A restricted musical future?

On 4/1/05 17:24, "Lucas K. Mathis" <tidbitslkmc.ch> wrote:

> On 31.3.2005, space aliens observed John C. Welch saying:
>> There is no sane interpretation of copyright law that says "You can
>> allow any one of a billion random internet users to copy your songs
>> whenever your computer's on the internet."
>
> Of course not. But what has this got to do with DRM? Even with perfect
> copy protection, you only need one person who puts a mic in front of his
> speakers and records his copy protected music. Voilą, an unprotected
> file of good-enough quality. There will always be at least one person
> who will go through any trouble necessary to put a file on a P2P
> network.

Because one of the justifications of bypassing DRM is that "we have a right
to share with our friends". On a *limited* basis, most creatives don't mind.
Limited and "millions" are two things that don't go together, unless you can
prove that you have a million personal friends.

>
> People who don't want to pay will always have this option, and DRM
> doesn't change it. DRM only harms honest people, dishonst people aren't
> affected by it.
>

No one thinks it will prevent illegal copies. But it can make it such a pain
in the keister that it takes longer to bypass. If you make it more
inconvenient to bypass it than not, then you're gambling on lazy, and I've
never lost any significant amount of money betting on the laziness of
humans.


>> If you buy a book, you can't make n copies of that book and give it
>> away to people.
>
> Unless it's out of copyright, that is. But even so, you can quote that
> book. You can copy parts of it. You can give it to your friends once
> you've read it. You can sell it to somebody else. You can write your own
> annotations into that book, and you can highlight sections you think are
> important. And even if you did decide to make n copies of the book, the
> book won't burst into flames or in any way prevent you from doing it.
> Protected music files are different.

What part of music copying is only parts? None that I can see. What people
put *part* of a song up on limewire? None that I can see. When you share
your music with a friend, do you delete all copies in your posession until
they return it? I'll bet a british pound you don't. (there, real money). You
can, with the proper software, make modifications to sound files, DRM or no.
You can make a backup copy of your files, no matter what Jack Valenti
thinks.

But what Libraries do and what happens on P2P networks have nothing in
common other than they all happen on the same planet.

--
John C. Welch Writer/Analyst
Bynkii.com Mac and other opinions
jwelchbynkii.com

On Friday, April 1, 2005, at 08:40 AM, Charlton Wilbur wrote:

> On Apr 1, 2005, at 7:51 AM, Marilyn Matty wrote:
>
>> I also recommend a band that has been a pioneer in distributing music
>> free online, and seen their ticket and CD sales grow:
>>
>> http://www.theymightbegiants.com/
>
> My suspicion (and I don't have hard facts to back it up) is that
> distributing at least a sampler of their music free is good for
> musicians that aren't trying to be *major* stars (i.e., make it into
> the top 40, make millions from their music) and bad for musicians that
> are.

I don't think this is necessarily true. For example, Moby gained
popularity by licensing his music to films, commercials, etc., and has
often said that he'd distribute more of his stuff for free and sell
direct to consumer if he could.

Although they did not ever have a chance of making it to the top 40, by
distributing their music online They Might Be Giants went from being a
hip local Brooklyn/Downtown Manhattan band that got on the playlists of
a bunch of local college stations to gaining a national/international
following than has kept them touring in the US and abroad.

> For musicians trying to do things on a shoestring or without the
> marketing muscle of a major label, distributing a few songs on the
> Internet (or analogous acts - like granting permission for people to
> record their live shows and redistribute them on the 'net) makes it
> very easy for their fans to say "hey, listen to this!" and pass a URL
> to a friend. But when you get to the level of a Britney Spears or
> Eric Clapton, you no longer need the publicity;

I don't think Britney will have the staying power of a Clapton; she'll
probably end up extending her 15 minutes to a few brief years, like the
Spice Girls.

> and if you're a manufactured pop act where the scam is to produce one
> or two decent songs and con people into buying a $15 CD for them,
> well, it's a bad thing for you if people can hear the other eight to
> ten tracks or download just the two songs they want.

Until iTunes, there really wasn't a way to do this legally. You either
bought an album or not. And if you really liked the one or two tunes
you heard and took the risk and ended up with a number of dud albums,
you ended up hedging your bets by either buying only CDs from artists
you're familiar with and like, or waiting to hear the whole album at
someone's house before buying it.

>
> (My own rubrics for my behavior: as a musician, I believe that
> copyright protection is a good thing; as a scholar and consumer of
> music, I believe that fair use is a good thing. So I respect
> copyrights in my musical library, but I have no qualms at all about
> downloading music for the sake of giving it a listen -- ethically, I
> think it's about the same as hearing it on the radio or sampling it in
> a record store -- or for recommending it to a friend -- ethically, I
> think it's about the same as having a friend over and saying, "hey,
> listen to this." I do have qualms about keeping things in my library
> permanently if they're not legitimate free tracks -- but if I like
> them, I buy them.)
>

This is good, but there is one loophole that I fall in to - singles and
albums I bought in the 60's and 70's that I either played to death or
lost that fell in to a time warp and haven't been available for
purchase anywhere in decades. One example is Donovan's "Happiness
Runs," a snippet of which has been the background music for recent
Delta commercials. For many years, it was impossible to find anything
but one or two re-released albums and crappy compilations. Now you can
find the original album on Amazon, but a really good double album he
put out, among others, is not available. I was only able to find a few
songs on Napster, but I had no moral qualms about downloading music the
record companies weren't, or still aren't, allowing me to buy. They're
gypping the artists out of potential royalties by not allowing for
music to be sold in alternate channels.

Marilyn

On Friday, April 1, 2005, at 06:24 PM, Wilcox, Curtis wrote:

>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Marilyn Matty [mailto:mmattynyc.rr.com]
>> Sent: Friday, April 01, 2005 7:51 AM
>> To: tidbits-talktidbits.com
>> Cc: tidbits-talktidbits.com
>> Subject: Re: A restricted musical future?
>
>> Limiting the number and type of devices content can be played on, is
>> not only boxing music fans into increasingly tight corners, friends
>> sharing music with friends is probably one of the most powerful
>> marketing tools that can be used to establish artists.
>
> This reminds me of a battle that is long over that the RIAA won and the
> public lost, DAT recorders. It was the late 80's, consumer CD burners
> were
> still a long way off so the idea of a high quality, digital, recording
> format freaked the labels out. They fought to keep DAT recorders out
> of the
> country and eventually a law was passed requiring all DAT recorders to
> have
> a particular copy prevention system installed.
>
> This page provides a brief overview of RIAA's concerns and the law
> that was
> passed for their sake. It's not all bad, it explicitly protects
> "noncommercial use [of recording devices] by a consumer," but the legal
> requirement for recorders to have a copy prevention system helped set
> the
> stage for the DMCA and the Broadcast Flag.
> http://www.law.harvard.edu/faculty/tfisher/music/DAT.html
>
> It can be argued that DAT was doomed not by the lobbying but simply by
> the
> labels' resistance to selling recordings in the format. However, I
> think if
> Congress made it clear that they wouldn't be restricting tools just
> because
> they *might* be used to violate copyrights, that DAT would have caught
> on,
> and the labels would have eventually put out recordings on DAT rather
> than
> ignore it.

While the the DAT tax issued by congress didn't help, I think it was
ultimately doomed by CD, which had been introduced a few years before.
At the time of the RIAA/DAT tribulations, I was working on a number of
consumer electronics accounts for magazines, and the electronics
companies didn't seem enthusiastic about marketing DAT devices. If they
had seen the potential in the market, they would have taken a "damn the
torpedos, full steam ahead" position, as they did with VCRs.

They seemed to be perceived as another big potential flop, like
quadraphonic sound - the machines were too big, and too bulky to fit
easily into cars or easily transferrable to a Walkman type size. They
knew that CDs would be a better and more affordable format, that
consumers would be more willing to pay for a CD than a pre-recorded
tape of a tape they already had, and that they players would never be
able to achieve the low price points that CD players/recorders would.
DAT stayed a professional format.

Marilyn

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On 5.4.2005, space aliens observed John C. Welch saying:
>Because one of the justifications of bypassing DRM is that "we have a
>right to share with our friends". On a *limited* basis, most
>creatives don't mind. Limited and "millions" are two things that
>don't go together, unless you can prove that you have a million
>personal friends.

But that argument makes no sense. DRM does not prevent anyone from
downloading a song from P2P. It prevents people from making copies for
their personal use, not from downloading MP3s off Limewire.

Again, it only takes one person to create an MP3 of a copy protected CD.
If one person does that and puts it up on a P2P network, the song is
free. Look at the trouble people go trough to circumvent copy protection
in software. Do you really believe that the easily circumvented DRM in
CDs or audio files will even slow them down?


>If you make it more inconvenient to bypass it than not, then you're
>gambling on lazy, and I've never lost any significant amount of money
>betting on the laziness of humans.

If every person had to bypass a song's DRM in order to get it from a P2P
network, you'd have a point. But only one person has to do that. People
actually take camcorders to movie theatres, film movies, then put them
on their computer, convert them to divx and upload them to P2P networks.
There's no way they won't put a mic in front of their stereo and record
an album if everything else fails.

Every new song will end up on P2P networks sooner rather than later. DRM
doesn't change that. DRM doesn't stop P2P networks. DRM only keeps
regular people from copying their CDs so they can have a second copy in
their car, or so they can give a copy to their mom.

lucas

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At 4:51 AM -0800 2005/04/01, Marilyn Matty wrote:
>But music
>on vinyl could be shared with many other potential buyers because it
>could be played anywhere, anytime (except in cars).

        My mom talks about a fellow she dated who had a record player in
his car, presumably sometime in the late 1950's. She dumped him for my dad.

<http://www.consumerreports.org/main/detailv2.jsp?CONTENT%3C%3Ecnt_id=2495&FOLDER%3C%3Efolder_id=2311>
<http://ookworld.com/hiwayhifi.html>

        The Canadian Canoe Museum just down the block from me has a canoe
with a windup record player on display - but no web photos I can find.

<http://www.canoemuseum.net/>

--
* Johann Beda - contact link: <http://public.xdi.org/=j-beda> *
* Johann's MostlyMac Computer Consulting - <http://mmcc.beda.ca/> *

On 4/5/05 08:34, "Lucas K. Mathis" <tidbitslkmc.ch> wrote:

>> If you make it more inconvenient to bypass it than not, then you're
>> gambling on lazy, and I've never lost any significant amount of money
>> betting on the laziness of humans.
>
> If every person had to bypass a song's DRM in order to get it from a P2P
> network, you'd have a point. But only one person has to do that. People
> actually take camcorders to movie theatres, film movies, then put them
> on their computer, convert them to divx and upload them to P2P networks.
> There's no way they won't put a mic in front of their stereo and record
> an album if everything else fails.

That last method takes some actual skill to get something that doesn't sound
like garbage. I did enough of it as a kid to know.

But you're illustrating, almost perfectly, the way that RIAA sees this.

If they make it VERY hard or VERY tedious for that *first* person to get
that un-DRM'd copy on the P2P networks, then they've effectively stopped, or
severely reduced the problem. That's the choke point...making it really
painful to make that first non-DRM'd copy. If you can prevent that, or make
it more trouble than it's worth, the rest is gravy.

You've also illustrated WHY they do this. We can talk about "oh the poor
honest people". Well, I know a lot of people who would think of themselves
as honest employ logic so tortured as to be almost hallucinatory in nature
to justify downloading music and video off of P2P networks. RIAA knows this
will happen if the stuff is available, because there are a lot of people who
will compartmentalize "honesty" when it comes to getting something for free.

So, they figure, "if we make stripping DRM as painful as possible,
eventually, we'll win. "

--
John C. Welch Writer/Analyst
Bynkii.com Mac and other opinions
jwelchbynkii.com

At 9:29 on 5-4-05, John C. Welch wrote:
> So, they figure, "if we make stripping DRM as painful as possible,
> eventually, we'll win. "

If this is really what the RIAA think, then it is a very
ill-conceived strategy. It will never be too painful for one person
to remove DRM and post something on the internet. Even software
protected by hardware dongles is available on the internet (and was
available on BBSes before the internet was widespread -- this isn't
new)! And DRM is even easier to crack -- you can't give someone the
key to a lock and say, "now you can only use this key when I say so."
Sooner or later, someone figures out how to use the key whenever they
want.

_________________
=> Jolin Warren, Edinburgh, Scotland

On 4/5/05 16:32, "Jolin M Warren" <JolinWarrenOakAndApple.org> wrote:

> At 9:29 on 5-4-05, John C. Welch wrote:
>> So, they figure, "if we make stripping DRM as painful as possible,
>> eventually, we'll win. "
>
> If this is really what the RIAA think, then it is a very
> ill-conceived strategy. It will never be too painful for one person
> to remove DRM and post something on the internet. Even software
> protected by hardware dongles is available on the internet (and was
> available on BBSes before the internet was widespread -- this isn't
> new)! And DRM is even easier to crack -- you can't give someone the
> key to a lock and say, "now you can only use this key when I say so."
> Sooner or later, someone figures out how to use the key whenever they
> want.

So then you start adding in a version of Adobe's activation, and encoding
machine and user - specific details in the song data, making tracing the
source easier.

It's a game, and they have time and lots of money. The only recourse is to
stop playing.

john

--
John C. Welch Writer/Analyst
Bynkii.com Mac and other opinions
jwelchbynkii.com

> -----Original Message-----
> From: John C. Welch [mailto:jwelchbynki
> On 4/5/05 16:32, "Jolin M Warren" <JolinWarrenOakAndApple.org> wrote:
>
> > At 9:29 on 5-4-05, John C. Welch wrote:
> >> So, they figure, "if we make stripping DRM as painful as possible,
> >> eventually, we'll win. "
> >
> > If this is really what the RIAA think, then it is a very
> > ill-conceived strategy. It will never be too painful for one person
> > to remove DRM and post something on the internet.

Seriously. Also, a significant portion of the *worst* cases of music and
other media finding its way online is from insider sources who could
distribute a pre-DRM'd version. Unlike the casual P2P user or friends
sharing with friends, the insider has monetary and other motivations driving
them to get DRM-less copies out there.

At worst, someone wanting a DRM-less copy has to play the DRM'd track and
use software like Rogue Amoeba's or a Windows equivalent and save the output
as a WAV file. It has to be done in real-time so it's relatively slow but
there's virtually no loss in quality (unless the original file was in a
lossy format and you re-encode it in a lossy format). You have to get into
"Trusted Computing" territory to really be able to do something about this
("Trusted Computing" doesn't mean you can trust the code running on your
computer, it means the software and content providers trust *your computer*
to not allow you to do what they don't want you to do).

> > Even software
> > protected by hardware dongles is available on the internet (and was
> > available on BBSes before the internet was widespread -- this isn't
> > new)! And DRM is even easier to crack -- you can't give someone the
> > key to a lock and say, "now you can only use this key when I say so."
> > Sooner or later, someone figures out how to use the key whenever they
> > want.
>
> So then you start adding in a version of Adobe's activation, and encoding
> machine and user - specific details in the song data, making tracing the
> source easier.

Watermarking purchased tracks is an idea worth pursuing. It could also be
implemented *without* DRM.

> It's a game, and they have time and lots of money.

The RIAA & Friends are outnumbered by a thousand to one and it's not like
there's no money being spent on getting around copy prevention. Corporate
security and the DRM technology has to be perfect, it only takes one success
for a given recording to be made available, DRM free. They're expending a
lot of time and money with little (nothing?) to show for it and at the same
time they're missing sales opportunities with customers who won't/can't use
the DRM systems.

> The only recourse is to stop playing.

Yes, the RIAA should stop playing and let companies try selling music in the
formats customers want. Apple Lossless for $1.25/track perhaps?

On 4/6/05 12:51, "Wilcox, Curtis" <cwilcoxesm.rochester.edu> wrote:

> At worst, someone wanting a DRM-less copy has to play the DRM'd track and
> use software like Rogue Amoeba's or a Windows equivalent and save the output
> as a WAV file. It has to be done in real-time so it's relatively slow but
> there's virtually no loss in quality (unless the original file was in a
> lossy format and you re-encode it in a lossy format). You have to get into
> "Trusted Computing" territory to really be able to do something about this
> ("Trusted Computing" doesn't mean you can trust the code running on your
> computer, it means the software and content providers trust *your computer*
> to not allow you to do what they don't want you to do).

Either way, if you're using the OS to bypass DRM, that can be countered.

>
>>> Even software
>>> protected by hardware dongles is available on the internet (and was
>>> available on BBSes before the internet was widespread -- this isn't
>>> new)! And DRM is even easier to crack -- you can't give someone the
>>> key to a lock and say, "now you can only use this key when I say so."
>>> Sooner or later, someone figures out how to use the key whenever they
>>> want.
>>
>> So then you start adding in a version of Adobe's activation, and encoding
>> machine and user - specific details in the song data, making tracing the
>> source easier.
>
> Watermarking purchased tracks is an idea worth pursuing. It could also be
> implemented *without* DRM.

Either way, it won't be used to make your life easier.

>
>> It's a game, and they have time and lots of money.
>
> The RIAA & Friends are outnumbered by a thousand to one and it's not like
> there's no money being spent on getting around copy prevention. Corporate
> security and the DRM technology has to be perfect, it only takes one success
> for a given recording to be made available, DRM free. They're expending a
> lot of time and money with little (nothing?) to show for it and at the same
> time they're missing sales opportunities with customers who won't/can't use
> the DRM systems.

You don't think they aren't willing to throw money at this? Again, they
don't have to have perfect DRM. They just have to make cracking it a total
pain in the keister, so that it's not worth your while. If you get it to
where only hardcore anti-DRM people are even trying, and of those, only the
ones with mad skills can succeed, then, while not a complete victory, it's
close enough for government work. If they can drop the amount of illegal
sharing by half, that's a HUGE win for them.

>
>> The only recourse is to stop playing.
>
> Yes, the RIAA should stop playing and let companies try selling music in the
> formats customers want. Apple Lossless for $1.25/track perhaps?

$1.25 a track won't even begin to pay for the storage and bandwidth costs of
storing and distributing millions of tracks in that format, and it's useless
to those without broadband, still a significant part of the population of
the USA.

No, by *stop playing* I mean on the consumer end. RIAA and the others
understand one thing...money. Your "Give me what I want" means nothing to
them. Your money however, means everything to them. You screaming about how
RIAA sucks or DRM sucks and is immoral is meaningless to them. Completely.

Let me state this again...they do.not.care about your "feelings". They only
care about your *money*. Period.

What it will take is a *massive* boycott of ALL DRM'd music services.
Itunes, MSN Music, Napster, all of it. Spend that money, and OBVIOUSLY, on
services that do NOT use DRM. Let some of those companies see a few hundred
million or more a year instead of the RIAA-approved outlets, and watch how
fast they change their minds.

But unless that happens, the rest is all just silly hippy rhetoric. You have
to fight them in ways they care about.

--
John C. Welch Writer/Analyst
Bynkii.com Mac and other opinions
jwelchbynkii.com

At 6:56 on 8-4-05, John C. Welch wrote:
> But unless that happens, the rest is all just silly hippy rhetoric.

Not really. In most of the world, it is reality -- people can easily
download music for free. The talk about making DRM too difficult to
be worth it is mostly irrelevant. It doesn't matter if it is too
difficult for the average person to remove the DRM. All that matters
is that there are plenty of easy-to-use file sharing networks. Then
most people don't even need to think about DRM. And I simply don't
believe that the industry will be able to come up with a DRM scheme
that won't be broken by someone within a year (most likely a few
days, though). iTMS already imbeds user-specific data in its DRM and
that hasn't stopped people from circumventing it.

It's really a no-win situation for the DRM vendors. By definition,
the user _must_ have the unlocking key. There are just too many
people trying to figure out how to use this key for any new DRM
system that comes out. And once one person unlocks the DRM, the
unlocked file can be shared amongst the millions of file sharing
users with absolute ease.

> You have to fight them in ways they care about.

The music companies seem to care a _great_ deal about file sharing,
even though music sales haven't been affected by it.

However, I actually agree that using file sharing networks is not
going to change the attitudes of music companies. But the reality is
that people's options aren't limited to 'accept DRM or stop listening
to that music.' The third option taken by many is 'download a
DRM-free version of the music.' I don't think that people using this
option are trying to send a message to the music companies, I think
they either want something for free, they don't want their music
crippled, or, as some people have said on this list, they want to try
out music before paying for it. And I can't see how any company will
be able to remove this third option (except in very specific
circumstances).

Of course, reading this, I have now realised that the above
discussion actually has little to do with the original thread. I was
originally interested in why some people are willing to accept the
limitations of DRM when buying music, but this discussion is really
about whether people will continue to have the option of acquiring
music _without_ DRM. Does anyone still have anything to say on the
original topic, or has the thread run its course? :-)

_________________
=> Jolin Warren, Edinburgh, Scotland

At 6:56 AM -0700 4/8/05, John C. Welch wrote:
>Let me state this again...they do.not.care about your "feelings". They only
>care about your *money*. Period.

No, their money.

>What it will take is a *massive* boycott of ALL DRM'd music services.
>Itunes, MSN Music, Napster, all of it. Spend that money, and OBVIOUSLY, on
>services that do NOT use DRM. Let some of those companies see a few hundred
>million or more a year instead of the RIAA-approved outlets, and watch how
>fast they change their minds.
>
>But unless that happens, the rest is all just silly hippy rhetoric. You have
>to fight them in ways they care about.

Talk about silly hippy rhetoric. The chances of the some huge
protest/boycott are slim & none. Even if there is some minor effect
on the bottom line it will only fuel further attempts at restriction.
Despite some evidence to the contrary the RIAA, et al, continue to
blame revenue loss on filesharing. Ipso facto any loss from protests
will get the same explanation. They'll tweak the numbers like they
always have. It's the party line and their only special form of
paranoia.

For me it is this attitude & rhetoric that make this so odious. I do
see a need for all work product to be protected in some way but I
just can't stand all the hyperbole that flies around, especially from
the RIAA. They're utterly undeserving of sympathy.

On 4/8/05 13:47, "John Mather" <jcmatherwisc.edu> wrote:

>> What it will take is a *massive* boycott of ALL DRM'd music services.
>> Itunes, MSN Music, Napster, all of it. Spend that money, and OBVIOUSLY, on
>> services that do NOT use DRM. Let some of those companies see a few hundred
>> million or more a year instead of the RIAA-approved outlets, and watch how
>> fast they change their minds.
>>
>> But unless that happens, the rest is all just silly hippy rhetoric. You have
>> to fight them in ways they care about.
>
> Talk about silly hippy rhetoric. The chances of the some huge
> protest/boycott are slim & none. Even if there is some minor effect
> on the bottom line it will only fuel further attempts at restriction.
> Despite some evidence to the contrary the RIAA, et al, continue to
> blame revenue loss on filesharing. Ipso facto any loss from protests
> will get the same explanation. They'll tweak the numbers like they
> always have. It's the party line and their only special form of
> paranoia.

Boycotts work, and well, but you have to get enough people in on the gig.

That of course, is the hard part.

--
John C. Welch Writer/Analyst
Bynkii.com Mac and other opinions
jwelchbynkii.com

On 4/8/2005 11:47 AM, "Jolin M Warren" wrote:
> The talk about making DRM too difficult to be worth it is mostly irrelevant.
> It doesn't matter if it is too difficult for the average person to remove the
> DRM. All that matters is that there are plenty of easy-to-use file sharing
> networks. Then most people don't even need to think about DRM.

The problem with this argument -- and it's probably the most common "DRM
doesn't work" argument I've seen -- is that there *aren't* plenty of easy to
use file sharing networks. Easy to use for the tech savvy? Sure. But easy to
use for the vast majority of consumers -- the ones who make up a big chunk
of the music-buying public? To use these networks, you need to download,
install, and configure a client, then you need to find servers providing
music for free. Then you have to hope that the music you find on those
servers is (a) really music, not viruses or trojans; and (b) ripped at a
decent bitrate. (There's also the concern that somehow the RIAA is going to
catch you and serve you with a lawsuit.) I think it's fair to say that the
mythical "average computer user" isn't going to all this trouble -- the
number of people using such networks is a fraction of the number of people
who own a computer connected to the Internet. Maybe the file sharing
networks will be better in the future, but for right now, to a lot of
people, buying a track for $.99 via easy-to-use software already on your
computer -- iTunes, for example, comes with all Macs and is automatically
installed under Windows if you buy an iPod and install its software -- is a
heck of a lot less trouble. The same can be said of utilities that strip
DRM. Because it's part of my job to know how these things work, I've used
some of these utilities on music I've personally purchased; it's not a
trivial task and there are plenty of ways to screw things up.

So the talk of DRM's "difficulty" is not only relevant, but central to this
discussion. When discussing the "effectiveness" of DRM, the comparison
people should be focusing on is whether or not DRM is so
difficult/restrictive that using P2P/file sharing networks (or other methods
of obtaining stuff for free) is more "worth it" than purchasing DRM music.
And what John's been trying to point out is that although there are some
people who will steal no matter what, and some people who will pay no matter
what, many (most?) people are in a gray area in the middle -- whether they
buy music or "get it for free" depends largely on this type of comparison.
These are the people DRM is aimed at.

At 14:18 on 8-4-05, Dan Frakes wrote:
> The problem with this argument -- and it's probably the most common "DRM
> doesn't work" argument I've seen -- is that there *aren't* plenty of easy to
> use file sharing networks. Easy to use for the tech savvy? Sure. But easy to
> use for the vast majority of consumers -- the ones who make up a big chunk
> of the music-buying public? To use these networks, you need to download,
> install, and configure a client, then you need to find servers providing
> music for free.

Without getting into the details, it actually isn't difficult to use
these networks anymore. You download an application, double-click it,
enter in the song you want, and suddenly dozens of copies pop up.
Absolutely 0 configuration required. I have literally just given you
all the steps necessary. I'm not trying to comment on the morality of
downloading music from these networks, but the reality is that they
are as easy to use as iTunes. Certainly I think they are probably
easier to use than Napster was in its heyday, and according to the
RIAA everyone (including grannies) was using Napster.

> Then you have to hope that the music you find on those
> servers is (a) really music, not viruses or trojans; and (b) ripped at a
> decent bitrate.

I think that these are potentially more realistic issues. I honestly
don't have the experience to know how likely it is that files will be
low quality or not actually music, but the file sharing apps can
often tell you what the bitrate is before one downloads the files. I
do think that these obstacles are not as great as Steve Jobs likes to
think when he advertises the advantage of guaranteed quality given by
the iTMS.

Basically, what I'm trying to say is that the music companies can
pretend that DRM is going to stop people copying music; they can
pretend that the file sharing networks are too difficult for the
'average person'; and they can pretend that everyone using them are
'hackers' stealing music and potentially underpinning terrorist
networks (maybe they haven't quite gone that far -- yet :-) ). But
the reality is that these things aren't true, and I think we'd all be
better off (RIAA and Apple included) if there was a bit more honesty
in the approach to these issues.

_________________
=> Jolin Warren, Edinburgh, Scotland

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On 9.4.2005, space aliens observed Dan Frakes saying:
>To use these networks, you need to download, install, and configure a
>client, then you need to find servers providing music for free.

Modern P2P clients do that for you. You download the app, you start it,
you enter the name of the song you want and the minimum bitrate you
accept, you download it.


>I think it's fair to say that the mythical "average computer user"
>isn't going to all this trouble

That's not what I'm seeing at all. Almost everyone I know uses P2P apps
to download music. It's simply not hard.

lucas

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On 9.4.2005, space aliens observed John C. Welch saying:
>If you get it to where only hardcore anti-DRM people are even trying,
>and of those, only the ones with mad skills can succeed, then, while
>not a complete victory, it's close enough for government work. If
>they can drop the amount of illegal sharing by half, that's a HUGE
>win for them.

You can make circumventing DRM as hard as you want to, as long as even
one person can and will do it, there will be *no* drop in illegal
sharing. Only one person needs to upload a file to a P2P network for
everyone else to download and also share it.

Watermarking bought files won't work, either. Watermarking every CD and
then figuring out who bought it is not feasible, and even for downloaded
files, there will always be a way to get rid of the watermark.

And there are too many people using file sharing apps to effectively sue
them.

You can't fight illegal file sharing. The only thing that can be done
against illegal file sharing is competing with it. Make it easy to use.
Make it cheap. Include additional value like album art. And get rid of
DRM. The less DRM the legal services use, the more competitive they are.

lucas

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On 8 Apr 2005, at 15:18 :54, Dan Frakes wrote:
> On 4/8/2005 11:47 AM, "Jolin M Warren" wrote:
>
>> The talk about making DRM too difficult to be worth it is mostly
>> irrelevant.
>> It doesn't matter if it is too difficult for the average person to
>> remove the
>> DRM. All that matters is that there are plenty of easy-to-use file
>> sharing
>> networks. Then most people don't even need to think about DRM.
>
> The problem with this argument -- and it's probably the most common
> "DRM
> doesn't work" argument I've seen -- is that there *aren't* plenty
> of easy to
> use file sharing networks.

Oh, yes there are.

> Easy to use for the tech savvy? Sure. But easy to
> use for the vast majority of consumers

Yep. Have you SEEN Sharaza? It takes less time to install than it's
taken to read this message. It is very easy to use, and connects you
to just about ever P2P network. I'm no big fan of the software, but
anyone who can managed to open their windows email client can manage
to install/use Sharaza.

> of the music-buying public? To use these networks, you need to
> download,

that's it. It installs and self-configures for you.

> install, and configure a client, then you need to find servers
> providing
> music for free.

Nope, that's all built-in. You just type "Btratney Spores" into the
artist field and the rest is magic. You don't even need to worry
about which p2p network it's found on.

> Then you have to hope that the music you find on those
> servers is (a) really music, not viruses or trojans;

Hey, viruses and trojans are simply the price you pay for using windows.

> and (b) ripped at a decent bitrate.

Which you know before you download in nearly all cases.

> (There's also the concern that somehow the RIAA is going to
> catch you and serve you with a lawsuit.) I think it's fair to say
> that the
> mythical "average computer user" isn't going to all this trouble

There are millions of people out there using the P2P networks. Are
you asserting they are all 'tech-savvy' because I really really doubt
it. Certainly not based on some of the people I'e had smack around
for installing Sharaza on their work machines.

> -- the
> number of people using such networks is a fraction of the number of
> people
> who own a computer connected to the Internet.

The number of people who listen to music outside their pre-selected
collection of CDs they liked in High School is a fraction of the
people connected to the Internet, and those people aren't buying
music at all. So?

> Maybe the file sharing
> networks will be better in the future, but for right now, to a lot of
> people, buying a track for $.99 via easy-to-use software already on
> your
> computer -- iTunes, for example, comes with all Macs and is
> automatically
> installed under Windows if you buy an iPod and install its software
> -- is a
> heck of a lot less trouble.

You have to download, install, and configure iTunes. You have to
search iTunes. I don't think it's any easier, its just that enough
people care about Doing The Right Thing and would rather pay $0.99 to
get a song they like then get a free version off the p2p networks.

> The same can be said of utilities that strip
> DRM. Because it's part of my job to know how these things work,
> I've used
> some of these utilities on music I've personally purchased; it's not a
> trivial task and there are plenty of ways to screw things up.

"drag track to window and click ``strip DRM''" is about as trivial as
it gets.

> And what John's been trying to point out is that although there are
> some
> people who will steal no matter what, and some people who will pay
> no matter
> what, many (most?) people are in a gray area in the middle --
> whether they
> buy music or "get it for free" depends largely on this type of
> comparison.
> These are the people DRM is aimed at.

No, DRM is aimed at everyone. The Studios and the labels really
believe that the NEXT DRM scheme will be perfect. the RIAA wants to
make syre that DRM obliterates all fair use laws and that it is
unbreakable. They are myopic morons, but that is what they
envision. the only people who are really affected by DRM are those
of us in the middle, who want our fair use rights but don't want to
steal music. The people who won't pay, won't pay, and no amount of
DRM is going to make them.

On 4/8/05 9:56 AM, "John C. Welch" <jwelchbynkii.com> wrote:

> On 4/6/05 12:51, "Wilcox, Curtis" <cwilcoxesm.rochester.edu> wrote:
>
>> At worst, someone wanting a DRM-less copy has to play the DRM'd track and
>> use software like Rogue Amoeba's or a Windows equivalent and save the output
>> as a WAV file. It has to be done in real-time so it's relatively slow but
>> there's virtually no loss in quality (unless the original file was in a
>> lossy format and you re-encode it in a lossy format). You have to get into
>> "Trusted Computing" territory to really be able to do something about this
>> ("Trusted Computing" doesn't mean you can trust the code running on your
>> computer, it means the software and content providers trust *your computer*
>> to not allow you to do what they don't want you to do).
>
> Either way, if you're using the OS to bypass DRM, that can be countered.


 
>>>> Even software
>>>> protected by hardware dongles is available on the internet (and was
>>>> available on BBSes before the internet was widespread -- this isn't
>>>> new)! And DRM is even easier to crack -- you can't give someone the
>>>> key to a lock and say, "now you can only use this key when I say so."
>>>> Sooner or later, someone figures out how to use the key whenever they
>>>> want.
>>>
>>> So then you start adding in a version of Adobe's activation, and encoding
>>> machine and user - specific details in the song data, making tracing the
>>> source easier.
>>
>> Watermarking purchased tracks is an idea worth pursuing. It could also be
>> implemented *without* DRM.
>
> Either way, it won't be used to make your life easier.

Watermarking without DRM *would* make my life easier. A watermark would not
interfere with the use of a file, a device that supports AAC would play a
file that I recorded or one I purchased from Apple with a watermark. If a
watermark does prevent a file's use, it's not a watermark, it's a key in a
DRM system.
 
>>> It's a game, and they have time and lots of money.
>>
>> The RIAA & Friends are outnumbered by a thousand to one and it's not like
>> there's no money being spent on getting around copy prevention. Corporate
>> security and the DRM technology has to be perfect, it only takes one success
>> for a given recording to be made available, DRM free. They're expending a
>> lot of time and money with little (nothing?) to show for it and at the same
>> time they're missing sales opportunities with customers who won't/can't use
>> the DRM systems.
>
> You don't think they aren't willing to throw money at this? Again, they
> don't have to have perfect DRM. They just have to make cracking it a total
> pain in the keister, so that it's not worth your while. If you get it to
> where only hardcore anti-DRM people are even trying, and of those, only the
> ones with mad skills can succeed, then, while not a complete victory, it's
> close enough for government work.

We're talking about software here, once someone solves the problem, they can
share the tools with the less savvy. For a "dark side" comparison, look at
cracking tools, how many crackers are "leet" and how many script kiddies
using the tools the "leet" made?

> If they can drop the amount of illegal sharing by half, that's a HUGE win for
them.

If the RIAA only cares about the money, dropping the amount of illegal
sharing is irrelevant unless it has a corresponding increase in sales. Good
luck finding evidence of the one translating into the other.
 
>>> The only recourse is to stop playing.
>>
>> Yes, the RIAA should stop playing and let companies try selling music in the
>> formats customers want. Apple Lossless for $1.25/track perhaps?
>
> $1.25 a track won't even begin to pay for the storage and bandwidth costs of
> storing and distributing millions of tracks in that format,

I picked $1.25 out of the air but I think you're wrong. Most of their costs
(payroll, advertising) are not affected by how much data they store or
deliver. Apple Lossless files are about five times larger than the current
128Kbps AAC files (5MB/min vs. 1MB/min).

How much for bandwidth?
They've sold over 300 million songs so far. Let's say they're selling 12
million a month now. How much bandwidth does that require? Assuming an
average 4MB per song:

1,600,000 MB/day
       18.5 MB/sec.
      148 Mbit/sec

Of course sales are not sustained, they have significant peaks. If the peaks
were ten times the average, they'd need 1,480 Mbit/sec. 3 OC12 lines (622
Mbit/sec) would be sufficient to handle the peaks. An email I found online
discussed OS12s selling for $30,000/month in *2002*. If they budgeted a
penny per song that would be $120,000/month to cover bandwidth expenses.
Even if lossless made their bandwidth costs 5 times as great (it wouldn't),
they could budget $.04 of the additional $.26 to cover it.


How much for storage?
They have over a million songs for sale. Assuming an average 4MB per song
they require more than 4TB of space. It fits on a single Xserve + Xserve
RAID that anyone could buy for under $25,000. Apple Lossless would require
20TB or 5 of them. Say $125,000 for storage wasn't really enough, say it
really cost $500,000 (for redundancy and other considerations). If they
budgeted a penny per track, the storage (something that would last at least
3 years) would be paid off after selling 50 million songs.

This article from around the time of iTMS's opening in 2003 estimated $.02
to $.05 for "bandwidth and hosting." Note that "hosting" includes server
administration and such that is independent of the amount of data stored or
delivered.
http://news.com.com/2009-1027_3-1009538.html

The real snag in my $1.25 guess is not bandwidth & storage costs but the
RIAA's cut. If their cut remains the same (I've seen a range from $.62 to
$.69/track), the price increase goes entirely to Apple and can easily cover
the increased cost. If RIAA's cut is a *percentage* of the retail price
(which is more likely), say, 65%, that would leave Apple with only an
additional $.09/track to cover increased costs. My figures include more
guestimates than the Drake Equation but even pessimistic numbers should be
covered by $.09/track.

> and it's useless
> to those without broadband, still a significant part of the population of
> the USA.

Surveys indicate over half of Americans on the Internet have broadband and I
bet a lot more than half of iTMS users have broadband. Bandwidth is a much
more significant cost for iTMS than storage so Apple could continue to sell
both lossy and lossless tracks.

> No, by *stop playing* I mean on the consumer end.

Of course I understood that's what you meant.

> RIAA and the others
> understand one thing...money. Your "Give me what I want" means nothing to
> them. Your money however, means everything to them. You screaming about how
> RIAA sucks or DRM sucks and is immoral is meaningless to them. Completely.

Careful with that "You" [sic], I am neither screaming nor claiming they or
it is immoral (they do suck, however).

> Let me state this again...they do.not.care about your "feelings". They only
> care about your *money*. Period.

I never claimed otherwise. Most of the time I'm not addressing the RIAA, I'm
addressing the general public, influential people in other parts of the
industry, those involved with online music stores, artists. I'm much more
concerned with the interests of the general public and of artists But the
point isn't to take down the RIAA (as nice as that would be) and I think
they would make *more* money by allowing non-DRM'd files to be sold.
 
> What it will take is a *massive* boycott of ALL DRM'd music services.
> Itunes, MSN Music, Napster, all of it. Spend that money, and OBVIOUSLY, on
> services that do NOT use DRM. Let some of those companies see a few hundred
> million or more a year instead of the RIAA-approved outlets, and watch how
> fast they change their minds.

How do you know a massive boycott is not already going on? Sales of DRM'd
files make up a tiny percentage of total music sales. CDs are DRM-free and
continue to be overwhelmingly popular compared to other formats. Digital
music sales are increasing but by how much are they being held back by the
RIAA's DRM requirement?

Which is not to say that without DRM, digital sales would have already
rendered CDs obsolete, not at all. Online sales of digital goods is still a
new concept, one that requires new habits, and that takes time to develop.
Look at software, software is practically and conceptually much easier to
sell online but it is still largely sold as physical copies. Anyway, you
can't have a massive boycott of DRM'd digital music sales until the sales
themselves become massive.

> But unless that happens, the rest is all just silly hippy rhetoric. You have
> to fight them in ways they care about.

I don't fight, I try to persuade. I try to persuade the public when making
purchases and artists when making distribution deals to consider the
consequences of DRM.

I came across this interview with Leonardo Chiariglione, who is effectively
the father of the MPEG family. While it's a bit light and fluffy, he talks
about the possible future of DRM technologies.

<http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=000946F8-6C9C-1057-AC9C83414B7F0
000&ref=sciam&chanID=sa004>

--
Nigel Stanger, Dunedin, NEW ZEALAND.
http://public.xdi.org/=nigel.stanger