DRM

Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out DRM!

The last couple of days have been quite interesting in the field of DRM and I'm glad to say its not good news for DRM.

First off, DRM peddlers are not happy about the state of the industry:

Among DRM peddlers, there's also a bit of jealously because some DRM systems are "successful." Take the comments made by Talal Shamoon, CEO of InterTrust (a company working on interoperable DRM schemes, among other things): "Apple is using encryption to try to do what Ma Bell used to do with the phone network: wall people in," he said. "It frustrates consumers and ultimately feeds piracy."

That's the pot calling the kettle black if I ever heard it. The bottom line is that Apple is the only company making head-way with music right now and everyone else is left holding the bag. And that feeds discontent and finger-pointing in the DRM circles. Awesome.

Concrete examples that show the DRM is failing also came about this week. Virgin Digital decided to shutter its DRM laden digital download store:

Virgin Digital, the online presence of the UK-based Virgin Group that owns Virgin Megastores, has announced that it has begun closing its doors in stages, beginning last week. According to a message on the site, the online music store has already shut its doors to new customers as of last Friday, and as of this coming Friday, it will cease selling individual tracks to current customers.

. . .

The site now advises its customers who have purchased tracks to back them up, as they will not be able to download them again once Virgin Digital has closed. It's unclear whether the purchasers of individual tracks will be able to access their songs without burning them to CD and reimporting them as MP3s, but it's better to be safe than sorry if you're one of those customers.

Now Virgin Digital tells its customers to circumvent its DRM in order to retain access to the files after the store closes. Let's count the things wrong with this:

• According to the DMCA anti-circumvention clause, aren't the US customers breaking the law?
• Once again, the DRM experience is shitty for customers who paid for the tracks legally. Those who are not savvy enough to burn-rip-end code their content will be SOL?
• The quality of the audio gets degraded by going to CD and then back to MP3.

Proof once again that DRM sticks it to customers and not the Pirates. This also reminds me of a quote from someone at the Future of Music Policy summit:

"There is a $1B gap between CD sales and digital audio download sales. The download sales are not making up what we've lost in CD sales."

I wish I would've written down who said that -- its clear that this person didn't understand that DRM is hampering the transition from CDs to digital downloads. Music sellers like CD Baby who sell their content to anyone who wants to offer it for download on the net, DRM or not, are doing great! They have no $1B gap to worry about!

Finally, Amazon.com opened its DRM free digital download store in beta today. We lost one crappy DRM site and gained a new download store from a reputable seller. We win, DRM loses!

Posted by Mayhem at September 25, 2007 11:44 AM