Britons decry DRM
p2pnet.net news:- DRM (Digital Restrictions Management) consumer control continues to occupy the British media and one of the most powerful indications of its growing importance in the public eye is the fact the Financial Times is running a poll asking, “Should music companies drop DRM?”
There’d been 86 responses when p2pnet looked at about 5:20 am PST.
Says the first post from Paul Towlson:
The media industry makes a huge amount of money from those of us that do buy legitimate copies of music or film. However, their assumption is that we are all criminals, whether potential or actual. If I buy content, I want to be able to use it on whichever platform I choose, and not to have permission granted each time I use it.
On a related theme – that of film and DVDs, I find it both irritating and insulting to have to watch through a reminder that copying is theft every time I watch a DVD (that I have either bought or rented). In fact, this aggressive stance by the media industry tempts me to find a way of circumventing DRM just so I can watch a legitimate copy without being reminded not to be a criminal.
Says Dan:
The music industry is reluctant to acknowledge the fact DRM is beneficial to absolutely nobody.
DRM deprives the user of many legitimate rights s/he has. It ties the user to specific platforms (either hardware or software): For instance, music bought from the iTunes store can only be played on Macs, PCs running Windows or the Apple iPod. Any other players are incompatible with iTunes’ music simply because they do not have support for Apple’s DRM. Even if efforts are made to create one standard DRM scheme, the fact is that some systems will never include support for DRMed content, such as Linux, due to its open-source nature. Another problem a user may encounter – Suppose s/he buys a new computer, DRMed content cannot be transfered from the old computer to the new one (otherwise it is useless) so as soon as the old computer breaks or simply becomes too old and gets dump, the user has no access to the music s/he has legally purchased.
Even though the music industry is reluctant to admit this, DRM is malefic even to themselves, because it does not do even what they claim it is intended for: DRM does not stop piracy! While the music industry care so much about protecting their content online, it is still being sold on CDs in any music store, completely unprotected. Furthermore, Apple’s and Microsoft’s DRM schemes have been cracked several times in the past. The fact is that only one unprotected copy of the content is needed to start mass piracy. If people want to illegally get the content, they won’t trouble themselves in trying to copy a copy-protected file, they would simply download the already-unprotected one.
This fact causes a situation that is named by professional as ‘better than original weakness’ – The fact that the original copy bought from an online store can only be played on specific players whereas the pirated copy distributed online can be played virtually anywhere makes the pirated copy ‘better’ than the original, thus causing many users to prefer the pirated copy over the original. This, obviously does not do good to the music industry.
P.S. – This whole argument applies not only to music, but also to movies or any other copyrighted content.
Hal’s view is:
DRM, truly, has never been about protecting intellectual property – it has been proven time and again as being ineffective for that purpose.
The truth of the matter is, that DRM has been created as a new profit centre, to sell people the same content again and again, once to view/listen to on your laptop during a long flight, again to access on a personal media device such as a PlayStation Portable or iPod, and again to enjoy in your home on your home entertainment system/TV.
Nonsense. Once I’ve paid for it, for example a CD or DVD, I will play it wherever, whenever, and however many times I want, on whichever device I wish to.
And if I tire of it and want to sell it, no vendor can deny my right of property to do so.
I don’t care if they don’t like the idea of used DVDs being out there, reducing the market for their freshly minted copies.
If someone purchases something in electronic form, such as a video or collection of music, their right of property remains.
This is no different than LPs, cassettes, videotapes, or for that matter used cars or boats: big media companies need to get over the idea that they need some kind of special exemption from the free market.
Yahoo’s position is simple: Digital Rights Management doesn’t add any value for the artist, label (who are selling DRM-free music every day: the Compact Disc), or consumer, the only people it adds value to are the technology companies who are interested in locking consumers to a particular technology platform.
Meanwhile, the BBC is using its web site to ask the public if it should implement DRM on BBC content and if so, how? – says Defective By Design, pointing to a post be Advogato which suggests:
“The most important questions regarding DRM seem to be 1, 3, and 5
1. Do you agree with the BBC Trust’s proposal to approve the new BBC on-demand services, subject to the modifications outlined in the Trust’s report of its provisional conclusions?
3. The BBC Trust has proposed setting a limit of 30 days as the amount of time that programmes can be stored on a computer before being viewed. As this is an emerging market, there is currently no clear standard on the length of the storage window. On balance, the Trust thinks 30 days is the right length of time. How long do you think consumers should be able to store BBC programmes on their computers before viewing them?
5. How important is it that the proposed seven-day catch-up service over the internet is available to consumers who are not using Microsoft software?
“Participating in the consultation requires that you submit some basic biographical information, but all of it can be kept anonymous.”
On #5, says Advogato, “The proposed use of Microsoft’s DRM amounts to an endorsement of a single commercial product by the BBC, with no allowance for competition.”
(Thanks, Morg)
Also See:
in the public eye – British government likes DRM, February 21, 2007
Financial Times – Should music companies drop DRM?
Defective By Design – BBC holding public consultation on adding DRM to it’s content, February 21, 2007
If your Net access is blocked by government restrictions, try Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at thIs the end (of the Net) nigh?zze University of Toronto’s Munk Centre for International Studies. Go here for the official download, here for the p2pnet download, and here for details. And if you’re Chinese and you’re looking for a way to access independent Internet news sources, try Freegate, the DIT program written to help Chinese citizens circumvent web site blocking outside of China. Download it here.
rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/p2p.rss | | Mobile – http://p2pnet.net/index-wml.php | | And use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site
Tired of being treated like a criminal? They depend on you, not the other way around. Don’t buy their ‘product’. Do bug your local politicians. Use emails, snail-mail, phone calls, faxes, IM, stop them in the street, blog. And if you’re into organizing, organize petitions, organize demonstrations and then turn up on your local political rep’s doorstep, making sure you’ve contacted your local tv/radio station/newspaper in advance. Don’t just complain. Do something!
February 22nd, 2007 at 9:01 am
When I went to a friend’s house to watch a few movies, he had a couple of rental DVD’s and a downloaded movie burnt to a DVD. With the rental movies, we had to sit through over five minutes of advertising. Not only that, he also had to navigate through a couple of DVD menus. With the downloaded movie, he only had to push play, and we got to watch a movie that was free of advertising, threats, etc. In many cases, I heard that downloaded content may not even be available in the “legitimate” market.
Content producers should pay attention to what customers are saying. While I do not personally download copyrighted material, I do see the attraction of doing so. People are tired of being ripped off, threatened, and having advertisements shoved down their throats. “Pirated” content does not have all of these disadvantages. The studios and software producers need to accept the fact that anything that can be seen or heard can be copied. NO amount of DRM, encryption, or other method is going to stop even a garage hacker from successfully copying content. Once the unprotected content is copied and released, all the time, money, and effort spent on implementing technological restrictions are moot.
Content producers ARE NOT going to rip people off, force unwanted advertising and propaganda down their throats, or restrict their fair use of content. Most people refuse to put up with it. It is way too easy to get the content that they want from their friends, downloading, or even copying store bought DVD’s. This is true no matter how many draconian laws that are purchase or how many millions of dollars are spend on technical measures. These laws and measure have NEVER worked
before, and they WILL NOT work in the present or future.
By the way, a friend went to Best Buy to buy a computer. All of the computers they sold were infected with Microsoft’s Vista. He came to me for a new computer, and I built him one that had Linux installed and configured to work with all of his peripherals. He is able to do everything he could do with Windows and then much more. The only software he has paid for is WineX A.K.A. Cadega. While we could have used Wine for his purpose, he and I chose to support the development of Windows emulation software.
February 22nd, 2007 at 6:08 pm
I hate to tell you that you basically shot yourself in the foot with the purchase of Cedega for “emulation support,” but it would have been better to have purchased CrossOver instead. Unlike Cedega, which is a fork of WINE from the early MIT/X11 license days of WINE, CrossOver actually contributes code back to the WINE project as per the LGPL. The MIT license does not require this, so Cedega keeps all (or almost all, of rumors are true) of their development code secret. CodeWeavers, the people who market CrossOver, have even hired several WINE contributers. If you want to support the WINE compatibility layer (WINE Is Not an Emulator), CrossOver would have been a better purchase. Cedega is really only targeted at gamers, and CrossOver is a one-time payment of $50 and is aimed at supporting such applications as Microsoft Office, the Adobe Creative Suite, and Macromedia’s (now Adobe’s) suite of products.