Why would it ever evolve? If they're going for the jugular now, and they ever succeed, what would ever cause them to want to release their stranglehold?
Ultimately they won't succeed. They have created an atmosphere whereby there is huge incentives to crack the DRM schemes and provide alternate (quasi-legal) distribution of copyrighted content. This has the effect of an arms escalation between the RIAA (or whoever) and the "hackers" with a no win situation for the copyright holders.
Currently this makes a lot of people into "criminals" who would be happier to have a reliable method of obtaining content for a reasonable cost. The trick is to find out the threshold below which people will click through Paypal to obtain a high quality MP3.
For the current middlemen, they need to add value to the process by brokering deals so that the users are presented with an aggregated view of possible choices (such as PPV does for movies). It is a non-starter to have single studio or company offerings; again, this provides incentive for "Napster" type systems to step in and provide the aggregated view.
jrp
Re:DRM adoption
on
Real DRM
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I agree with this 100%. The answer for "content owners" is to adopt an economic model which folks accept and go along with. This doesn't mean I get everything for free (proponents are not dealing with reality)... however the process of aquisition and use of "content" needs to be reasonable.
My wife just paid $18 for a CD soundtrack for one song (she likes Paul Simon, not the rest of the disk including P.Diddy and Bow Wow). This is outrageous and has the consumer subsidizing crap for the opportunity to listen to what they enjoy.
When I pointed out she could have dl'd just the one song her response was that this would deprive PS from his share of the royalties as well. I think most folks are like her, willing to compensate the artists they choose but upset at providing welfare for the rest of the dross.
Being an optimist I believe that eventually "DRM" will evolve into a system which allows folks to be fairly compensated for the work they do. The situation now is that there is a huge incentive for the middlemen to do anything to protect their margins.
Slashdot Mirror
Why would it ever evolve? If they're going for the jugular now, and they ever succeed, what would ever cause them to want to release their stranglehold?
Ultimately they won't succeed. They have created an atmosphere whereby there is huge incentives to crack the DRM schemes and provide alternate (quasi-legal) distribution of copyrighted content. This has the effect of an arms escalation between the RIAA (or whoever) and the "hackers" with a no win situation for the copyright holders.
Currently this makes a lot of people into "criminals" who would be happier to have a reliable method of obtaining content for a reasonable cost. The trick is to find out the threshold below which people will click through Paypal to obtain a high quality MP3.
For the current middlemen, they need to add value to the process by brokering deals so that the users are presented with an aggregated view of possible choices (such as PPV does for movies). It is a non-starter to have single studio or company offerings; again, this provides incentive for "Napster" type systems to step in and provide the aggregated view.
jrp
I agree with this 100%. The answer for "content owners" is to adopt an economic model which folks accept and go along with. This doesn't mean I get everything for free (proponents are not dealing with reality)... however the process of aquisition and use of "content" needs to be reasonable.
My wife just paid $18 for a CD soundtrack for one song (she likes Paul Simon, not the rest of the disk including P.Diddy and Bow Wow). This is outrageous and has the consumer subsidizing crap for the opportunity to listen to what they enjoy.
When I pointed out she could have dl'd just the one song her response was that this would deprive PS from his share of the royalties as well. I think most folks are like her, willing to compensate the artists they choose but upset at providing welfare for the rest of the dross.
Being an optimist I believe that eventually "DRM" will evolve into a system which allows folks to be fairly compensated for the work they do. The situation now is that there is a huge incentive for the middlemen to do anything to protect their margins.
jrp