The Recording Industry's Failed Digital Strategy

An anonymous reader sends us a link to the Toronto Star, where Michael Geist has a terrific article on how the record labels got the Internet completely wrong. While somewhat specific to Canada, the article' arguments are more broadly applicable. The article links together the misplaced reliance on DRM and the Canadian industry's advocacy for increasing levies on blank media to demonstrate just how wrong-headed this strategy has turned out to be.

Comments

Network providers

[MichaelSmith]

TFA:

Indeed, there are better solutions out there - levies tied to network providers make more sense (and are already replicated by cable television levies for retransmission of content) - and there is a need to cover both peer-to-peer and the non-commercial use of content in user-generated content.

So now what? A tax on internet access? Charging per port?

Ah, some are coming around...

[skoaldipper]

EMI sounds like some smart CIO refreshed their memory on the failures of DIVX; introduced in part by Circuit City to negate the early years of an open DVD format. If you wanted to "own" your movie, you just purchased a "silver" status (at more or less the same cost of a DVD) but were only able to view it on your DIVX player (and other hoops to jump through). Sound familiar? You do not need these lock down schemes to part my money from my wallet. Just look at my DVD and CD shelf. Really, you don't need DRM.

Article doesnt mention DE-AACS

[plasmacutter]

AACS was the advertised poster child of "perfected" DRM. Everyone kept holding that up as the end of DRM cracking. It is dead now, and suddenly nobody in the media is mentioning it.

Trusted computing is the last on the table, though I don't really classify it's completed implementation as DRM.

Because the "ideal" trusted computing platform is built to refuse to run unsigned code period, a "trusted computing" compliant computer really cannot be classified as general purpose any more than a box wrench could be classified as a screwdriver.

It's too late for most

[Anonymous Coward]

I just heard an interview with Bob Ezrin. He just did a presentation at the East Coast Music Awards where he basically ripped the industry for being clueless. "It's like they're fighting the atom bomb with muskets and swords." He told the story about talking with an industry executive and asking him where his computer was. The guy said he didn't need one because his secretary opened his email. Ezrin's reaction was something like: "You're so dead." There has been serious carnage in the music industry and it isn't over yet.

From the conference website: "The conference program will include a presentation from legendary producer Bob Ezrin. Having produced, mixed and played on legendary albums by Alice Cooper, Nine Inch Nails, Lou Reed, and KISS, Ezrin is perhaps best known for his production work on Pink Floyd's seminal The Wall. He is currently working with Universal Music Canada on talent development and the creation of a next generation music company."

Re:DRM is on the way out

[ozphx]

If they think they can force draconian DRM on people who won't accept it, then their sales will just decline further and they will not fix any of their current problems.

I wish you we're right. I just imagine my mum coming up against these artificial restrictions. I bet she will just assume its a technical limitation. (DVD region coding was "probably something to do with the southern hemisphere" for her - maybe they spin it backwards ;)

Education of all your mates is important - but you run the risk of sounding like a whiney evangalist. Normally when I get asked about some use thwarted by DRM I just say "yeah, mate, your player could do that, but the movie publisher wont let you". Then if they ask I can drop an explanation.

I'll pay for the convenience

[tgibbs]

But will this new strategy really keep piracy at low levels? If I know that one of my friends has a hot new track that he downloaded from a site that lets the users download MP3s, it would seem stupid(in my opinion) for someone to fork over a dollar for the track. If I can get a good from free(from the friend), why in the world would I pay for it? Would it not become even easier to share copyrighted content?

I buy a newspaper almost every day, although if I wanted to save the 50 cents, I could surely find a discarded newspaper or ask a friend to give me his copy after he's done. Or I could hang out next to a newspaper vending box and piggy-back on somebody else's coin to steal a copy for myself. But the convenience of picking it up from the vendor or the box without having to look around or ask around is worth more to me than the money that I could save.

Re:Greed

[KoshClassic]

RIAA? How about RAAA? (that is, Recording Artists Association of America). If the artists would just get together and form a group like this, *they* could distribute the money to themselves, leaving the labels (at least on the basis of the 'ol "artists should get paid" argument) out in the cold.