DRM sucks & blows

The following is from the Telegraph.

If you unwittingly downloaded music with inbuilt rights restrictions, you could find it stops working. That's hardly fair, says Shane Richmond

If the manager of your local record shop arrived at your door saying that his store had gone out of business and he needed his records back, you'd think he'd gone mad.

You certainly wouldn't give him back the music.

Sadly, real world norms don't always apply online, as customers of the Virgin Digital Music Club recently discovered. The online shop, which sold more than two million songs in two years, has announced its closure. Unfortunately, they are taking the music with them.


The Virgin store had two types of customer: those who bought and downloaded music from the site occasionally will be unaffected by the closure; however, those who joined the site as subscribers, paying monthly to effectively 'rent' their music, will be left with nothing. From tomorrow, the digital rights management software (DRM) built into the files, which prevents illegal copying, filesharing and piracy, will also ensure that any songs they have copied to a digital music player will stop working, because users will be unable to renew the monthly subscription license that gives them continued access to the tracks.

Virgin would probably point out that customers knew this when they signed up. Perhaps they did, but the online music marketplace is so confusing that one could be forgiven for being taken by surprise. Most big-name online music stores - iTunes, HMV (hmv.co.uk), Tesco (tescodownloads.com), Woolworths (woolworths.co.uk) and Napster (napster.co.uk) - sell tracks loaded with DR M, which limits what you can do with those songs, such as whether you can copy them to CD, move them to another computer, and even how long they will remain playable. Worryingly, the terms and conditions for these stores often give them the right to change the rules without notice.

This may seem like little more than a nuisance, but if you ever need to move your music from one computer to another or decide to change your brand of MP3 player, you might be forced to leave your music behind.

**So here we see the record companies putting the con into consumer. I had a farscial situation some time back myself of having purchased albums and I tried to get my own music onto my new pc this was a complete no go. The bizarre situation was made worse by the fact that had I purchased the CD's in question I could have copied them onto the new PC in a few hours.

Becky Hogge, executive director of the Open Rights Group, which campaigns for consumer rights online, says: "If reputable brands such as Virgin can do this, then the lesson is that DRM music is not a safe purchase unless the provider allows you to rip it to a DRM-free format such as a CD. It also shows that the law is lacking and the public needs protection against this kind of abusive misuse of DRM."

Many online stores, including iTunes, 7Digital (7digital.com), Wippit (wippit.com) and TuneTribe (tunetribe.com), sell some tracks with DRM and others without. The decision on whether to include DRM rests with record labels, not the online stores, but it's still baffling for customers.
Kim Bayley, director-general of the Entertainment Retailers Association (ERA), agrees: "The current system is confusing. It is hampering the development of the online music market. It is incumbent on online stores to make clear to consumers what content they are buying, with what rights."

The problem is that most consumers assume that music delivered online works in the same way as music bought from a high street shop. They think they own it, can copy it and play it in their living room, in the car or on the move. Sadly this isn't always the case. Music bought from iTunes, which comes in AAC format, will play only on an iPod. Music bought in WMA format plays on almost any player except an iPod. Only MP3s, which come without DRM, play on almost every device.

"The ERA hopes that in the future online music will be offered interoperably, with all files working on all devices," says Bayley. "Record labels and most online retailers support this - after all, a CD operates on all devices and has no DRM. However, retailers recognise that an element of DRM may be necessary to allow for different business models. It is important that consumers understand what they are purchasing and how they must store their music for the future."
In a survey conducted in August by Entertainment Media Research on behalf of media lawyers Olswang, two-thirds of those questioned said music is worth purchasing only if it comes without DRM. Some stores, such as Bleep (bleep.com), Ministry of Sound (mosdownload.com), Playlouder (playlouder.com) and Rough Trade (roughtradedigital.com), do offer a great selection of DRM-free music for specialists but are often lacking in chart music. Meanwhile, eMusic (emusic.com), which offers a subscription service that allows you to keep your music even after your subscription expires, only stocks music from independent labels.

Tom Panton, managing director of Bleep, says it's essential to offer DRM-free music: "High-quality digital music with no restrictions is the only way to go. We have been selling DRM-free MP3s since January 2004, to a fast-growing section of the discerning music-buying public who prioritise sound quality and compatibility over other factors."

However, things are changing, he says: "The whole debate about DRM has moved on considerably and everyone apart from a few execs at the top of Warners and Sony/BMG agrees that [DRM] is pointless, but these last people are scared of upsetting the status quo, their shareholders and admitting that they were wrong all along. "Practically every independent label already sells music without DRM, plus now EMI and Universal have followed suit. Using EMI as an example, they had some good, forward-thinking people in their digital department who were able to push through the dropping of DRM, but who would have taken the rap if it all went pear-shaped. Of course, nothing of the sort has happened, apart from a small but significant rise in EMI's digital revenues over the past few months."

EMI is now offering DRM-free music through iTunes and Amazon's new US-only store, AmazonMP3.com. Amazon's store is completely DRM-free and cheaper than iTunes. Amazon spokesman Andrew Herdener says: "Our customers have been asking for the freedom to listen to their music on a variety of devices and we're pleased to be able to bring that option to them with Amazon MP3."

Unfortunately, Andrew is tight-lipped about plans to expand the store to British customers, but says: "We do tend to roll out new stores and services on Amazon.com first, then gradually move to offer them on our international sites." For now, British music buyers would do well to always read the small print.
**And there you go the music industry is run by thieving pikey cunts.
Tags:DRM

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