DRM is Evil: An Opinion on iTMS’s DRM
Digital Rights Management is somewhat
oxymoronic (and very moronic, imho), as it doesn’t protect anyone’s rights. My rights are not protected
by DRM. Your rights are not protected by DRM. DRM is supposed to protect the rights of the music industry and the
production and distribution of music via digital means, but it’s a sham. Anyone with a CD-burner can easily
circumnavigate DRM by burning DRM protected tracks to CD and then re-ripping them to the computer. This strips
the tracks of any DRM. Music pirates know this.
My complaint about DRM is that it both impedes my fair use rights as a consumer and because it constantly changes retroactively on items I’ve already purchased. I realize that the RIAA has the iTunes Music Store trapped, in a sense, because they won’t let Apple use the songs unless they are DRM’ed. However, I do not like the fact that Apple (via iTunes upgrades) continues to strip my iTMS-purchased songs of the capabilities the files had at the time when I purchased them. $0.99 used to buy me 10 burns of a particular song to a particular playlist, but then Apple rolled this down to 7. $0.99 used to buy me the ability to share that song with other iTunes users simultaneously over my local network, but Apple recently restricted this ability. Cory Doctorow over at BoingBoing has a very comprehensive complaint about this latest change and why it sucks. Check it out.
Dear Steve Jobs,
Please take a stand against the RIAA and the music industry. Feel free to threaten them with extinction. Point them towards a non-DRM-controlled future for our music. Please stop removing value from products I purchased from your company. I really like to and want to buy what you are offering, but it gets harder and harder each time you cripple the things I’ve already bought from you.
Sincerely,
C.K. Sample, III
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Wheels said 2:59PM on 8-01-2005
In theory, I don't have a problem with DRM. After all, it is trying to protect copyrighted material. With that said, DRM, as it's applied now, is a sham. For those who are griping about loosing three burns, try loosing your total right to burn ANY music CDs from your ITMS songs.
This is what happened to me. Ibrought my Mac compatible CD burner from an authorized Apple Reseller and I bought Toast Titanium 6, which was a good thing because iTunes doesn't support the "OSX Compatible" CD burner I bought. In the beginning, everything was fine; I could drag and drop my files into Toast and burn them on CD. If Apple tightened the DRM, all I had to do was download the Toast upgrade and Viola!, all was well again. That was until the last DRM modification. When I upgraded Toast, it still didn't work. It took a half hour of searching Roxio's website to find this - paraphrased - statement. "After discussions with Apple, we have decided not to support burning music CDs with files downloaded from ITMS." iTunes still doesn't support my burner, which is a dite over a year old, so I have no way of burning CDs from ITMS.
DRM is a sham because it only offers industry protection while it usurps my rights as a consumer. But, also, I have no doubt this is the way that the Fascists at the RIAA want it and that they are controlling Apple in regards to this. Apple had to dance with the devil to get ITMS. But at some point they need to show some spine against the RIAA to balance out consumer rights and industry rights. If they don't, Money hungry Lawyers will go class action on their butts. And that could ruin everything.
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Scott said 12:46AM on 8-02-2005
Why doesn't someone develop a high quality, open-source alternative to iTunes, so that iTunes is only used for the ITMS and nothing else? For those who have used Windows, it could be kinda like WinAmp.
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David said 4:14PM on 6-16-2005
The fact that DRM takes away my traditional rights and that Apple's licensing terms allows them to change the rules on something I've already bought is why I own no iTunes music. But I really can't get upset about the limitation on streaming music from my computer. It is nice, it is cool, but did I really have a right to it that Apple has somehow now restricted?
Oh, I know the argument, what's next? Will the RIAA force stereo manufacturers to have body counters in them and stop playing if there are more than five bodies in the room? But that isn't analogous at all. The fact is I work in a building where more than 100 people on 5 different floors, most of whom I don't even know, could potentially catch my music. Prior to limiting this to a subnet, there was the potential for someone across country to listen to my music. What we are talking about here is essentially turning my computer into a radio station. I've never had this right.
No, let's not get sidetracked by this streaming issue. DRM is evil. But iTunes streaming is another thing entirely and we shouldn't cheapen the DRM argument by dragging it in too.
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Brian said 4:14PM on 6-16-2005
What I would love to see is a shift from the Artists. I'm looking forward to when the shift is to make your music and put it on iTunes yourself. Then you can bypass the big record labels and Apple wouldn't be so bullied by them. Now with computers (especially Macs and Garageband) it is easier and easier to make your own music and own your masters yourself. Then, the record companies could still be able to tour you and such...but they would have no rights over the songs. Makes sense to me.
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bt said 4:14PM on 6-16-2005
Big deal, you can only burn a playlist 7 times. Nothing is stopping you from creating that same playlist with another name and burning it 7 more times.
If streaming music is that important, don't upgrade the software. Seems simple enough.
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C.K. Sample, III said 4:14PM on 6-16-2005
bt, it is never that simple. The most recent update came disguised in the form of one of the recent Security Updates from Apple, and as many people who have taken the "don't upgrade" stance in the past have discovered, if you continue not to upgrade, you eventually lose compatibility with iTMS upgrades and new products like revamped iPods and iPod shuffles.
I agree that there is not much difference between 7 and 9 burns. The point is Apple continues to sell us these songs with one set of rules only to change the terms of sale after the fact. What happens when the RIAA pushes them to prevent CD burning? How long do we have to wait before Apple starts pushing back?
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Nicholas Frota said 4:14PM on 6-16-2005
some ppl call it Digital Restrictions Management.
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farce said 4:14PM on 6-16-2005
Apple has pushed back.
They increased the number of computers that can be authorized to play music from 3 to 5 when they were required to decrease the number of burns from 10 to 7.
I would say that was a WIN for users of iTunes.
Don't confuse features of an APPLICATION with your RIGHTS upon purchasing a song or DRM for that matter. iTunes ability to stream music over a network is not an inherent part of a song's built-in DRM, if it were, Apple would have left the feature in iTunes and simply disabled sharing/streaming on iTunes purchased tracks.
Get it together.
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C.K. Sample, III said 4:14PM on 6-16-2005
Farce, you have to take into account the way that Apple markets the $.99 songs. Steve Jobs touts that iTMS isn't a subscription service, but that you actually OWN the songs and that you can burn them X ammount of times, etc etc. But then the next time iTunes is updated the rules change. False advertising, maybe?
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Brian said 4:14PM on 6-16-2005
How come all the "Blow-it-off" know it alls never leave an email address?
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Dean Shan said 4:14PM on 6-16-2005
Just use JHymn. Strips away all the DRM and then you are free to play your iTunes songs on what ever you want.
http://www.hymn-project.org/jhymndoc/
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