Apple Wants To Make DRM Extortion Explicit
from the fair-use-costs-extra dept
For years, DRM critics have been arguing that the technology isn't so much about stopping piracy as it is about taking away traditional fair use privileges and then selling them back to you. I've agreed with this for a while, but I never thought I'd see a major DRM vendor admit it so candidly: Steve Jobs has apparently been pitching Hollywood studios on the idea of selling "premium" DVDs that include an iTunes-compatible version of the movie. For an extra $3 or $4, you can buy the privilege of playing your legally-purchased movie on the device of your choice—well, the Apple-manufacturered device of your choice, anyway. Only the DMCA makes this kind of extortion possible. Tools like HandBrake make it possible to convert a DVD to an iPod-compatible format without any help from Apple, but Handbrake is an illegal "circumvention device" under the DMCA. Compare that to the CD, which was developed long before the DMCA and comes without copy protection. The courts have held that "space-shifting" your CDs to a portable music device is a fair use. So you can legally import your CD collection to your iPod, or any other device, without paying a penny. But Steve Jobs apparently wants to charge you $4 for the privilege of doing the same with your DVDs.
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Filed Under: business models, drm, itunes
Companies: apple
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Apple's DRM Extortion
The issue is that the studios want to charge consumers more for the downloads than Jobs thinks they are worth, after all, you don't get a disk, bonus features or liner notes.
The studios are also afraid of offending their major distributors Wal Mart and Target. The new Fox Die Hard #4 DVD Special Edition includes a non-iPod compatible version of the movie at an extra $4 charge. According to you, Apple is getting this money.
So, please if you are going to write an article about the movie downloading industry, at least get your cast of characters correct and their roles.
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No, thanks
-American
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It's even better than that!
Yes, they charge more for less! (Do media companies not have any economists on staff?)
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Playing Devil's Advocate
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Re: Playing Devil's Advocate
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Re: Playing Devil's Advocate
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Here Here...
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that's not extortion...
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Re: It's even better than that!
i think the answer has to be: obviously, yes! squeeze those profits, mofo!
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Rip Off
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Re: Playing Devil's Advocate
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Re: Re: It's even better than that!
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your head
(Any economics student can tell you that trying to sell less for more is doomed to fail.)
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Re: Apple's DRM Extortion
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Re: Re: Apple's DRM Extortion
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Re:
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Re: Apple's DRM Extortion
So you are saying that Steve is offering up the tools to get on the iPod to the movie studios for free? I highly doubt that. I am quite sure Steve is offering this in return for a cut of the "reuse tax". If you want to buy the same stuff directly from Apple...you will pay way more than $4.
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Not that bad...
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Not a new idea
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Re:
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Re: Re: Apple's DRM Extortion
Apple sells movie downloads for $10. The studios are screaming this isn't enough. Apple does not make money on content. They make money selling devices. Apple has been willing to eat the costs of maintaining the store. How many retailers will do that?
The movie studios and recording industry have been forcing us to buy the same content over and over again. Records, cassettes, CDs for the music industry. Beta, VHS, Laser Discs, DVD, Blue-ray, HD for the movie industry.
Since a CD has no copy protection, and neither does a DVD, why should downloads be any different? The industry is so focused on pirates that they forget about the people that actually keep them in business.
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The death of an industry
Why?
Because it's getting just too dang expensive to pay for the crap they offer. I'd rather buy the track or two I like or wait for the cheap dvd I want. Get a clue Hollywood I'm not going to spend $60.00 to go see one of your premium flops and when I DO pay for one of your DVDs it's mine and I will do what it takes to use it personally ANY WAY I SEE FIT!
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Re: Re: Re: Apple's DRM Extortion
So what? That way it is for a lot of other industries. Like books (if you have a paperback and want the hardback or digital version), cars (new "upgraded" models every year), video games (New releases of video games are coming out only for the newer systems, like GH3), etc.
By your logic, since I have a 1999 car, I should get the new 2008 model at discount, or free. I should be able to replace my books at no cost to me. And video games are worse, I have to buy a whole new game system. I know the game systems are backward compatible, but they are releasing games for the newer units only. So if I want to play the series, I have to take a big money hit.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Apple's DRM Extortion
I don't see your 1999 car telling you that you need to pay money when they recall a part.
I don't see how upgrading to a hard cover is an additional cost, hard cover book which typically comes out FIRST! After the hard cover the paperbacks come out cheaper for the second wave of readers who don't like paying $30 for a new book.
In regard to video games are you seriously complaining about new console costs to continue a game series? The new console which are now almost always backward compatable are more expensive because they have new hardware that is about 2-3 years more advanced then most PCs. The previous console isn't broken but it has significantly worse graphics. The biggest cost to the new wave of console is the cost of HD TV's which AREN'T required. Granted MS has done some annoying things like changing hardware settings etc after the launch but I still can't comprehend you arguing about a new video game made to be a more digital/quality experience not being made on the previous console.
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Darn that Steve!
Yes, it's all Steve Jobs' fault. Bad Steve! Bad!
And the alternative to this plan, I guess, is that the movies on iTunes would be DRM-free? Or is it rather a hell of a lot more likely that there would be no alternative to the DRM version at any price?
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Sorry - wrong rant
If you're going to shoot the gun, hit the right target.
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Re: Worst Law? Really?
But worst law in the history of the United States? C'mon. Worse than slavery? Worse than interring Japanese-Americans during WWII? Worse than the Patriot Act? The DMCA is at most the 4th worst law in the history of the US.
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Why do you do this?
Maybe the studios have blackmail pictures of Jobs inappropriately fondling an iPod. I don't know. Anyway, back to the point at hand: the DMCA.
As far as I know, the constitutionality of the DMCA has never been challenged in a court of law. If a DMCA case ever went to the Supreme Court, you'd see the media companies jump in with so much dough, that you'd swear that the "cost of litigation" and the "national deficit" were the same thing.
I'd like to see a competent challenge to the DMCA. Pirates, rip away!
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This article likes to beat up on Steve - but really, he's trying to give people the ability to use DRM'd content on iPods, not taking anything away.
Lets be clear - we have the right to backup and transfer our DVDs - but we do not have the legal ability! The DMCA prevents any legal means of transferring the content on a DVD, so really this isn't Steve taking away you rights and selling them back to you - but asking other companies (with the carrot of greed) to start returning them. Call congress about the DMCA.
Is apple going to get a cut of that $3-4? I don't think so, they'll sell more iPods if more movies are available for them, and if the only way to convince the music companies to lower the restrictions is to tempt their greed - so be it.
I would have thought after Apple kicked off the non-DRM music download scene some of the stupid journalists would start to recognize that: A) Less DRM helps Apple's core business and B) Steve supports what helps Apple's core business.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Apple's DRM Extortion
What were you able to do for free? Upgrade from cassettes to cds? Nope. Legally put your videos on your iPod? Nope. So, I guess I don't understand the argument you make. It was never legally free.
I don't see your 1999 car telling you that you need to pay money when they recall a part.
Wow, I've never heard a case of a DVD or CD being recalled...
I don't see how upgrading to a hard cover is an additional cost, hard cover book which typically comes out FIRST! After the hard cover the paperbacks come out cheaper for the second wave of readers who don't like paying $30 for a new book.
Usually they come out at the same time. Beside, if you want to move to a digital copy, you would need to buy it.
In regard to video games are you seriously complaining about new console costs to continue a game series? The new console which are now almost always backward compatable are more expensive because they have new hardware that is about 2-3 years more advanced then most PCs.
True, but it's a forced change. If I want to play GH3, I need a PS3 (or Wii or Xbox 360). That is just an example of why we need to re-buy content when the format changes. With DVD to HD/DVD you need to buy a new player, and usually a new tv. But why should you get the HD-DVD for free just because you own the DVD?
The previous console isn't broken but it has significantly worse graphics. The biggest cost to the new wave of console is the cost of HD TV's which AREN'T required.
Yes but all of this could be said about DVDs to HD-DVD too.
but I still can't comprehend you arguing about a new video game made to be a more digital/quality experience not being made on the previous console.
Not really, I was just proving that it doesn't make sense to expect a free version of content you already own just because formats change. It never has, and shouldn't be like that. HD-DVDs are definitely better, but you shouldn't expect to play an HD-DVD in a normal player, now would you?
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Jobs is merely doing what he always does: trying to convince the studios that giving consumers legal access to their rights will only mean more money for the studios. If the studios do not put methods in place to give consumers access to their rights, they will take them illegally and the studios will lose.
So spare me the "Apple is the New Microsoft" tripe. If it wasn't for Jobs you'd be slaved to Sony and Microsoft and "consumer rights" and "fair use" would be punchlines to jokes told at corporate headquarters.
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Uhm...yes, DVDs do indeed have copy protection. ???
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Going from DRM to non-DRM is not a technological advancement as is the benefits of going from DVD to HD-DVD/BluRay. CDs set the standard for people believing that they could transfer content they purchased legally to any other format to suit any device they own. Hollywood can't change what people believe they are entitled to.
I think Job's strategy is to say: "hey, look, the Hollywood studios want you to pay more to do the same thing that you could do with CDs for years. They are making me charge you more to do this. Shame on them." This will force customers to backlash more against DRM.
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O rly?
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Author Made A Mistake
The author made a mistake. Any company that is under the umbrella of the DMCA has to have a license to sell software that copies an encrypted DVD. You can argue the validity of that or not but to a company it means finding their butt in court or not.
That license costs extra money and is to be paid to the MPAA. Maybe Apple is covering its additional costs with this extra charge? With a CD, you don't have this cost to sell software to copy it. So you can't equate the two.
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In defense of Apple....
Back when cassettes were around, all you had to do was hit record on a tape deck, and you could make your own copy. Likewise, when it comes to making mp3's out of CDs nowadays, all you have to do is hit 'import' and everything is done for you.
Because of it's ease of use to copy, you'd never pay anyone else to do this, because you could do it by yourself. But, when it comes to video encoding, the process gets a whole lot more cumbersome. Sure, programs like handbrake make it releatively easy, but you still need to know a lot more (what the video_ts folder is, what bit rate, frame rate, or container to use, and so on), so for many, it's a lot more practical to just pay extra to have this done for you.
As video encoding gets easier and easier for the average person to do, however, market forces will eventually make iTunes bundling impractical. Yea, the DMCA muddies the water alot, but the charge isn't extortion, it's the going market rate for ease of use.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Apple's DRM Extortion
I do understand why this is happening. Not many people know how to convert DVD's into a video file, so Apple is offering an alternative. This alternative would still be out there and just as lucrative if the DMCA didn't exist.
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Just a repeat of a Windows-article
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Bullshit. Handbrake is about 1 hour of developer time away from publishing a version that is subset so as to be a 1-click operation for DVD-to-iPod.
It's not about the $4 v some other amount, nor about "follow these three handbrake steps" v "follow this one step". It's about being ILLEGAL to take those steps on your own.
I sincerly hope enough mud gets stirred up about this to really piss off the general public. And that Jobs handles it to direct that anger at the Studios, not at Apple.
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Re: Apple's DRM Extortion
They're just as guilty as anyone else.
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Re: Re: Re: Apple's DRM Extortion
I own a copy of RoboCop on VHS, and I've had it for years. Good Movie. But now they released it on BluRay, and it's in full HD and it looks awesome!
But here's the difference. I can't take that BluRay copy and put it on my media server's hard drive because of DRM. I can't put it on my portable video player. It bites.
I would pay money again if there were a REASON to do so - ie VHS to High Definition. But I refuse to pay money again when there's no reason for it. Which is what DRM is there to do.
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Re: The death of an industry
But that's the point you have no rights to use the DVD anyway you see fit. You can't even wipe you ass with it without permission from the studio. And the Studio's would like to get more restrictive laws for HD content. Steve is trying to get the Studios used to the idea that the consumer should have rights to the media they purchase. He wants a way to legally get movies onto his iPods, Apple TV's etc. This is good business for Apple. Apple can't release software to rip a DVD because of the DMCA, but if he can get a legal way it opens the door for Apple. But if you'd rather have a DVD that you have to pay the studio each time you want to watch it go ahead criticize the one person that can make things better.
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Re:
You can copy an encrypted DVD without decrypting it. So they aren't copy protected. They are, however, DRM protected. CSS, the encryption used on a DVD, serves to keep you from playing it on unauthorized players, not from copying it.
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Fair Use copying dvd's leagl
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Compression, inferiority, and my Super 8
Shouldn't it then be illegal for me to point my Super 8 camera at my HDTV so I can watch Transformers on my film projector? What about when I want to watch Beowulf in PixelVision on my Fisher-Price PXL2000?
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Re: Apple's DRM Extortion
don't villainize Jobs, villainize hollywood.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Apple's DRM Extortion
Your analogy with cars / books is pretty useless, as cars and other non-digital products degrade over time, and there is a a cost for the materiels to produce that item that isn't there when copying digital music or videos.
This is why upgrading your car is completey different to being forced to pay again something you have already bought the rights for. No flaw in the logic whatsoever. The production costs have already been met with pre-existing films / music / books, and we know how little it costs to burn a DVD these days.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Apple's DRM Extortion
So do video tapes, cassettes and even CDs.
"...and there is a a cost for the materiels to produce that item that isn't there when copying digital music or videos."
So do copying old media to new media. Unless there's a country somewhere giving away blanks CDs or DVDs for free.
"This is why upgrading your car is completey different to being forced to pay again something you have already bought the rights for."
Note: need to read more on Intellectual Property rights. Just because you bought a book of Daido Moriyama's photographs doesn't mean you can then use the photos in that book for your sales brochures.
"No flaw in the logic whatsoever."
If you say so.
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Re: Apple's DRM Extortion
Actually, that's the point. You think you have bought some specific rights; the rights to view a specific piece (TV show, movie, whatever) under whatever conditions YOU choose.
The studio's contention, however, is that you purchased the rights to view that piece under the conditions THEY choose. Hence the clash of assumptions.
And there lies the rub. If you pay for the second, thinking you purchase the first, you will be disappointed when you discover you have been overcharged.
The multi-format version is one of those rare times where people realise that they are buying a different product than what they thought. And they loudly complain because of the assumption above: they think they purchased a broad right at a price they tought fair, and discover they've got a narrow one - and suddendly the price doesn't seem as fair.
I don't object to have different pricing for different amount of rights. What I object to is:
- The necessity to repurchase full rights when I want a right extension
- And thus, the necessity to pre-purchase additional rights, even if I don't want them
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Remember....
Well it obviously had no major impact on the music industry. Home taping was just a means that allowed purchasers of an album to listen to that album in their car or wherever they didn't have a vinyl playback device.
The argument about stopping 'piracy' is a joke. The average home-user who has already legally bought a DVD isn't copying it for all and sundry, just copying it to another of their own devices to make playback more convenient.
The actual 'pirates' out there are the counterfeiting gangs ripping off movies and selling them at a fraction of the cost of the original with none of the profits going back to the copyright holders. The problem with trying to tackle them by a system of collective punishment such as this is counter-productive as the increased cost of a 'legal' DVD pushes more people to be willing to purchase illegal copies to save money (who wouldn't in these economically challenged times eh?). Therefore, I suggest they'll just make the problem MORE widespread.
Taking that into account (facts that studios are aware of), it suggests that it's NOT an exercise in preventing piracy, but actually just another way to milk money out of the consumption udder!
The movie industry could do worse than to get a slap in the face in much the same way the music industry has. People have voted with their feet and left the major labels in droves in favour of buying from small independents and/or self-published artists and CD sales have slumped to an all time low - do movie companies want to face the same situation? Well that's what they're looking at. This might be a good thing for small-time indie film makers who create, publish and distribute their own productions for a reasonable fee and they might be able to make a living (the way some musicians now can) without the help of the majors.
Screw big business, they've been screwing us for years!
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Big whoop.
1.) Go find a Redbox.
2.) Enter the promo code to get a free night's rental.
3.) Take it home, fire up HandBrake, then go to bed.
4.) Return movie within 24 hours, as to not get charged.
Repeat as desired.
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i need this item
i am juliet rose and i am urgent need your item for my son who secure an admission into university in abroad ,who birthday is coming up , i am kindly to pay sum $900Usd for the ipod because of the urgence of the item asap and for the payment to be done asap get back to me with this details
Name:
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2) valid email adress .........
i want it fast , cos he is on my neck and soi want the business to fast asap so you can contact me by my email address(betadays10@yahoo.com)
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Bargaining
Hollywood has been stonewalling and just wants you to outright buy another version and Steve is trying to get SOMETHING, some sort of concession from them. Don't blame Steve Jobs, sheesh. What's M$ done for furthering home ripping? Do you see them trying to enable you to be able to re-encode your existing DVD collection...?
Here's a recent quote about the hi-def wars from Michael Bay:
"What you don't understand is corporate politics. Microsoft wants both formats to fail so they can be heroes and make the world move to digital downloads. That is the dirty secret no one is talking about. That is why Microsoft is handing out $100 million dollar checks to studios just embrace the HD DVD and not the leading, and superior Blu Ray. They want confusion in the market until they perfect the digital downloads. Time will tell and you will see the truth.
Bay"
So just chill, no one's making you pay $4, there's free alternatives, and this negotiation (if it really is happening) is at least in the hope that Hollywood will offer some sort of concessions on the use of the media we buy and want to use however we please.
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DVDXCopy.com - Space shift all day long
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