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Cory Doctorow On What iPhone's Missing Headphone Jack Means For Music Industry (fastcompany.com)
Rumors of Apple's next iPhone missing a headphone jack have been swirling around for more than a year now. But a report from WSJ a few weeks ago, and another report from Bloomberg this week further cemented such possibility. We've talked about it here -- several times -- but now Cory Doctorow is shedding light on what this imminent change holds for the music industry. Reader harrymcc writes: Fast Company's Mark Sullivan talked about the switch with author and EFF adviser Cory Doctorow, who thinks it could lead to music companies leveraging DRM to exert more control over what consumers can do with their music.From the article:"If Apple creates a circumstance where the only way to get audio off its products is through an interface that is DRM-capable, they'd be heartbreakingly naive in assuming that this wouldn't give rise to demands for DRM," said Doctorow. If a consumer or some third-party tech company used the music in way the rights holders didn't like, the rights holders could invoke the anti-circumvention law written in Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Steve Jobs famously convinced the record industry to remove the DRM from music on iTunes; is there really any reason to believe the industry might suddenly become interested in DRM again if the iPhone audio goes all digital? "Yes -- for streaming audio services," Doctorow says. "I think it is inevitable that rights holder groups will try to prevent recording, retransmission, etc." Today it's easy to record streamed music from the analog headphone jack on the phone, and even to convert the stream back to digital and transmit it in real time to someone else. With a digital stream it might not be nearly so easy, or risk-free."Doctorow shares more on BoingBoing.
Ultimately DRM boils down to even more labels not wanting their music to be heard. There's a simple answer to that, don't listen.
If you don't want to produce good quality CD music uncompressed playable through an awesome amplifier to a standard pair of headphones without any bullshit circuitry in between, then by all means don't produce it. There's enough music in the world that we don't need to jump through hoops if we can't hear your stuff.
Paying $29 for another dongle.
Today it's easy to record streamed music from the analog headphone jack on the phone, and even to convert the stream back to digital and transmit it in real time to someone else.
Unless they propose to beam music into my brain through a digital only chip then the analogue hole will ALWAYS exist on music. This isn't a monitor where the digital signal is the last easy point to intercept the signal. There aren't 2.3million individual points to accurately record and reproduce. There's just 2.
If you have a signal that can move two magnetic transducers, I can trivially pump that signal into a recording device after any DRM takes place.
But I won't, I'll simply copy the CD instead. Keep your locked down piece of crap.
So, I guess Cory Doctorow has never heard of a Digital to Analog Converter (DAC), eh? Once a signal is converted back to analog (which it still has to be to be amplified and heard by us non-digitally-enabled humans), it is once more free for the taking.
And unlike video, where you can play all sorts of games with resolution, etc, you can't decimate audio data nearly as much.
Also, if this happens, there will be about 5,000 adapters to use analog earbuds/headphones with the data stream; and again, there's that pesky DAC... So, in reality, this is nothing more than a tempest in a DRM-free teapot.
Don't buy an iPhone.
Or any other phone, starting next year.
- You need a small adapter for your regular headphones. This can get lost. So don't lose it.
- They can fit a slightly bigger battery in the phone, so it will last slightly longer
- The phone can be thinner.
- Headphone port will no longer break if you yank the cord sideways. It will no longer get plugged up with pocket lint.
- You can get noise cancelling headphones that are powered by your phone instead of a separate battery
- Charging while listening remains a question? How can you do it? Wireless charging built in? Y-adapter?
- Apple will sell bluetooth earbuds
- People who want attention will complain and make up stories about DRM
- Other people who want attention will complain and make up stories about headphone lock-in (even though there's an adapter for traditional headphones)
- Other people who want attention will complain about the horror of paying $12 of an adapter when they just bought a $600 phone
- Other people who want attention will complain because it's Apple and everything they do is bad
- Other people will defend because it's Apple and everything they do is awesome
- Next year, no one with any practicality will care that much because there's a $12 adapter for regular headphones.
When I heard that the iPhone was "missing" the headphone jack, my first thought was "good call".
Here you have this insanely popular electronic device that people have with them at all times, and what's the number one complaint about it? No, no, /. friends, no, it's not planned obsolescence. It's "this thing dies if it so much as looks at water."
Well if you're going to try to take care of that problem one thing you might go for right away is getting rid of that crazy big hole in the top that by its very nature of design is all about exposed metal contacts.
I guess you could get all crazy in your head about DRM and shit but as someone else points out, at the end of the day however the sound is delivered it must end up being converted into a signal that can be used by standard speakers or headphones.
The only way around that is if Apple plans on making it so you have only two options:
* play the sound directly through the iPhone's built-in speaker
* send the sound via some Apple-proprietary encrypted cousin of bluetooth to one of Apple's own special speaker systems that if they get large enough to entertain a party probably cost many thousands of dollars
If that's the direction they're going to go I'd like to imagine it's going to be a complete failure because people don't have the money or wherewithal to spend on special speakers from Apple (the computer company, not the music company).
But then again you only have to know a handful of Apple users to understand that they would do exactly that, and would be glad to go broke doing it.
"Stratigraphically the origin of agriculture and thermonuclear destruction will appear essentially simultaneous" -- Lee
Speakers will always be analog so the easy workaround would be to source "digital speakers" that utilise a single high quality full-range driver, snip the leads to the driver and hook up a LOC and record the analog level coming out of the LOC. There will always be an "analog hole" which can be used to bypass any and all DRM.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
The media content industry has already done away with analogue video output jacks. Now they are focusing on audio.
https://slashdot.org/comments....
It's sad how people go off the deep end, and try to make everything about their personal crusade, like Cory has. People will be able to use headphone adapters, and even if that wasn't allowed, the signal can be intercepted at the earbuds.
He's literally ignoring that Apple was the only company to ever fight against DRM in their products. Every other company just said, well they're they rights holders, they can do that.
http://www.computerworld.com/a...
Warner Music CEO Edgar Bronfman yesterday rejected in no uncertain terms Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs' suggestion earlier this week that the major music label companies should abandon digital tunes copy protection.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
I've had 3 iphones in a row, going back to the first one.
If the next one doesn't have a headphone jack, and there's an Android phone out there that does, I'll switch. I don't think I'm alone, either.
There will be phones with headphone jacks out there because people want them. People want to be able to use any headset. People don't want to carry adapters around.
It's a cash grab that delivers no additional value to users.
There will be phones with headphone jacks out there because people want them.
That's what they said about QWERTY keyboards on phones, and now look where we are.