Miico » Blog Archive » Tommy
on Apr 26th, 2009
@ 11:46 pm: 

[...] the rest here: Tommy Tags: covers-album-, early, ever-wrest, first, first-track, liverpool, nachos-cases, national, [...]

Bradley Robb
on Apr 6th, 2009
@ 8:44 am: 

With all due respect to you(r) position, the belief that pirated content is the source of the decline in the music industry is a flawed one, and one that placing DRM on compact discs wouldn’t have helped. While the finger is often pointed towards Napster and the programs which followed as the cause of the decline, they are more accurately described as a harbinger of change.

The rise of the CD represented the start of a bubble for the music industry in which many people rushed to replace their aging LP collection with a medium that captured the same sonic fidelity, or to upgrade their tape collection. This collector’s motivation was one of the key sources of increased sales numbers.

A second noticeable increase was that the compact disc largely killed off a large previous sales leader – the single. Prior to the early 1970s, the concept of a “full album” was indeed a rare one, the multitude of bands recorded 45 RPM singles, while earning their income from touring. With the rise of the compact disc in the middle 1990s, there was no technical difference between a full length CD and a single, and so bands were encourage to put together entire albums consisting of two or three singles, while padding the rest together with filler material. While returning greater profits for the labels, the perceived value of the album was reduced.

Putting together full albums, however, was more expensive for the record labels. Pair that fact with the number of labels shrinking into four global conglomerates, and there was a drastic reduction in risks that the labels were willing to take. This lead to cyclical trends where each label would push out copycat bands, pitting similar bands against each other in the media in order to enhance sales across the board. During the rise of the blond pop tarts in the late 1990s, it was actually common for a single label to have several essentially identical singers competing for sales. This lead to market place confusion for listeners and a further degraded the value of music.

With the onset of a digital music, listeners were able to once again upgrade their music libraries, and had access to extensive back catalogs. However, this time around, music listeners were able to purchase individual songs, which left record labels footing the bill for continuing to churn out LP-length song collections which only contained a handful of songs which the listener actually cared about.

The real harm which was done to the music industry was not downloading, or even the shift to digital, but rather the belief that the compact disc bubble would extend indefinitely, when since the dawn of the wax tube, music format shifts have been happening at an increasingly rapid rate.

If the record labels had put DRM on the compact disc from it’s inception, one could make the argument that customers would have likewise been forced to repurchase all of their favorite music over again in digital format. However, as the real world has shown, music listeners have grown disinterested with the major labels willingness to pad singles into LPs, and given the option, will purchase just the single.

The other major stumbling block for the belief that placing DRM on the compact disc would prevent people from ripping their own CDs is the very real fact that no DRM scheme has ever lasted. True, some require a certain amount of tech-savvy amongst the user, and current law makes the act of removing DRM a criminal one, but that has yet to stop people. Even the flaunted DRM schemes attached to the Blu Ray disc, claimed to be unbreakable, are broken with rapid success each time the format is updated.

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Marshall T. Vandegrift
on Apr 6th, 2009
@ 9:33 am: 

I’m afraid I have to disagree with your assertion that the Kindle’s DRM scheme is “smart,” or that a “smart” DRM scheme is possible. Amazon has made it easier to read a book on multiple devices linked to the same account, but this feature is present in various forms in all the existing commercial e-book formats and viewers. The Amazon system is still DRM, and still contains the two fundamental flaws of DRM: (1) it inherently treats the reader like a criminal and attempts to lock the content into a system which prohibits legitimate fair use and uses possible with print books; and (2) it is inherently ineffective, providing no true barrier preventing actual pirates from decrypting the content and distributing it as they wish.

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Kirk Biglione
on Apr 6th, 2009
@ 1:30 pm: 

What you’re talking about in this post is transparent DRM. That’s pretty much the holy grail for anyone trying to sell content protected by DRM. The ideal is that DRM should be so unobtrusive that consumers don’t notice it. To achieve this goal content publishers need to minimize friction during the initial purchase and media transfer process, and provide consumers with freedom to use their legally purchased digital media in a variety of ways. For Apple that meant allowing consumers to transfer songs to a certain number of devices and the ability to burn songs to CD. For Amazon that means the ability to transfer ebooks to multiple Kindles, and now to the Kindle iPhone app.

The problem for consumers is that this freedom is illusory. DRM protected songs purchased from iTunes will only play on an Apple brand media player. DRM protected books purchased from Amazon will only play on the Kindle or Kindle iPhone app. Consumers are not only locked into a specific brand of device, they’re also locked into a specific marketplace where content may be purchased.

The real challenge is not so much creating a transparent DRM scheme (Apple and Amazon have both demonstrated it can be done), but rather creating transparent and *interoperable* DRM in an *open* marketplace. The market leaders aren’t about to provide any assistance.

Apple could have licensed Microsoft’s DRM for use on the iPod, but there was no reason to. Why willingly make your device compatibility with rival digital music retailers when you’ve already built the industry leading marketplace for digital music?

Amazon could easily build support for Adobe DRM into the Kindle. They won’t. Again, there’s no reason for them to.

The real reason iTunes went DRM free is because the recording industry eventually realized that the only hope of overcoming Apple’s dominance in the marketplace for digital music was to eliminate the one thing that locked consumers into iTunes — DRM.

As publishers consider these issues it’s important to fully understand the many ways that DRM shapes the marketplace for digital content.

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Aaron Ardiri
on Apr 6th, 2009
@ 7:58 pm: 

As a swede – i had to say something *g*

I think DRM in its current form is flawed because it doesn’t adapt to the changing environment of the end-user. DRM should be transparent; it should not be an inconvenience. Instead of putting anti-copy measures in place; why not turn DRM into a validation environment – is that a real CD you are extracting that song from? are you person X, trying to use item Y – on devices A, B and C?

In today’s model; we are living in a connected world and digital signatures should rule the DRM scene. if the device isn’t sure your allowed to use it; make a network request and validate/generate a new digital signature. if someone copies the file; they’ll have to revalidate and hence, fail validation.

One of the biggest issues is that the audio/video format’s were designed first; then DRM came into play. what needs to be done by these “giants” if they want to provide a fair-play environment is to re-design the audio/video formats so they include DRM. sony tried this; and failed. does this mean doom for anyone else who tries?

i think the minute someone realizes they can make money of something; it’s just too late – proof of concepts are typically DRM free and they form the foundations of anti-DRM (once free, always free)

every DRM system will eventually be beaten – so, there is no ultimate solution; just a delay.

// Aaron Ardiri

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