Music executives lament state of industry
,----[ Quote ]
| "We're running out of time," Ted Cohen, managing director of music
| consulting firm TAG Strategic, told the roughly 200 attendees.
| "We need to get money flowing from consumers and get them used
| to paying for music again."
`----
http://news.com.com/2100-1027_3-6162729.html?part=rss&tag=2547-1_3-0-20&subj=news
Doesn't that make you want to use the DRM-free Linux and acquire the free
music that's legally distributed via the Web? Of course, not everyone is on
your side.
Assembled below is a list of items to show Microsoft's new infatuation with
DRM and obedience to the RIAA. They have become more anti-consumer than ever
before.
Related:
Microsoft: We Like DRM
,----[ Quote ]
| Steve Jobs wants the music business to drop restrictions for digital
| tunes. But Microsoft, which began competing head to head with Apple
| in the digital music business last fall, is happy with the way things
| are, says media exec Robbie Bach.
`----
http://www.forbes.com/2007/02/08/zune-drm-itunes-tech-media-cx_df_0208bach.html?partner=yahootix
http://tinyurl.com/2lrz3y
Why Microsoft will fight for DRM
,----[ Quote ]
| In a DRM-free world Windows Media formats are basically dead.
| Online stores locked out of the iPod because of FairPlay. Will
| not choose to lock themselves out by using only Windows Media if
| they use it at all. I think it?s obvious that the people at
| Microsoft know that. When the number one MP3 player will never
| support your format, Microsoft is left with a lot invested in
| something that won?t amount to much. The only way Microsoft
| can save its investment in Windows Media is to have a DRM
| Windows Media player that is a run away success. This is why
| Microsoft will not join with Apple in calling for a DRM-free
| world. They need DRM so they are going to fight for it.
`----
http://km.lqz.ca/blog/tech/microsoft-fight-drm/
Golden Rant : Microsoft DRM's gone too far
,----[ Quote ]
| Microsoft appears to have hit the wrong button on its critical
| Windows XP download service late last month, pretty well forcing
| every XP user to upgrade to Windows Media Player (WiMP) 11 if
| they (like me and many others) have the automatic download/install
| option enabled for critical updates.
`----
http://securityblog.itproportal.com/?p=712
Save the BBC from Windows DRM!
,----[ Quote ]
| Clearly, shutting out 25% of your audience sits ill with the BBC's
| remit of serving all of its users...
|
| There is no denying that this is an extremely difficult area for
| the BBC, since it must negotiate not one but three minefields -
| those of technology standards, copyright and contract law. But
| there are still things that it could do without turning into a
| global advertisement for Microsoft's flawed DRM approach.
`----
http://www.linuxjournal.com/node/1000183
Microsoft launches 'PlayReady' DRM system
,----[ Quote ]
| Although digital rights management (DRM) is popular with content
| creators, it has attracted criticism. Sony was widely attacked after
| using a rootkit-like application to hide content protection on some
| music CDs, and earlier this month Apple CEO Steve Jobs called on
| the music industry to drop its use of DRM.
`----
http://news.com.com/2100-1039_3-6158553.html?part=rss&tag=2547-1_3-0-20&subj=news
----[ Quote ]
| "In the meantime, it's nice to see that Microsoft's COO hasn't lost his
| Wal-Mart friends (he was CIO there, of course, before he joined Microsoft).
| It's important to call a favor now and again. Whatever smoke and mirrors it
| takes to get by"
`----
http://weblog.infoworld.com/openresource/archives/2007/01/the_appearance.html
Wal-Mart to launch video downloads
,----[ Quote ]
| They won't work with Macintosh or Linux-based computers or with iPods.
| The downloads can be backed up as many as three times, including to a
| DVD, but the backup DVD won't play in a conventional DVD player.
`----
http://www.wzzm13.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=70062
EMI to Apple, Microsoft: Ditching DRM is going to cost you
,----[ Quote ]
| Earlier this month it was widely reported that EMI was indeed ready
| to cast DRM into the dark abyss and earn the company the honorable
| status of being the first major music label to realize that DRM
| alienates honest customers. As it turns out, the company is indeed
| open to the possibility of ditching DRM, but they expect to be
| paid well for it, and the online music retailers aren't ready to
| meet their demands.
|
| EMI is the only major record label to seriously consider
| abandoning the disaster that is DRM, but earlier reports that
| focused on the company's reformist attitude apparently missed
| the mark: EMI is willing to lose the DRM, but they demand a
| considerable advance payment to make it happen.
`----
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070225-8916.html
Microsoft may pay Zune tax twice
,----[ Quote ]
| Microsoft's private deal with Universal Music to pay the record
| label a voluntary royalty of $1 for every Zune player it sells
| has raised eyebrows across both the technology and music
| industries. But it might not be the last payment Redmond owes
| from Zune, we've discovered.
`----
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/12/14/microsoft_zune_royalties/
A Legitimate Reason to Hate the Zune (And Microsoft Too)
,----[ Quote ]
| Here's the situation: Microsoft has agreed to pay a portion of
| the profits from the sales of the Zune to a record company
| (Universal) because the Zune will undoubtedly be used to
| store unpurchased songs.
|
| [...]
|
| Here it is important to remember a few simple things. The
| money goes to the Universal, not to the artists.
|
| [...]
|
| Microsoft's move sets a bad precedent and turns all consumers into
| thieves without evidence.
`----
http://www.applematters.com/index.php/section/comments/a-legitimate-reason-to-hate-the-zune-and-microsoft-too/
Music industry meeting could change the Zune
,----[ Quote ]
| Bryan Lee, corporate vice present for Microsoft's entertainment
| business, told me today that the meeting was set up as part of the
| deal struck between Microsoft and music business honchos, who are
| always wary of piracy... The meeting was supposed to take place "some
| time after the holidays," he said. It also talks about the future
| of the zune.
`----
http://blogs.chron.com/techblog/archives/2007/01/music_industry_meeting_could_change_the_zune.html
http://tinyurl.com/y7z5wl
The Longest Suicide Note in History
,----[ Quote ]
| Gutmann: The genie's out of the bottle before the operating system has even
| been released! But that doesn't mean Vista users in particular - and
| the computer community at large - won't end up paying for Microsoft's
| DRM folly. At the risk of repeating myself repeating myself, yet
| another reason to move to Linux.
`---- ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
http://blogs.pcworld.co.nz/pcworld/tux-love/2007/01/the_longest_suicide_note_in_hi.html
Publish And Perish
,----[ Quote ]
| Alexander Rose, the executive director of the futurist Long Now
| Foundation, worries about the impermanence of digital information.
| "If you save that computer for 100 years, will the electrical plugs
| look the same?" he asks. "The Mac or the PC--will they be around?
| If they are, what about the software? " So far there's no business
| case for digital preservation--in fact, for software makers like
| Microsoft, planned obsolescence is the plan.
|
| "The reality is that it's in companies' interest that software should
| become obsolete and that you should have to buy every upgrade,"
| Rose says. We could be on the cusp of a turning point, though, in the
| way businesses and their customers think about digital preservation.
| "Things will start to change when people start losing all of their personal
| photos," Rose said.
`----
http://www.forbes.com/2006/11/30/books-information-preservation-tech-media_cx_ee_books06_1201acid.html?partner=yahootix
http://tinyurl.com/yyjqoh
Of course, the answer to piracy is /NOT/ DRM. Au contraire.
There Ain't No Such Thing as a Free Lunch
,----[ Quote ]
| 1) The product they want--electronic texts--are hard to find, and
| thus valuable.
|
| 2) The products they want are high-priced, so there's a fair
| amount of money to be saved by stealing them.
|
| 3) The legal products come with so many added-on nuisances
| that the illegal version is better to begin with.
|
| Those are the three conditions that will create widespread
| electronic copyright infringement, especially in combination.
| Why? Because they're the same three general conditions that
| create all large-scale smuggling enterprises.
|
| And . . .
|
| Guess what? It's precisely those three conditions that DRM
| creates in the first place. So far from being an impediment
| to so-called "online piracy," it's DRM itself that keeps
| fueling it and driving it forward.
`----
http://preview.baens-universe.com/articles/salvos6
iTunes DRM Inspires People to Pirate Content
,----[ Quote ]
| BitTorrent Inc president and co-founder, Ashwin Navin says that iTunes'
| DRM is "a time bomb waiting to happen," and that it will inspire
| people to pirate content. The irony is that his company is about to
| launch a video store that heavily implements Microsoft?s Windows DRM.
`----
http://torrentfreak.com/bittorrent-inc-itunes-drm-inspires-people-to-pirate-content/
MPAA: Frustrated Consumers Will Pirate
,----[ Excerpt ]
| The MPAA's Brad Hunt outlined some of the ways the MPAA is working
| to standardize content protection controls in the age of digital
| home networking. But he also acknowledged that piracy is the
| consumer's answer to the content industry's inability to provide
| a simple digital-rights-management solution.
`----
http://news.yahoo.com/s/zd/20061016/tc_zd/191502
|
|
