Archive for May, 2007

The day that DRM died


The iTunes Store in the UK is suffering complete gridlock when it comes to downloading. People are reporting they either can’t download or it’s taking forever with time-outs happening again and again. There’s a lot of frustration and anger.

The situation was entirely predictable, and avoidable.

I suspect the story is the same around the globe. You’d think Apple and EMI could have easily prepared for the huge demand for DRM-free tracks, but of course these people don’t live in the real world inhabited by you and I.

No, in the world of Apple and EMI they float on air thinking DRM-free is only going to appeal to a tiny minority of people, while everyone else is going to be happy to continue living with crippled low-quality music and video files.

Let this be a lesson to all the music companies and sweaty-faced advocates of digital rights management in music, video and hardware: we, the public, across the planet, never wanted it and do not want it now. Listen to us, damn it. If you don’t, piracy will continue unabated and you will stick to the tired and unjust formula of taking consumers, sometimes kids, to court for mere thousands while you lose millions in revenue due to your insistence that DRM is a good thing. It isn’t. It’s abusive towards the consumer. It’s a way of telling us we don’t own the things we buy.

Read the full article.

Wednesday, May 30th, 2007