Is DRM Over?
Fri Feb 9, 2007 1:52PM EST
See Comments (32)
Who knew the drop-DRM movement would move so fast. Ever since Steve Jobs's big statement this week on dropping digital rights management from iTunes-purchased songs, music companies and European governments have been reacting in all manner of ways.
Yesterday, most European governments accused Jobs of trying to shift the focus from Apple's DRM conflicts with some continental governments to the record companies. And today, Warner Music CEO Edgar Bronfman said that the home of the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Josh Groban would not drop copy protection.
Despite these protests, DRM's days may still be numbered: EMI, the home of Janet Jackson, the White Stripes, and The Beatles, is seriously considering dropping DRM altogether. Given the recent Beatles hints that Steve Jobs has made of late, could this mean that Apple and iTunes will offer the online debut of the Beatles long-guarded catalog without copyright protection? Seems insane and ironic, but if EMI is up for it....
Okay, so DRM doesn't stop piracy, but I still don't know what completely copy-able MP3s are going to do to stop piracy, either. It's not like I want the record companies to get their way or anything, but don't they help at least some deserving artists get a shot at the big time and maybe even paid? How are artists going to get paid when their MP3s can be copied ad infinitum? What exactly is EMI's financial plan here?
And as I've said before, what's so hard about burning some iTunes-purchased tracks onto a CD, then re-ripping the CD into MP3s that‘ll work on any player, anyway? It still makes a better copy in the end than anything we could have ever put on a cassette tape, for anyone who can remember.
Meanwhile, let's talk about iTunes-purchase video, which you can't even burn to a DVD, much less play on non-iPods.
Here's a quick poll: Would you pay money for non-DRM MP3s from iTunes when you can just copy them from your friend?
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7 Posted by colt4530rs2 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:28PM EDT Report Abuse
"Okay, so DRM doesn't stop piracy, but I still don't know what completely copy-able MP3s are going to do to stop piracy, either." Here's how. The sound quality of the highest bit-rate MP3 is still poor (Yes, really. The bit-rate of a CD is 1411k. If your audio gear was high-end, you'd know). When I find an MP3 that I like, I end up buying the CD so I can truly enjoy it.
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8 Posted by stepnwulf1 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 9:41PM EDT Report Abuse
Pure and simple. The reason CD sales are down is (c)rappy music shoved at the public with no redeeming value other than to make irritating TV commercials with. Stop the glorifying of the stupid spoiled whores and bury the crap music that is 14 minutes over its 15 minutes of fame limit and foster the careers of good deserving artists and CD sales might pick up though I really doubt it since the portable music format is fast replacing the CD as the CD replaced the cassette.
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9 Posted by brjohnso on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:13PM EDT Report Abuse
The existing music sharing (stealing) systems on the internet are so simple and convienient that even very young children are using them to download and play whatever music they want. By comparison, the DRM content Apple and others are selling is more complex to setup and install, may or may not work with your player, and has restrictions on when and how you can play your purchased music. It's not easy to back up these rights either. Chances are you'll loose them when your disk crashes, or you upgrade your OS. It's very frustating to pay for DRM music when the content and experience is inferior to the unprotected MP3's that most people are downloading for nothing.
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10 Posted by laraklemens on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:56PM EDT Report Abuse
Being a child of the cassette tape era (yes, I am dating myself!), I believe we will all still buy music liek we always have. Some people will take advantage of their friends' collections, but someone has to buy it in the first place. I don't think I have the patience to hear music I might like, then poll my friends to see who has it, then wait until I see them next or have them send me the music. I'll pay my 99 cents.
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11 Posted by igalo on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:22PM EDT Report Abuse
The economic model is broken. Since price is based on the supply/demand curve and digital media gives infinite supply then it's logical that the price will drop to nothing. Companies need to make a concerted effort to change their outlook. While the current model focuses on consumption, a new model could focus on appreciation. Let consumers use whatever they want, but make it clear that the impetus is on them to give money back if they want future works created and/or special bonuses. I think media companies should focus on aggregate profit. Right now they are obsessed with trying to get each person that uses the media to pay for it. Since there is basically free distribution (especially if they supported P2P distribution) then it doesn't matter if 10 million people pay an average of 50 cents or 1 million people pay $5. For each band they could set goals for how much the band needs to earn to be signed onto another album or go on a supported tour, etc. and have a big countdown to each goal that had to be met. For the people that contributed a lot they could get exclusive access to events or content. This would give a measurable way for someone to feel like their purchase actually mattered in supporting the bands they like. Contributions could even be made automatic by having people specify their monthly contribution and having it spread out to bands based on how often they listen to their songs. I remember Stephen King tried a similar thing with a book a few years ago. He offered chapters for free but each chapter needed a certain amount of money before he would write the next. It failed after a few chapters and opponents said "Ah hah the model doesn't work because no one will pay!" but the readers (and Stephen himself) said that it was actually because the book wasn't very good and wasn't worthy of continuing.
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12 Posted by jiggeybo on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:34PM EDT Report Abuse
i think people forget that they are in fact stealing. We like to have this idea that "music should be free" but somehow that doesn't apply to the entertainment industry (mainly Hollywood) that has copy protection built into their content. The root of this problem is solving piracy and it is a global problem that in an ideal world, governments should police. While this may be an unrealistic expectation labels need to devise new, innovative methods to stay in business - possibly cutting deals with p2p services to get a portion of ad revenue from their banners.
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13 Posted by princediscord on Thu Sep 3, 2009 8:18PM EDT Report Abuse
I think DRM is just an annoyance. IF you pay for something, you should have the right to do whatever you want with it. That's one reason why I will never buy video from iTunes. I don't have an iPod, but I have a PSP. By getting rid of DRM, Apple is opening up music to a wider market. So why not do the same thing with video? I can watch the TV shows for free on cable or satellite. Making video available to all players that are capable of playing it can only help, since more people would buy it. And another thing. How hard would it be to set up the music store so it knows what music you buy? It's annoying to have to re-purchase music again just because your harddrive got wiped or your CDs don't work for some reason
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14 Posted by ejhagen22589 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:52PM EDT Report Abuse
I hope they start removing DRM on the TV Shows I download from iTunes. And I hope that when (and if) they do, they provide free downloads of DRM-less videos iTunes users have already downloaded.
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15 Posted by tecoatlaxupe on Thu Sep 3, 2009 9:59PM EDT Report Abuse
Gee, I guess musicians are going to have to go back to being artists and making music because they love music or they love performing and not because they want to become multi-millionaires or idolized superstars. Imagine that. The upshot is that we would have much better music. Sorry, but I have no sympathy for the record companies. They have pushed their economic model as far as it could go and it's now dead. The sooner they recognize this the better.
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16 Posted by fellersjeff on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:59PM EDT Report Abuse
Personally, I refuse to buy music that is protected. If I can't burn a copy to use in the car, or to give to a friend, what's the point? It's the same as taping LPs in the old days of vinyl. The music industry is still trying to figure out how to squeeze the last penny out of consumers while offering them a steadily worsening product. There is a huge untapped potential for good music to be released as evidenced by the number of websites that involve trading. Until the music companies offer people what they want at a reasonable price, these sites will continue to flourish.
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17 Posted by just1idiot on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:44PM EDT Report Abuse
Let me help you out a bit Mr. Samiljan "don't they help at least some deserving artists get a shot at the big time and maybe even paid?" Deserving? Very rarely. Mostly good looking skinny kids recruited by record companies to regurgitate a bunch of garbage that's been done 2000 times already. "How are artists going to get paid when their MP3s can be copied ad infinitum?" Same way they always have, liscensing, merchandise and ticket sales. iTunes is a joke. eMusic.com.
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18 Posted by biologicalpurple on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:08PM EDT Report Abuse
I hate it when people go and point out how the mp3 is destroying "that perfect sound" that the CD technology have given us. OK, so some sound is removed from the music to make the mp3 file. But unless you're a friggin bat, you probably won't notice the difference anyway! Just encode it from anywhere between 128-192 kbps and you won't ruin the sound.
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19 Posted by mrdruk on Thu Sep 3, 2009 7:27PM EDT Report Abuse
Ok DRM doesn't stop piracy, Ok the record companies are screaming about being ripped off. Why ? look at who is getting the bulk of money from both CD Sales and Downloads, Its the record companies not the artist. The artist makes most of his/her money in concerts and touring. So if a friend shares a new DRM free music with me or anyone else.. maybe they'll makes a new fan and just maybe they will spend the money to see them in concert. and really pay the Artist their Due..
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20 Posted by shawnkenessey on Thu Sep 3, 2009 9:18PM EDT Report Abuse
Most people who aren't going to pay, already aren't paying. I buy all my music now, mainly because I know what I like. When I was younger I had no clue, it wasn't feasible for me to buy tons of music, getting music for free via Napster et al allowed me to experience music I would NEVER have heard at the time simply because you couldn't find it in local music stores. In my opinion free music has hurt big artists like Britney Spears, and helped small indie artists, who without radio play, without any kind of advertising, would simply never be heard if their music wasn't floating around on the internet.
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21 Posted by shawnkenessey on Thu Sep 3, 2009 9:18PM EDT Report Abuse
MP3 sound quality is bad, actually anyone can hear the sound degradation, you need a good stereo though. You don't need to be a bat either. Certain types of music show differences in sound quality for than others. Pop music tends to compress well, while classical music tends to not compress well, especially symphonic music.
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22 Posted by cincodenada06 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:25PM EDT Report Abuse
You ask why would I pay money for non-DRM MP3s from iTunes when you can just copy them from your friend? Same reason I would pay for DRM MP3s from iTunes when I can just copy them from my friend. DRM doesn't make a lick of difference - all it takes is burning it to a CD and ripping it back. DRM is then rendered useless. If you can play content, there will always be a way to get a non-restricted copy. MP3s are particularly easy to do it with. DRM is utterly useless - people who are stealing/sharing music aren't doing it because they don't like DRM, it's because they don't want to pay for their music. If they wanted to pay, they would, and then un-DRM it. DRM only annoys honest people who actually pay for the music they buy. DRM isn't stopping anyone who wants to from sharing their music. It just annoys people.
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23 Posted by ouzelum1 on Thu Feb 15, 2007 3:58PM EST Report Abuse
I've always been a big music fan. I've purchased hundreds of CDs and still spend quite a bit on music each month in some form (shows, mp3s, etc). That being said, these major labels need to get on board and stop pretending like things haven't changed these past couple years. DRM is ridiculous and unnecessary. It doesn't prevent piracy, it prevents regular users from using their music in regular ways. Tracks I've purchased in iTunes can't be used in Traktor when I DJ, nor can they be burned to mp3 cds or loaded on a card to play in my car. Why these files are hampered by DRM when the quality is not much better than a cassette tape is beyond me. I can buy a promo copy of a cd for $4-$5 (or in the case of most pop artists, even less) and a crippled, lower quality copy of the album is $10? Why WOULD people want to spend their money on that crap? Don't get me wrong, I've still purchased over 300 songs from itunes, but they've all been converted using QTFairUse to accomplish the above mentioned tasks. For my money, I think the industry will see piracy quelled when it becomes economically feasible for the end consumer. I get songs legally from eMusic for $.25 a track, higher quality than iTunes and no DRM at all. I think that price is pretty close to the point where you say "it's easier to pay a quarter for that cheesy one hit wonder than to go searching for a decent copy on P2P networks. eMusic is successful because most indie labels realize this, but I'm not holding my breath waiting on the top 4.
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24 Posted by aleostax on Thu Sep 3, 2009 2:49PM EDT Report Abuse
Economically what we actually need is a model that explicitly reflects demand/supply. Amiestreet.com does this for lesser-known artists and is a pretty good system allowing songs to go from free to $1 as it increases in popularity. So long as the price will rise and fall (not sure amiestreet.com prices ever fall regardless of current demand) the system would provide artists the means to be paid and enthusiests to get new music. amiestreet.com offers no DRM, decent quality, remembered purchases, and cost benefits to find new artists. All the way around a much better system. Fans establish the market as they should. I literally saw the price increase on a song from $.08 to $.98 within 4 hours. Good songs get purchased! Unfortunately the model is new and the labels and major artists aren't in on the system yet. The incentive with this system as an artist is to create great works and get paid according to fan demand, rather than cater to what labels think society wants to hear and hope to sell enough to get a bigger label with larger promotional budgets. Song swapping won't go away, but the ability to buy songs at cents on the dollar is plenty enticing for a person like myself. As to the poll, I buy from iTunes when I can't find it at a lower cost/no DRM site. Ripping mp3s from a friends CD is acceptable if it's readily available or not a high priority. Otherwise, I just find it off google or a lowcost site, if necessary P2P, and if absolutely necessary iTunes. Furthermore not all songs are worth the same price. In some cases I would pay more than $1 for a song and others no more than 15 cents.
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25 Posted by dwightnagy on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:50PM EDT Report Abuse
How about this question? Would I buy music that contains DRM when I could copy non-protected content from my friend? Why would I purchase anything that I can't do what I want with it? DRM gets cracked and you can download all of the albums off torrents and P2P anyway - the only thing it accomplishes is frustration - for those who legitimately purchase their music and videos. DRM is total garbage and creates more of a problem than a solution.
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6 Posted by kernal_panic2000 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:49PM EDT Report Abuse
Sound taxi, Audacity, and Tunebite will all strip DRM out of music tracks without loosing the id3 info. Me? I rent my music from the Zune market place (yes I own a zune, no it doesn't suck). the music is $15 a month and its all I can download. Why steal? People steal because its economically feasible. at 99 cents a song from Itunes stealing is economically feasible. Wanna eliminate piracy? Rent music. for the cost of 1 cd a month I get all i want , pay the artists, and keep the riaa at bay.