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UK Music Retailers Beg, Drop the DRM
thefickler notes that consumers aren't the only ones carrying "Death to DRM" placards. UK music retailers are telling the recording industry enough is enough — that the industry's obsession with copy protection is hurting, not helping, profit. Kim Bayley, director-general of the UK Entertainment Retailers Association, said that the anti-piracy technologies are not protecting industry revenue but instead "stifling growth and working against the consumer interest." The ERA hopes the industry will drop DRM in time for the holiday season. Good luck with that.
...but in the states, this is very apparent. Not only do we have big outlets like the Virgin Megastore closing down in big cities, but long-standing "mom-and-pop", independent record stores are not making it. I see this with a lot of my old favorite record stores in the midwest, but also some of my favorite stores from when I lived on the left coast, like Aron's Records, an veritable institution I never thought would close down.
Now, it may be easy to blame "downloading," but ask anyone who supported these record stores for years and there's two main reasons: 1) Lack of compelling content these days; and 2) general lack of trust for the record industry. When the old hippie burnout down the street is afraid to buy a CD because it might "have a virus on it," you know the MAFIAA have shot themselves in the foot. Unfortunately, they continue to find ways to make money, while the artists and record-shop owners are the ones being put out of business.
:q!
Indeed. I think the DRM fight is the first battle that will be won by "internet inhabitants", the "blogosphere", and most of the free-thinking people of the online world. It is happening, and this article is just the sign that we are one step closer. This is a battle in which we are already seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, although far away.
Now we have several more battles to fight; F/OSS software over propietary, breaking Microsoft's monopoly, net neutrality, copyright law reform, etc...
Let's get back to work.
Tis women makes us love, Tis Love that makes us sad, Tis sadness makes us drink, And drinking makes us mad.
> Why is no one buying CDs? Are people not interested in music?
I thought this should be obvious: people like music, so they buy music. But they don't like CDs, so they don't by them. Most people I know have a CD player somewhere, but it is collecting a layer of dust. They listen to music on the iPod, the mobile phone and the computer.
The problem with stores is that they are not very good in selling virtual goods. I think that web stores do a much better job for this.
> So they were out to destroy the record industry from right under my nose?
The record industry already went the way of the Dodo, and the CD industry will follow soon. As usual, content survives, media don't.
As to the rest of your post: time to chill out, dude!
Two and a half years ago, I forgot to lock my truck.
A thief came by and stole:
1. A cup of change (for the meter)
2. A fresh pack of Kamel Red Lights
3. My entire wallet of CDs -- a ratio of 90% store-bought CDs and 10% assorted collections of mixes from parties, birthdays, longs nights of ecstasy, and the kind of presents girls with too much time on their hands make for you.
I went to ye olde Wal-Mart, bought a satellite radio, and I haven't bought a single CD since. I can record off the radio legally, the songs save on my radio for ~90 days (XM just imposed some time limits on the songs), and I can also put MP3s on the unit with a USB cord (the little trapezoid type). I haven't downloaded any music in ages, as I can get all the popular crap on the radio and I feel justified in re-acquiring the CDs that I had previously purchased on the Internet. Whether due to my own incompetence or not, I'm not going to spend another $1000 dollars replenishing my lifetime collection of CDs.
I can only imagine how some of the older folks feel. Who the hell wants to replace their collection of records, tapes, 8-tracks, et cetera everytime a new medium is embraced by a bloated industry in order to SELL more copies. It's not about the music!
Viva la revolution!
P.S. XM is 12.99 a month, so it's not like I found the free solution, but it has the wonderful ratio of entertainment hours per monthly fee as those crack-like MMORPG games (UO, WoW, EQ...)
A whopping 120 characters to take your mind off topic. Tested in MS Word.
It's also worth remembering that more ISPs are throttling our bandwidth based upon the type of traffic. We may win a battle and still get creamed in the war.
It's important that we codify Net Neutrality right away. We have to press the issue now because although the Democrats are talking a good game at the moment (at least some of them), as soon as they take back the White House and increase their margins in Congress, they're gonna suddenly remember who paid for all their expensive election campaigns. Then, we're gonna see 'em go right back to giving Big Telco a backrub while the Internet becomes little more than a delivery system for our wealth to the corporations.
Honestly, if you're reading this, you've got a pretty fair understanding of how this thing works. You also know how to communicate and probably have a little money in your pocket, (even though you've been played by the best and have a hefty balance on that MasterCard from all those things you "need"). Chances are you're also younger than the US median. That all means you're prime candidates for exercising a little political power. Remember, politics is just social engineering, so your mad skillz are probably quite useful. Figure out who's really on your side and go to work, bitches. And don't sell yourselves cheap.
And bless you all you iconoclasts and free-thinkers this Thanksgiving Day. And tomorrow, instead of spending 20 bucks in gas to save 18 bucks on some geegaw (running up your MasterCard even further and increasing your Serfdom), spend some time learning how be become an insurgent in what may be our last battle for independence from total corporate control of our lives. And be good to one another - the best investment you can make is the one you make in family and friends.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Once again I insist that our community stop calling it copy protection. Does it protect my copies? No. We also need to stop calling it DRM. Does it manage my digital rights? No. (In fact it does the opposite of that, it cripples my digital rights -- DRC.)
We should call it what it is, which is Playback Prevention. That's what the technology does, it prevents playback. Both the consumers and the producers can agree that's what it does, although we will disagree about whether or not that's a good thing for technology to do.
Tag this story !copyprotection !drm playbackprevention.
What we need is for CD makers that *don't* use DRM to get together and make a "MP3 friendly" logo.
Red to red, black to black. Switch it on, but stand well back.