Why You Should Never Buy DRM Content

[Vampire Lestat]

DRM is anti-Internet, anti-efficiency, anti-fun, anti-interroperability.
Essentially, you pay to have less, and to be controlled.

When you buy CD DVDs, you are accused of being a criminal if you rip them. You can't win.

The Internet has revolutionized humanity; its culture of sharing knowledge, little vibrations of air (music) and little vibrations of light (movies) must be protected. Real crime is not the sharing of the latter; real crime is when people stab, kill, rape, steal physical things, don't pay their taxes, exploit their labour, support genocide, etc.

The RIAA, MPAA, book companies, etc must adapt their business models to accomodate the Internet and not the other way around.

DRM is anti-sharing, thus anti-Internet, thus anti-humanity.

End of story.

[Vampire Lestat]

DRM is anti-Internet, anti-efficiency, anti-fun, anti-interroperability.
Essentially, you pay to have less, and to be controlled.

When you buy CD DVDs, you are accused of being a criminal if you rip them. You can't win.

The Internet has revolutionized humanity; its culture of sharing knowledge, little vibrations of air (music) and little vibrations of light (movies) must be protected. Real crime is not the sharing of the latter; real crime is when people stab, kill, rape, steal physical things, don't pay their taxes, exploit their labour, support genocide, etc.

The RIAA, MPAA, book companies, etc must adapt their business models to accomodate the Internet and not the other way around.

DRM is anti-sharing, thus anti-Internet, thus anti-humanity.

End of story.

[Ed Hansberry]

Originally Posted by Vampire Lestat

The Internet has revolutionized humanity; its culture of sharing knowledge, little vibrations of air (music) and little vibrations of light (movies) must be protected. Real crime is not the sharing of the latter; real crime is when people stab, kill, rape, steal physical things, don't pay their taxes, exploit their labour, support genocide, etc.

no, they are both crimes. The former (massive "sharing") is a civil crime as opposed to a violent crime. how can you distinguish tex evasion, which is essentially theft, from stealing the intellectual property of others?

[jgrnt1]

A few years ago (when I got my first PPC), I ripped all my CD's to mp3's. In the last couple of years, I've purchased about 40 songs in protected WMA format. Somewhere along the way, I lost the licenses to the oldest 20 or so songs. Since I purchase from several sites, I don't even know which site to ask for another license, though Wal-Mart did let me redownload a few that I remembered purchasing from them. I now have about 15 songs which I "purchased," but cannot play. Even with the songs I have licenses for, I can't just copy them to a CF card and pop them into my PPC, I have to transfer them with the licenses.

I recently installed a Sonos Digital Music System in my house. I have copied all of my music to a Maxtor NAS, so the Sonos has access to it even when no PC's are running. I'm reripping all of my CD's to FLAC, something which wasn't practical until the cost of storage came down. The issue I have is with the WMA files. I want them to be mine forever, since I "bought" them. If I don't keep track of all the licenses, though, I'm screwed. I know there are DRM stripping tools out there, but you still need the licenses to use the tools. I guess the smart thing to do would be to buy the songs and strip the DRM right away, but that potentially puts you on the wrong side of the law.

I have the same problem with ebooks, but magnified because I have purchased a bunch of them. I have to depend on Mobipocket staying alive and also have to redownload all my ebooks when I change devices. Since I have purchased from more than one source, I have the same issue as with my purchased music files. Rather than organizing my music and ebooks in a logical fashion, I guess I will have to stick them in folders organized by store -- Wal-Mart, Napster, Mobipocket, Fictionwize, Amazon, etc.

[jutae]

Um you people need tunebite...

[Tierran]

As someone who never owned much music, I find that people who own hundreds of records, tapes & CDs don't appreciate the benefits that DRM can offer. DRMed music should appeal to people like me and when you take a moment to think about it, its easier to understand why.

Take someone who owns no music. Ignore the people who own thousands of songs. For the younger generations who don't have music yet...DRM subscription based content is an awesome way to get music. I spend such a small amount of money on music that during my life I'll spend a fraction of what most of you had to spend to build up your collections.

In return, I get to 'rent' music and get an array of options I'd never had before. For me, DRM music isn't about buying music. Its about buying a service to let me listen to whatever I want.

[Gerard]

Originally Posted by jgrnt1

... buy the songs and strip the DRM right away, but that potentially puts you on the wrong side of the law.

If you live in the US, 'potentially' is inaccurate. Circumvention of DRM encryption is in direct violation of the DMCA, and could land you a fine, or 'potentially' some jail time if the RIAA decides to push that hard. If caught, they'll extort hundreds or even thousands of dollars per song in a 'settlement.' They've already succeeded in this thousands of times. Can you prove you haven't shared your ripped files?

Originally Posted by Tierran

For me, DRM music isn't about buying music. Its about buying a service to let me listen to whatever I want.

... until, as pointed out by others with real-world pain to show for their rental fee, you a) have a hard drive die. b) lose your rental records, c) change to a newer device which no longer supports the format you rented.... etcetera. Ipods die. So do PCs, Macs, whatever. So your lifetime rental of music is only for the lifetime of your hardware.

With the average hard drive dying in under 10 years, and DRM schemes and compressed music formats changing all the time, comparing vinyl or CD collecting to the convenience and economy of what the DRM pushers are selling is a false comparison. The major labels aren't offering a decent alternative (such as the $5 CD we were promised in the early '80's, which never materialized), so users are providing their own alternative; file sharing. If and when the mega-corps wake up, they'll get on the case and start trusting their customers and just sell the dang tunes.

[Tierran]

a) have a hard drive die.

Why does this matter? I don't store the music locally. I just download it when I want to put it on an MP3 player and then delete it eventually.

b) lose your rental records

I would say that this statement shows a bit of ignorance of what JANUS (rental) music actually is There are no records. You pay a subscription fee and you listen to the music while you pay that fee. There are no 'rental records' beyond the DRM on the file.

c) change to a newer device which no longer supports the format you rented.... etcetera. Ipods die. So do PCs, Macs, whatever. So your lifetime rental of music is only for the lifetime of your hardware.

Yes and no. I had an iRiver T10 for JANUS subscription music that I recently gave to my mom in preperation for getting the Zune. The Zune as we're all aware now doesn't use JANUS. So all of my subscription music doesn't work with it. Oh no, what will I do...wait, I know. I'll cancel my subscription to URGE and subscribe to the Zune store.

From my perspective...the only thing that will change is what MP3 player I'm using and the store that I download my tracks from. Subscription music likely will always be around in some form...I suspect it will become the dominant form of online purchasing. I mean, the argument against subscription music is like saying paying for SatRad is a waste because if your radio breaks you have to get a new one that works with that network and the network may go out of business one day.

Yes, all of the above may happen...but someone will probably still be providing more music so I'll get on with my life (and if they're not..well I didn't buy any music before and I don't ever intend to start. Its too expensive for the amount I listen to music. So I'll just go back to my old method...the radio.)

With the average hard drive dying in under 10 years, and DRM schemes and compressed music formats changing all the time, comparing vinyl or CD collecting to the convenience and economy of what the DRM pushers are selling is a false comparison. The major labels aren't offering a decent alternative (such as the $5 CD we were promised in the early '80's, which never materialized), so users are providing their own alternative; file sharing. If and when the mega-corps wake up, they'll get on the case and start trusting their customers and just sell the dang tunes.

I haven't had a CD last that long either. Audio casette tapes were very popular for 15 years or so and their lifespan was a few years at best. And while vinyl may have lasted the longest, most people don't have that sort of equipment these days to play it. People are always rebuying their music. I personally think the people who complain about DRM generally just like they have something to complain about.

[Vampire Lestat]

Tons of the laws of the past were unfair, did not represent a social reality, or were simply destined to be changed. DMCA acts and all its brothers in other countries will all eventually be removed or neutered. If they are not, then we have a very serious social problem because the RIAA, BSA, MPAA suits are nothing but the beginning of a social cancer that will spread. Taken to its complete logic, those interest groups will get governments to simply hand over the keys of the Internet and hardware makers to them, THEY will decide how we communicate, THEY will decide how we entertain ourselves, THEY will decide who is a criminal or not by choosing who they sue.

If people were to pay for everything they watch, listen to, read, etc, they would all be broke. The creators of IP content deserve compensation and incentives for creating new content must exist. To do that, business models have to change. But the industry has to work to do that! Right now they are not, they are taking the "We will change the laws, sue, and forcefully control HOW the Internet works, OUR way". Those industries have to
1) downscale in size and power (which they dont want to do of course, and are now flooding the courts).
2) CONTINUE to earn by using radio royalties, advertising royalties, direct advertising revenue, concert revenue, physical products revenue.
3) Make new "time based" revenue streams by selling services like Web portals that allows consumers to tailor the unprotected filetype/bitrate (mp3, ogg, pixel size for movies) to their devices, and download songs from super huge and complete libraries. People will pay for instant access high quality tailored content. Other time based revenue is like online gaming. People gladly pay for the service of being able to build a community through a server/service. Find a way to do that in the music and video world. Perhaps a music site that that has live chats with artists all while offering you access to an endless music download library?
No that is all too complicated for the industry, they prefer to hang on the past, or be greedy and simply have everything for themselves, even if it means handicapping or destroying a R-E-V-O-L-U-T-I-O-N-A-R-Y medium/tool called the I-N-T-E-R-N-E-T.


Laws are made to be changed. When hundreds of millions, soon billions, of people do a common thing, you can no longer consider it criminal. You change your law and adapt it to what is going on. This is a simple analysis because it is very clear and very logical that you should not make billions of citizens, sitting in their chairs staring at a screen, CRIMINALS for doing just that... sitting quietly in a chair, having an intellectual stimulation (music, book, movie). I know many people would love to supersimpliy the matter and keep coming to the overly simplistic conclusion: *talking like a robot* It is theft. It is theft. It is theft. It is theft. It is theft; but they are wrong. The Internet is a intellectual sharing tool, and that is our future. And its good.

The Internet is so powerful and societal changing that old laws, old lawmakers are struggling to find a way to continue to promote values of fairness and values of non-theft. Values that I personally share! The problem today is that everyone starts off with the premise that sharing is criminal. That thinking template will change. And if people don't change we will simply have to progressively shut down the Internet and hand over more and more of it to special interest groups.

The Internet is so powerful and efficient in sharing, that the Intellectual Property market cannot compete. Instead of adapting, they are sueing and using terror tactics. They have a literal army of lobbyist roaming the globe, all on 1 mission: control the Internet, model it to their benefit all under the simplistique guise "Well, we created that content!".
You can see all kinds of increasingly retarded anti-Internet suits going on these days: suits against Google for putting pictures, Google offering book snippets, Google for not posting a court judgement online, YouTube video, etc.

Yet... we all agree that Google is an amazing, revolutionary set of IP tools right? Who here does not appreciate its efficiency, its entertainment?

Look, I could go on and on all day on this, but this matter is already resolved in my mind. The Internet will go on, the laws must be changed to favor individual freedom, individual privacy, efficiency in communication, freedom to choose any kind of playback hardware, freedom to archiv any kind of data in any form, etc, etc, etc.

For all of you who are discouraged and upset, your feelings are normal. You know intuitively that you are not criminals and that something is very wrong with RIAA MPAA BSA, etc tactics. Our generation is pretty much finished with and we will have to live the rest of our lives with this army of interest groups and lawmakers who want to snuff the Internet.

But there is hope as today's kids will be tomorrows adults, tomorrow's lawyers, businessmen, leaders, and I am confident they will change the laws to secure Internet freedom/privacy, to better reflect a social reality, to better recognize that the Internet has solidified economies, has dramatically empowered individuals, has spawned many new small and big businessness, etc.

Are we ready to give all that up because a limited number is super powerful music/video market segments are unwilling to adapt?

No.

Do the right thing, make a stand, and do not feed the anti-Internet, anti-humanity interest beast that is named DRM.

[Gerard]

Must feel pretty good, Tierran, being able to speak for all music listeners with such confidence. I'll continue supporting the artists I enjoy by purchasing their recordings directly, thanks anyway. Your listening rental scheme works for you and some others, great. For those who don't use music like junk food... ownership of portable, collectible media is more to the point. I'm happy, for example, that I was able to copy all my out-of-print vinyl to digital files. There is no other way to get much of that stuff.

[Tierran]

Originally Posted by Gerard

Must feel pretty good, Tierran, being able to speak for all music listeners with such confidence. I'll continue supporting the artists I enjoy by purchasing their recordings directly, thanks anyway. Your listening rental scheme works for you and some others, great. For those who don't use music like junk food... ownership of portable, collectible media is more to the point. I'm happy, for example, that I was able to copy all my out-of-print vinyl to digital files. There is no other way to get much of that stuff.

When did I ever mention all music listeners. I'm pretty sure I was talking about mself. I'm not snobbish about my music like you are. Its entertainment...get over yourself.