The Inquirer: Microsoft to Lose the Handset DRM Battle

[Jason Eaton]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=34439' target='_blank'>http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=34439</a><br /><br /></div><i>"Industry observers have highlighted the advantage that Apple may gain in the fledgling movie download sector as a result of FairUse4MW - a hack which removes the DRM (Digital Rights Management) from .wma files. The INQ would argue, however, that this weakness is far more important in the mobile handset arena. Chiefly because only a madman would pay to download tracks from iTunes using a regular mobile phone."</i><br /><br />An interesting opinion piece on how Microsoft may be losing its appeal to content distributors as hackers continue to make the DRM ineffective. However without any numbers to gauge the impact to sales is this article more theory then fact?

[Vincent Ferrari]

Industry observers are obviously not aware that Fairplay has been cracked, not once, but twice since version 6 of iTunes, and in fact was cracked hours after the launch of iTunes 7.

In other words, cracking DRM is nothing new nor will it hurt Microsoft, particularly since it seems more and more likely that content creators are less and less likely to feed the current monopoly Apple is creating on digital media (in this case Music and television).

Finally, downloading to a handset is a moot point simply because most handsets now have some kind of secondary connection. In the case of the MDA / SDA and other WM5 devices, it's a WiFi connection, and when it's not often times it's a 2.5G or 3G technology that's as fast as most people's home connection anyway. Madman? Not quite.

It always amuses me when so-called experts miss obvious points.

[Felix Torres]

And, speaking of missing the obvious:

http://news.com.com/The+downside+of+Europes+download+market/2100-1027_3-6117102.html?tag=nefd.top

There can't be a DRM war if customers aren't buying DRM'ed content. :-)
&lt;shrug>
Looks like the ABM crowd are running out of ideas in their never-ending quest to find ways MS might fail. None of which ever seem to have an impact on their bottom line...

There is value in being an 800 pound gorilla. People might fear and hate you, but gnat bites don't hurt, either. ;-)

[Jason Eaton]

I have to agree with your guys points.

What I am hoping will happen one day is that the message might get through that nobody wants DRM and the benfits of placing it on content is often negated making it useless.

Those who are going to steal it will steal it and distributors are only effecting purchasing customers who will often buy content when given the opportunity to buy content at a realistic price.

In the end companies are not losing a sale because of piracy, they never had the sale to begin with.

[Vincent Ferrari]

I don't agree with the whole "All DRM is bad" point, but I do completely and wholeheartedly agree with your assertion that these companies never really had a sale to begin with.

Both the RIAA and MPAA are working on a zero sum game, and that's just flat out wrong. Not every person that that yanks a song off of E-Donkey is a thief who stole money out of the mouths of children as opposed to buying a track. In reality, they probably never would've bought that track anyway.

The truth is that content providers are never going to make their content openly available without DRM. The idea that their "hard work" (and I use the term loosely considering some of the crap out there) could just be passed from one person to another terrifies them.

Apple and Microsoft aren't helping either. Hell, Microsoft's Zune apparently slaps DRM onto tracks that are transferred from one Zune to another even if the original had none to begin with!!! If that doesnt' demonstrate that it isn't just about the content providers, I don't know what is!

Anyway, my point is, I don't mind DRM as long as it's unrestrictive and unintrusive. I'm willing to sacrifice a few conveniences even if all I get out of it is the clear conscience that I did the "right" thing. What I find intolerable is DRM that's broken, eats your content, or works like Amazon's unboxed where they have the right to revoke your content's license and disable it on a whim.

Sorry folks, that ain't gonna fly anymore.

[jickbahtech]

What I find really disappointing though, is that most people can see something like Unbox will fail. It's expensive, inconvenient, and unfair. However, when it does fail, they will use that as proof that no one wants the service, not that the service was broken.

[Jason Dunn]

Hell, Microsoft's Zune apparently slaps DRM onto tracks that are transferred from one Zune to another even if the original had none to begin with!!! If that doesnt' demonstrate that it isn't just about the content providers, I don't know what is!

Just to clarify, there's been some confusion about this Zune feature, and it will not do what you described. I thought so too at first, but if you have a non-DRM'd MP3 track that you ripped from a CD, and you want to send it to another Zune, it will not do the "three day DRM" that was described earlier. So it's all cool. :-)

[Vincent Ferrari]

Sounds good to me... Do you have some hard clarification on this though? It seems like a lot of sites / publications have it way wrong if that's not true.

Even Arstechnica, which is only second to the bible in terms of factual accuracy (okay, maybe that's a bit of a stretch) had this to say:

When Forbes reported last week that Microsoft's new Zune player would add digital rights management (DRM) to unprotected songs, it caused quite a stir. The 'net lit-up with complaints about the practice. Would it violate the Creative Commons license? James Grimmelmann tackled the issue in a long and thoughtful essay from a legal standpoint. Others wrote about the ethical problems of slapping DRM on anything and everything. What about music you have recorded yourself? What about your ripped CDs? What business does Microsoft have toying with this? It would now appear as though the entire fracas was wanting for a fact check.

We started researching this topic over the weekend, convinced that something was wrong. For its part, Microsoft's press release only talked of sharing "select songs, homemade recordings, playlists or pictures" (emphasis added). I still don't think we have the full story yet, but Microsoft's PR people aren't talking on the record.

If it isn't true that your homebaked MP3's will have DRM added to it, MS needs to get out in front of that because in the non-interested-in-the-Zuneosphere that's a big knock, and with a valid reason.

[Jason Dunn]

Sounds good to me... Do you have some hard clarification on this though? It seems like a lot of sites / publications have it way wrong if that's not true.

Well, I've been told that by Cesar Menendes, who's on the Zune team, and I got this email back from someone who had lunch with someone on the Zune team:

"There is no DRM wrapper. Songs transferred to a new Zune are marked as such. You can not re-transmit a song that has been sent to you--at least at launch."

That's about all I can add at this stage. Watch Zune Thoughts for more of course. ;-)

[Vincent Ferrari]

Already do. Religiously. In Bloglines.

Just so you know, I'm pretty excited about the Zune itself. I'm a little nervous that MS is gonna royally F it up, but the device itself seems pretty neat. I can't wait to see one in the flesh!