Ok, I'm a law abiding citizen. All laws. Even stupid meaningless laws that I disagree with.
I'm also a computer nerd and that will factor in here.
One of the things that I worry about is the "next generation" getting desensitized to theft due to the "digital age." I get sick of hearing people talk about "sharing" music. Instead of walking into Fred Meyer and shoplifting a CD they simply make a copy from a friend. It's so common that many people don't even view it as a theft even though it is a felony.
I read a lot of tech sites. (A great compilation site that pulls headlines is the Daily Rotation. You can customize it to your taste.) Many argue that copyrights and ownership are a thing of the past and blah blah blah socialist garbage. I've read message boards where the "little guy" (aka the thief) makes bold assertations about how he can never be caught and will never stop "sharing" music, as if he is leading some sort of socialist revolution instead of just being a petty thief, too cheap to fork over $0.99 for a song.
I watch with great interest the tales of the RECORDING INDUSTRY (said in the same ominous tone that you would whisper HALLIBURTON) VS the poor innocent victims who only wanted to "share" some music.
And other than some serious snafus *cough* Sony *cough* I've also applauded the DRM (digital rights management) measures taken to protect intellectual property rights and copyright material... until now.
I just got a new computer. (I'll post the specs in the comments if any of you geeks are interested, it's good stuff.) I attempted to export my playlist from MusicMatch, a worthless piece of software that will never under any circumstances be installed on this uber machine, and it wouldn't let me due to the DRM.
Fine. I manually move the files over my network. One by freakin one. Fine. I then clicked a song, perfectly content to let Windows Media Player play it for the initial time. Denied. DRM says that I have to install MusicMatch (aka The Devil) on my new computer. It says that yes, I do own the music and have every right to copy it to another computer but sorry, I need MusicMatch installed anyways.
Now I'm a smart guy. It will probably take me .0002 seconds to find a program to strip the DRM content from these files so that I can play them with whatever player I want to. BUT WHY DO I HAVE TO?!?!?!?
I'll tell you why: because other people steal. I have to suffer because some of you are convinced that it's ok for you to take things while the rest of us pay for them.
I'm one of the good guys. I paid for these. I own them. But now I join the ranks of many authors of reputable sources (CNET and the like) who say that they too pay for their digital property but HATE the DRM nonsense. It's not stopping the 12 years olds on LimeWire, it's stopping the non-technical folks who pay their $0.99 and then want to move their music library to another computer.
I hope that all digital thieves get prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and I hope that DRM stops trying to interfere with MY PROPERTY.
9 comments:
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.txt
pretty good paper about just this topic...
You have to embed the link because it won't show all of it.
It's a real conundrum all this DRM bullshit. I agree that artists need to get paid for their efforts but I question how many times for the same song. I'm real old, over 50, and most of the music I like was created 40 years ago and I have already purchased it on vinyl, 8-track, cassette and CD. Yes, I know that I can rip it from the CD but you know how they can be damaged or lost in various moves etc. It seems that older songs should be priced a lot less than current offerings. I also have many doubts that the musicians themselves receive very little of the compensation.
How to put a link in a blog comment? Click this.
There's a little more to it than just thieving teenagers. Musicmatch puts DRM on their downloaded music to keep you locked into using their crappy music player software. If you use Windoze Media Player, or RealPlayer, or (heaven forbid) some open-source music player, you're not paying for Musicmatch's player, which of course they view as a Bad Thing. Hence the DRM. It won't stop until enough people (like you and me) send 'em an email telling them you won't buy anymore music from them until they remove the DRM.
Hey, Daniel -
Did you know you are leader of the minutemen?
Check this out:
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2006/12/350087.shtml
Indymedia is a reliable source like Muslim countries get along with their neighbors.
I'm not the leader of the Minutemen, I just make a nice target for the criminal apologists to point at.
(I'm going to have to put up some more pictures of myself so they can use something else)
Daniel, Indymedia is nothing more that a socialistic propaganda machine authored by individuals with less than good quality education. After all, to spell the word illegal as "illigal," that has to say much about the author hiding behind an alias (and possibly a black mask as usual).
By the way, just to show you how clasless these knuckleheads are on Indymedia, see how the protestors at Schumacher's treated Lars Larson and his wife on Indymedia: "Lars Larson and yesterday's Schumacher Fur protest (9/23/06)". Of course, I got to know first hand what happens when I commented on the story in Lars's defense.
"Clasless" in my previous post should be "classless." I really wish the new Blogspot would have an "edit comments" for the subscribing members.
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