I think it’s pretty repugnant to accuse us of selling out our editorial. Stephen writes a regular column for us, and even if I disagree with his opinions, I’m not going to censor him.

Pardon my snarkfulness, I was deeply disappointed with the article and my last comment was tainted by my emotions. However, I’m glad to hear that disagee. I just feel that the article really sucks and it reflects really poorly on your site which, in all other respects, kicks ass.

Yeah, you have to look at the columns like you would the opinion page of a newspaper — the opinions are those of the columnists themselves, not the publication as a whole. We’d be happy to publish anyone’s (thoughtful) response to any of our opinion columns.

Clearly you disagree with me, and that’s fine. Let me ask you this:

Where do *you* think that the music industry would be without DRM?

I realize that I took an unpopular stance, and I’ve received quite a few emails declaring DRM to be a horrific blight. However, no one ever addresses the gist of the column.

Perhaps I didn’t draw all the lines clearly. By no means did I mean to suggest that DRM was *technically* needed for iTunes to exist. I simply meant that Apple would NOT have been allowed to do what they did (i.e. put a million+ commercial songs online for sale) *without* the including DRM. No one would have been able to.

Am I the only one who remembers what a pain in the neck it was before iTunes? Are people simply remembering the *early* days of Napster? Do they forget the vast wasteland after its demise? Other P2P networks popped up, but it was still just stealing and frankly it took a lot of work.

If not a DRM, then what?

It’s easy to hate DRM. What’s your alternative suggestion? Outside of niche markets, trusting people just isn’t an option.

Cheers,
Steve

p.s. the DVD Decrypter line was a reference to past article.

Where do *you* think that the music industry would be without DRM?

Probably the same place it is now: making tons of money. Standard compact discs don’t have any DRM, and yet the industry hasn’t dumped them yet and probably won’t in the near future. Why? Because people happily pay for them. People would happily pay for just as many (perhaps more) iTunes downloads even if the store sold DRM-free songs. The *AA can make threats to take their content and go home, but if the new players in the content distribution game (Apple, Microsoft, et al) lined up and took a stand on the matter it’s a very safe bet that the *AA would be back to make deals again after a brief tantrum.

If not a DRM, then what?

It’s easy to hate DRM. What’s your alternative suggestion? Outside of niche markets, trusting people just isn’t an option.

I don’t accept the notion that trust is not an option. Compact discs are a perfect example. If purchasing uninhibited mp3 files were easy, convenient, and reasonably priced, there would be far fewer people pursuing the darknet option. Online music sales are taking off in spite of DRM, not because of it.

I guess that I don’t understand your argument. On one hand you suggest that you have the option to do EXACTLY what you were doing before. You go on to say that that option probably won’t go away. Yet you still argue that DRM giving record labels the level of comfort needed to put their collections online, is a bad thing. Seems to me that, according to your logic, we’re exactly where we would have been, but additionally have the option to purchase music online. So options have been increased and that’s a bad thing?

Let me ask this (as your original post was outwardly hostile towards me): what about the added ability to have entire music collections on a subscription basis. While that might not appeal to you, isn’t that something that was gained through DRM?

Even the most trusting people have to admit that people would abuse the HELL out of that system if DRM were not involved, right?

Cheers,
Steve

DRM isn’t needed to put music collections online. It’s just a demand being made by the content distribution oligarchy. I can’t really accept that this is a necessity. We’re exactly where we would’ve been, except the new channel being pushed upon us restricts our rights. So you’re right, there’s this new channel, but it sucks. It’s fundamentally broken (see analog hole) yet defeating in order to exercise your fair use rights is now *illegal*.

what about the added ability to have entire music collections on a subscription basis. While that might not appeal to you, isn’t that something that was gained through DRM?

The thing DRM made possible in music subscriptions was a non-linear interface (the ability to choose which song you get to listen to next) thanks to the embedded ‘expiration dates’ in the files. Linear subscriptions (that is, streams) have been around for decades in the form of radio over the airwaves, and more recently through digital cable and the internets. They have not been exploited to bring the downfall of the recording industry and probably never will.

Subscription services without DRM wouldn’t really be subscription services unless you simply received a pre-selected set of files during an alotted timespan. Sort of an MP3 of the month club. If a system offered all-you-can-download for a flat fee, it’s not really a subscription.

I don’t claim to have all the answers (or even be logically consistent all the time, though I try) but IMHO the whole situation right now is a monument to greed. It’s a baldfaced lie to claim that creativity would cease if it weren’t as profitable, and right now the profits are coming from a system of engineered artificial scarcity. Meanwhile we have allowed, and continue to allow, the public domain to be plundered with copyright extensions. It’s a perverse situation for our culture, and while DRM isn’t entirely to blame it certainly is the poster child.

That’s part of the reason that I grouped linear vs. non-linear as different options. I also made a point of saying that it was the most exciting.

My point was never to say that DRM is GREAT! My point was only to spawn discussion and give people an alternative view. People have this assumption that DRM must be bad. My only point was that without DRM we wouldn’t have seen many of the different options that we have now (like you said we’d probably still be buying CDs)

The good thing about my column is that if you don’t like it one week, chances are it will completely different the next. Just ask the scores of people who wrote me saying that I didn’t support artists rights (the week I wrote about DVD Decrypter).

Cheers,
Steve

You’ve definitely spawned discussion, so congrats on a mission accomplished. You were also dead on with the DVD Decrypter article, so congrats there, too.

Rock on,
Barry

Oh, snap! The original article (permalink? What’s that?) is gone. Revisionist history!

The article is there, at the original link, as it always has been.

Hmm…It was down when I checked last week, but it’s back up now. Cheers.