Comparing iTunes to diet soda

> This isn't a product you're buying, it's an ephemeral file owned by Apple (and the RIAA) and not you.

Good point, and how is that different from the T+C/right to use when you buy a CD, or any commercial piece of software? You don't own the music then either, just the right to listen to it under certain conditions.

< ... how does using DRM / keeping iTMS content playable only on iPods and registered iTunes computers protect artists / producers / labels ...

... only in the sense that it makes it slightly harder to copy/distribute/play the music for people who are too lazy or under-IQ'd to work around the DRM.

... Apple is screwing users for locking iTMS content to iPods.

I don't see apple ejecting from the iPod business, and if they did, I don't see they leaving iTMS content users high and and dry. And if they _did_, you never had to buy content from iTMS...

>> DRM good or DRM bad or?

I feel like it's DRM=irrelevant. Apple's DRM is more or less transparent to my life.

All mo. Fire away.


rds

pmingram makes a great point. Someone give that guy a couple stars.

I am one of those nutters that refuses to buy anything from iTunes because of the DRM. The only way I would consider DRM'd content would be if there was a standardized system. That DRM should be open to letting every manufacturer create devices for it, and available to be played on every operating system. The fact that Apple has gone out of their way to lock iTunes stuff to the iPod is the first slip down a slippery slope that can only get worse. And given that they have already changed their policies to take away rights customers had at the time of purchase, I don't trust them to do right by consumers at all.

Now, for everyone that says, 'You can just burn to CD and rerip it." No, you can't. From the Terms of Service you agreed to with your purchase:

"You agree that you will not attempt to, or encourage or assist any other person to, circumvent or modify any security technology or software that is part of the Service or used to administer the Usage Rules."

You are breaking the terms of service. So, if the answer is that DRM that is easily circumvented is good, what is the point of the DRM in the first place? There is no point. All DRM does is cause headaches for good customers that just want to play their media. Anyone that wants to just get content for free is going to, and they probably weren't a viable customer anyway. And in the case of video, they are going to get it free and in better quality. But that is a whole other discussion.

I don't see DRM as a problem. I have an MP3 CD player in my car, so I am already accustomed to burning iTMS downloads and ripping them so that I can listen to 150 songs per CD in my car. It really isn't that big of a deal. When I swapped from my PC (using Napster) to my Mac, it had to do it. Eh - the cost of doing business, I guess.

Piracy is a wildly overstated reason for DRM. While it makes everyone feel better to consider that singular 'pirate' downloading thousands of songs for free, the fact is even iTunes' DRM doesn't keep this from happening. The minute an iTMS exclusive is available, it's also available on BitTorrent or P2P. However, DRM is very good at renegotiating the rights of consumers without their knowledge or consent, and it's very good at creating or protecting artificial markets.
Apple uses DRM to keep iTMS songs from anything but the iPod. How does this protect artists or producers? How does WMP 10's requirement for Windows XP protect a song? It doesn't, rather it protects the business plan.
Furthermore, while everything from a can of Diet-Coke to a car can be resold, iTMS songs cannot. If you buy an iTMS song, it's yours, except that it's not because you bought a license to use the song, and that license (or agreement) can be changed with an iTunes update. Apple could change your ability to burn a playlist or your ability to play songs on a number of devices at will, without any kind of notice or prior agreement. This isn't a product you're buying, it's an ephemeral file owned by Apple (and the RIAA) and not you. And that's because of DRM.
DRM protects rights the way that prison protects freedom.

I've never found the DRM to be restricting in ANY way. If the day comes when Apple no longer makes iPods, then I'll have to do something with my thousands of iTunes songs.

> [... re process to make a non-DRM duplicate.] Sounds like fun, huh? About as much fun as me copying the giant boxes of audio cassettes I have in the garage onto my hard drive, splitting up the tracks, labeling them, and storing them indefinitely.

I don't feel this analogy is apt; burning an audio CD from iTMS content, and re-ripping it to MP3 (or non-protected AAC, or WAV, or AIFF, or OGG or whatever) is a two-click, five-or-ten [unattended] minute process, and you wind up with a physical backup of the content as a side-effect. I really don't find it to be that invasive into my life, and I usually buy between three and five albums a week on iTunes.

As for storing them infinitely, I also don't see that as a problem. My music library is 300GB. A 750GB hard drive is about $420.

And to the question at hand, I feel DRM is a necessary evil in the current world, simply because labels generally wouldn't agree to sell their stuff online without at least a token effort to protect the content. Without it, I probably wouldn't be buying music online, which increases my quality of life, period... because I probably wouldn't have the opportunity to do so.

I don't necessarily like the fact that iTMS could flip a kill switch on my collection, but that is why I have unprotected copies, and it's also incidental to the point that we're dealing with the current world's set of conditions re: the record industry, their business model that doesn't necessarily mesh with the current technology, etc.

If we lived in a different (evolved? impossible?) world where artists made most of their revenue through touring / promotion / ads / whatever and not through selling records[1], this DRM discussion would have a different meaning. Or not occur.

[1]Btw, isn't that really this world, at least with regards to major labels? Someone enlighten me.

Isn't DRM just a compromise between what the public wants (digital music) and the industry (labels, artists) want (to be paid for their efforts)? Even with Napster gone, music downloading is still pretty commonplace. How can artists protect themselves against piracy? They need some sort of DRM.

The record labels on the other hand... I'm sure their motivation is a bit more sinister...

Tis why I strip the DRM from any song I buy from ITMS... the 5 songs that I've bought from them.

I want to be able to do what I want with the music I pay for. I'm not going to let some company put a restriction on MY property.

Granted, I'm probably not going to put those songs on more than 5 computers, or burn it more than however many times they "allow" me to burn it. That's not the issue. When I buy a cd, I can take it to ANY cd player and play it. I should be able to do that with digital audio file that I purchase.

Is everyone STUPID?

It's really simple... When you buy an iTunes album,
JUST BURN A CD BACKUP COPY!

The CD is in AIFF format and will work just any album you purchase
at the store! You can play it anywhere, or give it to ANYONE.

This drama over DRM music is really silly.

Thig was with MyCokeMusic, everytime you bought coke, you got a free song - plus strems were only a few pence per track, I drang coke at least 4 times per day when they did this, so I was happy as hell to get free music - I just burnt them to CD :)