Digital Rights Management

So about a year ago I paid for and downloaded a bunch of music from
Wal-Mart's online music store. I enjoyed the music for awhile. It was nice,
$0.99 a song, and I got songs I liked without having to buy a whole album.

I will not be doing that any more.

Why?

Digital Rights Management, or DRM, as they like to call it, treats the
common consumer like a thief.

Earlier this year I had to replace my PC - the old one bit the pooch. I
discovered after finishing installing all my software and transfering what
files I could salvage that none of my Wal-Mart downloaded music would work.
Further more, I found that it wouldn't play on my new PDA, either - and
worse, because I resynced my old PDA to the new computer as well, the music
wouldn't play there, either. And Wal-Mart (nor any other online music
service, apparently) won't transfer the license over to my new PC.

It was like buying some CDs, then throwing them in the fireplace.

You know what? I respect intellectual property. I've ripped MP3s from
virtually every CD in my collection, and I play them regularly on my PC or
my PDA. If I want to pop the SD card into my computer at work and listen to
MY music, I can. But if someone asks me for a copy of a song, I tell them
what album they can find it on. I don't copy it for them, I don't make it
available online for peer to peer network sharing.

But with DRM "protected" music, I don't even have the freedom to play the
music where I want to. Nope, DRM assumes that if I put the SD card with the
protected MP3 into another computer that I must be doing something illegal.
It's like telling me that I can only play a CD or Album I bought on certain
pieces of audio equipment.

I am not a thief, and I do not like being treated like one. And most people
are like me - make it easy to be honest, and they will be - treat them like
thieves, and they will be.

I predict that the downloaded music industry and DRM will have a big fallout
once Windows Vista is released. Suddenly you'll have droves of people
upgrading, and who knows whether their DRM protected music will go with the
upgrade or not. And what happens when the millions of iPods start breaking
down?

I recommend that all these greedy music companies and bands look at the
model that Baen Books is using for their eBooks. They are actually giving
away free, yes, FREE, ebooks with no DRM, and they are making money at it.
None of the eBooks they have for sale have DRM either, and, even more
importantly, they are charging _less_ for their ebooks than companies like
Amazon are. I can buy three ebooks w/o DRM from Baen for the cost of one
ebook w/ DRM at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

That's why I don't buy eBooks from anyone else but Baen. They trust me as a
person, and I, in turn, support them with my hard earned $$$. Give me a
music producer that does the same, and I'll do the same for them.

But then, why chouldn't the record companies assume everyone is a thief?
Look what they've been doing to artists for years - stealing from them. Why
else would so many big stars of the 50s and 60s have no money now?