Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, iTS, Software
Charles Wiltgen responds to Cory Doctorow's 'DRM is bad for business'
Cory Doctorow, well known for his work at BoingBoing and other projects, wrote an article titled Apple's Copy Protection Isn't Just Bad For Consumers, It's Bad For Business. If you've been following anything this guy's written, this isn't the first time he's spoken out about DRM in general, as well as Apple's market-leading role in its use. If you haven't been following his work - that linked article is a great introductory read into Cory's very vocal disapproval of the current state of legitimate media distribution systems (almost all of them use DRM).
John Gruber recently linked a response to Cory's article from Charles Wiltgen titled OMG DRM is r33ly bad!, and quite the response it is. Whether you're a stark advocate of either side of the DRM debate or you're just getting your feet wet with all this 'Digital Rights Management' stuff, I think both of these articles are interesting reads in their own right. Cory can be somewhat of a dramatic voice for the anti-DRM movement, and Charles' response is an interesting reality check for a situation that might not be as bad as some think.
DRM always heats up the comment threads here at TUAW though, so for now I'll leave you to read Cory's article and Charles' response and form your own conclusions.
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Exilio said 11:19PM on 8-05-2006
My feelings on DRM.
I own about 500+ CD's and I use iTunes and an iPod all the time. So what does this mean? I have the cash, hardware and software to buy music from the ITMS, but I have never spent one penny on their music.... why?
D-fricking-RM.
Remove this nonsense and I would gladly buy from ITMS.
Reply
ryanh said 11:21PM on 8-05-2006
Am I only one who is sick of this debate or are there others?
The simple fact of the matter is that iTunes NEEDS to include some level of DRM to satiate the paranoid record companies. But compare it to other failed subscription services and it's night and day. You can actually legitimately strip the DRM from any iTunes purchased song by burning it and re-ripping it. Buy a CD-RW and go to town if you care that much.
I really wonder what the DRM facists are going to do when Zune and MS's new service comes out.
Reply
Alice said 11:46PM on 8-05-2006
So you can burn cds and listen to it on ANY cd player? They are not closing down that market at all, they even let you use any kind of cd to burn it onto.
You can use itunes on PC and Mac, so pretty much any computer.
But we have to complain when it comes to the iPod? Apple has done a fair job in making it widespread as it is. Apple didnt take over market share, they MADE market share.
How many people would use other MP3 Players if Apple opened up their music to work on other mp3 players... I think the majority of people would still buy ipods, so what's the point to Apple to open their liscense up?
In all actuality its a rather low restriction.
Reply
narco said 12:18AM on 8-06-2006
Yep, I'm sick of the DRM issue.
Complaining about DRM is like complaining about death. All these people are doing is preaching to the choir.
I'm going to write a blog entry about how I wish I had a wife with giant breasts who just smiles all the time in my centerfold world filled with Springsteen and wine.
Fishes,
narco.
Reply
j. said 1:16AM on 8-06-2006
can't say i'm hugely fond of drm. i think it's a necessary evil in the current system. i don't think cory doctorow is making any kind of useful arguments but then he likes to scream about whatever the geek topic du jour is. the man is so proud of himself, not only does he have to hate on the ipod and itunes(because it's the hip thing to do) he proclaims from the highest mountain that ubuntu is the way of the future.
maybe, now that he's running ubuntu he can't listen to all the legal music he purchased on itunes so of course drm is now super terrible. of course if doctrow had his way i'm sure apple would get right on making itunes for ubuntu (because it's such a fast up-and-comer) and then he'd stop caring about drm again.
Reply
daniel said 1:26AM on 8-06-2006
While I am not really a fan of DRM, Apple's DRM really isn't that bad. How many computers do you really need to litsen to it on? 5, IMHO is plenty, plus you can always deauthorize them.Also if Apple decided to remove DRM, then the lables wouldn't let Apple sell music, so Apple kinda needs it. ryanh is right.
Reply
Becki said 1:26AM on 8-06-2006
Doctorow is a hard core leftie. Read his stuff with that in mind and then make a call on DRM. I've read plenty of his stuff and he has never once described how anyone can make any money out of what they create if they follow his philosophy. So I think that what with his far and wide reputation and his name on published works in various paid-for outlets he's essentially a hypocrite. He's an elitist pretending to be all in favor of the little guy, and if he could sign a contract with Apple or Sony or whoever he'd be there in a nanosecond.
Reply
Wry Cooter said 1:47AM on 8-06-2006
It's all a slippery slope to Cory. I sort of agree somewhat, but I think Apples DRM is -fair-, not the great Satan.
The problem is people use it as a war cry against Apples success for purely competitive reasons, a political mudsling. Hey, try ours, it PlaysFerSure! In most cases, the war cry is hypocritical and disingenuine.
Cory is also one of the people that have truly been burned by Apples DRM, in an honest context, via having
1) bought a ton of crap from ITMS
2) having to had replace or copy his hard disk multiple times, enough to whittle through those extra copies FairPlay allows.
Reply
Jon H said 5:04AM on 8-06-2006
"having to had replace or copy his hard disk multiple times, enough to whittle through those extra copies FairPlay allows."
There is no such limit on copying tracks on a hard disk. And when you run out of machines, you can easily deauthorize all the machines and start from 0 again.
So this is nonsensical. Doctorow was burned by his Trotskyist parents when they indoctrinated him into their irrational belief system.
Reply
Harry said 5:14AM on 8-06-2006
"I've read plenty of his stuff and he has never once described how anyone can make any money out of what they create if they follow his philosophy."
Given the existence of peer-to-peer networks, the fact that there is still a market for bought music suggests that there are still lots of people who are happy to pay for it. I know I am. I am willing to buy things from iTMS at the moment which I could probably get illegally if I wanted - I'd be more rather than less likely to buy from them if they didn't have DRM.
Reply
Jon H said 5:17AM on 8-06-2006
Doctorow's an idiot. In his opinion piece, he claims that Yahoo is going to do away with DRM in its music downloads.
In the real world, what Yahoo is doing is selling *one* track without DRM. It's a Jessica Simpson song. With a higher-than-normal price, because it is "personalized" to have your name in it.
So, in other words, Yahoo expects the "added value" of personalization, along with the increased price, to make DRM a non-issue. They are expecting people to buy the song, rather than copying it, because a copy probably won't come with the person's name in it. And to the extent that people *do* copy it, they surely expect the higher price to make it profitable.
Doctorow links to a story about this, where it explicitly says that the DRM-free distribution of this track has no bearing on the use of DRM by Yahoo on other tracks.
The whole piece is just absurd.
Reply
Klae said 7:04AM on 8-06-2006
Having speed limits and cops to enforce them is just stupid! I should be able to drive as fast as I want anywhere. Why can't those fascists in charge simply "trust" that people will behave themselves?
Reply
gdw said 9:24AM on 8-06-2006
"There are only three things in life that are certain: death, taxes, and DRM."
Reply
michel said 9:32AM on 8-06-2006
drm is just a no-no. it simply serves to remove me freedom . I PAY and PAY and again PAY to music or video or whatever and still I have to comply to stuff removing liberties I HAVE with plain cd audio ? !
no.
the same with video game zone or DVD zone or whatever limitation simply to comply to "business realities"
you know what ? I totally don't care about your realities.
Reply
Hawk said 9:45AM on 8-06-2006
DRM is stupid because it serves to protect profit, both by preventing loss *and* by creating additional revenue streams.
DRM is not stupid because it helps prevent unauthorized use of work by people who don't simply want to release their things to the world as purely open works.
It's not 100% evil, but it's not good enough to be 50/50.
Reply
Hawk said 9:54AM on 8-06-2006
Also, I think DRM is necessary, by way of this analogy - it uses physical sales, because it's all anyone has to judge digital sales by even though they are different. We haven't yet figured out how to take a primarily physical market and move it digital without growing pains.
Analogy;
Imagine going to a farmer's market, putting all your food out on a table, and then setting a bucket down where people can put in money for your food. If someone takes your food, you go, "hey, don't take that", but just stand there.
That's kind of like selling 'free' MP3s.
Another key component is that Cory is probably coming from experience 'giving away' his books. However, Cory is not a super popular main-stream author like, say, Dan Brown. Cory is a sci-fi author who specializes in buzzword-heavy futurism (nothing really against him, but I think that's an apt description.)
The sort of person who would enjoy Cory's books is likely to either a) buy them even though they can get them for free, because it's ethical to do so, or b) download them and do something crazy like illustrate the book with cheerios or something weird and open-source-mash-up.
Contrast this with a musical artist such as, say, the super mega sudden hit Gnarls Barkley. If you could just go download an unencumbered MP3, that would be cool - but I would be safe in saying that Barkley fans are probably young and hip enough to know that if one person puts up an mp3 of that song, everyone else could download it, and who would wnat to buy it unless they didn't know or were the small minority of people who 'feel good' about buying stuff?
Reply
zune said 11:11AM on 8-06-2006
There are several ways to beat the system, some have been mentioned here. If you look at the long term, anything that gets in the way of the consumer will fail.
Reply
Chris Tucker said 11:46AM on 8-06-2006
The vast majority of iTMS users don't care about DRM. They DO care that iTMS is fast, seamless, and delivers a high-quality track to their iPod for a pittance.
Cory, you are NOT the target audience for iTMS.
Cory, you have NEVER been the target audience for iTMS.
Cory, you will never BE the target audience for iTMS.
The target audience for iTMS is not the geek world. It is Joe and Jane User, with their Dell or iMac.
Plug in the iPod, click a few buttons here and there, POOF! There's music or video on the iPod for the morning and evening commute. POOF! There's music or video on the iPod for the gym.
I'm still running OS 9 for a variety of reasons, US$129.95 of them, to be precise. So I can't access iTMS. So I ripped all my CDs via iTunes v2. I download from other sources, practically all of them free and legal MP3s, and from LimeWire, et all, only tracks I already have on vinyl.
When I finally make the jump to X, I'll be using iTMS a lot. and won't care a damn about DRM.
If I want to strip the DRM, I'll just use WireTap or similar.
Nah, that's too much like work. Screw it. I can easily live with the modest and unobtrusive DRM.
And, oddly enough, I would guess that practically EVERY OTHER customer of iTMS easily lives with that same DRM.
How many billion files has iTMS sold since it went online?
The Free Market has spoken. The Invisible Hand is, it seems, holding an iPod.
Reply
Conner Downey said 1:10PM on 8-06-2006
Chris Tucker, I agree with you 100%. It's unobtrusive to me. I don't mind it. I think it's a good way to keep record companies selling to the iTMS, so it benifits us all.
Reply
Harry said 1:24PM on 8-06-2006
If you're going to buy DRM'd music from iTunes all you need to remember to do is burn the tracks you've bought onto a CD fairly soon after you've bought them.
This gives you a DRM-free backup of your music which you can always revert back to, even if Apple retrospectively alters the restrictions in FairPlay. It also gives you a backup in case your hard drive melts or your girlfriend steals your MacBook -- not a bad thing.
Some people may consider this inconvenient, but I consider it more convenient than ordering a CD and having to wait for it to be delivered, or even journeying to a physical music shop, searching for the CD and eventually finding its not in stock.
Reply