Japan's Cell Phones May Get DRM, At Music Industry Behest

An anonymous reader writes "The Japanese Music Industry is currently in talks with Japanese cell phone providers to introduce a new anti-piracy system in all cell phones in Japan. This new system would make DRM software mandatory in all cell phones; this would connect to a DRM server on the Internet whenever the cell phone user would try to play a song. The song would only play if the response of the server would be positive. Otherwise no song would be played. The system raises several questions and concerns that the Financial Times article did not address. These include ripped legally bought music and music that has been released under a CC license or similar. Who would pay for the costs of the DRM checks, and what would happen if no connection could be established?"

Comments

user would pay for all costs

[postmortem]

you think that some global company would rather "decrease their profits and shareholder value"?

Yet Another Sky Is Falling

[mr_stinky_britches]

Defective by design, as usual. I'm sure firmware hacks/mods will be created if this were to be implemented on a wide scale. No worries, really.

Re:Yet Another Sky Is Falling

[Anonymous Coward]

No, not really, most people don't want to deal with hacking their phone... but then again most people with music on thier phone in Japan bought it over-the-air anyway, since the interface to the computer isn't usually all that convenient and most people don't have computers.

On the other hand, and people with computers and/or a lot of music probably already have iPods (or similar), so they won't much care.

As far as passing costs onto consumers, sure, they can raise the prices, but demand will fall, meaning it will cost the phone companies.. which gives them an incentive to resist it.

Good Lord!

[chef_raekwon]

the skillz market for hacking phones just went up again. when will these music industries/RIAJ/RIAA/etc ever learn from Amazon/Ebay/etc? Its all about customer experience. This may be the same reason why top100 music generally licks balls.
my 2 cents.

Re:Good Lord!

[tpgp]

the skillz market for hacking phones just went up again. when will these music industries/RIAJ/RIAA/etc ever learn from Amazon/Ebay/etc? Its all about customer experience. This may be the same reason why top100 music generally licks balls.

Ebay and Customer service in the same paragraph? Incorrect..

Ebay and generally licks balls in the same paragraph? Correct.

The blowback from this wouldn't be good...

[Anonymous Coward]

If the DRM system checks all songs against a server, regardless of origin, people will just end up using previous generation phones, or paying for a third party for a custom flash ROM to bypass this.

If the DRM system only checks flagged songs, I'm sure another black market will pop up allowing songs to be downloaded from somewhere, likely offshore.

Either way, Japan's analog of the RIAA loses long term for gains made in the short term. One can watch the lessons of DRM in the US, from the SDMI specs to FairPlay, to Apple just chucking DRM altogether to see what potholes are in store.

No connection?

[fucket]

What if you're on the subway and you want to play a song? You know, like 75% of all people do everyday on their way to and from work.

Re:No connection?

[chetbox]

What if you're on a plane? There's no coverage there and it's one of the places I'm most likely to want to listen to my music.

Re:No effect whatsoever

[0123456]

The technology will go into place, be pretty much invisible, and provide enough benefits for legitimate users that no one will cry except for people who aren't connected in any way to Japan.

In what way will this provide _ANY_ benefit to legitimate users? They can already play their music, so they will see no benefit from having to 'phone home' to verify that they can, and will see significant risks of being incorrectly refused the right to play music they've been given or paid for.

Users can only suffer from this nonsense, because they can only be denied the right to do what they've been doing up until now.

You know the answer

[acehole]

"Who would pay for the costs of the DRM checks, and what would happen if no connection could be established?"

If anything the last decade has taught us about the modus operandi of music industries is that they simply dont care and want their dollars. Who would pick up the tab for the check? The phone user. What would happen if there was no connection? No music.

Re:You know the answer

[TheRaven64]

You're contractually obliged to provide the service I pay for

You really didn't read that contract, did you?

Re:No effect whatsoever

[socceroos]

Bullcrap. Your premise is all up the creek. Telecom companies are not going to upgrade their infrastructure just because the music industry wants DRM everywhere. This has never happened in the past and it will not happen in the future. You're basically saying that the only reason that Telecoms are going to upgrade their networks is because they have deliberately increased the traffic themselves, not because of demand?!?!?

If this technology is getting implemented invisibly then why did it make front page news on slashdot?? Phail. Not even Echelon has been implemented invisibly.

Are you really telling us that because some people download pirated material we are not going to get any service upgrades? If not then why do you equate having phones without DRM with a free life in squalor?

Lastly, why on earth do you think that this isn't going to cause problems? DRM has caused major disruptions everywhere else it has been implemented. Do you think the Japs have the miracle fix for DRM that the rest of the world has been missing?

will fail

[xigxag]

All these hypothetical examples are beside the point. If the music industry wants this implemented, it will likely happen.

But even so, it won't work. Japan's music industry is even more moribund than the US industry. It got fat and comfortable charging for singles the equivalent of what US consumers charge for albums, and for albums, the equivalent of US$30 or more. Meanwhile it pushes the same arthritic set of superstars that have dominated their pop scene for 10, 15, 20 years or more. The end result is that the cost of entry for unknown acts is too high, new music suffers. Japanese consumers have grown accustomed to buying albums used and ripping them. Locking mobiles will just increase the sales of walkmans and ipods and will make it more of a no-brainer to circumvent DRM'ed music.

This is ridiculous

[Blue_Wombat]

I't not just the legally purchased music that I can legally put on my ipod now - and will likely want to put on my new phone to minimise the number of devices I carry. Bad though that is, this is much nastier. For instance, one of my friends plays in an amateur band. He gives us MP3s of their material - in fact the 10 or so of us that get given this are probably the entirety of their regular audience. They do it for love and the delight that people are listening to their stuff - for the same reason they put cliups on youtube. Under this silly scheme, even the copyright owner couldn't listen to their own stuff on their own phone!

Re:I hope the Music industry pays the connection c

[gsslay]

If you are translating into English, you use an English word your readers will understand.

What a depressing pandering to ignorance. What's wrong finding out who is involved and what they are? You know, actually stepping outside your insular little bubble and learning something new? Pinning this on the usual boogeyman is just lazy and dishonest.

By your logic, when the Japanese Prime Minister does something Slashdot readers should be told in translation what "Barack Obama" is up to in Japan. After all, who knows or recognises Taro Aso? Who cares they are completely different people?

Why stop there? I'm not sure about this "Japan", best translate it as "Hawaii".

Re:I hope the Music industry pays the connection c

[Blue Stone]

>Japan. Recording Industry Association of *America*.

Same arseholes, different toilet.

We still get shat upon.

Questions?