When Wal-Mart announced in 2008 that it was pulling down the DRM servers behind its (nearly unused) online music store, the Internet suffered a collective aneurysm of outrage, eventually forcing the retail giant to run the servers for another year. Buying DRMed content, then having that content neutered a few months later, seemed to most consumers not to be fair.
But that’s not quite how Big Content sees things—just ask Steven Metalitz, the Washington DC lawyer who represents the MPAA, RIAA, and other rightsholders before the Copyright Office. Because the Copyright Office is in the thick of its triennial DMCA review process, in which it will decide to allow certain exemptions to the rules against cracking DRM, Metalitz has been doing plenty of representation of late.
He has now responded to a host of questions from the Copyright Office following up on live hearings held earlier this year, and in those comments, Metalitz (again) strongly opposes any exemption that would allow users to legally strip DRM from content if a store goes dark and takes down its authentication servers.
“We reject the view,” he writes in a letter to the top legal advisor at the Copyright Office, “that copyright owners and their licensees are required to provide consumers with perpetual access to creative works. No other product or service providers are held to such lofty standards. No one expects computers or other electronics devices to work properly in perpetuity, and there is no reason that any particular mode of distributing copyrighted works should be required to do so.”
[…]
“To recognize the proposed exemption would surely discourage any content provider from entering the marketplace for online distribution… unless it was committed to do so… forever. This would not be good for consumers, who would find a marketplace with less innovation and fewer choices and options.”The mind boggles. This reads like copy from a Bizarro World manifesto on DRM, since the reality of the market for downloaded music (which was the issue behind the proposed exemption) has shown quite clearly that people don’t want DRM on their tunes and providers are happy to comply once the labels allowed it.
This has implications beyond music and video for everything from Kindle users to non-drm content such cloud computing software where if the software disappears with its provider, you’re screwed.
0
Support the Blog — Buy This Book!
For Kindle and with free ePub version. Only $9.49 Great reading.
Here is what Gary Shapiro CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) said: Dvorak's writing sings with insight and clarity. Whether or not you agree with John's views, he will get you thinking and is never boring. These essays are worth the read!
Put this ad on your blog!
Syndicate
Subscribe to Main Blog feed here:
Subscribe to Comments too (below):
Junk Email Filter
OK so it’s official DRM is dead. They’ve just scared away the last few customers that upstart online music sellers might have had. I guess the current online DRM sellers are aware of this though, might be good for them. The old ‘who can you trust’ scam. Still I imagine that as long as P2P is an option they’ll only capture the customers that are technologically inadept, or just too lazy to be bothered. Basically a tiny percentage of the potential market. It’s hard to believe these people can be so persistently clueless.
Ooooh! Cheeky!
I wish you were right, but it will work just fine as long as Americans have access to the internet. They will say “But I want it and I want it right now…” and they will whip out their 13% credit cards and load up their shopping carts.
People are sheep, and the music companies know it. They know enough people will buy to keep them is business and if it’s not, they will just keep suing people for profit.
I know you all just know that “this is it, and we’re not going to take it anymore”…but you’re wrong. America is a nation of consumerist sheep. The content companies will jsut keep buying harshe and harsher laws until you’re all paying a monthly RIAA fee on your internet bill. And you will. You will continue to bitch, but they have you where they want you…and you cannot get out.
Just get used to it and stop bitching. The people who even know about DRM are about 5% of the population.
Well i for one can proudly say that i’ve never fell for that trap called drm. I pay $20 dollar a month for unlimited usenet access. I would be happy to pay that to a legal content provider if it will give me the same unlimited access to content. And I think millions of people also would. Doesn’t that sound like a good business proposition? These guys really don’t have a clue how to make money it seems.
Trying to change RIAA from a greedy corporation seems like a fruitless task.
May be consumers should try a different route. When a news story about RIAA appears, leave a list of Indie bands in the comments section. If there is not an Indie band search website, could someone create one? Consumers could also write to their favorite band that is connected to the RIAA and ask the band to go Indie.
What would happen over time if the RIAA had few bands in their portfolio?
#5
http://riaaradar.com/
I own no DRM content except for Audible books and I can break that DRM and save them as mp3s. If Audible ever changes that to an unbreakable DRM I will drop them like a hot poker.
I only buy music if the artist his/herself hands me the CD when I give them the money. There is so much free content on the web (Cranky Geeks, TWiT, Librevox, any free podcast in iTunes) that neither need to buy a CD, nor download anything illegally. The only time I regularly listen to actual music (when I haven’t met the artist) is when they sing hymns at church.
I have had it with the RIAA. I do not need any of the products that they offer and I am better off. As for the MPAA, they waste too much of my time since I have to sit through an anti-piracy warning on a DVD that I purchased before I can watch my DVD. Last time, the warning was in English and French. You can’t fast forward or skip past it and it pisses me off.
@Benjamin
Yes, you have to be a pirate to avoid all those MPAA warnings. Yarrrrr matey!
What is fueling all of this DRM crap is the ridiculously long copyright. If they changed the copyright back to 10 years or so, all of this DRM nonsense would go away.
I own records and books that I purchased in the 70’s that ‘play’ just fine today. Why should mp3’s be any different? I’d rather have an mp3 or cd instead of my records but the original purchase is working just fine.
As an old geezer who has paid for the same content on vinyl, 8 track, cassette, CD and iTunes I am sick of this.
I pay for what I get but if I pay I should have rights for life. Period.
I have a moderate collection of CDs. I make my own MP3s from my CDs that I own before listening to them on my iPod. I would never pay for a DRM song. Never had to pirate a song or movie.
Exposes that the real reason they want DRM is not for piracy but to get you to pay for the same content multiple times.
I haven’t bought or downloaded music, e-books, or movies for about 3 years now. They won’t get me!
I don’t buy DRMed content, with the possible exception (I’m not really sure since I never tied to copy them) of a few DVDs.
But, here’s the deal. The DRM has to last as long as the copyright. Let them put that in their pipes and smoke it.
Dave – The drm lasts, its your access to content that you paid for that goes away.
I hope you understand the basic concept of ownership.
The makers in the USA dont want you to OWN anything. They want perpetual Purchase.
You dont OWN your home or property, NOT sence TAXES started.
You dont OWN your car, in the last 30 years, there havnt been many cars WORTH KEEPING, or require MORE and MORE repairs as it gets older.
ANd you arent really buying PEANUT butter.. There are extenders in it, that make it worth LESS then real peanuts, Oils(not peanut oil) sugar, and other things..
Meat that they add WATER to to get MORE out of it..
Maybe the problem is that there is a misunderstanding from the general public as to what these companies are trying to sell to you.
People see them saying Pay $0.99 for a song, but what they really mean to say is pay $0.99 for access to the song. Like access to a museum or disneyland. Only without the closing period.
I think they should be sued for falsely advertising their products. The museum and disneyland never say you are buying the park…
On top of that I think they should be required to give a cliff note version of their user agreement. One that you don’t really need to have a degree in law to understand what loopholes their complex use of the english language is trying to patch up.
Is that hand giving a reach around or is it going for the wallet?
If you can’t keep something you bought, then call it a rental or subscription.
Americans understand that concept. What po’s us is when we “buy” something but then don’t really own it.
Music and Kindle books could be offered just like cable TV — a basic package of “all you can consume” .
#22
Precisely. By extending the copyright to a century, the bean counters can now claim decades of “lost” revenue due to piracy which justifies the armies of lawyers to go after grandma ripping a Sinatra song as well as the development of DRM technologies. If we cut the copyright back to 10-15 years or less, that justification goes away and all of this DRM nonsense disappears overnight.
Good posts.
# 19 Wightout said, “On top of that I think they should be required to give a cliff note version of their user agreement.”
Here! Here! Not just music but ALL such “agreements.” What happened to the move to force contracts be written in plain language?
I tried to download a little widget for my smartphone the other day. I’m a well-educated man and I couldn’t understand the pages and pages of legalese! I just didn’t agree and ended the hassle.
As for DRM: I am saddened to admit I do buy from Audible. But, as mentioned before, you are “allowed” to break their DRM by burning to CD. And I would kill for a Kindle or the upcoming Plastic Logic reader but not until Amazon and B&Noble realize the errors of their DRM ways.
I’m surprised they haven’t insisted on a “pay per listen” law.
I can’t tell if that graphic is from a Heimlich Maneuver poster or a martial arts poster.