This is a letter I sent to my father to explain what it means that Microsoft is pulling support for MSN Music. Tech issues like this often bubble up into the media that he reads, but they are rarely explained well. My father assumes I have an opinion on such stories, and he is rarely wrong.
Actually, it is still technically in the future tense. The day the music dies will be August 31, 2008.
But first, some backstory.
It was the Dark Ages, around 2004 or so. The iTunes Store was new and booming. Microsoft, in its bid to be the center of everything without having to deal with pesky “end users”, decided that the way to fight Apple was to create a developer platform. This developer platform would handle all the technical details of ensuring that people could “purchase” music files from a variety of online vendors, and play these music files on their (Windows) PC or on a variety of handheld music players. This developer platform would also ensure that such “purchased” music files could not be copied. This involves a lot of fancy math (encryption) which Microsoft was happy to license to companies running online music stores and companies making handheld music players, as well as including by default in all modern versions of Windows.
Bruce Schneier, a famous cryptologist — or at least as famous a cryptologist as cryptologists are likely to get in this century — once described attempts to make digital bits uncopyable as “trying to make water not wet.”
Microsoft named this developer platform “PlaysForSure”, and they (and their partners) ran many, many ads decrying the fact that music purchased from Apple’s iTunes Music Store would “only” play in iTunes and on iPods. This was, technically speaking, true — and indeed it is still true, and it is why I have cautioned Dora and you and anyone else who would listen that you should never “purchase” anything from the iTunes Music Store that you might want to “own” longer than Apple was willing to allow. Nor should you “purchase” anything from a “PlaysForSure”-compatible music store, and for the same reasons, only with the word “Apple” crossed out and “Microsoft” written in in crayon.
To their credit, if that’s the right word, you can now purchase some music from the iTunes store that is unencrypted and plays anywhere. Apple calls these songs “iTunes Plus”, because it sounds so much better than calling everything else “iTunes Minus.” Apple has also promoted podcasts and other non-traditional sources of “things you might want to download onto our handheld devices where we make all of our money.” Steve is many things, but he is not an idiot.
To demonstrate the awesomeness of their developer platform, Microsoft opened their own online store, MSN Music, so they could compete directly with their business partners who also offered “PlaysForSure”-compatible music downloads. Because there’s nothing end users love more than fake choices.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) — to whom I donate money every year because they are the digital embodiment of Tom Lehrer’s description of folk singers as “the people who get up on stage and come out in favor of all the things that everyone else in the audience is against, like peace and justice and brotherhood and so on” — has also been warning anyone who would listen that they should not “purchase” encrypted music from these services, since if these services go under then all that “purchased” music will no longer… what’s the word… “play”. But mostly people ignored them (and me), because, you know, Microsoft was at the center of it all, and nobody ever got fired for “buying” from Microsoft. Or something.
So what happens on August 31, 2008? On that day, Microsoft will turn off the servers that they maintain for the sole purpose of validating that the songs that people have already “purchased” through MSN Music are still theirs to play. Those people (hereafter “the victims”) will not notice the change right away. The victims will only notice it when they purchase a new computer, or when they upgrade the operating system on their current computer, or when the hard drive in their computer dies and needs to be rebuilt/reinstalled. At that point — transferring the music files they have “purchased” to another drive or a new computer — the Microsoft music player running on the victim’s PC (like iTunes, but all Microsoft-y instead of Apple-y) will make a call to Microsoft’s validation servers to verify that the music files were legitimately purchased. This call will fail, since the servers are not responding, since Microsoft has intentionally turned them off. The Microsoft music player will then conclude, incorrectly but steadfastly, that the music files were downloaded illegally and that the victim is a filthy pirate, and it will refuse to play them. In this case, the left hand knows exactly what the right hand is doing: they’re both giving you the finger.
It is at this point that I am reminded of one classic call that I fielded when I worked at the AT+T Relay Service. One Friday night, a deaf person called Pizza Hut to, well, I don’t know, but probably to order a pizza of some kind, and the guy answered the phone with “Pizza Hut, we’re out of dough… can I help you?” Can you make me a pizza? No, we’re out of dough. Do you make anything else? No. Then you can’t help me! Does your music player play this music I “purchased”? No. Does your music player do anything other than play music? No. Then you can’t help me either.
Outside the EFF, a few of the smarter industry analysts (not this guy) have been predicting this doomsday scenario for a while. In 2006, Microsoft tacitly admitted that its PlaysForSure strategy wasn’t working when they announced that they were going to sell their own handheld music player (the “Zune”, which competes with the iPod… and with all the other handheld music players from Microsoft’s “PlaysForSure” business partners) and start a second music service (which would directly compete with the iTunes Store… and Microsoft’s “PlaysForSure” business partners… and Microsoft’s own MSN Music store). End users, it turns out, aren’t so bad after all; they just can’t be trusted to make the right choices.
Also, to ensure that no one could screw this one up except Microsoft, this new music service and new handheld music player would use an entirely new encryption system that was incompatible with “PlaysForSure”, and the encryption system would not be available for licensing. Any victim who had “purchased” music through Microsoft’s old MSN Music store had no upgrade/migration path to transfer those music files to their new Microsoft Zune; the victim would have to re-purchase the same music all over again. But the victims were assured that their existing MSN Music “purchases” would continue to work as long as they owned “PlaysForSure”-compatible devices. Except now they won’t, because Microsoft is turning off the servers that verify that the music they “purchased” a long time ago is still theirs to play.
As you might expect, the EFF is just bursting with joy at the prospect of rubbing salt in the wound and saying “I told you so.” This is their “I told you so” letter. I would join in their jubilation, but frankly I’m tired of being right all the time. It was fun for a while, but now it’s just depressing.
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One hundred forty two comments here (latest comments)
I feel terrible for all the 26 people who bought PlaysForSuren’t songs :-)
The only way to compete with Apple now is to offer unDRMed content. The entertainment companies will have to cave on DRM unless they want Apple to own legal digital distribution forever. Or who knows, maybe Hollywood will surprise us and build their own awesome service… *snicker*
August 31, 2008 - DRM doomsday « Authsider (pingback) Miksi musiikkitiedostosi eivät toimi « kohtalo (pingback)I can just say, that every single person who buys DRM-protected music and has problems with it, fully deserves it.
Well, I’d say “I told you so”, except this was always too obvious.
— songboom 
To commenters above; no, you’re wrong. Most people don’t actually know what DRM or copy protection actually means. They’re getting ripped off. They _don’t_ deserve it.
— Mr eel
August 31st 2008 “cyber” Bastille day(the Bastille prison was for pirates)
Some people just prefer to pay for everything. There has existed technology for ripping audio streams of music from the internet and cable music channels for the last 10 years.
Most music listeners are awed by the convenience of I-Tunes for just $1.99 !!!
When anti Napster advocates started the “its wrong to share” campaign led by the established power brokers most bought into it.
When Bill Gates invested into Apple when they were sucking air,then coincidentally,they released I-Tunes and I-Mac nobody blinked. So, as another wave of false competition melds into blind compliance with MACrosoft there is no one else to blame
End users have freely chosen to pay for encrypted music, well maybe they were tricked
but that’s what you get for listening to the man. Remember nothing has any value unless you pay for it ROFLOL !!!
You should have sent this article to the NY Times.
M$ is the evil empire! Always was! Always will be! A tiger cannot change its stripes.
— michael
Yeah - sad day for the poor suckers who suck hind-teat on Microsuck without ever knowing they’re just slowly reaching for the soap in the shower. I know, I know, buyer beware, but that’s honestly asking a bit much for most people.
These same people buy a car, drive it anywhere they like, sell it how they like, and never have to parse the difference between a physical object and the legal ramifications of digital objects. For them it’s nigh-impossible to wade through the legalese, technical jargon, and make informed purchases where digital content is concerned.
Having said that, I love watching Microsuck screw up again and again.
Mr eel, what about the people who roll up in here and loudly denounce Mark for being such a stick-in-the-mud about standards and openness and interoperability when they can get something that Just Works right now, and what’s his problem, anyway? Do they deserve it?
Simplemath – DiveIntoMark Explains the MSN Music Shutdown (pingback)Excellent article, I hope it gets a really wide readership (I’m here via del.icio.us/popular).
I suggest that those conned out of their money have the moral right to seek out and replace the tracks they’ve paid for on the various torrent sites.
— a grandmother who kicks your websurfing butt
There is no problem, as the music industry has already raised a generation of consumers that have never paid for music, ever. Downloading music for free is easier, faster and just more convinient for many reasons, like the ones mentioned on this post. Oh, also, it’s free.
In order for there to be a problem, the existence of free music should be banished. The only people who care about Microsoft offlining some servers later this year, are ranters like the authot, EFF people, some people at Microsoft and prolly a whole lot of record companies, as well as some of their artsist. They are the ones that should be taking legal action. If I was a recording artist, signed to.. lets say Sony Music, I would be asking them:
Dear Sony,
As I was signed to you, there was a promise of fame and fortune. The first impression of the arrangement was that while you take majority of the money made with my work, should there be any left after expenses, I could get some after a year or so. Now it seems that there is no money, nor is it ever coming. Not only did you fail to react when it could have made a difference, you also never issued any legal action against the consumers stealing my music or the ISP’s providing the means to do so or the companies making it easier and easier. You only started to campaign that it is wrong to steal my work once there already was a generation of kids grown to steal it, taught that it is ok. That everyone does it. To such an extent it is hard to find a parent or teacher telling the kids off, when they do it. Steal from me. Then you, as music industry, decided to make the legal downloading and buyingf my work harder, as the illegal stealers were making it easier.
I never made any money from the records to begin with. Only the royalties from radio play and the gigs and tours made my fortune. What has changed is that you started to tease my fans. Telling them that it is criminal to acquire my music. To have them change their easy ways to your stupid and difficult ways, that you change all the time, in order to listen to me and my work.
How about this, you fuck off and put up an torrent and FTP server, where all my music shall be forever to be downloaded for free. I will give you 10% of my gig profits, you can still keep all of the royalties from the record sales (lol).
Yours playfully,
Recording Artist
— Ilmari
[The EFF] are the digital embodiment of Tom Lehrer’s description of folk singers as “the people who get up on stage and come out in favor of all the things that everyone else in the audience is against, like peace and justice and brotherhood and so on”
The problem isn’t that people aren’t in favor of openness and interoperability; it’s that they’re not in favor of it enough. From the perspective of a nontechnical user who just wanted to be able to legitimately purchase digital music, the EFF was pitching doom and gloom about some theoretical threat when the end user could be going out and getting music that just worked.
The real problem is that people don’t care about abstract (at the time of decision-making) Stallmanesque notions of freedom more than they care about having a system that Just Works. So long as that’s the case (and there’s no reason to assume it’ll stop in the foreseeable future), people are going to keep getting bitten.
Making Water Not Wet or I want my MP3 « Calgary CTO (pingback)michael: Microsoft is not a tiger, neither literally nor metaphorically. People are too close-minded to see that, even if Microsoft shows a lot of greed, all of its products are not outright excrements.
— x
You think that’s air you’re breathing?
— James
Mark, what will you post when Google retires one of its services, or something drastic happens in 10 years and GMail goes away?
I’m being serious. I’m not a soothsayer or anything, and I don’t have an honest fear (yet), but I’ve always wondered how your Freedom-0 works out for online services which are, basically, the closed source packages you so despise. I’d love to hear your thoughts on it.
(doing by-hand regular backups of e-mail, docs, calendar, reader, etc is equivalent to regularly re-saving all your .doc files to .txt btw, and I don’t really see it as much of a solution)
— Brett
Great article i agree that most people are getting ripped off. There is really nothing stopping this to happen to apple users although you can burn it all to cdc and then re rip it……..(OUCH)……. Quite frankly i just hope someone breaks the encryption and gets a program to help these forgotten consumers.
I buy from itunes and burn to a CD.
How is Apple going to get the CD back?
(This is a serious question. If they can get it I want
to know how.)
— Chris
Very interesting article. Note that Amazon has offers DRM-free mp3 files to compete with ITunes Music Store, so it seems some people are starting to get it.
— jack
I think it´s bogus how they fuck innocent people, who doesn´t know shit about tech. Microsoft is lame, pathetic and bully.
— El Rorro
> Mark, what will you post when Google retires one of its services, or something drastic happens in 10 years and GMail goes away?
I have a funny story about that. Remind me to write it up someday.
You’re right in one sense — web apps without source are just as closed as client apps without source. Not much to say there, all the standard arguments apply. Google has open sourced a lot of stuff recently, but not the things you’re talking about.
As for regular backups, it comes down to data fidelity, which I’ve written about before. You can get all your raw data out of Gmail — contacts as vCards, email via POP into whatever format you like. You can download all your docs in OpenDocument format, your calendar in iCal format, your Reader subscriptions in OPML, your Picasa pictures as unconverted JPEGs. (I don’t know about album metadata offhand, but I think most other metadata is stored in the JPEGs themselves.) Google services are pretty good as far as data fidelity goes, and poor fidelity (or lack of any export mechanism at all) is treated as a bug. Most of this can be automated — I backup my calendars nightly on a cron job.
DRM’d songs, on the other hand, have worse fidelity — the only “legal” solution (i.e. not using encrypting-cracking tools like FairUse4WM) is to burn to CD and re-rip, which loses one generation of encoding fidelity. This is the solution Microsoft actually recommended in their “sorry we’re about to screw you” e-mail. For songs you can’t burn (are there any? I don’t know all the rules), the fidelity drops to 0 — you can’t take it with you, you have to re-buy everything. I think that at some level, the industry pushing DRM thought that people would get used to doing that; instead, they get burned once and ask their friends what to do, and their friends tell them about P2P.
— Mark
It might have been noted that Steve/Apple were *never* in favour of DRM; it was the music labels that enforced this. They may both sell DRM’ed music, which you may not approve of, but there *is* a clear difference in mindset between Apple and Microsoft in this regard.
— JJ Spreij
I went to see what Microsoft have on their website regarding “plays for sure”. I find (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/playsforsure/default.aspx) that it is now being renamed “certified for Windows Vista”. Hmmm, doesn’t sound like the same sort of thing to me. What I couldn’t find is any mention of whether the Zune is certified for Windows Vista or not. I presume not.
The Day The Music Died — humemes (pingback)I used to buy DRM music, but I learned my lesson. (Also got my music unDRM’d while I could).
EMusic is a *really* good music download service. I actually like their subscription plan because it makes me go out of my way to buy music I wouldn’t have gotten before under an iTunes like model (though I do still buy the occasional iTunes Plus album, when available). I can understand someone not liking the purchasing model, but it works for me… and now I’ve got a bunch of cool music I probably wouldn’t have even downloaded for free.
But, uh, I don’t think this blog entry is about the psychology of music store revenue models.
— Danno
x: People are too close-minded to see that, even if Microsoft shows a lot of greed, all of its products are not outright excrements.
The fact that Microsoft puts out some nice software has precisely sweet fuck-all to do with the issue at hand. All the wonderful software in the world doesn’t change that anyone who bought into PlaysForSure got screwed; it’s doesn’t even make them the slightest bit less screwed.
Ryan McGovern: Quite frankly i just hope someone breaks the encryption and gets a program to help these forgotten consumers.
PlaysForSure is based on Windows Media DRM, which has been cracked repeatedly (Mark alludes to this above); it’s designed to allow patches to repair the leaks, but it’s certainly plausible–especially now that Microsoft isn’t supporting it any more–that there’ll be a simple software-based method to get your music out of the PlaysForSure dungeon.
Of course, if Microsoft actually recommends it, I’ll be very, very surprised. Wouldn’t that just be the most scrumptious admission that those filthy pirates were onto something useful?
Brett: Mark, what will you post when Google retires one of its services, or something drastic happens in 10 years and GMail goes away?
Well, you could do like Rick Moen does and refuse to use any of that stuff.
limewire and illegal piracy FTW
— THE LETTER R
Mark:
I agree with your rant, except for this bit… “music purchased from Apple’s iTunes Music Store would “only†play in iTunes and on iPods. This was, technically speaking, true — and indeed it is still true, and it is why I have cautioned Dora and you and anyone else who would listen that you should never “purchase†anything from the iTunes Music Store that you might want to “own†longer than Apple was willing to allow.”
I can burn any DRM’ed content from iTunes onto a CD (using iTunes!) and there is no DRM anymore. And I can then rip that CD onto any music player. End of DRM (for those tunes), no?
I think your comments about Apple’s commitment to DRM are misleading. The DRM is required by the labels, not imposed by Apple. They have provided a work-around for those savvy enough to fugure it out (not including the labels’ lawyers.)
Gitbo
— Gitbo
I believe if I buy something I should be able to do whatever I want with it. If I buy a car I can crash it, burn it, change the seats or whatever I want to. why shouldn’t I be able to do the same with the music I bought. they say piracy is harming the artists. that is bullshit DRM is harming the artists and the buyers. when I pay for something I should be allowed to copy it or burn it as many times as I feel like it. controlling the user and telling them “no you can’t do that” is leading him to use p2p instead of buying the music. if this continues and they keep on forcing all these stupid laws people will just keep on breaking the law. For example the movies we rent or buy have these FBI warnings that last like 2 minutes and these commercials that say some shit like “you wouldn’t beat your grandmother to death then why do you buy pirated movies” shit they are putting these things on the original movies, the overpriced movies we buy or rent. if we were copying the movies we would just remove that from the movie. that’s like putting a use a condom inside the instructions of a condom, or a sign of “keep your car clean” at the exit of a car wash. some very good music bands are discovering that giving liberty to the listener is the way to go. if a person wants to buy the music they will do so. I like to support my artists but don’t control my stuff that’s like small print in a contract, it’s annoying and violates our privacy.
I’m not a lawyer and I would never buy DRM music. I happen to live in Texas, but many states have consumer protection laws. Microsoft can be sued in each state. In Texas, the very consumer-friendly Deceptive Trade Practices Act/Consumer Protection Act gives the consumer the right to sue for treble (that’s three times) damages for a long list of deceptive trade practices, including deceptive advertising (”PlaysForSure”) and unconscionable acts. The right to recover from these deceptive acts cannot be waived in the EULA. The DTPA turns buyer beware on its head. I know that once I can’t play my music, I’d be filing suit against Microsoft to get my money back, and copying all my local media as I do it. When it is a big company that has obviously been screwing people on a large scale, I always ask for punitive damages in my little small claims suit, too. It is just amazing how fast big companies fall all over themselves to avoid treble damages, sending a lawyer to small claims for the afternoon, etc., etc.
— A. Lester Buck III
I’m no fan of DRM. I do buy iTunes Plus songs (plus for added bitrate - 256kbs). But I think it’s awfully convenient that anyone who criticizes Apple on the issue of DRM often ignores the CD-burning aspect. FWIW, the CD technique doesn’t lose a layer of fidelity if you re-rip to a non-compressed format, a lossless format or theoretically to the same format it was before, with DRM AAC 128 - all of which, of course, ignores the fact that many people wouldn’t notice the fidelity loss in the first place.
Thus the statement “you should never “purchase†anything from the iTunes Music Store that you might want to “own†longer than Apple was willing to allow.” is simply false. And since you know about the CD option (which Apple openly states as well) you’re plainly obscuring this fact willingly, to “improve” your argument. Except obscuring facts (sometimes called “lying”) simply makes you an unreliable source. So what good is it? You’ve convinced your Dad. Great.
“you can now purchase some music from the iTunes store that is unencrypted and plays anywhere. Apple calls these songs “iTunes Plus— - also a false statement - you can and could always burn an unencrypted CD from iTunes music. Of course, you can’t play an AAC file on a device that doesn’t play AAC, of which there are many.
But that aside, Apple doesn’t want DRM and has publicly stated so. Record labels want DRM and have publicly stated so. So any anti-DRM rant that doesn’t bring up the fact that many if not all record labels would simply not sell downloadable music if it weren’t for DRM, and Apple’s iTunes store was the singular proof to the industry that this was the future of the music industry, does it’s reader a disservice. Apple did what it had to do, in the most consumer-friendly-terms it could wrangle from the labels, to get people what they wanted - downloadable music.
I think things are shifting to a non-DRM future for music. I believe Amazon MP3 is proof of this. But even unlocked music at high bit rate (though MP3 is not nearly as efficient as AAC, it does play more places) is not sending Amazon past Apple, because people like the Apple model of convenience. So criticize Apple all you want, but they live in the real world of business. Business often means compromise. If they wanted to play ball, they had to do what they had to do. Or they could have waited to last year when Amazon started their download store.
Clearly FairPlay music for a couple of years was better than no music, to many millions of people.
Your arguments, which should be so easy to make (DRM=bad) are so undermined by your intentional misrepresentations of the facts. Sad.
— ~bc
I think it’s funny that people are still surprised that music is stolen. This is what DRM is. It’s defective by design, and I, for one, will never pay for it.
— Wade
“I Told you so! I Told you so!”
To provide some tiny bit of praise Plays For Sure, I have really enjoyed being on the music subscription model, giving me super-hero like powers to listen to any damn music I feel like, as long as I make no attempt to actually own any of it. And so far Rhapsody is still in business. Even cooler is that my MP3 player that no one has heard of, the Ibiza Rhapsody, can search and download any song direct from Rhapsody with just a Wifi connection, which oddly MS never figured out might be something useful they could do with DRM and wireless support on an MP3 player.
You are certainly right that DRM makes no sense with an ownership model. And shame on MS for not being able to keep a license server up and running after the main service died. DRM makes perfect sense in a lease model though.
— Keith Wright
i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again - purchasing compressed music is a fools game.
Microsoft, Music, DRM, etc. « Changing Way (pingback) links for 2008-05-06 « that dismal science (pingback) Ma.tt » Mark on DRM (pingback)Great writeup!
I have only one quibble: as a married guy, you implicitly forfeit the right to claim to be right all the time!
Juan said:
39. I believe if I buy something I should be able to do whatever I want with it.
Juan, please, be quiet, you just don’t seem all that intelligent. Please. Spare us if you really don’t understand. Go study and learn the law first. If you want the law changed, lobby to change it. But please. Stop printing such ignorant childishness, this is an educated and adult forum.
— Sam I Am
How about buying music in a form that’s not painful to listen to, rather than the low-bit rate compressed garbage available at your local online clearinghouse? This applies whether you are talking about Apple, Microsoft, AmazonMP3, …
— Matthew K
> I can just say, that every single person who buys DRM-protected music and has problems with it, fully deserves it.
Really, really? You really believe that people who aren’t as aware as you or technically savvy should be ripped off? Do you apply the same thinking to medicine? If I don’t know about a disease, and a doctor screws up, then I get what I deserved? That’s pretty unforgiving, and society would be far worse off, or non-existent, if people applied that kind of thinking to its logical ends. What a crock.
Nice article, tnx!
Well, the “modern” infrastructure like iTunes, Napster, etc. are the extended arms of the big music companies. On the one hand they see their furs swimming away in Torrents and on the other hand they missed to enter the Internet business sooner (and still do). Apple, MS and all other music shops would love to offer music w/o DRM but guess, who doesn’t want to? Instead of being creative and offering solutons that makes downloading from Torrents (more or less) worthless with f.e. additional gifts(services and of course no DRM more attractive. They should rethink and change their acting. It’s not only the pirate’s fault that the gain in the music industry decreased. Hunting down the music copiers and starting a worldwide campaign against them is just the wrong way. I will not hesitate a second to download songs from Torrents, if a copy protected and legally bought music CD is not accepted in my CD player. So, is it allowed then to say I feel stolen by the music industry? I bought a music CD and it wont work in my CD player (sellers don’t take opened CD’s back, I could have copied it before!). Tnx for making it harder to me as legal music buyer and then call me a possible pirate. This happened exactly once to me and never again….
On the other hand I bought songs on Vinyl, then on Cassettes, then on Mini Disks, MP3… By all respect, but Im not willing to buy the same songs again and again, just because the data holder changed is in hype.
At least I like to say that, in my ears, music has changed in a way I dont like. There are stil some great newcomers but most of the music created today shallow you don’t like to hear it the next day again. Barey no more consisent groups or singers you can’t wait to hear their next album. And maybe, once a day, the music industry might realize that money comes from good music and not from DRM.
Greetings
John
— John Smith
Thanks, Mark. I’ve been saying this for years now. Sadly, the only response I had for “But has this doomsday scenario happened?” I could only say “For one small company, yes.”
As much as it sucks, at least now I can say “Hell yes, Microsoft did it with MSN. The whole concept is stupid, and only benefits the company in the short term. In the long term it screws the customer, and eventually the business itself.”
Sam I Am Said:
—-39. I believe if I buy something I should be able to do whatever I want with it.
—-Juan, please, be quiet, you just don’t seem all that intelligent. Please. Spare us —-if you really don’t understand. Go study and learn the law first. If you want the —-law changed, lobby to change it. But please. Stop printing such ignorant —-childishness, this is an educated and adult forum.
Sam, please read up on the First Sale doctrine.
You can’t violate the copyright of the contents of the CD by making non-fair-use copies, but having bought the physical CD, you own it, and can do what you want with it. You can re-sell it (along with the included license to listen to the music content it contains), or piss on it, or throw it off a bridge.
Same for iTunes or MSN or Zune store sales - you can legally do whatever you want with the digital files, as long as that action doesn’t violate copyright. Even sell the track. These legal actions are made difficult by DRM, but they are still legal.
http://www.news.com/2100-1027_3-5072842.html
As companies go out of business or shut down product lines, they often violate their agreements with their customers who PURCHASED content. Be it music or a movie or software, the item was purchased, and access to it cannot be curtailed by the seller later down the line.
I can’t legally sell you a car, and then say “you’re not allowed to drive this car anymore” five years down the line. Likewise, MS cannot sell you a digital music single, and then shut down access to that music 5 years later. You paid for that file, and for a legal copy of the song it contains. Anyone who is a “victim” in this case has legal standing to demand either a replacement track of the same music, or a refund.
As has been pointed out, some states may even allow for damages. Unfortunately for most people, receipts may be required to win such a court case.
— Chris Lawrence
> But that aside, Apple doesn’t want DRM and has publicly stated so.
Well, ignoring all the factual errors before and after this statement, I want to take a stab at defusing this myth. Just as the measure of a man is how he acts when he thinks no one is watching, the measure of a company is how they behave when they control everything. Let’s take, for example, the iPod Touch. Apple hardware, Apple software, no third parties looming overhead dictating terms. Totally locked down. People break it, Apple relocks it. After great outcry, Apple grudgingly allows third party developers to write applications for it. Applications, even ones available at no cost, must be downloaded through Apple’s store. Applications, even open source ones that the author WANTS people to redistribute, are then individually encrypted and locked to the end user’s specific iPod. Encrypted what what, you might ask? Why, FairPlay, of course — the same encryption Apple applies to the songs and videos you “purchase”.
The RIAA may have originally forced DRM on Apple in 2004. I don’t know the real story and neither do you, but let’s say they did. Guess what? That was a long time ago. And somewhere between then and now, Apple decided they liked it.
— Mark
Somebody should have the balls and sue M$ for all the damage they have intentionally done to consumers
— Sue
@jamie dalgetty: : CDs are already compressed (lossy) from masters, digital or analog.
So you’re already buying compressed music. It’s whether or you can personally tell the difference between 14-bit encoded CDs and 128kbps-encoded AACs.
tlog » Archives » Les DRM c’est l’arnaque… (pingback)It’s really sad that the technology the music industry insisted on having (DRM) is the same technology that’s screwing the users and encouraging piracy of unencumbered music files. The same goes for the movie industry.
At this point I’m tempted to tell all of those Play-For-Sure (ahh, the irony!) that the can …cough… burn the music to a CD …cough… and rip it …cough… therefore removing the DRM …cough… but telling them that would be against the law! Bloody DMCA!
— Avoiding_The_FBI
I think the best solution here is for Microsoft to set up what I would call a “yes-man server” that they will keep online indefinitely that receives all PlaysForSure requests and automatically authenticates them without checking any database. This should eliminate the burden of actual verification and severely limit the resource requirement of handling those requests. A company the size of Microsoft should have no problem maintaining this server. Further, Microsoft should assume all responsibility for any copyright infringement that may occur as a result of this non-authentication policy. That’s the only fair way to handle this situation for their former customers.
Microsoft does it again … | Tadd Mencer (pingback) PlaysForSure (Until August, 2008) (pingback)68. Scott Nelle: I thought the same thing at first. However, I’m sure that MS *can’t* do this, as they don’t have the rights to allow additional copies of the song files in question.
Especially now that “Making Available = Copyright Infringement” has some civil case law to back it up - the legal damages for screwing over a customer are the actual damages ($.99) times whatever state law allows. Damages for assisting in the violation of copyright, however runs into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
— Chris Lawrence
This is why I buy lossless music. I educate everyone I can that AAC and MP3 are not the same quality as CD. And if it does have DRM, I can just burn and re-import _with no loss whatsoever_.
— T. M. Clendenny
Digital rights management is akin to a monkey trying to forbid all the other monkeys to play in the jungle’s trees — unless they pay up for that “privilege”.
Consumers aren’t interested in DRMed content because it’s sold with a huge ball and chain… and nobody in their right mind wants to carry such useless weight.
Chris Lawrence: I thought the same thing at first. However, I’m sure that MS *can’t* do this, as they don’t have the rights to allow additional copies of the song files in question.
But they can very clearly instruct users to take advantage of the analog hole to remove the DRM from their tracks. (Avoiding_The_FBI must have missed that part of the post.) So they can strip the DRM from the files… if they make it a huge pain in the ass to do so.
Seriously–there’s no other difference in the process. By burning and ripping, you get a DRM-free file. If Microsoft provided a DRM-stripping tool, you’d get a DRM-free file. The only difference is in the effort expended.
I can’t imagine how byzantine a licensing scheme would have to be to end up enforcing that. Perhaps Microsoft is just so used to treating their customers poorly that it’s second nature to them now.
The Daily Loper - May 6, 2008 | Medialoper (pingback)Claude Gelinas: Consumers aren’t interested in DRMed content because it’s sold with a huge ball and chain… and nobody in their right mind wants to carry such useless weight.
Yes, which is why nobody is dealing with the ramifications of having purchased DRM’d media from MSN Music.
Oh, wait, they have. Perhaps it’s more the case that people don’t care about some neckbeard ranting about the abstract cause of freedom for which they should really install a completely new operating system that won’t let them just buy some gorram tracks, which is all they ever asked for in the first place?
The problem with DRM is that the costs aren’t obvious, and people do get bitten by it, because they act in a perfectly rational, if somewhat short-sighted, manner.
links for 2008-05-07 at DeStructUred Blog (pingback)Re: Google/Gmail
> I have a funny story about that. Remind me to write it up someday.
Please, do tell. The arguments of the commentors don’t even warrant a response to them, but this sounds interesting.
— xentek
that was a BRILLIANT essay!
— herval
Please. There are several people in here espousing the view that Steve Jobs/Apple would be against DRM, but their hands were tied. Is there anyone more controlling of their intellectual property than Apple? Yeah, I know they are the underdog, and I agree with all the fanboys that they make some wonderful products, and put a lot of thought into design and usability, etc. Great. But they are not Santa Clause and Mother Theresa rolled into one either, just because they are the “underdog” of OS’s. From the very beginning, they have have been extremely concerned with protecting their intellectual property — so much so that they lost the early OS wars and almost died out in the 90s because they were so insistent on tying their OS to their own machines.
None of this is to defend Microsoft. So many of their products of shoddy and badly designed and bloated, and they have an openly disrespectful (”our way or the highway”) attitude towards their users. But just because Mac is an alternative, don’t think for a moment that they aren’t just as interested in reaming you for every cent you have. (Ever replaced a battery on your iPod? Naw, you just bought a new one.)
— Have some sense
I own a Zune, buy and download content, never had a problem. Love Zune, one thing I do — remove the DRM.
Mac Fan Boy » What a letter (pingback)Uh, Brett, when Google shut down its DRM servers (for the old Google Video service), we paid back everyone who had ever bought Google Video stuff, in Google Checkout credits. And then paid them back _again_, in cash (through a credit card refund). Microsoft isn’t doing that with the PlaysForSure stuff, as far as I can tell.
Order of the Bath » Blog Archive » The day the music will die (pingback)Well, ignoring all the factual errors before and after this statement, I want to take a stab at defusing this myth. Just as the measure of a man is how he acts when he thinks no one is watching, the measure of a company is how they behave when they control everything. Let’s take, for example, the iPod Touch. Apple hardware, Apple software, no third parties looming overhead dictating terms. Totally locked down.
And iPod Touch, as a software platform, is related to music DRM, how exactly?
Isomorphic argument: “Hey, I bet Apple even has actual *door locks* on their Cupertino campus. And, god forbid, maybe even a *firewall*. How can Jobs openly claim not to like DRM-ed music?”
People break it, Apple relocks it.
Or, Apple puts up updates that, among other things, restore hacked binaries to their original (or, probably, updated) content.
How this differs from intentional re-locking is left as an exercise to the reader.
After great outcry, Apple grudgingly allows third party developers to write applications for it.
Really, only “after a great outcry”? For someone who wrote that Python book —among other things, I’m sure— you sound like you don’t have any grasp of software development. Apple developed and actual API for the thing, along with the proper documentation, tutorials, Xcode integration and a complete toolset. This takes time. The Touch (and iPhone) simply could not be open to write applications from day one with a complete API. To write a complete API, along with documentation takes a lot of time. Even more time it takes to *stabilize* the API, especially if you intend to base your future development platform on it.
Applications, even ones available at no cost, must be downloaded through Apple’s store. Applications, even open source ones that the author WANTS people to redistribute, are then individually encrypted and locked to the end user’s specific iPod. Encrypted what what, you might ask? Why, FairPlay, of course — the same encryption Apple applies to the songs and videos you “purchaseâ€.
So, Apple provides a turn-key solution for developers to provide commercial applications (most of whom come locked with serials, IIRC) to their users, complete with protection from piracy. What exactly does this have to do with DRMed music, except the usage of the same algorithm?
The RIAA may have originally forced DRM on Apple in 2004. I don’t know the real story and neither do you, but let’s say they did. Guess what? That was a long time ago. And somewhere between then and now, Apple decided they liked it.
We are bordering on the delusional, aren’t we?
Hope we like our Ubuntu desktops and are not just bitter for missing the party.
MSN Music server shutdown: A sad story but written with style and humor at DeStructUred Blog (pingback) Live.Awake » Why Everyone is Mad at Microsoft (pingback)So funny that this is published round the same time we learn Apple didn’t collaborate with NBC to prevent piracy and then lost their content…
— Whatever
Let me guess: you were the guy who told me I’d “come crawling back” after six months or so of banging my head against Linux, right?
Anyway, it’s not about Apple putting locks on their doors. It’s about Apple putting locks on my doors. If you can’t see the difference, I can’t help you.
— Mark
holy crap the apple fanboys have come out in force today.
just posting to say that i enjoyed this. sorry about all the crazies
Daily del.icio.us for May 4th through May 7th — Vinny Carpenter’s blog (pingback)I was going to reply, but bananaranha did a plenty good job of that. You’re welcome to point out all my argument’s factual errors, as that is what I’m doing to yours (I’m attacking your argument, not you, though most people usually can’t tell the difference)
The only things we can know for sure is what the companies say. Apple says they’re against DRM on music. Record labels and studios say they’re for it. We can speculate that the NBC deal fell apart partly on that and partly on no variable pricing.
Your argument that the “jailbreak” situation some how proves Apple is pro-DRM doesn’t make sense. It makes no sense for Apple to lock down things unless they absolutely must. Extra, unnecessary engineering is a waste of money. That’s why they have to pay lip service to “protection” of certain things. To run an iPhone on AT&T’s network, they have convince AT&T that they have a product that will not wreak havoc on their network. Apple put in a system where the root password is six characters. That’s what I call lip service. They know the encryption will be broken easily by the people who want to hack it, and they can tell AT&T it’s locked down. How this relates to the Touch is that they run the same software, and it’s not worth their time to run different software on the two nearly identical products.
“Applications, even open source ones that the author WANTS people to redistribute, are then individually encrypted and locked to the end user’s specific iPod” —this is clearly a nod to the network operators, who want to know the apps are secure, and they don’t want to change this just for the Touch - waste of effort for the 0.00001% of customers who would want to/ have the talent to hack it. Plus, it’s hard to knock this before it’s even started. And I don’t think for a minute that Apple decided to release an API only after public pressure. Software sells hardware. And if someone else makes good software, that’s more sales for Apple. Otherwise, they wouldn’t allow anyone to write sw for the Mac.
It’s a series of business compromises, combined with market forces. If 40% of owners wanted to hack their phone, a phone that allowed that would be a serious contender in the marketplace. And it’d have to be sold unlocked, off a network because no provider would want to sell it. Apple isn’t evil, they’re following the money. That’s what corporations do. I personally feel they do it with a better money/evil split that others, but others disagree.
You’re voting with your wallet by not buying Apple products, and I encourage you to do this with all things. I do this myself with products I feel strongly about (usually based on environmental or labor conditions). But unfortunately, there aren’t enough hackers or DRM-haters (and I count myself at least in the latter) to make enough economic push to overcome it.
— ~bc
Nicely written and a funny read. Or is that just the same thing twice with change in fidelity?
— Leefe
I’m no APPLE fanboy but you folks have to get over this whining about APPLE’s proprietary systems that provide for the same smooth performance and consistently satisfying user experience they are selling in the first place. They can sell their OS or their iPHONE or iPOD locked anyway they want, in fact, and your choice as a consumer is to accept what they are selling or pass.
If you purchase a new Chevy and hotrod the fuel injection mapping or install a new engine timing chip or shave the camshaft to compel a short but merry life, your warranty is piss and when you bring it in for the standard 5000 mile service and they reset the firmware back to the stock settings with an update that toasts your precious third party chip and doesn’t work with the custom cam profile, suck it up. I’m getting sick of your childish whining. If you can do better then YOU make the next gen iPOD or just shut up and buy a Zune for God’s sake.
— Sam I Am
And record companies wonder why downloading music is so popular.
— Chris
>>>>
CDs are already compressed (lossy) from masters, digital or analog.
So you’re already buying compressed music. It’s whether or you can personally tell the difference between 14-bit encoded CDs and 128kbps-encoded AACs.
>>>>
Consumers never hear masters, so it’s not really relevant that CDs and masters are not perfectly identical (although CDs are in fact digital clones of their print masters)
Also, CDs are 16 bit, not 14.
— me
If that was meant to me, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but that prediction is not mine.
As someone who had close links to the indie music scene a few years ago through record production, I started reading your text with great anticipation, but was soon disappointed. You may be a great Python hacker, but you really don’t know (or pretend to that) how the music biz, the big corporations and capitalism in general work.
That was not the worst thing though, the absolutely worst thing for me was the respect I lost for the EFF through the link you provided.
So, let’s see what that page of the EFF’s site say:
“The Facts: You Bought It, But They Still Own It”
Guess what? That applies to every piece of vinyl, every CD, every book you could put your hands on!
“Additional iTunes Music Store Restrictions
• Restricts back-up copies: Song can only be copied to 5 computers
• Restricts converting to other formats: Songs only sold in AAC with Apple DRM
• Limits portable player compatibility: iPod and other Apple devices only
• No remixing: Cannot edit, excerpt, or otherwise sample songs”
Everything wrong again! WTF?!?
The only debatable point is the first one and that, well, how many computers you want to put that song on? 10? 100?
Restricts converting too their formats? Wrong, it does not.
Limits portable player compatibility? Well, every device that can play ACC can play those tunes and if you don’t have such a device, you can convert the songs to MP3.
No remixing? What? Don’t tell me I cannot appropriate other’s artists work without their consent? Guess what? That applies to every intellectual work that is not on the public domain or licensed through the CC or the GPL. So what? You want to take a Beatles song and remix it with your crap art and somehow this is Apple’s fault?
All this nonsense would be only laughable if it was not coming from a supposedly serious entity. Thanks for making me lose any respect for the EFF from now on. That was sad.
And, last but not least, please stop calling anyone that disagrees with you an Apple fanboy. Not only is this insulting, it is childish, my fellow Linux fanboy…
— Whatever
Ah yes, the old “physical media has inherent limitations, therefore intentionally applying restrictions to digital media is no worse” argument. I’ve heard it many times; it’s one of those zombie arguments that just won’t die. It’s crap, of course — if my 8-track player breaks, I can fix it myself, or pay someone to fix it, or buy one on eBay, or start my own company making new ones if I think there’s enough of a market for it. Once your MSN music “breaks”, nobody can legally fix it. Nobody can legally build a new software player that plays them. No amount of money can legally rescue the song that you paid money for. This is such an obvious distinction that I’m constantly surprised when it requires explanation.
(Oh, and searching this page for the term “fanboy” yields several comments, none of them mine. Just sayin’.)
— Mark
>>No remixing? What? Don’t tell me I cannot appropriate other’s artists work without their consent? Guess what? That applies to every intellectual work that is not on the public domain or licensed through the CC or the GPL. So what? You want to take a Beatles song and remix it with your crap art and somehow this is Apple’s fault?
There’s a difference between saying that it’s illegal to reproduce or alter someone’s else’s copyrighted work, and actually controlling the ability to do that through software.
DRM is basically the philosophy that the company controls what you do with something that you have bought.
What if I want to “take a Beatles song and remix it with [my] crap art” just for my own pleasure? It may be illegal to distribute it (although the laws concerning sampling and “fair use” are still a grey area), but it’s not illegal to me to do that for my own enjoyment.
DRM is a slippery slope that should be discouraged in every way by consumers. Once I have bought something, my relationship with the manufacturer should be over. I should be able to do what I like with what I bought. If I choose to break the law, well, then I can be prosecuted under the law. But I shouldn’t have the manufacturer hovering over me all the time to make sure I use their product in the exact way they intended.
— Geronimo
“There’s a difference between saying that it’s illegal to reproduce or alter someone’s else’s copyrighted work, and actually controlling the ability to do that through software.”
There’s a difference between selling physical goods and digital content. Welcome to the New World.
— Whatever
Let me guess: you were the guy who told me I’d “come crawling back†after six months or so of banging my head against Linux, right?
Close. I was the guy that told you that you would come crawling back iff you had a sense of elegance and usability, and prioritized it over silly politics and fallout-shelter-tinfoil-what-if questions about media formats.
Anyway, it’s not about Apple putting locks on their doors. It’s about Apple putting locks on my doors. If you can’t see the difference, I can’t help you.
So, Apple forced you to buy iTunes Store tracks how exactly?
Cuando te desenchufan el cable | eBlog (pingback)bananaranha: I was the guy that told you that you would come crawling back iff you had a sense of elegance and usability, and prioritized it over silly politics and fallout-shelter-tinfoil-what-if questions about media formats.
Where?
Seriously, where did you write that? I don’t see your name on any comments on Mark’s “I’m leaving Apple” posts, and my admittedly cursory skimming of said posts doesn’t reveal anyone saying that he’d come back once he gave up on all that “freedom 0″ nonsense, but rather that he’d come back once he realized that Linux was such a terrible pain in the ass, and don’t you know how much OSX rules, and so on.
It’s also pretty hilarious that you’re characterizing as “fallout-shelter-tinfoil” a possibility which is, in fact, the subject of the post you’re replying to, is happening this summer, and was predicted years ago by those dirty dirty hippies and their “silly politics”.
So, Apple forced you to buy iTunes Store tracks how exactly?
It’d be really sweet if they DRM vendors would actually be honest about what they were selling. As in, if you buy our products, we must have ultimate control over your computer; you’re not really the owner of it any more. Our systems’ primary goal is to serve the copyright holders, not you. We promise to try to only do nice things, but you can’t really hold us to that. Also, if you use something else we make which doesn’t even involve the stuff we’re protecting, it’s not designed to work for you either; we’re selling products to copyright holders now–they just happen to reside on your system and cost your money instead of theirs.
You probably won’t notice any of this, so long as you trust us not to be evil. Just think of it like having us carry your wallet around for you and not letting you buy gray-market media. Or off-brand media, come to think of it.
“There’s a difference between selling physical goods and digital content. Welcome to the New World.”
Actually, only technology and waning morality has temporarily gotten out ahead of the legislators and the courts while they sort this out. Distribution methods are the “New World” but the basic notion of “take whatever you like, pay for whatever you take” will never be left behind. 50 years of artist’s work is being looted daily and yet I’m proud of the way the courts are taking their time and trying to get this right without burdening our network too much. But at least four things are growing clearer as we all try to sort this out.
1) Product is product, the result of hard work by someone, and format will always be incidental. The courts are becoming very clear at least about this much. Risk, Initiative and industry must be rewarded SOMEhow or it draws to a close.
2) Taking something you know is properly for sale but without paying for it will always be wrong because it does harm to others and to a system of fair bartering already in place for well over 1000 years. And it’s corrosive to your own character, too. You can’t complain about the behavior of the industries towards artists when your piracy paying nothing at all is fucking the artists, the game writers, the movie makers, the authors….. far, far worse.
3) Artistic digital content WILL be monetized again. Don’t kid yourselves just because you are taking it for free at the moment. But most of all,
4) anyone here, anyone at all who thinks the worlds corporations will not find a way to stop this, or the worlds governments will forego the tax revenue proper sales would otherwise generate, or EITHER of them will stand by and watch the remarkable promise of legal and consistently paid online distribution of a huge variety of digital products–not just entertainment– but virtually everything this wonderful network will someday carry……is wildly delusional and likely on the “have not” side of the equation.
This is a commercial opportunity far too great to allow illegal behavior to destroy it. Lest we forget, there was a time not that long ago when shoplifting was viewed as rampant and unstoppable, too, and now only morons even try it. So you might as well hog in now while you can. You are out ahead of the wheels of justice because they turn slowly, that’s true, but they still turn and one day this whole unfortunate episode will be viewed in retrospect as one of the great and sad moral failings of humankind. Don’t buy it if you don’t believe in the product or the system that produces it, that’s your freedom as a consumer, but don’t take it, either. At the end of the day, anyone with pilfered product on their harddrives remains part of the problem, and should be ashamed of themselves.
— Sam I Am
Ah yes, the old “physical media has inherent limitations, therefore intentionally applying restrictions to digital media is no worse†argument. I’ve heard it many times; it’s one of those zombie arguments that just won’t die. It’s crap, of course — if my 8-track player breaks, I can fix it myself, or pay someone to fix it, or buy one on eBay, or start my own company making new ones if I think there’s enough of a market for it.
More importantly, restrictions imposed by nature are amoral and immutable. Restrictions placed by man can be unethical and can in any case be changed.
— Jack
Actually, only technology and waning morality has temporarily gotten out ahead of the legislators and the courts while they sort this out.
Well there’s your problem right off the bat. If you think some legislator can decree that people stop sharing bits and then have that edict imposed then you have been asleep for the 21st century. At least in this respect people are empowered to act in accordance with their own will, almost completely free of government control. Authoritarianism hath no fury here.
— Jack
Jack……..
At present you are correct on both points, but that’s just NOW. One man’s “sharing bits” is an industry’s “lost sale” and a content creators outright “theft”. Does anyone really need it explained again how IP licensing works and why we need it–or SOME form of payment to survive?
Taking (or offering) without paying just means the content creators are not paid for what they do and there are countless ways to monetize this. That’s just “fair” and that’s why the courts are still listening. As I mentioned before, the entertainment and publishing industries WILL be re-monetized. (Do you doubt this?) Nobody is going to keep making quality records or books or motion pictures at the same scale and frequency if the return on risk and investment is neutralized through IP theft. If you disagree and profit no longer drives industry, (ANY industry) then what will be the new motivation? Are you expecting that piracy will somehow lead to socialism and the more equitable distribution of wealth? (Ha ha) One of my concerns, actually, is that any new form of monetization like advertising won’t be nearly as equitable as the simple “take what you want/pay for what you take.” A $5 a month tax on everyone’s internet connection distributed via the recording industry is a nightmare; we can agree on that much, can’t we? Why is paying for what you take so hard to accept in digital when it’s just commonplace everywhere else? As mentioned earlier, product is product/format is ultimately incidental.
And the consumers “free will” is based upon the current LACK of government control, as it has always been. That’s a key point at the moment. Very, very little of what COULD be done is actually being done right now to stop this. We could all do 120mph on the parkway everyday if the government never stepped in, right?
Unless this ransacking of an entire industry of copyrighted IP is brought under control through litigation (which in my view remains highly unlikely) you CANNOT IMAGINE the degree of online control the governments will finally allow, perhaps even mandate. The current issue of bandwidth throttling by ISP’s is nothing compared to the kinds of filters, chokepoints, IP databases and surreptitious online-Big-Brother-law-enforcement that will BLANKET this network if it must, (and nearly ruin it) if that’s what it takes to keep the fundamental principle of “Intellectual property for SALE” alive, functioning and churning out tax revenue. And all because we work hard for these missing payments, Jack, it’s simply “fair.”
If piracy migrates offline again to terrabyte harddrives via sneakernet, it becomes the provenance of the FBI the same way drug trafficing, counterfeiting currency, industrial espionage is all combated offline and very seriously punished everyday. Make no mistake, this is going to get very very serious. My point wasn’t how it will be stopped, Jack. My point is that heavyhanded control is inevitable until piracy is at least contained to a manageable degree. (And maybe then we’ll all start getting our paychecks again, imagine that. ;-).)
We love that you like our stuff, Jack. We just wish you’d stop stealing it before you ruin the network. Do you really think the government is going to abandon lucrative industry and as a novel new idea just allow theft?….. leading to anarchy and the loss of all that growth and tax revenue? And lay the groundwork for the next industry to fall? I kinda doubt it. Anarchy compels a police state and fundamental IP theft, “sharing bits” as you quaintly express it, will eventually be to blame. Sad, I agree, but true.
Maybe it’s actually you who is getting your beautyrest in the 21st century, eh?
— Sam I Am
You advocate^ a police state to prevent people sharing songs. That just about says it all.
^ (Well, you didn’t want to, but “we made you do it”).
— Jack
Risk, Initiative and industry must be rewarded SOMEhow or it draws to a close.
Reducing creativity (and, incidentally, curiosity (as in scientific research) – but that’s a rant for another day) to profit make me sick to my stomach. And if someone needs money as a motivation to create their writing, or their music, or their software, or whatever else it is they are creating, it is a very near certainty that I will be indifferent about their creation.
Personally, I consider getting paid to write software a gift of goodness that I never forget to be grateful for. The alternative would be writing software in my spare time while flipping burgers or scrubbing floors. As I would.
anyone here, anyone at all who thinks the worlds corporations will not find a way to stop this, or the worlds governments will forego the tax revenue proper sales would otherwise generate, or EITHER of them will stand by and watch the remarkable promise of legal and consistently paid online distribution of a huge variety of digital products–not just entertainment– but virtually everything this wonderful network will someday carry……is wildly delusional and likely on the “have not†side of the equation.
Anyone who thinks there is a way to make bits unreplicable is either wildly delusional or likely on the “have no clue†side of the argument.
Every new abundance creates a new scarcity. Instead of figuring out what that is and capitalising on it, the content mafia have been busy trying to put the new abundance back in the bottle. Good luck with that.
Meanwhile, among the artists, ever forsaken by their pimps and left to figure out the new business model on their own, some are experimenting in search of the way forward. Eventually, one or more of the concepts explored and proven will gain popularity and start taking hold, marginalising the artificial scarcity into irrelevance even as it continues to rage on.
PS.: Mark, I would really appreciate a Preview button – it might have given me a chance to make the above comment less of a grammatical train wreck…
Gee, Sam I Am, if I didn’t know better, I’d think that was some kind of threat.
When do you expect the lawmakers of the land to go on a foe-tossing charge through every other industry, outlawing open platforms in the process, to protect your revenue model? How much more begging and threatening do you expect to get in before then?
Maybe I am just dumber than the next guy, but I have purchased hundreds of songs from I-tunes… The only thing is, I don’t just stop there. I immediately burn a disc, converting those purchased tunes into plain old everyday aiff files. Then, I rip that disc and turn those AIFF files into plain old mp3s. Those MP3s play on all my other non-apple devices just fine… never had a problem…
sjhoward.co.uk » Microsoft steals music back from paying customers (pingback)I love Tom Lehrer. It’s nice to see someone else knows of him as well. I’m tired of trying to explain to people who he is when I make a reference to “Poisoning Pigeons in the Park” or “The Masochism Tango.”
Did you know he’s credited with inventing the jell-o shooter? Just another reason to praise him.
— Mike
Thanks to BitPim, I have a 30-second clip of “Poisoning Pigeons in the Park” as my ringtone.
— Mark
Truthfully, I think most people will buy music rather than steal it if there are no strings attached. The other day I wanted to buy a single song (normally I buy CDs and rip them to MP3s for my iPod), but I refuse to use iTunes.
I don’t like the software (esp. on Windows), and I won’t buy anything DRM on principle if I can help it.
But Amazon now sells DRM-free mp3s for the same price as iTunes.
But their selection is smaller right now, and I couldn’t find what I wanted. So I ended up using peer-2-peer software to acquire for free (yeah, I stole it). But I was willing to pay for it — provided it had no DRM attached.
When Amazon has a bigger selection, I will probably never use P2P to get another commercial song again. I don’t mind paying a buck for a song — just don’t fucking hijack my computer.
— Geronimo
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