I really don't understand how opening DRM to third parties or dropping DRM encourages piracy. It would be easier to casually "share" media from person to person, but online file trading is there whether or not iTunes is available. P2P existed before iTunes, and should iTunes die, it will probably still be around long afterwards. Despite the easy the availability of free tracks, what Apple showed is that there are a lot of people still willing to pay for a track. I don't see how losing or opening the DRM will make any difference in that regard.
Empirical and anecdotal evidence indicate that DRM does discourage some casual sharing, but on the whole, it is ineffective in stopping piracy. But that's not what the owners of the music believe. As others have said, the major labels' stance is: No DRM, no digital downloads. Period. End-stop.
So dropping DRM means no digital downloads which means more piracy, and more ripped CDs. Why? Because the iPod and other players still exist.
Opening DRM to 3rd parties could lead to DRM that intrudes or unduly complicates a user's ability to listen to the music anywhere/anytime, which will lead to piracy (hey, MP3s always work!). If opening DRM leads to unreliable DRM, then the labels will shut down the stores, move even more aggressively to put DRM on CDs, and we go back to piracy.
People are putting up a strawman argument regarding interoperability and lock-in when most people simply don't care about it. How many people are buying iPods today because they've spent too much on Fairplay songs? 42 million players/1 billion songs/average 25 songs per iPod. Averages are misleading but I'd bet 90% of iPod owners have less than $200 worth of songs. Not much lock-in going on.
For those who are concerned about having a wide choice of future players or future stores, Apple says go buy a WMA player (or buy CDs or do a loss-of-quality burn/rip). For those who don't care about that, but care more about today's "just works" and ease-of-use, Apple says here's our end-to-end system - iPod-iTunes-iTMS. Your choice.
Now if you remove all DRM, it benefits Apple as those who bought WMA because of player choice, would now also consider an iPod. But if you impose complicated DRM meshing, it hurts Apple because it messes with "just works" and ease-of-use. But it will also hurt the music industry, because if getting a song to play on any player gets too complicated (and most players are iPods), people will just go back to MP3s.
Closing down the French iTunes Store. Hmmm... While I have nothing against the French personally, if that store does close down, maybe there would be room in the Apple store network for a New Zealand iTunes store!! Wooohooo!
I just can imagine downloading some sweet kiwi tunes legally to listen to over here and supporting the artists.. I mean Irish music is great and all, but the sounds of home... (sigh)
After all our Patent offices are good enough for Apple.
Once again Le Macbidouille has a better understanding of the whole broughaha. They're a french publication after all, which WIRED, FORBES, and AI aren't (which is especially important in BS legal matters):
Closing down the French iTunes Store. Hmmm... While I have nothing against the French personally, if that store does close down, maybe there would be room in the Apple store network for a New Zealand iTunes store!! Wooohooo!
I'm surprised that the music lables did not allow Apple to have an ANZ (Australia, New Zealand) licensing agreement, since in many ways New Zealand depends on Australia for much of its direct imports.
Continuing the theme, MacBidouille says that the French Mac community is against the bill: http://www.hardmac.com/news/2006-03-27/#5303, but mainly because of the other provisions affecting fair use and open source concepts.
Also, the Gartner analysts (McGuire) have finally come up with some analysis that makes sense - at least, from my point of view And vnunet, which usually has an anti-mac slant is carrying that analysis:
Comments
Originally posted by JeffDM
...
I really don't understand how opening DRM to third parties or dropping DRM encourages piracy. It would be easier to casually "share" media from person to person, but online file trading is there whether or not iTunes is available. P2P existed before iTunes, and should iTunes die, it will probably still be around long afterwards. Despite the easy the availability of free tracks, what Apple showed is that there are a lot of people still willing to pay for a track. I don't see how losing or opening the DRM will make any difference in that regard.
Empirical and anecdotal evidence indicate that DRM does discourage some casual sharing, but on the whole, it is ineffective in stopping piracy. But that's not what the owners of the music believe. As others have said, the major labels' stance is: No DRM, no digital downloads. Period. End-stop.
So dropping DRM means no digital downloads which means more piracy, and more ripped CDs. Why? Because the iPod and other players still exist.
Opening DRM to 3rd parties could lead to DRM that intrudes or unduly complicates a user's ability to listen to the music anywhere/anytime, which will lead to piracy (hey, MP3s always work!). If opening DRM leads to unreliable DRM, then the labels will shut down the stores, move even more aggressively to put DRM on CDs, and we go back to piracy.
People are putting up a strawman argument regarding interoperability and lock-in when most people simply don't care about it. How many people are buying iPods today because they've spent too much on Fairplay songs? 42 million players/1 billion songs/average 25 songs per iPod. Averages are misleading but I'd bet 90% of iPod owners have less than $200 worth of songs. Not much lock-in going on.
For those who are concerned about having a wide choice of future players or future stores, Apple says go buy a WMA player (or buy CDs or do a loss-of-quality burn/rip). For those who don't care about that, but care more about today's "just works" and ease-of-use, Apple says here's our end-to-end system - iPod-iTunes-iTMS. Your choice.
Now if you remove all DRM, it benefits Apple as those who bought WMA because of player choice, would now also consider an iPod. But if you impose complicated DRM meshing, it hurts Apple because it messes with "just works" and ease-of-use. But it will also hurt the music industry, because if getting a song to play on any player gets too complicated (and most players are iPods), people will just go back to MP3s.
Closing down the French iTunes Store. Hmmm... While I have nothing against the French personally, if that store does close down, maybe there would be room in the Apple store network for a New Zealand iTunes store!! Wooohooo!
I just can imagine downloading some sweet kiwi tunes legally to listen to over here and supporting the artists.. I mean Irish music is great and all, but the sounds of home... (sigh)
After all our Patent offices are good enough for Apple.
http://www.hardmac.com/news/2006-03-22/#5289
http://www.hardmac.com/news/2006-03-25/#5302
Originally posted by strobe
Once again Le Macbidouille has a better understanding of the whole broughaha.
Which they clearly show in this little snippit
the French government should really stop trying to give lesson about Human Rights to other countries, and propose a merger with China
Originally posted by lostkiwi
Hello everyone!
Closing down the French iTunes Store. Hmmm... While I have nothing against the French personally, if that store does close down, maybe there would be room in the Apple store network for a New Zealand iTunes store!! Wooohooo!
I'm surprised that the music lables did not allow Apple to have an ANZ (Australia, New Zealand) licensing agreement, since in many ways New Zealand depends on Australia for much of its direct imports.
Also, the Gartner analysts (McGuire) have finally come up with some analysis that makes sense - at least, from my point of view
http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/21...m-ruling-spark
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,189374,00.html
The only good part is when he says he moving to france. they deserve each other.
Hasta la vista baby!