DRM and the PRO-IP Act - Limited time opportunity?

[Leo Mauler]

--- On Sun, 10/26/08, jdpruente at gmail.com <jdpruente at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Oct 26, 2008 2:21am, Leo Mauler
> <webgiant at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > --- On Sun, 10/26/08, Jon Pruente wrote:
> > > the store. I don't think Apple/Audible/others
> > > are particularly to blame, so much as the
> > > recording labels.
> >
> > So "Apple" isn't to blame for *allowing*
> > razorblade-spiked Halloween apples among 
> > their other Halloween apples because 
> > "Apple" didn't put the razorblades in the 
> > spiked Halloween apples?
> >
> > iTunes is an enabler of DRM, if nothing else, 
> > and the complaints about iTunes are thus 
> > valid and should be there, if for no other
> > reason but to poison DRM in the minds of 
> > Apple execs. Whether or not the label 
> > chooses to put the DRM content into iTunes 
> > or not, its still up to Apple whether to  
> > *sell* the DRM content or not.
 
> The throttle on basically every car made has the  
> capability to exceed posted speed limits, thus
> "enables" speeding and breaking the law, and even 
> DANGEROUS DRIVING! Should we install speed  
> governors in every car so that they cannot exceed 
> the maximum speed of the road they are on to 
> prevent people from driving illegally and 
> recklessly?  We can put stupid and exaggerated 
> claims up to compare DRM to and to the layman it 
> sounds like the raving of a nut.

Speaking of stupid and exaggerated claims, when you can establish that permitting DRM sales on iTunes will occasionally save lives in the way that a car being able to exceed the posted speed limit can manage, you can make this otherwise outlandish analogy stick.  There are all kinds of legal and/or lifesaving uses to which a vehicle which can exceed posted speed limits can be put, such as for a private citizen to get a wounded child to a hospital from a rural location.  There is no such lifesaving use for DRM.

> So, that's the problem with your argument; 
> DRM and razors?

DRM doesn't threaten lives much either (other than bankrupting people in lawsuits), but that wasn't the point.  The point was harm in general being greater with DRM than without DRM, and that Apple, by choosing to support DRM, is just as guilty as the labels who support DRM.  There is no use for DRM other than to increase industry profits while eventually harming consumers, much like tobacco products.

> I didn't say Apple wasn't to blame, I said they 
> weren't particularly to blame.

Which is just as wrong as assigning no blame whatsoever.  Archer-Daniels-Midland is responsible for making ethanol cheaper than gasoline, but the oil companies don't have to put huge amounts (up to 20%) in their gasoline to try and make a bigger profit while damaging car engines (according to information obtained from today's Sunday edition of the Kansas City Star).  The fact that they choose to do so makes them just as culpable as ADM for engine damage, possibly even more so as if ADM didn't sell any ethanol it wouldn't get into the cars in the first place.

> With iTunes Apple seems to favor non-DRM, as  
> they make it fairly easy to remove it from 
> DMR-encrusted files, 

I think of "easy" as anything which requires two steps or less.  Apple's "remove DRM" method requires four: purchase a blank CD, burn the audio CD, rip the audio CD, and retype all the music file tags.  Five steps really, since ripping is two steps: get the audio file and convert it to a player format.  If your collection is more than 80 minutes long (about 20 songs), removing DRM from iTunes files is anything but "easy".

> and the non-DRM files they offer are of higher 
> quality, thus anyone who chooses(!!! OMG FREE 
> WILL!!! NONONONONONONO!) to buy the non-DRM 
> content from them already gets a better product.

Not everything Apple offers has both a DRM option and a non-DRM option.  Apple should insist that all options are non-DRM.

> Businesses sell what sells.

Apple gets to pick what it sells, regardless of the market, and DRM is harmful to consumers.  Illegal drugs sell better than legal ones.  Lets blame the cartels and let the dealers off scot free, because the dealers are just "selling what sells." 

> If the non-DRM content outsells the DRM content 
> it's not long before a wise business person will 
> make the switch. 

Of course, the big problem is that not all DRM content is available on iTunes as a non-DRM file, and DRM's harms aren't blatantly obvious until the server goes down permanently and the DRM content is locked down forever.

DRM files might as well be glowing radioactive ore deceptively sold as "free light" sources (with the message "warning: device will cause radiation sickness and eventual death if used by people" hidden in the rarely-read fine print): most consumers don't find out that there's a problem with DRM/radiation until its too late to do anything about it, so the radioactive ore would continue to sell to all the remaining living people, just as DRM continues to sell well to blissfully ignorant consumers.

I understand tobacco companies used a similar model up until the point when the studies showed tobacco really could kill you.

> It's just making that first step to put the  
> non-DRM content up. It's painfully obvious 
> that Apple makes buying the non-DRM content 
> a better quality product than the DRM-enabled 
> stuff. 

The problem is that they don't point out the problems of purchasing DRM files while selling them, and they don't have a non-DRM version of every DRM file.  It's like they are cutting the tobacco in the cigarettes with strychnine to make them a lesser quality product than the coffee on the shelf next to the cigarettes (nicotine is a stimulant), but conveniently forgetting to mention to the consumer that the tobacco is cut with strychnine.  Thus they are just as much to blame for the DRM as the labels.

> Apple also provides a method to convert content 
> away from DRM-encrusted if a non-DRM version is 
> made available, albeit at a nominal fee.

Which is not that much different from requiring you to re-purchase the original music file, like any other DRM store will make you do when they change their DRM system and permanently shut down the old server.  This also means that Apple *makes more money* when a consumer purchases a DRM file: once on the first purchase and again on the non-DRM second purchase.  Clearly they've realized the financial incentive for selling DRM music, so they're just as much to blame as the record labels.

I understand that you don't like DRM either, it just seems like you are trying to use semantics (rather than plain language) to shift justified blame away from Apple.  Apple willingly sells a bad product that they know will harm the consumer at some point, making them on par with the Tobacco Institute instead of business owners whose hands are tied by the free market.  In fact, Apple is more along the lines of the silicone breast implant plastic surgeons: they sold consumers a dangerous product, and then when the consumers developed problems, the doctors didn't get punished, they got paid even more money to fix the problem they caused in the first place.

Shocked, shocked they are to find gambling going on in this establishment.