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The "New" DRM
The New DRM - Page 2
The music industry wasn't real happy when Steve hammered out his deal with the music industry but they went along figuring it would be a good test and they had control. The rest of the computer industry figured this was another one of his dumb ideas that would fall on its ***. It wasn't revolutionary... just elegant. And it was obviously wildly successful. So what the hell? The rest of the industry obviously wanted their piece of the action. Or as Walter Huston (Howard) said... "Ah, as long as there's no find, the noble brotherhood will last but when the piles of gold begin to grow... that's when the trouble starts." Steve's recommendations? Choose from column A, column B or column C: - Column A - Get outta my face - Column B - We'll license FairPlay to folks, charging a hefty fee and raise the cost of iTunes songs. Oh yeah in no time at all your kids will have cracked the code and my 2 billion sales will dwindle because one will buy the song, post it on one of the hundreds of free-for-all sites and you'll have to increase the number of lawsuits (again) - Column C - Your anemic music DRM is a dumb idea anyway so let's just trash it and everyone will happily sell music DRM free and your sales will increase as more players share more music they all ... buy Thank gawd the "he doesn't play nicely with other people" complainers didn't lump video into the mix. Oh that's right. Steve doesn't own music content does he? But video? Disney and Pixar (which he sold to Disney) are movie companies and he is Disney's largest shareholder. Making that DRM free sounds like a really dumb idea! Online video downloads and sales are just taking off. People are increasingly taking advantage of YouTube, TV network and Hollywood/indie download sites for their video on the go. When it comes to paid video downloads, iTunes again leads the pack. NPD estimated last year that Steve's site accounted for 67% of the downloads. Way back in the field were MovieFlix and CinemaNow. The industry is still struggling to figure out how to do with folks like Slingbox that let you shift the time and location of your home cable content to your smartphone, laptop or other device. Slingbox says you've paid for the content so you enjoy it anywhere, anytime, on anything you want. Problem is the artists and providers get paid based on play... every play. As Slingbox and go-for-it video download gain momentum they could see the same proportion of illegal vs. paid downloads the music industry is now experiencing. While folks claim download movie sales are going to go thru the roof just as music has done someone forgot to look at the pipe to your home. The world does not have WiMax everywhere... nor cable... nor satellite... nor even DSL. And downloading standard def takes... TIME! Downloading hi-def on a regular basis takes... FOREVER! While a number of analysts have said under their breaths that the best DRM is no DRM, that isn't going to happen. DRM is big business and it is going to get even bigger. Problem is... it's splintered. Everyone has a solution. Each is built on their platform... with their technology. Every time a DRM/CA solution is introduced it is cracked. The content is shared. Content owners, artists and all the "little people" are screwed! Contrary to what Walter Huston said in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre --"You know the worst ain't so bad when it finally happens. Not half as bad as you figure it'll be before it's happened." -- it is bad because folks are deprived of legitimate income. We all understand that and agree with it. But free is a powerful inducement in grabbing and enjoying your entertainment content - music and video. So if DRM free content isn't going to fly and the courts aren't going to let Steve go along fat, dumb and happy selling in his own closed environment; he could still end up being the big winner. The marketplace could shift from digital music sales to rental and the DRM could be built on Apple's approach. He has met the demands of folks in Europe. He has done his "level best" to protect the consumer. He's now selling technology to everyone in the industry - the big four music companies, Microsoft, HP, Panasonic, Dolby, Clear Channel, you name it. He ends up with whip cream on his face and smelling like a rose. And ... he's already to move swiftly into the digital home space that analysts expect to top 50 million homes in the U.S. households and four times that figure worldwide by 2011. Think about it Steve. The world of entertainment suddenly revolving around DRM that relies on some portions of Apple's technology. That's gonna make a lot of miners jealous!! As Bogie said in the movie... "Do you believe that stuff the old man was saying the other night at the Oso Negro about gold changin' a man's soul so's he ain't the same sort of man as he was before findin' it?" - Andy Marken
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Add Comment
5 User Comments 1 - Posted by
handrail
on February 19, 2007 - 9:08 am well if the stupid music industry would just lower the cost of buying a CD to something reasonable AND allow you to rip the music to MP3, they would most likely take a bite back out of the Apple. if CDs were only $5 instead of $10 or $15 and users could easily rip them to MP3, think of what that would do to sales. i'd certainly buy more CDs...if i cared about the crap pop music that is driving the whole issue in the first place. i typically buy indy music on CD or MP3 from emusic.com so i've never had an DRM issue because the RIAA never enters into the picture. $0.99/song is such a rip off for iTunes or on CD format. there is no reason why it should still cost $10+ per album. i could see if iTunes offered a special for something like $7.99 an album or $0.99/song...at least cut us a better deal for buying the whole album. but no, the industry wants their last little bit of cash to bleed the consumer dry. but then they complain when people take advantage of technology to seek free music. personally i love what the digital music revolution has done for independent music. it has made it easier for small labels to push out new material with less cost. i hope the larger companies loose even more money, they deserve to. DRM is just one more way for large music labels to waste money on ridiculous measures to protect their already overly priced product. and that wasted money ends up getting tacked onto the cost of the CD you purchase at best buy. buy more vinyl. 2 - Posted by
Max Slowik
on February 19, 2007 - 5:41 pm "well if the stupid music industry would just lower the cost of buying a CD to something reasonable AND allow you to rip the music to MP3, they would most likely take a bite back out of the Apple." Ah, but CDs don't use any encryption for content protection, and as such, it is perfectly legal to rip your CDs into .mp3s. One the remaining ways "fair use" seems to still count. What would be really great would be if there was a directory on the audio CD with all the tracks already ripped to a high-bitrate .mp3/ ogg/ something-else-non-DRMed-to-Hell right there, with the album art, lyrics. . .the works. Then iTunes would drop a dozen pegs immediately. (Not that I'm saying that's a great thing, but it would do good things for the record labels.) The best thing is that they could watermark the music, and then have a specific file to search for in piracy lanes. Best of both worlds. 3 - Posted by
Kurtis
on February 19, 2007 - 5:47 pm Digg this article here: http://digg.com/security/The_New_DRM 4 - Posted by
handrail
on February 19, 2007 - 11:22 pm i was referring to the various copy-protections attempts that companies have tried using on CDs.
5 - Posted by
Rich
on February 20, 2007 - 8:02 am The name Sony seems to come up....
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