Woz on Open Source, DRM 170
destinyland writes "Steve Wozniak just weighed in on DRM, saying "it doesn't make much sense if these things are going to have DRM forever." In this great new interview, he complains that even now, only six songs on his iTunes playlist are DRM-free. He applauds the Open Source Movement, saying "it's very honorable and it's very good for the customers." He's even considering publishing the hand-written code for the Apple II as a manuscript.
He's also surprisingly non-commital about the iPhone. ("Will word of mouth kill it or make it a hit? Who knows?") He also talks about his favorite pranks, and reveals that "the Secret Service read me my Miranda rights once.""
Respect (Score:5, Insightful)
Its too bad he isnt more actively involved in the industry these days. Then again, thats probrably a good part of why he is so liked!
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I know. I hate and disrespect people like that!
Re:Respect (Score:5, Funny)
Nobody except for Fake Steve Jobs, that is. [blogspot.com]
;)
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A penguin.
A penguin is fun, friendly and unassuming.
Linus (Score:2)
But at times he can be very terse. He can be funny at the same time, but make no mistake, he can be very terse.
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Re:Respect (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Respect (Score:5, Funny)
I've heard rumours that he's very popular with himself.
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This is Capitalism in action: the trickledown effect.
Men earn much more on average than women. Larry is doing these women, and hence society, a favour. They marry him, then divorce him, acquiring a substantial proportion of his vast wealth in the process. This unlocks this capital and redistributes it in the economy, thus keeping things flowing and stimulating economic growth and jobs for the less well-off.
This is why it is important for rich men to have lots of wives.
Well, with that thinking a wife is just a crazy business idea with Dot Com style funding. He could give 5 idiots 10 million to start a business, and they would spend the money on furniture, workers, computers, and various other products and services. That would redistribute capital and stimulate growth. However, after the 5 guys spend all there money, they might learn enough to be useful to society.
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Re:Respect (Score:5, Funny)
The schwartz is a powerful force within all of us, one cannot ask whom it is, because it is a powerful base unit of the universe!
You have the ring, and I see your Schwartz is as big as mine. Let's see how well you handle it."Market Cap" no measure (Score:5, Insightful)
As far as what Woz contributed: well, first and foremost, he created a floppy drive that could fit in a space smaller than carry-on luggage. In fact, it was smaller than a toaster. And he was able to sell it for less than $1000. You can trace the start of the home computer revolution to his Apple ][ and the small, cheap floppy drive.
I would say Woz was about 10 times more responsible for the computer revolution than Bill Gates, or Microsoft. Gates was a more vicious businessman, and willing to exploit others, even fuck others over; and so his company has a larger market cap.
As far as Gates writing stuff, he was never that great. If you look at the impressive stuff done by Microsoft, Paul Allen was responsible for the heavy lifting up through MS-DOS 3.0. (After he discovered that Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer were trying to figure out how to get his shares back should he die of his cancer, he left. See what I mean about fucking others over?)
As far as jumping into philanthropy, Wozniak has been all about philanthropy since day 1. Gates didn't get into philanthropy until after he got married. Until then, he kept getting slammed in the press for being a stingy fucker. After it started affecting his image, he started giving money away, often in the form of, get this, Microsoft software. So, he gets to improve his image, and spread the disease at the same time.
Wozniak is ten times the man, and ten times the geek, that Gates is. Gates is more comparable to Jobs than Woz. Paul Allen was more the Woz equivalent for Microsoft.
Woz is easy to respect, as he not only was one of the primary forces to kick off the home computer revolution, but he's a nice guy. A bit strange, but nice.
Neither Gates nor Woz is really relevant any more. But Woz was and is the better geek, and the better man.
Re:"Market Cap" no measure (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:"Market Cap" no measure (Score:5, Insightful)
In an ideal world we wouldn't need communism, because it would be ideal. If you're going to dream, dream big.
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My understanding is that Apple was still 3rd behind PET and Tandy even though they had a floppy drive. It was so expensive that it was not a top seller. People lived with mostly cassetts until the early 80's, at which point the other vendors had their floppies working and they grew cheaper. Apple eventually led PET around 1980 because VisiCalc was first
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This is a fact not mentioned often enough, because so many 'computer historians' have a dog in the fight. The Apple II initially 'made it' and became the primary dominant computer in the business market because of VisiCalc, and had nothing to do with any other factors.
VisiCalc was the first spreadsheet available for personal computers, and for it's first year on the market it was only available fo
Re:"Market Cap" no measure (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, Gates didn't get into philanthropy until after he got married and Microsoft got indicted for illegal trade practices.
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No no no no no no no you can't possibly say that "first and foremost" Woz created a floppy drive.
First and foremost he invented the friggin' PC. Have you heard of it?
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Woz had nothing to do with the Altair.
Re:Gates the philanthropist... (Score:5, Informative)
He lives here in Omaha, NE and is a very frugal, simple man who from time to time can even be seen mowing his own lawn. Buffet always said he was doing to donate the bulk of his wealth and not burden his children with the responsibility it bears. His kids aren't pampered rich kids who ever assumed they would inherit anything. I've met both Peter and Susy Buffet, and not only do they make their own way in the world, they've both been very socially responsible to use their fame to help raise money for charity.
Gates was named Man of the Year and gets all the credit for good deeds he isn't doing.
And for the record, Gates repeatedly said for years he did not believe in charity and refused to donate much of anything. When he was forced to make small donations for tax purposes, he donated Microsoft software and computers to schools, again an act that is self-serving. Even Philly's much-hyped all technology school that Microsoft gets credit for was paid for in full by Philly. Neither Gates nor Microsoft donated a dime.
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Buffet has always been both a decent and intelligent man. Much of the world attempts to follow in his footsteps. So I was quite disappointed when he gave the bulk of his wealth to the Gates Foundation.
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First of all, you are too young to remember the early world of home computers. Secondly, because you used an outdated computer in the mid 80's means that it should be acceptable for everyone to have to use one?
"which is why his systems are considered appropriate by the majority of humans on this planet today, just as they were 25 years ago"
25 years ago was 1982. You were too young to remember, but MS products were in no way, shape, or form, us
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Sorry, but no. Your analogy is flawed-- Gates is Jobs, not Woz. He's not really credited with directly contributing much, if anything, to the field of software or hardware. His contribution to the world of technology is, for bett
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This is true. Paul Allen was the Woz of MicroSoft, for whatever that's worth.
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You're right that Gates position at Microsoft is analagous to Jobs at Apple, with Paul Allen being Woz, but Jobs is certainly credited with contributing to software and hardware, only as a designer, not as an engineer. Compare the enclosure of the Apple I (Woz) with the enclosure of the Apple II (Jobs) and ask yourself if Jobs helped.
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Great interview... (Score:2, Interesting)
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(He has them serrated and booked and that's what it costs in the end...)
Steve Colbert's best remarks.. (Score:5, Informative)
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Aye [binary-environments.com] (full frontal nudity warning)
It's not the Open Source Movement (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, I don't think the Open Source Movement has much contribute to the fight against DRM. Let's not forget that Open Source is just a way of writing software. The Free Software Movement however really fought against DRM, for example the Free Software Foundation launched the campaign DefectiveByDesign.org [defectivebydesign.org].
Re:It's not the Open Source Movement (Score:5, Insightful)
They don't fight DRM, they make the alternative.
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One tries to prevent you from doing what you want with it, the other goes out of its way to make it easy for you to do what you want with it.
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Well, you could have one but it wouldn't function for more than like an hour until somebody cracked it.
Even closed-source DRM is cracked regularly.
DRM is about hiding a particular switch from you, the one that cuts off music or movie playback if certain preset parameters are not satisfied. If all you have to do to find that switch is read the source code, which is a list of switches being thrown, then the DRM will not have its secret switch very long at all.
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But it would have happened.
Not to say I don't respect RMS deeply for his contributions. As it stands, he was the driving force behind it.
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Care to prove that assertion? Lots of computers came bundled with an OS and some software, much as my Mac came with OS X and iLife, but it was hardly "free". Even in the 360/PDP days, IBM and DEC would be more than happy to sell you an accounting system or Fortran compiler to go with your machine. How far back do we need to go "originally"?
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Stallman is the reason for Free Software (Score:2)
BSD was given a free license due to Stallman and the FSF's efforts. You can't argue that BSD's example would have influenced Torvalds to have opened up Linux, or that its free license would have had him contribute to BSD inst
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There was free software before Stallman (Score:2)
"No redistribution" licenses. (Score:2)
But this isn't something that's really all that different now. There's still packages that have licenses like that, like qmail. Th
ok (Score:2)
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Why would he have to make good use of his time? (Score:2)
For the record, I thought the waitress story was hilarious, and good-natured. He wasn't making fun of her as much as he was making fun of himself.
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Whatever happened to voting with your feet? (Score:5, Interesting)
Sorry, I know Woz is a geek god and all that, but I still don't see why he should be let off this one. If you don't think DRM "makes sense", why on earth have you bought so much DRM-d content and so little DRM-free content?
I'm not sure how many tracks I have (I'm not at home to check) but I think perhaps 60 gig or so (legal, I hasten to add - 99% cd rips), but I do know exactly how many DRM-free tracks I have in my library: all of them. There isn't a DRM'd track on my hard drive. There isn't a user account in my name with any vendor of DRM'd tracks.
It's really not very difficult to simply not buy something you think is a poor product or morally objectionable idea, and I don't half get fed up of seeing people complain about <Apple / MS / Walmart / RIAA / MPAA / Nike / Nestle / etc> and in the next breath telling us all about their latest purchase from said company.
And I know what slashdot is like, so if anyone is thinking of arguing the technicality that Woz didn't decry DRM, only "forever" DRM, perhaps they can be ready with the evidence that ITMS DRM is built to turn itself off any time sooner.
Re:Whatever happened to voting with your feet? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because he's a billionaire...
And Apple only sold DRM music until recently.
"Doesn't make sense" is different than "strongly opposed to." Like I said he is a billionaire, and he probably has lot of other stuff on his mind (like more pranks, apparently.) Just because you think something is a bad idea doesn't mean you equate it to Satan. People have different priorities in their life.
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Does not compute; doesn't answer the question at all. That explains how he can buy a lot of <anything>, but not why.
Being a billionaire, he could have bought 97,000 jellyfish-shaped strawberry cheesecakes, but he (presumably) didn't, so "being able to buy something" clearly doesn't in itself explain why he/anyone DID buy something.
Again, completely specious argument I'm afraid, as Apple are not the only vendors of musi
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I mentioned Apple just recently selling DRM-free music because that was the context he was talking about. I imagine he owns literaly thousands (or even more) of CD's (without DRM), but he was talking about his iTunes purchases that were DRM-free. In reality, you can't say much about it unless you know his ratio of non-DRM/DRM purchases over a specific period of time when the
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On the flip side, convenience is precisely one reason people should be thinking about the DRM. It's not very convenient to discover that you can't play your FairPlay music on your new PlaysForSure device (or vice-versa), for example.
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I think his wealth would help mediate this though. He could always buy multiple copies of the same song to play on different devices, but the average person would be reluctant and pissed.
Given who he is, I bet he has mainly stuck with iPod/iTunes and probably never really had any bad experiences with DRM within that limited framework (though I have never used iPod
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FYI, not much, unfortunately.
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I think the point is that he doesn't have any real convictions towards DRM. I haven't read any of his other statements on the issue (and he is not that coherent of a guy sometimes anyway), but like I said in my earlier "load of crap" post, just based on this one statement it is hard to surmise that he is strongly
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Sorry, I know Woz is a geek god and all that, but I still don't see why he should be let off this one. If you don't think DRM "makes sense", why on earth have you bought so much DRM-d content and so little DRM-free content?
Well, women don't "make sense" too, but I am not so anti-women that I won't deal with them. I feel that I gain more than I suffer.
/. I should add that you will learn that if you ever leave your parents' basement, but I don't know if you'd tolerate the joke. Not that I really care ;oP
There are ways to oppose something without being rabid fanatics. This being
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Why do people buy anything? (Score:2)
Not every act of purchase is meant to express political support.
Same reason everyone else has (Score:2)
Sorry, I know Woz is a geek god and all that, but I still don't see why he should be let off this one. If you don't think DRM "makes sense", why on earth have you bought so much DRM-d content and so little DRM-free content?
Same reason as everyone else. Buying music from the iTMS is the path of least resistance. It's easier than buying CDs, and it's certainly easier than trying to find the music you want in a DRM-free shop, and it's also easier than downloading it from a P2P network.
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Woz already had 2 iPhones at home when he went to the mall. He went because that is his childhood mall and he wanted to remember the day the iPhone was released as geek day at the mall, everybody excited just to open the box and be one of the first to try the new kit.
Not only is the DRM in iTunes temporary, but it has already been removed from 1/5 of the major labels. In addition, you could always break it by
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You haven't heard of CDs?
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You haven't heard of CDs?
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You don't understand what the word 'you' means?
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Are you asking me, Woz or yourself? Or are you just confused as ever?
You don't understand what the word 'you' means?
I don't understand we you keep asking stupid questions. Not why you ask them, but why you keep asking them.
To answer your stupid question: What a stupid question. Woz's quote had nothing to do with CDs - unless the iTS now sells single titles on CDs. The OP had the excuse that nobody on Slashdot actually RTFA. And you have the best excuse of all: you are the stupid fucking dickhead WMF.
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But we're not asking stupid questions, you are.
Woz's quote had nothing to do with CDs
Woz: DRM Bad. I only have 6 non-drm tracks.
OP: Why not just rip CDs if you don't like DRM.
Lars T: But you can't buy good non-DRMd music.
wmf: What about CDs?
Lars T: This has nothing to do with CDs.
Feeling like a dumbass now?
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IOW, you know you're wrong, so you'll insult me to try to cover up.
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But I didn't advocate anyone buy a CD. I simply said CDs were available as an option to those who dislike DRM.
I guess calling me a shill is your way of admitting you don't know what you're talking about?
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Lars T: IOW you are RIAA shill who wants people to buy full CDs instead of single songs.
wmf: But I didn't advocate anyone buy a CD. I simply said CDs were available as an option to those who dislike DRM.
Lars T: So you want to claim you never said what you did. Stupid shillhole.
Feeling stupid now?
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Lars T: IOW you are RIAA shill who wants people to buy full CDs instead of single songs.
wmf: But I didn't advocate anyone buy a CD. I simply said CDs were available as an option to those who dislike DRM.
Lars T: So you want to claim you never said what you did. Stupid shillhole.
Feeling stupid now?
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IOW, you are wrong, and will insult me to cover up that fact.
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Woz standing in line.... I was there. (Score:5, Interesting)
I ended up 20th or so in line. Funny thing is, I think I was the first one to buy an iphone for myself. Almost everyone in line was buying them in quantity to either sell at a profit via ebay (haven't heard of success at that). However, back to my point of addressing Mr. Wozniak.
I realize many of you would consider him a god around here, but nonetheless his arrival was like this.
He arrived around 4am (note that by this time there was a considerable line) before the Apple store opened, and said "I'm Steve Wozniak, and I'm going to be first in line and buy 8 iPhones." What a dick, I would have thought more of him if he had gotten 'to the back of the line' like the rest of the crowd, just like every other regular joe. It's all good.
However... more importantly, one thing you won't see in the articles/blogs..
While he was in line, a 50something year old woman with a macbook tried to enter the store prior to the doors opening, as she was having battery trouble with it. Woz then proceeded to help her troubleshoot her battery issues. When she walked away I asked her, "Do you know who that is?" She responded "No." I told her, "He co-founded Apple..." She smiled, said "Oh, that's nice," and headed home to try again to fix her laptop with Woz's tips.
I did get a chance to talk to him for a minute, and he agreed with me when I asked him if he thought that when apple launches a major product (iPod/iPhone) that the atmosphere is similar to that of the US Festivals he organized in the early 80s. He agreed but added, "Less heat, less music, but the same comradarie and fun atmosphere."
Thought that was pretty slick, once a nerd always a nerd.
And verily did he troubleshoot the lady's MacBook (Score:2)
I realize many of you would consider him a god around here, but nonetheless his arrival was like this.
He arrived around 4am (note that by this time there was a considerable line) before the Apple store opened, and said "I'm Steve Wozniak, and I'm going to be first in line and buy 8 iPhones." What a dick
[...]
While he was in line, a 50something year old woman with a macbook tried to enter the store prior to the doors opening, as she was having battery trouble with it. Woz then proceeded to help her troubleshoot her battery issues. When she walked away I asked her, "Do you know who that is?" She responded "No." I told her, "He co-founded Apple..." She smiled, said "Oh, that's nice," and headed home to try again to fix her laptop with Woz's tips.
1- Gods don't stand at the back of the line, they lead their people ;-)
2- Had he been in the back of the line, that little old lady would not have had help with her laptop from a bonifide Geek God of macs.
She especially wouldn't have much luck getting the attention of the mac geniuses in an iPhone stampede. By using his geek god status, he was where and when he needed to be to help the meek. It's a miracle!
Re:And verily did he troubleshoot the lady's MacBo (Score:5, Funny)
Nanananananananananananana-- WOZMAN!
Yes, that is what goes as "funny" when you're sleep-deprived.
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Nanananananananananananana-- WOZMAN!
Yes, that is what goes as "funny" when you're sleep-deprived.
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I love this story. (Score:2, Funny)
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Woz is the man. (Score:3, Insightful)
Holy "Story of Mel" Batman! (Score:2)
Woz never ceases to blow my mind. (Story of Mel link [pbm.com] for the uninitiated.)
Handwritten Apple II Code (Score:2)
It would be interesting to see how an OS and ROM were written in the "Salad Days" of Microcomputers.
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That's nothin'! You just had a Major. Colonel Error not only crashed my operating system, but he doesn't even know how to spell Colonel!
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I'm pretty sure that the whole of the western world thinks it's worthwhile, I know I'm looking forward to it more than any other film that's been out this year.. and I wasn't even that into transformers as a kid. It's hard to tell whether you're even being sarcastic or not.. why shouldn't people enjoy indulging in action flicks occasionally as a form of entertainment? If
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Right now people
What copyright means, and why DRM doesn't matter. (Score:4, Insightful)
Copyright is fundamentally very simple. It's the right to make a copy.
In practice that's pretty complex, because... what's a copy? If you decide to get really technical, when you read a book or listen to a song, you're making a copy of it. It's low fidelity, unless you've got an unlikely good memory, but by your logic an artist should have the right to sue you if you hum the time or recite the story in public. Oh, I'm sure that you wouldn't go that far... but it's where the logic leads.
Copyright law is complex because copyright law is mostly about defining EXACTLY what a copy is. And when a copy is subject to copyright. There's been licenses on software that are based on the theory that you're making a copy of the software when you install it on your computer, but there's nothing about copyright restrictions preventing you from making a temporary copy of the images in a video when you play it on your TV. Unless you do it in a public place... then it's a performance. And you're allowed to make a personal copy of a movie off your TV if it was broadcast, which is a kind of public performance though your playing it isn't, or even if it's on a DVD... but not if you're playing it from a rented DVD, whether it's a public performance or not, and not if you're seeing it in a movie, which is another kind of public performance.
So, first off, while an artist has a right to use whatever format they want, that doesn't mean you don't have the right to make a recording in another format... for your own use. Apple got attacked for their "RIP, MIX, BURN" advertising campaign... but it turns out that in the US it's legal to "RIP, MIX, BURN". And it's legal to do that even if the music was DRMed to begin with.
So that's the second thing. The main reason for DRM is to try and create new rights. The DMCA is a really useful tool, because it makes it illegal to use "technical means" to bypass DRM. So while the law doesn't say that an artist has the right to prevent you from making a personal copy of an HD DVD, they're *creating* that right by gluing together bits of the law. This kind of thing happens all the time, the law says one thing, someone comes up with a way to make it mean something else, and sometimes the law gets changed to say that the other thing is really in there, or it gets changed to say the other thing was an unintended side effect and it's really OK to eat peanuts on church after all.
This kind of thing also ends up making the definition of a "copy" trickier.
And people aren't stupid. They look at the way things work, and they look at DRM, and they go "you know, you're treating your fans like shit". So they either treat the artists like shit in return, or they decide they don't like the music enough to put up with being treated like shit. So there's actually competition, and market forces, and all that America and Apple Pie stuff, and what it does it makes DRM into something that provides an advantage for the artists who don't use it. Particularly the ones who aren't selling that well, yet... so they put stuff out that's not restricted, and people discover it, and they go "hey, this is good stuff", and they go "hey, this guy is cool", and they buy his stuff. And there's guys who've made it this way.
And these artists aren't signing with EMI. So EMI's not getting their cut, so this gives EMI a reason to go DRM-free... maybe they can sign a few of the hot new internet artists who'd otherwise be going through CDbaby and eMusic and getting earplay through last.fm. Because, you know, the Internet isn't going away.
I hate the "Napster clones". I think Napster should have been slapped down HARD, right off, because their whole business model was deliberately about setting up cutouts so they could get a cut of copyright violati
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