...copyright holders shouldn't have any problem installing a big brother style system to prevent US citizens from surfing parts of the net that originate in other countries. The Justice Department could even offshore that to the Chinese, who have years of first-hand experience preventing their citizens from accessing information on the net. No need to reinvent the jackboot.

Wow I can log in now!

to see where this heads.

F' the DMCA. US citizens may be stuck with it, but the DMCA is not the law in many countries. I see no moral problem with stripping the DRM off your own music fi you want to move it to say Linux. And if you're in a country where there is no DMCA and it's legal to do so, I see it as arrogant US/Apple policy to go baralling in and forcing the rest of the world to somehow live by the law of the land in the US.

That indian site should have given apple the finger. It's legal in india, and elsewhere. Tough luck apple.

I actually started to buy iTMS tracks when playfair came out. Now that it's been blocked in 4.5, I will not be buying anymore tracks from apple. DRM is the pits of the earth.

Apple should pursue a legal remedy to keep it off widespread distribution, otherwise risk the ire of the greedy record companies. However, just because the record companies are greedy does not mean that it should be open season to circumvent their ability to control their product.

Change the law - don't break it. BTW - Bill Gates smells funny.

Don't worry, before you know it, this or another app will be available to strip the DRM.

While I understand that Apple has to use DRM, I'll probably strip every song I buy - when finally they hit Europe.

btw: I'm part of a label, as such I don't like copying of musician's material (used to be one too) but that doesn't mean I like restrictions on things that I buy. And imo this is no worse crime than copying LP's to cassettes. God, I'm old...

btw2: nice comment forum

As a software vendor, I can tell you that sales are better when there is some protection of the software than when there is none and customers are left to the honor system not to share the software. I'm not saying that individual users are dishonest and not to be trusted to pay for what they use, but it's just how things play out. Given that I make more money protecting my software, that's what I'm going to do. And it's not just a marginal amount. I have a little theory that protecting software with reg codes tends to lend some commercial legitimacy in the customer's mind, so it's not that they are just paying to remove the inconvenience of not being able to copy from friends (although it's a lot).

Of course with software, the protection mechanism is built into the app itself, rather than there being a global "software rights management" system that decides what apps you can run and which ones you can't. That may be a fundamental usage difference between software and songs in the user's mind that leads to different perceptions about DRM. While I have my theory about software (above), I doubt that customers see DRM as a value-add when applied to music or other content.

However, bottom line is that customers may not be crooks, but in aggregate, Apple would make a lot less on iTMS if it ditched the DRM. It's not just about keeping record companies happy or giving John Ashcroft a new crime to crack down on. You ever notice how the bad parts of town don't have the cool, clean grocery stores that the nice suburbs have? Why put up a nice store if theft and other bad things are going to suck away your profits or put your employees in danger? Similarly, if the DRM hackers find safe harbor and make it so we can all "play fair", how is Apple going to stay in the music business? Might the licensors decide that it's hurting their business and effectively criminalize all online music? The DRM cheats and their fans aren't Robin Hood and don't deserve our sympathy.

-Brad Hutchings

http://www.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/Music/05/04/media.royalties.reut/index.html

A bunch of people/artists have been denied royalties.

Just thought this fit.

Brad-
Nice to hear your input from a vendor's point of view, very enlightening.
Thanks.

I don't have an issue with DRM but I own a MP3 player that's NOT an iPod, iPod didn't exist at the time, and I feel I should be able to play the songs I've purchased from the Music Store on the player of my choice. This means, on occasion, I need to convert songs I've purchased so I can take them with me on my MP3 player.

I think the players should support all file formats and it's the player that gets authorized the first time you connect it to your computer and then file format issues go away.

Just a thought!

But have you also not noticed how the bad part of town always has more people. The sub look nice but who cares if all you can do there is take a picture. When your controlled thru social conditioning you begin not to see how little freedom you really have.

From a purely economic viewpoint, (because it seems to me that this is the main problem:money) the fact is that by proagating your music illegally, you are helping the artist by giving him more notoriety, and sinking the record companies. Now if you new how much an artist is paid per song, you'd realize that if just 1/4 off the people that copied that music sent of 1$ to the artist (kind of "keep up the good work") he would earn more money than he does now, and you'd only pay a few bucks for all you music.

All this to say that in economic maters, it is always better to eliminate the inbetween man, and these big capitalist companies that are the record industries can hardly complain that they are gradualy being eliminated because they are no longer needed. Every-one profits more without them, that's what the market is about and if you don't like it than stop acting capitalist and go social.

As for putting up a big-brother type thing, with linux being open-source, that will likely prove impossible has some smart-ass hacker and/or lawyer will always come-up with someway of getting around it. It only works in China because they aren't too hot on human rights over there (kind of dissuasive if you get death penalty for hacking).

I can't see what's wrong with DRM, as long as the parameters it uses are reasonable (which Apple's version seems to be). Not many people would use an iTunes track beyond it's license limitations.

If you don't agree with Apple's approach, you can always use one of the many P2P downoad sites to get what you want for free (if you're that way inclined). Why feel the need to compromise some company's legitimate product just because you can? (Why rob someone just because you can).

Just because something is a commercial product, doesn't mean it automatically has to be 'liberated' for the masses.

Sony's Atrac approach to DRM is/was crippling and therefore bad for the end user. Apple's is a perfectly reasonable compromise. Again, you don't *have* to shop with them, therefore why feel the need to crack it? It's not a monopoly that needs to be overthrown.

If you want unlimited usage of an album, buy the CD. You get a hard copy backup disk as well as the digital data!...