Translation of Macrovision Response to Jobs on DRM

BoboB-69 writes "Daring Fireball has posted a humorous, and accurate PR-speak to Plain English translation of Macrovision's CEO's response to Steve Jobs' Open Letter on DRM. Highly recommended reading for slashdotters everywhere."

Comments

that's beautifully worded

[jessecurry]

and much more to the point. Why can't all execs speak like that?

Re:that's beautifully worded

[sumdumass]

Because it is too hard to change your mind later. With the corp/marketing speak, they can just claim confusion and blame the change of mind on the lesser inteligent people like you and me who didn't understand what they said. That way they all look good in front of the camera!

Re:that's beautifully worded

[jc42]

Why can't all execs speak like that?

Because then you'd understand them.

Re:that's beautifully worded

[PopeRatzo]

My friend jc42 makes a joke, but there's insight there too.

We're going to see a lot more of this kind of misdirection now that the first serious cracks in the DRM-club's armor. Major players in the production and delivery of content are starting to actually question the wisdom of DRM. Guys like Steve Jobs are not Defective by Design or Freeculture.org, but important bricks in the wall that has kept DRM the default and a more sane approach to copyright out of the discussion entirely.

I'm afraid that the battle over DRM is about to morph from a guerilla action to mutually assured detruction, and the Copyright Industry may prefer the latter in the end to actually sitting down with their enemy (the customers) and coming up with a reasonable solution.

Re:that's beautifully worded

[maxume]

RIAA declares war on music, clones Britney, releases voice destroying virus!

The likely real world outcome of drm is that a bunch of time and money ends up being wasted. People won't put up with doomsday scenarios where they can't sing Happy Birthday(and get away with it like you can now) and laws will be changed.

People don't care about the drm on dvd's; lots of people are going to be really pissed off with the coming 'not on that screen' drm.

Re:that's beautifully worded

[encoderer]

I agree entirely.

Well, mostly.

I'm not really against DRM per se, but I am against how it's currently implemented.

In my opinion, if DRM existed just to prevent me from sharing my content with somebody else, that would be OK with me. As long as it lets me format-shift it to any device or future device, make self-destrutable copies for a friend that blows itself up, say, 3 days after being watched (like lending a DVD), and generally stays out of my way, I'm fine with it.

Unfortunately, they can't figure out how to do that, so instead they give us draconian content locking.

But what I _do_ agree with is that companies are now, for the first times, starting to realize it's not going to work.

Who remembers SDMI? The Secure Digital Music Initiative was created right about the time the labels sued (unsuccessfully) to have the Rio pulled from the market. It was a consortium of all the big companies--MSFT, SONY, etc. Probably no apple back then, tho--and they took like 18 months to come out with this way to "protect" music and, I swear to god, it was broken in like days.

The reason I bring this up are two fold:

1. It was the first crack at DRM and the first time DRM was cracked.
2. Maybe if it hadn't been cracked, things would be marginally better now. Just a thought, but maybe we'd have a single standard.

Point one is significant because every time DRM has failed the makers say "We've learned from our mistakes, wait until you see the NEXT version"

And now, finally, after hearing these promises from the likes of Macrovision, the industry has FINALLY started to get fed-up. When their hundreds of millions spent on securing HD content was just evaporated in the first few months of comming to market I swear you could just smell 1000 execs puking in their mouths.

The DRM battle has been a horrible experience for both consumers and content companies. The companies, each go around, get their hopes up. They're psyched to go out drinking. They slap hands, talking about all the bitches they'll pick up. All the fun they'll have. They change their shirt 4 times and use a can of Pomade in their hair. But every single time, without fail, they wake with a serious fucking hangover.

Meanwhile, Macrovision and the ilk already collected their huge development and licensing fees. To hell with the fact that what they produced doesn't actually _work_.

It would really be funny to watch the content companies in this self-destructive behavior if it wasn't such a shitty deal for consumers.

Re:that's beautifully worded

[theAtomicFireball]

I'm not really against DRM per se, but I am against how it's currently implemented.

I think Steve Jobs actually did a good job of pointing out the problem with DRM. DRM can never work unless you require the device to be networked so that it can check back with some central server for the key (and even then that's not infallible, just a bigger challenge). Without that, you HAVE to put the key to unlock the content right on the media and the player has to know how to find and use that key. This is true for DVDs and DVD-HD, protected CDs... it's inherent in the nature of the produce. Content that can't be viewed is useless to the consumer, so the device has to know how to play the content. Somebody will ALWAYS be able to crack any DRM scheme no matter how sophisticated, in less time and at less cost than was put into developing the scheme.

Every version of Macrovision has been cracked in a fairly short period of time. DVD encryption was cracked. DVD-HD hasn't been fully cracked, but enough to allow unprotected copies of HD DVDs to already exist.

This shouldn't be a moral discussion, it should be a practical one. So far, CEOs have been gullible enough to be believe Macrovision and other companies' claims that they can "protect" content. They can't, but they've made a lot of money by convincing people that they can, but unfortunately, that's all starting to unravel.

The funniest thing about Macrovision's letter is the suggestion that Macrovision can "help" Apple. Apple, despite it's public stance, has done as good a job as anybody at implementing DRM. Yes, you can get around it, but at least they evolve their DRM whenever somebody cracks it because there are actually implications to not doing so... unlike Macrovision who is still raking in gobs of money for protection schemes that have long since been cracked.

Re:that's beautifully worded

[Elad Alon]

Because then you'd understand them.

And because they themselves would have to understand what they're talking about.

Re:that's beautifully worded

[smaddox]

Similarly, consumers who want to consume content on only a single device can pay less than those who want to use it across all of their entertainment areas -- vacation homes, cars, different devices and remotely. Abandoning DRM now will unnecessarily doom all consumers to a "one size fits all" situation that will increase costs for many of them. Then half a page down:

Truly interoperable DRM will hasten the shift to the electronic distribution of content and make it easier for consumers to manage and share content in the home -- and it will enable it in an open environment where their content is portable across a number of devices, not held hostage to just one company's products. If that isn't doublespeak, I don't know what is.

Re:that's beautifully worded

[Jeff DeMaagd]

I didn't think I would ever say this, but I think it's actually a bit of a cultural battle.

The people that advertise by MySpace, YouTube or any other social site won't need to sign with a label so much. Usually it's the "replacements" that change how things are done, not the "old guard". I can see the transition taking a long time because the old guard often has to just die out or fade away, but revolutionary changes are possible too.

I'm afraid that the battle over DRM is about to morph from a guerilla action to mutually assured detruction, and the Copyright Industry may prefer the latter in the end to actually sitting down with their enemy (the customers) and coming up with a reasonable solution.

I don't even see how that is possible. How can a solution be agreed upon? I'm not sure if a social contract can be struck because the customers are an extremely diverse group of people.

For example, some here suggest that recordings should be free of copyright, considered advertisements, and that concerts should be the sole way that artists make money. The problem is, maybe I'd like to support a big name artist, but I won't pay hundreds of dollars for a tiny seat in a two hour concert in a neighboring city.

Re:that's beautifully worded

[Master of Transhuman]

"Clones Britney"

Uh, with or without hair?

This scares me, because one of my favorite singers, Andrea Corr, has a solo album coming out this year, and rumor has it that the music execs want to make her "the next J-Lo". Which scares fans because most of them can't stand J-Lo.

Besides, Andrea doesn't have the booty to be "the next J-Lo."

But Andrea looks good with hair and probably wouldn't look good without it.

So any cloning has to be done leaving in the genes for hair.

As for the "voice-destroying virus", that's already happened - it's called "digital processing". All the record industry bimbos sound alike (except maybe Jewel and a couple others). Even Andrea doesn't sound like Andrea on CD - only in live concert. That's why I rarely listen to Corrs CDs or MP3s, but prefer to watch Corrs videos. Not to mention that the Corrs girls are gorgeous and somehow MP3's and CD's tend not to point that out - must be the audio only content...

Re:that's beautifully worded

[prelelat]

As I read your comment, I visualize some wizard on a hill saying everything in your post with black clouds forming over his head. His eyes are turning grey and hes chanting nuances of doom and the ground is starting to shake and everyone is running for their lives. Then I realize your just talking about corp. execs and DRM.

Then I picture some guy in a suit hitting a kid with his breifcase yelling "give me my money" and a cop who was whistling stopping and says "stop, sir do you need help with that?" and then the cop holding the kids arms back while the guy in the suit feeds him punches.

Re:that's beautifully worded

[MoralHazard]

I suppose you RTFA'd, so you must have been reading the same "translation" that I read. Here's a clue (for you and the rest that seem to have glossed over it):

IT'S NOT A TRANSLATION, IT'S A PARODY.

Some of the statements are distilled into plainer English than the original letter used, but many others are twisted and not true to the orignal. Some of them are directly contradictory to the original. One could take the original letter and rephrase it into more direct statements, but that's not what this blogger did. He chose to parody it, inserting his own commentary and viewpoint in some subtle and not-so-subtle ways.

Which means, of course, that there's a simple reason why this Macrovision CEO didn't phrase himself as the parody did: because it's not what he actually wanted to say.

Call me a nitpicker, but the fact that most of Slashdot (including me) happens to agree with the blogger doesn't change the fact that the original and the "translation" are not making the same basic statements.

Re:that's beautifully worded

[encoderer]

Actually, apple has done FAR BETTER than most other DRM producers.

As far as I know (and if I'm wrong, PLEASE PLEASE tell me), there's no way to bypass FairPlay Video DRM. That is, there is no "PlayFair" for iTunes video yet.

There are manual, lossy, ways to do this by taking screen-caps, but it sucks.

I say, give FairPlay to Macrovision. Let their engineers tool with it for six months.

Then maybe I can finally burn the $200 worth of TV shows I've purchased onto DVD.

Re:that's beautifully worded

[SeaFox]

I'm afraid that the battle over DRM is about to morph from a guerilla action to mutually assured detruction, and the Copyright Industry may prefer the latter in the end to actually sitting down with their enemy (the customers) and coming up with a reasonable solution.

Here's my reasonable solution: The industry allows me to use their product in whatever personal way I see fit, like I can with a standard audio CD today, and I'll buy their product.

It seems simple but the industry wont agree to it. I think the reason is the industry doesn't like the market the way it has been. They don't like one-time revenue. What they ultimately want is a per use charge on all media, but since that would involve setting up a micropayment system, they do what they deem to be the next best thing: lock the usage of the media in the most artificial ways possible so ultimately the easiest legal solution for the consumer is to simply buy a copy for every device they use it on.

The recording/motion picture industry doesn't seem to understand one fact of business: theft happens. Wal-Mart doesn't add RFID tags to every candy bar, owners of boutiques may watch the door closely, but they both expect to have a little shrink every year (Wal-Mart actually has quite a bit). In both these retailers' situations, the cost of the theft is less than the cost of preventing it (like extra personnel to stand right by the door all day, or RFID tags on items costing less than a pay phone call to begin with, or the cost of frivolous lawsuits when you attempt to capture thieves with force).

Rather than sink millions of dollars into DRM that doesn't work or causes class action lawsuits, the labels need to live with the theft that happens and try to reduce expenses other places to make themselves more profitable. Some of these are:

• Reduce executive pay (this is also the one least likely to happen). They may make the company a lot of money, but keep in mind this is the pay of a single employee. Some of these guys are making more money than they could even spend in a lifetime.
  
  
• Be more selective of signing artists. Give recording contracts to the groups that actually have talent and focus. There are far too many lousy groups getting signed. More prudent investment = better returns for the label. This also leads to more consumer interest in the label. Some consumers are so tired to shuffling through lousy music to find the good stuff they aren't even interested in listening anymore.
  
  
• Tone down the promotion. You can't make people like an artist. They either do or they don't. If a very popular act is going to do a show, is there any reason you should have to promote it out the wazoo? Wouldn't people be aware of it and spread the info for you via word of mouth? Also, referring back to the last point, a lousy band is going to require more promotion to get those albums sold, making them an even less desirable investment. Plus, too much promotion leads to consumer burnout.
  
  
• Stop the long-shot piracy lawsuits. If you don't have any hard evidence, you're just burning money. And you're pissing off your legitimate customers with your actions, lowering your sales. People are less likely to sympathize with someone who really is infringing on copyright than they are people who are innocent and being bullied by string arm legal tactics.
  

Re:that's beautifully worded

[Opportunist]

Nonono, you got that wrong. It's not a translation from one language into another, it's a translation from "exec wording" into "intention".

In other words, the translation uncovers what he actually wants to say: That Macrovision goes out of biz when the CI realizes they've been sold snakeoil, and that he wants to keep his cushy CEO chair.

Re:that's beautifully worded

[LKM]

In my opinion, if DRM existed just to prevent me from sharing my content with somebody else, that would be OK with me

Not with me. I want to make mix tapes for friends. I want to put music into my videos. I want to buy music and then gift it to a pal.

Re:that's beautifully worded

[shutdown -p now]

"Digital files cannot be made uncopyable, any more than water can be made not wet."

That's all there is to it, really.

Re:that's beautifully worded

[Fordiman]

Witless?

Hah.

Have fun in dreamland, bucko. Vista's another one that's been quickly cracked.

Re:that's beautifully worded

[joshsnow]

You need to give up the substance abuse and get some sleep...

Re:that's beautifully worded

[encoderer]

If you read my very next sentence you'd see that I agree with you about this.

I want to be able to format shift. I want to be able to GIFT the music. However, if they prevent me from making an unprotected copy and giving that copy to a friend, meaning we'd both have a perfect "copy," well, I'd be OK with that. The only way you AREN'T be OK with it is if you want to illegally distribute music to your friends.

If I lend you a CD, or give it to you for that matter, there isn't (and should not be) anything wrong with it. Because we paid for one copy and only one person can enjoy the music at a time.

This is basically what I'm suggesting. Make the same rules apply digitally as applied to CDs before burners were in every household. There was nothing fundamentally flawed about it then, and there's nothing flawed about it now.

So give me a way I can "gift" my license, and give me a way to make a self-destructible copy for a temporary loan, and I'm fine with it.

Until they can figure that out, they should leave their fucking hands off it =)

Re:that's beautifully worded

[LKM]

The only way you AREN'T be OK with it is if you want to illegally distribute music to your friends.

Except where I live, the concept of "illegally distributing music to my friends" does not exist. It's perfectly legal for me to give perfect copies of my music to family and close friends. And DRM makes this impossible.

A perfect DRM would disallow all illegal actions, and allow all legal actions. This is equal to not having DRM at all, because (assuming the system exists) normal customers would never notice its existence, and pirates would not care about its existence because they would simply get the music through some other channel.

Re:that's beautifully worded

[subsonic]

Wow, that's a blast from the past. The Rio. SDMI... Man, companies were having a shit fit over that, and now they have to deal with Apple. Ah, well, one would have thought they would live and learn.

You bring up a great point (with an interesting image) And really what will be awesome is when (if?) the companies drop Macrovision (and other DRM companies) like the bad habit they are.

Re:that's beautifully worded

[LKM]

Actually, I think you are a bit wrong. If I write a book, I own the copyright on the book. The government enforces that right of mine, but in return, it also gives the consumer of my work a few rights - fair use rights. It's a trade-off. Owning the copyright does not mean that I can dictate how the people who buy my work consume it. It just means that they can't make copies of the work and sell it as their own, and they can't give away copies of the work in great numbers. The copyright holder simply can't force the buyers of his work to stand on their heads while listening to a song.

Re:that's beautifully worded

[jcgf]

like extra personnel to stand right by the door all day,

But Walmart does pay people to stand by the door all day to check paying customer's receipts and treat them like theives. One of the reasons I avoid that place.

Re:that's beautifully worded

[denis-The-menace]

"Clones Britney"

That's what we need:
an army of bald, horny, crotch flashin' hasbeens trying to get attention.

Re:that's beautifully worded

[encoderer]

You're wrong.

I can sell you anything I want--be it a book, a movie, a car, a menorah, you name it. And if you agree to abide by terms and conditions, then that is a legally binding contract.

In america, you have no choice but agree with Copyright.

Besides, Fair Use Rights aren't universal. They're AMERICAN law. As you said yourself, you're not bound by American law. And even if you were, your characterization that anything short of reproducing and selling the work is protected as fair use is wrong. Fair use is very narrow.

Re:that's beautifully worded

[LKM]

Well, where I live, you can't enter into just any contract you want. Not to mention that when you buy a CD, you probably don't enter into any contract at all, other than the implied contract with the entity that sells you the piece of plastic. It is not legal for the music rights holders to take your fair use rights away. These are natural rights, at least in our system. You couldn't sign them away if you wanted to. In fact, in our system, the person who created the original work can't sell all of his rights away to the publisher. He is basically forced to retain some rights to the works. I guess some of these differences are what led to the problems Apple is having in Europe now...

Re:that's beautifully worded

[whoever57]

You're wrong. I can sell you anything I want--be it a book, a movie, a car, a menorah, you name it. And if you agree to abide by terms and conditions, then that is a legally binding contract.

No. You are wrong. Firstly, any contract that is deemed not in the public interest is not enforceable --or at least, those terms are not. Secondly, there are rights that trump contracts -- for example, first sale rights. One has to recognize that copyright is a government granted limited monopoly.

Re:that's beautifully worded

[encoderer]

Who are you?

I had to prove you wrong in the other thread, and now I'll do it here, too.

1. OF COURSE law trumps contracts. I never suggested it didn't. Go actually READ what you're disputing
2. I wasn't talking about copyright. Once again, go READ what you're disputing. This guy isn't even in America. American copyright law doesn't apply to him.
3. Any contract, especially one that's been executed with mutual consideration, is a very tough instrument. A judge doesn't throw out contracts because he doesn't like the typeface. He has to have a _reason_ to do so. It's not "in the public interest" to be charged 30% interest and $50 late fees but you don't see people getting (non-bankruptcy) relief from Credit Card contracts, do you? While technically you're correct, the burden for "in the publics interest" is not a low one as you imply. Furthermore, a judge can strike specific line items without striking the entire contract.

So really, what was your point again?

Re:that's beautifully worded

[Ernesto Alvarez]

What you're asking for is impossible. It's no coincidence that TFA talks about "magic DRM". That "magic DRM" is what you're talking about.

You're asking both for unlimited format shifting and the ability to give your friend a limited 3-day-only copy. Let's assume you get your dream, and we all get that protected content with those two magical computer programs. So, you would use the first to make your backup copies and the second one to give your friend a chance to listen to something he might find interesting. Great.

Except it only works on honest people. What's preventing me (let's assume I'm crooked) from using the unlimited copier and give the copy to a friend? If you take any measures to prevent me from doing that, it's not unlimited anymore. What if I wanted to backup to CD or some other unprotected medium? It might be a legitimate backup, or I could be making a copy to give away. Short of reading my mind (and I won't allow that, even if possible) there's no way of telling.

In fact, there's no way of knowing whether a copy someone is making is a legal backup or format-shift or not.

Basically your DRM would mean that honest people will not make unlimited copies to give away, but at the same time cannot be effective when operated by a dishonest user. In that case, it only protects the content from a dishonest user that requested a trial song, until someone agrees to give him an unlimited copy. As soon as someone gets a reason to post an unlimited copy to, say, The Pirate Bay, it's game over.

If you're honest and your friends are too, you could just do without DRM and just ask them to delete the copy in 3 days. As many people said before, DRM is there to make honest users honest.

And even if you were honest and your friend is not, he can do many things to unprotect his music. The simplest one being controlling how 'time' elapses in his computer/device. Those 3 days might become years, since a program has no precise notion of external time, it knows what it is told (and clocks can be changed). Sure, there might be a central time authority, but then it would mean he needs net access whenever he wants to play that copy, I think that's something you did not intend.

And then there's the analog hole anyway. If I can see/listen/whatever it I can copy it.

Re:that's beautifully worded

[jamar0303]

Exactly- it gets in the way when I try to legitimately do things with my music (quite a few places refuse to let my buy music online solely on the basis of my IP address- mainly Japanese sites).

Rating

[Libor Vanek]

+1 Insightful

Great....

[AtariDatacenter]

This is one of those great times where I wish I could vote on the story. Translating executive speak to common speak is *always* priceless. Example:

CEO: "We are not going to lay off 500 workers."
English: "We are going to lay off 510 workers. Or 490. Just not 500."

Its all about making you FEEL a message instead of actually hearing and understanding the words. (They want to imply a very positive message, without ACTUALLY lying.)

Re:Great....

[Anonymous Coward]

This is one of those great times where I wish I could vote on the story.

You can. This story was first posted to Digg a few days ago:

http://digg.com/apple/Translation_of_Macrovision_s _Response_to_Steve_Jobs_s_Open_Letter

You can vote for it there.

Re:Great....

[dmartin]

CEO: "We are not going to lay off 500 workers."
English: "We are going to lay off 510 workers. Or 490. Just not 500."

Ummm.. If you lay off 510 workers, you are laying off 500 workers. You are also laying off an additional 10 workers. It is like that riddle "I have two coins in my pocket, the total of which is thirty cents. One of those coins is not a quarter."

Such a statement means that they can lay off up to 499 workers without lying; after that 500 workers have been laid off even if the figure is not only 500 workers.

Re:Great....

[gutnor]

Remind me when the new CEO at my previous company went all the way accros the ocean to explain us how our department has been magnificent and how proud he was of every one of us.
Thanks to us, he saw the great wisdom of Software development and how a proper team will lead his company from Stone Age to World Domination.
In conclusion, one week later (or maybe more, but less than a month later) the department was closed, everybody fired and the software development was outsourced to a specialised development house in India: that would would bring to the company even more flexibility and satisfaction for a cheaper price than our brilliant team could ever provide, but the CEO has to thank us for all this new wisdom.

Re:Great....

[Firehed]

I rather enjoyed another line:

Macrovision: Well maintained and reasonably implemented DRM will increase the electronic distribution of content, not decrease it.

Blogger's translation: I am high as a kite.

I was really glad I'd just swallowed my beverage before reading that, because a 24" screen makes for a pretty large spewing target.

Re:Great....

[Puchku]

That's the line I loved the most too! I laughed so hard that my sides still hurt :D

Re:Great....

[dangitman]

But that would mean visiting Digg. And nobody wants that. Think of the poor tubes that have to carry that sewage.

Re:Great....

[Master of Transhuman]

Yup. Been there, done that.

Worked for a small company of about 11 people - an IBM Series 1 VAR and PC VAD.

CEO brought in a new guy. Held a party. Told us everything was great - company profitable. The new guy was going to be CEO, the old CEO was going to be Chairman of the Board.

A week later, they fired six of the 11 people (not including me - they sent me home that afternoon to avoid the bloodshed).

Week later, the new CEO moved on to Honeywell.

A couple months later, I moved on, having seen the writing on the wall. And that was after he'd sent me back to Atlanta to go through IBM PC tech school. I came back, new job waiting for me, I reported on my experience at the IBM school - and then, "Oh, by the way, I'm quitting!"

He offered me a significant raise to stay on.

Yeah, right, asshole CEO. Sayonara!

Anybody who believes anything a manager says is seriously naive.

The icing on the cake is that this guy got his MBA on a thesis about "employee relations" - and he was one of the biggest assholes I ever worked for in any company. I mean, not just because he fired everybody. I mean, he was a SERIOUS asshole in normal conversation. Everybody at the company couldn't stand him.

Re:Great....

[ibbey]

No, you're not. You're laying off more than 500 workers. Mathematicaly, the two statements are not the same.

layoffs = 510
if (layoffs != 500) then TRUE
output: TRUE

The statement is an outright lie, but it's a true outright lie.

Re:Great....

[jthill]

Problem is, it's the truest statement in his whole screed.

Fairplay's rules are DRM, well maintained and reasonably implemented.

Before flaming, I plead "truest", not "true": people pay for iTMS content, to the extent that they do, because if you have to crack Fairplay to do what you want to do with the music, you're behaving either criminally or idiotically (i.e. if you want to play it on something besides iTunes or an iPod, wtf did you buy at iTMS in the first place?) -- and thus iTMS rules... the DRMed market.

Here: let me fix his statement so it's actually "true", not just truthy:

Macrovision: Well maintained and reasonably implemented DRM will increase the electronic distribution of DRM'd content, not decrease it.

But of course that's not the message Daring Fireball is parodying, and not the message Amoroso wants to get across. In Amoroso's fantasy world, he gets paid everytime anybody hears or sees or says anything at all, so he's going to speak as if that's the real world. Being a bigshot, he can get lots of people dancing to that tune, and hurt small fry that refuse to. Aren't lies fun? And so profitable, too! Must be nice being low-level royalty.

Re:Great....

[poopdeville]

No, you're not. You're laying off more than 500 workers. Mathematicaly, the two statements are not the same.


Yeah yeah yeah. Mathematics isn't going to tell you how to interpret a natural language expression. The best mathematics can do is suggest natural formalizations of your interpretation and give you a framework within which to evaluate sentences.

Coming up with a formalization which satisfies the GP's interpretation is trivial. (Hint: Use strong induction).

Mathematics doesn't like it when it's applied as a thin veneer to cement arbitrary opinions.

Re:Great....

[Fordiman]

Actually, that statement doesn't apply.

If I say, 'I'm not going to lay off 500 workers' and I lay off 510 workers, then I've lied. I've layed of 500 workser, plus an additional 10. More of a logical AND than a ==.

Re:Great....

[ibbey]

Mathematics isn't going to tell you how to interpret a natural language expression.

Strong Induction goes over my head, but I do know that it's not really relevant to the discussion at hand. The GP's statement isn't a natural language expression, it's doublespeak. The entire point of the wording is to obfuscate the actual meaning. Doublespeak is not subject to the traditional rules of logic. Logically, morally, and in every other -relevant- sense, when you lay off 510 employees, you also layoff 500 employees. But in the world of doubletalk, such rules don't apply. If it's remotely true, then it's "true enough".

The statement is an absolute, bald-faced lie, it just happens to be a true absolute, bald-faced lie.

I like this blurb best

[i_should_be_working]

I believe that most piracy occurs because the technology available today has not yet been widely deployed to make DRM-protected legitimate content as easily accessible and convenient as unprotected illegitimate content is to consumers.

So, piracy will go away when DRM-protected legitimate content is available for free, from many sources, comes in many formats, can be copied without restrictions, and works on many devices. Brilliant! We are finally on the same page. Now get working on that.

Re:I like this blurb best

[evilviper]

DRM-protected legitimate content as easily accessible and convenient as unprotected illegitimate content is to consumers.

An online store can be much easier and more convenient than tracking down music on the current P2P networks. More than enough to make up for the inconvenience of having to enter credit card details, and paying a few cents per song (or per-month).

Re:I like this blurb best

[roscivs]

Now get working on that.

Exactly. That's pretty much the gist of what I wrote in response to Amoroso's letter:

With such an enjoyable and revolutionary experience within our grasp, we should not minimize the role that DRM can and should play in enabling the transition to electronic content distribution. Without reasonable, consistent and transparent DRM we will only delay the availability of premium content in the home. As an industry, we should not let that happen.

Reasonable, consistent, and transparent DRM is an impossible pipe dream. Telling content producers and content owners to wait to license their content until this pipe dream is available will only delay the availability of premium content in the home. We, as an industry, and as the people who support that industry, should not let that happen.

Re:I like this blurb best

[neongrau]

"comes in many formats"

i would say thats not even necessary.
imho most important is convertibility. so whenever a new format comes available you should be able to convert it to the new media yourself. not being forced to re buy or keep "antique" hardware players just to see a movie/song/album you bought these days again in say 10 or 20 years.

since this is the crap that the content industry wants to make us believe all the time we don't buy a physical product but the license to "consume the content".

if that would be true then we should be able use vinyl and cd's as a license to get the digital versions of the songs for free. and not such crappy codes inside for some bad-website to get weird proprietary drm'ed files that only plays on non-standard players that will just cease to exist someday anyway.

and how the hell are you supposed to lend and album to a friend who wants to listen to it? or bring an album to a party? like generations did before with vinyl and cd's ?

how should that be ever possible with various proprietary drm formats controlled by the industry?

Re:I like this blurb best

[arctan1701]

and how the hell are you supposed to lend and album to a friend who wants to listen to it? or bring an album to a party? like generations did before with vinyl and cd's ?

that's the point, the media companies don't want you to have these "privileges"

Re:I like this blurb best

[Scrameustache]

and how the hell are you supposed to lend and album to a friend who wants to listen to it? or bring an album to a party? like generations did before with vinyl and cd's ? They've been working hard to stop you from doing that for years. In the future, you'll have a chip in your head that will generate noise over any music who's RFID isn't recognized in your monthly listening-right bill.

... bring an album to a party? That's unauthorized public use man! That's, like, a crime! It's like stealing! no, not stealing... murder! No, rape and murder... of a kid, no, kids! With racial slurs making it a hate crime too!

Re:I like this blurb best

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent up -- I like your response better than the one cited in the article. Less glib, more substance.

Re:I like this blurb best

[Master of Transhuman]

As I've said here repeatedly, nobody pays or has ever paid for music.

They pay for ACCESS to music - whether that is going to a club and paying for access to a band, or buying a phonograph record when there were no cassette radio recorders, or buying CDs when there were no P2P systems or legal downloads.

That's exactly why Apple's iTunes took off. It's a hell of a lot easier than:

1) Install P2P software (assuming the user even has a clue about what it is and where to get it.)
2) Read ridiculously bad documentation on how to use it - assuming said documentation even exists.
3) Search for content.
4) Out of a thousand search results, find one that actually currently exists and can be accessed.
5) Get in queue behind 300 other people for the file.
6) Wait six days to become number 1 in queue.
7) Discover all sources of the file have shut off their machines or stopped providing the file. Bittorrent is notorious for this! Just try to find a seeder 24 hours after a file has been posted! It's over - you're late - you lose!
8) OR discover file is a virus-ridden phoney that hoses your machine. I've had two clients with this problem from Limewire - somebody via Limewire took over their machine, loaded it up with crap files full of trojans, and now their machine is moving like molasses because they're serving these files up to everyone else on the Limewire network.
8) Go back to step 1 or 3, depending on whether your machine still works.
9) Rinse and repeat with some other P2P system.

I've used them, don't get me wrong, but compared to legal downloads, they are a frikkin' nightmare designed by "frikkin idiots" (to use Dr. Evil's term).

It's no surprise that, according to most studies, P2P has little effect on CD sales, because the only people who would use those things are people who simply can't or wouldn't buy CDs anyway.

Re:I like this blurb best

[falconwolf]

"comes in many formats"

i would say thats not even necessary.
imho most important is convertibility. so whenever a new format comes available you should be able to convert it to the new media yourself. not being forced to re buy or keep "antique" hardware players just to see a movie/song/album you bought these days again in say 10 or 20 years.

A long tyme ago I did somethng like this. When I bought a new vinyl record, the first tyme I played it on my turntable I'd record it on my reel to reel tape deck, then I'd put the vinyl away for savekeeping and listen to the tape. If I had wanted to I could of recorded it later on a cassette tape so I 'd be able to take it with me. As for "antique" equipment I've noticed new turntables in stores lately, some with usb ports. I've been thinking of getting one however I haven't seen new vinyl records out. There are a few stores within walking distance that sells vinyl but I think they're all used.

Falcon

Re:I like this blurb best

[dlim]

Sub Pop Records sells vinyl directly. They've released albums by Nirvana, Soundgarden, L7, The Jesus and Mary Chain, The Shins, The Postal Service, and more artists. When you buy a record from them that was released in 2007 or later, you get free downloads of all the songs. So you don't even need the USB port.

Re:I like this blurb best

[wzzzzrd]

That's exactly why Apple's iTunes took off. It's a hell of a lot easier than:

1) Install P2P software (assuming the user even has a clue about what it is and where to get it.)
2) Read ridiculously bad documentation on how to use it - assuming said documentation even exists.
3) Search for content.
4) Out of a thousand search results, find one that actually currently exists and can be accessed.
5) Get in queue behind 300 other people for the file.
[...]

no, the reason why itunes took off is misinformation, such as yours, nothing more. it is god damn easy (and far more easier than dealing with itunes and credit cards) to download media, no matter wether you're a geek or a regular user. the correct list(adapted for windows users) would be:

1) download utorrent and install
2) visit torrentspy or isohunt
3) search what you want, in case of torrentspy, you may also browse.
4) click on a torrent with some seeds.
...
5) profit

and when downloading games it's even more convenient than to buy them, because the no-cd cracks are almost included, as are walkthroughs. just don't download earth 2160, this is a honeypot.

and in case you are completely clueless what this cool downloading-for-free stuff is all about, just visit wikipedia and teach yourself. begin with "p2p".

we're not in the old morpheus-please-wait-in-queue days anymore.

Re:I like this blurb best

[shutdown -p now]

The problem is that there are places - like allofmp3.com - which offer everything iTunes does, at 1/20th of the price.

Re:I like this blurb best

[Fred Ferrigno]

No, it's not quite as convenient as iTunes, but it's not so hard once you figure it out. Plus when you're done, the music is in a format that makes actually playing the song much more convenient. A DRM'd song is a pain in the butt for as long as you have it, which might not be too long if Apple decides to stop supporting it. MP3s are pretty much guaranteed to be compatible with every device far into the future.

I've purchased music from AllOfMp3 before which was pretty painless. The only major problem was jumping through the hoops to buy a cash card because the record companies have deliberately made it as hard as possible. Even the cash card doesn't work anymore. I honestly wouldn't care if they raised the prices to iTunes' level to pay off the record companies, so long as I could get high quality MP3s. On the other hand, if Jobs is really serious about getting rid of DRM, then I probably wouldn't bother with AllOfMp3.

Re:I like this blurb best

[Watts Martin]

No, iTunes took off because the iPod has something around 70% of the digital music player market and you need iTunes to put music on your iPod. (And I've met more than a few Windows users who still prefer iTunes even without an iPod, because they like the way it manages their library -- and they may just like having access to the iTunes Store. On the Mac, of course, iTunes comes pre-installed.) When the software you're already using to manage your digital music library also happens to have a fully integrated media store that lets you search, browse and download in a manner that's fairly hard to improve on, for people who don't mind paying $10 for "DRM encumbered" media, it's going to be easier to use.

In the consumer tech world, convenience frequently trumps quality; if it didn't, we'd all be listening to CDs and clamoring for SACD and DVD-A releases. Likewise, convenience at a reasonable price can trump less convenient free. You may think it's silly to claim that it's "less convenient" to have to load a different program, do a P2P search, download that file, and do whatever's necessary to bring it into the format iTunes (or whatever equivalent one uses) to play it, but many people would disagree with you. (And if it's a video file, that last step may not be as simple just dragging it to your media player library, particularly if your end goal is to get the video on a portable device.)

N.B.: I've seen uTorrent (and used a very similar Mac client, BitRocket); I'm sorry, the browsing/searching interface on it isn't as good as iTunes. Given that the original discussion was about music, though, in my experience you're frequently better off searching Gnutella-style networks anyway if you're looking for individual songs.

Re:I like this blurb best

[Master of Transhuman]

Your example fails when it hits "click on a torrent with some seeds".

Most of the torrent search results WILL show seeds. Only when you try to actually GET one is when you see the seeds are actually zero.

I've DONE Bittorrent stuff, my friend. Nine out of ten times I can't get the file I want. And that's even when the torrent was allegedly active as little as 24 hours ago or even "currently active".

Not to mention that you can then wait for HOURS or DAYS to get the entire file - that's if the last little part is actually available. I've NEVER understood that stupid problem. If you can get parts of the file from most of the seeders, how is it that the download holds up on the last part? Doesn't everybody HAVE the last part if they have the complete file at all? Yet I've constantly had a large file come down 99% - and hang on the last 1%!

It's ridiculous.

That's a fact.

Google language tools.

[Devv]

I just realized another language that would be a great addition to Google Language Tools.

Re:Google language tools.

[hazelwoodfarm]

Yes, yes, yes..you are so right. It would be awesome to have a langage tool which would say what someone really meant!

Re:Google language tools.

[Master of Transhuman]

Just use a Bork translator - the result makes about the same sense as any corporate speak.

Remember when Opera make a special edition of the browser that translated the Microsoft MSN pages into Bork-speak?

That was so brilliant.

Re:Fairly amusing but not overly informative

[drdanny_orig]

Well, duh! (And I mean that in the nicest possible way.) I think that was the entire point. Macromedia's letter was a fairly entertaining, but ultimately content-free rebuke of Job's equally self-serving pronouncement.

Dream the impossible dream

[Linker3000]

If I could implant all my media devices with a unique-to-me identifier and then transfer any content I have paid for *from any source* to any of my devices then I'd be happy with such DRM. Trouble is, this implies all companies with a vested interest in DRM cooperating and the system actually working.

Until that time, I am forced to live in a world where I can listen to an MP3 file at home on 'Player A'. I can also take and use 'Player A' in my car, round a friend's house (and let them listen!), whilst shopping, on the train, plane etc., but heaven forbid I should try and copy or move my MP3 file from 'Player A' to my in-car 'Player B' which is designed to be operated whilst driving, unlike player A which is about as big as a small box of matches and is bloody dangerous to fiddle with whilst on the move.

Re:Dream the impossible dream

[SanityInAnarchy]

If I could implant all my media devices with a unique-to-me identifier and then transfer any content I have paid for *from any source* to any of my devices then I'd be happy with such DRM.

So would I.

Trouble is, one of those devices is my Linux desktop, and I currently play all my media with mplayer and other similar programs. I would accept DRM that these could handle, as long as you realize that this automatically means that I can decrypt it out of the DRM anyway.

And no, no proprietary forks of mplayer. I can and do play with the source code on all parts of my system. I can do things that the content providers may not have thought of, but if we're using DRM everywhere, pretty much by definition, I can only do things that content providers have thought of. As a simple example, when ripping a DVD, I can either leave it as a DVD image (and play it off my hard drive as if I had the physical DVD there), or save some space by re-encoding to h.264 in an MKV, and using optical character recognition to convert subtitles. With all subtitles in a text format, aside from simply being able to use whatever font I want and put them wherever on my screen is convenient, I can then do a full-text search of DVDs!

Re:Dream the impossible dream

[binarybum]

heaven forbid I should try and copy or move my MP3 file from 'Player A' to my in-car 'Player B' which is designed to be operated whilst driving, unlike player A which is about as big as a small box of matches and is bloody dangerous to fiddle with whilst on the move.

  indeed, but not as dangerous as stealing from the record industry and macrovision at the same time by not using DRM'd media. Sure you might end up in a horrific MV accident, but there's your soul to think about to, have you thought about your soul?

Re:Dream the impossible dream

[melikamp]

What you are describing is a storage and distribution scheme, and a very robust one, too. So robust, in fact, that it would still work in the world without any kind of copyright protection. People would pay a small fee for convenience, even though what they get might be available for free elsewhere.

If implemented as described, your scheme would not require any DRM. Say, you get in your car and you stream a single onto your car player. What possible purpose would DRM serve here? If you needed to get this single on your work computer, would it not be easier for you to use the same service again? It's a flat fee service!

And then, what can be gained by setting the content to expire? If a customer wanted to play the system and get a lot of content for himself at a minimal price, he would just pirate it. You are selling something he cannot get for free: the convenience of instant availability, on any networked device, anywhere in the world.

Next time you are on the can, dude, just think about this: what does DRM do besides increasing the cost of copying and keeping publishers in business? The correct answer is provided below.

(gnihtoN)

Re:Dream the impossible dream

[TheSkyIsPurple]

Sounds close... but I still have two problems up front.

1. What if I want to lend something to a friend/spouse? With Records/Tapes/CDs I can do so easily.

2. What if I want to resell it? I enjoyed it for awhile... let me recoup some of my cost and sell it to someone else if they want it

Re:Dream the impossible dream

[Linker3000]

1) How about an ID exchange - you copy the file to a friend and their ID takes it over and yours stops being able to play it - or you just load it onto a cheap MP3 player owned by you (with your ID) and lend it - just as you lent someone a tape enclosed in a plastic carrying 'cassette'.

2) You release your ID from the file by assigning it to the new owner - or the files just don't have any resale value 'cos they only cost you a few pennies.

Re:Dream the impossible dream

[Fred Ferrigno]

3.) What if I want to do something no one's ever thought to do before?

You can conceivably develop a DRM system that will enable most of the features of a DRM-free format, but never all of them. If you're tied to a DRM format, you can only do the things that have been previously allowed. On top of that, certain uses that aren't allowed in some contexts are completely legal in others, but the DRM system has to disable them all because it has no way to tell the difference.

Jobs in plain English

[solevita]

Of course, you could also argue that Steve Jobs' letter said little in plain English apart from "Hey Europe, don't get upset with me, the content producers make me do it". Norway saw through it and actually replied in plain English (Norwegian?) when they said "Jobs, stop making excuses, you're still breaking the law by selling your lock-in products in Norway".

Re:Jobs in plain English

[ivan256]

Apparently you didn't see through the Norwegian response though. Let me translate for you:

"It's quite clear that the record companies carry their share of the responsibility for the situation that the consumers are stuck in. However, no matter what agreements iTunes Music Store have entered into, they're still the company that's selling music to the consumers and are responsible for offering the consumer a fair deal according to Norwegian law."

Apple is making it difficult for other companies to offer DRM infected media to Norwegian citizens. This is unfair, as all companies doing business in Norway should be allowed to screw our citizens equally.

Re:Jobs in plain English

[solevita]

Great post - thanks for explaining it to me.

Silly me though; when I read it I thought that the Norwegian Consumer Ombudsman was acting to protect the consumer, I forgot that it was the big multinational money printers that need a government's protection.

Re:Jobs in plain English

[argStyopa]

I dunno. Maybe it is just an American vs European viewpoint thing, but I'd say someone who managed to understand the marketplace so well that they build a product that comes to dominate that market, and offer services that support only that device - well, that's a successful business person.

Yes, if Apple went to music distributors and said something like "distribute your songs exclusively over ipods or we'll ban you" that would be unreasonably using market dominance. But to claim that there's some unreasonable market behavior just because you make your products and services work with each other to the exclusion of others? That's just goofy.

Re:Jobs in plain English

[ScrewMaster]

That's just goofy.

No, that's reality distortion, something which is intrinsic to Jobs' personality.

Re:Jobs in plain English

[calstraycat]

Of course, you could also argue that Steve Jobs' letter [theregister.co.uk] said little in plain English apart from "Hey Europe, don't get upset with me, the content producers make me do it". Norway saw through it ...

Over the past couple of weeks, I've seen this assertion made many times and I still don't get the logic. The implication is that Apple secretly wants to continue using DRM and is wrongly pointing the finger at the record companies to deflect blame. But the facts don't support that point of view. When he says the that the recording industry is to blame for the situation, he is, in fact, telling the truth and justifiably pointed the finger in that direction.

I understand that people who subscribe to the view that Jobs's statement was a cynical ploy believe that Apple secretly wants to keep DRM alive to "lock in" customers, but the evidence simply doesn't support that viewpoint. Ninety-seven percent of the music on iPods is DRM-free. Customers are not locked in. The lock-in argument is bogus. Furthermore, DRM is a pain in the butt for online music retailers and consumer electronics manufacturers. It is of no benefit to them. It increases the complexity of product development, increases support costs and makes for a poorer customer experience.

So, please explain to me why Apple would want to continue utilizing DRM when it of no benefit to them. Also, I'd be interested in what your response would have been had Apple announced that they would license Fairplay to third parties rather than calling for the end of DRM. Would you have preferred that? I just don't get it. A good portion of the ubiquitously anti-DRM Slashdot crowd seems to be implying that it would be better if Apple proliferated their proprietary DRM than call for the end of DRM. Is that what you want? Would you rather Apple appease Norway's regulators and further entrench DRM than getting rid of it completely?

Re:Jobs in plain English

[Poltras]

Good kings are slaves, and their people are free. As long as I'm going to see a government with more freedom than me in their pockets, I'm not going to believe what they say, as they are themselves proof that they don't protect the citizens, but merely the interests of a minority (which they include themselves in).

Re:Jobs in plain English

[maxume]

If Apple withdraws from Norway, is the consumer being protected?

Re:Jobs in plain English

[HiThere]

There are reasonable arguments for why Apple might not want DRM...

Unfortunately, I always remember the Apple ][ file formats...with a Basic that couldn't easily be saved as text. There were good arguments for the strange disk format. You got more storage on each floppy. But to not be ABLE to save to an ASCII file on a standard format... well, I'm a bit dubious when Apple says it doesn't want DRM.

OTOH, it's also true that the DRM contract WAS forced on them by the media. And that Apple fought to simplify things.

So, well, to me it's a toss-up. The evidence is equivocal. Certainly the studios fought to insist in their contract that their music be DRMed. That doesn't really prove that Apple didn't want SOME level of DRM.

Re:Jobs in plain English

[gnasher719]

'' Ninety-seven percent of the music on iPods is DRM-free. Customers are not locked in. The lock-in argument is bogus. ''

Actually there is a different lock-in, and I would really like to know how strong it is.

iTunes (the jukebox software) can encode your CDs to AAC, which (a) has much better sound quality at the same bitrate compared to MP3, and (b) plays on the iTunes. My CDs are all encoded in AAC for reason (a), which "forced" me to buy an iPod. ("Forced" is a bit strong, because (1) I liked the iPod that I bought, (2) I caused the situation myself and (3) every other manufacturer could have got a license for AAC. )

For me, buying a player that doesn't play AAC would be a major pain, and I don't want a Zune. I looked a long time for a CD player that could play AAC (plenty of them can play MP3), but I couldn't find one. I'd like to know what percentage of buyers are in the same situation with huge amounts of AAC files.

Re:Jobs in plain English

[calstraycat]

I use iTunes as well. Although it is set up to encode using ACC by default, it will also encode to MP3. So, I changed the encoding format to MP3 on day one so that my music files would be in a format supported by all players. While the ACC encoder is superior in that you can create high quality files of smaller size, you can get equal quality MP3s by choosing a higher bit rate. Disk space is cheap, so file size isn't much of an issue. I encode MP3 at 192 kbps and sometimes 256 kbps. That's good enough quality for me and the file sizes are still reasonable.

Re:Jobs in plain English

[GregGardner]

Perhaps some people do think that Jobs is lying and really wants some level of DRM to lock in consumers. But I think what other people refer to by "seeing through his argument" is that his argument, while well-stated, sound, and arguably correct, is very self-serving. He's shifting the blame from himself and his company to the record companies instead. And some people might argue that this is a totally reasonable thing to do, but others, like Norway, seem to disagree. Their response is, "I don't care if the big bad record company men forced you into using DRM, it's still illegal here."

I was *this* close to falling into the classic Slashdot comment trap by using an analogy to illustrate the Norwegian response that involved Nazis, but then I thought better of it. And I'm not clever enough to think of another apt analogy that doens't invole Hitler in some way, so I'll just hope that I got my point across without it.

Re:Jobs in plain English

[calstraycat]

Of course his stance is self-serving, or more accurately, it's in the best interest of Apple's shareholders. If it wasn't, then he would be fired because CEOs are paid to do things in the best interests of the shareholders. The record company's retorts to Jobs's stance are equally self-serving. Surprise, surprise. The self-serving nature of the remarks from both sides does not change the facts. The blame lies with the record companies, so it is appropriate to point the finger in that direction regardless of whether some Norwegian official is willing to accept the facts or not.

Re:Jobs in plain English

[dr.badass]

For me, buying a player that doesn't play AAC would be a major pain, and I don't want a Zune.

The situation is that there aren't any good AAC players other than the iPod. I don't think that situation would change if other manufacturers started supporting AAC -- Zune represents the best the market has to offer, and you're able to dismiss it in a single clause, and for good reason. Basically, if it comes down to one product being superior to all the others, I don't think that counts as lock-in.

Re:Jobs in plain English

[dr.badass]

Unfortunately, I always remember the Apple ][ file formats...with a Basic that couldn't easily be saved as text. There were good arguments for the strange disk format. You got more storage on each floppy. But to not be ABLE to save to an ASCII file on a standard format... well, I'm a bit dubious when Apple says it doesn't want DRM.

If those disk formats were intended lock consumers onto the Apple ][ and protect market dominance, it seems they failed. No, I think it probably had more to do with the fact that Woz designed it. Also consider that 5" disks were only a few years old at the time, and never stopped being a fustercluck of variations in layouts. It may sound analogous, but I don't think there's any connection.

Re:Jobs in plain English

[falconwolf]

He's shifting the blame from himself and his company to the record companies instead. And some people might argue that this is a totally reasonable thing to do, but others, like Norway, seem to disagree. Their response is, "I don't care if the big bad record company men forced you into using DRM, it's still illegal here."

If the RIAA wants, demands, Jobs continue using drm and the Netherlands, er morway keep demanding Jobs don't use drm then the only thing he can do is pull out of that market. If he stays in the market no matter what he does he will be breaking a law, either Norway's or IP laws and the contracts iTunes has with the RIAA.

Falcon

Re:Jobs in plain English

[drerwk]

Unfortunately, I always remember the Apple ][ file formats...with a Basic that couldn't easily be saved as text.

It's been awhile, but my recollection is that saving as .txt worked. And http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_DOS seems to offer concurrence.

Apple DOS File Formats: * I: Integer BASIC programs (stored in a compact format, not plain-text). * A: AppleSoft BASIC programs (also stored in a packed, space-saving format). * B: Binary files, either executable machine-language programs, or data files. * T: ASCII text files (or plain-text, unpacked basic programs).

I also seem to think you could list a program, or indeed any output to disk. "LIST PR#6" or some such. But it has been quite awhile.

Re:Jobs in plain English

[MidnightBrewer]

He's not breaking the law in any country except Norway. Funny how that whole international business world works, huh? I'm not too savvy about Norwegian politics, except for the vague impression that the Scandinavian countries are usually a lot more intelligent in general when it comes to making rational political decisions, butI have to wonder if this law was influenced in any way by other multinational corporations interested in giving Apple a hard time. Surely bribery and corruption isn't limited to the good ol' U. S. of A?

Re:Jobs in plain English

[Tokerat]

Disk space is cheap, so file size isn't much of an issue. I encode MP3 at 192 kbps and sometimes 256 kbps. That's good enough quality for me and the file sizes are still reasonable.

While I wholeheartedly agree with your points, I have to think to myself: Exactly what pair of consumer headphones/earbuds does someone own that allow you to even distinguish 128kbps MP3 from 256kbps MP3? If it's on your iPod, it seems to me that it's for on-the-go listening. Does anyone really wear $200 headphones with a nice full response range? I bet those are the same fools who complain their battery life is shit.

Grandparent poster seems to want his cake without a fork to eat it, and that will be messy no matter how careful you are.

Yes, exceptions to this are iPod docks, car stereos, etc. but for simple, casual listening, is it REALLY that awful? I vote no. I've heard MP3 sound great at 64kbps, and iTunes encoded it. If you need the quality from iTunes for some big stereo because you're an audiophile or whatever, then why don't you just buy a 30GB iPod with all your money and encode at 320kbps MP3?

...just like buying a tank of diesel fuel and then complaining you needed to buy a diesel car to use it.

Re:Jobs in plain English

[endemoniada]

My $60 in-ear headphones are quite sufficient to distinguish between 128kbps and 256kbps MP3. That's precisely why I've been using OGG for years now :)

But seriously, with a decent enough player and headphones like mine (Sennheiser CX-300, if you must know), you do hear a difference. Maybe not everyone, but my hearing is still near perfect and I have no problem hearing the difference between MP3 and OGG (especially in the lower frequencies, where MP3 really sucks).

64kbps MP3 sounded great? Were you on drugs, or did you just have 10 jackhammers running all around you while listening? 64kbps MP3 never sounds great, no matter what player or headphones you're using.

I, too, started re-ripping my CDs to AAC in iTunes. I did it because I'm planning on getting an iPod pretty soon anyway, and since I had previously encoded my music library in OGG, I would have had to re-rip them anyway. Also, AAC is supposedly on par, and in some cases even better, with the OGG format. Again, especially in the lower frequencies. And I'm actually thinking of buying the 80GB version, so that I can either continue to acquire music without ever having to worry about running out of disk space, or re-encode my music to a higher bitrate should I ever buy even better headphones (maybe one of those $200 ones you seem to be so fond of) that are capable of reproducing it fully.

So, no need to exaggerate. There IS a difference, even if you don't have the ears to hear it.

Re:Jobs in plain English

[iainl]

If you're buying the 80Gb one so you've got tonnes of space for high-bitrate media, you might as well go the whole hog and use Apple Lossless, I suppose.

Personally, I've done everything at 128kbs AAC, because I use the headphones they throw in with the machines now. They're much better than the ones they had a couple of years ago, if that's what you've heard before. Probably still worse than your CX-300s, but better than the Sennheiser MX-250s that I replaced the ones from my Mini with.

Re:Jobs in plain English

[Aceticon]

I dunno. Maybe it is just an American vs European viewpoint thing, but I'd say someone who managed to understand the marketplace so well that they build a product that comes to dominate that market, and offer services that support only that device - well, that's a successful business person.

Yes, if Apple went to music distributors and said something like "distribute your songs exclusively over ipods or we'll ban you" that would be unreasonably using market dominance. But to claim that there's some unreasonable market behavior just because you make your products and services work with each other to the exclusion of others? That's just goofy.

First let me point out that the current strategical direction being taken by the majority of big hardware companies (for example, IBM and Cisco) is more services and less pushing iron around. This is because margins are beter in services than hardware.

In addition to it, notice that the portable music player market has low barriers to entry (meaning just about anybody can create an sell a new player) and is currently under attack from other markets (eg mobile phones that play MP3s).

Another point is that the more devices people have that can play digital music the more they value interoperability - in other words, most people get seriously pissed-off when they find out that the music they bought in iTunes for their iPod will not play in their brand new car stereo.

Also, as the top dog in the portable music player, Apple has only one way to go in that market - down.

The last detail in this picture is that, since iTunes sells music in a format which only works in the iPod, the success of iTunes has an upper boundary which is the success of the iPod - in other words, iTunes can only sell music to iPod owners and the amount of music it sells is limited by the installed base of iPods. If iPods become less successful (for example, by loosing market) then iTunes is bound to become less successful.

In that sense, Steve Jobs might very well be betting that the success of Apple in the portable music market is not in the hardware side, but in the services (eg selling music) side. At the very least, now that market for digital music is big enough, he would like to decouple the iTunes business from the iPod business. The only way to achieve that is if iTunes can sell music that works in any portable music player - and thus the need to use the (by far) most widelly supported format: MP3 (which happens to be DRM-less).

So i do agree in the superior business accumen of Steve Jobs (even though i'm an european ;)). I do, however i think your argument for that is actually shortsighted. I believe he's playing a much longer term game here than "the iPod is master (now) let's see how much extra we can squeeze out of iTunes" - i think he's proactivelly aiming at the long term (read 5+ years) success of Apple in the portable music market, and not simply trying to exploit the current (and already under attack) dominance of the iPod.

Re:Jobs in plain English

[MojoStan]

Ninety-seven percent of the music on iPods is DRM-free. Customers are not locked in. I'm not arguing about the spirit of your comment, but do you still actually believe Jobs's "97 percent" estimate? This misleading statistic has been picked apart on Slashdot and other articles. Jobs got that number by making some questionable assumptions and leaving out some very important variables. From's Steve's DRM letter:

Through the end of 2006, customers purchased a total of 90 million iPods and 2 billion songs from the iTunes store. On average, that's 22 songs purchased from the iTunes store for each iPod ever sold. Note he says 22 songs for each iPod ever sold. How many of every iPod ever sold are currently in use? How many of every FairPlay song ever sold are currently loaded onto an iPod?

Today's most popular iPod holds 1000 songs, and research tells us that the average iPod is nearly full. That seems high to me, but I'll just assume that's a reasonable estimate.

This means that only 22 out of 1000 songs, or under 3% of the music on the average iPod, is purchased from the iTunes store and protected with a DRM. The remaining 97% of the music is unprotected and playable on any player that can play the open formats. WTF? "The average iPod" is misleading because (1) not every iPod ever sold is currently in use and (2) some individuals are using their FairPlay songs on multiple iPods. An individual who has owned 3 iPods doesn't split all his/her FairPlay songs among all three iPods, including the dead iPods.

Don't you think "total iTunes store customers" and "average songs sold per customer" (which Apple refuses to disclose) would be much more relevant? How about "number of customers who have spent more than $100 at the iTunes store?"

It's hard to believe that just 3% of the music on the average iPod is enough to lock users into buying only iPods in the future. And since 97% of the music on the average iPod was not purchased from the iTunes store, iPod users are clearly not locked into the iTunes store to acquire their music. It's hard to believe people fall for this misleading statistic.

Re:Jobs in plain English

[Ian Alanai]

My contention is that Jobs + Apple sell hardware. All their other products exist to drive that core business. Any additional profit deriving from the other products is just cream.

Is the MacOS sold separately? No. Why? Because Apple wants you to buy their hardware (Macs). Note, Apple goes to great lengths to ensure their OS runs only on their hardware but does not make any serious attempt to prevent users from installing (illegal) copies of their latest OS on old, or additional, or friends' Apple hardware. Further note, Microsoft does exactly the opposite.

Does Apple charge for iTunes? No. Why? Because Apple wants you to buy their hardware (iPods). Note, Apple does exactly nothing to stop you taking music from any source other than the iTunes Store (iTS) and sticking it into iTunes and your iPod. They don't even stop you using 3rd party music applications to fill your iPod.

The DRM issue is less clear to me. Does Apple DRM tracks from iTS? Yes. Why? Looking from a hardware perspective the 'Apple Only' DRM does lock people into Apple hardware which is a "Good Thing" for Apple.

However there is an alternative to that PoV. DRM as a whole is making online music purchasing highly unattractive and *reducing* the overall market for music consumption, and potential iPod purchasing. In Jobs' ideal universe everyone would buy all their media from iTS with DRM. Thereby giving Apple total media player domination. But even Jobs' is not megalomaniacal enough to realistically entertain that scenario, so he has to choose between a lock-in on a small market segment versus growing the entire market hugely and taking his slice. Given Apple's past success at dominating the music/media player market my guess is he'd prefer to expand the market.

I believe that Apple is of the opinion that removing DRM from digital media would boost their core business. Note, the next range of hardware that Apple want to sell is the complete integrated home entertainment package. They want *everyone* to buy it and they'd probably like to avoid any unnecessary complications.

All that said, I am not claiming Apple doesn't make money, even quite a lot of money, from its software and iTS operations. I'm just saying that it is not their "bread and butter" business, it is not central to their business model.

Re:Jobs in plain English

[calstraycat]

However there is an alternative to that PoV. DRM as a whole is making online music purchasing highly unattractive and *reducing* the overall market for music consumption, and potential iPod purchasing. In Jobs' ideal universe everyone would buy all their media from iTS with DRM. Thereby giving Apple total media player domination. But even Jobs' is not megalomaniacal enough to realistically entertain that scenario, so he has to choose between a lock-in on a small market segment versus growing the entire market hugely and taking his slice. Given Apple's past success at dominating the music/media player market my guess is he'd prefer to expand the market.

Well said. This is precisely the point I was trying to make, but you've done a better job of describing it. Those looking for hidden agendas in Job's words wasting their time. A CEO's job is to increase revenue and profit to increase shareholder value. Jobs realizes given that most iPods and iTunes libraries are full of unencumbered music, "lock-in" is not possible and therefore a poor business strategy. Unencumbered music will increase revenues and shareholder value. It's really that simple.

Re:The Memo

[daeg]

Regardless of your position on DRM, you should hate Macrovision. They are as destructive to the entertainment industry as lobbyists are to the federal government.

Re:Daring Fireball? WTF?

[soft_guy]

I'd rather not visit a website that calls itself "daring" anything little known "daring fireball" Apparently though you had no problem visiting a Slashdot article about an article on daring fireball to offer this gem of an insight.

Re:And I find it kind of funny, I find it kind of

[JrOldPhart]

Just like a radio or television if you don't like the content go somewhere else.

I have a translation process constantly running.

[pecosdave]

I see these translations all the time, the process is always running in my head. I can't listen to a commercial on the radio, see one on T.V. or let just about any marketer get past me. This sort of thing is marketing. I can instantly tell if something in the mail box is junk mail, even with the modern attempt at moving away from slick flamboyant envelopes to fonts that look hand written on plain envelopes. I usually open those anyways just to be sure, but my instincts on this matter haven't failed me in years. I think the constant bombardment of information that has a sole purpose of deceiving me or molding me desires has evolved a "flinch" circuit in my brain.

On that note, I still admire ads with half naked women and will allow ads that are well done, non insulting, or just plain funny to work. We need more trunk monkeys, more Budweiser type commercials and less see how many times we can repeat a single line or phone number in a 30 second stretch, injection of "phantom noises", and voice tone persuasion/intelligence questioning.

As for corporate letters this translates into using plain speech. If corporate zombies could drop the use of buzz words (especially the word "solution"), intelligence questioning phrases and tones (thus increasing consumer choice and driving commonality across devices).

Bah, I'm on my kick again

why is this tagged as humo[u]r?

[JustNiz]

I don't understand why this is tagged as humour.
It seems like a truly accurate translation from business-doublespeak into plain English, and as such is insightful and scary, not humorous.

Steve Jobs

[nanoakron]

Can someone make sure Jobs reads this reply.

At least he'd have a laugh. Maybe it would spur him on to fight even harder.

Re:Steve Jobs

[SolitaryMan]

Maybe it would spur him on to fight even harder.

The thing I'd expect the least is Steve Jobs (whose company makes the most DRM-fucked up mp3 player in the world) fighting against DRM. Talk is cheap and I will not believe a word, unless I see the results.

Re:Steve Jobs

[jc42]

I'd bet that Steve Jobs is right now wishing that people would just stop sending him copies of TFA. I mean, he probably really laughed the first time he read it, but by the 25th time ...

Re:Steve Jobs

[Marcos Eliziario]

I've never bought a single song from iTunes. And my pod happily plays all MP3s I feed into it (DISCLAIMER: ALL of my MP3s came from ripping CDs that I have legally purchased). If it weren't for the battery issues, I would even use Rockbox all the time, and then I could even play ogg files on it. So, I fail to see how the iPod can be classified as a DRM-fucked up player.

Re:Steve Jobs

[mr100percent]

" Steve Jobs (whose company makes the most DRM-fucked up mp3 player in the world"

No my friend, that may be the Zune. It won't play Microsoft's previous DRMed "plays for sure" tracks, and adds DRM to any audio file you "squirt," even CC content.

Re:the text

[jc42]

The translation by itself isn't nearly as entertaining as reading both.

This is why it's always a good idea to present the original texts alongside a translation. Sure, as in this example, most people won't be able to read and understand the original. But some will, and (again as in this example) those people can help verify that the translation is accurate.

Just think of all of history's warfare that could have been prevented if if were a legal requirement that translations always be presented side-by-side with the original. Holy books would always include the original, so the mistranslations would be visible to those with a bit of knowledge. Politicians wouldn't get away with "straw-man" distortions of their enemies' statements, because the distorted version would be accompanied by the original.

But I guess we know why such an idea couldn't possibly be accepted, especially not by our religious or political leaders. Probably not by our corporate leaders, either.

Almost, but not quite

[DingerX]

Cute little "translation", and it almost gets it.
 
"Black is White" is certainly the case of "DRM increases consumer value". But the point to:
 

Similarly, consumers who want to consume content on only a single device can pay less than those who want to use it across all of their entertainment areas.

Isn't simply: "Abandoning DRM will prevent us from forcing our customers to keep paying us over and over again for the same movies and songs they've already paid for."
  It's more pernicious than that. It reveals the fundamental difference in philosophy: we don't buy things anymore, we "consume content", and they "own content". Ownership is a social convention: in theory, we more or less agree what constitutes "property". Now they are trying to change the rules, claiming they own all the things we use, and we pay them whatever they deem fit. So we become intellectual sharecroppers: we own nothing and owe everything.
 
The beauty of the letter, however, really lies in how it reveals that the DRM proponents' own ridiculous notions of intellectual property prevent them from having their "DRM-laden paradise". For DRM to truly work, it has to be transparent to the user, interoperable, and add value, not remove it. And, wait! Today's technology can do that! But hold on: that technology is itself "High-value content", and as such needs protection through trade secrets, patents, and proprietary deals, and the resulting product is subject to the same market forces as the content it is supposed to protect. Dammit! The same logic we use to defend DRM shows us that DRM cannot work!

Re:Almost, but not quite

[TheMeuge]

Mod parent up, definitely.

You're absolutely right, especially in your analysis of the emerging DRM-centered philosophy of ownership. This is just a further continuation of the philosophy of leasing housing, transportation, and now - images, sounds, and ideas. In the end, all this means is that we will find ourselves yet again in a society where a microscopic fraction of the population owns everything, and by withdrawing the permission to use their "property" can effectively crush anyone they please. Considering that US was built on the concept of protecting the citizens against just that, it is ironic that we're leading the way in demolishing the very concepts that we fought so hard to sustain (granted, with a huge measure of hypocrisy, but nonetheless...).

And I hope you won't mind if I infringe on your intellectual property a little, and use the phrase "intellectual sharecropping". It's a very eloquent way of putting it.

Re:Almost, but not quite

[Nitewing98]

DingerX wrote, "But hold on: that technology is itself "High-value content", and as such needs protection through trade secrets, patents, and proprietary deals, and the resulting product is subject to the same market forces as the content it is supposed to protect. Dammit! The same logic we use to defend DRM shows us that DRM cannot work!" Beautiful! A recursive argument that shows that DRM is a logical fallacy that will never lead anywhere. Because to protect the content, we have to protect the DRM mechanism which means we have to protect the software that uses it which means we have to protect the OS that runs the software which means we have to protect the source code which means we have protect against our employees....etc.

Obviously DRM proponents never learned "This is the House that Jack Built" or "There was an Old Lady that Swallowed a Spider" when they were kids.

Re:Almost, but not quite

[roscivs]

It's more pernicious than that. It reveals the fundamental difference in philosophy: we don't buy things anymore, we "consume content", and they "own content". Ownership is a social convention: in theory, we more or less agree what constitutes "property". Now they are trying to change the rules, claiming they own all the things we use, and we pay them whatever they deem fit. So we become intellectual sharecroppers: we own nothing and owe everything.

Exactly. Copyright law (and common sense) already dictates that once a person has purchased a copy of a song, or a movie, or a book, they are free to "format-shift" and use that same copy "across all entertainment areas". They legally don't have to purchase it multiple times. So the "one size fits all" situation is mandated by law, and will decrease costs for most people. (read more)

Pretending like DRM increases customer value is just plain delusional.

Re:Almost, but not quite

[noidentity]

That quote really makes it clear that what they really want is to be paid every time you listen to the song, and the "pay more to have it on all your devices" is just an approximation. It's sort of like those zero-point energy people (cranks?), only it actually does give limitless replays of the same song, and the MAFIAA wants to be paid for every listen as if they are gods who created a universe where such a thing is possible. "We are the source of unlimited information!" Those old cassettes and CDs, those are the work of the devil, since they give the buyer way too much control over the content, allowing them to listen to it however many times they want without any negative consequences. With digital, that centuries-old loophole might be closed once and for all. </rant>

Re:Almost, but not quite

[complete loony]

Similarly, consumers who want to consume content on only a single device can pay less than those who want to use it across all of their entertainment areas. My translation:
We want you to pay more than you are now to exercise your fair use rights. But if you want to waive those rights and only consume content on one device we'll give you a discount.

Re:Almost, but not quite

[endemoniada]

Similarly, consumers who want to consume content on only a single device can pay less than those who want to use it across all of their entertainment areas.

Another thing that struck me is that even though they claim that "one device usage" would be cheaper with DRM, have we yet to have seen any proof of this? No!

Content that is usable on a single device, or is heavily restricted in usage, costs the same or more as older, DRM-free, content that is playable anywhere. Why isn't it cheaper? Why do I have to put up with MORE restrictions while prices continue to RISE? This is the exact opposite of what he's saying would be true.

This, of course, completely ignores the fact that most people, in most countries, have a legal right to use their legally acquired content anywhere, and in any way, they want to! All DRM tries to do is remove this right of mine, and try to make me forget that by offering "premium content" and what not. It makes me sick.

Try selling an apple, and then telling the customer they can't eat it on the bus, in their car, at anyone elses house or in any other country. Then tell them that for double the price of the first apple, they can buy a second apple that they get to eat anywhere at all! Of course, they're not allowed to return the first apple, since they had to eat it in order to be able to read the EULA stuck inside the pips, and if the ate it on the bus... Well then, they're already guilty of brekaing the license agreement.

(yes, I know what people think about analogies, but you get the point, right?)

Re:Almost, but not quite

[DingerX]

Bah, i googled it and found out that Courtney Love claims prior art, using it to describe the record industry in a 2000 Salon article. A more accurate use of the term, and somehow related, no doubt.

Re:Almost, but not quite

[Perey]

Absolutely right. That one line is the most telling part of the whole letter.

Similarly, consumers who want to consume content on only a single device can pay less than those who want to use it across all of their entertainment areas.

Meaning: We can set our prices so that they pay less.

Meaning: We can set our prices so that the other consumers pay more.

Meaning: We think we have the right to charge for the ability to play media on more than one device. (But we need DRM to do that.)

It would have been better translated, "Consumers who want to use media on more than one device can be forced to pay more -- if we have DRM!"

Companies are coming to believe they have that right. The logic goes like this. "We've got the copyrights to this work. Copyright says we're the only ones permitted to commercially exploit the work. Only we are allowed to make money off the commercial distribution of the work. [LOGIC GAP] We have the right to make money off the commercial distribution of the work. We can take measures to stop people who damage our ability to make money off commercially distributing the work. [LOGIC GAP] We can take measures to stop people who reduce any possible means by which we could make money off the work."

And then there's this. "There are things that some people like to do with this work. They find value in this. If they needed someone's help to do this, that person could charge money. [REFER PREVIOUS LOGIC] Only we can make money off this work. So we could charge them money for this. If they don't need us, they are reducing the money we could make off this work. [REFER PREVIOUS LOGIC] We can take measures to force people to need us, and pay us, if they are to do valuable things with this work."

Thus, DRM.

I translated it as I read it the first time

[erroneus]

And the translation came out about the same. Written out the way it is now, it's funny. But you have to know, these jackasses are serious and care nothing of the damage they cause others. The translation, I believe, is actually quite accurate.

Choose your battles...

[Space cowboy]

If you accept what Steve was saying was true, about how the risk/reward simply wasn't worth it for Apple, it's clear that both parties were simply explaining their respective positions without giving ground. There is no need for your "saw through it" bias.

What Norway was saying is "it is illegal for you to do business in the way you are"
Jobs replies "this is the only way that makes sense for us"
Norway replies "it's still illegal, you're going to have to fix it or withdraw"
[expectation: Jobs replies "Ok then, we'll stop doing business in Norway"] ... and Jobs gets to blame it on the various label companies - it was a pre-emptive strike at managing the fallout when Apple stop selling iTunes in Norway. He added a sufficient number of things to make the "story of the day" not be this, of course. Now it's firmly in the subconscious that DRM is not Apple's fault, I expect the next salvo to be "and we made it as easy on the customer as the labels would let us" - that is, if the labels have the stomach for the upcoming fight.

Jobs' vision is of making consumers products (and computers, for that matter) that people lust after, while making money of course. He's not interested in getting in their way - a few years ago, I think the iTunes DRM effectively helped Apple, but now I genuinely think the market is theirs to lose, and they have a track-record of making very *very* attractive and successful products in the music market.

I don't think he cares about DRM any more, in fact I think he'd swap the DRM for the risk of running iTunes as it is right now (with the sword of Damocles over his head if FairPlay is ever seriously broken). And I think he'll be more than happy to give up the tiny percentage of iTunes sales that Norway represents in order to remove that risk - "goodbye Norway, thanks for playing, don't let the door hit your ass on the way out"

Simon.

Re:Choose your battles...

[Jeff DeMaagd]

Player and device interoperability was just one of three major complaints that the Norwegian consumer groups complained about.

The terms of sale for Norwegians should not be governed by English law for iTunes Norway and items being sold for Norwegians because England has nothing to do with the sale.

Also, the terms of purchase rights should not be allowed to be changed for an item after it has been sold.

Most parties of this discussion had completely left out the last two major sticking points, and I think it's unfortunate that it has been largely ignored in favor of just being a DRM dispute.

Re:Fairly amusing but not overly informative

[yroJJory]

a fairly entertaining rebuke of Macromedia's letter.

Macromedia!?

iPod does not equal DRM

[Shrubber]

The thing I'd expect the least is Steve Jobs (whose company makes the most DRM-fucked up mp3 player in the world) fighting against DRM. Talk is cheap and I will not believe a word, unless I see the results. People need to stop spouting this nonsense. The iPod is not DRM laiden. The iPod does not create DRM. The iPod does not do anything but play the files YOU give it. If you do not purchase music files that have DRM then you do not have to play music files with DRM. You can put any MP3s you want on the iPod, they won't magically become something different than they were before you put them on there.

Complain about the iTunes music store all you want, but direct your complaints where they belong.

Ultimate DRM

[Hennell]

I love the way that people involved in DRM think it adds to the product. You can do less with this product now! Whoo-hoo!

It may be shameless self-promotion but I made a visualisation of the Ultimate DRM just the other day. What happened to giving the customer what they want?

Re:Ultimate DRM

[eneville]

I love the way that people involved in DRM think it adds to the product. You can do less with this product now! Whoo-hoo!

It may be shameless self-promotion but I made a visualisation of the Ultimate DRM just the other day. What happened to giving the customer what they want? no i think that's ok. if you had put your page address or something else stamped all over the image then i guess that'd be self promotion. i think your image is quite a nice idea and does get the message across. you might find it worthwhile seeing if there is a campaign who would use it as their logo.

Re:Ultimate DRM

[an.echte.trilingue]

I love the way that people involved in DRM think it adds to the product.

DRM does add costumer value to the product, for Macromedia's customers. Macromedia's customers, however, are not you and me. Most of Macromedia's customers are members of an organization that ends in AA.

Re:Ultimate DRM

[RAMMS EIN]

``What happened to giving the customer what they want?''

It was never about that. It's always been about convincing the customer that they want what you are selling, and, moreover, convincing them that they want to buy it from _you_.

Re:Ultimate DRM

[Anthony Baby]

DRM does add costumer value to the product, for Macromedia's customers. Macromedia's customers, however, are not you and me. Most of Macromedia's customers are members of an organization that ends in AA.

I'm pretty sure you meant Macrovision and not Macromedia, which makes creativity software; but I think you've a good point. I'll play Devil's advocate and say DRM does add value to a product and the customer buying it. Let's say this value is in the form of exclusivity and competitive advantage.

Person A is a Macromedia customer. Person A has made a major investment in software, training, and time to become a creative professional. This puts Person A at a competitive disadvantage for another profession, say law. Person A believes he is only competing against other professionals who have made the same basic investment. He doesn't count software pirates with equal skill as competition.

Person B is a software pirate. He acquired his copy of Macromedia Studio as well as digital copies of various training books illegally. His initial costs were zero. If he competes against Person A at an equal skill level, Person B has obtained an unfair competitive advantage.

For sake of clarity, the advantage can be early, cost-free exposure to software. Let's say these two are animators. Person A is using 3D Studio Max and Maya cause he can't afford to be using Softimage or Alias. Person B pirated both along with Maya, 3D Studio, Z-Brush, and a slew of additional components. Person B is now arguably more desirable than Person A.

We accept competition in business when that competition is fair. Whether or not Person B is enough to cause Person A to want to quit, dump his investment, and do something else is beyond me. I would think not; but we might say there is a sound economic argument in the price of high end software and the inconvenience of acquiring and using it being a healthy deterrant against software users being hurt by unfair competition. We make the software a pain in the ass to move from your workstation to your laptop because we don't want animation houses in India to open up massive rendering farms all using the same copy of the software. Let's say it's not software and DRM. Let's say it's a factory in Asia that produces cheaper widgets than the factory in America, using labor that was made possible through the pirated machine parts, textbooks, and stolen designs.

Granted, I've shifted the perspective toward those who use a protected product professionally (music needed for scoring a television series or commercial) and away from those who use a protected product for leisure (music needed cause it's friday night and you want a block party).

Slight Mistranslation

[Anonymous Coward]

He slightly mistranslates it.

"Similarly, consumers who want to consume content on only a single device can pay less than those who want to use it across all of their entertainment areas -- vacation homes, cars, different devices and remotely. Abandoning DRM now will unnecessarily doom all consumers to a "one size fits all" situation that will increase costs for many of them."

He translates to this:
"Abandoning DRM will prevent us from forcing our customers to keep paying us over and over again for the same movies and songs they've already paid for."

Instead of this:
"Abandoning DRM will prevent us from CONVINCING YOU THAT YOU HAVE A HOPE of forcing your customers to pay again and again for the same movies and songs, even though they won't pay once for them because of our DRM."

It's the 'can = hope' he missed, Macrovision want to convince the record companies there is *hope* of huge profits by pissing off their customers. They have to suffer the piss poor sales and annoyed customers now for some big payoff (in heaven? In Japan? How? No sales is no business, cult leaders are rich people, the idiots who follow them are poor.).

Re:Fairly amusing but not overly informative

[mustafap]

>Macromedia's letter was a fairly entertaining

+5 Funny for that one, dude.

Explain?

[springbox]

Macrovision says:

DRM increases not decreases consumer value

I know their entire business relies on DRM's success but every encounter I have had with it ended up being some sort of pain in the ass. How does DRM increase consumer value. Like, why should I be excited that I can't copy media from one format to another without it being a hassle? I wish Macrovision explained that statement.

Re:Explain?

[JustNiz]

>> How does DRM increase consumer value.
It absolutely doesn't. Thats why they need to use all the business doublespeak to justify themselves in their reply.

>> I wish Macrovision explained that statement
They won't/can't ever do that because there's no rational argument to defend it.

Re:Explain?

[Dster76]

This is no way a defense of Macrovision's "please protect my business model" whining, but I think what they have in mind is the claim that without DRM, customers who wish to have the "fill up my napster player with music I don't own but merely license" service would be S.O.L. There would be no way to prevent users from keeping everything they preview. Please note: I think the Napster model is doomed to failure, and this is in no way an endorsement of it.

In other words, from Napster's FAQ,

Why is a Napster Subscription Better Than Only Buying Music From an a la carte Music Store?

A Napster subscription gives you unlimited access to 3 million songs on your PC. For only a little bit more a month, a Napster To Go subscription allows you to transfer an unlimited amount of music to your PC and compatible MP3 player.

Think of it like a going to buffet. With all-you-can-eat music, you can try everything you want, whenever you want. One day you can take every album by Bob Dylan, Miles Davis, Gwen Stefani or 50 Cent. The next day you can download a whole radio station or every Reggae album you want. Your music doesn't have to be limited by your budget anymore. With Napster, the whole world of music opens up to you for the price of one CD a month.

Of course, all Napster subscribers still have the option to purchase music to burn to CD or just keep permanently in their digital music collection. Subscribers get up to a 20% discount when purchasing multiple songs with Napster Track Packs.

With a Napster subscription, you can try music before you buy it.

Re:Explain?

[Hieronymus Howard]

The only experiences that I have ever had with Macrovision are when it's prevented me from playing legitimately owned content. So I'd like to say a great big Fuck You to Macrovision for they way that they have 'increased my consumer value'.

Re:Explain?

[TyZone]

Perhaps he's saying that DRM increases the value of the consumer (to the content owner). Effective DRM would result in the purchase of more copies of the content - a definite improvement in value.

Keep in mind that Macrovision's customer is the content owner. In their vision, the "consumer" is just a mindless vehicle for the transfer of money, to be exploited as much as possible.

Re:Explain?

[RAMMS EIN]

``DRM increases not decreases consumer value''

I'll explain. DRM drives up the price of content (new players, compensation for the cost of developing and maintaining DRM schemes, re-purchasing content that has become inaccessible, ...). Customers still pay. So, apparently, the DRMed content is worth its asking price. In other words, that's its value to the consumer.

Of course, as a customer, you don't have many choices. Either you pay, or you risk lawsuits (possibly resulting in fines and/or jail time), or you don't get the content.

Re:Explain?

[WombatDeath]

DRM hinders piracy and increases sales. This generates more money for new content and therefore more consumer value.

That's probably their pitch. I think it's largely a crock of shit but, then again, Macrovision probably privately thinks so too.

Re:Explain?

[OfNoAccount]

By "increases consumer value", they mean "we can charge them more". Also remember that the end user isn't always the customer.

And yes, DRM is a total pain in the proverbial...

Re:Explain?

[vitaflo]

How does DRM increase consumer value.

It increases the value of the consumer...to Macrovision.

Re:Explain?

[falconwolf]

I know their entire business relies on DRM's success but every encounter I have had with it ended up being some sort of pain in the ass. How does DRM increase consumer value. Like, why should I be excited that I can't copy media from one format to another without it being a hassle? I wish Macrovision explained that statement.

When Macrovision speaks of cunsumers they aren't speaking of the end users they are speaking of Macrovision's customers. And they are members of groups ending in "AA". You, wanting to format shift what you bought, are the end user not the cunsumer.

Falcon

You know you've been playing too much NetHack when

[kale77in]

+1 Insightful

• Should've wished for "blessed rustproof +2 Insightful".

Summary

[JPMaximilian]

I think that whole PR can be summarized as, "What Steve Said, if followed, will put us out of business, he was wrong, media companies really do still need us to protect their content."

Anyone surprised?

[Kjella]

I mean, Jobs is calling for obsoleting not only the company, but the whole industry. No easy way to change markets there. If a politician said something like "public toll roads are silly and the overhead doesn't match the cost, we're going to just fund them over the national budget from now on" I sure know who's going to have a panic attack and say "yes it does". Even though that'd be a blatant lie too.

Re:Fairly amusing but not overly informative

[Mr Pippin]

But not necessarily convincing, since the letter ITSELF was not protected by DRM. I mean, ANYONE could copy and paste that letter's response to ANYONE, without permission. Well, unless someone saw a wavy line roll through the message as they were reading it.

Re:Daring Fireball? WTF?

[JensenDied]

So would you say this is part of the cancer that is killing /. ?

The sad part of the story

[Fantasio]

Amoroso is full of it that I wouldn't be surprised if he believes in his own BS.

Re:the text

[NoTheory]

Great... You've just reinvented Dr. Esperanto's argument for universal language.

Language is not the barrier. Mutual consensus is. It was plainly obvious to anyone who has a brain that the intelligence used to justify an invasion of Iraq was faulty. It didn't ever pass the smell test, and yet there was a broad base of support for it among a large number of Americans. There are still Americans who believe that Saddam Hussein supported Al Qaeda, and there's no proof of that what so ever.

It is possible for people to believe what they want to believe regardless of how much fact you throw at them. That is the power of denial. That is the power of the cult of personality. That is the power of ends justifying their means.

Demystifying language barriers is a paltry bulwark against the convolutions of the human mind.

Oh oh...

[freeze128]

Just think of all of history's warfare that could have been prevented if if were a legal requirement that translations always be presented side-by-side with the original.

This is a good idea, but what if the original was copyrighted? Then it might be infringement to publish it alongside the translation. This is affecting our copyright. What we need is some way to prevent that. Maybe some sort of way to MANAGE what RIGHTS the translators have....

I'll get my team of lawyers to work on this Monday morning....

Bill Gates

[BGatesFan]

I disagree with Bill Gates, as he wants to be rid of DRM, and recommends buying CDs. Now maybe I'll be a Fred Amoroso fan. As he seems to be more manipulative and greedy than Bill, maybe Bill has gone soft. I don't know. I like my Music and other Media formats DRM-Laden so that I can only use them on my Dell Running Windows Vista. Vista is the operating system of the future people, can't you realize that? DRM today, DRM tomorrow, DRM Forever! Michael Dell is cool too, especially when they started coming out with ink cartidges for their printers that only work with dell printers. I don't like being able to go to any computer store and buy standard ink cartidges. I prefer to give all of my money to Dell, so that Michael Dell will have enough money to buy Bill Gates.

Re:Bill Gates

[prelelat]

You know you could use a pen, paper, and hum alot, you don't need a computer. On the other hand you could just buy something that is on the shelf like epson, lexmark, cannon and so on. But you know complain about something like its your only option. That will get em.

Just go DRM Free.

[twitter]

If I could implant all my media devices with a unique-to-me identifier and then transfer any content I have paid for *from any source* to any of my devices then I'd be happy with such DRM. Trouble is, this implies all companies with a vested interest in DRM cooperating and the system actually working.

It's not just impossible, it's an undesirable loss of control. For any DRM to work you have to surrender your ability to copy files. Each and every time you try, the DRM would have to check and grant you permission. Any limit you put onto the power of that copy is arbitrary and won't really protect the user from abuse. Imagine you could restrict the copy control to files of a particular type in a particular location. For this to work, each time you tried to copy or move a file the computer would have to make sure your file was not of that type or in that location. Further restrictions could be added at any time, so you should never accept even the mildest set.

Until that time, I am forced to live in a [DRM world where I can't copy between devices]

That's only true if you buy into DRM systems, so don't give up while things are looking good. Right now, you can buy commercial music on CDs, and most music on players still gets there that way. You can also get more free music than you can ever listen to at archive.org or magnatune.com, which should be good for music sales by the artists there. If enough people reject DRM, DRM won't happen because people making money will all be DRM free. That is why the majors are all thinking hard about it.

The ultimate dream here is greed. DRM is about control by a few big dumb companies who want to "transition from physical to digital distribution" with their broadcast monopoly intact. Without lots of bad laws, that's the really impossible dream.

Re:the text

[dberstein]

Your argument can be extrapolated ad infinitum. What about religion? What about supernatural phenomenas? And UFOs? No proof of the above for the non *believers*, though try to convince a beliver otherwise.

Once you get into the realm of BELIEFS, no rational/scientific proof/disproof is useful.

When mothers say with joy "I hope all of my kids die as martyrs" (e.g. one of her kids just blow up killing himself and innocent people), you start to dimension the power of BELIEFS over mutual concensus.

Let me state to all who haven't realized yet: This is a crazy, crazy world.

Re:No you can't

[Toba82]

I think capitalism works pretty well. That's why it's been in use for the majority of recorded history.

That is so awesome

[Sloppy]

Spot on. Well done.

Im wondering

[AlphaLop]

I think the P.R. Puke that wrote that response for Macrovision is the same guy that writes for North Korea..... They both sound a lot alike and make about as much sense....

So... Cable TV?

[SanityInAnarchy]

I bring this up because even if your solution works, it takes control out of our hands.

I don't mind Google, because if they ever start being obnoxious in their search ads, I can easily switch to some other search engine, or even attempt to build one myself.

What you're talking about implies a lot of industry cooperation, which also implies that there'd be a monopoly on this service. Which means it would be overpriced and under-featured. They'd arbitrarily move normal content to "premium", and you wouldn't be able to do anything other than cancel and slowly try to save up and re-buy the stuff. They'd be able to set prices wherever they want, with the same result. They'd advertise just as much as Cable TV -- have you seen those fucking things? Can't even let you enjoy the 5-10 minutes of the show you get between ads without sliding in some little ad that takes up a quarter of the screen, animates, and makes an occasional sound or two. Except that with Cable and Satellite, if I get sick of it, I can cancel my subscription and go buy a DVD, which won't have ads...

Which brings up another thing: DVDs can have unskippable ads. You can skip them in VLC, but only because VLC cracks the DRM.

So, the only way I would ever subscribe to something like this is if they gave everything to me DRM-free. If they could manage a distribution system which is faster and better than the existing networks (think BitTorrent), and if they would actually just give me the DVD in, say, a matroska file, I'd subscribe and stay subscribed. Yes, of course this means I could just share the file with all my friends, but I can do that anyway -- have music execs even looked on peer-to-peer networks lately? DRM ISN'T WORKING! It also means I could just subscribe and download as much as I could in a month, then unsubscribe -- which is, after all, what they deserve; they should be making enough new content to keep me interested -- I would subscribe to cable or satellite TV to watch a show I like, so what makes them think I wouldn't do the same over the Internet? MythTV already makes it ludicrously easy for me to share that show of cable or satellite, why do they think the Internet will make it any easier?

And if you really have zero affiliation to any company, why are you posting as Anonymous, you Coward?!

I don't understand something

[danielk1982]

Why do we have to live in a world that has either no DRM or is all DRM?

Why not restrict DRM to rented content such as the Napster service that allows you to download and listen to unlimited amount of music provided you keep paying your monthly fee. I like that service and I don't want to see it go. On the other front, I also want to buy some music and movies to keep forever - so in this case, why not sell it to me DRM-free?

This sounds to me like a win-win situation and certainly a good compromise.

Re:I don't understand something

[/dev/trash]

Uh. What good is Napster with DRM if you can get it elsewhere without DRM?

Re:I don't understand something

[danielk1982]

>Uh. What good is Napster with DRM if you can get it elsewhere without DRM?

Napster's "to Go" service allows you to download unlimited songs which will play for as long as you pay the monthly fee. Its good for people who want to listen to lots of music without incurring the cost of actually buying all that music (and who want to be be legal). Why would people want to rent a movie when they could just buy one? They just do.

Re:the text

[NoTheory]

Your argument can be extrapolated ad infinitum. What about religion? What about supernatural phenomenas? And UFOs? No proof of the above for the non *believers*, though try to convince a beliver otherwise.

Once you get into the realm of BELIEFS, no rational/scientific proof/disproof is useful.

Yeah, i'm okay with that. I just think that there are benign irrational beliefs that i don't care about (spirituality, or whatever generally), or find harmless (not to say that there aren't religious beliefs that i find horrible and/or inhuman). Once people make statements that are demonstrably crazy, and start taking irreversible courses of action based on said crazy beliefs, then i've got problems (and you should too).

Let me state to all who haven't realized yet: This is a crazy, crazy world.

I find your statements entirely consistent with mine.

Oops, he got this one wrong:

[Stephen Samuel]

Magic interoperable DRM would give people all the features and capabilities they get with DRM-free media. Magic interoperable DRM would give people some of the features and capabilities they get with DRM-free media.

Re:Oops, he got this one wrong:

[Kjella]

Magic interoperable DRM would give people some of the features and capabilities they get with DRM-free media.

Not that damn many... do you remember long before the current HD-DVD/Blu-Ray breach, when it was discovered that Windows' "print screen" was a trusted program and could take screencaps of the movie? Well, it got blown up as a huge issue "OMG they can click-script stepping throught the whole movie" and they disabled it. Now, how many fair uses are there of taking a screencap? Pretty damn many, I'd think. But if you're going to disable every feature that might possibly be used for piracy, there's going to be damn few left even if they work the same across everything from Vista to your Linux toaster.

Bill Gates is still more manipulative

[Anonymous Coward]

Bill Gates wants to be THE DRM vendor, he was the original pusher of DRM as the solution to piracy. Now he wants 'interoperable DRM' and if he can't get that, he wants them to buy CDs, but only because Windows is the major platform for ripping CDs into more useful formats.

What's more manipulative and greedy than that?

Re:I have a translation process constantly running

[jZnat]

If they could stop using the words "consumer" and "consume" the way they do (which doesn't make sense) and would instead use words like "customer", "user", "person"/"people", "buy", and "use" (which do make much more sense when used in proper context instead of "consume(r)"), that would drastically help hide their market speak. Whenever I see someone use the word "consume" and they're not talking about consuming food (the only situation that calls for the word "consume" in my opinion), I know that they're either a marketdroid, an economics graduate, or an MBA.

Just look at what Wikipedia says about the word "consumer" (emph mine):

Typically when businesspeople and economists talk of consumers they are talking about person as consumer, an aggregated commodity item with little individuality other than that expressed in the buy/not-buy decision. However there is a trend in marketing to individualize the concept. Instead of generating broad demographic profile and psychographic profiles of market segments, marketers are engaging in personalized marketing, permission marketing, and mass customization. To paraphrase something I've seen on Slashdot (which was probably quoting someone else), once a business stops referring to its customers as "customers", "clients", or "users", and instead refers to them as "consumers", they've become a megalomaniacal corporation with no regards for anything but its bottom line.

Re:Fairly amusing but not overly informative

[eluusive]

rebuke.. this word.. I do not think it means what you think it means.

I think the words you were looking for are: rebuttal and macrovision

Re:I have a translation process constantly running

[maxume]

Welcome to 2007. Glad to see you like it.

Re:the text

[dberstein]

Let me state to all who haven't realized yet: This is a crazy, crazy world.

I find your statements entirely consistent with mine. Indeed! I wasn't arguing against you, just filling the conceptual blanks that your post made in my mind ;)

Re:I have a translation process constantly running

[Mateito]

especially the word "solution"

As somebody with a foot in both camps (I design RAS compliant solution architectures for business enablement - ie.. I'm a tech in a suit), "solution" is my current most hated word. It's a redundant tag added by people who think using more words makes them sound brighter. In a way, it does, because their audience is often just as fucked as they are.

If I design a storage or network infrastructure to address a number of issues subject to a number of constraints then, yes, technically its a solution to a problem. Its definitely not a Storage Network Infrastructure Solution. It may be a Solution to Business problems, but its not a Business Problem Solution.

Also, have you noticed how solutions are always complete? Who would advertise offering only a partial solution? Nobody. (That would be an Integrable component solution... or maybe a Complete point solution.)

This is not restricted to IT. Recently I've seen advertisements for "complete lawn solution", "complete pest solution" and "complete outfit solution". There is even a barber around the corner proclaiming to offer "complete hair solutions".

As long as I come out of my MBA with my grasp of the English language intact, I'm assured that I can make a positive contribution to the demanagerialization of verbal communication channel protocols".

I very curious:

[gerddie]

When, do you think, recorded history started?

Re:Fairly amusing but not overly informative

[Lazarian]

The letter was from Macrovision, not Macromedia.

Re:Fairly amusing but not overly informative

[dangitman]

Either way, it was something big with pictures.

Re:No you can't

[HiThere]

Capitalism can work fine as an economic system when it's not supported by governmental fiat-monopolies.

Well, I should back-pedal a bit on that...it can work as well as any other economic system we've devised. Once you start allowing fiat-monopolies (copyrights, patents, trademarks, etc.) things quickly get more comples, and it's not honest to call the resulting system capitalism. Also, the evidence for capitalism working fine is limited. It's limited to low density populations living in areas with poor transportation. This naturally results in all companies being of limited size.

I'm specifically NOT including cases where governmental troops suppress the populace into subservience to the company as examples of capitalism working fine. Those are example where it has DRASTICALLY FAILED. (You don't need to read much history to find lots of those cases.)

N.B.: I'm not insisting that the populace was always right when it got so angry that it was willing to rise in a mob and attack a company. I'm merely asserting that capitalism had failed. Usually the specific remedies advocated by the populace were short-sighted. This doesn't mean that they system was working, it means that BOTH (all?) sides were wrong.

E.g., the luddites. They were treated very unfairly, in many diverse ways. The "solution" of destroying the machines wasn't a proper way out, but neither was the governmental exclusion of the folk from the lands that they had held for generations. Neither was the arbitrays increase of the rents until they couldn't pay. Some people got very rich by using the power of governmental force to abuse others. This was a failure of something that can't rightfully be called capitalism, but is usually considered to be such. Once assymetric governmental force is invoked, you don't have capitalism. (Governmentally mandated "cooling-down" periods may well not be violations of capitalism, but if one side is assymetrically penalised, then they violate it.)

P.S.: Capitalism isn't all that great. It's just the best that can be done in an anarchistic state, or in a state where the government doesn't get involved with economics. One could argue that all taxes represent governmental interference...but while that's true, it is also omnipresent. So you'll never see pure capitalism unless you vist the Kalahari bushmen (perhaps) or deal in illegalities (drugs, theft, etc.). Note that quasi-governmental groups start forming immediately, and they impose "taxes" of their own.

So one will never see pure capitalism. Ever. It's an abstraction, like a mathematical point. I'm not sure, though, that it's as useful an abstraction. It seems to me quite plausible that it represents cutting economics along a non-optimal partition.

Re:Fairly amusing but not overly informative

[indiechild]

Macromedia? The moderators must be high on crack again...

Re:No you can't

[kocsonya]

Hm, 'classical' slavery was in operation for about 2-3000 years, then feudalism ran for about 8-900 years and capitalism, depending on the details of your definition, maybe 200-350 years. So, if the trend continues (each system lasts about 1/3 ~ 1/4 of its predecessor) we'll see some change soon...

Re:Fairly amusing but not overly informative

[pixelguru]

Macromedia developed things like Flash and Dreamweaver and were bought by Adobe about a year ago. Macrovision does copy protection, DRM, and software licensing subsystems. Big difference.

Well, yes.. and no.

Ok hows this though.

[KKlaus]

I don't know the accuracy of that 97% statistic, but assuming Jobs wouldn't lie, and I'm willing to assume that, you could still form a pretty good argument for consumer lockin with Itunes itself. Irrespective of the amount of DRMd music on Ipods, I just checked wikipedia for it and well in excess of 2 billion songs have been sold via itunes. 2 billion dollars is a fairly significant consumer investment any way you look at it.

And to the extent that people keep itunes on their computers because of that investment, and no one really likes having two of the same thing (why would I use the Zune marketplace when I have itunes, and I'm not getting rid of itunes...), I think there is some lock in. Now, your first response might be "but apple doesn't make money off of itunes!" and that's true, but it could be a future investment for a time when, after renegotiations with lables, apple does make money there. Or perhaps keeping people using itunes and the apple brand in their mind is benefit enough.

Anyhow, I wouldn't be surprised if despite all this, when the death of DRM drastically increased the consumption of music, which it probably would, at Apple's market is music players here, then the swelling of that market in turn would outweigh any other disadvantages. BUT... as long as I'm at it, how much is 3%? If the average owner has a 1000 songs on there, thats still a thirty dollar investment, and easily enough to sway a decision over 200ish dollar players if the user decides he or she doesn't feel like burning and ripping (which I know I hate).

I like Jobs, but I also know he understands deeply that the strength of the apple brand is one of his best assets, and making sure that no consumer fallout for DRM tarnishes that in any way is important. So if he knows that he can preemptively dodge all that fallout with a letter, and the letter costs nothing and won't influence any of the execs making the calls, wouldn't he do that? AND he gets to be the good guy, like he loves.

So it's hardly cut and dry just because of that 97%.

Re:Ok hows this though.

[calstraycat]

You make some good points, but I do still see it as pretty cut and dry. DRM serves the record companies, not equipment manufacturers. Any supposed future "lock-in" benefit is negligible to the increased revenue and lower costs that would come with removal of DRM entirely. Jobs is taking this stand not because he wants to be seen as a good guy (from all the accounts I've read, he's an insufferable prick and proud of it), but because it's in Apple's best interest to get rid of DRM from their products. It will increase sales and shareholder value.

Anyway, that's the way I see it.

The Bible DOES have the originals...

[PRMan]

If I open my Greek New Testament, I see manuscript evidence going back to the 1st Century, you know, the people that walked with Christ. I can trace the versions backward through time and see where each mistake happened, how it was copied to manuscript families after it and figure out why. Mistranslations (such as several places in the King James) ARE obvious, and have been corrected in later translations that went back to earlier manuscripts (NASB, NIV, etc.), with MUCH protest by those that love the King James version. Still, Christianity HAS faced up to its problems and corrected them, despite the criticism!

But, if you think the mistranslations of the Bible are of a nature that causes people to go to war or something, you are deceiving yourself. The mistakes and mistranslations have to do mostly with extra explanatory comments or extra verses in memorized passages such as the Lord's Prayer or the position of women in the church or with the nature of the afterlife for the unsaved (which never includes heaven anyway), mundane things like that.

Similarly for the Old Testament, before finding the Dead Sea Scrolls, the newest version of Isaiah was from 1000 AD. In the Dead Sea Scrolls was a copy from the time of Christ, 1000 years earlier. Scholars waited with baited breath to see what had changed in 1000 years. The differences? Mostly the names of musical instruments, fruit and animals and a couple place names. Again, no changes in fundamental doctrines or belief systems.

Not to attack you personally, because I know that many people believe as you do thanks to the DaVinci Code, but what you are saying as fact came from a FICTIONAL NOVEL, and is by no means even close to accurate, any more than Superman or Star Wars.

And, as you study church history, you will find that the more educated Christians are, the less likely they are to go to war. It is when the educated can manipulate the uneducated that most wars happen. The only times Christians advocate war are in situations like the American Revolution, to gain freedom to worship God free from the influence of the Church of England or the Civil War, because Abraham Lincoln, as a Christian fundamentalist, could not bear to see his fellow man enslaved. It was wrong and needed to be stopped and his Christian convictions gave him the strength to see it through despite opposition and war. And we still celebrated his birthday this week, the only president other than the first to hold such an honor.

Now, mind you, this only holds for Christianity and Judaism, which encourage study of the Bible, including the most accurate original documents we can possibly find. Islam, however, allows no such textual criticism of the Koran.

Re:The Bible DOES have the originals...

[coyotl]

Not to attack you personally, because I know that many people believe as you do thanks to the DaVinci Code, but what you are saying as fact came from a FICTIONAL NOVEL, and is by no means even close to accurate, any more than Superman or Star Wars.

And of course the bible itself is also a fictional novel. Probably based on historical fact, but widely embelished and full of contradictions (probably because it was written and edited by committees.)

coyote

Re:The Bible DOES have the originals...

[Wizard Drongo]

Not to attack you personally, because I know that many people believe as you do thanks to the DaVinci Code, but what you are saying as fact came from a FICTIONAL NOVEL, and is by no means even close to accurate, any more than Superman or Star Wars. Not to attack YOU personally, because I know that many people believe as you do thanks to the Bible and the ravages of the Catholic Church (and those that followed), but what you are saying also comes from a FICTIONAL NOVEL which also is by no means even close to accurate, any more so than the Da Vinci Code. The Earth is more than 6000 years old. Humanity was not created from 2 individuals, bats are not a type of bird, and when you really get down to it, if the character "Jesus" did actually exist, he almost certainly bore little to no resemblance to the man portrayed in the Bible. He also was probably not crucified, since the Romans loved to keep records of who they killed, yet 'forgot' to keep ones on a minor local celebrity.

Re:The Bible DOES have the originals...

[notwrong]

This is getting rather OT, but...

If I open my Greek New Testament, I see manuscript evidence going back to the 1st Century, you know, the people that walked with Christ.

If this were the case, why would the gospels have copied from each other, or from since-lost common sources?

And, as you study church history, you will find that the more educated Christians are, the less likely they are to go to war.

I suspect this is not specific to Christians. The more you know about something, the less it tends to seem absolutely black and white, and the less willing you will be to kill someone for having a different interpretation of it.

Now, mind you, this only holds for Christianity and Judaism, which encourage study of the Bible, including the most accurate original documents we can possibly find.

I'm not sure this is true. Many variants of Christianity in particular hold to infallibility of one sort or another (biblical or papal spring to mind immediately), and 'encourage' is not the word I would have used to describe their attitude to critical analysis.

Re:WTF? Stand by Apple... they have the SMFMS

[Master of Transhuman]

That would be better than SELLING the mental illness that is the result of using Windows.

Here's another nice one:

Global Health Chief to Leave Gates Foundation

By Rick Weiss
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 14, 2005; Page A02

Richard D. Klausner, global health director for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and former chief of the National Cancer Institute, said yesterday that he will leave the Seattle foundation Dec. 31 to start a new venture.

Klausner said his decision to resign has "absolutely" nothing to do with revelations on Friday that congressional investigators looking into possible financial improprieties during his tenure at the NCI have asked the Government Accountability Office to expand that inquiry...

Klausner has for "several months" been talking to the foundation's president, Patty Stonesifer, about moving on to something new, Cerrell said. Those discussions culminated in a "mutual decision" that Klausner would leave his $442,000-a-year job at the foundation, Cerrell said, which donates billions of dollars to the battle against global health scourges such as tuberculosis, malaria and AIDS.

FOUR HUNDRED AND FORTY TWO THOUSAND DOLLARS A YEAR JOB?

Yeah, "charity begins at home"...

You misunderstand

[YetAnotherBob]

It does increase consumer value. The value you give for a product is the cost you pay. Since DRM increases the cost, then it increases the value. Until the point is reached where you say enough! and stop falling for it. Then the product value falls to zero (the amount you are willing to pay when you have to put up with the aggrivation the product causes you.) That is the point the major labels are beginning to realize they are reaching. Apple realizes it too. They found that they only have a 3% share of the music on thier own players. Zero is only a couple of percentage points away.

See, it all makes sense if you use enough indirect logic, redefine a few words on the fly, and are willing to ignore most of the truth.

Re:You misunderstand

[Anonymous McCartneyf]

"They found that they have only a 3% share of the music on their own players. Zero is only a couple of percentage points away."
Well, actually, zero percent is three percentage points away from 3%.
Fortunately, your greater point is true.

Re:No you can't

[Master of Transhuman]

Got that right.

Chimpanzees ain't gonna last out this century. That's the next big change.

Which means their economics is going to go by the wayside as well.

Economics is basically human behavior.

When you're not human anymore, you don't need it.

Re:No you can't

[Master of Transhuman]

You're absolutely correct except for equating "capitalism" with "the free market".

I'm not sure entirely sure that's correct. I prefer the term "free market" which explicitly states the word "free" as in "freedom".

"Capitalism" as a term and phenomena appears to co-exist nicely with state-sponsored monopoly and oligarchies.

In that sense, capitalism is not in a decline in the US - and a "free market" almost never existed here at all.

The only way to have a "free market" is to eliminate the state and any social concept of a "corporation" (as opposed to a "company" which is merely a group of people who have no special "rights".)

Also, monopolies cannot exist in a truly "free market". Even "natural monopolies" that have "natural" control over a resource will in most instances be competed against by competing resources or technologies that provide the same functionality. The only real way to have a monopoly is via legal means - which implies state sponsorship.

Get rid of the state, you get rid of monopolies.

I think the translation reads more like this.

[91degrees]

We know full well you don't really care about DRM, except where it interferes with iPod sales. We like copy protection because it makes us rich, and lets face it, we're pretty good at it. So if you're really committed to consumer flexibility and keeping the record industry happy, and not just playing them against each other, talk to us because we can probably come up with something that does the job.

no probs

[zogger]

Drop a jackson in an envelope, slap a stamp on it, snail mail it to the artiste of choice with a "thanks for the tunes, dudes" thankyou note folded around it.. There ya go, clear conscious, no need for two hundred dollar seats and driving 4 hours round trip. Or order some of their schwag off of their site, or pressed disks. Long as I can remember, bands have always sold T shirts, so there ya go, buy some shirts to help them out.

In essence, as long as your money is going to the band and NOT to the middle man skimmers, I think it would be appreciated, well spent, it shows support, and it also shows *no support* for the middleman skimmers and their DRM nonsense.

The biggest problems with the middleman producers, etc, is they have actually placed serious tehnological luddism laws on the books, and luddism practices into the industry. they want to lock in tech advances for themseles, to make more money, but not let everyone else enjoy tech advances. instead of embracing the drastically reduced costs associated with modern copying technology, and passing the savings on to their customers, they fought it tooth and nail, and people just rebelled at the gouging and went off and file shared.

All of this could have been mostly avoided with them not staying locked on their old business models of they had to make "so much a unit" in profits. All they had to do was drop prices as tech advances made it possible, and increase sales that way dramatically.

Not only are they greedy, they are actually retarded, and are helping to hold back tech advances, which is downright *nasty* to everyone. They're jerks! The talent has never liked dealing with them, their customers at the wholesale level don't like them, they don't like each other in the industry, and now they have been successful at annoying a lot of the end user retail customers.

They need a group "intervention" like hardcore alkys get or something to wake them up.

Re:no probs

[PopeRatzo]

zogger, I'm in complete agreement with your "send a tenner to a favorite artist" theory, but I just realized there may be a flaw.

If the band gets the money instead of the record company, then the record company assumes that the record didn't sell, and the band doesn't get to make another record with them or get listed on Billboard's top 100. Perhaps we can send a sawbuck to the band and a receipt to the record company. Anonymously.

punish not pardon

[karuna]

> DRM increases not decreases consumer value

English is not my native language but isn't comma missing here? There is a difference between DRM increases, not decreases consumer value and DRM increases not, decreases consumer value.

Once upon a time, images were free...

[cpghost]

You know, once upon a time... images were (*gasp*) free to see for everyone using a browser. They were not DRM-ed. Anybody could look at them, without having to pay royalties to the website offering them (with the exception of some pr0n sites). There were no identifiers, no crypto... heck, you could even surf the web anonymously without having to identify.

Holy Books

[falconwolf]

Just think of all of history's warfare that could have been prevented if if were a legal requirement that translations always be presented side-by-side with the original. Holy books would always include the original, so the mistranslations would be visible to those with a bit of knowledge. Politicians wouldn't get away with "straw-man" distortions of their enemies' statements, because the distorted version would be accompanied by the original.

Ah, but who decides what's a "Holy Book"?

Falcon

Re:the text

[lp-habu]

Just think of all of history's warfare that could have been prevented if if were a legal requirement that translations always be presented side-by-side with the original.

I'm more inclined to believe that there would have been even more warfare. It's usually the failure to understand what the other side really demands and intends that delays the onset of hostilities.

Or perhaps you believe that everything would be well and good if we could all just get along? Of course, by getting along you mean that everybody else agrees with you and all of your right-thinking associates, right? I mean, after all, how could anyone fail to understand how right your positions are once they understand what you mean.

Want to buy a bridge?

Abe Lincoln and the USA Civil War

[falconwolf]

The only times Christians advocate war are in situations like the American Revolution, to gain freedom to worship God free from the influence of the Church of England or the Civil War, because Abraham Lincoln, as a Christian fundamentalist, could not bear to see his fellow man enslaved. It was wrong and needed to be stopped and his Christian convictions gave him the strength to see it through despite opposition and war.

Ah, Abe Lincoln didn't go to war, the USA Civil War, to end slavery. The US Civil War was all about keeping the USA whole and and not let it splinter. By the tyme the Civil war started the South had already left the Union and started the nation of the Confederate States of America. Abe eventually used the civil war to end slavery but that's not why the civil war started.

Falcon

Re:Abe Lincoln and the USA Civil War

[PRMan]

But he knew full well the South would probably leave and it would probably end in war when he made the Emancipation Proclamation.

Re:Abe Lincoln and the USA Civil War

[Eskarel]

The Emancipation Proclamation was made after the South ceceded and actually only freed slaves within the South. If you were a slave within the Union, you were SOL.

Not to mention that the vast majority of the confederacy was fighting for states rights not slavery.

Re:Fairly amusing but not overly informative

[dbIII]

Macrovision are the bunch that sell rarely updated licencing software at enormous prices with little support which delays releases of software to new platforms for years. They are the guys making sure that some people have to buy laptops with parallel ports in 2007 so they can run expensive software which actually has been updated since 1999. As a person that supports end users of software that relys on macrovision software for licencing I would be a lot happier if they did disappear and the vendors gave up on buggy copy protection and just sold support.

Macrovision admits the real intention of DRM

[Ath]

DRM is nothing about piracy and all about reselling the same content over and over again to the same consumer. The promise is that consumers will have more "choice" (that they don't want) and "flexibility" (that they used to have) at lower prices (that they won't get).

Does anyone really think that a consumer wants to buy the same song or movie more than once without there being some added value to the second purchase? If you buy a movie on DVD, should you have to pay again to play it on your computer? On your portable media player? According to this guy, this is what consumers WANT to do. Uh huh. So if I buy a CD, instead of having the fair use right (which I still have) to convert that music to a format I can use on my iPod, I would actually be better off buying the same content again in a format that already works on my iPod?

I know Macrovision is in the DRM business and so they are hardly neutral on the idea of whether DRM should become the industry standard, but they really need to work harder on their arguments about why DRM is good. I guess the marketing department rejected using terminology like "resell the same shit".

Re:Macrovision admits the real intention of DRM

[ScaryMonkey]

but they really need to work harder on their arguments about why DRM is good

Haven't you heard the old saying that "You can't polish a turd"?

Re:Macrovision admits the real intention of DRM

[OneSmartFellow]

"Weeelll, let's not go guilding a lilly here"

Re:I have a translation process constantly running

[WhatDoIKnow]

Well, like the old saying goes, "If you're not part of the solution you're not dissolved in the solvent."

:wq

Why are they responding?

[MindStalker]

What I don't get is why is macrovision and all these companies responding to Jobs. If its one thing corporate executives were taught a LONG time ago. Paying attention to criticisms of your company (if you don't plan on changing) will only hurt you.

contradictory

[Machtyn]

Okay, let's follow the PR-speak of the Macrovision CEO for a moment...

Macrovision has been in the content protection industry for more than 20 years, working closely with content owners of many types, including the major Hollywood studios, to help navigate the transition from physical to digital distribution.
----------
I believe that most piracy occurs because the technology available today has not yet been widely deployed to make DRM-protected legitimate content as easily accessible and convenient as unprotected illegitimate content is to consumers.

Wait, so you've been "protecting" content provider industries for 20 years; and, yet, the tech is not widely deployed? If you business is as effective and successful as you say it is, then you've had plenty of time for getting the tech out. We've gone through 3 or 4 tech upgrades since the mid-80s. Vinyl disc to Audio tape to Audio CD, floppy disk to data CD, VHS/Betamax to Laserdisc to DVD to Blu-ray/HD-DVD (which will hopefully not see the light of day because of DRM, unless they rid themselves of it in the format).

We've been helping and encouraging the entertainment industry to annoy its paying customers for more than 20 years.

Truer words, and all that.
As others have pointed out, if they outlaw guns then only outlaws will have guns.
What? Oh, sorry, if they use DRM, the pirates will still pirate and regular consumers will largely be unable to consume. (They will be confused and angry that they will have to buy yet another DVD player, or their new audio CD doesn't work in their car disc player, etc.)

DRM is a red herring

[Mr. Underbridge]

The implication is that Apple secretly wants to continue using DRM and is wrongly pointing the finger at the record companies to deflect blame. But the facts don't support that point of view. So, please explain to me why Apple would want to continue utilizing DRM when it of no benefit to them

OK. Here's what I think. The issue isn't about DRM, really. Apple's using this as a red herring because they know damned well there's no way in hell the RIAA accepts a DRM-less world. Not happening soon. So what's the real issue they're fighting?

Opening of Fairplay. They say they don't want to open it because it would be a security issue, blah blah. I don't believe for a second that's the real reason - and on that basis I think Macrovision is *right*, this is not a technical issue that's insurmountable.

What's the real reason? They've been able to cut out a huge section of the online marketplace for music sales. They also happen to be dealing with a rather difficult organization (RIAA). Their place in the market is dependent upon their ability to make deals with the RIAA. If another company were able to get their hands on fairplay, what's to stop them from licensing it, then negotiating deals with the RIAA that would make life tough for Apple?

I think Apple is scared to death what would happen if they had a competitor/licensee competing against them for the rights to distribute music on iPods. And I don't blame them. But I think the whole "open up the music!" thing against the RIAA is a red herring.

My favorite line...

[beemishboy]

"Magic interoperable DRM would give people all the features and capabilities they get with DRM-free media."

I'm not saying that I have an answer to the industry's dilemma in trying to protect their content. As a big music fan, I would really like no restriction and would love to see corroborated and sound research that says that having no restrictions is good for business in the long run, but I can see how this would trouble an person trying to sell something.

That said, I still can't understand how an industry in good conscience can have "selling the same content over and over and over again to the same people" built into their business model. I really don't see how they can even defend that.

Re:that's beautifully worded--or not...

[Anonymous McCartneyf]

"As long as it lets me format-shift it to any device or future device, make self-destrutable copies for a friend that blows itself up, say, 3 days after being watched (like lending a DVD), and generally stays out of my way, I'm fine with it."
You would lend your friends DVDs that explode 3 days after being watched!?
Please, don't! Think of the property damage!

You're not buying a license!

[Anonymous McCartneyf]

If you are buying a vinyl record or a shiny plastic disc, you are buying a physical product. You own the record, CD, or pseudo-CD. It's just that the content on it is copyrighted, and so the people who own the copyright to the content have a say about how you can copy it.
Now, DRM tends to give the RIAA too much of a say...

Darwin is proven right

[Opportunist]

Those that can, survive. Those that cannot succumb to virus infections.

Who said evolution only works on biological entities?

It's BS, and he should know that

[Opportunist]

Sorry, but that "open letter" is first grade bull. And I'm quite sure Macrovision's CEO knows that, so he deserves being "translated".

That DRM increases the value of a good is a cute statement, and given his reasoning it does actually, in a quite odd and twisted way, make sense. But what would this look like if we follow that train of thought?

So DRM would allow us to "rent" content. I.e. it becomes useless after a while, data junk, because you can no longer access it after the rental period expires. Nice idea. Let's look at the wiring under the board.

This would first of all require "unbreakable" DRM. Which is by the very definition of electronic devices and the fact that we don't have a network jack in our brains impossible. At some point, you have to remodulate it to audio and video, and then it's accessable. Usually you don't have to go to those lengths. In a nutshell: DRM is broken before it becomes widespread.

Because without unbreakable DRM, you would ONLY sell 'rentals'. People would get cheap rentals, crack them and make them accessable infinitly.

So let's be realistic and assume the impossible: Uncrackable DRM.

Then rentals would have to be cheaper, or nobody would get rentals and instead get the "full" version, without time restraints. You can today rent DVDs at various video rental places for a buck or two an evening. So, a downloaded version may not cost more, should actually cost less, since I have to wait for it to download and I have to accept that my bandwidth is lowered for the time it takes the movie to arrive.

Now, I dunno how expensive bandwidth is in the US, but I can hardly see that one buck will even pay the technical equipment and connection cost that movie transfer generates.

In other words, rental movies would have to be more expensive. I.e. first of all, the movie industry would have to either shut down video rental shops or force them to increase their prices considerably. Further, movie DVDs would have to become more expensive. If either is NOT done, people would simply ignore the online rental offers.

And now again, for the dummy that I am, why again is DRM "increasing" the value for me, the customer? And how do I benefit from it? From shutting down video places and more expensive movies?

Re:It's BS, and he should know that

[Overzeetop]

Early in the 20th century, two shoe company executives travelled to sub-Saharan Africa to determine the viability of the African market for their wares. Upon returning, one fo the men reported to the board of directors that there was no market for their product, as nobody wore shoes. The second went to his board of directors and excitiedly pronouced that they were going to make a fortune, as the market was ripe for the picking.

Arguments for DRM encumbered media are predicated on one idea - that you should be paying for each individual copy of a work you consume. One CD for the car, one for the portable, one for the kids room, one for the stereo, one for the player at work, and one for each of your friends who wants to borrow it. Now, for a $15 CD, that could easily add up to over $100. Without DRM, you would have to pay $100 for a single disc to cover the "opportunity loss" for the labels. With DRM, you would only need to pay $15 if you only wanted the music for your portable player. Conversely one might expect that the $15 CD you buy today might be replaced with a DRM'd set of options which only cost $0.80 to $2.00, but unfortunately, disribition costs are so high that this model is essentially infeasable, even if you could conviced the contect provider s to buy into this scenereo. It violates the first law of IP: The total dollars flowing to the content owners' accounts shall never decrease.

It reminds me of my other favorite fallacy: that the actual equivalent salary of a typical housewife (or housespouse), is about $135k (http://money.cnn.com/2006/05/03/pf/mothers_work/? cnn=yes). That may be true if you had to go out and buy each service from an independant contractor provider, but I would put the value closer to $14,000-$18,000. It's a matter of buying at cost - $5-$7/hr with full benefits, room and board, company car, and full pension (old-style, no 401k here) is not an uncommon price for an untrained (or trained-on-the-job) worker with no educational requirements. Oh, sure it's a little higher in the cities, but what do you think nannies get paid?

You see, Macrovision sees the content word from the $135,000/year homemaker perspective - anything less would be a bargain. The rest of us know that, while we certainly give up some income to have a stay at home spouse, the actual cost is far, far lower. Which is why their arguments rings quite hollow.

Re:It's BS, and he should know that

[Opportunist]

The main problem with "paying for every copy" is that the customer is not used to this. And he won't understand it, neither if he is aware of the fact that he's "buying" a right or license, nor if he's not and just buying "a CD". When I license something, I'm used to being allowed to use this license in accordance with what's been normal since the dawn of the content business (i.e. using it in whatever situation I'm in, provided I do not grant that license myself to someone else). Limiting it now to certain circumstances is something the customer does not understand and will not accept.

That the industry and here especially its managers want to maximize their profits is a given. It's their job, after all. But it's not my job. My "job" is to maximize the content I get for my money. And if I do not deem the content I get for the money asked, I will not license it, simple as that.

Meta-Godwin?

[Anonymous McCartneyf]

"I was *this* close to falling into the classic Slashdot comment trap by using an analogy to illustrate the Norwegian response that involved Nazis, but then I thought better of it."
That's a relief.
Now, for the next minute, avoid thinking about polar bears that work for the RIAA.

How does DRM increase consumer value?

[Spinlock_1977]

How does DRM increase consumer value?

Easy - each consumer is worth more to the recording companies over their lifetime due to the fact they'll have to pay for the same content multiple times. Hence, the consumer's value (to the recording companies) is increased. It's all in how you parse it, you see.

Re:Daring Fireball? WTF?

[LKM]

Not clicking on article -> less hits -> /. knows you don't want the article.
Clicking on article and commenting -> more hits -> /. knows it can show you ads if it publishes these kinds of articles.

Nonsense, I've paid for music

[giafly]

As I've said here repeatedly, nobody pays or has ever paid for music.

Back when I ran a games company I paid $thousands for sound-track music. Not ACCESS to music. Real, new music that would not have existed otherwise. Here's a more famous example, the original Channel 4 jingle.

But did they get away with it?

[Lonewolf666]

GP did not tell us how the company fared after he left, but I think it is possible that the turnover got high enough to destroy the productivity of the team. In that case, the company might be bankrupt by now...

Brilliant

[drpickett]

Absolutely brilliant - 1000 whose line points

dp

Re:One small correction

[Aceticon]

I hardly consider a notebook or an iMac to be a real "portable music player" and they're the closest you can get to it if you're using iTunes to play the music.

Re:I have a translation process constantly running

[Mateito]

I want that on a T-shirt!

vinyl records

[falconwolf]

Sub Pop Records [subpop.com] sells vinyl directly. They've released albums by Nirvana, Soundgarden, L7, The Jesus and Mary Chain, The Shins, The Postal Service, and more artists. When you buy a record from them that was released in 2007 or later, you get free downloads of all the songs. So you don't even need the USB port

Thanks. Though I don't listen to this genera, Sub Pop, it gives me hope others offer new vinyl in the generas I do listen to and like. I like most Jazz; Southern Fried Rock; Blues; Country and Rockability; and Reggae and Zydeco; as well as Celtic.

Falcon

Re:vinyl records

[dlim]

In that case, check out William Elliott Whitmore. He's released three albums that are available on cd and vinyl(without mp3). He has a couple of songs available on eMusic and you can hear 4 of his songs on Daytrotter. He's got a great voice for a 28 year old kid from Iowa. His songwriting is timeless and he's good on the guitar and the banjo. He's one of my favorite artists.

Re:No you can't

[Toba82]

Slavery was very capitalistic. Hence all the buying and selling. Feudalism and slavery weren't different economic systems, they just limited the pool of people who actually participated in the economy money-wise.