed music for the iPod under whatever terms they like, and the customer gets to have their choice.