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UK Music Retailers Beg, Drop the DRM

Posted by kdawson on from the free-as-in-no-chains dept.

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.

32 of 219 comments (clear)

  1. Good luck indeed by Panitz · · Score: 3, Informative

    Does the holiday season not start today? If so, I cant see it being dropped, erm... yesterday. Or am I wrong?

    1. Re:Good luck indeed by Tim+C · · Score: 4, Funny

      Only in the US, my friend; everywhere else we're looking forward to Christmas. So yes, you're wrong.

      The clue was in the repeated use of the letters "UK" in the summary.

      --
      It's official. Most of you are morons.
    2. Re:Good luck indeed by Opie812 · · Score: 5, Funny

      It was my understanding that the UK had thanksgiving as well. The only difference being it falls on July 4th.

      --
      I'm not a nerd. Nerds are smart.
  2. OK? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    FYI, ERA asks BPI to drop DRM ASAP.

    1. Re:OK? by locofungus · · Score: 4, Funny

      FYI, ERA asks BPI to drop DRM ASAP.

      Something like that is just crying out for an acronym.

      FEABTDDA (pronounced FeabTaDa perhaps?)

      Tim.

      --
      God said, "div D = rho, div B = 0, curl E = -@B/@t, curl H = J + @D/@t," and there was light.
  3. Not in the UK by Chrisq · · Score: 4, Insightful

    We don't have thanksgiving, this refers to Christmas. I am sure most of the DVDs, etc. expected to sell at Christmas are already produced so it is still an impossible target.

  4. The time to prepare the next trap is ending. by Thanshin · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You set up an unfair system and many people fall while some people avoid the trap.

    After a while everybody knows about your trap and starts crying foul.

    That's the time you have to prepare your next unfair system.

    I fear the time when record labels say "We hear our customers and are removing the DRM system." followed by "Piracy is rampant! The only solution is...".

  5. Don't know about the UK... by leamanc · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ...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!
    1. Re:Don't know about the UK... by Kupfernigk · · Score: 5, Insightful
      I think it's content,content,content. Why does the second hand CD shop in our town flourish (in fact, has expanded) when the new releases are slowly going down the tubes? Because, I suspect, quantity has proven the end of quality. In the good old days, mostly expected sales volumes were much lower, even for the good stuff. Now, the industry expects to sell huge numbers. It's Goodwin's Law only applied to recordings not money.

      If the music industry is a volume box shifting business, it has to rely on high volume low margin. It cannot expect the buyers to pay a premium price for singers and musicians who will be forgotten after they've had their Warhol (that's 15 minutes of fame).

      It's like the car industry. The margins on a BMW are high because it costs a lot to persuade you to buy it. The margins on a European supermini are minimal because it costs almost nothing to get people to buy one, but people won't pay a high price for it. The music industry is alone in wanting to sell you a Trabant with the marketing budget of a BMW. This business model is based on the idea that the public is, in effect, too stupid to tell a Trabant from a BMW. It can't be guaranteed that this will remain the case.

      --
      From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
    2. Re:Don't know about the UK... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Actually, I'd attribute CD stores going out of business for the same reason horse & buggy dealers slowly went out of business (or switched) when cars came onto the scene. The goal was transportation, the products was a means to an end. Overall, cars were a better solution for most people on the transportation problem.

      The CD may be superior quality (same argument was made for the vinyl record before 8-tracks/tapes/CDs surpassed it) but the goal and how it is provided (entertainment, music, whatever) is better reached for most people with files distributed online than with CDs. Just think, with many CD sales today, all that will happen is that many people will bring them home, rip them, and put them on their favorite mp3 player. It's not even an argument about anything for most consumers but cutting out the work. I mean the above process and actually driving to the store and back, as well.

      Many people want to minimize the price argument, but it has a significant impact. It always has and always will. Whether you download just to see if you like the music or download to save money, we can't pretend it doesn't happen. It would be a similiar situation if they had devices that can copy anything perfectly (not just digital content) - would people go out and pay money for steak if they can have a perfect copy made at home for essentially free?

      This isn't to argue against the online model, but discussing the inevitable. Artifical mark-ups cannot be sustained indefinitely. We are only seeing the beginning of a digital revolution on marketplaces and I suspect no one will really know where it ultimately ends up - and no, iTunes is not it. That is a temporary gateway at best, suppliers and customers, in a way they are familiar and comfortable with. It can't and won't last with a free theatre down the street.

    3. Re:Don't know about the UK... by garett_spencley · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Exactly. While I am just speculating, I really think that if new albums sold for $1 - $4 each and provided an easy way to get the music on to an iPod or computer* then people would buy them up like candy.

      But $1 / song is simply too expensive for most people that I know. When a CD collection was *the* collection that someone chose to have then sure. But those were simpler times. We didn't have mass storage devices and DVDs (some people collected VHS tapes but most people chose to have a large CD collection or a large VHS collection .. now people can have both for cheap all they have to do is break a law that they think is silly or easy to ignore) ... we didn't have computers. So spending a couple hundred over a few years on a CD collection was worth it. But now it's the norm to fill a 20GB iPod with mp3s and if you did that at $1 / song (assuming 4MB / song) then you're looking at an investment of $5,000. Maybe I and everyone I know are just really unfortunate suckers who live well below the poverty line but I can't think of a single person that I know personally who would like the idea of spending $5,000 on music even over a few years. Most people that I know would see $5,000 as no more credit card debt, or a start to their child's college fund etc.

      * I'm not sure what that would be, heck it could be as simple as an instruction leaflet inside the jewel case, which wouldn't be useful for most people who already know what they're doing but it would be kind of like a stamp of approval from the record companies saying "We're with the times. We know you want this on your digital players so we're trying to help you with that". It could also maybe be in the form of a separate Joliet disk that has all the songs pre-ripped to mp3 with complete ID3 tags etc.

    4. Re:Don't know about the UK... by Rogerborg · · Score: 5, Insightful

      ask anyone who supported these record stores for years

      and they'll say "WHAT? SPEAK UP, WHIPPERSNAPPER. DOWN-LORDIE EMM PEE WHAT? Y'ALL FROM THE FUTURE?"

      Buying hard copies at retail is a geezer's activity. Once you can store your entire collection on a fingernail-sized iPod clone, and get new tracks within seconds using weekend-daddy's credit card, why on earth would you want to go out and buy a huge bit of plastic to store a copy of the two tracks you want plus eight that you don't in a medium that you'll never listen to?

      Physical distribution of CDs is dead in the water. It's an inefficient, unnecessary and expensive holdover from the ancient past. You might as well give away a free buggy whip with each 'album' (another dying concept) to try and boost sales.

      Lest you retort with the stale old "There will always be a market for uncompressed music", fie on that. CDs are effectively compressed. Audiophiles already need to get their fix elsewhere, and their sad devotion to their ancient religion demonstrably isn't enough to keep disks-and-mortar stores open.

      CDs are dead as a retail proposition. It's time to put down the buggy whip, and move on.

      --
      If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
  6. Finally... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It can't be good for business if making a purchase becomes this difficult and piratism is actually much easier. Some weeks ago I was actually looking for a song in online music stores, and I found what I was looking for. Then trying to buy it was the problem, some were not selling to Europe, some had some ridicolous protections, weird formats. I was supposed to install some plugin/program to even listen to the music I just bought. For me that was too much to ask, and I after some time I just gave up.

  7. Because by JustOK · · Score: 4, Funny

    They don't need DRM because security cameras in the UK are everywhere and they can see and hear each song that they listen to.

    --
    rewriting history since 2109
  8. Nothing to see here... by betterunixthanunix · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The unfortunate truth is that most people don't actually care about DRM, and the **AA knows this, and knows that even with DRM the discs will sell very well. People half expect the systems to be protected, and half don't care at all as long as they get their music and movies. Only the more educated users can even think that they should be able to make personal copies of these things, but they don't care enough to go out and get programs or media that allow that. This is the unfortunate thing that people like RMS neglect to account for -- consumers don't really care about freedom, they just want entertainment and flashiness.

    --
    Palm trees and 8
    1. Re:Nothing to see here... by Yvanhoe · · Score: 4, Insightful
      Well we can consider that MP3 is pretty mainstream by now and not a geek-only thing anymore. When people can't play their CDs on their computer, rip them to put them on their MP3 player or copy files as they want, they may not understand what is going on but they do care. And like always, they blame it on the seller or the artist.

      consumers don't really care about freedom, they just want entertainment and flashiness They do care, put freedom in a slogan, it does sell. Most of them just don't know how to achieve freedom in IT. After all, it can be confusing when open source is labeled as communism, Vista supposed to free creativity and DRMs to be a consumer service.
      --
      The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
    2. Re:Nothing to see here... by Felix+Da+Rat · · Score: 4, Insightful

      While I'd agree with you in general, I think that more and more of the Joe 6 pack crowd are starting to run into this. Since almost every device now offers the ability to play media formats (i.e. phones) you'll start to run into music format lock ins. Today and a lot of people have more than one computer (home, office, laptop, kid's computer, spouse's computer, etc.) people are probably running into the interoperability issues or will at some point soon.

      Last month I authorized my 5th computer to work with iTunes, so me and mine can keep playing music I've bought. Now I can't listen to it at the office. That doesn't really make any sense to me, because I could if I'd bought a CD instead, I'd just have to carry around a binder of music the size of a desk.

      The convenience of digital music is that it can be moved around and taken with you easily. DRM stops that and we'll just keep running into it.

    3. Re:Nothing to see here... by websitebroke · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Fortunately, I've been hearing quite a bit about DRM from my Joe-Sixpack friends lately. This apathy toward your own rights that people seem to have is slowly going away - at least in this particular place. It's a fairly easy thing to explain, unlike FOSS.

      For example:

      "Remember how you could copy tapes/CDs without restriction? Wouldn't it be nice to copy your downloaded music the same way? Well, you can, except for the fact that the record companies are using DRM to stop you, and are still charging as if you were buying a copyable CD. Doesn't that suck?"

      Eventually, enough people will be annoyed, and start asking for and buying DRM free music. The fact that 2 major record companies are offering DRM free music (for the moment) is a good sign.

      The key is to win this battle now before a generation grows up with restricted music. That is the main problem trying to get people outraged with proprietary software. People are used to the idea of buying software and having it locked down. For all intents and purposes, it's always been that way.

  9. Re:Good. by Slashidiot · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.
  10. Re:As a record store owner... by thsths · · Score: 4, Interesting

    > 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!

  11. Re:Not in the UK by 91degrees · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Few people really care about DRM on DVDs. All DVD players will play the things. It's easily circumvented. It's more or less invisible to most people. DVD recorders are still quite rare amongst non-techies.

    I think they're mostly talking about DRM for downloads. This is more of a problem. People expect their music to be portable, and don't want any complexity or compatibility problems transferring music to their mp3 players.

  12. Alternatives to buying CDs by b1gp0pp4 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.
  13. Re:As a record store owner... by ps236 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The reason the bookstore is doing well, but the CD store isn't, isn't because of piracy. It's because people want to read books (not just stories, but stories in books), but they want to listen to music, just not music on CDs. They'll buy their music from iTunes, Napster, etc because they can then listen to it on the move, on their 'portable music device'.

    The only reason for anyone under 40 to buy a CD now is so they can rip it and put it onto their portable music device... Since record companies are trying hard to stop this, it means that less people will buy CDs. Anyone who does rip a CD is made to feel like a music pirate anyway - so they may as well go the whole hog and download it off the Internet - if you're a pirate for buying a CD and ripping it, why not be a pirate by downloading it, and save yourself a fortune at the same time.

    Most people do NOT want to pirate music, but if that's the easiest way to get hold of the music to use as they want, that's what they'll use. If it cost £0.50 to buy a music track and was easy to do, and they could use it as they wanted (eg on all their music players) that's what most people would do - especially if they knew that £0.40 went to the artist/composer, rather than £0.01 to them, and the rest to the record label.

    The problem with any 'how much piracy is around' surveys today is that they are looking at the situation today, when it's really hard to get a useful downloaded music track legitimately, and it's even harder to find a decent CD. So, people almost HAVE to pirate music to get what they want. Fix that, and there'd be less piracy.

  14. Re:As a record store owner... by webmaster404 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Exactly, most people want to buy music "legaly" but when they can't rip CDs or get the downloads in the format they want (.ogg, MP3, AAC, WAV, FLAC) they will find it someplace else which is usually online.

    --
    There is no "disagree" moderation, and troll, flamebait and overrated are not valid substitutes
  15. Re:Not in the UK by Dr_Barnowl · · Score: 5, Insightful

    November? The mince pies, xmas cake, and xmas puddings, were on the shelf in the local Tesco at the end of September this year.

    I'd heartily support a ban on all Xmas activity until December, if it wasn't such a nanny state thing to do.

  16. Parent article by JackSpratts · · Score: 3, Informative

    here's a working link to the actual article (not blog) from the nominally subscription-only financial times:

    http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6ed6dd08-970a-11dc-b2da-0000779fd2ac.html

    - js.

  17. Re:Good. Better. Best. by PopeRatzo · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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's worth our being careful that the battle's not just being moved to a deeper level.

    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.
  18. Re:There's no DRM on CD's... by Dr_Barnowl · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Not every 5 1/4 inch silvered polycarbonate disk containing 44.1 MHz PCM digital audio is a "CD" though. Ask Philips.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CD#Copy_protection

  19. The press misses the point by tkrotchko · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I had to chuckle when I read this from the article:

        "believing instead that the near-ubiquitous practice of file-sharing can be abolished with more draconian copy protection mechanisms"

    No no no. The people running record companies are not stupid. They're smarter than most people. They know they can't stop file sharing; it's impossible. But like all businesses, they invest money to protect revenue. DRM is not an attempt to stop copying, it's an attempt to shore up revenue.

    To put it more simply, the record companies must believe they are better off revenue-wise putting on copy protection. If they spend $Z to get DRM on every CD, they'll stop X% piracy leading to $Y more revenue. If Y is greater than Z, then it makes sense to put on DRM. If Y is less than Z, then the DRM won't be put on.

    It's really that simple.

    --
    You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
  20. !copyprotection by Myopic · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  21. Re:Not in the UK by delt0r · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I just brought a disk that won't play on my DVD player. The other day we got one from the library with a warning not to play it on a computer because it will install a virus (No it wasn't sony). I find it particularly ironic with movies, since I almost never pay more than 10 Euros for a movie and mostly pay less than 5 Euro (less than a movie ticket). Why would i want a DVD shrink copy with all that effort of downloading when i can buy them for that. In other words, movies are cheap enough that buying from the shop is more convenient *until* they break compatibility like this.

    --
    If information wants to be free, why does my internet connection cost so much?
  22. MP3 Compatible??? by Rufty · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.