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I don't understand why everyone hates Digital Rights Management (DRM). What do people expect? Apple to sell songs on iTunes that have zero restrictions, can be played on anyones computer, and can be downloaded by anyone? Of all things, Apple has DRM done right. You can play songs on up to 5 computers, unlimited iPods, and burning is restricted to playlists based on repetition (basically unlimited burning). I have two computers (my iMac G5 and 12" PowerBook G4). I play music on those and also give tons of music to my girlfriend. That's three computers. If I had my own family with the average 2.5 children, the 5-computer limit almost covers all of them. Plus, what's the likelihood of my children liking the music I have anyway?
Yes, DRM can suck, a lot at times. Thank's to Sony, DRM can be the cause of a lot of frustration and agony. I just don't understand what people expect from a company selling you music. Do they want Apple to sell them unrestricted songs? I don't get it at all. It seems like the only reason people don't like DRM is because it's popular to dislike DRM. Or they want to burn their friends 700+ songs on a CD without having to authorize their machines. I'm tired of all the winy complaints of "DRM sucks to the max" and "I would never buy of the iTMS, unless they got rid of the DRM." Are you kidding me? Expecting legal downloads to have no restrictions is just ridiculous. What's the big deal? How has DRM effected or impaired the way you listen to music? The only times I'm frustrated is when I'd like to put a song in my podcast or FCP where it shouldn't be in the first place anyway because it's copyrighted material!!! |
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Selfish Heathen
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Zone of Pain
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1. DRM restricts how users and play/read/listen/access what they've purchased. Users are limited to using "approved" devices and software. Thus, DRM completely kills competition and technological advancement unless the product makers kneel to the demands of the DRM owners.
2. DRM restricts what users could previously do freely with what they've purchased, thereby trampling all over existing Fair Use laws. DRM prevents users from making modifications, samples, etc. even for personal, noncommercial, private use. 3. DRM enables big media corporations to require the user to pay multiple times for the same content by making data "expire" at the DRM owners' whim. 4. DRM sets a dangerous precedence for even more restrictive control on existing and future content. Need I go on? The quality of this board depends on the quality of the posts. The only way to guarantee thoughtful, informative discussion is to write thoughtful, informative posts. AppleNova is not a real-time chat forum. You have time to compose messages and edit them before and after posting. |
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I understand TOTALY when complaining about Napster DRM, for instance. Things that expire, that just plain sucks. I guess I was talking more about Apple's DRM. The songs are ours and they won't go away, there is no subscription service.
I never thought about the competition thing. I guess that's because, right now, the iPod (in my opinion) is the best music player out there. If I liked other players more and wanted to use them, I might have a different opinion on this stuff. I guess my MAIN point is this: could you think of a better solution? If you could, I guarantee my thoughts on DRM would change. |
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Veteran Member
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Amsterdam
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As a French person put it in a very French way: DRM turns content into a 'hostage' of technology brands.
I love how the French can get (rightfully) very emotional about this! My, this way of saying it even brings a lump to my throat. But in the case of iTunes I'm not sure I totally agree. Apple advises buyers of their music to make backups on cd. And once you do that, your music is really free like any old cd you buy in a store. I wonder if iTunes Store would be viable under French conditions and how much it would affect iPod sales. (not sure if this goes beyond the scope of this thread though...) I also think, like Nato64 pointed out, that there are very different DRMs, I'm not sure how the French would treat Apple's specific DRM? |
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Selfish Heathen
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Zone of Pain
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Also, note that Apple has changed and reserves the right to change at any time the "rights" we have on our purchased content. Think hard about that for a minute. Oh, and what if you happen to lose your internet connection and need to authenticate? Or Apple's servers go belly-up? In any of a hundred other doomsday scenarios, those files that are yours that "won't go away" will be worthless because you cannot play them. Quote:
DRM aims to kill Linux? You betcha. DRM (and any encryption algorithm with which you have all the keys) by its very nature can not be open source; thus, it is fundamentally incompatible with the free software movement. Quote:
The real problem here is that the big media companies are holding onto a dated and dying business model. They need to adapt and stop treating their own damn customers like criminals. Move to a pricing structure where the consumer would prefer to buy the content than to pirate it and risk prosecution. The quality of this board depends on the quality of the posts. The only way to guarantee thoughtful, informative discussion is to write thoughtful, informative posts. AppleNova is not a real-time chat forum. You have time to compose messages and edit them before and after posting. |
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i see your point, but the fact is we are criminals. who here hasn't downloaded something illegally? i hope i don't get banned for mentioning that i've done something illegal but that's my point. why would i buy something off iTunes if my friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend already did?
now, i'm speaking as someone who downloads all his music off itunes. but if it was super easy to get it free? who knows. but for a fact there would be 5x the amount of illegal downloaders. |
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Selfish Heathen
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Zone of Pain
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but come on, you must have a hard time believing that if iTunes offered DRM-free content that there would be no more people stealing music than there already is. then again, that might outweigh the business that they'd receive from people that use other players, but i highly doubt it. |
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Veteran Member
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Amsterdam
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It's a hyped up thing again. If you read above what's really going to change about the law in France, you can see that nothing is going to change in the way people use iTunes. The French law seems even to favor the iTunes license model compared to subscription models. The only difference is that you may hack the DRM. But you don't even have to under current conditions. Right now you can remove DRM by burning music on cd and rip it as MP3. Things get only a little easier (if you consider selecting, installing and using hacking software easier), but piracy will essentially remain as easy as it is. So iTunes sales are not going to be hurt. They're even going to have an advance over subscription services. It's practically another blow to Microsoft - hope they did it on purpose! btw Reuters is a bit of a nasty source sometimes. Apart from hyping up things, the article I quote here also says that music bought on iTunes music can only play on an iPod (which is, q.e.d., untrue). Last edited by Doxxic : 2006-03-15 at 04:52. |
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Selfish Heathen
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Zone of Pain
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1. The customer is guaranteed a reliable catalog and download service. 2. The products are consistent in quality. 3. The products are available in a variety of formats. 4. The customer is not breaking the law. 5. The prices are reasonable. If the whole industry moved to match those Russian websites' business structure, the incentive to pirate the product rather than buy it would be dramatically diminished. Quote:
The quality of this board depends on the quality of the posts. The only way to guarantee thoughtful, informative discussion is to write thoughtful, informative posts. AppleNova is not a real-time chat forum. You have time to compose messages and edit them before and after posting. |
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Selfish Heathen
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Zone of Pain
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Did you miss the rest of my last reply? What do you think about my comments?
Ah, get some sleep. Maybe when you wake up and are feeling better you'll understand why DRM is so evil. |
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Selfish Heathen
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Zone of Pain
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Seriously, though, go get some sleep (I need to too ). I hope you feel better soon! The quality of this board depends on the quality of the posts. The only way to guarantee thoughtful, informative discussion is to write thoughtful, informative posts. AppleNova is not a real-time chat forum. You have time to compose messages and edit them before and after posting. |
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Veteran Member
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Amsterdam
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Hey y'all my rather brilliant contribution a few lines up is facing the risk of being overlooked, while it puts the hype pretty sensibly into perspective!
As for the rest, I agree totally with Brad. Though I think Apple's DRM is not restrictive at all and exists mostly to help negotiators of media companies convince their bosses that Apple can be trusted. Those bosses are 50 years old and up until 3 yrs ago they never touched a computer. All they saw was a system they didn't understand where people stole their trade. It takes a concept like DRM to get them over the bridge, but after 10 more years the world will be DRM free, hopefully. Last edited by Doxxic : 2006-03-15 at 05:15. |
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Yarp
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Road Warrior
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I don't mind apple DRM all that much. The system works fine for me and is rarely an inconvenience. I have purchased over 1000 songs on iTunes(mostly as albums), I love it.
Guess I drank the kool-aid, but still, it's really not an issue for me and I've gotten tons of great new music out of it all. The only modification to Apple's DRM I would like to see is the ability to stream downloaded music to another computer without authorizing it, while mostly harmless for the average user, that would open a pretty wide avenue for easily (illegally) copying music. I agree that the record labels are dinosaurs trying to operate under an old model in a new world, there are plenty of problems with how labels operate and etc...etc. But, none of that really affects me. Shrug. Maybe I'm selfish, or just plain stupid, iTunes treats me well and I have no incentive to change really. |
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Student extraordinaire
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Canberra, Australia
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As other people have said:
1) DRM locks you into a platform. No thanks. 2) DRM gives you a less useful product than a product without DRM. No thanks. The above applies even to iTunes, which people hold up as a shining example of "good" DRM. Again, no thanks. The sky was deep black; Jesus still loved me. I started down the alley, wailing in a ragged bass. |
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Yarp
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Road Warrior
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1. Perfectly valid, but if the platform works perfectly for you, or even exceeds your needs, what me worry? 2. How? You listen to music. Having a variety of formats or the ability to easily copy to an infinite number of locations doesn't inherently make the product any more useful(a metaphor to apple's entire business model can be applied here). Perhaps for some, but I would suspect they are a minority. Again, if it meets your needs(which, for most people are pretty damn simple... you listen to music), DRM'd music isn't exactly less useful, it still accomplishes its primary and most used use just fine. |
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Student extraordinaire
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Canberra, Australia
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iTunes forces you to:
Use iTunes now and forever Use Mac OS X or Windows now and forever Use an iPod now and forever. It's not the "now" part I'm concerned about. The sky was deep black; Jesus still loved me. I started down the alley, wailing in a ragged bass. |
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Senior Member
Join Date: Dec 2005
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simple answer -> dont buy music from the iTunes music store
support your local record store, buy a CD, get a nice hard copy with shiny photos and lyrics and all the other great things that make owning hard copies a joy after all theres nothing quite like a shelf full of CDs (even if you are just gonna burn them to iTunes in the end |
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Selfish Heathen
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Zone of Pain
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The quality of this board depends on the quality of the posts. The only way to guarantee thoughtful, informative discussion is to write thoughtful, informative posts. AppleNova is not a real-time chat forum. You have time to compose messages and edit them before and after posting. |
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Veteran Member
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: State of Flux
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Barto, from what I've gathered in this thread and in the other 'French' thread, I don't understand your points. Can't one just buy the music, ditch the DRM, put the music back on to their computer, and then proceed to use any software, player or operating system they choose. Maybe I'm confused. |
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reticulating your mom
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Yeah; even though Apple's DRM is the least restrictive around, I try to steer away from DRM'ed content as principle. For the last couple years, I've totally been in love with Apple computers and iPods... what if that changes a few years from now?
I'm sick of the terminology content providers use here... I don't license content I buy, I own it. Do you get a EULA with the purchase of a DVD? A CD*? No, because you paid for it... you own it. iTMS and others should be no different. The truth is, I can legally do whatever I want with a CD I buy in the store. I can rip it to iTunes (and at a higher bitrate as well) and play it on all my computers (including Linux), burn mix CDs, put them on my iPod, whatever. Fair Use has allowed me to do this since I was born. I paid good money for that CD, so I can listen to it however the hell I want. So why should these internet music stores (iTMS was the first, but more followed) restrict how I can listen to my music? I'm pretty much paying the same price I would in a retail store for lower-quality compressed music, and on top of that, I'm limited in how I can listen to it? No thanks, I'll take my business elsewhere. Now you cannot tell me that removing DRM from iTMS purchases would decrease sales. I would definitely become a more regular customer if the songs were distributed without DRM. (*Haha, well Sony changed this...) Edit: Here's an interesting analogy... what if Petco sold DRM'ed guinea pigs? When you bought the guinea pigs, you had to sign a lengthy license agreement in the store. You had to keep them in Petco-brand cages and feed them Petco-brand food. If your guinea pigs make babies, you cannot give them away or sell them to friends... that would be guinea pig piracy, since you'd be taking business away from Petco. Your guinea pig DRM says that guinea pig breeding is for personal use only; distributing the puppies would be a violation of your EULA. What kind of a crap deal would that be? You're pretty much getting the same thing with iTMS. You ask me for a hamburger. Last edited by atomicbartbeans : 2006-03-15 at 07:01. |
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Member
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: UK
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I am pretty sure that you don't own the contents when you buy a CD either. You certainly don't own any copyright on it and can't do whatever you want with it. You aren't allowed to copy it and give it to all your friends, sell copies, claim it's your own material etc. |
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reticulating your mom
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That's true (and why I didn't use DVDs as an example)... you can thank the motherfucks who invented the DMCA for that.
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You ask me for a hamburger. |
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Member
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: UK
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From my first read of your post, I got the impression that you were saying that once you bought a CD, you could (as in were permitted rather than were physically able to) do with the contents of the CD whatever you wanted. This is not the case. In terms of ownership, you could say that you own the file that you downloaded from iTunes - it was just that in order to do anything useful with it (listen to it), you need to have Apple's permission (authorise your computer). There is nothing Apple could do to stop you printing out a binary dump of the file and using it as wallpaper - but that's not really as much fun as listening to it. So - yes, I'd agree that DRM sucks! I don't have a CD to look at but I am pretty sure there is a copyright paragraph somewhere on the packaging of most of them that is not all the different to an EULA (i.e. specifies not for public performance etc.). |
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Veteran Member
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Amsterdam
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Apple DRM is a joke. Fake. Non-existent. A placebo for record bosses with cold feet who are finding out that they aren't earning one penny less for it. And to consumers, Apple DRM is no restriction, only a little inconvenience sometimes which is easily compensated by the ease of use of iTunes as a whole. I said it before: essential is that the new French laws favor Apple's licencing model and hurt the really strict subscription models that Microsoft et al. have. It's Microsoft who has to worry. |
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Member
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: UK
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If you rip it again, you can either do it lossless and use a lot of disk space or lossy (AAC/mp3/whatever) and take a second quality hit. So you do have DRM-free music but it's either very large or lower quality than the music you bought. |
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Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Amsterdam
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Selfish Heathen
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Zone of Pain
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The quality of this board depends on the quality of the posts. The only way to guarantee thoughtful, informative discussion is to write thoughtful, informative posts. AppleNova is not a real-time chat forum. You have time to compose messages and edit them before and after posting. |
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