Apple Still A Big Fan Of DRM Outside Of Music

from the let-me-count-the-ways.. dept

A Skeptical Cynic among our readers points us to a post over on the EFF's blog about how Apple is still a huge supporter of DRM, despite getting the record labels to dump DRM from music files. This isn't a huge surprise. In the past we noted that even after Steve Jobs came out against DRM on music files, he was clearly still for it on things like video files -- even suggesting business models based on DRM. As the EFF points out, it goes well beyond that, however:

• Apple uses DRM to lock iPhones to AT&T and Apple's iTunes App Store;
• Apple uses DRM to prevent recent iPods from syncing with software other than iTunes (Apple claims it violates the DMCA to reverse engineer the hashing mechanism);
• Apple claims that it uses DRM to prevent OS X from loading on generic Intel machines;
• Apple's new Macbooks feature DRM-laden video ports that only output certain content to "approved" displays;.
• Apple requires iPod accessory vendors to use a licensed "authentication chip" in order to make accessories to access certain features on newer iPods and iPhones;
• The iTunes Store will still lock down movies and TV programs with FairPlay DRM;
• Audiobook files purchased through the iTunes Store will still be crippled by Audible's DRM restrictions.

So, while DRM may be dead for music, it's still quite alive in many different places. Also, the EFF points out that many of these uses of DRM have little to nothing to do with the risk of "piracy" and plenty to do control and limiting how customers can use their products.

Filed Under: drm
Companies: apple

Is The FTC Interested In Protecting Consumers From Bad DRM?

from the that-would-be-interesting... dept

We're so used to hearing the government fall for the industry propaganda about the need for DRM that it's almost... shocking, to hear that the FTC is even willing to consider the question of whether or not it should be involved in protecting consumers from DRM. However, as Game Politics is noting, that question appears to be on the agenda of an FTC town hall meeting about DRM in Seattle in March. Of course, it sounds as though that question is just a preliminary one, as the full agenda has yet to be set. That means, it could have just been put there by a random staffer charged with filling out a few bullet points about what to talk about concerning DRM. Still, it's at least interesting to see a hint of recognition from the government that DRM has its downsides.

Filed Under: drm, ftc, protection

Lame: Apple Charging $0.30 Per Song To Ditch DRM

from the do-it-yourself dept

In the initial news about Apple going DRM-free, I saw it reported that Apple would let you convert your existing files to DRM-free. However, what was left out of the reports I saw (though, people in our comments pointed it out) was that Apple wants to charge you $0.30 for the privilege of getting rid of the DRM. Of course, you can just get rid of the DRM yourself if you don't mind going through the conversion process (though, even that's a bit of a pain). Either way, it's pretty lame to charge people to get rid of DRM. Why even offer that as an option? Are people really going to pay more?

Filed Under: cost, drm, itunes
Companies: apple

As Rumored, Apple Gives Record Labels Variable iTunes Pricing In Exchange For Ditching DRM

from the it's-something dept

As was rumored last night by Greg Sandoval at News.com, it appears that Apple has worked out a deal with the major record labels (being confirmed as I type) where they will give up DRM (which is the direction they've been moving towards anyway) in exchange for variable pricing of music -- which they've been salivating over for years. This has been a major source of contention between Apple and the record labels. Steve Jobs has stood firmly by the $0.99/song price, while the record labels specifically wanted to be able to price hit songs at higher prices. The dropping of DRM is nice, but hardly that surprising, given that pretty much every other online download store has been going DRM free. This just puts the final nail in the coffin for music DRM. One nice tidbit: you'll apparently be able to upgrade your older DRM'd purchases to make them DRM free. That's a good (and slightly surprising) move.

As for the pricing, there's now three tiers: $0.69, $0.99 and $1.29. Hit new songs will go for the higher price while older, less popular songs will have their prices drop. The announcement isn't that surprising, but it is definitely a shift. What will be worth watching is how this impacts sales. It really may depend on how the record industry plays this. If (as seems likely) they put too many songs in that high priced level, it's going to lead to backlash. However, if they really embrace that lower price, it could encourage more folks to download music. I also wonder if it will push competing music download stores, such as Amazon.com to lower its prices even further as well.

While this definitely is a shift from the way iTunes has always worked, in the end, it's really not a huge shift. The industry was moving in this direction anyway, and killing off DRM was long overdue. The variable pricing is the type of thing that the big record labels will likely screw up, but in the long run is probably a good thing. The $0.99 per song fee has always been too high, and accepting variable pricing will eventually lead to those prices decreasing (not increasing, as the industry expects).

Filed Under: drm, itunes, variable pricing
Companies: apple

Why Is The EU Funding DRM?

from the focus,-people,-focus dept

CaptainCode writes in to point to an article about an EU-funded project to create new methods for DRM. It makes you wonder why Europeans tax money is going to fund something like DRM. By now, plenty of folks are realizing that DRM serves no good purpose. It does not stop any kind of unauthorized use, and tends to piss off legitimate customers by putting unnecessary restrictions on them (devaluing the content). Its only purpose, really, is as a weak attempt to keep an obsolete business model in place. How is that possibly in the best interests of European citizens?

Filed Under: drm, eu

Ubisoft's Passive-Aggressive Decision To Drop DRM

from the yet-again dept

Ubisoft has a long history of bad DRM choices, and tops it off with a usual misunderstanding of DRM, but its latest move is curious -- in a sort of passive-aggressive way. The company has decided not to include DRM in Prince of Persia, but posted an accusatory note about it:

You're right when you say that when people want to pirate the game they will, but DRM is there to make it as difficult as possible for pirates to make copies of our games. A lot of people complain that DRM is what forces people to pirate games but as PoP [Prince of Persia] PC has no DRM we'll see how truthful people actually are. Not very, I imagine.

Of course, no one said that the only reason people pirate games is because of DRM, but it is most likely a contributing factor. So, there will certainly be plenty of piracy, but other experiments have shown that if the game is good and worthwhile, plenty of people will buy it as well. But of course, part of getting people to actually want to buy the game is treating your customers with respect, which is exactly the opposite of what this guy's note did.

And, of course, the guy is wrong in saying that DRM makes it "as difficult as possible for pirates to make copies." Once someone makes a copy, it's available everywhere. That's the core reason why DRM is ineffective. It's not about stopping each individual. For DRM to work, it needs to stop EVERY individual, because as soon as one makes a cracked version available, it's available to everyone, and no amount of DRM in the world will matter.

Filed Under: drm, prince of persia
Companies: ubisoft

Whaddaya Know? DRM For Nokia's 'Comes With Music' Is Cracked

from the Just-In-Time-For-Xmas dept

It pretty much goes without saying at this point that any DRM can and will be cracked -- and, of course, once cracked, the content is now freely available pretty much anywhere. It still makes you wonder why anyone bothers. The latest is that Nokia's hyped up "Comes with Music" offering (which has been a commercial disappointment) has had its DRM cracked, and it's unlikely that much can be done to block the DRM cracking system. Once again, you have to ask why Nokia even bothered?

Filed Under: comes with music, drm
Companies: nokia

Hollywood: Where Up Is Down, and 'Anywhere' Is Actually A Small Number Of Places

from the truthful-advertising-and-other-non-sequiturs dept

The latest Batman film, The Dark Knight, released on DVD this week, and I saw a TV ad for it the other night, touting the "digital copy" of the film you get if you buy certain editions of the DVD. That sounded like a great idea, and then the voiceover guy finished his sentence, saying that the digital copy could be enjoyed "anywhere." Given Hollywood's long and storied history of using a different dictionary than the rest of us, I was more than a little curious to see what exactly "anywhere" meant to them. The first thing I learned was that different studios use different copy protection, so the digital versions of different movies can be played on different sets of devices, which is a really nice way to make things easy for consumers. So I clicked around and found out that The Dark Knight is a Warner movie, and followed the trail over to its site, where I discovered Warner's "anywhere" means an internet-connected Windows XP or Vista machine and PlaysForSure-enabled portable devices. So Macs or Linux machines, iPods and other portable media players without Microsoft's copy protection (you know, the one they've been wanting to shut down), apparently aren't included in Warner's definition.

While it's not surprising that the digital copy will play on a narrow range of devices, Warner's advertising of these as "anywhere" is more than a little grating. It reflects the mentality that they know what's best for consumers, and they should get to determine exactly where, how and when people get to enjoy their legitimately purchased content. For Warner's purposes, iPods, other brands of PMPs, Macs and Linux machines don't exist, so in their own minds, saying the digital copy can be enjoyed "anywhere" is true. And thus the mentality that gives us the current state of affairs, in which the MPAA thinks that by limiting how people can playback their legitimate content, they're doing them a favor is explained. In addition to being the year's highest-grossing movie, The Dark Knight was also the year's most pirated film. Given the wide availability of the film on file-sharing networks, what incentive does a consumer with a playback device outside of Warner's "anywhere" definition have to buy a legit copy? And how can that be good for Warner?

Filed Under: drm, hollywood, movies

Spore's DRM So Effective It Was The Most Downloaded Game Of The Year

from the nice-work,-EA dept

It never really made sense for EA to be so insistent on having draconian DRM on games. Before the company even launched Spore people made it quite clear the plan would backfire, but EA went forward with it anyway, creating a PR nightmare. And all for what? Turns out (not surprisingly) the DRM didn't do squat to stop unauthorized file sharing. Spore has now been declared the most downloaded video game of the year. And, even though the year's not over, no other game is going to catch up. And, it's worth noting, the game only launched in October, so this is only over a couple of months. In other words, EA's "antipiracy strategy" backfired almost completely. The company got a huge PR blackeye which probably only encouraged more people to download the game via file sharing. Can someone explain, again, why any company thinks DRM works?

Filed Under: downloads, drm, piracy, securom, spore, video games
Companies: ea

MPAA Tries Out Its New 'Up Is Down, Day Is Night' Strategy

from the how's-that-working-for-ya? dept

The MPAA has been pushing the FCC to allow it to basically add a kind of DRM to broadcasts. As it stands, the FCC blocks broadcasters from using "selectable output control" (SOC) to stop people from recording shows broadcast on television. They do this realizing that recording for the purposes of time or place shifting is perfectly legal, and allowing broadcasters to block consumer rights would be tremendously undesirable.

The movie studios, however, are trying to figure out yet another way to get money, and they want to rejigger release windows for movies. The way they're done now, movies are released to theaters, then special locations (airplanes, hotels), then DVD, then cable and finally network TV. What the studios would like to do is charge cable companies a lot of money to show movies on cable after they're in theaters but before they're released on DVD. Their (misguided) fear is that, if they show them on TV, people will record them and make them available via file sharing sites, killing off the DVD business. This is wrong on many levels, especially since high quality versions of the movies are almost always available on file sharing networks long before they are released on DVD, anyway. So, blocking the ability to record the movies on your DVR (which is what loosening SOC restrictions would do) wouldn't actually do anything to stop piracy -- but would piss off an awful lot of DVR owners out there, who want to know why they can't record the latest movies on TV.

The MPAA has been saying a lot of funny things in trying to defend its position, claiming that this form of DRM is necessary to let the studios release the movies early. That's simply wrong. There is nothing stopping the studios from releasing the movies in this manner right now. It's just their own misguided fear of people doing what they're legally allowed to do (record stuff on their TV) that's stopping them.

Yet, now, as a bunch of you have sent in, it seems the MPAA is going even further in this "up is down, black is white" argument in favor of being able to use SOC. It's claiming that it's the movie studios who are being pro-innovation here, and it's the consumer electronics companies (and consumers) who are anti-innovation:

"At its core, the position of CEA is that technology should be frozen in time, and any new services that require advanced technology should be banned," the MPAA told Adelstein on November 25. "This position is quite astonishing, coming from an organization that in the past has advocated in favor of technological innovation."

This is a neat bit of intellectual judo. Take your opponents (accurate) argument, and claim that it's actually your argument. The MPAA is lying, of course. They don't need SOC to innovate and release movies however they want. And, the CEA is quite pro-innovation, in letting consumers actually make use of their rights to record content. It's quite a statement for the MPAA to claim that taking away consumer rights is innovation. But, I guess that's what you get from a dying organization fighting for its life.

Filed Under: blocking, business models, drm, dvrs, fcc, mpaa, soc
Companies: mpaa