DRM and Me, a personal statement
So, somewhere in mid 1999, I got introduced to Napster and the filesharing revolution. I was at school at Denison University, and downloading music and stuff was rampant over our massive 4-T1 cluster (for a university of 2500 people). Downloading was, at that time, taking up roughly half to three quarters of the bandwidth on campus. I did it, but it felt wrong to me, to download this music and not pay for it, to play it over and over again on MacAMP (a state of the art MP3 player in 1999, for all the cool kids who don't remember days before iTunes) and I was thinking "is what I am doing wrong?"
Yes. It is wrong to do that. It's like xeroxing a book from the store and taking the Xerox home. You're not stealing, but what you're doing isn't right, either.
So, I continued to buy CDs when they came out at the college bookstore, or Tower Records in Columbus, and when I moved to DC, my habits continued. I wasn't buying much, maybe 10-12 CDs a year. I just couldn't find good music on the airwaves, or through legal channels. My undergrad degree is in vocal performance, how could I defraud fellow musicians just because they'd made it big? That doesn't seem right to me. Sure, there's an argument that the bands aren't getting much of my purpose, so really I'm only cheating them out of a dime a track, but that's still a dime a track, dude.
When the iTunes Music Store came out, there was much rejoicing for me. I could download stuff, avoid the overpriced record stores, and sleep at night. But of course, the world tried to convince me that the DRM in the iTunes store would become a bogeyman designed to slay me in my sleep. 5 machines. 7 burns of a playlist. Yeah, it changes. If it gets bad, I know there are ways to strip out the DRM and move my stuff over to MP3 or crosscode it somehow, but what concerns me is the desire to slander me as a dupe or a rube for doing the right thing and paying musicians. You won't win friends by insulting them. You won't win allies by degrading them.
Is DRM ideal? No. Is the FairPlay DRM scheme that Apple's using all that awful? No, it's not. It's "fair play". Musicians get paid, Fans get music they can play at their computer, away from their computer, and in their cars. There's a balance here between people and companies, and we're walking a fine line between too much power on either side. We want musicians to get paid, because when they get paid they make more music. There's cultural incentive of prosperity to musicians, and that's crucial. Though, it's no longer just the "label artists" in the Music sphere, anyone can contact the iTMS and work out an agreement, allowing independent artists easy access to the marketplace. We may be nearing the end of an age in the music business, allowing iTunes to become the arbiter of what's good and what's not, freeing artists from restrictive contracts with record labels. Production has become simple, and a commodity product, not restricted to large businesses with million dollar grants.
iTunes is good for the music business, good for us. The DRM is a something we have to put up with to sleep at night, and for now I'm willing to play by their rules because the content is good, and it has restrictions I can live with. Call me a dupe, or call me a rube, and I'll ignore you. I'm looking at you, Cory Doctorow.
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DRM and Me
Tom Bridge: iTunes is good for the music business, good for us. The DRM is a something we have to put up with to sleep at night, and for now Im willing to play by their rules because the content...
About that DRM...
I agree with Gregg on this one couldnt have said it better myself. I will add, however, that I hate...
Comments:
I have yet to run into a DRM roadblock which has inhibited my listening enjoyment.
I guess I'm the average iTunes user/music listener Apple had in mind when they conceived the DRM in iTunes...
Rats! I hate being average!
Posted by JR on October 13, 2005 — 12:02 PM
I have only bought about two dozen songs through the ITMS, typically when I need the song quickly. I still much prefer owning the physical media to a song purchased from the ITMS. The major reason is for backup. I really wish ITMS would track your purchases and allow you to re-download purchased songs.
On the DRM front. I would agree that Apple has put forth the least objectionalble system to date, but it is still a system that is designed to limit your fair-use rights on an item that you paid for. Mr. Doctorow is definitley on the fighting edge of the anti-DRM battle, and I for one am glad he is. Unfortunately this topic has turned political, with the labels all the way to one side, and Mr. Doctorow and others like him on the far otherside. Without that balance, I'm sure we wouldn't have any media rights heading into the future.
Posted by Eric on October 13, 2005 — 9:59 PM