SpenniesEnd of DRM?
February 8th 2007 02:50
It’s a good day when record companies begin re-thinking their digital rights management (DRM) policy.
DRM is the technology that prevents the making of unlimited copies of digital files (songs, videos, film) – basically anyone who has tried to burn a CD to their iTunes and found it doesn’t work will have tasted DRM at its finest.
When this happens we usually swear at the record companies and rightly so – they’ve been anything but ruthless in making sure we can’t share our music. So it’s a bit of a wonder they’re now backing down on this.
[link]
Of course, the initiative is all about money as usual. The music companies are pissed off that no one is buying DRM music (dah) and thus, they’re canning the technology in order to boost sales. This again is mere speculation ¬– they’ve hinted it will happen in the next five years but really, it could just be a PR thing, or it could take longer, or simply never happen. Major record companies are already the root of all music evil as far as both fans and artists are concerned, screwing both up in their glorious cash-grabbing schemes. A necessary evil? Maybe this was the view at one stage but not any longer – with the rise of self-promotion on the Internet more and more artists are opting to leave record companies out of the equation and do the distributing and promoting themselves. And for good reason too – it means they actually get to see where their money is going.
Maybe record companies are recognizing this and while they are still a long way away from registering on any endangered list, they might have come to terms with the fact that they cannot keep up with technology and they can certainly not keep up with the growing needs of music fans worldwide.
DRM is the technology that prevents the making of unlimited copies of digital files (songs, videos, film) – basically anyone who has tried to burn a CD to their iTunes and found it doesn’t work will have tasted DRM at its finest.
When this happens we usually swear at the record companies and rightly so – they’ve been anything but ruthless in making sure we can’t share our music. So it’s a bit of a wonder they’re now backing down on this.
[link]
Of course, the initiative is all about money as usual. The music companies are pissed off that no one is buying DRM music (dah) and thus, they’re canning the technology in order to boost sales. This again is mere speculation ¬– they’ve hinted it will happen in the next five years but really, it could just be a PR thing, or it could take longer, or simply never happen. Major record companies are already the root of all music evil as far as both fans and artists are concerned, screwing both up in their glorious cash-grabbing schemes. A necessary evil? Maybe this was the view at one stage but not any longer – with the rise of self-promotion on the Internet more and more artists are opting to leave record companies out of the equation and do the distributing and promoting themselves. And for good reason too – it means they actually get to see where their money is going.
Maybe record companies are recognizing this and while they are still a long way away from registering on any endangered list, they might have come to terms with the fact that they cannot keep up with technology and they can certainly not keep up with the growing needs of music fans worldwide.
music fans are not DRM fans
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