RIAA Tells CEA's Shapiro To Do The Impossible And Stop Making Them Look Evil
from the muwahahahah dept
The music industry gathered this weekend in Cannes, France, for the annual MIDEM conference, which is one of its biggest trade shows and generally leans quite heavily towards technology. Following the recent trend, the issue of DRM has been a hot topic, with plenty of stories about how record labels are "rethinking" the restrictions they impose on digital downloads. But it really doesn't look like anything is changing: you've got the requisite quotes from industry groups and progressive labels on both sides of the issue and calls from a major download provider for labels to drop DRM (making us again wonder why, if Real's Rob Glaser feels that way, he doesn't try and do something about it). One major-label executive says that labels must change their focus, and think less about unit sales and more about licensing. This is something of a welcome development, although too often "licensing" encompasses trying to extract money from places labels don't really have a claim for it. The real gem of the weekend, though, appears to have come out of the opening session, which featured talking heads from the MPAA and the RIAA alongside Gary Shapiro of the Consumer Electronics Association, who's the closest thing consumers have to a lobbyist. The MPAA and RIAA shills spouted their usual talking points, in particular the favorite fallacy that DRM is necessary to create new business models (when, of course, the exact opposite is true). The RIAA's Mitch Bainwol took a shot at Shapiro by accusing him of teaching "disrespect for intellectual property" -- which is apparently worse than disrespect for your paying customers, but we digress -- and said Shapiro makes the MPAA and RIAA look evil. Shapiro pointed out the obvious: that the groups don't need his help to look evil, since their penchant for suing kids and grandparents does a pretty good job of that on its own.
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"disrespect"
I respect the artists enough to want to pay them, that respect should be mutual in the fact that they should let me do what I want with the music after I purchase it. (Personal use includes making mix cds for my car and loading it onto mp3 players.)
I will not buy DRM protected music. I won't even keep it if it were given to me for free. When I found some DRM protected music pre-loaded on my notebook PC with XP media center, they were deleted faster than you can say "DRM."
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Re: "disrespect"
I can agree with you full-heartedly. I had the same stuff on my XP Media Center PC... and because it wasn't connected to the Internet, I couldn't listen to those bundled ("free") tracks - They were then deleted, to make space for something useful.
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???
All the stories I've seen are mainstream commentaries reccommending / advising opening up downloads. None [of the sites (iTunes, et'all)] have actually "done" anything to change yet...
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how funny AND true
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Re:
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Zing! Would love to see the video of this.
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RIAA needs an enema!
OMG!!! that's pure greatness!!! You don't "MAKE" satan look evil. LOL!
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:]
""...Shapiro pointed out the obvious: that the groups don't need his help to look evil, since their penchant for suing kids and grandparents does a pretty good job of that on its own.""
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or, more realistically, crapped up with inaudible watermarking. I'll never really be convinced that they can be added w/o degrading/altering the recording - not that I'd be able to hear. just in pure terms...
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Re:
Don't worry Joe. Just as a matter of fact regarding the mathematics of digital signal processing - it is impossible to add a watermarking signal W to a desired signal S such that the W could not be removed from S. The only way to do it would be to make every copy of S actually be different, lets call them {S1, S2...Sn} Each Sx would have to be individually rendered. If that was not a digital process then the best speed at which your could reproduce each Sx would be some significant fraction of real time. You couldn't make a "stamper" plate for vinyl that way for example, each one would have to be cut separately. Not very economical or practical. The whole premise of the digital media businesses profitablility is a near zero reproduction cost.
In the digital domain it's easy to circumvent. All I have to do is find any two copies, say Sa and Sb and perform an analysis-resynthesis transform on them which would create a new Sc indistinguishable from either for a listner, but destroying any identifying watermark. Neither Sa nor Sb would be tracable as the sources of Sc. This is slightly different from "copying", call it "sloppying" - you use the the very differences intended to watermark the signal to identify and remove it from the generic Sx.
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RE: "Do something about it" -- ha
You want companies like Microsoft and Real to "do something" about the issue of DRM, but I wonder just what it is you would have them do.
Should Real and Microsoft entirely stop selling music --wrapped in DRM technology that is MANDATED by the labels in order to get a license to offer it in the first place? Would that make you happy?
If your answer is "yes, they should stop selling DRM'ed music and stick it to The Man," then I would add Apple into your list of companies that should "do something about it." Your cherished Apple sells music in DRMed format, just like Microsoft and Real, with a different DRM (FairPlay) but *exactly* the same set of restrictions imposed on them by the major labels.
I personally suspect you then write a post about how lame it is that no major label music is available for legal download at all.
Instead of beating up on the companies who are trying to investing in the space and trying to make lemonade using the only lemons available due to the labels' stupid restrictions, why don't you direct your anger at the labels imposing the restrictions? Cheap shots from Polyannas who bring nothing to the table are useless diversions.
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Re: RE: "Do something about it" -- ha
Was it mandated that Microsoft pay a studio one dollar for each Zune it squirts out to the consumer? I think not.
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So let's see: you invent a completely unnatural concept, you pump it up with wholesale distortion year after year for decades or centuries, you bribe legislators to give it a legal facade, and then you expect people to bow before it docilely?
What are you, some sort of religion?
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DRM Hooplah
I tried to shop at allofmp3.com but Visa cut off currency conversions to Russia. Can't stream music at work well because it's work.
Can't share songs on my Zune. Can't use old music tracks I bought through Microsoft's "Play For Sure" Campaign on the Zune because the DRM is not compatible so I'll have to re-purchase them. Can't play HD movies through Vista and can't get a flash on the iPhone's camera let alone more than a 2 hour battery life for it. But I just payed $600 for a 2 year committment on a phone that can only use one network?
So tell me why Gary Shapiro is not the best lobbyist for us consumers?
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Digital Rights Mismanagement
Nice compendium. I'm sure it could be expanded if any of us has the time or stomach to do so.
Isn't it clear to everyone now that DRM stands for " Digital Rights Mismanagement"? That is, the mismanagement of the Fair Use rights legitimate customers have of their digital media.
I have seen no case where DRM can make a claim to successfully "Managing". But lots of crashes, bugs, problems. Let's put the "Mis" into this acronym and make it honest.
Until I actually see DRM that successfully manages THE CONSUMERS digital rights, it stands for Mismanagement, as far as I'm concerned.
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It hurts to watch...
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