Please Ditch DRM
Today’s most popular iPod holds 1000 songs, and research tells us that the average iPod is nearly full. This means that only 22 out of 1000 songs, or under 3% of the music on the average iPod, is purchased from the iTunes store and protected with a DRM. [...] In 2006, under 2 billion DRM-protected songs were sold worldwide by online stores, while over 20 billion songs were sold completely DRM-free and unprotected on CDs by the music companies themselves. The music companies sell the vast majority of their music DRM-free, and show no signs of changing this behavior, since the overwhelming majority of their revenues depend on selling CDs which must play in CD players that support no DRM system.
In theory the idea of DRM has always made business sense and made an easy sell to companies with products that could be sold and transmitted over the internet. In practice its almost always a different case. Remember the good ol days?
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Kryn
replyWhat's really needed is some sort of open standard DRM that would allow someone to log in once and buy music from all stores that can be played in all software that can be played on all players, etc. Something simple and free to implement so that even freeware media players could add support in.
I mean, the ideal DRM lets you do anything a non-DRM file does except copy it for someone else.-
I mean, the ideal DRM lets you do anything a non-DRM file does except copy it for someone else.
Isn't that sort of ... silly though?
If you can copy something for your own needs(music backup, playing it on something besides computer), there's always going to be a way to copy it to create a DRM free copy. Honestly, if nothing else, you can always just rip directly from the sound output.
I understand that DRM's only real purpose is to make it 'harder' to do these things. But it all seems so worthless to me. Ah, whatever.-
He's talking about on online like service, where it basically streams to your device. So, you would establish a library of music, on your account, that gives you access to that song wherever you are. You go to your car, you sign in as yourself, and you listen to all your music. It goes with you wherever you go. It also would require internet access everywhere. It really is where things will eventually go to, it just will require a few breakthrough internet technologies.
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Not true. You paid for access to shit. If the service goes down it's no different than if I simply chose to stop paying, and I can go find a new service.
Compared to the Store buying system, where if the store goes down I have to find a new Store and then rebuy all the same music with their DRM if I want a complete music library. -
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Consumer demands are picky.
For instance, the ideal DRM would probably still need some sort of computer system to identify who you are, but as you put there's people who want to play music away from a computer and an internet connection.
What the music industry should wish for, and what it likely will never be able to get the market to accept, is a console-style closed platform with a new protected media and authorized players.
Trying to replace CD audio with such a thing would be a harder task than what lies ahead for Blu-Ray.
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Not a bad idea. This kind of happend with digital certificates. There just needs to be a market player right now with the balls to make it work.
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