Suppose you had a product that people liked to buy, but that some people just stole from you? Would your solution to the theft be to restrict how people who legitimately bought your product could do with it?
That's what the music industry is doing with DRM (Digital Rights Management). See, with the advent of CDs and digital music to be copied and shared, and the music industry doesn't like that. So, what do they do? They put DRM technology in all the music they sell legally. Well, I suppose it's theoretically a good idea, but...
DRM is annoying. Because of DRM, I can only listen to the album Spectators by Wolfsheim on iTunes. Which is all fine and well, as long as you're not running Linux. Oh, right, I am. Why should I buy music if I can't listen to it? I might as well just download it illegally.
Another problem with DRM is that it has no time limit. Copyrights don't last forever, but DRM (in theory) does. Which means, I still won't be able to listen to those files, even after the copyright on the music expires.
1 comment:
Putting things like this on music will only slow down the people who really care about priacy. Time has shown that there's a hack around everything, given the right person and enough time. And then there are those without the skills that are determined enough to wait and find these ways around.
I especially find the part about iTunes only music to be stupid for reasons exactly like running linux. Many people out there don't like the iTunes software, and for those law abiding citizens who don't like iTunes, they'll either just not buy the music or resort to piracy. Sorry music industry, but that just hurts, not helps.
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