Main Area and Open Discussion > General Software Discussion
Proprietary media formats — time to get rid of them!
f0dder:
Problem with DRM is that it does not stop the pirates (for long, anyway), but it has tons of implications for the legitimate users. And we are a lot of legitimate users that don't actually mind spending money on, for instance, music or software...
Analog tapes, cd burners etc. didn't kill the music industry. If anything kills it, it's their inability to embrace the digital world, and the constant river of manure they release, instead of supporting artists with talent :)
As for your Q, I will give this alternate A: we would go to more live concerts, and the artist would end up getting more money, instead of the greedy record labels.
CodeTRUCKER:
I can appreciate your's and Zaine's frustration with badly implemented necessary ideas. These frustrations are shared by myself and millions of others. I also recognize the implications of greed, but as we live in a "real world" the idea of going to more concerts is very appealing, except when you are wide-awake at 3:AM and want to enjoy some tunes.
Your previous points are well taken, though. Supply and Demand will rule. When Demand dictates what is to be Supplied, there will be significant changes. Until then we have to exist with what is available.
Deozaan:
The problem with concerts is that unless you live near a major, major city, you'll never see a good one.
Not only that, but when I actually did go to a good one (Blue Man Group's How to Be a Megastar Tour 2.0), I was so far away I was just looking at the screens most of the time anyway so I could see what was going on. Then a year later it was on DirecTV and I enjoyed watching it at home much more than when I was there, except for a couple of things:
1. I couldn't feel the music in my chest. -- But with the right sound system this could be fixed.
2. The didn't play a song (Exhibit 13) in the video that they played in concert. This song was very emotionally powerful to me and its absence from the video was very saddening.
J-Mac:
...Right. I'm not arguing in favor of DRM or any other lame (nuisance) device. A point here is that it was the very pirating of products that fomented the DRM and their ilk in the first place.-CodeTRUCKER (June 24, 2008, 06:24 PM)
--- End quote ---
But you are arguing in favor of DRM! Stop and read your own posts here.
And are you certain that pirating fomented DRM? Methinks not! The root cause was the fact that the recording industry was woefully unprepared for the digital availability of media files. Once again, they continued their long-standing history of not looking past the end of their last counted dollar and suddenly realized that their products could be made available on the Internet. They could - and should - have reacted in their common capitalistic way and developed a method by which they made their media products available to the online community in a way that is beneficial to all. They have ALL the songs, ALL the movies, in their arsenal and could have put it up for a fair price, and in an extremely convenient way for this new brand of consumers to purchase them. Following "fair use" concepts at the same time.
Instead their gut reaction was, "STOP THAT!!!" And what did they spend a fortune doing? Developing more and more DRM methods, contracting with hackers to hack the servers of those sharing the media files (That's for real! They were caught doing exactly that!), and then filing lawsuits against every person they could find that they even remotely suspected was sharing media files online!
Of course Apple simply opened shop with iTunes and showed them one way to do it right.
No, I disagree, CodeTrucker... 'twas pure, unadulterated greed that fomented DRM, and thus large-scale pirating of their precious cargo.
...
Q: As a "for instance" (albeit, extreme example), what would be the result of everyone not feeling any qualms about acquiring pirated songs?
A: There would be no new music. We would all just enjoy "oldies" because that would be all there was available.
-CodeTRUCKER (June 24, 2008, 06:24 PM)
--- End quote ---
OK by me - I, for one, just love the oldies! ;D ;D 8)
More seriously, though, the recording industry has done more to popularize the pirates than anything else. Their well-publicized scatter-shot lawsuits against all - but especially children and the proverbial "little old ladies" - has garnered more sympathy for illegal downloaders of music/movies in so-called "normal", non-geek/hacker communities than they could ever have imagined. While it is meant to instill abject fear in anyone considering downloading illegally shared media files, it has also given pirates a kind of "Robin Hood" status for many, no matter how undeserving a title that may be.
Bottom line, IMO: These companies had a sure-thing "golden goose" handed to them out of the blue when they discovered early on that folks could obtain digital media files online. And they reacted in a way that is all-too-common for them... They immediately grabbed ahold of the goose, strangled the goose, and then started trying to crap out the golden eggs themselves. Of course when they reached behind them, their hands came back full of..., well, you get the picture! :o :huh: :Thmbsup:
Jim
Stoic Joker:
Wasn't it Metalica that decided to stand up and take a hand in killing the original Napster ... about 4 seconds before their record sales went into the toilet for a few years...?
f0dder's right, the Greed Machine shot themselves in the foot with a bad over reaction to a non issue.
In the digital world if draw too much attention from the wrong people, you onLine life is pretty much over (e.g. When was the last time the RIAA had a website?). ...You make someone with skill & a lot of free time mad & you got a war on your hands ... Kinda like what's going on now.
They're (wasteing) spending millions of dollars to put kids & little old ladys in jail and the pirates are looking like Robin Hood!
...Crap, I didn't read all of J-Mac's post earlier ... but I'll leave my ramblings any how as the point needs to be over stressed. ;)
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