It's the kind of thing you think you'll only do a few times. It's only harmless you say. You hear the horror stories, but you think that it won't happen to you. And then it does. You're at a party. Your party in fact. And it all goes horribly wrong. And you're left feeling a bit like you've been done.
Yes, that’s right. You tried to play a legally downloaded track, and it wouldn't play.
You think DRM (digital rights management) is ok. That you can deal with it, that it's not really all that bad. You buy a few songs from IMS (iTunes Music Store). Some especially for the party in fact, including a kick ass U2 Vertigo Remix by Jacknife Lee that was going to be a headline track.
You see this is why DRM is bad. In that it's not management at all, it's restriction. Yeah the artist gets their cut, but the record company gets an even bigger cut. The consumer however gets shafted. As I have said before, what you are paying for is essentially the right to have someone else dictate what you are allowed to do with you music.
The difference is, previously it was only a legal statement, that you couldn't make a copy of the music, etc etc, with some sort of fair rights assumed. Now that are trying to enforce it with technology.
See when we tried to play the track on the night, it needed an internet connection to authorise the computer. Now this is what I call untenable. A situation where I have paid for music, but suddenly at 1am I need an internet connection to listen to it simply is not a sustainable business model.
Which is why I wont feel bad, stripping the DRM off in future on music I have legally bought. And why right now I don't feel all that bad downloading albums off the net. Largely because the current music model just isn't working. I buy CDs. I'm probably buying less CDs I don’t wont than I used to, but I still buy CDs. I don't download TV or movies, because between Sky, DVDs and the cinema I have something that gives me what I want.
Having someone else tell me what I can do with my music and how I can listen to it, and not getting the headline track played at my party, isn't.
I relasise this is a long and rambeling post, and could largely be written well as opposed to how its written. The take home message is this:
DRM is bad. There a lot of people trying to sell the concept to you. They're lying. It's still bad.
1. matthew
Let’s call the Digital Rights Management Restriction People ‘The Man’.
What needs to be done, as in all aspects of life, is for people to ‘stick it to The Man’. Kick his ass. Fuck him about. Let him know that he’s not a millionth as important as The People.
Sometimes (ok nearly all the time) companies forget that their exact reason for being is to provide ‘things’. The People buy these ‘things’. The Man wants The People to be his slaves, and to do what he says or be threatened with force, extradition, or at worst, lawyers.
The Man is also present in Governments, etc. He is obsessed with exploiting every thing and person he can find in order to appease his Gods, The Money and The Power.
It’s all about The Money. The Man wants The Money. He wants your money. The Man doesn’t care about parties or good music or any of that, he cares about The Money. He wants to tell you what to do, and take your money. This is The Power. Believe it or not, you don’t want your money as much as he wants The Money.
(rant)
2. Pete
Here’s what I want from an online music service:
If anyone knows of an legal service that fulfils these requirements, please let me know about it. Until then, I shall remain of the opinion that the record companies just don’t get it, and shall act in a suitably contemptuous fashion.
3. Adrian
Pete, you can try AllOfMp3 which will give you that. I’ve never tried it but apparently its good.
The problem with online music is that it’s currently about 3 times over priced. At least. I don’t see the price coming down anytime soon, so I don’t seem piracy stopping much.
Also the album is dead if digital music takes off which will make an interesting market shift.
4. Coop
Yeah - I just bloody love DRM.
5. Destructor
Oh- so THAT’S what was messing with my set! Man, I’m forced to agree, it was frustration incarnated in computer form. When you’re all ready to bugaloo to Vertigo, as well. Jaysus.
d
6. Gordon
Indeed it is a sham of a mockery of a mockery of a sham.
Of course the problem is the record companies, not the technology implementors - Apple iTunes wouldn’t have a thing to sell if they didn’t use DRM, the record companies just wouldn’t allow it.
The fact that NOT having DRM and lowering the prices slightly would probably mean HIGHER online sales seems to be beyond their grasp. And it’s not like CD sales are being hurt, they rose again last year. Despite the popularity of iPods.
That remix sounds good though.. I might have to acquire that myself.
7. Adrian
Vertigo (Jacknife Lee 12” Version) [requires iTunes]
8. Chris
A spot of happier news: FCC told to FCC off with their anti-piracy bit
9. Fred
Is it DRM in itself or the implementation of it that’s the problem here? It seems that the commercial active implementations of DRM today (i.e. Music Store/iTunes) does deliver the security and licencing fees to the artists but also locks in the consumer to a specific hardware and/or software as you’ve duly pointed out. This is probably going to get more appearent as we will see mpeg4 do to movies what mp3 has done for music. iFlicks anyone? Not only does this approach lock people in to specific software/portal combos but also slow down the development of media players. What’s the point in writing the best media player in the world if it can’t play legal content? I want to see an open source DRM model that is only content dependent and not software/hardware dependent.
10. Adrian
Well part of the problem is the DRM itself. If I am paying for content, I want to be able to do with it what I want. Or at least what I can do with a CD. I can share CDs with my friends, take it to my party and play it anywhere. With DRM I can only play it on the machines I tell the records companies I want to use. That’s like having to ask your mom to use the car, but when it’s your car.
There is an open DRM standard. It’s called OMA. Currently it’s in the mobile market where Microsoft has little penetration. We might see this standard moving from the mobile market into the PC domain, which would be interesting. As much as I love Apple, and don’t mind MS, it would be interesting and have far more longevity to have a have an open cross system technical solution for DRM.
However the problem I maintain is DRM in it’s current business model format, is a con job, with lots of money rich labels trying to convince you that they have control over your systems, and you must do what they say. And quite frankly any industry that will pay Robbie Williams £80bar can kiss my skinny white arse.
11. Andrew Roberts
Using total number of downloaded tracks and total number of ipods sold it works out to be about 25 tunes per ipod that have been downloaded from the itunes store. What is filling up the rest of our ipods? Obivoulsy music we have ripped ourselves or got from elsewhere.
DRM is rubbish and music available to download is overpriced considering that you are limited in how you can listen to the track, the quality of the encoding (not CD quality) and lack of packaging. 79p a track particuarly back catalogue! Give me a break. It’s cheaper to buy a second hand album of ebay and that gives the artist/record company no new royalites. iTunes reckon they only a get a 3 - 4p per song because of all the royalties. easymusic is apparently doing a 25p a song thing for older tracks.
My computer crashed a while back in the days before I understood fully DRM. Of the few tracks I had downloaded by then, I lost all the DRM ones as I did not back up my DRM licences (I did not know I had them so had not considered needing to back them up - warning to all others).
Can’t remember the last time I bought a CD at HMV and they told me that it could only play on HMV branded stereos and only a one CD-Discman and that when I have a powercut the CD will no longer work.
It’s an obvious comment, but back up your music collection anyway.
12. Matthew
Just found this and thought it might be relavant: It’s an article on bbc.co.uk about how allofMP3 was a legal service as Russian copyright laws don’t cover digital media.