theregister.co.uk — The DRM walls are crumbling. Earlier this week, Steve Jobs called on the major record labels to allow online music sales unfettered by digital rights management restrictions. Today, EMI is in negotiations with several digital music services to sell unprotected MP3s. Here is the long, sad history of DRM, and why we're better off without it.
Feb 9, 2007 View in Crawl 4
Closed AccountFeb 10, 2007
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xisterFeb 10, 2007
All you have to do to see how frivolous they are is look up some of their court cases.<a class="user" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIAA#High_profile_lawsuits">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIAA#High_profile_lawsuits</a> FTA:In December 21st of 2006, the RIAA filed a lawsuit for Russian owned and operated website AllOfMP3.com in the amount of 1.65 trillion dollars. This number was derived from them arguing that 11 million songs were downloaded costing $150,000 in damages per song. Unfortunately for the RIAA, they have no jurisdiction or support for this lawsuit because the website is operated outside of the USA.What a laugh these fcuktards are! XD
hkrabyeFeb 10, 2007
OK, so we all hate DRM. I am just thinking: what are the alternatives? We know that the record labels are afraid that if the music is available unprotected, it will be much easier for all of us to share music and download stolen copies from the web. And of course they are right. We know how Napster used to work, and we know that they lost the trial when the big record companies sued them, and they had to change their business model. If the labels remove the copy protection and allow iTunes and other companies to sell unprotected files from the web, what kind of signal will that give to the people? Maybe the signal will satisfy those (they are many, some of them even in this discussion list) who say that: "I know how to get my music for free, and that's what I want!". But what will the composers and songwriters think, and how will they react? (I am a composer myself, partly living from the income of my music.) What I am afraid of will happen, is that the labels will only upload low quality files, even distorted or broken files, to make them less attractive. Music on the web will be regarded more or less as demos. That will be several steps backwards in development, and it will mean that the possibility of discovering new music and purchasing it the same minute (like we do today with for instance last.fm/ilike.com and iTunes) will be gone. Back to the stone age!I just can't understand why the industries are not willing to develop ONE system for copy protection. I predict that this is what will happen in 2007: Apple, Microsoft, Sony, Universal - all of them will agree upon a new DRM system that is cross platform. It will not be perfect, but it will make it possible for us to play the protected music on most players and all computers, and we will have to live with the fact that in order to steal music, we will need to crack the copy protection first. That's the same as burning a CD-R from your friend's audio CD. That's OK if the purpose is to discover new music. But if the purpose is to avoid purchasing the CD, then you are breaking the law.Helge K.
conman16xFeb 10, 2007
I really can't imagine ITMS dying any time soon. It has a killer interface and massive selection. If it weren't for the DRM and the high price tag (99 cents per song? Get real! You're saving so much money by not having to print CDs or produce packaging or pay for shelf space in a brick and mortar store. I can already walk down to my local independent record store and get new music for $9.99 per album. A digital music store that can produce and distribute an infinite amount of product with very very low overhead costs should not be charging me even half of what iTunes is. Anywho, long parentheses rant.) iTunes Music Store would be the perfect music-buying experience.
williamdyerFeb 11, 2007
DRM has everything to do with government spying.Vista enables code to be hidden in your system, and executed undetectably. This can be applied to making DRM hard to circumvent, or it can be applied to hiding surveillance code. Same technology.The Newspeak name for this is "Trusted Computing."It enables the government to trust that you are doing nothing subversive.
williamdyerFeb 11, 2007
This is why people stopped stealing phone service. It so cheap now it is like stealing sand from the beach. Music should cost a fraction, at retail, what it costs now.