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RIAA Says "Don't Expect DRMed Music To Work Forever"
Oracle Goddess writes "Buying DRMed content, then having that content stop working later, is fair, writes Steven Metalitz, the lawyer who represents the MPAA, RIAA in a letter to the top legal advisor at the Copyright Office. 'We reject the view that copyright owners and their licensees are required to provide consumers with perpetual access to creative works.' In other words, if it stops working, too bad. Not surprisingly, Metalitz also strongly opposes any exemption that would allow users to legally strip DRM from content if a store goes dark and takes down its authentication servers."
So they're knowingly defrauding the buyer by intentionally selling something not fit for purpose?
I assume our wise and courageous Justice Department will hand down indictments any minute!
Record sales are slowing down, and you are trying to cash in on the digital economy. How do you go about it? Well, if you're the RIAA, you publicly come out and announce to everyone that you are going to sell them a product that can arbitrarily stop working. Ugh, I really hope that the RIAA is not long for this world. Oh, and if they start getting bailout money I am leaving the country, mark my words. They have undermined their own business and they deserve to fail.
To the haters: You can't win. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine
mreposter
When GM went bankrupt they didn't come and take away everybody's car keys.
Support the EFF and Creative Commons. The war is coming, and they're supporting you...
"You don't understand, Harry, nobody could understand unless they have lived with the goblins. To a goblin, the rightful and true master of any object is its maker, not the purchaser. All goblin-made objects are, in goblin eyes, rightfully theirs."
"But if it was bought ---"
"---then they would consider it rented by one who had paid the money. They have, however, great difficulty with the idea of goblin-made objects passing from wizard to wizard. [snip] I believe he thinks, as do the fiercest of his kind, that it [the Sword of Gryffindor] ought to have been returned to the goblins once the original purchaser died. They consider our habit of keeping goblin-made objects, passing them from wizard to wizard without further payment, little more than theft."
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Dear RIAA,
In regards to your notice that you feel it is fair to arbitrarily remove something I have purchased from my possession (via disabling DRM'd music), I wish to inform you that you will never, ever, ever get another cent from me. I wish you good luck in maintaining your failing empire as it crumbles down around you for I am certain I am far from the only person who is disgusted at your activities and your outright contempt for me as a "customer." Thus I am certain others will also forgo purchasing your latest CD from Pop Star X and chose to instead invest that entertainment dollar in something - anything - that is of value. Your product no longer has value.
Thank you and goodbye.
What if there was a warning/disclaimer before every purchase of DRM'd media (music, books, etc) that said something to the effect of:
"This content contains digital protections to prevent copyright infringement. Part of these protections mean that if we decide to stop supporting this content or go out of business then you will never be able to legally access this content."
Just so people know what they're getting into. After all, it would only be a fair full disclosure of what they're buying and it might make people think twice about buying DRM'd media, but then again, I doubt the warnings on cigarettes really make people think twice about smoking.
Things you think are in the Constitution, but are not.
But this is more like a case of the retailer showing up at your door and breaking the disc in half. In that case, you bet I better get a replacement from that retailer.
If they're shutting down their DRM server, then they need to release non-DRMd copies of the music to the end user... Well... Actually, I guess that depends on the EULA. Someone care to check it?
I keep thinking how these approaches would work when applied to books.
...I'm going to have to kick my own ass if the RIAA-equivalent in the book world sees this and takes these suggestions seriously.
Imagine buying a great book, a classic even, that you'd like to have a copy of to reread over the years and maybe introduce your kids to later on.
Now imagine the ink disappearing or turning to gibberish after an allowable reading period (5 years? 1 year? 1 month?). I wonder what your average reader's reaction would be if they pulled their copy of their favourite novel off their bookshelf, opened it, and found it to be completely empty (actually, it would be amusing if the pages could just disintegrate in a puff of smoke!)
And now imagine that you don't even know what this allowable reading period could be. Every time you open that novel, it could be for the last time.
Honestly, I'm amazed we still have public libraries. I mean, they let people read FOR FREE for crying out loud. People are gaining knowledge, cultures are being distributed, ideas are being thought... and it's not being monetized?! This madness has to stop!
But, never fear, this can be easily solved by applying lessons we've learned from the music and movie industries. We can have reader licensing fees, or perhaps usage-based models where we can charge by the book or by the page. We can offer incentives to keep people reading too, pay for 10 pages, read the 11th free! (This offer not applicable where the current literary work ends in 10 or less pages. Page credits not applicable to other works.)
This is basically the reason why Image Comics was formed. They (Todd McFarlane, Jim Lee, Rob Liefeld, and some others) decided they weren't gonna give up the rights to their own creations to Marvel, so they formed what is essentially only a publisher of comics, not the typical publisher-studio combo that DC and Marvel are. They then became one of the top 4 comic publishers in the US because they were only publishers.
So, why doesn't someone try following their lead in the music industry?
It may not be induce criminal liability, but I'd think it's grounds for a lawsuit (probably a class-action in this case):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misrepresentation (probably fraudulent misrepresentation)
The misrepresentation in this case is that the product is sold as the legal right to listen to the electronic recording of a piece of music along with a copy of said electronic recording, and failed to properly represent the clause "until we decide to take it away without notice of any kind". Alternate legal arguments for damages might be a violation of the implied warranty of merchantability (that is that the product is at least approximately what the seller said it was).
Basically, the idea that party A can sell a widget to party B, and then take it away from party A at any time without notice either in the original purchase agreement or at the time of retaking, is pretty obviously something that should land you in legal hot water.
NYCL or the EFF could probably have a field day with this sort of thing. I, on the other hand, am not a lawyer, and this does not constitute legal advice.
I am officially gone from
This addresses a larger moral issue completely missing from modern discussion about the subject.
In the past, charging interest rates above 5%, if at all, was considered immoral and known as usury. It was so frowned upon because people recognized that making money without working is immoral and unethical in and of itself. Likewise, Adam Smith recognized that a high interest rate would cause capital to flood out of every industry into finance, since you can't hope to build a factory and have the same return as you would simply lending the same money for 10%.
The problem is that distribution of goods is now virtually free and worldwide compared to even a hundred years ago. Digital content even more so. It's understandable that patents and copyrights emerged as mechanisms to reward people for work, but the expiration of these rights is central to progress and promoting competition. Otherwise huge corporations will simply grow larger as they acquire the rights to human knowledge and creativity, and stifle any competition with their largesse and legal abuse.
It is illegal to knowingly sell someone a defective product under the guise of it being functional, it's called fraud.
MABASPLOOM!
If you don't like it, your recourse is not to do business with them, and convince as many as you can to not do business with them
Yohoho and a bottle of rum!
But mandatory piracy reference aside, I've been quite happy with the Amazon store (and iTunes now that it's DRM free, as it's higher quality, though it requires a windows VM). You just click, pay, and download an mp3. No DRM, properly tagged, no hassle.
I will buy a product over pirating it if the price is reasonable and it's equal quality (IE, no DRM). After all, most of the online deliveries I've found lately sport no DRM and can charge & download before I can fire up bittorrent.
Maybe DRM did spur innovation after all, if not the kind these cronies are bleating about.
93rd rule of Slashdot: No matter how obvious my sarcasm is, my comment will be taken seriously by someone.
But a class action lawsuit isn't going to do you much good if the company itself is going out of business, which would be one of the prime reasons for an authentication server to go out of business.
Personally, businesses pushing so much for this stuff tends to piss me off and start making rules like 'If you put DRM in it, and the DRM fails for whatever reason for a legitimate user, the user is entitled to a full refund'. And 'If the DRM requires a central server, and you shut it down, you have to provide a version that works without the server or refund everyone's money'.
I don't read AC A human right