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Yes

2 (5.1%)

Maybe

2 (5.1%)

No

29 (74.4%)

I don't know

1 (2.6%)

I need more info

5 (12.8%)

Total Members Voted: 38

[JimH]

May 3, 2004 -- Microsoft today unveiled the features of the next version of its Windows
Media(R) Digital Rights Management (DRM) software, and announced early
adopters of the platform, including leading online music and movie services
entertainment companies, consumer electronics manufacturers and chip makers.
Microsoft's next generation of Windows Media DRM technology will make new
scenarios possible, such as protecting, delivering and playing subscription-
based or on-demand digital music and video. These scenarios span Windows(R)-
based PCs and devices, including portable audio devices, Portable Media
Centers, cellular phones and personal digital assistants (PDAs) such as
Windows Mobile(TM)-based Pocket PCs and Smartphones, and networked devices
connected within the home, including those that connect over a wireless
network.

Here's an article that cuts through the marketing language:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/05/04/ms_drm2_rollout/

Like it or not, this is gaining ground.

[kaiynne]

Anything that limits how *I* use the data that i have fairly paid for is bad in my opinion.  I have multiple computers and the idea that I wouldn't be able to stream some information between them is frankly ridiculous.

The other thing that I would find comical were it not so sad is the attempt to block digital information from being passed to analog outputs.  In their knee jerk attempts to prevent piracy they are serverly handicapping their products at the expense of their users.  When I think of how many devices I own which have digital outputs that I am still using the analog outputs for I realise that were Janus implemented now I would basically have a lot of upgrading to do or would not be able to do some of the things I do right now.

I am not part of the microsoft is empirically evil camp, but they sure do a lot of evil things to their supposed customers.

[mrviola]

What i buy is from me and nobody going to say you can only enjoy for a small time or pay again. NO it's not good...

[LonWar]

I just can't see the benefit of buying music or movies with the cd...

I mean, .99 cents a track, 12 tracks, isn't that the same as a cd from the store....

(I'm from Canada so .99 would be about 1.35 * 12 = 16.20) I can buy most discs new or used for that,

[Rizlaw]

I vote NO!

If you are old enough, you can remember buying pretty good LPs for about $5 -7. Then came CD - "perfect sound forever" we were told - and $15+ prices for the same amount of music (sometimes a little more). The cost of making CD was significantly less, but greedy music companies tried to convince us that the digital version was better than the old LP version - hence we should be happy to pay 3x more. I don't think too many would argue that CD was never high enough resolution to be superior to good LP sound. So why did we have to pay more for less quality; never mind quantity? Now, music publishers are paranoid about file swaping, which they claim is the root cause for their dwindling revenues, even though a recent well respected Harvard University (I think) economic study puts a lie to their claims. On top of this they want us to pay about $1 per TRACK for a highly compressed music file which is sonically inferior to even CD audio and smile while they tell us that we can only play the track on limited hardware with DRM and, in some cases for a limited time unless we keep on forking over money to continue listening to inferior quality music.

The way I see it, current mp3 tracks aren't worth more than .50 cents (US) and I'm being generous about that amount. Remember the music companies have very little cost associated with Internet delivery of compress music files (no CD cases, no booklets, no raw material costs to make the CDs themselves; no real distribution costs to speak of, etc.)

To paraphrase then American UN Ambassador Adlai E. Stevenson's remarks to Soviet Ambassador Zorrin during the Cuban Missile Crisis: "I'm prepared to wait until Hell freezes over" before I get on the Microsoft, or anyone elses, DRM bandwagon with the present constraints and pricing policies.

Just one music lovers opinion.

[GHammer]

Anything that limits how *I* use the data that i have fairly paid for is bad in my opinion.  I have multiple computers and the idea that I wouldn't be able to stream some information between them is frankly ridiculous.

The other thing that I would find comical were it not so sad is the attempt to block digital information from being passed to analog outputs.  In their knee jerk attempts to prevent piracy they are serverly handicapping their products at the expense of their users.  When I think of how many devices I own which have digital outputs that I am still using the analog outputs for I realise that were Janus implemented now I would basically have a lot of upgrading to do or would not be able to do some of the things I do right now.

I am not part of the microsoft is empirically evil camp, but they sure do a lot of evil things to their supposed customers.

Well, first, the main aim of this is to not have you 'buy' media. They want you to rent it. Then you subscribe and keep paying. When you stop paying, your media no longer plays.

This is not Microsoft's idea exactly.

The media companies have forced the digital port restrictions into the standards themselves and here I am not talking about Janus, I'm talking the standards that govern the devices themselves.

You know, if blacksmiths and buggy whip makers had the money, power, and access the entertainment industry has today we'd all still be riding horses.

The 'Fair Use' ideas that the Supreme Court once held to be a right have been turned into a privilege.

Finally, that idea of fair use has to be tested in the courts. Kind of like when the entertainment bullies took Sony to court over the Betamax. They lost the case. But the Betamax had to exist for the right to be upheld by the court.

Now, DRM is helped along by the DMCA. If the entertainment folks have their way they build DRM into the media and into your devices. The DMCA makes it illegal to bypass that DRM. So you can't have the use, you can't have a bothersome court deciding it's fair use. Simple.

[JimH]

I'm bumping this to the top.  It's interesting to see the reaction.

[bebop]

I totall agree with you Riz and Ghammer!  Slowly but surely the rights of the consumer are being eroded. What ever happened to the idea that once you paid for something it was yours and you could do with it what you want. Sigh....what is next?  

[lee269]

Ive never posted on this issue before, because a) religion, politics and DRM are on my 'banned list' and b) I dont think Im as well informed as others on the board. But in the absence of a clear, thoroughly argued opinion in my head and the presence of Jims interest, here goes...


Ahhh, 'catalyze the recurring revenue model'. Trust The Register to tell it like it is. One of my daily must-read websites.

Like it or not, this is gaining ground.

No doubt. I dont copy/share my ripped CDs with my friends, but I do play them through my PC, serve them to the laptop with Media Server, convert them to mp3s and put them on my player, and burn mp3 CDs for my car CD player. One thing at a time.

My problem is that all this stuff just seems so sinister - big business steamrollering the common people etc. Its the old 'if you are innocent, youve got nothing to fear' thing. Of course organisations are entitled to crack down on those stealing their product, but the crackdown is painting regular people into a corner, and even the smallest amount of research (see the Reg above) leaves you with the impression that its not about stopping pirates but a bunch of music execs with dollar signs in their eyes.

I cant see that DRM can currently provide any advantage that law-abiders currently dont get anyway. It actually seems more restrictive. I dont necessarily have a problem with DRM, but it needs to be invisible to me, whilst not letting me abuse the content I paid for, and allowing me the rights I have with my current hardware/software. It needs to be robust on all conceivable platforms, and universally adopted - I must not be disallowed from playing my 'rented' content on certain hardware etc simply because of DRM compatibility issues etc. In fact we need a global DRM monopoly that is ubiquitous. But I cant see that happening, so we are left with a mess.

Alternatively give everyone an iPod for free, sell only passive hardware like amplifiers and speakers and collect money through that single channel. It works for cellphone companies

So theres my reaction. Its still not quite what I had in mind, but you asked...

[GHammer]

I'm bumping this to the top.  It's interesting to see the reaction.

I think you'll find that most just want a fair system. I don't want to pay, and pay, and pay. I don't want Congress writing hardware standards into law, the requirement that Macrovision scrambling is effective is Federal law for example.

Funny, when I became interested in music in a serious way, I could buy a cassette deck and record all my LPs. I could record from the local Public Radio station when they had 'Album' night. And I bought lots of LPs and lots of hardware. Anyone remember the SAE Click and Pop machine?

When I visit the US, I am way bored with FM radio, it is the same short playlist over and over. And frankly, the music on those playlists sucks. Yeah, I'm an old guy, but I have Eminem, NiN, The Specials, etc in my library. I like all sorts of GOOD music.

I think the main reason the entertainment industry's revenue is down is because they simply have not got enough material that people are willing to plunk down money for.

P2P can be argued 2 ways. I use it from time to time. But if I keep playing someone I will go buy a CD. Now, in China that doesn't mean much because the CD is probably a pirate copy. But I buy it nonetheless. Why use a terror campaign again Americans, force equipment to be degraded when you wink at 1.3 billion people with pirate CDs in the chain stores? Which is another topic entirely.

One scare tactic of the industry is to tell Congress (tech illiterates all), that people will be making perfect copies of their movies and sending them to everyone on the Internet. I know and you know that simply isn't going to happen. The files are large, the outbound bandwidth limited for most cable and DSL users. As for DVD rips, yeah, you can do them. But the quality is not 'original' and the Divx reencodes are not useful on a large screen.

There have been a number of attempts to provide 'on demand' movies. Nobody (AT&T, Charter, Southern Bell) has been able to make it work technically. So why cripple HDTV, and all associated equipment?

Even the cable companies are getting their licks in. They will scramble the basic channels soon. Why? I have no idea, if you have a basic cable package, you have the channels. If you have a premium package you still have basic (local) channels. Why scramble them? For HDTV they already have the broadcast flag set by the station/studio. All I can see it will do is make 'Cable ready' sets useless. And a lot of people have paid for that capability. Especially when you are talking HDTV, the tuner is definately extra cost.

Sooner or later they will force something on to the public that will attract the attention of Joe Public and not just techies. Then the situation will change. Even politicians aren't stupid enough to ignore Joe when he gets upset.

But for now I see it as an arrogant industry that has too much power in Congress breaking and downgrading equipment, trampling rights like fair use, and generally acting like a horse's ass. And hopefully it will come back to bite them one day soon.

[Penfold]

Gotta go with Rizlaw, I know the artists need to get paid but are we really deluding ourselves that the majority of our money goes to the starving artists? Or the organisation that seems to be forcing MS & Apple's hands, the people who influenced the DMCA Act, & who are reportedly standing shoulder to shoulder with our boys in the sh*t.

I digress, I guess I'm saying that relatively low bitrate (read 256-320VBR if it has to be MP3) doesn't really matter to me, but the full ownership of the product is the one constant right I'll fight for.

Who knows what media may lie round the corner, I reserve, nay demand the right to transfer my paid for music whenever I want, to whatever format I, not the RIAA want.

So ner :oP

</highhorse>

[hit_ny]

i agree with what most people have to say regarding this subject, but i would like to explore how DRM could be made more attractive. The media companies know that if they dont dangle some "carrots" then DRM wont be successful

What if most of the big media companies got on board with this system and opened their vaults to people that had systems that *FIT* their reqmts ? Let's say the cost to rent is very low compared to actually buying the content. To make this even more attractive/stark lets raise the prices of the actual content to make the rented stuff look better. Hypothetically speaking, rent 10 for the price to own 1.

Would people still say i'm not doing DRM, or would a small trickle of people get on board and then it grows from there. This would allow ppl to sample before they buy. I can't imagine that "old" CDs/DVDs would be replaced so early. So there could be a possibility to actually *OWN* the content/media at some point, rather than just licensing it for limited use, just that it will be more expensive.

Get the customers hooked on renting, justify by saying why do u need to own such a thing blah blah, look how much the same amount of money will get you if you rent instead.

Then slowly increase the price of renting and phase out "old" media gradually.

[Mastiff]

Anything digitally based can be cracked. Check out this story: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/10/08/music_biz_wants_tougher_dmca/

That's three years old. If the anti-rip technology really worked, new releases wouldn't be available as rips, but they are. Usually before your local record shop has them. And I don't want anybody telling me what to do with the music I buy either, so I will always try to circumvent any DRM technology to get my music in to my media library on hard disk. Hint: Any CD that can be played with digital output on a regular CD player can be recorded by any good sound card with an SPDIF input. I have actually tried it, and things like Psychich MP3 can find the album in the web database it uses! Which probably means that ripping through a CD ROM or ripping through the SPDIF output of a regular CD player creates identical files. In other words, as long as there are living sound cards with untouched SPDIF inputs and CD players that can play CDs, nothing can stop me from using my music as I see fit! I would hate to carry a 2600 disc CD changer in my car, even if it's a Suburban...