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Apple's DRM Is Bad For Consumers and Business
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Wed Aug 02, 2006 04:08 PM
from the one-man's-soapbox dept.
from the one-man's-soapbox dept.
BoredStiff writes "Cory Doctorow, noted sci-fi writer and Boing Boing editor, marshals a strong argument against digital rights management in a recent InformationWeek article. His assertion is that there's no good DRM and that Apple's copy-protection technology makes media companies into its servants. Other copy-protection technologies, like Blu-Ray and HD-DVD, are just as bad."
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Conflicted Feelings (Score:5, Interesting)
However, the concept of rental clashes with the nature of the online and digital world. Everything that exists can be copied in exact form. You can't return data - you have a copy, not the original. The way I see it there are two options, the concept of rental can be preserved artificially with the introduction of DRM, or it can be abandoned in favor of purchases.
As a consumer I don't have a problem with the general idea of DRM on a rental - my fair use rights aren't being violated, because I don't have the right to backup, timeshift, or format shift rentals to begin with (unlike media I own, for which any DRM is intolerable). Where the problem occurs is the proprietary nature of DRM. At best, the rental DRM would be an "Open Standard" meaning anyone who pays RAND* patent fees and signs an NDA will be allowed to implement a device, and be given keys (specific to them) to decode the data. Then I could buy online rental devices or software from any number of manufactures, and it would be guaranteed to work with any number of online rental stores. This is similar to the legal workings of DVDs, Blueray, WMV. At the worst you have proprietary technologies, where each company has it's own format and player, like with Apple or DVIX (the first one). In both cases there will never be an open source player - the best we could hope for is something like the new Real Player that has an open source core with proprietary plug-ins. Even that is unlikely, as the movie industry is demanding end-to-end security (HDMI, Trusted Computing) which an open source operating system would not provide.
In the other option, the internet utopia dream was that the price of media would drop to the point of making rental unnecessary and removing the allure of piracy from the general public. The media industries are strongly opposed to this model of the future, and the only way it will ever happen is if independent media producers embrace it with success, and eventually put the current media companies out of business. This is also unlikely given the weight that the media companies have in government. Therfore, media purchases will also be hindered with DRM for the conceivable future, and will continue to be priced at traditional rates.
So given DRM on rental verses DRM on purchase, I definitely prefer the previous, but there is another potential risk with DRM rental and it is a biggy. The media companies have shown themselves very fond of the idea of DRM rental, as seen with Napster. They like the model where people don't own copies of media, but instead just subscribe to services that provide them. If too many people embrace these services, we could end up in a situation where everything is locked up. We continue to hear stories about how the original archive copies of important cultural media is being lost due to the extreme length of copyright, and the mismanagement of the copyright holders (Dr Who, classic films). But in most of those cases, at least lower quality copies exist in the form of consumer media. However, if we can no longer record broadcast media, and there are no purchased copies of media, the copyright holders will be the only ones capable of preserving the records of our popular culture. Time and time again they show themselves inept at doing so.
Anyway, I plan on sticking to buying CD's and renting locally for as long as those options exist, and continue to support those independent producers who treat their customers with respect. I'll keep trying to inform my representatives about the issues. But I'm not optimistic. We'll see what happens.
* For the uninitiated:
RAND = Reasonable And Non-Discriminatory
NDA = Non-Disclosure Agreement
Re:Conflicted Feelings (Score:5, Insightful)
I wonder - wouldn't fair-use rights of the media follow you for the duration of the rental? For instance, I have the right to skip from chapter to chapter, pause, rewind - basically time-shift any part of the movie. I have the right to play with any included interactive content on my PC during that time period (not that I would, mind you...) etc.
Sure, the rights we're talking about are ones that don't make much sense for a one week rental, but while in possession of content that I've rented, am I afforded the same rights that I would have if I owned the DVD/CD/whatever, during the rental period?
Also, if I rent a movie that installs DRM on my PC (ex: Sony rootkit) does the company's right to enforce such DRM end at the end of my rental period?
Parent
Re:Conflicted Feelings (Score:3, Interesting)
No, that's not how it works. You can engage in fair uses all the time, regardless of whether you own a copy, rent a copy, or don't have a copy at all. Fair use is not contingent on ownership. Rather, it's contingent on the circumstances involved. For example
Re:Conflicted Feelings (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Conflicted Feelings (Score:3, Informative)
Copyright law gives the rights holder the power to establish the license under which the work will be distributed. That's all. You're right that copyright law per se doesn't apply to use, only to distribution and copying. License law, OTOH, does give the rights holder the power to set restrictions upon use.
The term 'licens
Re:Conflicted Feelings (Score:4, Insightful)
This alone is reason enough to get rid of DRM to the fullest extent we can.
There are other problems with it, though. For example, copyright does not prevent people from conveying lawfully made copies of works. But iTMS DRM interferes with this, since the work is not usable by the second purchaser. Copyright law is meant to serve the public interest. Why should the public tolerate mere authors and publishers interfering in this, twisting and warping matters for their own desires? Why shouldn't the default rules be the only rules, at least in ordinary consumer transactions?
Copyright deals with the big picture, over the long term. You're thinking too small. Think big, and the problems that make DRM inherently unacceptable become plain as day.
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Re:Conflicted Feelings (Score:3, Insightful)
It's possible you're misunderstanding me slightly due to my wording. I don't mean 'anything' in the sense of 'not nothing,' but instead in the sense of 'everything under the sun.'
When the work enters the public domain, there are no more copyright-related restrictions on the work. I can do literally anything I wish with the work, including simply making and selling copies. It is true, though, that prior to the copyrig
Re:Conflicted Feelings (Score:4, Insightful)
Their implementation is horrible in any form, though from my understanding and small amount of experience, iTMS takes by far the least invasive approach. Good. But the method sucks. I don't have any alternative, but I expect to be able to transfer my purchased media among my own computers and have it Just Work - not be restricted to a single player. I like iTunes now (used to detest it, but it's grown on me) and have no plan to switch portables, but I don't want to worry about things not working if something comes up. I paid for it - I can use it, and if that's ever not the case, then the system isn't working. When iTunes is dead and I want to move my media, how am I going to re-attain my license on the new computer? I'd be SOL, and I'm not okay with that. My remaining three options (CD, allofmp3, piracy) all screw over the artist, while two of them offer lossless media and one of them is comparatively cheap. Of course iTunes screws over artists too, but then again so does every other option that isn't 'going to a concert'. Might as well get the best quality for my buck, and not support the organization that I so truly detest in the process. Exactly which one that is depends on how cheap or picky I'm feeling at the moment, but it's not going to be the CD.
No matter what happens, artists get screwed. If you buy the CD, they see next to none of that money. If you buy it from iTunes, they see next to none of that money. If you buy it from AllofMP3, they almost certainly see none of that money. If you pirate it, there's no money for them to see. CDs are lossless, as are most albums on AllofMP3 and the odd torrent. iTunes is cheaper and lossy, as is AllofMP3 and piracy. iTunes and some CDs have copy protection, and are the only two that give money to the RIAA - the people who ensured that copy protection was present, whereas AllofMP3 is in a legal limbo and piracy is just plain illegal. All of these somewhat increase the chance of seeing the artist in concert, though I'm personally more inclined to pay to see an artist where I haven't already paid for the CD/digital album. The CD is starting to die out to the various forms of online distribution, and with next-gen optical drives not (yet) supporting plain ol' CDs (well, blu-ray anyways last I knew), ripping may not always be an option. And if your protection-licensor goes the way of the dodo, you're equally screwed- stocked with a pile of useless media that you can't play.
Long story short - I understand their desire for copy protection, and am not opposed to the concept. But their implementation is simply something waiting to leave purchasers high and dry once we've all moved on to the Next Big Thing. It's a risk you take with analog media, where we needed to move on to increase the quality, but that's simply not the case with the digital storage a PC offers - computers, in some form or another anyways, are here to stay, and while the hardware may change, the idea of storing stuff and being able to play it back won't. This 'licensed media' approach to everything is the same as our different analog media, where you needed a new setup to play the newer media. In ten years when CD-capable drives have gone the way of the floppy (still h
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Re:Ummm.....guys? (Score:4, Informative)
I'm going to take a guess here: you don't really know anything about the law, right?
Not only is that not what it means, but no judge would ever think that your interpretation is correct, for the following reason:
It is a rule of statutory interpretation that Congress never intends to pass a meaningless law. Laws all must do something that wasn't already being done, because there are no useless laws. So only interpretations where there is some use to the law, some real meaning, are valid.
If it is illegal to break access controls that are effective, where effective means that they are unbreakable, then the law is meaningless. No one ever could break it, because it would be impossible to do so by definition. This cannot possibly be what Congress intended. Therefore, effectiveness must mean something else, something that permits a TPM to be broken, yet still be considered 'effective.' Maybe the word doesn't quite match the dictionary definition, but the law frequently uses words in a specialized manner. (Think of how various fields created their own definitions of words like 'computer' or 'broadcast' or 'network' or 'drive' or 'memory.')
What it actually turns out to mean is that it has any material degree of effectiveness against nearly anyone at all. ROT13 is likely not effective, but analogue Macrovision probably would be.
Your argument would get laughed out of court. You're coming across like one of those schmucks who rejects the authority of a court due to trivialities like the flag in the courtroom.
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sooooo they say... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:sooooo they say... (Score:4, Insightful)
The irony is that it was the media companies who gave Apple this power, by mandating DRM.
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Re:sooooo they say... (Score:5, Informative)
Exactly. Apple is neither demon nor saint here... they're just riding the wave of the moment.
Their success comes because they put together a vertical integration: a playback device, a content distribution platform, a music store, and most critically an agreement with enough major record labels to support the rest. (It's probable that other tech powers could have managed this, but Apple is the one which did it.)
DRM doesn't do Apple any good in itself. (Or didn't at the iPod/iTunes launch, anyway.) I'm sure DRM was a big headache to design and implement, and they could just as well have done without it. But a plausible DRM implementation was the only way for Apple to get the record companies to play ball, so (in order to reap the profits from the other stages) Apple had to include it.
Now, the iPod/iTunes/iTMS/FairPlay stack is a raging success. It's so successful that it has given Apple the whip hand over the record companies. (Which is more than a bit amusing.)
If at some point the record companies want to break Apple's grip on power, they can do so easily... just drop their DRM demand, thereby cutting their own throats. Or they can stop selling through iTMS, and watch that revenue stream dry up, their artists leave, and listen to their customers howl. Or they can go to an Apple competitor and negotiate a better DRM deal... which consumers will ignore, because a better deal for the record companies is necessarily a worse deal for the end user.
So I think the record industry is done as a power broker. This is undoubtedly bad for them and for Apple's competitors, and it's less than ideal for consumers, but it's too soon to say that it's really bad overall. With the record companies' power broken, more artists are going to retain the rights to their works, and publish via TuneCore.com or iTMS or whatever. In time, that's going to change the face of the industry.
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This guy must be a slashdot reader... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:This guy must be a slashdot reader... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:This guy must be a slashdot reader... (Score:4, Interesting)
There is no such thing as "the production of music only profitable through DRM". I believe, as do many anti-DRM activists, that the average person is more than willing to pay a fair price for anything they want or need, they do not need to be forced to do the right thing.
The problem is that the media giants have decided that they want more than a fair price for their product, so many people look elsewhere to get the things they want. This then results in the media giants deciding that they need to protect their products from theft... so they spend an ungodly amount of money developing and deploying ineffective technologies that do nothing but further alienate their customers while increasing their overhead. Now they have fewer customers, lower profit margins, and more theft occuring... so what do they do, the same stupid thing all over again!
What needs to happen is that these media giants need to start TRUSTING THEIR CUSTOMERS!!! We are in a web of distrust... we don't trust them, and they don't trust us. If an entertainer were to get most of the proceeds from their work, while the record company took a fair share, we could trust them. The cost of their wares would drop and most of us would buy the stuff without thought. But $20 for a CD of music I don't care much for, by an artist who I know only get's pennies of my money. It's bullshit. I would rather steal the music and send the artist a dollar or two.
Fortunately I don't like music, so I don't bother stealing it... talk radio is more entertaining.
Parent
Re:This guy must be a slashdot reader... (Score:5, Insightful)
No, the problem is that everyone and his brother has their own definition of what constitutes a "fair" price. As your "$20" statement illustrates.
For most things that wouldn't be an issue, as if you think the price for some product is unfair you simply do without it or buy something else. It's not like you're going to die without the lastest piece of junk from 50-Cent. But here, when people decide the price is "unfair" they think they're entitled to it anyway. Back to your statement, why would you buy music from an artist you don't care much for? On the flip side, if you don't care for them, why steal (your word) their music and waste your time in the first place?
Voting with your dollars is one thing. Stealing quite another.
Finally, why should they trust you? You've just clearly stated that anytime you think the terms of the agreement is "unfair" you're going to break it. Where's the "trust" in that?
What if I think it's worth a buck and you think it's worth a quarter? Or if they drop the price of a track to a quarter, and you think a tune by an artist you don't care for is only worth a nickel. In either case are you now justified in stealing whatever you want yet again?
There are quite a few worthwhile arguments out there. Yours, however, isn't one of them...
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Re:This guy must be a slashdot reader... (Score:3, Insightful)
Indeed.
The real justification for copyright infringment has nothing to do with price. Instead, it originates from the fact that copyright was originally designed as a social contract for the purpose of benefiting society (that's what the "to Promote the Progress of Science and the Useful Arts" part of Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8 of the US Constitution means). Because the music publishers have already violated the
Re:This guy must be a slashdot reader... (Score:5, Insightful)
Years ago one of my programs was selected by PC Magazine as one of their top 5 freeware/shareware utilities for that year. I made mine fully functional, donations appreciated. I got three, ever. But I regularly ran into people who used it all the time and even recognized my name and gushed about it when introduced to me, plus it wound up on all sorts of those utility discs you used to be able to buy for $5 at computer shows, without me ever being contacted by the CD publishers or the users. I never made a big deal about it, but it did tell me a lot about people.
Perhaps people need not be forced to do the right thing, but if not at least actively propelled and urged, evidence is they won't.
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Re:This guy must be a slashdot reader... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:This guy must be a slashdot reader... (Score:3, Insightful)
The fact that you, personally, do not want to pay a particular price does not make it unfair.
I would rather steal the music and send the artist a dollar or two.
What about the producer? What about the recording engineer? What about all of the other people involved in creating the recording that you've just stolen? Do they not deserve to be com
People are waking up... (Score:5, Interesting)
Many other people are waking up to the fact that DRM is shorthand for "you really don't own this piece of music you paid $1 for, and that you can't share it, or copy it, or use it on a different computer." People, and the information they rely and enjoy, desire true freedom.
Re:People are waking up... (Score:5, Insightful)
Putting aside your friend's sex change in the middle of this conversation -- what "rights and freedoms" are involved in not being able to "borrow" copyrighted music?
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Re:People are waking up... (Score:3, Insightful)
The same as those involved in taking a book out of the library. Publishers put up a big stink about that too. Come to think of it, they've never ceased at looking for ways to subvert that. Someday they might succeed, say with ebooks, DRM and the DMCA.
KFG
Re:People are waking up... (Score:4, Interesting)
Return to the question of a PDF of my book. No doubt, you would look at downloading that across a P2P network exactly the same way, regardless of whether or not you were going to read it once, or read it daily. Is a Bible different because many people crack it open every day? Using your argument, any fixed document that's read and re-read regularly would be purchased exactly once.
This is the same "change the game so my argument holds water" technique that Cory uses all the time. It's the kind of thing that makes it impossible to have a reasonable discussion with him, because he bases his position on a proposition that isn't relevant. Unfortunately, most people don't stop him at that point, because he's always carrying the banner of "information wants to be free," and pretending to be Thomas Jefferson.
Ultimately, Cory wants to "possess" music (and other electronic data that is similarly protected) without paying the content creator for their work and he wants to get away with it. Whether you call it stealing or something altruistic, he wants the benefit without cost, and without renumeration to the artist or legitimate owner of publication/distribution rights. It's as simple as that.
Tim
P.S. Your argument also suggests that there is no value in owning books. I own them specifically so I can go back and re-read them when I choose to, and not when they're available at the public library. I buy music (principally CD's) for the same purpose. My gripe with online music is that the license doesn't follow the physical model that a CD allows.
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Re:People are waking up... (Score:3, Informative)
iPod is just a player. iTunes is just a player. iTunes music store DRM's their music like any other online seller of music like them. If you don't want
Re:People are waking up... (Score:3, Insightful)
Nowhere in this incoherent story have yo
Re:"Borrowing" = Stealing (Score:5, Funny)
Mentally, you are retarded.
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Re:Ideas CAN'T be stolen! (Score:4, Insightful)
Music isn't an "idea." It is the result of creative effort on the part of artists who provide a service - the creation and performance of music - as well as that of a host of technical people and business people (sound engineers, marketeers, etc. etc.). They provide consumers with a service and have every right to compensation for that service, just as if they were performing their music live.
You are an apologist for thievery. You just mock virtue when you try to make your greed look like something it isn't with specious arguments. It's as simple as this: you're a cheap bastard who wants something for nothing at the expense of others.
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Doctorow is an idiot (Score:5, Insightful)
The guy needs to try a spell in the real world.
And his novels SUCK. No wonder he has no need for DRM.
Re:Doctorow is an idiot (Score:4, Interesting)
The guy needs to try a spell in the real world. And his novels SUCK. No wonder he has no need for DRM.
How is he not in the real world? He's practicing what he preaches. And no his books don't suck. I know that popularity doesn't equate to quality, but if an author can give away his books and still make money selling them, it should be obvious that he's doing something right.
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Re:Doctorow is an idiot (Score:3, Insightful)
That's total Apple fanboy BS. Most music players contain mostly CD rips [magnatune.com], not iTMS purchases. People have always been able to buy music without purchasing tracks online, they continue to do so, and as you acknowledge they can still download music without purchasing it at all. It's the omnipresent fear of the latter that ultimately keeps the record companies in check, not Jobs's balls. I've got nothing against Jobs for being a savvy businessman,
Re:Doctorow is an idiot (Score:5, Insightful)
I think he lost a bit perspective over the last few years. My favourite beef right now is that he is blabbering on [boingboing.net] that he is abandoning OS X because of the "proprietary file formats" that Apple is using. I am not quite sure which formats he means [thedarkerside.to].
I am starting to get the feeling he just needs to be "special" and "differnt", Apple now has become "too mainstream" for him and he is "moving on".
As for his Novels.... Some funky ideas, I just wish he would stop being so utterly in love with everything Disney does, or at least let's it colour his view of the world.
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argumentum ad hominem (Score:5, Insightful)
If it weren't for Apple, Creative Labs or Sony or Microsoft would be the #1 DRM'd music vendor, and we'd be bitching about their implementation instead. And the honest ones among us who dislike DRM no matter who makes it will still be doing what we have always done, buy our music from cool non-DRM'd labels [zunior.com] and occasionally in that old fashioned "CD" format.
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Re:argumentum ad hominem (Score:3, Funny)
Apart from insulting being fun, the ad-hominem attack is very effective. Why is this? Is it a quirk of human nature "I hate this guy so I don't listen to anything he says," or is it actually rational? I've mentioned this earlier on slashdot, and I'd like you to think about this for a moment:
If one takes a Bayesian view of probability [wikipedia.org] (probability represents one's degree of belief in a proposition, not a frequency of
which makes no sense (Score:5, Insightful)
Wasn't this the protection scheme that the media industry demanded over it's content before providing licesens for distribution - hence it's NOT Apple's? And if it's not Apple's - are you actually claiming that the media companies are making servants of themselves?
I don't get it... (Score:5, Insightful)
No restrictions, no problem.
There's a solution to the DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
Competition in DRM technology: good for consumers (Score:5, Insightful)
Which is stronger than Apple's "nudge-nudge-wink-wink" honor system DRM, and (since it's all under Microsoft's eye) has the potential of becoming as invisible and ubiquitous as DVD encryption.
Competition from Apple makes sure that DRM remains fragmented, difficult, and ineffective. And that's good for consumers even if they don't think so right now...
Bad for who, when (Score:5, Insightful)
So DRM worked just as intented inthe effect it had, it's just that the "wrong" company currently benefits from it.
Consumers: Actually they are better served than it would appear at first glance. Sure right now consumers have a harder time switching away from ITMS than they would have otherwise without DRM. But you have to consider the alternatives:
1) Someone else holds the DRM (say Microsoft). Do any of you think that prices would be lower or terms MORE lienient if anyone but Apple had a stranglehold on DRM? Think back on the no-burn restrictions of early online music stores. Given that, the Apple system is about the best (for the consumer) DRM system we could hope to see.
2) No DRM in place at all. An ideal world, that studios will not buy into - so this is the equivilent of saying there would be no major online music stores. Well what's the difference between that world and the one we have right now? I can still download songs via P2P if I like, or buy from eMusic (which I am a subscriber of). The only difference is that I can also "buy" songs with slightly more encumberance from Apple if I choose. It does not really reduce the choices that would exist if DRM did not exist, it only adds to them.
Furthermore, Apple's lock on digital music distribution can possibly lead to the desired end-state of large music companies distributing msuic free of DRM. It's the only way a music company has of avoiding Apple store fees by going direct to the consumer with a format that will still work with the iPod. Here, see Barenaked Ladies and other Canadian artists. I can also buy those songs on ITMS but I can buy plain MP3 (or even FLAC) BNL songs and concerts from thier site. In theory bands being successful with this approach along with the music companies desire to get out from under the thumb of APple to try thier own "creative" pricing models could drive studios to non-DRM formats sooner rather than later.
Thanks to apple, DRM is mainstream (Score:3, Insightful)
This situation may have been inevitable (then again, I think it may not, too), but the apple zealots certainly helped push it along.
There's a time and a place for fanatacism; four years ago was that time, DRM was that place.
Thanks for selling us all down the river, Jobs!
Why "Apple" topic? (Score:3, Insightful)
Technically, you can break your own locks (Score:3, Informative)
This is a little off. 1201(a)(3)(A) [cornell.edu] defines circumvention as bypassing the controls without authorization from the copyright holder. If you, the copyright holder, authorize yourself to bypass the lock, then bypassing is not circumvention. This actually leaves some loopholes open, though I don't think they've been tested yet.
The problem is with tools. 1201(a)(2) and 1201(b)(1) prohibit trafficking in tools that are primarily intended to circumvent (and this is a subjective judgement call, so you can pretty much expect a hostile judge to rule against you), and 1201(b)(2)(A) defines circumvention differently so that the tool is illegal whether you have copyright holders' permission or not. (By a super-strict reading of 1201(b)(1), all DRM players for copyrighted content should be illegal, even the "blessed" ones such as iTunes or DVDCCA-licensed DVD players.) Thus, breaking your own locks on your own content with your permission, still might be pretty hard, since the necessary tools will be "underground."
Just Apple? (Score:3, Insightful)
Fair Use (Score:3, Insightful)
It's already annoying that I can only change the region encoding on my laptop DVD drive a limited number of times. I can't think of any logical reasoning behind that besides trying to pigeon-hole me into a market segment. How is that good for me as the consumer? "The more you tighten your grip, the more starsystems will slip through your fingers." It's true here, as well. IMHO, the more ridiculous restrictions goverments/corporations put on media via DRM, the stronger (and likely, smarter) the piracy movement will become, because people will no longer want to deal with it. And I'd say downloading an mp3 or ripping a rented DVD arguably falls under the domain of civil disobedience.
As far as mp3's in particular go, why should I pay roughly the same price for compressed, often proprietary audio as I'm paying for unadulterated WAV files on a CD that also include cover art and liner notes? Wired had it right a few years ago: slash the prices on mp3's and they'll make it up in volume.
Another vote against an apple conspiracy this time (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Your first mistake (Score:5, Informative)
You must be thinking of the OTHER music companies, that re-authorize every month or what have you.
If Apple went out of buisiness, you music would continue to play on your current Mac until the end of time.
However, like you say eventually you'd want to move the music. Two options then:
CD's - I can burn any ITMS song to CD as much as I like (limit of ten burns a playlist, but I can always make new playlists...)
Hymn [hymn-project.org] - I can convert protected AAC files into unprotected AAC files, which I can then play on anything that undrestands AAC (most PC players, not many portables) or convert it from there.
So yeah I feel sorry for anyone buying music from anywhere other than ITMS or AllOfMP3.com. I still don't like to use AllOfMP3 though as I don't feel it gives artists as much as it should. Perhaps in the future I'll buy from ITMS, then buy the non-lossy version from AllOfMP3. Too much work though, so I probably wont...
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Re:Your first mistake (Score:3, Funny)
I feel sorry for people getting music from anywhere but iTunes or eMusic or mp3bogs like 3hive or buying CDs in used music stores and ripping them or...
Re:Your first mistake (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Your first mistake (Score:5, Insightful)
Either the files revert to their original rights holders (the record publisher) or, if it worth their while, some other company will quickly buy the rights to the DRM'ed tracks and handle the business.
I love this alarmist screaming - Doctorow's really got himself convinced that all it would take is Apple's demise to screw everyone who ever bought songs from the TMS. He didn't bother to do any research, but instead decided to scream from the rooftops about how bad the coming dark age of digital rights management will be.
In the old days, the physical medium was the DRM.
Then, consumers started demanding smaller and better sonic reproduction.
Then came the
Now, we have iTMS, windows media, etc. ad infinitium. Arguably, iTMS does a really good job - and I have a hard time believing no one would buy the iTMS IP if Apple were to suddenly go out of business. (Think about it, Cory - would the labels have let Apple run with this whole music store idea if they were the slightest bit afraid of the lawsuits that would results from a defunct iTMS?)
Doctorow either hasn't thought this through or more likely has let the more hysterical elements of the Anti-DRM crowd pollute his normally well-oiled brain with "what ifs" and half-truths. The real truth is that DRM is here to stay in one form or another, and with sufficient consumer protection laws, there will always be recourse against businesses who try to leave consumer holding the bag - but unfortunately, gutting consumer protection laws in deference to "out of control" lawsuits (which will be the next thing to get legislated out of existence) seems to be the political course lately.
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Re:To go foward should we go back? (Score:3, Interesting)