Store Says DRM Causes 3 of 4 Support Calls

Carter writes "Ars Technica is reporting that Musicload, one of Europe's largest movie stores, has found that 75% of its customer support problems are caused by DRM. Users have frequent problems using the music that they have purchased, which has led Musicload to try selling independent label music without DRM. Artists choosing to abandon DRM in favor of good old-fashioned MP3 have seen 40% growth in sales since December. Good to see someone in the business both 'gets it' and is willing to do something about it."

Comments

These Are Desired Problems

[eldavojohn]

Curiously, the article doesn't mention any specific problems. I'm racking my tiny brain right now to think of some problem that isn't desired by the RIAA.

I submit to you the anecdotal evidence of my sister's "iPod." She purchased songs through iTMS and attempted to move the DRM'd files onto her SanDisk MP3 Player. Then she wondered why it didn't work. It didn't work because the files have digital rights management & only brand specific players will play it--and vice versa.

You know, right now iPods are probably the most popular portable music device. But I don't know of any other music download DRM services that they work with. So if some third party download service called Musicload is reporting that 75% of problem calls are DRM related, I'm going to wager that every single call went a little something like "Do you have an iPod?" "No." "I'm sorry, iPod doesn't support our DRM." (or the German equivalent). In fact, on their site, I don't see an iPod as being supported.

I think a DRM standard that everyone adopts would avoid these issues but I don't forsee that happening in the future. It benefits Apple somewhat because they can have a great service or a great player and reap the market. I don't blame them, however, because they do a fine job on both ends. I am concerned about any sort of free market existing here.

In the end, the RIAA wants these problems. They don't want you docking a player with many computers and soaking up the files. They want one player associated with one computer associated with one account and any attempt to anything else should wipe everything off the face of the planet. Why? Money. Somehow the consumer no longer has a voice.

Re:These Are Desired Problems

[Red Flayer]

In fact, on their site, I don't see an iPod as being supported.

From the Musicload site:

TIPPS
Kein WMA mit iPod!
Kein WMA mit iPod!
Der iPod unterstützt leider nicht das populäre Windows Media Audio (WMA) Format von Microsoft. Musicload empfiehlt deshalb Mobile Player zu kaufen, die WMA und MP3 Formate abspielen können.

Auf Englisch (my translation):

IPod unfortunately does not support Microsoft's popular format, Windows Media Audio (WMA). Therefore, Musicload recommends that you buy a Mobile Player which can play WMA and MP3 formats.

Specifically, Musicload's offerings are in WMA unless they fall in the subset of non-DRM'd media now available -- so no iPods is right on the mark.

Re:These Are Desired Problems

[Anonymous Coward]

DRM and it's monopolizing ability will be gone by the end of this decade.

Oh, thank god! I was worried that the RIAA would continue to rape me and the artists like they have been for the past 30 years. But now this anonymous coward has reassured me that it will not last past 2010!

I can't wait for 2010. No more DRM and I'll have my flying stainless steal DeLorean!

Re:These Are Desired Problems

[Seumas]

I don't buy CDs anymore, unless they are to support a band I'm interested in and it is the only way I can purchase them. First thing I'll do is run home and rip them so I can add them to my digital collection, which is how I listen to 100% of my music.

I don't buy anything with DRM. If there is DRM, I'm more likely to just get it from bit torrent or a Russian site. It will have much higher quality, too.

However, if you have good music and the money is going to you and I can get it simply via digital download, I'm all over that. I won't pay a dollar a song on iTunes and have never used that. For a buck a song, I might as well just go buy the CD and rip them myself so I don't have any DRM restrictions in the first place! But if you have unrestricted, quality MP3s available for a simple download (like Anders Manga, The Low, etc) I will gladly pay $10 or $12 an album and - quite recently - have a number of times.

I think this goes to support the growing swell of "I'm willing to pay if you're willing to give me what I want".

Re:These Are Desired Problems

[HunterZ]

Hence the phrase "defective by design"

http://defectivebydesign.org/

Re:These Are Desired Problems

[J0nne]

WMA is popular? Since when?

Re:These Are Desired Problems

[bberens]

I realize this tripe argument is often dragged out and people are tired of hearing it but I'm one of those users who, on occasion, will buy a license but run a warez version because the copy protection makes the product difficult to use.

Re:These Are Desired Problems

[geekoid]

except, of course, the iPod can play mp3s.

Re:These Are Desired Problems

[Nushio]

"Somehow the consumer no longer has a voice. "

We still do. We speak in the only language they understand. Money.

Speak with your wallets, not your voice.

I dont get it.

[brian.gunderson]

I personally don't understand why everybody hates DRM so much. Let's consider the needs of the handicaped for once.

Four?

[Das Auge]

Four support calls isn't really that bad...

The wrong person is "getting" it

[Overzeetop]

This store is taking a realistic look at their support costs, and has determined that a particular "feature" is costing them a lot of money.

Woohoo. Great. Little happy dance. Big fucking deal.

They aren't the ones who are pushing DRM. They ahve it because without it they wouldn't get the major label tracks which (I presume) form the bulk of their income. This isn't hurting the labels who are requiring the DRM, its simply sqishing the middle players. Now, this is certainly better than just squishing the consumer, but it's still a far cry from leverage to affect change where the change can actually occur.

Re:The wrong person is "getting" it

[croddy]

The stores that are pushing the DRM-encumbered media are complicit in pushing DRM. They've chosen willingly to push this technology, and that doesn't make them the victims. They're merely the little dog, racing around the bigger one as it rips at the consumer's jugular.

Musicload, one of Europe's largest movie stores

[Intron]

Odd name for a movie store.

Anyway, I've returned a DVD because it wouldn't play on my computer. Not surprisingly, it was due to DRM. If the stores lose money trying to sell it, then they will stop carrying it.

I don't believe their data

[giorgiofr]

Simply put, the user is too dumb to realize they even have a problem, let alone link it to DRM. Nobody knows what DRM even is, there is no awareness at all. 'nuff said.
As a side note: why don't the famous musicians dump their majors and start selling mp3s independently? I would suppose they'd earn much more.

Re:I don't believe their data

[tomstdenis]

Might work if you own the studio and what not. But if you have no money and need access to a quarter of a million dollars worth of recording gear ... what are you going to do? The problem is they don't break away from the recording companies soon enough...

As for people not knowing what DRM is ... I'd say that's a bit reaching. Most people who have used itunes or DVDs are at least aware of "something" which makes it harder to use things as you'd think you could (re: skip the ads at the start, or copy the itunes files to other machines).

They might not know the intricate details about how the DRM "unworks" the system, but I think they're at least aware of it's presence.

Tom

Re:I don't believe their data

[croddy]

As Dick Dale said:

Don't sign with a label; don't sign with a record company, because the minute you sign your name, you will lose all the rights to your music, and you will never see a dime. So what you should do is build up your following by continuously playing. Save up your money and record your own stuff and your own CDs, and then learn to market yourself. Sell your own CD's right out of your vehicle, right out of your show, just like Johnny Cash sold his records right out of the trunk of his car. ... If you sign with a label, the label will take it all, and you won't see one nickel. And that's the reason why labels will give you a million dollars up front... they'll invest four million into you and they'll take about fourteen million making that kind of money off of you and you'll end up owning them two million. So you'll never see a dime of anything that you do. And when you start to make money for the company they make you record another song, so that you will go back in the hole again, the company does. So that's the reason why you'll never see a dime in royalties. You'll be lucky if they even give you thirty-five cents a record. Whereas if you make and sell your own CD, whatever it costs you to make the CD, above and beyond that you'll put in your own pocket.

This is a guy that's survived a shark bite, beaten cancer, and has been supporting himself playing music since the early 60's. Anyone who tells you that you need a major label to promote your work is either ignorant or actively trying to defraud you.

Re:I don't believe their data

[toadlife]

If they go independant

* Their music will *never* be played on mainstream radio ("payola", though in more subtle forms, is very much alive today)
* Their videos will never be played on Music Channels like mTV
* Their CDs will never be sold in major music stores, or sold on major online retailers.
* As a result of the aforementioned, they will never be able to to gain much exposure, and thus never be able to sell many concert tickets, which is the biggest revenue stream for most musicians.

In short, going independent is a sure way to not make much money.

The entire music industry is a cartel, much like the DeBeers diamond cartel. Like DeBeers has with diamonds, they have near complete control over the production and distribution of their product. This allows them to manipulate both supply and demand, which in turn, allows them to sell their product for more than it would be worth in a truly open market. Because of the control they have over every aspect of music production and distribution, third parties are not able to make much money selling music unless they join the cartel.

Currently the music industry is trying to further limit distribution of their product via DRM. This further increases the profit margins because consumers cannot resell their DRM locked music, like they can used tapes or CDs. DeBeers has done a similar thing - though by different means (obviously you can't put DRM on a diamond), and been very successful at it over the last century.

I know the DeBeers/Music Industry analogy isn't perfect, by DeBeers is the most successful cartel ever so I imagine every cartel looks to it for "inspiration".

Re:I don't believe their data

[Sique]

Simply put, the user is too dumb to realize they even have a problem, let alone link it to DRM. Nobody knows what DRM even is, there is no awareness at all. 'nuff said. Do you actually think the customers call support and tell them: "I have an incompatibility between the used DRM on file ABC and player XYZ, because the used DRM Coding BlaFasel v1.04.02 is not recognized by the player firmware 2.42!" If they had a clue like this they wouldn't call support in the first place.

No. The statistics come from the resolution put into the support ticket. And those resolution was found by the support people probably after lengthy discussions with the customer to find out what actual release of which software player he was using, what make of hardware player he bought, how to update it, which DRM version of which music file finally got running on which configuration.

Re:I don't believe their data

[DrBdan]

If they go independant
...

I would agree with everything that you said if you change the word "go" to "start". As people have already stated it is very difficult for a new band to get access to equipment, recording time, media exposure etc without the help of a label. That is a large part of why new bands usually jump at the chance to join a label.

On the other hand there are a number of large bands that could potentially go independent now and do just fine. A prime example is Radiohead, who are in fact not in a contract right now but I bet when their new album is released it will get just as much hype as the last one. Of course the majority of bands aren't big enough to sustain a large fanbase without a big label or are locked into multi-album record deals, which is why the labels are able to take advantage of so many bands. That's my two cents at least.

Re:I don't believe their data

[toadlife]

An established artist going independent still entails a certain risk. Why go independent when you have the leverage to sign contracts that are more favorable to you, and still get all the benefits of belonging the cartel?

Could be a way to protest DRM

[thewils]

Phone for support, act dumb. Drive that 75% up to 95%. If the cost of providing support exceeds revenue, maybe DRM will be dropped.

Re:Could be a way to protest DRM

[Americano]

Phone for support, act dumb. Drive that 75% up to 95%. If the cost of providing support exceeds revenue, maybe DRM will be dropped.

How is this informative? If you want to succeed in driving online music sales out of existence, which will in turn cause the RIAA to scream even more about piracy, and start slapping even more people with lawsuits, then great.

How about, if you don't like DRM, you don't purchase music from artists & labels which support DRM? Shift that money to indie labels & independent artists that don't use DRM, and suddenly you'll see small labels become much more influential. You can drive a wedge into the recording industry associations by spending your money on labels that do business in a way you agree with; fucking over the resellers and driving them out of business is not the way to reach any desirable end state.

I don't care if Jessica Simpson is offering to personally give you a hummer for every DRM'ed track you buy... if DRM (or more precisely, the lack of it) is important to you, then don't buy it .

Re:Could be a way to protest DRM

[Jtheletter]

Except that the labels will see lower sales (from people buying indie labels/bands) and still scream "piracy is eating our profits!", so there needs to be an added step of not buying DRM'd music and telling the RIAA labels at the same time so they know WHY they lost a sale. Plus it's a non-solution for people who actually like a particular artist. Yes, a lot of mainstream RIAA-label music is pop crap, but some of the artists are worth listening to, so what do you do if you still want music from $ARTIST but still want to vote with your dollars? (leaving out the argument about how this wouldn't then be a boycott, but not everyone wants to do a wholesale boycott) The parent poster's solution was actually not that bad in that respect. You buy the music you want, but make it clear to the distributor, and therefore eventually the label, that you are not pleased with the DRM by harrowing their support with DRM related questions. Then the distributor sees their support costs going up from DRM, and tell the labels that DRM sucks.

The more pessismistic view is that there will always be enough ignorant or indifferent consumers of RIAA music that a personal boycott, even with telling the labels your reasons, will have little effect because of the huge number of consumers who don't care and will buy anyway. It's not enough in this situation to just not buy RIAA music, you have to make it affect their bottom line, and in such a way that they can't ignore/hype it as "economic effects of piracy". Driving up costs that are tied to specific metrics (aka can't be written off to piracy) like tech support is one good way to get the message across. To keep up the boycott aspect for those willing to do so, buy it, pursue support, then return it stating clearly your reasons for doing so.

Apple iTunes

[interiot]

So why doesn't Apple do this? They talk the talk, saying they think DRM is harmful, yet all of their music is DRM'd, even from artists who don't want their music to be. And the article also says Musicload did this specifically because it's in heavy competition with iTunes, and thought it would give them an advantage (which it has). So when will Apple step up and allow specific artists to go DRM-free too?

Re:Apple iTunes

[interiot]

Setting up the technical and support structures for interoperability is a huge deal though, and it's not the sort of thing you can try on a limited basis, or back out of shortly after, without pissing off a lot of people and organizations who have put a lot of effort into setting up new code and new organizational structures.

On the other hand, allowing selected tracks to go DRM-free is less of a big deal. It probably requires some code changes to iTunes, and requires some legal discussions with the specific artists and their labels, but it's easy to do for a small set of tracks, and they can always back out if they want to.

So, if Apple does steadfastly refuses to take even the smallest steps towards removing DRM for a few select tracks, then that means Apple's exhortations on the downsides of DRM was either hot air, or just another chess move as part of the back-room negotiations with the music companies (along the lines of Viacom suing YouTube).

Re:Apple iTunes

[Stinking Pig]

Because, in the immortal words of Al Franken, they're lying liars who lie. They're getting called out for their monopolistic behavior in the EU, and they're pointing the finger at someone else while they squeeze another few years of lock-in out of the folks who buy in to the system. DRM will be removed from iTunes when an external force makes it happen, and then Steve Jobs or his replacement will play the saint and parade his "great achievement" all over the news.

Re:Apple iTunes

[Builder]

Steve Jobs LIED in that article. He sells music today WITH DRM that the artists are quite happy to have sold without DRM (as evidenced by sales elsewhere).

Steve Jobs has a very good reason to say that he wants to get rid of DRM... multiple european countries considering sanctioning his products here.

The guy is a major part of Disney now, and Pixar before that. He's been massively into DRM for a lot longer than just the iTunes store lifetime.

Going Out on a Limb

[asphaltjesus]

And stating this isn't directly the entertainment conglomerates fault. It's a disingenuous game for sure.

I think the Entertainment conglomerates can plausibly claim at the PHB level, "there's no DRM standard and that's not our fault." This way they can maintain chaos and gain total control of the digital distribution channel when they pick a winner.

It also means that whoever is making these DRM schemes has to do a really good job creating code that has _lots_ of error condition controls. Which I just don't see anyone doing.

The end game is the media conglomerates to win unless the copyright law is meaningfully overhauled.

used CDs work

[digitaldc]

I have given up on downloaded music these days, if I really like a band I'll buy a new or used CD, and definitely never use iTunes.

Next thing you know, we'll be getting out the microphone and rip a song right from the loudspeakers - oldskool.

Re:used CDs work

[neomunk]

No, see, the whole point of modern DRM is that a signal can't GET to a regular old audio-out jack without being downgraded significantly. It's the whole "Trusted Computing" thing. You'll have digital bits screaming out of that jack, and you can't make any sense of it (without cracking it, which is illegal, in the U.S. at least). Only after it's actually INSIDE the speaker itself can it be trusted to be turned back into a real audio waveform, and only if the speaker (and every other piece of hardware in between it and the source) checks itself out regularly to make sure there aren't any unexpected voltage drops or other signs that could be indicative of a tapped line somewhere.

It's completely obnoxious in both scale and obtrusiveness, technologically speaking.

And WE get to pay for it! Don't we all feel warm and fuzzy now, knowing we're paying for people to protect themselves from us. God knows -I- can't be trusted with something as powerful as a nsync album, and I should have to pay to make sure that very complicated steps are being taken to make absolutely SURE I don't do anything dangerous with that music-like-abomination.

Deutsche Telekom interest in DRM?

[Red Flayer]

Musicload is owned by Deutsche Telekom, who also own T-Mobile USA.

T-Mobile USA won't support non-DRM'd media out of the box (for ringtones!). I think a couple executives (and a few board members) are going to have to have a conference call and try to figure out DT's position on DRM.

Re:Deutsche Telekom interest in DRM?

[Dog-Cow]

Leaving aside the idea that different companies, even when owned by the same parent, may have different views, there is no contradiction here at all. For T-Mobile, DRM is making them money. For Musicload, it costs them money. You are thinking in terms of whether DRM itself is bad or good. Businesses don't. All they care about is how DRM affects *their* bottom line.

Re:Deutsche Telekom interest in DRM?

[Red Flayer]

All they care about is how DRM affects *their* bottom line.

Right. And parent companies have to consider whether their subsidiaries' activities negatively impact other units' profitability.

T-Mobile not supporting non-DRM'd music may increase support expenses at Musicload, as customers try to buy newly available non-DRM'd music at Musicload and experience problems. A CBA would determine if the support for those customers is cheaper than the increased profits from sales of DRM'd music; if not, then these subsidiaries should figure out a better way to work together.

This is an example of the opposite of syngergy -- we have here two parts whose total value is less than the sum of each part.

Pass the cost on

[gelfling]

Make the media more expensive. Drive out your own customers. Complain there aren't enough people in the known world to sue. Lather rinse repeat.

Re:Pass the cost on

[IvanTheNotSoBad]

This really should be modded insightful instead of funny. It appears to be the actual business plan of a lot of these companies.

While the story is about DRM'ed music...

[93 Escort Wagon]

I am often surprised at how few people realize their DVD player's "problems" are, more often than not, related to Macrovision's content protection. I suppose technically it is an issue with the DVD player, since it's not handling the Macrovision stuff gracefully; but by and large the general public just seems to think that DVD players suck - and they blame the hardware manufacturer rather than the MPAA.

DRM needs to die. Its only real-world impact is to inconvenience those of us who try to do things legally - certainly the pirates aren't being overly inhibited.

Also, pirated versions are always superior

[Von Rex]

Not only are the pirates proceeding full speed, the pirated media is superior to the original and hence more valuable. Examples:

Music -- No DRM, can play anywhere, any number of times, no restrictions.

Movies -- You can copy only the main movie so it starts up immediately without the need to even touch any controls. No menus, no half a dozen previews, no FBI or MPAA warnings. And absolutely nothing, anywhere, that is "unskippable".

Games -- No CD checks. No hunting through your house to find a CD just so you can play an old game that's already fully installed. No losing your purchase because the disk is damaged.

So, the current option offered to people who want to be legit is to buy overpriced stuff that's a pain in the ass to use and isn't as functional as the free pirate versions. What a surprise that so many people opt out of that deal.