Is DRM good?

[nutball]

If you feel pissed off by their business practices, ignore their products.

I already do! I don't buy music any more (just listen to stuff I've bought over the years), and I own maybe half-a-dozen DVDs.

That raises the question what exactly a fair price is.

Well yes, and also who defines it. And whether it will be allowed to be determined by the normal operation of market forces.

 

[Xmas]

I already do! I don't buy music any more (just listen to stuff I've bought over the years), and I own maybe half-a-dozen DVDs.

That's good. A price is only "too high" if customers refuse to buy. I only buy about one CD a year and only DVDs at £6 or less, which I think is a reasonable price.

Well yes, and also who defines it. And whether it will be allowed to be determined by the normal operation of market forces.

Since it's about art, the competing products only have limited similarities. But other than that, there's nothing blocking the normal operation of market forces.

 

[Geo]

That's good. A price is only "too high" if customers refuse to buy. I only buy about one CD a year and only DVDs at £6 or less, which I think is a reasonable price.

That trueism gets trotted out a lot, of course. And it is inarguably true on an individual basis.

The thing is, the content providers don't go around to each of us individually and strike a deal.

At the macro level, there must be a curve, and a point on that curve, where a sales price maximizes profit for that product across the entire market --where maybe you don't sell to Xmas, but you do sell to geo, jeff, and bob. Possibly to sell to Xmas your price is so close to your costs that the lower price does not increase your profit just because you got a few more (or even many more) sales to the Xmas-sensibilities crowd while giving up some of what you could have gotten from geo if you'd priced higher. Margins are nice --gross profit is even better, and margins are only a part of that. Some companies seem margin-obsessed --others are more open to "making it up on volume".

 

[pascal]

Good article about DRM at BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4816930.stm

Yet, there seems to be a belief that rigorous enforcement of technological restrictions, backed up by the ruthless application of draconian laws that allow the replacement of copyright with contract law and criminalise activities which used to be considered legal - or acceptable even when not clearly legal - will enhance the market, keep customers coming back for more and ensure the future success of the "content industries".
...
My opposition to DRM is not an opposition to copyright, or a claim that copyright is dead. But current attempts to use technology to enforce restrictions on use, restrictions that often go beyond those copyright law would demand, are unacceptable.
...

The music, movie and publishing industries do not deserve to survive if their only way to remain viable is to undermine copyright law and replace it with restrictive contracts backed by harsh penalties for breaking the inevitably flawed DRM they wrap around their products. Others will take their place, and I cannot see that this is a bad thing.

 

[Geo]

Everybody see the piece saying DRM is draining batteries on portables to the tune of reducing battery life by up to 25%? Lovely, just lovely.

 

[Sxotty]

Everybody see the piece saying DRM is draining batteries on portables to the tune of reducing battery life by up to 25%? Lovely, just lovely.

Yeah I saw that, another lovely reason for it (DRM) to exist.

You know I got the emusic 100 free downloads and went and downloaded my 100 songs. I was very dissapointed by the lack of mainstream music there. When it is so easy to illegaly download music why is it such a pain to legally do it? I hate that I must download some program that will make itself a pain on my computer and that I cannot easily transfer music to the mp3 player. Arg anyway it is frustrating...

 

[darkblu]

DRM, like many other things recently, is trying to enforce through technology something that until now has been carried by basic principles of human society, in this case the consumer's adherence to fairness in the context of a 'fair' deal, i.e. when they consider they acquied a product worth its price for its 'far uses'. now, the very notion of DRM voids the concept of 'fair use', as with DRM there's no 'fair use' - there's allowed and blocked use. generally that can be observed even now to its full extent in some hi-tech market segments. consider the case with PSP: sony have been desperately trying to deny the consumers their right to run unsigned code on the platform, regardless whether it's of harmless or malicious nature. to many PSP owners that is denying them of the fair use of that product - and it's not a cheap product to begin with. so many legid consumers of the PSP are now facing the dilemma to stay with more immature versions of the product (i.e. earlier firmware) retaining their fair use of that product, or to upgrade and lose that. that translates into many cosumers refraining from buying some new hot releases and/or services on this platform due to the imminent loss of some (considerable part) of the product's fair use. you can expect that in any sphere where DRM will be employed - many consumers will become 'consumer zombies' - they'll buy an early, hence inherently more 'hackable' version of the product and stop at that, becoming 'dead' to the producer.

 

[poopypoo]

That's good. A price is only "too high" if customers refuse to buy. I only buy about one CD a year and only DVDs at £6 or less, which I think is a reasonable price.


Since it's about art, the competing products only have limited similarities. But other than that, there's nothing blocking the normal operation of market forces.

This is my favorite post here... the key becomes whether you appreciate art, and the contributions of fellow men in general, or only appreciate the social events that marketing induces you to follow. So often I hear people complain that the only things "worth" watching or hearing you have to pay for. I counter that they have been cowered into the assumption that unless the greater body of peers agrees that something is "worthwhile" then it is not. For every new DRM scheme there are (to pull a random number) 1000 unsigned bands -- 10 of them making amazing music. For every new RIAA advertisement there are 1000 new filmmakers -- many of them offering free content on the web. These numbers will only increase as technology improves -- making it all the more important to filter out hype and make your own decisions. Take risks, try new (espeially free!) media, and share the results with friends, don't just watch every new, successively crappier Star Wars sequel -- because we all know it's that kind of content that's going to wind up pay-per-use, not your pal Joe's band, which could use some support at the bar every saturday night.

Luckily, this is far from an original idea, and there are many people doing this already. Probably in large part due to the web, we are bouncing back from the first mass-brainwashings that were early TV, and finding more incredible, free content available from our own peers all the time. For this reason, it seems pretty possible that (expensive) PPV will never succeed as a #1 revenue stream for these companies. At least, I certainly hope not! If it does succeed, it will be probably as sad a statemenet on the quality of the customers, as much as the quality of the publishers.

 

[Sxotty]

A lot of mainstream bands are actually good though. Sorry but it happens to be true. My main problem with the DRM crap is as I said.

It should not be less hassle to download songs illegaly than legaly. You should be able to simply go to amazon and download an mp3 without any strings attached, but no you must download a seperate program to watch what you do with the song you bought etc...

 

[Kanyamagufa]

I guess a worthwhile question might be how aware Joe-user actually is of what DRM is preventing them from doing.

How many people actually know what's going on every time they buy a song off iTunes? I meet someone new very frequently who is surprised when they can't listen to a song they bought on someone else's computer without "authorizing" it first. I wouldn't be surprised if most of the people who bought songs weren't aware of the actual limitations of the content they just purchased. Isn't that scary? To think that so many people don't really know what they've bought into?

 

[nutball]

How many people actually know what's going on every time they buy a song off iTunes? I meet someone new very frequently who is surprised when they can't listen to a song they bought on someone else's computer without "authorizing" it first. I wouldn't be surprised if most of the people who bought songs weren't aware of the actual limitations of the content they just purchased. Isn't that scary? To think that so many people don't really know what they've bought into?

It depends on what their reaction is to finding out that DRM is getting in their way. It's not particularly surprising that they've bought stuff without fully understanding the implications of the associated DRM -- DRM is a pretty complicated mish-mash of technology and marketing which frankly is enough to turn any sane brain to jelly.

Now if their reaction is "Oh, huh, I guess I'll go but an iPod and and iMac then so all my iTunes work OK from now on", then yes, it's scary. If their reaction is "WTF??!! I paid for this and those ****ers are trying to stop me listening to *MY* music on *MY* computer, that's the last cent of *MY* money that Apple ever get", then no it's not scary at all.

 

[chavvdarrr]

The problem is that DRM will not be used just to protect rights. Greed will rear it's head and soon you'll be paying everytime you want to watch a movie, every time you want to watch a game, etc. Not because it helps prevent piracy, but because it makes them more money. If corporations like the media cartels can charge for a thing, they will charge for a thing. They'll have all sorts of justifications (like their fictional piracy figures), but it will basically come down to greed as every year their profits go up.

I read an article recently about some new tech that was demoed, which was basically a DRM's PDF tied to a fingerprint reader (like the one in the Thinkpads). Only with the authorised fingerprint can you open the document. Here, the control of what runs on your computer moves from you, to the person that supplies the content. It would be pretty easy to turn this kind of system into a pay-per-use model by combining it with an online authentication system.

Imagine something like Steam tied to a fingerprint authorisation (so they know it's you) that you need to run a game. The content provider knows it's you thanks to the fingerprint and can charge your credit card each time you play. You can do that with every electronic thing - films, Word documents, game, music, etc. It's being developed right now.

For God's sake, please STOP giving them ideas , you sound scary

 

[pascal]

http://blog.wired.com/music/

Posted by eliotvb at 8:24 AM EST | post your comment (0) | link to this post
Saturday, 18 March 2006
O Canada
While American music-downloaders frequently quail in the shadow of the Recording Industry Association of America, Canadians are in a more tentative place. Despite an ongoing review of Canuck copyright law, the government is still trying to figure out what its position vis a vis downloading will be; how close it will be to the American DCMA, or how far. CRIA is the Canadian equivalent of the RIAA and while it's fought hard against illegal music traders, it's not been able to be quite the vengeful presence that the RIAA is.

Via the blog of Dr Michael Geist, a professor of Internet and E-Commerce Law at the University of Ottawa, comes a pointer to a new CRIA study into the habits of P2P users. As he points out, some of its conclusions challenge the standard anti-piracy line, and more importantly they sorta chime with my own intuitions as an occasional music pirate.

In summary, CRIA's own research now concludes that P2P downloading constitutes less than one-third of the music on downloaders' computers, that P2P users frequently try music on P2P services before they buy, that the largest P2P downloader demographic is also the largest music buying demographic, and that reduced purchasing has little to do with the availability of music on P2P services. I've argued many of these same things, but now you don't have to take my word for it; you can take it from the record labels themselves.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

For God's sake, please STOP giving them ideas , you sound scary

This is all stuff they are already thinking about. They are trying to force people away from consumer laws and into contract law. Thus you don't own anything you buy, you have a contract with the content supplier that governs how, where, and when you use the content. Then they back this up with technological handcuffs and draconian laws from the politicians they have bought.

This is nothing to do with piracy, this is all about putting the foundations into place for a pay-per-everything business model that the cartels think will make them more money in the long term by screwing the customer over for everything we currently take for granted.

 

[darkblu]

For God's sake, please STOP giving them ideas , you sound scary

chavdare, he's not giving ideas to anybody, he's barely touching the surface. let me tell you some more about it. with the advent of DRM there will be a new wave of prices raising rationalized on the basis of 'DRM service providers are processing too much information with this DRM, they need to charge for that'. the very same principle banks in north america have been using for the past 10-15 years, since they gained total information control over people's money flow - banks constantly charge you money for all kinds of information processing wrt the money you keep in those same banks. cool, eh?

 

[hoom]

Everybody see the piece saying DRM is draining batteries on portables to the tune of reducing battery life by up to 25%?

Much as DRM = evil capitalist pig dog ware, if you actually read the figures, 25% was pulled out of thin air.
It was more like 8% over several hours of playing which is a lot different to 25%.