Macworld – Thursday, 30 November 2006:
Movie studios are demanding that Apple implement a tougher and more restricted digital rights management system if it want to sell their movies through iTunes.
Among other restrictions, movie bosses want Apple to “reduce the number of devices that can use a film downloaded from iTunes,” reports the Financial Times.
They claim that Apple’s current model — which allows owners of legally acquired content to play that content on up to five computers and an unlimited number of iPods — is too generous.
Citing the phantom of file sharing, they exclaim that they want restricted rights, or none, according to the report.
“We’re very willing to do a deal but we’re keen to get some concessions from Apple that will account for the differences between the value of music and television content and feature film content,” an executive said.
The MPAA mafia continues to impress on how persistent they are in restricting content use. The simply want the coin operated model of viewing/listening of content.
I am paying for content today on iPOD/iTunes because it is easy and allows flexibility in how I enjoy it.
This MPAA made up of ex-GOP mafia types will merely cause buyers like me to “find my own way” of getting the fexibility I demand in content.
Here we go again with more restrictions. These guys need to remember that what they are selling isn’t a necessity. We don’t need this crap to live. It’s not like it’s food. If they keep bullying everybody and not giving customers what they want, people will start going elsewhere for entertainment that’s not so restrictive. Personally, I’ve already tuned out to most of it. I simply don’t care about the products the MPAA and RIAA are selling anymore. In the rare case that I find a movie or CD that I want, I buy it used on eBay or in a used book store that sells second-hand movies and CDs. It’s funny that every time I pick up a new DVD or CD in a store I think to myself “do I really want to support these a-holes by buying this?” I almost always put it back down.
I guess MPAA still wants people to buy DVDs…
Hello?!…Justice department! What are you waiting for?
(Racketeering, Blackmail, Monopolistic Anticompetitive practices)
Oh wait! I forgot they have…what was that again…oh yes MORE MONEY THAN GOD!
I ran into a couple RIAA office types at a Mexican timeshare a couple years ago, back when they were seizing granny’s house over songs a 13-year-old girl had downloaded and, with no criminal intent, shared over one of the P2P networks. I asked them if they knew how mad people were at the RIAA. Oh yeah, she said, they know, but they don’t care.
Kinda like Congress, I guess.
Hey can I plug a product here? How about the coolest and least DRM encumbered MP3 player on the market? That is it plays actual MP3’s, and will support 100 gig sd cards when they arrive. Oh, and its opensource.
http://www.makezine.com/daisy/
GregA: I wouldnt bother, for the pod people its about cool.
There’s some other nifty stuff on that makezine site, too – like USB rechargeable batteries and a Altoids-box recharger design. Someone here was commenting on USB rechargeable batteries the other day.
http://www.teuthis.com/html/daisy_mp3.html
The hex files, if you can’t afford to buy the compiler…
Cool, schmool… How many iPod/Zune/Zen/whatever users even know what hexidecimal means? 😉
GregA: It isn’t the player that is encumbered by DRM (unless it’s a Zune), it’s the service. iPods play non-DRM media just fine. The problem is if you want to legally buy digital media off the internet, it comes pre-damaged. I’m sure you know this but just wanted to be clear.
“This MPAA made up of ex-GOP mafia types”
I want you to prove the political affiliation of each member of the MPAA.
I want you to prove the political affiliation of each member of the MPAA.
I agree, I thought most hollywood types were Dems. Beside, money and greed have no political affiliation. Its a bi-partisan issue.
Well John Dvorak posted on here last week that the head of the MPAA is Dan Glickman, a Clinton cabinet member.
Ah, the usual communist clap trap regarding DRM and the like. D-Uncensored – never changes.
For the last time people, one of the operative words in Intellectual Property is PROPERTY. Just like you can sell your house and your car at whatever price you want to, so can the OWNERS of IP. If it doesn’t sell, mock them all you want for unreasonable pricing their products, but it is their products. All they are trying to do is get the most they can for their property, which is what pretty much every last one of you tried to do when you sold your car, house, or whatever.
The hypocracy of the readers of this site always amaze me. We are theoretically at the vanguard of the digital world, yet the DU readers treat digital IP as pits on a CD, rather than the ‘real world’ of the future.
It really is a shame. In 50 or so years, they will be able to ‘cat scan’ the brain and program in onto a computer. I can’t wait until the a-holes here complain about the need proper DRM (and ethics) against stealing their actual ‘selves’. I’ll enjoy a laugh then.
Hey #10, what the heck are you talking about?
The Zune plays non-DRMd music just fine.
The only added restriction versus an ipod is that songs sent via wifi can only be played 3 times.
But since an ipod can’t share songs via wifi anyway, the point is moot.
lou, you’re utterly ignorant about the issue. IP is called property by those who benefit and profit from it, but it’s not the same as physical property. While things can be possessed by one, ideas can be possessed by everyone. That’s why we have specific laws regarding copyrights and patents which are entirely different from the laws for physical property.
The sole purpose of copyrights and patents is to promote people creating more copyrights and patents. By giving, not property rights, but a monopoly in an idea or a work of art, others will have incentive to do the same.
The content industry has perverted this idea to where people like you actually believe that they are synonymous with real property rights.
While the monopoly associated with copyrights used to last a mere 15 years, it is now 90+ years after the death of the author. Can someone explain to me why corporations getting paid 90 years after I’m dead will give me incentive to create? I can’t think of any.
What incentive is there to create if as soon as you make something, people just get a free copy online rather than pay you for it?
I’ll agree that they never should have extended the copyrights, and I think it’s longer than that.
#15: SN:
Sorry, you are the ignorant one about property, especially intellectual property. First, we do have laws, and the law says you can’t make copies and give them away. Considering how much pirated software, music and other IP, it’s clear that the copying of IP is way over the top, and abused. My IP (the song I wrote, the program I coded), can be possessed by everyone (your words), but should not if I don’t want it.
Secondly, I agree with you that the copyright and patent system has been abused by IP holders. That being said, two wrongs do not make a right, and copying of current IP (say, for example, of the last 10 years) is wrong.
Lastly, your distinction between physical and intellectual property is a tough one, and one getting more ‘cloudier’ day by day. I’d rather not use the star trek “transporter” technology to make my point, but every new day, technology allows us to “copy” things that were once considered “physical” property. As I repeated from people much more learned than me, in less than 50 years, technology will allow a cat-scan type equivalent to map the neurons in your brain to equivalent computer circuitry. When that computer thinks, and talks, and PRODUCES like you (or your grandchildren), I”m sure your distinction between physical and intellectual property will become, how to say it, more nuanced.
SN,
While there may be a technical difference to the legally attuned mind, to us great masses of unwashed, property is property. If it is mine then it is mine. Be it my car, my guitar, my dog, my portfolio, my kid, or my wife, they are mine (even if the idea of property gets very clouded with the last two). The nuances between real and intellectual property are legalese that, while I can respect, don’t necessarily fully understand.
And yes, even if George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, and Harrison Ford made a movie based on a Stephen King novel, I would expect each of them to get their money. Regardless of how much money they already have. This is how they make their living
I totally agree that 90 years after the author’s death is way too long. To me it would be more reasonable to have it something like 40 years if the author (family) retains the copyright and 15 years if the copyright is owned by a corporation.
#19 – That’s a great idea and I wonder why we don’t hear it more often. Draw a distinction between humans who create (they retain longer rights to control of their work) and corporations or others who did not actually create the works to which they claim rights. Old English law called corporations “persons without hearts,” or something like that. Okay, let’s given them and others reputed to be heartless (bankers, lawyers, agents…) reduced rights to control work they didn’t actually create. If you or someone in your family created the work, let’s extend the rights to control. Artists would actually gain some leverage over how their work is used. Revolutionary idea.
It’s like genuine tax reform. Too bad it’ll never happen. But what a great idea…
The fact is that people view intellectual property differently than physical products. Industries that produce these intangible products need to develop a different business model that doesn’t include lawsuits and bullying their customers. Broadcasters freely distribute these products on television and radio all the time. We are used to getting some of it for free. In the past, if we liked the song, movie, or TV show well enough, many of us would buy the retail version. These days people hate the record and movie industry because of the lawsuits and the restrictions they keep imposing on us. Any goodwill these companies had with their customers is gone. People do other things for entertainment these days (video games, the internet, etc) and suing us into submission isn’t going to bring back those sales.
Nobody is saying artists shouldn’t make money! Consumers (I think) would like to buy something, and use it as they see fit…So long as they don’t reproduce it for their own profit, or give it away free there should be no problem. However, the way things are looking, soon Ford will be telling people who can ride in “their” car, or where you are allowed to drive in “their” car.
i guess if i had a video ipod i might actually care