MindShadow on DRM
I think I am like the only person in the world who is completely fine with DRM. While I totally think it would be a happy shinny world if all music was free and noone had to pay for anything… get fucking real. Regarding the whole argument of “I want to be able to use my music anywhere”, well go buy a fucking cd them. CDs were around for years before DRM was an issue and I personally spent 3 dollars per cd single when I was like 15.. so now I pay 1/3 that .. or in some cases a flat monthly fee (basically the cost of 3 CD singles back in the day… aka 3 hours babysitting) to have all the music I want on my computer (where I listen to it). So then “they” say, well I want my music easily available on my custom equipment… why should you get that? You want a higher quality product (both in sound quality and accessibility)… well it sucks to be you. I could buy a tv with a built in dvd player and get one experience… or I could build a home entertainment center with many components and have a richer experience that costs me more in money and time. I guess I don’t see why everyone is so upset… noone is taking cds from you… you just have to get off your lazy asses to go get it. It is like movies… you want a awesome experience, get off your ass and go to the theater, you want slightly less… go rent a movie… you want to be cheap and lazy? Watch Showtime. I will understand the day when it becomes harder to get a cd.. when music stores are hard to find… but just cause you are mad because you have an archaic idea of what rights you should have with purchased music doesn’t mean the future is going to follow that. You can’t open a movie theather in your house and charge for people to watch dvd… and you don’t get all pissy that your dvd doesn’t work in your vcr… so what the fuck?
June 8th, 2006 at 3:16 pm
You are such a fucking tool of the man today. Yeah, don’t expect anything better than what you have since what is there is “good enough.”
You’ve steamrolled over that thought process so many times in the past, its hilarious to me that you’re using it now to defend DRM which in most cases is complete shit for any normal person in the world who spends time in more places than in front of their computer.
Things are getting better, but in the meantime people still buy CDs and get unprotected MP3s, just as you are suggesting. What most people are looking for is a replacement for the CD that doesn’t limit them from the basic ways that they enjoy the content. It doesn’t have anything to do with a spectacular experience, it is just that the convenience of immediate delivery and attractive pricing does not completely outweigh the flexibility of a medium with no DRM.
What upsets us is that we see the potential of the product, we see the advantage, and we’re stumped as to why they’d make it so restrictive that you can’t just use it for perfectly understandable personal use. I should be able to get music in lossless formats, I should be able to stream it from the web, I should be able to listen to it on a portable player, in a car, in my living room, in my bedroom, or in my house. I should be able to do all of these things if I properly authenticate myself.
I should be able to do a lot of things with music that I buy, but most important is that I be able to listen to it when and where I want to listen to it. Until they reach that point (which, with maybe a $4000 investment you can pretty much get now through Microsoft technology – but no lossless compression) then I will stick to buying CDs.
I usually get 5-10 tracks on itunes per month but they’re all shit, or something I need “right now.” I also subscribe to urge (monthly music service) for checking out new stuff before I buy it. Both of these services, because of their crappy DRM, require me to use them as an evaluation service for where to spend my money on physical media.
I’ll be forced to continue to do this until they just let me play the fucking stuff in my house, in my car, on my portable, and for my friends or while I am travelling. It is not unreasonable at all for me to ask for those kinds of rights, and it is absolutely not comparable to the example of charging people for movies shown in your house.
June 8th, 2006 at 8:32 pm
Well I personally know for a fact that MOST of my friends fucking pirate their cds and “share” them with their friends in illegal ways so I guess when that stops happening maybe they will listen to the public “desires” of wanting cheaper more convenient music.
I think it is completely unreasonable to expect that the music industry should be any different then the movie industry. To me your issues are with hardware support not rights management. Your pissed cause you can’t play it in your car or your portable or whatever. If it was a DVD and you had a VCR in your car you wouldn’t be all pissy cause you couldn’t play it. You would go buy a fucking dvd player for your car…. and all new DVDs. Well your cd player is the archaic method. So someone needs to come up with some method of downloading DRM music to a memory stick or whatever to play in your car… sucks to be an early adapter.
As far as my personal opinion of not waiting better… I completely expect better. But I don’t expect better from an industry where they have to spend half their time updating their shit from people cracking their shit rather then improve their services. I guess I just look at it like this… there are laws that protect the artists… same as when you bought them on a cd… you accept that… or at least the majority does….. I think that artists were completely exploited during the “Napster” erra and that what DRM is now is a response to that. Now I know everyone claims that the music industry didn’t actually loose money and that cd sales were actually increasing… but I personally know a shit load of older people that without the convenience of downloadable music they would have bought cds… and now the music industry is out the cash. Does the industry charge to much? Whole other conversation. The basic fact is without some method of protection people who weren’t “pirates”, stole music.
I don’t feel duped and I don’t feel cheated. I know what I bought… it happens to work for me. I don’t think DRM hides an secrets about what you can and can’t do with the product. So if you know you need more then go buy the AVAILABLE format that needs more. I like movies… I would LOVE movies delivered to my tivo from my Netflix account. If that ever comes to fruition, I may need to buy a new tivo. I am fine with that. For now I use Netflix…. yeah I gotta wait a couple days for delivery… yes I could have them instantly going to a store… but I knew that when I signed up.
Oh well… I am having three conversations right now and I am off track, but I don’t think we are arguing about the same thing. You are talking about features that you want … hey, thats great… I want tons more shit too… I want more features from the entire digital format .. like tagging… but I am talking about the little whining bitches on Digg (http://digg.com/software/MTV_Urge:_You_can_only_use_2_MP3_Players…or_get_a_new_PC_) or any other place that are like “fucking DRM is a huge piece of shit and I am going to go on any thread that remotely talks about DRM and go crazy about it”. STOP FUCKING COMPLAINING.