Apr 13, 7:00 am
Where to begin with DRM? For those who somehow aren’t familiar with it, DRM stands for Digital Rights Management and it’s a way for companies to control their media, especially reproduction and access. Copyright protection has been a concern for companies as long as copying has been around. People copying their friend’s cassette tapes, for example, was an early form of software piracy (not that I looked at it that way when I copied my best friend’s music in grade school). Unlike cassette tapes and other analog mediums, digital copies of media don’t suffer quality degradation when making a copy of a copy of a copy. One of digital media’s strengths (and, conversely, weaknesses for its distributors) is that it is infinitely reproducible.
With the increasing use of the internet by even casual consumers, this presents a difficulty for companies that specialize in media, especially music, movies, and video games. Instead of copying my friend’s cassette tape, I am now able to take digital copies of media from someone I’ve never even met, and so is everyone else. It’s commonly said that each copy costs the media company and artists money. This is a misnomer. In fact, each copy is money that the media company (and artists) is not making. It is perhaps a small distinction, but there is a difference, as one implies actively losing money and the other is simply not making more of it.
The end result is that media companies are not making [up to] billions of dollars that they might have made otherwise--I say might because it’s always questionable whether a person who takes a free copy would have spent the money to purchase the same thing if it were not available for free. In the gaming industry we see how quickly free swag disappears simply because it is free, and not because of a commitment to purchasing the affiliated product. Regardless, there are an awful lot of people out there enjoying media without paying for it.
Understandably, companies panic. They look for solutions. They find DRM.
| “Short for digital rights management, a system for protecting the copyrights of data circulated via the Internet or other digital media by enabling secure distribution and/or disabling illegal distribution of the data. Typically, a DRM system protects intellectual property by either encrypting the data so that it can only be accessed by authorized users or marking the content with a digital watermark or similar method so that the content can not be freely distributed.” - Webopedia |
In music, which is what got me thinking about DRM, this most often takes the form of limiting the number of copies that can be made or where it can be played. Copy limiting is also common for DVD movies. Video games are a different story, and I won’t try to tackle their protection in this ramble. I’m more familiar with the long history of that medium and I don’t want that to divert the subject.
The problem currently being encountered in both music and movies is the limitation on copying material without interfering with the fair use of consumers who legitimately purchase their content. If I own a DVD it is within my rights to make copies for my own use. This is also true for music, with the additional caveat that I should be able to copy my music between various computers and mp3 devices, as long as this music is for my use.
Current DRM programs are unable to distinguish between copies I make for myself and copies distributed across the internet for free. There’s the rub. DRM programs cannot make subjective decisions about whether or not copies are OK. They’re blind, and thus unfairly restrictive.
Last year there was a media firestorm when it was discovered that Sony’s DRM protection included on their media discs was causing severe system performance degradation, crashes, and some hardware failures on PCs that tried to play the media. In addition to being actively harmful to systems, this software was virtually impossible to uninstall, and the software uninstallation patch hastily offered by Sony only hid the software instead of removing it. We consumers had already been resentful about limitations like 2 DVD copy limits and music that would only play on 3 different computers, but this harmful software (malware) created a tidal wave of resistance to DRM software.
Small sidenote: As I live in San Francisco, a pretty liberal area, this movement was visible in the streets. I recall walking to work and seeing bills plastered on phone poles that lamented the evils of DRM and our need to be free of it.
In spite of the growing resistance, DRM has not gone away, though is has receded to a degree. ITunes, one of the most popular avenues of distribution for music online, includes DRM in every song you download, which keeps you from truly owning the music. It’s murky, though, trying to figure out just how it’s limited. Luckily, that’s what the internet is for.
- Restricts back-up copies: Song can only be copied to 5 computers
- Restricts converting to other formats: Songs only sold in AAC with Apple DRM
- Limits portable player compatibility: iPod and other Apple devices only
- No remixing: Cannot edit, excerpt, or otherwise sample songs
I understand that this isn’t something Apple WANTS to do. Steve Jobs published some thoughts on DRM (actually a good exploration of why DRM isn’t helpful in eliminating piracy as well) and made it clear that Apple has no choice about whether to include DRM if they want to sell music, and that they would rather not. It is a requirement made by the labels in order to distribute their music. I resent this kind of control as a consumer. If I pay money for something, I want to play it anywhere at any time. I don’t want to be treated like a criminal for an honest purchase. Between the stranglehold on downloadable music and the dangers of even buying music CDs, I don’t know when the last time is that I got myself some new music to listen to that wasn’t on the radio. I want to support the artists who create music that moves me, but not at the cost of my own freedom to use the media I purchase.
And thank you, EMI, at that. As of next month, just in time for my birthday, I’m going to be able to buy (some) music again without worrying whether I’ll be able to listen to it. There’s still a long way to go, and a lot of music I won’t buy while it’s locked under DRM, but it’s a start. Any suggestions on what music I ought to check out?
- jinx
all of us stand and point our fingers
