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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.
FYI, ERA asks BPI to drop DRM ASAP.
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...".
...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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.