Labels Push for a Unified DRM Standard 258
thejoelpatrol writes "Bad news for Apple fanatics but good news for all the crazy slashdotters who want an iPod but feel dirty using Apple's DRM: the labels are getting together and insisting that online stores standardize their DRM methods. Being the providers of the music, the labels clearly wield a lot of power, but so does Apple: without iTunes, the online music business is next to nothing. Will Apple give in? Not if they can help it -- they're on top of the world. Before anyone messes it up, AAC is an open format, while the Fairplay DRM standard is not."
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Very good (Score:5, Informative)
Quite True:the RIAA wants to kill Apple's leverage (Score:5, Insightful)
Already, the music industry is getting full of itself with the success of iTMS. $.99 per track is no longer enough money for them. Rather than looking at the success of $.99 tracks, the music industry sees the success as a chance to raise prices, but Apple managed to stave them off. They don't want that to happen again.
As if apple ever had any leverage (Score:3, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Very good (Score:5, Insightful)
Funny? (Score:3, Insightful)
NO DRM scheme can ever work, so long as we retain control of our computers. You cannot simultaneously grant people access to the work and yet preclude it. And if we control our computers and are given any access to the work, it is merely a matter of expending the effort to extract that work in some form.
It's nothing but an artificial restriction, which is hardly unusual in the realm of intellectual "property," and it's why they need the DMCA to marginalize thos
Re:Very good (Score:2, Funny)
OpenMG to Helix
Helix to OpenMG
OpenMG to WMA/Janus DRM
Helix to FairPlay
FairPlay to Helix
WMA to OpenMG
WMA to Helix.
OpenMG to FairPlay
FairPlay to OpenMG
WMA to FairPlay
FairPlay to OpenMG
WMA to FairPla
Re:Very good (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Very good (Score:3, Insightful)
YEah!!! Only one technology to crack!
Re:Very good (Score:2)
I could live with that standard.
Re:Very good (Score:3, Insightful)
Teenage Jon didn't krak CSS (Score:2, Interesting)
A technician from Xing Corporation passed the confidential trade-secret information for descrambling the signal to 'DVD Jon' who wrote a front-end interface in Linux for this information and uploaded his program to a Linux distribution site.
If you think that a 15-year-old could just sit down and decode an industry encryption standard, then you shoul
Re:Teenage Jon didn't krak CSS (Score:5, Funny)
A programmer from IBM passed the confidential trade-secret information for emulating UNIX to "Linux Tovald" who uploaded the program to an FTP site.
If you think a college student could just sit down and emulate an industry standard operating system, then you should go work for The O'Reilly Factor and not spend so much time trolling, troll.
What? What non-proprietary DRM is there? (Score:2, Interesting)
Most music stores are WMA- one is AAC- and they pick on the AAC one? Did Microsoft br
Re:Very good (Score:2)
Only then when a company dictates a future rather than the people can standards finally be ready to take over. Ask any PHB or CIO?
Ultimately, no DRM is the best DRM. (Score:5, Interesting)
The main thing is to focus on having a well working and simple delivery model, and to make sure the content isn't over-priced. DRM ultimately pretty useless, since it can always be broken eventually. If it's simpler to buy the content from a reputable store than getting it over P2P the model will work.
Tim O'Reilly wrote and excellent piece on the subject in 2002, and it still applies today: Piracy is Progressive Taxation, and Other Thoughts on the Evolution of Online Distribution [openp2p.com]
PS. I'm sure a lot of you will disagree, but at least I can claim to be a content creator [besonic.com] myself...
Re:Ultimately, no DRM is the best DRM. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm a content creator myself, and my feeling is that it isn't good business to take away what makes your product interesting. If my customers want to rip the movie I'm working on so they can watch in on their laptop, why would I expect my sales to go up if I deny them that?
Re: O'Reilly & DRM (was: Ultimately, no DRM... (Score:5, Interesting)
And what's so funny about it is that O'Reilly *still* does not sell unbundled, non-DRM'ed, digital downloads.
Re: O'Reilly & DRM (was: Ultimately, no DRM... (Score:2)
It might not be good for Apple to fight this (Score:5, Interesting)
This should be interesing, Apple is very good at being independent and wanting to be different, but this looks like that strategy won't work out. They must keep the studios happy or the studios will happily take away the music.
Personally I wonder how this would affect older devices (like iPods) that might not be able to play the standardized DRM. The article makes no mention of this, and while I can't see Apple in particular (and other digital music player makers) wanting to make their older products incompatible, I really would not be surprised if the studios could care less if that were to occur. If it does there will be quite a few incredibly angry folks out there!
Re:It might not be good for Apple to fight this (Score:2)
Personally I wonder how this would affect older devices (like iPods) that might not be able to play the standardized DRM. The article makes no mention of this, and while I can't see Apple in particular (and other digital music player makers) wanting to make their older products incompatible, I really would not be surprised if the studios could care less if that were to occur. If it does there will be quite a few incredibly angry folks out there!
Imagine all the iPod owners having to upgrade their devices,
Re:It might not be good for Apple to fight this (Score:2)
You're thinking of Sony. They obsolete the previous line of products every two weeks, and piss the hell out of their customers. Apple doesn't do things like that.
Re:It might not be good for Apple to fight this (Score:5, Informative)
Re:It might not be good for Apple to fight this (Score:5, Interesting)
what it will take for all of this to get resolved will be something similar to what Peter Gabriel is trying to develop. Perhaps a union of sorts to bring the labels to their knees. For the most part, other than distribution and PR the labels aren't needed for anything. If musicians learned to think and operate for themselves, this might be a moot point.
A wonderful example is Ani DiFranco. Whether you like her music is irrelevent. She's 100% self promoted, from albums to concerts. It's her production and her money and it's worked out very well.
I'm just waiting for an established giant to buck the system. When U2 or Aerosmith abandons their label and promotes their upcoming release via online distribution only (George Michael is doing this) the others will follow suit. Just hire a PR agency and collect a check, only a much larger one.
Peace
Re:It might not be good for Apple to fight this (Score:2)
Righteous Babe [righteousbabe.com], Ani's label, now carries other artists [righteousbabe.com] as well. She has indeed shown that you can do it the "right way" and still be successful.
Of course (and this is just my opinion), being an incredibly talented musician also helped her early on. A -lot- of people heard about her from people who had seen her p
Re:It might not be good for Apple to fight this (Score:3, Interesting)
( http://www.riaa.com/about/members/default.asp -- "Righteous Babe" is on the list.)
I'm terribly curious why a label started by a successful and totally independent artist feels the need to be a member of a customer-hating semi-evil organization like the RIAA.
Re:It might not be good for Apple to fight this (Score:5, Interesting)
And actually things are looking pretty good for maintaining that DRM chaos. There is no way in hell Microsoft is going to give up it's own DRM system and adopt the Apple system (even if Apple offered it), and Apple has absolutely no reason to give up their own system. They are THE dominant player in the feild. Why the heck would they want to switch to somthing incompatibile with their huge user base of iPods?
If the RIAA tried to force the issue they seriously risk an anti-trust smackdown, they are already treading that line pretty close with their current iron fist over online sales.
I also find it quite comical that the RIAA is whining about Apple prices being too low. The marginal cost of providing downloads is miniscule. Lower prices would drive up volume. Hell, selling non-crippled formats would drive up volume. Many independant artists are willing to accept lower prices per download, hell, there are many artists happy to get their music out there for free. Any attempt for the RIAA to strong-arm Apple into raising prices would also be likely to raise anti-trust issues.
Hmm, now that I think about it having the RIAA jack up download prices might be a good thing. Its just that much more pressure for people to move to non-RIAA DRM-free cheap or even free music.
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Re:It might not be good for Apple to fight this (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Lying with a straight face (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow, where are my hip waders? A friend of mine is VP of artist development at a record label. He seemed to feel that if they could sell CD's for five dollars each without producing the CD media, in his words, "We'd be rolling in money."
Using 12 tracks as an average for most CD's at a dollar a track makes it already hugely profitable for record companies and the first thing they want to do is try to squeeze you for even more. Okay, figure most people don't download whole CD's, they buy single tracks. They're still making a ton of money.
Amazing that it never seems to be enough for them. Then to come out and lie about their profit margin so brazenly just astounds me.
Re:What is this really about? (Score:2, Interesting)
For myself, I find the music store tracks priced too high because they contain any DRM. Consider that I can go to a used CD store, pay $8-9 for an album which is comparable to purchasing same from the iTunes music store, I get a permanent lossless copy without any DRM, al
It's about control, of course. (Score:5, Insightful)
Most of my downloads have no DRM at all, but they're perfectly legal. They're in MP3 format direct from the artists.
some labels have complained [Apple] has priced tracks too low, making it difficult for them to make a profit
Most of the 99c I pay to iTunes goes to the label, and their marginal cost for that purchase is zero. As near as I can tell, the only people making a profit from iTMS are the labels. And it's not at all certain that they'd make more profit at a higher price: they may make more money at a lower price, and they must know it... they're smart enough to have learned basic economics.
So, yes, it's all about control... but it's not necessarily about making more money directly from music sales. They want to make sure they are the ones pulling the strings so that online music distribution doesn't give artists a way to bypass the labels, and keep most of the 99c you pay iTMS for themselves.
Re:It's about control, of course. (Score:2)
I was in a band whose catalog was recently added to the iTunes store and I was wondering if people are actually downloading any of the music? If so, how much money is being made? And who is getting it? Will I get any?
I remember everyone stood around laughing and joking one day back in the 80's after we signed a record deal with Beggars Banquet, and also everyone stood around laughing and joking a few months la
How long is it... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:How long is it... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How long is it... (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly. And the RIAA cartel has been consistantly and systematically abusing their monopoly power. They pretty well exterminated interet radio. They imposed a total restriant of trade against any online sales at all for half a decade. They imposed uniform and opressive terms on online sellers (Apple got a way with slightly less oppressive terms because Apply fought against any DRM at all and the RIAA could not afford an anti-trust smackdown for imposing a Windows-only monopoly on music sales. These slightly less opressive terms are also why Apple is the only semi-sucessful service.) The RIAA has been hit for CD price fixing, more than once if I'm not mistaken. I beleive they have also inflated download costs, and they admittedly intend to inflate them even more. I'm sure there are other examples, but I think I've made my point
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Ah but that is old patents (Score:3, Informative)
Previous engines were external combustion engines, namely the steam engine were the fire was outside and the force of the fire through steam was put inside the engine.
So someone thought Hmmm wouldn't it save a lot of trouble if we could remove all the steam and hot water and boiler and get the fire inside the engine.
The various ways in wich this has been done
So they do see the light... (Score:3, Insightful)
And before anyone starts "but the DRM will be used for all kinds of draconical restrictions": remember that you don't _have_ to use any particular product. If you think it's worth it, use it and don't bitch. If you think it's not worth it, use a different product and don't bitch. You make the choice, you get the pros and cons.
Re:So they do see the light... (Score:4, Insightful)
One should not express demand? Right. There's no competition going on here. Because of that, it's not a case of "use another product and quitcherbitchen". It's a case of "this is what you can get, tough shit." If people are not getting what they want, they have every right to complain. Sooner or later, somebody will come along and realize there's demand to fill. If they don't, then it's just accepted and blammo, no innovation.
Sorry bud, short of piracy, complaining's all we got.
DRM is already as compatible as it will ever be. (Score:2)
DRMed content is already as compatible with open platforms (I assume you mean something like "open systems" or "open source operating systems") as it will ever be.
The essence of open systems is open interfaces and protocols. If the interfaces and protocols are standardised or publically documented, you can implement your own version of an application that interfaces with them, open source, closed source, or something in between, that do
Re:So they do see the light... (Score:4, Insightful)
Pardon my flamage, but it's bad enough when someone advocates DRM crap. It is absolutely infuriating that you have GALL to advocate a DRM monoculture monopoly AND take the insulting tone that people shouldn't "bitch" about it becuase they they have a CHOICE!
I'll tell ya what, you can eat in the kitchen and get kicked in the nuts, or you can eat in the dining room and get kicked in the nuts, or you can eat in the backyard and get kicked in the nuts, or you can even eat in bed and get kicked in the nuts. If I'm in a good mood I may even let you go out to eat at McDonald's and get kicked in the nuts. If you think it's worth it, eat there and don't bitch. If you think it's not worth it, eat somewhere else and don't bitch. You make the choice, you get the pros and cons.
God forbid they actually sell the product the public wants - plain old MP3's they can play on any platform, including open platforms. That you can play in WinAmp or anywhere else. Why the hell should anyone buy their crippled products when they can get non-crippled MP3's on P2P that are VASTLY more functional? It's not that P2P is "free", it's the fact that MP3's are not crippled crap. What kind of idiot company tries to compete by offering a crippled product?
Bah! I'll probably get modded Flame. I don't care. What good is being Karma capped if you don't vent a well deserved rant once in a while? RAMMS+EIN don't take it too personally, I'm tired and cranky and felt like DRM-venting.
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Re:So they do see the light... (Score:2)
Oh, and for what it's worth, the vast majority of my music is "non-mainstream". It's bad enough they are
Re:So they do see the light... (Score:2)
I think I can say this also with my tin-foil hat off: There will be no choice. The problem is that as long as there exists a publishing channel that is not restricted by DRM, it can and will be used to distribute content that has been hacked. The fundamental problem with DRM is that it doesn't work: You can't use encryption to share a sec
Re:So they do see the light... (Score:3, Insightful)
And before you go "tough it's their product", may I remind of you of what the Universal Declaration of Humans Rights [un.org] has to say about the matter:
Mark that: Freely participate. It doesn't say that the choice of not listening is OK. It says that i
Re:So they do see the light... (Score:2)
The UDHR does not say that you should be allowed to participate in every cultural activity, free of charge, in any way you please. The copyright holders have
Re:So they do see the light... (Score:2)
In the US, you are probably stuck, but here in Norway this was very clearly spelled out in the verdict that acquitted Jon Johansen: These are rights that copyright holders never had, it is illegitimate to try to rob the
Do Tell... (Score:5, Insightful)
But they are making a profit. My question is, how much? Just once, I wish I could see a quote like this backed-up by a statistic (one that makes sense, mind you).
Here's a figure (Score:2)
It seems the greed factor is running just as high as ever in the music industry, even in the face of a radically changing environment. These guys seem to think that it's their God-given right to continue to make more and more money while providing less and less value to customers.
Creative Commons (Score:4, Interesting)
Already messed up (Score:5, Informative)
I don't know what "open" means in this case, but AAC is patent-encumbered. If you want to distribute an encoder or a decoder you have to license those patents [vialicensing.com]:
So, in a way, the submitter already messed it up.
Re:Already messed up (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Already messed up (Score:2)
Well-documented doesn't mean open, they could be locked in a safe somewhere. Having the documents available to the public might mean open.
Do you mean publicly documented?
Apple was there first (Score:3, Interesting)
After that Apple should open up their DRM to others.
They made this mistake before an lost to the pc....don't make the same mistake twice.
Re:Apple was there first (Score:5, Insightful)
So you are saying apple should make the same mistake that IBM made instead. Apple has somewhere from 3%-5% of the market share for Desktop Computers sold. While IBM has about the same market share now. Sure their platform is more popular but they made the mistake and their product became to command and to much competition. Apple has been pretty consistent with the 3%-5% market share for many years. Unlike the most PC guys who Shoot up to 25% they stay there for a few years then shoot down to 1 or 2% Gateway anyone? Apple is able to keep control of their product set and the technology they can go to and they are not bound to staying with one platform. Like the old macs to the PowerPC to the 64bit PowerPC. Any other PC manufacture would kill themselves doing this, but it works for Apple, the reason is because they didn't open up their Computing specs and allow anyone to use their OS (Well they did for a while but apple lost a Lot of money from that).
Re:Apple was there first (Score:2)
My Mac connects to the PC internet... I can see PC websites, read PC email, play PC MP3s, chat with PC users, plug in PC USB peripherals, use PC cards, open up a PC xterm, and run apt-get install qemu and run fucking Windows. What exactly did Apple lose? (Oh, I know this! You "lose" if you don't have 100% of the market. Right.)
(Tangent: And by PC do you mean PowerPC, the processor running this? Try again. It's called Wintel or x86 or something. Not PC. PC means personal compute
Re:Apple was there first (Score:2)
You can't buy music from mycokemusic walmart sympatico real msn napster virgin etc. etc. - you get the picture!
i'm all right, Jack (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course the labels want a standard - a standard they control. they want to be able to raise the price when they want and sue anyone who breaks it. Sadly it's exactly this sort of promise that Ms will make for them.
So, AAC is open but patent-encumbered. Not a problem. The file format doesn't really matter anyway, the issue is the DRM. And by it's nature it's going to bug people whatever happens.
In my case, I'm not worried. I can use Apple's DRM'ed files and I don't need to worry about it. Definitely a case of "I'm all right, Jack"
M
Apple is fucked (Score:5, Interesting)
Apple, however, can't:
1. Make tracks more expensive - nobody's gonna buy them
2. Share the DRM format - bye bye iTunes revnues
3. Implement stronger DRM - nobody will buy tracks
4. Tell the record labels to fuck off - where are they gonna get the music then?
I think they're royally fucked.
Re:Apple is fucked (Score:5, Interesting)
I know it's hard to admit to the Apple converted, but Apple has NO power in the music industry. The record companies will drop Apple in a second for any reason.
First, as Melted pointed out, the music industry really doesn't earn that much money from iTunes.
And here's a second reason, that's even more important. The music industry does not want ANY service getting too popular. If one service ever got popular enough, major artists could sign directly to Apple and sell their music WITHOUT signing to a major label! The music industry will sure to bring down ANY service that starts to get that much power.
The music industry is fucked (Score:5, Insightful)
And they think they're going to stop that from happening by cutting the heads off the tall poppies?
Once online distribution gets big enough, all you'll need is *one* non-major label contracting with a significant fraction of the online distributors and that label will *be* a major.
The only way the music industry could pull themselves out of this is to start their own services and refuse to contract with any independents like Apple. And if they do that, it doesn't matter whether Apple uses "industry standard DRM" or not: they have to fuck Apple, AOL, Real, the whole shooting match or lose.
Re:The music industry is fucked (Score:2)
All online music stores depend on new hits AND on the huge back catalog of songs.
Re:The music industry is fucked (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, yes, that's exactly the leverage they would apply to knock down the tall poppies.
What I'm talking about is, when online music gets too big, whether it's iTunes and the seven dwarves or a dozen companies with no more than 20% of the market each, they won't be able to pull their catalog from the online music market as a whole. It'd be too much of their business.
At that point any small label... whether
Re:The music industry is fucked (Score:2)
If that happened, the music industry would pull their entire catalogs of music from iTunes. All of the artists' current and prior hits would still be owned by the music industry, iTunes wouldn't get them. iTunes would have to wait for those one hundred artists to come up with new material to release AND pray that there was a demand for them.
The artists would have to pray that radio would still play them even though they do not
Re:The music industry is fucked (Score:2)
I think you may be misunderstanding what I posted. I wrote: "when online music gets too big they won't be able to pull their catalog from the online music market as a whole". Obviously they have a lot of leverage right now because online music sales are a tiny percent of the total, so they could pull out of the whole business without it having any significant impact on their bottom line. But that's not going to remain the case,
Re:Apple is fucked (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually the RIAA was fairly desperate to get Apple to sign on, that's how Apple was able to get the RIAA to budge a tiny bit and allw them slightly less oppressive DRM terms.
Why was the RIAA desperate to get (and keep!) Apple? Because the RIAA has been walking a careful line to avoid getting seriously smaked down for anti-trust abuses and collusion. Not only were they colluding to impose essentially identical and oppressive terms, but they would have effectively imposed a Windows-only restraint of trade. They were DESPERATE to maintain the illusion of competition.
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Re:Apple is fucked (Score:2)
Re:Apple is fucked (Score:2)
You must under stand large businesses are often very stupid in terms of finance. Here is a story from the old mainframe company that use to be really big and is now dead. A man from the accounting department goes to the sales man I want you to focus on selling more of the high end units because there is a higher revenue. But said the guy in sales I can sell a lot more of the smaller model and make more profit. But the acounti
Re:Apple is fucked (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Apple is fucked (Score:3, Interesting)
Just this week Balmer of Microsoft was trying to scare the record industry with FUD surround iPods and how iPods were jam packed with STOLEN MP3's, never mind the iTune sales. So, according to Balmer logic, if the RIAA/Music companies dumped Apple the iPod would be full of 100% stolen MP3's since there would be no place to get legal music anymore.
Note: The act of rippin
Don't really need them (Score:2, Informative)
I for one am a Magnatune [magnatune.com] customer and find that this is all music I need. Creative Commons doesn't mean it does suck. The fine folks over at Blender chose one Magnatune artist for their SIGGRAPH demo reel [blender.org]. The rest ain't shabby either.
Try Cargo Cult [magnatune.com], Curl [magnatune.com], Brad Sucks [magnatune.com] or their shoutcasts [shoutcast.com] for starters.
If you chose to buy, you set the price. Money is evenly divided between artist and label. Download options include wav, flac, vorbis and mp3.
Sure, I still buy the odd CD. But
None of you appear to understand the issues. (Score:5, Insightful)
For example, I bought Deep Purple on vynil, several times cos they got fucked at parties, then I bought it several times on cassette, cos the tapes got chewed, then I bought it on an indestructible cd, and it died, then mp3 came along.
The music industry have NEVER EVER EVER been about selling music.
What they have ALWAYS sold and we have ALWAYS bought was the MEDIUM, eg vinyl, cassette, cd red book, whatever.
In the new digital age there is essentially no medium, only the data itself.
DRM in ALL ITS FORMS is quite simply nothing other than a DESPERATE (for failure = bankruptcy) attempt by these companies to impose pseudo medium characteristics onto medium free digital data.
I don't know why nobody gets this.
It's not just the RIAA, it is all big media business, hollywood as well as music biz as well as publishers as well as anyone who'se stuff can be distributed as digital data.
Talk of this version of drm vs that version of encoding versus this methods of copyright protection is all bullshit, because it is missing the point.
NOTHING LESS than imposing pseudo physical properties (the scratched vinyl, the chewed cassette, the skipped cd) onto digital media will satisfy these bastards.
Because anything less means their revenue stream crashes, permanently.
Wake up, this is essentially an American Big Media Corporation tea party vs the rest of the world and its consumers, you cannot afford to give these bastards even a nanometer.
America will end up as a digital cultural backwater, with everything inside its borders DRM'ed up the wazoo, and everyone outside the borders sticking 2 fingers up.
And this shit less than 24 hours after a post about the BBC (or rather hackers at the beeb before their bosses get tech savvy and twig) pushing for a open source codec in the community which by definition is not going to meet the needs of those who seek to make a fat living selling copy after copy after copy of the same thing to you, claiming to be selling you the media, but in fact merely peddling the medium itself.
wake up FFS
The US can become a backwater, the world won't end (Score:2)
That would probably be the best result, actually, because after a few years of that the laws enforcing DRM will go the way of the ITAR restrictions on encryption, and in the meantime we'll get a massive infusion of new international music and films through the grey market.
More likely, though, Europe will roll over. They're trying to roll over
Re:None of you appear to understand the issues. (Score:3, Insightful)
There is more variety just crossing the channel to france than there is crossing the entire united states from east to west or north to south, just because you can buy a big mac and a coke in japan doesn't mean they are americanised.
Microsoft and Apple are allegedly two utterly different companies making utterly different products, yet both were founded and are still ste
This blows (Score:2)
Unified Standard no work for SecurityThruObscurity (Score:3, Insightful)
Opinion: Summary of Article (Score:5, Interesting)
The industry HATES Apple's $0.99 price point. If they could charge more, they would.
Of course, the industry could license Apple's DRM! And the license fees would likely be very very inexpensive. But Apple isn't likely to license their DRM without a stipulation that songs must be less than $1.00.
Yay Apple! I'm no Apple fan, but this is the GOOD THING FOR ALL... even if you're NOT an iPod owner!
Re:Opinion: Summary of Article (Score:2)
> but this is the GOOD THING FOR ALL
Single Vendor media Lock-in is not a good thing at all, it's a TERRIBLE thing, for both the record companies and the consumers. It's only a good thing if you are an Apple stockholder.
"Only Apple Propretary Crap can save us from higher prices" is bullshit. Common sense says just the opposite, that Apple's iPod installed base would allow them to charge more than other vendors with crappier players.
Ace in Apples sleeve (Score:2, Insightful)
Thanks, Microsoft. (Score:4, Insightful)
Microsoft, whispering into RIAA's ear..
"You know that Apple DRM has been hacked, and blah blah closed system, blah blah, doesn't support artist's rights, blah blah, Windows Media Miracle Solution!"
RIAA:
"Good point."
Dead iPod
Microsoft: Profit!
Go shove it. As soon as they try to screw us out of affordable/iPodable online music sales, we'll go back to stealing.
the industry is pushing DRM and that's good? (Score:2)
The obvious solution... (Score:4, Insightful)
Why is the recording industry overlooking the obvious solution? Dont' use DRM at all!
Seriously. No form of DRM that allows you to listen to the music will prevent it from being digitized. Everything is already available in unencumbered formats through file sharing networks.
Get it free and unencumbered online, or pay to get an inferior product that you can only listen to on a handful of platforms, and that can disappear at will. And they're wondering why people still trade files online?
All DRM does is punish the honest users. I'd buy music online if it wasn't DRMed.
Case Study... (Score:4, Informative)
I recorded a CD and released it online. I also allow some of the tracks to be downloaded for free at MacIdol. And here's what I've found...
As I have made more tracks available for free downloading, CD sales have INCREASED. I think I know at least one reason. We all can recall an artist that we sorta liked on first listening, but then liked more and more as we listened more and more. When you allow several songs to be downloaded for free, you increase your chances of this happening. If people dig the music enough, they might order the CD. If they don't, then you've lost nothing. But they still have your "free" songs out there and they have friends, and you never know.
And instead of releasing the worst songs from the disc for free, I released what I thought were the best songs. I wish big artists would do this.
I'm in line to get the CD into iTunes, but the waiting list to get in is long, so it can take months for a little guy to get in. But I just see iTunes as another way to get exposure. Once the CD is on iTunes, I will still allow free downloading of some songs, because I really believe it will help, not hurt, CD sales. My freely downloadable songs are located at:
http://www.macidol.com/jamroom/bands/999/music.php [macidol.com]
Re:Case Study... (Score:4, Interesting)
I think it's great that independent artists have the means to produce their own art and distribute it without having to deal with the Music Mafia.
I wonder if iTMS would allow an independent artists to stipulate that they wanted to release their music in non-DRM AAC format or even Loss-less format through iTMS. It would be great if they offered a whole section devoted to "open/indy artists" who were offering their content in this way.
I know that I for one would frequent that section often, if only because I believe in supporting "the good guys".
Are you definitely going to be on iTMS? Once you are on it, is getting your second album on it easier?
Keep up the good work!
Re:Case Study... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Case Study... (Score:2)
Um... no. (Score:4, Interesting)
What part of "I don't pay money for DRM" don't you understand? I don't care where in the equation the DRM came from, I will not pay money for either DRM software or the DRM hardware required to run it.
The only "exception" I have to this rule is with DVDs: I'll buy a DVD so long as it's not published by a member of the MPAA, and even then I play it on a region-free DVD player.
Good news??? (Score:5, Insightful)
Um, how is this good news? Apple's DRM is actually fairly innocuous in practice. I don't feel the least bit dirty using it. Do you honestly believe that something foisted on us by the labels will be more end-user friendly and less proprietary?
Easy Way (Score:3, Funny)
will y'all quit yer bitchin (Score:4, Interesting)
Apple should buy Apple (Score:2)
The only reason the big music guys want total control over distribution is so they can guarantee a return on the monstrous investment in marketing that their hit-based model demands. Niches are totally beyond t
SDMI Anyone? (Score:3, Insightful)
Now that they've failed to deliver their own industry standard DRM they want tech companies to deliver one on their behalf? Given the failure of the SDMI working group it seems highly unlikely that an outsider will ever produce a scheme the labels can buy into.
Like it or not, iTunes is the closest anyone has come to this.
Very simply put, Labels don't want a unified DRM.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The labels (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The labels (Score:4, Funny)
The labels can go fuck themselves.
Apparently there are some photos circulating the net demonstrating how that can be done, I hear.
4 Lights (Score:2)
Peace
Re:IDRTFA but (Score:3, Informative)
Incorrect. Mac OS Classic requires the ROM to boot, but Mac OS X does not. If you were to write the proper drivers (go ahead; the core OS is open-source, so it can't be too hard), you could probably run Mac OS X on an AmigaOne or even a GameCube.
It would, however, violate the license, which says you must not run OS X on non-Apple computers.
Re:IDRTFA but (Score:2)
Re:Providers.. (Score:2)
I'm impressed you can type so legibly with your own butt.
Re:We want a DRM-free future (Score:2)
There is a way to standardize DRM - do away with it. Then all content providers will be able to compete on a level playing field.