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The Perils of DRM — When Content Providers Die
Posted by
Soulskill
on Sat Jun 06, 2009 10:22 AM
from the involuntary-renting dept.
from the involuntary-renting dept.
An anonymous reader writes "If you purchase music or movies online, what happens if the vendor goes out of business? Will you have trouble accessing your content? The question came up recently after HDGiants — provider of high-quality audio and video downloads — filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. A consumer says his content became locked inside his PC. Walmart customers suffered a similar fate last year when the retailer shut down its DRM servers (a decision they reversed after many complaints). And if Vudu dies? Your content may be locked in a proprietary box forever. Time to start buying discs again?"
Related Stories
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Wal-Mart Ends DRM Support 231 comments
An anonymous reader writes "So, you thought you did well to support the fledgling music industry by purchasing your tracks legally from the Wal-Mart store? Well, forget about moving these tracks to a new PC! Since they started selling DRM-free tracks last year, there's no money to be made in maintaining the DRM support systems, and in fact, support is being shut down. Make sure you circumvent the restrictions by burning the tracks to an old-fashioned CD before Wal-mart 'will no longer be able to assist with digital rights management issues for protected WMA files purchased from Walmart.com.' Support ends October 9th."
[+]
Walmart Caves On DRM Removal 215 comments
cmunic8r99 writes in with an email he received from walmart.com yesterday evening about the pending shutdown of their DRM services (which we discussed a while back). Walmart has reconsidered and won't be shutting off its DRM servers after all. They are still moving to an all-MP3 store, but won't break all the DRMed music its customers have already downloaded; this because of "feedback from the customers."
Submission: Perils of DRM: When Content Providers Die by Anonymous Coward
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Start buying disk again? (Score:5, Insightful)
I never stopped! With a DVD I have "Digital Copy" on EVERY DVD without having to use the stupid number system and ask for permission, and it's legal. I don't have to rely on a content provider to stay in business, and I don't have some company somewhere with self interest telling me what devices I can and can't play back the content on. Well, I do, but I don't have to listen to them.
Re:Start buying disk again? (Score:5, Insightful)
DVD has copy and region protection. The only reason I have a large DVD collection today, is because the copy protection was utterly destroyed early on, ensuring my fair use indefinitely, of the discs I own.
More modern protection schemes haven't been shredded to my satisfaction, so I won't be buying into them any time soon.
Legally grey means nothing to me. If there is decoder library that works in linux, and region hacks for the physical drives, I'm in.
Parent
Re:Start buying disk again? (Score:5, Insightful)
As consumers we should NOT have to put up with copy protection crap.
Copy protection is old and would only have worked 15-20 years ago, these day only ONE person needs to bypass the copy protection and everybody can download it. I have never needed to break or circumvent copy protection because someone else does it for me, copy protection is an old model that only worked in the days before the internet back when every pirate had to circumvent the system before they could copy something, those days are gone.
Parent
Re:Start buying disk again? (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Start buying disk again? (Score:5, Informative)
Are you too young to remember... or maybe too old to remember? ;-)
Back "before the internet" we had these things called floppy disks which were quite capable of delivering a copied group of bytes to a buddy in another state by a process now known as "snailmail". The latency was pretty bad and you had to pay "per packet" but the connection was extremely reliable. And, if you were of a mind, you could pack up hundreds of floppies into a single "packet" and send them all in one go.
I never had to break anyone's copy protection either.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That's the same reason I buy CDs and DVDs today - I like the box and the other documentation it comes with.
Re:Start buying disk again? (Score:5, Insightful)
You mean that flat, plastic box with a page in it telling you that the manual can be printed from the pdf on the cd?
Parent
Re:Start buying disk again? (Score:5, Insightful)
As consumers we should NOT have to put up with copy protection crap.
But dumb consumers will put up with it, and they are the majority and so will drive the market.
Short of a rich company with a huge marketing/education campaign, I don't know what else can change (make aware) public perception of DRM.
Parent
Re:Start buying disk again? (Score:5, Insightful)
They're not dumb, they just don't care. That's not the same, you know.
Parent
Best option: gog.com (Score:5, Informative)
gog.com is an example of how things should be done: you download the game installer and it's yours to keep. There's not DRM, no copy protection, you can have all the game installers on your hard drive or you can back them up on DVD, Blu-ray, another drive, a flash drive, whatever. if gog.com goes under, you can still install your games.
This is even better than having a (copy-protected) media, even if such copy-protection has been cracked. I always found it a hassle to even think about how to back up those CDs and DVDs. With gog.com, I have the installer files and can do with them whatever the hell I please.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I do agree with you 100%
My problem with DVDs (official ones) is region coding, Macrovision (not all have them) and the stupid menus and FBI warnings you can't bypass.
my Edison wax reels don't play (Score:3, Funny)
Back when Edison was offering music on wax cyllinders you could buy, I avoided going with George Westinghouse scheme to stream music. I wanted to own it! but now I can't find a player for them.
But I learned my lesson. Now I buy the bands them selves, house them onsite, and have them play for me. But would you not know it? those ingrates have started dieing on me. Again I'm stuck with music containers I can play.
Damn you RIAA!
Re:my Edison wax reels don't play (Score:5, Interesting)
'Back when Edison was offering music on wax cylinders you could buy, I avoided going with George Westinghouse scheme to stream music. I wanted to own it! but now I can't find a player for them.'
Should have gone with Victor Talking Machine media - you can still find drives for those. The EULA is a bit restrictive, though:
http://www.natch.net/stuff/78_license/ [natch.net]
Parent
On the other hand... (Score:5, Insightful)
...if what you "bought" was shallow crap that you will have lost interest in in six months, who cares if the DRM servers shut down after a year? And that describes 99% of the market.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Six months? May be it's just me but that is a lot of interest in an album. I mostly loose interest in the middle of a title song.
I am not a hoarder though. ATM, my music "library" has 13 artists for a grand total of 7 GB (half of it is King Crimson). After discovering torrents I quickly got out of the habit of saving stuff. My music is not backed up and will probably get trashed during the next HD upgrade. I find it kind of liberating, actually, to rebuild my collection every now and then by picking a fe
Re:On the other hand... (Score:5, Insightful)
Make up your mind! King Crimson has been active for something like 40 years, and Robert Fripp has been prolific outside the context of that band for years. If you are discerning enough to download their work, why throw it away? And if you like it, why not let them have some royalties for their work?
I can just about understand not wanting to buy a CD if you only like one track, and I can even understand not wanting to pay for a single track if you're only half-enthusiastic about it.
But if you like a band enough to download 7GB of their work, why begrudge them a modest return for their work?
Parent
Re:On the other hand... (Score:4, Insightful)
but for the life of me, I do not see why I need to bend over and take it from behind when I shop for records.
I'm not a saint, but I don't fool myself: smaller[1] artists need every penny. There are those who are bathing in money, and there are those who could really use some of the money.
Yes, DRM is wrong, and yes, CDs are way too expensive. It still doesn't mean torrenting is universally justifiable, especially if you like some artist and the artist isn't a bastard from hell. Copyright laws in most countries are silly, but they are laws. We simply need to better organize our lobbying to make copyright law reasonable, instead of saying it should be abolished and instead of saying "Fripp won't get a single cent from me because Sony[2] is taking $24.94." Cent by cent, y'know, and Fripp can make a living.
Just an idea that crossed my mind right now: perhaps we should do torrenting and send money directly to artists, even though they don't request it. They'd be far happier that way, don't you think?
[1] By smaller I mean any non-MTV, or national equivalent in particular country.
[2] Or whoever.
Parent
Whose? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because that shallow crap is yours. It's the right that's at stake here, not the economical value or arts value.
Is it OK if I go through your home and throw away the things I think are crap?
One man's crap, another man's treasure. I don't know whether my daughter in the future would like to have a copy of Lipps Inc. "Funkytown" or Video Kids' "Woodpeckers from Space". But if she does, they're there. And playable -- not subject to whether a company has gone belly up or not.
Parent
This is one of the most important drawbacks of DRM (Score:5, Interesting)
AFAIK no company that was not bankrupt got away with just cshutting down the servers. The options for viable companies seem to be
1. Refound all purchases (and have a net loss)
2. Remove the DRM (may be difficult/impossible, as content owners have to agree)
3. Keep the servers running (and have continuous cost for that)
It seems some companies have already realized that DRM is a losing game even for them, because of the additional cost and because it is a business they cannot simply back out of.
Now on a bankrupcy, it becomes interesting. In the EU, it may actually be legal to hack the DRM then. But basically I think your stuff is lost. If this happens a few times, customers will catch on. Many already have. In the end, DRM will die for good when this problem has become common knowledge.
Legally repair the Digital Restrictions (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Legally repair the Digital Restrictions (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The companies should be required (by law) to keep their servers running indefinitely.
That is after all the product they sell, if I buy a movie I expect it to play 20years later. Can't work the business model, don't do it.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:This is one of the most important drawbacks of (Score:3, Interesting)
This should get interesting when the bank auditors start to catch on to this. If judges force the continued operation of the servers in BK events to protect consumers maybe companies selling DRM'ed content will be unable to get loans!
This is the case today. Now there are a number of players whose interest it serves to keep things this way which is why it does not change but the lack of private loans available to federal contractors is a know issue. In a BK satisfaction of contracts with the federal gover
Maybe... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Maybe... (Score:4, Interesting)
I always thought just saying "your business model sucks" was kind of a cop out. Look if their business model makes them enough money to stay afloat more power to them. If it doesn't and they die, that's just tough luck. You can't blame the business model on everything.
Parent
XKCD (Score:5, Insightful)
http://xkcd.com/488/
Unlock content (Score:3, Interesting)
There should be some legislation that either forces companies to unlock your DRM'd content or give you back the money.
Walmart was not going out of business so both options were open to them. A company filing for Chapter 11 should just unlock content, that is swap the DRM'd files with unprotected ones. Labels/majors will probably say that unlocking content breaks the agreement in place with the distributor but the law should protect customers in the first place.
Never buy DRM'd content until some legislation like that is in effect: chances are that you survive most of the companies in this business and/or the DRM technologies they use.
Re:Unlock content (Score:4, Insightful)
From the desk of Captain Obvious: they cannot give you back money if they are defunct.
Parent
Re:Unlock content (Score:5, Interesting)
I agree. As consumer protection, anyone selling DRM-encumbered content should have to put the means to crack that DRM into some kind of escrow which becomes publicly available on the event that they can no longer provide support for that DRM to their customers.
Anyone failing to abide by these terms should not be allowed to use the word "buy" in their storefront or marketing. If you don't get to keep it, you aren't "buying" it. It's false advertising.
I know someone here will take an even more hard-line attitude and say DRM itself should be illegal, which is fine. I'm not going to argue with you.
Parent
Re:Unlock content (Score:4, Insightful)
>There should be some legislation that either forces companies to unlock your DRM'd content or give you back the money.
better idea - 'buyer beware': you buy DRMed stuff, be aware you can get hosed.
Result: nobody buys DRM stuff and it dies out. better to stamp it out than encourage it with 'rescue' legislation.
Translation: Buy DRM and suffer the consequences.
Parent
Analog hole (Score:5, Insightful)
The analog hole [wikipedia.org] will always be there for audio and video. Yes, it's a pain to buy a DRM'd song then hook up ye olde tape recorder to your speaker output before the vendor files for chapter 11, but it does work.
I'm more worried about games and other content that are different each time you use them.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The proposal would be to make watermark detection a mandatory feature of all ADCs. See here. [eff.org]
its not just about vendor going 'away' (Score:5, Interesting)
its also about your motherboard going away.
think 'tivo'.
twice I've had a tivo die on me. and twice, you are not legally allowed to get your (possibly unseen, definitely paid for!) movies seen or copied over.
when my final tivo died, I gave some thought to fixing it and trying to hack the drives. I also thought about continuing my directv sub but thought about NOT wanting to repeat this all over again, so I cancelled my pay tv sub. I no longer have a sat tv feed (or cable) anymore.
DRM is bad and when it works, its somewhat acceptable; but when it stops working, you're screwed.
lesson learned. no more proprietary tivo boxes for me. not anymore.
no more pay tv? so be it. I can live without out!
Cable Internet (Score:3, Interesting)
no more pay tv? so be it. I can live without out!
But how easily can you live without high-speed Internet access if the only provider of home high-speed Internet access ties its high-speed Internet access service to a pay TV service?
How about a deal? (Score:5, Interesting)
If you release your content in an encrypted/restricted format, you lose copyright protection. You're taking matters into your own hands. You're not benefiting society.
If you release your content in native format, you are afforded copyright protection. Your works will enter the public domain (some day), and you are benefiting society.
Sounds fair to me.
You've got three options (Score:3, Insightful)
a) Buy it digitally again, but if you can, make sure it is a copy that is
clean in DRM terms.
b) Buy a hard copy. For anything I buy, this is always my approach. A
physical copy of something has a much higher chance of lasting years, or more
or less indefinitely if I keep it and am able to back it up. I don't do the
micropayment for digital downloads thing, and most likely never will. I'm not
paying tangible funds for something that could get lost in a power surge.
Hard copies are a little more durable, especially if, as I said, they're
backed up.
c) If you want to go the digital route, and a) isn't possible, pirate it.
Although I don't have huge moral problems with piracy, (as I generally feel
that, on balance, most content producers will generally at least break even on
any given pirated work, and usually make a large profit, even with piracy) my
general policy is that if I like something enough to really seek it out, I
will generally like it enough to buy a physical copy from Amazon and give the
artist something for their trouble. If it is an artist who I like a lot, and
who I'd conceivably buy from often, (such as Shpongle, if I had more money)
I'd possibly even write to the artist and ask them if they could make their
wares available from their own site, so that I could be sure that the lion's
share of my money was going directly to them, where I intend it to go.
In some cases (old/obscure stuff) piracy is going to be your only option, as
you may not be able to find the work via retail channels; however again, if
the work in question is something you really value, use piracy as a last
resort. If a creative person produces something which enriches your life,
then in my opinion they deserve to be paid for it.
At least there should be a law to protect buyers (Score:3, Interesting)
This could be fixed by legislation. (Score:4, Interesting)
A lien is one legal answer that I can think of. The lien would need to attach at the time of the software purchase. It couldn't attach when the company goes insolvent, because those kinds of laws are invalidated by the Bankruptcy Code. It couldn't attach when the service shuts down, because the service would probably shut down while the provider was in bankruptcy and the automatic stay would keep the lien from attaching while the bankruptcy is going on. A lien is super good. It gives every creditor the best seat at the bankruptcy table.
The lien I'm thinking of would be a first priority lien in all the software and documentation used to administer the DRM system. Every customer would get the right to foreclose on this lien when the DRM unlock service is dropped by the provider.
This kind of thing would resonate with the legislature because it would REALLY resonate with the general public. This is a problem EVERYBODY can understand. Legislators have kids with IPODS too!
Another option would be a statutorily-mandated escrow system that puts the DRM in trust.
Presentation of these kinds of ideas would get the ball rolling. Maybe a better idea would be found, or a worse one. Anything is better than the current system.
This is a battle big media cannot fight, because they can't be seen to be claiming the right to fuck you out of your expensively-purchased media libraries so they can resell the same stuff to you later.
This is the kind of problem that gets fixed in a republic like ours. If you care, you should go for it.
The UK specifically asked about this (Score:5, Insightful)
To the All Party Parliamentary Internet Group,
re Digital Rights Management
Gentlepersons,
I am an author in a Commonwealth country, with recent experience in the trade-offs in copyright law and the relevance of digital rights management to publishing and can comment usefully on the subject.
I was the coauthor of a technical book, "Using Samba", published in the United States and Canada by O'Reilly and associates. Despite being made available electronically for no cost, the book was the outstanding seller in its class, and made me substantial royalties.
The History of "Using Samba"
This book was published without any form of explicit DRM, in a format suitable for printing from personal computers, with no limitations on distribution of personal printing, and with a license reserving only commercial printing rights to the publisher.
There was an implicit form of rights management, in that only commercial printers have equipment capable of printing and binding on sufficiently thin paper to make a manageable book: if printed on conventional photocopier paper, the book is over three inches thick. Printing small sections for reference on photocopier paper is perfectly practical, but large-scale printing is not.
This effectively reinforced the reservations in the license: printing for profit is both illegal and impractical, but personal printing, excerpting and copying is unrestricted.
The net result is that the book was widely used as a reference, and the on-line readers bought the physical book for its more convenient form in great numbers. O'Reilly has since published a non-trivial number of other books in this manner.
This experience allows me to speak to the questions the inquiry is interested in:
1. Whether DRM distorts traditional trade-offs in copyright law
An explicit DRM scheme affecting the electronic copies of the book would have negative value. It would in fact restrict the easy distribution of the book, making it less popular and discouraging persons from depending on it. This would lead directly to lessened sales of the printed book, and a reduction in my and my publisher's income.
Copying of the electronic form is encouraged by myself and the publisher, and the printing, use and wide distribution of extracts is desirable, as it causes sales of the entire work.
The author's rights management of ordinary commercial copyright law protects my publisher and I in countries which honor copyright. In those where copyright does not exist or is ignored, the cost of publication and shipping are such as to mitigate any counterfeiting printing attempts: the counterfeiters cannot profit by shipping them outside of the country, and so are limited in the damage they can do.
2. Whether new types of content sharing license (such as Creative Commons or Copyleft) need legislation changes to be effective
Using Samba was successfully published under a free content license, under the copyright regimes of the United States and Canada, without any required or desired change in that law. I do not see a need for changes.
3. How copyright deposit libraries should deal with DRM issues
Copyright and other deposit libraries, such as the National Libraries of the U.K., Canada and the United States should seek and retain unrestricted copies, offering suitable statutory protection to the authors or publishers.
4. How consumers should be protected when DRM systems are discontinued
Upon the expiry of the copyright, the deposit libraries should make the originals available for a nominal fee.
Upon the failure or discontinuance of a DRM scheme, the publishers should retain the option of republishing under a different scheme under ordinary copyright law. On cessation of publication, the co
Re:Aha (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly, why should we do the "right" thing when we are just going to get screwed for it?
Parent
Re:How many times have you bought the same cd? (Score:4, Interesting)
I've lost my entire music collection due to theft twice, and my entire movie collection once. My current philosophy runs something along the lines of rip, compress (or not), put it on more than one HDD, take the originals, put them in a safe, put the safe in a bunker surrounded by monsters friendly only to you.
Parent
Re:How many times have you bought the same cd? (Score:4, Funny)
> PERFORM BRAILLE MUSIC
The grues are lulled to sleep by your masterful humming.
Parent
Re:Things you buy don't last forever (Score:5, Insightful)
All of those things stop lasting because of your influence upon them or because of your actions. Things do have a limited lifespan, but not an artificial one. A DRM company going under isn't because of your influence - it's because of their action.
Imagine LG going out of business and taking all of our LCDs, TVs, cell phones, etc with them.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
All those examples cite causes not artificially produced to end the use of your product. If the monitor dies after 5 years, it's (hopefully) not because a conscious decision from the maker. If your tires wear out, it's due to the use, not because Michelin decided to add a rot-fast compound to the rubber. The DRM is a completely different beast. Ask yourself if any of the examples you mentioned are the equivalent of a dead man's switch like DRM is.
Re:Finally an original thinker (Score:5, Interesting)
The first thing - this is one of the reasons why DRM-protected media is doing bad in online sales.
People are aware of the limitations and problems.
And this is yet another reason why getting the media in formats that are secured for long-time use. Even DVD:s are better for the consumer since they don't depend on the availability of a server somewhere on the net, and can be used standalone. But the thing that really sucks with DVD:s are the copyright notice that you are forced to watch, which means that some people rips the DVD:s to get rid of that crap.
If the media industry had caught on the track earlier and offered music at a reasonable price without any crippling DRM they would have been better off in sales. There are people willing to pay for it, if they can get it. Going torrent works for some, but some of us wants a reliable and legal source for our media.
Parent
Re:Finally an original thinker (Score:5, Insightful)
Overall, it looks like some MPAA members are aware that there's a negative impact on sales from fear of losing access if the provider goes out of business. The RIAA, as usual, has no clue and blames it all on piracy. If the US economy totally tanked, with 78% unemployment and nine states declaring themselves People's Republics, and we faced 30,000% hyperinflation, the RIAA would declare all their projected lost sales were due to piracy. When the RIAA finds themselves in the dark, their first step is to insist all the Grues have peg-legs and parrots.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Speaking of RIAA, anyone know the links to some good CC websites? Always a good thing to post in a DRM discussion!
http://www.jamendo.com/ [jamendo.com]
It really has lots of good stuff.
Alternatively you may find out that some well known bands make some of their songs available for free on their sites. For example Coldplay ( http://www.coldplay.com/ [coldplay.com] ) currently have an album available on their website. It usually requires your email and while I'm not sure it's CC (and I'm guessing it is not) it's gratis. Of course, it doesn't happen as often with games and movies.
Re:Finally an original thinker (Score:5, Insightful)
Millions and millions of people think the music industry sells music at a reasonable price. Where do you think the music industry got all of its money?
Stupid kids spending their parents' money on Britney Spears and Miley Cyrus albums.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I believe Valve said that they would link a chunk of code that would unlock all your Steam purchases if they ever went out of business.
There will always be a way for companies to get around statements like this that they have made: In bankruptcy, sell the "IP" to someone else.
And at any rate, is there really any evidence we should believe such statements?