Store Says DRM Causes 3 of 4 Support Calls 155
Carter writes "Ars Technica is reporting that Musicload, one of Europe's largest movie stores, has found that 75% of its customer support problems are caused by DRM. Users have frequent problems using the music that they have purchased, which has led Musicload to try selling independent label music without DRM. Artists choosing to abandon DRM in favor of good old-fashioned MP3 have seen 40% growth in sales since December. Good to see someone in the business both 'gets it' and is willing to do something about it."
These Are Desired Problems (Score:5, Insightful)
I submit to you the anecdotal evidence of my sister's "iPod." She purchased songs through iTMS and attempted to move the DRM'd files onto her SanDisk MP3 Player. Then she wondered why it didn't work. It didn't work because the files have digital rights management & only brand specific players will play it--and vice versa.
You know, right now iPods are probably the most popular portable music device. But I don't know of any other music download DRM services that they work with. So if some third party download service called Musicload is reporting that 75% of problem calls are DRM related, I'm going to wager that every single call went a little something like "Do you have an iPod?" "No." "I'm sorry, iPod doesn't support our DRM." (or the German equivalent). In fact, on their site, I don't see an iPod [musicload.de] as being supported.
I think a DRM standard that everyone adopts would avoid these issues but I don't forsee that happening in the future. It benefits Apple somewhat because they can have a great service or a great player and reap the market. I don't blame them, however, because they do a fine job on both ends. I am concerned about any sort of free market existing here.
In the end, the RIAA wants these problems. They don't want you docking a player with many computers and soaking up the files. They want one player associated with one computer associated with one account and any attempt to anything else should wipe everything off the face of the planet. Why? Money. Somehow the consumer no longer has a voice.
The wrong person is "getting" it (Score:5, Insightful)
Woohoo. Great. Little happy dance. Big fucking deal.
They aren't the ones who are pushing DRM. They ahve it because without it they wouldn't get the major label tracks which (I presume) form the bulk of their income. This isn't hurting the labels who are requiring the DRM, its simply sqishing the middle players. Now, this is certainly better than just squishing the consumer, but it's still a far cry from leverage to affect change where the change can actually occur.
Musicload, one of Europe's largest movie stores (Score:4, Insightful)
Anyway, I've returned a DVD because it wouldn't play on my computer. Not surprisingly, it was due to DRM. If the stores lose money trying to sell it, then they will stop carrying it.
I don't believe their data (Score:3, Insightful)
As a side note: why don't the famous musicians dump their majors and start selling mp3s independently? I would suppose they'd earn much more.
Re:I don't believe their data (Score:3, Insightful)
As for people not knowing what DRM is
They might not know the intricate details about how the DRM "unworks" the system, but I think they're at least aware of it's presence.
Tom
Re:I don't believe their data (Score:1, Insightful)
Customer: "The song i downloaded doesn't work on my MP3 player!"
Support Person: (Thinking) "DRM again..."
Going Out on a Limb (Score:3, Insightful)
I think the Entertainment conglomerates can plausibly claim at the PHB level, "there's no DRM standard and that's not our fault." This way they can maintain chaos and gain total control of the digital distribution channel when they pick a winner.
It also means that whoever is making these DRM schemes has to do a really good job creating code that has _lots_ of error condition controls. Which I just don't see anyone doing.
The end game is the media conglomerates to win unless the copyright law is meaningfully overhauled.
Re:Apple iTunes (Score:1, Insightful)
Right after Apple allows interoperability between their other products and other manufacturers'.
Re:Deutsche Telekom interest in DRM? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Could be a way to protest DRM (Score:3, Insightful)
How is this informative? If you want to succeed in driving online music sales out of existence, which will in turn cause the RIAA to scream even more about piracy, and start slapping even more people with lawsuits, then great.
How about, if you don't like DRM, you don't purchase music from artists & labels which support DRM? Shift that money to indie labels & independent artists that don't use DRM, and suddenly you'll see small labels become much more influential. You can drive a wedge into the recording industry associations by spending your money on labels that do business in a way you agree with; fucking over the resellers and driving them out of business is not the way to reach any desirable end state.
I don't care if Jessica Simpson is offering to personally give you a hummer [urbandictionary.com] for every DRM'ed track you buy... if DRM (or more precisely, the lack of it) is important to you, then don't buy it .
Re:These Are Desired Problems (Score:5, Insightful)
http://defectivebydesign.org/ [defectivebydesign.org]
Re:Deutsche Telekom interest in DRM? (Score:3, Insightful)
T-Mobile not supporting non-DRM'd music may increase support expenses at Musicload, as customers try to buy newly available non-DRM'd music at Musicload and experience problems. A CBA would determine if the support for those customers is cheaper than the increased profits from sales of DRM'd music; if not, then these subsidiaries should figure out a better way to work together.
This is an example of the opposite of syngergy -- we have here two parts whose total value is less than the sum of each part.
Re:I don't believe their data (Score:3, Insightful)
No. The statistics come from the resolution put into the support ticket. And those resolution was found by the support people probably after lengthy discussions with the customer to find out what actual release of which software player he was using, what make of hardware player he bought, how to update it, which DRM version of which music file finally got running on which configuration.
Re:These Are Desired Problems (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The wrong person is "getting" it (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I don't believe their data (Score:3, Insightful)
...
I would agree with everything that you said if you change the word "go" to "start". As people have already stated it is very difficult for a new band to get access to equipment, recording time, media exposure etc without the help of a label. That is a large part of why new bands usually jump at the chance to join a label.
On the other hand there are a number of large bands that could potentially go independent now and do just fine. A prime example is Radiohead, who are in fact not in a contract right now but I bet when their new album is released it will get just as much hype as the last one. Of course the majority of bands aren't big enough to sustain a large fanbase without a big label or are locked into multi-album record deals, which is why the labels are able to take advantage of so many bands. That's my two cents at least.
Re:Pass the cost on (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:These Are Desired Problems (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:These Are Desired Problems (Score:2, Insightful)
We still do. We speak in the only language they understand. Money.
Speak with your wallets, not your voice.
Re:Could be a way to protest DRM (Score:3, Insightful)
The more pessismistic view is that there will always be enough ignorant or indifferent consumers of RIAA music that a personal boycott, even with telling the labels your reasons, will have little effect because of the huge number of consumers who don't care and will buy anyway. It's not enough in this situation to just not buy RIAA music, you have to make it affect their bottom line, and in such a way that they can't ignore/hype it as "economic effects of piracy". Driving up costs that are tied to specific metrics (aka can't be written off to piracy) like tech support is one good way to get the message across. To keep up the boycott aspect for those willing to do so, buy it, pursue support, then return it stating clearly your reasons for doing so.
While the story is about DRM'ed music... (Score:4, Insightful)
DRM needs to die. Its only real-world impact is to inconvenience those of us who try to do things legally - certainly the pirates aren't being overly inhibited.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Apple iTunes (Score:4, Insightful)
Also, pirated versions are always superior (Score:4, Insightful)
Music -- No DRM, can play anywhere, any number of times, no restrictions.
Movies -- You can copy only the main movie so it starts up immediately without the need to even touch any controls. No menus, no half a dozen previews, no FBI or MPAA warnings. And absolutely nothing, anywhere, that is "unskippable".
Games -- No CD checks. No hunting through your house to find a CD just so you can play an old game that's already fully installed. No losing your purchase because the disk is damaged.
So, the current option offered to people who want to be legit is to buy overpriced stuff that's a pain in the ass to use and isn't as functional as the free pirate versions. What a surprise that so many people opt out of that deal.