Yahoo Music Chief Comes Out Against DRM 304
waired writes "It seem that a trend has begun in the music industry after Steve Jobs essay. Now a senior Yahoo chief has spoken out in favor of Apple CEO Steve Jobs' call for major labels to abandon digital rights technology (DRM). It points out that consumers are getting confused and that the Microsoft DRM "doesn't work half the time"."
Re:As predicted (Score:4, Interesting)
Good news but... (Score:1, Interesting)
If it weren't for this I'd believe these companies coming forward now were coming forward of their own free will and not because they're getting scared at the fact that governments and lawmakers, particularly in the EU are turning against DRM.
Re:As predicted (Score:3, Interesting)
Anyway, I'm not arguing with you, just bitching in general.
The Jobs Fanboyism Is Sickening (Score:0, Interesting)
Every single one of them hates DRM, thinks it is a pain in the ass to deal with, would love to sell all of their content without DRM.
But they all live in the real world.
This Jobs invented "hating DRM" bullshit is as tiresome as all the other Apple "invented X" bullshit.
And the RIAA won't listen to him EITHER. (Score:5, Interesting)
1) legislation/lawsuit (unlikely as they own the legislatures and have armies of lawyers)
2) have a massive clientele defection (unlikely because they're a monopoly like the telcos) or
3) have their talent pool stop making revenue (crappy quality music, and so on-- also highly unlikely).
Bottom line: he's sucking up to his clientele (us, supposedly) and Wall Street, especially Wall Street who wants to pound the crap out of them for other foollish moves. They should have demanded that Mark Cuban stay with them for a few years after they bought his Broadcast.Com.
It's all PR. Nothing to see here.
Reminds me of an old saying (Score:5, Interesting)
So Microsoft's standard approach of writing software that confuses users and doesn't work very well is telling the public that this is what all DRM is like. We see this all the time, for example with viruses which are invariably reported as infecting "computers", not just "Microsoft computers". Similarly, the difficulty of learning to use the little beasts is a property of "computers", not of any particular brand.
It reminds me of the old saying: "Nobody is all bad. They can always serve as a bad example."
In this case, though, MS could well be doing us a service. By convincing the gullible public that "DRM is confusing and doesn't work very well", they are inadvertently helping in the fight against DRM everywhere. Even if someone will come up with DRM that works (for some value of "works"), it won't be used, because it won't run on Windows (and on non-MS systems, the crypto geeks will break it within hours of release). Most users will just accept that MS's DRM is what DRM is like, and will oppose its use anywhere as a result.
Of course, one could argue that a correct implementation of DRM is probably intractable. This is mostly because determining which "fair use" rules apply wherever the use might live is a seriously difficult AI problem. It can't actually be determined by a human-level intelligence, as demonstrated by the need to ask the courts rather than just reading the law books. So we need an AI that's much more intelligent than any team of human lawyers, and has deep understanding of all the "IP" laws of every jurisdiction in the world. Of multiple jurisdictions, actually, when Net transactions are considered. We won't likely see this level of AI in our lifetimes.
Discuss amongst yourselves
Re:jobs against drm? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:jobs against drm? (Score:3, Interesting)
If Jobs was serious about his anti-DRM stance, he would either allow DRM free music on the iTunes store or he would come out with a clear statement as to why he cant allow it
Re:How the heck is parent insightful? (Score:3, Interesting)
But there's no legally-binding contract between buyer and seller when I buy an HD DVD and the DRM is enforced by law through the DMCA. In addition, DRM is a blatant violation of the intention of copyright, which was merely to support the creator before the material entered the public domain... material with effective DRM will _NEVER_ enter the public domain.
Re:How the heck is parent insightful? (Score:3, Interesting)
The confusion between those two branches of law creates an unnecessary amount of meaningless noise here on
The irony, of course, is that 'GPL violation' would be completely meaningless if that were true.
Re:jobs against drm? (Score:3, Interesting)
All you're really saying is, "I think someone else should suffer to support my ideals." Who cares that dumping DRM or pulling DRM'd music from the iTunes store would probably violate the contracts Apple has with the labels? Who cares that it would give the labels a free ticket to crucify Apple, not only for the immediate loss of revenue, but also to send a message to any other company that dares to try and defy them? Who cares that shutting down the iTunes store all of a sudden would royally screw the millions of customers -- i.e.: people who actually give Apple money -- who like using the service, DRM and all.
Not you, apparently. In your uncomplicated little world, everything can be resolved with grandiose gestures that would look poorly thought out in a comic book.
yes (Score:2, Interesting)
Last century's business models are no longer useful or fair, and need to be radically changed. The cost of duplication now is incredibly cheap, they should adapt to changing technology and therefore offer *very cheap* copies to reflect tech changes, and make their profits on huge volume sales.
I have a friend used to own a lot of gas stations, but gas at the retail level only makes a few pennies a gallon, a rather pitiful small amount, yet he made lots of cash.. The deal is, he made a lot because he sold millions of gallons a year.
The music and movie industry could easily do the same, rather than trying to make those huge markups on each "unit" they push. Charge much much less, sell way way more, actually make more money than now and have happy customers with cheaper prices.
I know why they haven't done it yet either, simple psychology. Millionaires make the ultimate pricing decisions in those industries, they live at the highest end of the economic food chain, and simply have lost touch with what a ten or twenty dollars means to the other 99% of the population who aren't multi-millionaires, to them, a ten or a twenty is like one or two cents. They think it is about free-no frame of reference they can relate to. Sure, semi intellectually they might be able to consider it, but realistically, no, they can't, it is obvious. They really think 15-20 bucks for a plastic disk is some kind of "deal", or 10 bucks for a download ten song album is somehow a deal. Nuts, it is not, it is a huge markup over manufacturing costs. Maybe to their country club drinking buddies it seems a deal, to about everyone else it is a blatant pricing gouge. I am amazed they sell what they do now frankly.
Re:jobs against drm? (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't really see this. Put a big 'UNENCUMBERED' notice next to all the DRM-free songs. Start giving priority to DRM-free music on the front page of the store. Only recommend DRM-free music. Pretty soon, all of the other labels are going to want to re-negotiate their contracts to allow DRM-free distribution.
Re:How the heck is parent insightful? (Score:3, Interesting)
Two things worth noting: "fair use" is not part of the constitution -- in fact, the constitution doesn't say anything about how copyright law should be applied, it only says that copyright law can be applied. So the erosion of "fair use" does not fly in the face of the constitution, it possibly flies in the face of established copyright law.
Well, the fair use doctrine is law that enshrines particular interpretation of the constitution, but it is not necessary for DRM to be unconstitutional. The constitution does provide for the federal government to restrict copying of works for certain purposes for a limited time. DRM takes advantage of the DMCA to place real restrictions on the copying of works, but makes no effort to provide a way to remove those restrictions or provide an alternate version for when that "limited time" expires (probably since no one actually believes it will ever expire again).
To my knowledge, the courts have stated that time-shifting constitutes fair use (this means, recording a show when you're not at home and then watching it again later, once, commercials and all), certain very short clips (the media equivalent of quoting) when making a commentary on a piece of music or other media, and that's just about it.
Umm, maybe you should review the case law on fair use. There are lots of uses covered under fair use, including the copying en masse and storage of entire works for profit, for the purpose of providing small excerpts (think Google images).
The courts have classically sided with the copyright holder on fair use issues.
That all depends upon the case.
The only way out of this is copyright reform.
With this I agree, but I think your view of fair use in the US is a little colored. The law is very vague, but a lot of precedent to date supports it in many situations, not that it has a lot to do with DRM in the US.