What all the fuss over DRM !?!
So I had a conversation with a co-worker today about sharing music and it reminded me of the daddy over at Apple.
What is it?
- DRM stands for Digital Rights Management
- It’s a system that restricts how, when and where you can listen to music and soon will include movies
What’s all the fuss about?
- Consumers like you and me like to “do what we do” with our music
- The problem is today we all can make near perfect copies of music and videos, and distribute them over a broadband connection in a couple of minutes or over several hours
- Without restrictions on copying, content providers like the RIAA or studio houses say they could go out of business (yea right!)
Why should you care?
- There is no single DRM standard
- Apple has their own and Microsoft has their partners (see playforsure)
- If you purchase content on iTunes you can only play it on an iPod or a Mac computer. That sucks if you are like me and use a PC at work and a Mac at home (I miss my library!)
- Even worst yet, if you for some reason decided to buy a Zune there are time restrictions for play…say 3 days for a song or 24 hours for a downloaded movie
- None of these thing make for a desirable experience
What does it all mean?
- Once again our angelic leader at Apple comes off looking like the hero
- If he wins out, we get to freely swap music and movies
- If he doesn’t he comes off looking like the consumers knight in shining black sweater vest
Food for thought…sound off here…
2 comments:
Digital Optomist,
Your stance on DRM -- that it's "killing" (or otherwise maiming) music isn't just true from your consumer standpoint. It's a major concern on the creative end, as well. I'm a musician, and I'm worried about where we are heading. I was Googling about the topic, and found your blog -- and The "Other" Digital Rights Management" (an essay by Shelly Palmer, a composer). He raises the issue from our end -- and it really hit the nail on the head. Between you and us -- consumer and creator -- we've got to keep our rights to use music in various (legal) ways.
- Maureen
maureen_evans_design@yahoo.com
Hi,
Digital Rights Management is a class of technologies that allow rights owners to set and enforce terms by which people use their intellectual property. DRM is a two-part scheme. It relies on encryption to protect the content itself and authentication systems to ensure that only authorized users can unlock the files. Thank you...
Secured PDF File
Post a Comment