Glyn sez, "Buying DRMed content, then having that content stop working later is fair writes Steven Metalitz, the lawyer who represents the MPAA, RIAA in a letter to the top legal advisor at the Copyright Office."

"We reject the view," he writes in a letter to the top legal advisor at the Copyright Office, "that copyright owners and their licensees are required to provide consumers with perpetual access to creative works. No other product or service providers are held to such lofty standards. No one expects computers or other electronics devices to work properly in perpetuity, and there is no reason that any particular mode of distributing copyrighted works should be required to do so."
This is, of course, true, but that doesn't make it any less weird. The only reason that such tracks are crippled after authentication servers go down is because of a system that was demanded by content owners and imposed on companies like Wal-Mart and Apple; buyers who grudgingly bought tracks online because it was easy accepted, but never desired the DRM. To simply say that they are "out of luck" because they used a system that the rightsholders demanded is the height of callousness to one's customers. While computers and electronics devices do break down over time, these music tracks were crippled by design.

I've got 78RPM records from my grandparents' basement that play just fine today -- and I've got Logo programs I wrote in 1979 that I can run today. I own a piano roll from 1903 that I can play back if I can clear the space for a player piano. I've got books printed in the 17th century that can still be read -- and if they can't be read, they can be scanned and the scans can be read. This is what an open format means.

It's hilarious that the same yahoos who argue for perpetual copyright (implying that copyrighted works have value forever) also argue for time-limited ownership (implying that people who buy copyrighted works should be content to enjoy them for a few weeks or years until the DRM stops working).

Remember: when you buy DRM, you really rent, until such time as the DRM company goes bust or changes its mind. When you buy DRM-free, you get something your great-grandkids can enjoy.

Big Content: ludicrous to expect DRMed music to work forever (Thanks, Glyn!)

Read more in Music at Boing Boing

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

MORE: Audio • Civlib • Copyfight • movies • music

More at Boing Boing

Ants and Stars: Bruce Sterling and Jasmina Tesanovic visit the Sardinia Radio Telescope in Italy

The Snowden Principle

Karl Jones

“No one expects computers or other electronics devices to work properly in perpetuity, and there is no reason that any particular mode of distributing copyrighted works should be required to do so.”

Perhaps.

Fortunately, there is good reason to suppose that language will continue to work properly in perpetuity.

Words written a thousand years ago, in a thousand languages, work properly today.

Plato’s Republic sits on my bookshelf; even if we lose every last liberty, even if DRM saturates our society and consumes our souls, Republic will persist somehow, samizdat in the long dark night of digital rights management …
Anonymous

@#20

Are you by chance Frank Gehry, and are your chairs made out of cardboard?
Anonymous

If this isn’t an argument for illegal downloads, I’d like to know what is.

These clueless morons in the music industry deserve to see the industry die.

Peg C., NY
chris

Movie/Music Makers… don’t deal with the RIAA/MPAA.
Make your music elsewhere, and it will last.

In 100 years nobody will have heard the latest $Teen_Popstar_Recording enhanced with DRM(TM) they will only have heard the recordings the artists have allowed to be free.

They are suffocating themselves… let them do that. One day enough people get pissed off to put them out of business.
Karl Jones

PS: as to music and movies and such, and the immortality of text: if the long dark night of digital rights management does come … we fall back on Uuencoding.
DWittSF

Steve Metalitz is the John Yoo of the MAFIAA.
Anonymous

I’m fine with them coming up with a system by which I only have something for so long, but if they expect me to buy things that way, they can damn well lower the price, since I’m getting less.

All this will really do, of course, is kill Warner’s sales while boosting Netflix’s rentals and XM/Sirius subscriptions.
Takuan

if they want war, give them war.
Anonymous

OK, this misses the real point here. Only with DRM is it illegal, or do the content creators argue it should be illegal, to do what’s needed to FIX the content when it becomes unusable.

While it is not the responsibility of companies to create formats that will never be obsolete, we also don’t put up with them declaring that the old format may never be used again. The equivelent would have been record companies demanding that vinyls be shredded because CD, or cassette, is now available and will be the only format supported in future. I accept MP3 may be replaced, I don’t accept being disallowed by law from continuing to use MP3 after that time, or from converting it to be usable with the replacement.

Of course, the reason that they are so insistent such measures should be illegal is that with them DRM becomes useless, and that says it all. Deffective by design really does sum it up very nicely; if it work as its needs to to do its job it is unnacceptable to consumers and violates what I outlined above; if it doesn’t it can also be copied at will, and serves no purpose.
Anonymous

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/steal_this_comic.png

^it’s true, it’s true^
whomever

Doesn’t illegally sharing content just reinforce the argument that DRM is necessary? Wouldn’t a better approach be to ignore DRM’d content altogether? Ignoring such content would prevent it from achieving cultural significance and content creators would begin to avoid that model. It ultimately wouldn’t matter if the DRM’d content was no longer easily accessible, as it would lack the cultural significance making such access necessary. It is also possible those controlling the DRM’d content would eventually no longer be able to renew their ownership. This content could then be opened to the masses, receiving delayed cultural significance.

This does require consumers to act together and recognize a common need for change, but that is also true of the “pirate everything” approach, which must overcome being attributed to the sense of entitlement associated with the younger generations. Until buying DRM’d content and pirating DRM’d content are no longer considered cool, there will be DRM’d content.
gollux

“We reject the view,” he writes in a letter to the top legal advisor at the Copyright Office, “that copyright owners and their licensees are required to provide consumers with perpetual access to creative works. No other product or service providers are held to such lofty standards.

Umm? Yeah. Sculpture, Carvings, Vinyl Pressings, Printed Physical Objects all seem to provide the perpetual access he finds so bizarre. Just because it gets converted from the physical to digital, we’re no longer deserving of access in exchange for a one time financial transaction.

Ooh, look, here’s my fist with my middle finger raised. Perpetually access and read that.
Anonymous

Matt R. @ #9: that’s not a dichotomy. It’s an equivocation, and it’s false, just like you said.

Onward.
David Bruce Murray

It’s one thing when I’m too lazy to back up my files and my hard drive crashes.

It’s another thing entirely when a file simply refuses to play.
Anonymous

What the pig from the record company says is bull twaddle. So are the statements saying it is OK to steal. Stealing gives the pigs a leg to stand on. Stop stealing, and you invalidate most of the “argument.”

Trey
Anonymous

this just dredges up the problem i have with ‘music licensing’. either:

A) you own the content, or
B) you purchase access rights to the content

if A is true, why can’t i do what i want with it? well, it’s not true, the RIAA tells me; B is the correct scenario. so if B is true, then why should i have to pay full price for replacement media when i already have purchased access rights to the content?

i could be crazy, but if i pay money for something (whether it’s an object or a license) that doesn’t explicitly state that there’s a term limit or expiration, couldn’t (shouldn’t) i reasonably assume that i have access in perpetuity?

in the case of drm, let’s just be honest and tell people that they make no guarantees for access past a certain date and let the market decide.
Anonymous

And this is why I have no issue with theft of music. Screw them, greedy bastards.
Anonymous

I steal content the old fashioned way – I lend things to friends.

I hope to share my goofy attempt at enciphered bittorrent (or perhaps I should say ‘ensorcelled’) with boingboing very soon — nothing too tough, but tough enough to defeat Deep Packet Inspection. I am willing to pay real money for goods and ideas that make me smile, but I’m only willing to give that coin to those who give my wallet the respect first. From those that refuse? I will steal from them and teach all I know how to do the same.
digitalcole

I basically equate it to this. The dinosaurs are getting uppity.
the_headless_rabbit

“Movie/record industry rep says that you shouldn’t expect to be able to play your media for as long as you own it”

Movie/record consumers tell industry reps that you shouldn’t expect to be paid for media that wont play for as long as we own it
Anonymous

“The music companies have already collected twice from many of us, as we bought the CDs of the vinyl LPs we already owned.”

Twice? Try four times, maybe five: vinyl, 8-track, cassette, CD, download.

In the Age of Vinyl, some of us bought songs when they first came out as 45 rpm singles, and then again on LP. Folks old enough to recall 78 rpm records may have bought the same music up to seven times.
danegeld

There is a very important difference between the gradual decay of analog information, and the active decision to remove a key-server in a DRM scheme.

A sculpture might degrade if it’s exposed to the elements, and a book might rot if it’s stored in a damp room, A record or a CD might eventually wear out or get scratched if they’re handled carelessly. At the moment, all DRM’d files can be rendered obsolete by choice.

For books in the UK, there’s a legal requirement on publishers to deposit copies in national reference libraries. We need a similar scheme for DRM. It should become illegal to collect money in return for DRM files without having first deposited a key for that file at a copyright library.

File format:

0) Header information…
1) List of keys included in this file
i) xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx
ii) xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx
iii) xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx
2) EncryptRSA(Device_Public_key,data_session_key)
3) EncryptRSA(Library_Public_key_A,data_session_key)
4) EncryptRSA(Library_Public_key_B,data_session_key)
5) EncryptRSA(Library_Public_key_C,data_session_key)
6) EncryptRSA(Library_Public_key_D,data_session_key)
7) EncryptAES256(data_session_key,data_stream….)

Library_Private_Key_A = Held at British Library
Library_Private_Key_B = Held at Cambridge University Library
Library_Private_Key_C = Held at Bodlean Library
Library_Private_Key_D = Held at Trinity College Dublin Library

The Libraries then publish the value of data_session_key at an agreed date in the future, or the DRM server is withdrawn.
Matt R

@GOLLUX,

Even more than that, he’s creating a false dichotomy, that failure or degradation over time is the same as invalidating access.

No one expects computers or other electronics devices to work properly in perpetuity…

But I can reasonably expect my computer to continue to work if I keep it well-maintained. What he’s arguing is saying that it would be OK for Intel to stop my processor from working whenever they felt like it.
andygates

Metalitz is either missing the point or being deliberately disingenuous. There is a clear difference between stuff just getting old and a DRM vendor *choosing* to *withdraw* access.

The 78 RPM companies didn’t go around smashing 78s when 45 took over.

In effect, a DRM company contracts to provide validation services when it sells a DRM product – they’ve painted itself into a hole. Metalitz is attempting to describe the hole as a hilltop. It’s wholly unconvincing.
freeyourcrt

Not to sound like a total Luddite, but those 78 RPM records may just be the thing. Seriously, what most media and entertainment corporations are selling these days fails to interest me. It’s mostly garbage. Want to enjoy music? Learn to make it on your own. I guarantee you in a couple years of really trying, you’ll be a lot more satisfied and completely oblivious to whatever some record company lawyer says.
Anonymous

Stop buying DRM’ed material. It’s rubbish.
Anonymous

As for perpetual access, books have allowed that privilege since the beginning of the written word.
nonlinear

there are no DRM products, only DRM services, disguised as products.

and since the consumer pays upfront, there are no incentives for the producer to keep up his promise.
Anonymous

Perhaps Mr. Metalitz would like to steer clear of hip & knee replacements, leg pins, skull plates, stents, and heart valves.
Anonymous

I’m going to reseed some torrents just because of this
Anonymous

The RIAA is, perhaps, asserting that people shouldn’t be able to transfer their music to new forms of media through copying. If songs are transferable, then that means you’ll never need to buy another copy of the song on a different recording medium. In years past, many people who bought records back in the day updated to tape for its portability, and then to CD for its sound quality. Today, people buy digital music for its portability. In the context of a book, people used to buy hardback copies, and would sometimes buy paperback copies of the same books because of their portability.

I hate to say this, but the RIAA may have a point in regards to transferability to new media.
middleman

The IEEE now has a Digital Personal Property Study Group with the following mission:

Determine the feasibility of developing a standard for ownable digital personal property, under which sold digital products such as movies, music, books, and games can be clearly distinguished by consumers from rented or usage-restricted digital products by the absence of imposed usage restrictions or physical-product space and time limitations, while preserving business models based on the sale of private goods where the number of items in circulation equals the number sold and the number of users of each item is naturally, reasonably, and unavoidably limited.
webmonkees

Reminds me of some Capcom arcade games from a few years back; once the battery died on the main board, the encryption key for the chips was lost.

I guess they figured that by that time it just wouldn’t matter. .

So for many of those games, the only resource to repair them is to use a set of bootleg ROMs the encryption chip was designed to thwart.

Pop in an unencrypted set, you’re good to go.
Anonymous

So, are they going to start publishing books with disappearing ink?
mdh

if they want war, give them war.

They really do need you to buy a new war every few years.
TheGlass-Eyed

Broken logic AND broken process â€“ They never cease to disappoint.
mdh

Metalitz is either missing the point or being deliberately disingenuous.

Perhaps if he had “Industry Shill” on his business card the distinction would be more obvious? It’s the latter.
Anonymous

The guy ends up proving yet another case against DRM right in his dumb statement. You drop DRM and you don’t have to worry about having to perpetually give access to the files, they don’t depend on systems which may become obsolete in the future.
Anonymous

I wonder if a massive “no-buy” boycott would change their opinion. The record companies don’t realize if you alienate your consumers and brand them as dirty little thieves they’re probably not gonna buy another CD and opt for the free MP3 format.

Someone get Adbusters on the line…
zikman

I don’t get it. if they want to keep increasing copyright lengths because they think the creative work will stay valuable for infinity amount of time, why would they restrict access to these works by saying that it’s ridiculous to think that you should be able to access it forever.
if nobody can access it… doesn’t it lose value? isn’t the purpose of copyright to “promote the progress of science and useful arts?” these works are supposed to be released to the public domain eventually. what good is it in a time when it’s not even relevant anymore? it wouldn’t even just be irrelevant, it would be entirely inaccessible…. you know, because that’s such a lofty standard to hold someone to.
why even enforce the copyrights of creative works if this is what you’re going to do with them?
RexallWodehouse

Under this line of thinking, it should be okay for the music companies to appear at my door and demand that I give them all my CDs, DVDs, cassettes, 8-tracks, 45s, 33-1/3s, 78s, piano rolls — AND music box cylinders.

RLY?
ratcity

“Do not buy digital downloads from itunes, amazon etc.”

What’s the problem with buying non-DRM music from itunes, amazon, etc?
thinkoplex

Mr. Shill’s analogy is wrong. We do not expect other sorts of products to keep working in perpetuity because eventually everything wears out. In the meantime, though, we can try to have it repaired again and again until it simply gives up the ghost or we decide it’s not worth the effort anymore.

DRMed content, though, does not stop working because it wears out. Rather, it stops working because the publisher simply decides that it will stop working. Usually that’s because it is costing them too much money to give consumers access to the products they legally and in good faith purchased. This is like the manufacturer of your computer or dishwasher sneaking into your home and taking a hammer to the device.

Mr. Shill argues that we have an expectation that the music/movie industries should be held to different standards, but, again, it is the music/movie industries themselves who are claiming exemption from the same standards that apply across the board to every other industry.
mdh

@rexallwodehouse

yes, rly.
pKp

“If digital media is going to be restricted in such ridiculous ways, let’s just go back to buying only physical media.”

Or, you know, buy unrestricted digital media.

Or push for a global licence and enjoy every piece of art ever made, for a nominal fee, while retributing artistic creation.

Just sayin’.
Anonymous

I am a carpenter. I make chairs. My chairs are very comfortable and pleasant to look at, and they cost a pretty penny.

I have found a way to treat the wood so that they degrade and are unusable after six months of use. This is because I would like you to buy more chairs from me. What good is a paying customer if he doesn’t keep paying you?

There is nothing inherent in the money-for-chair transaction that says you should be able to sit on that chair for as long as you want. If I have to come in the middle of the night and confiscate it from you after six months, I will.

That is my right as a carpenter. As a consumer, you have no rights. So buy my chairs every six months and stop whining.
remmelt

“No other product or service providers …” gets a government granted monopoly on its goods for any amount of time.
HotPepperMan

I have an original IBM PC XT. It still works, it is still (occasionally) switched on and used. I expect it will still be working long into the future.

I have music that I (occasionally) listen to. I expect it will still be working long into the future.

I have no DRM’d products. I do not expect them to be working long into the future.

What a pile of bull pucky this person is spouting. This is so self-destructive for the music industry. Music creators should be up in arms.
Anonymous

How would you feel if you bought a car and the car company decided not to make any replacement parts??

They just wanted you to buy another car when this one wore out
Anonymous

>>”No one expects computers or other electronics devices to work properly in perpetuity”.

Says who? Why shouldn’t you expect them to last indefinitely, so long as they are maintained?

Just because machines can wear out with use and time, that doesn’t mean that they should be deliberately DESIGNED from their INCEPTION to wear out!

I’ve got a Casio digital desk clock/calculator sitting right here on my desk that was given to me as a gift in 1985. . .works fine.

Likewise, I’m using the same pocket scientific calculator I bought at Radio Shack in 1987. (Yup it has a solar panel!). Again, works great. . .and I don’t see any reason why it can’t work another 20 years.

Drove to work this morning in a 1989 vintage car with 150,000 miles on it. Same deal.

I have vinyl records from the late 60s in my cabinet, and paperbacks dating back as far or further, etc.
mdh

“No other product or service providers …” gets a government granted monopoly on its goods for any amount of time.

except Baseball, Disney, and Halliburton?
Teresa Nielsen Hayden

Crazy troll logic. But then, Metalitz wasn’t hired to tell the truth, or come up with reasonable answers. He’s writing ad copy disguised as legal opinions.
Anonymous

Mr. Metalitz seems to not have a brain “No one expects computers or other electronics devices to work properly in perpetuity”

But i can repair them as i wish. I can solder, whatever . They are mine.

Btw because of this s*** i don’t buy anything with DRM. I stopped viewing movies with that i and i must say i don’t miss movies much. There are many interesting things to make and create by myself.
Takuan

you mean the auto industry?
pclark360

Does this mean Mr. Metalitz will need to keep buying new books for his legal library and on the same note do we need to start having around the clock watches at local libraries no make sure they don’t disappear into a big puff of smoke?
Beanolini

I own a piano roll from 1903 that I can play back if I can clear the space for a player piano.

I had an idea to make a piano roll player using a strip of photodiodes and a microcontroller emitting MIDI messages.

Does anyone know if someone less lazy than me has made anything like this?
thequickbrownfox

MIDI files from piano rolls http://www.trachtman.org/rollscans/
misshouseunited

Idiots. They’re comparing it to the wrong products and services. Compare it to any book. If I invest in a book, I do generally expect to be able to read it together. Why else would I avoid selling back books I bought for academic purposes? How bogus would it be if my copy of The Republic had simply disappeared after turning in my final paper freshman year? What if they took this attitude in the 60s? One of the best gifts I’ve ever received was my mother’s copy of The Republic from the 60s. With their attitude, it wouldn’t even exist.

And anyway, even if you do compare buying DRMed media to buying some hardware tech, I DO expect perpetual access to my computers, at least until the products OWN half-life intervenes, or some force of nature steps in, –R.I.P. PC and MAC lightning strike victims– not some wholly intentional third agent pulling the plug on it.
Beanolini

#23, thequickbrownfox:

MIDI files from piano rolls http://www.trachtman.org/rollscans/

That’s not really what I meant- they optically scanned the rolls to get a bitmap, then processed the bitmap to generate MIDI files.

My thought was to generate MIDI messages in real-time from a roll; a circuit doing this could just plug in to any MIDI-compatible keyboard or sound module.
Anonymous

I guess I’ll starting a business selling stuff with a warranty and a 2year and 1 day killswitch…
george57l

@ #15
Some good questions but surely you DO understand why …

Because they think like this.

a) Copyright for 50 years, sell the punter one CD with perpetual licence = 1 x revenue unit
b) copyright for 1000 years, sell the punter one DRM-crippled (DRM-expiring annually) unit every year = 1000 x revenue unit

Thus b) must be the best business model.

If they thought about it more than this their brain cell would hurt.
Anonymous

Well the problem here isn’t so much that “purchasing” works with DRM turns out to be leasing. People lease stuff all the time. But how can anybody make an informed decision on whether the price they’re charging is reasonable when they don’t know how long they’re getting it for? “Pay me 100k for this house, I might let you live there for 2 years, or I might let you live there for 20, I haven’t decided yet.” This is what they’re saying to consumers.
Anonymous

this is why you either buy the physical product or illegially download
Anonymous

If someone decides to make a sequel to Fight Club, then I believe the RIAA instead of credit reporting agencies should be the target of the character’s disdain.
reginald

Digital products are commercially fundamentally flawed.
Either buy the physical product or illegally download.
Do not buy digital downloads from itunes, amazon etc. unless you want to whinge about why the major “record labels” (yes, we still call them that) are so out of the loop.

Same goes for Kindle etc.

They are there to make money – there is a small alturistic bone in their body, but few people have the diagram to locate it. Certainly not anyone calling the shots in those corporations.

There are free legal sources for out of copyright material – seek them out if you like “classics”.

We are in a transition faze.
Anonymous

Musicians don’t create music to be heard temporarily. Their aspiration is for it to be heard and enjoyed for years, decades, centuries to come. This lawyer is completely at odds with the desires of both artist and consumer.
Wardish

One could make a good argument that DRM is proof of a conspiracy steal music as well as breaking the DMCA.

They absolutely know that DRM encourages such behavior so that legal owners of the music must do so in order to retain the ability to play the music they have purchased.
ill lich

Before the advent of phonograph records and the recording industry there was the sheet music industry. Consider if the sheet music industry was still a big part of everyday consumer life– would they be printing the music on tissue, or self-destructing paper? Would they be prosecuting people for reading someone else’s copy? Would they be going after anyone who learns by ear from the radio?
Anonymous

If the recording and movie industries want to put an expiry date on your purchases, they ought to be forced tell the public up front about the expiry date. I propose a big black and white sticker(about 100 x 100 mm)on the cover of all CD’s and DVD’s warning us of the offensive DRM content. Then us consumers can make an informed choice as to whether we want to purchase the item or not. (Oops! not “purchase”, should’ve said “rent”).
Anonymous

Well, that settles it.

I’m never paying for any MPAA or RIAA product again.
Jay Gatsby

DRM should not be used to terminate someone’s ability to enjoy a copyrighted work based on an arbitrary timetable (e.g., when the record companies decide not to sell their music in a particular form anymore, or support a particular technological standard). As long as someone has a record player, he can enjoy his LPs for as long as his heart desires, even if the record company that owns the rights to the recording stops pressing it on vinyl. What he cannot do, and what DRM arguably should prevent, is the re-recording of the LP in another form (e.g., tape, MP3, artificial brain engram, etc…) Needless to say, this is not something with which most folks here would agree.

“It’s hilarious that the same yahoos who argue for perpetual copyright (implying that copyrighted works have value forever) also argue for time-limited ownership (implying that people who buy copyrighted works should be content to enjoy them for a few weeks or years until the DRM stops working).”

This is comparing apples to oranges and introduces an irrelevant fact. The record companies own the copyright on their recordings. This means they can release those recordings on any media they choose for the length of the copyright. When you buy an album, you own the physical media on which that album is recorded, but you only have a license to use the recording on the media you purchased.
Anonymous

Steve Metalitz went on to say that we shouldn’t expect sex to be consensual.
Anonymous

Wow, what an argument!

“No one expects computers or other electronics devices to work properly in perpetuity, and there is no reason that any particular mode of distributing copyrighted works should be required to do so.”

I thought data inherently lasted forever, while physical stuff have an inherent tendency to wear out. Making a media file wear out after a set period of time on purpose is like when I buy a computer, 6 months later some guy from Dell comes into my house with a sledgehammer to smash it to bits.
Hans

You know, its not theft if it is written into your business model…

These things get more outrageous every day.
Anonymous

We reject the view that corporations can retroactively extend copyright, reaping profits that benefit none of the original creators or producers, and forcing the public to forgo any notion of public domain.
Anonymous

pirate, bootleg, “steal.” limewire/frostwire (or other p2p) and torrents. its the only way!

in fact, i think im gunna surf right on over to thepiratebay and open a coulpe torrents.

never was a dead/dying victim to these vultures. never will be!
Steaming Pile

In addition to the above comments, I might add that vinyl records were created with durability in mind. That they were less likely to break (shatter) was a major selling point, other than the fact that they sounded better and could hold more content. In fact, I probably have a few LPs pressed in the 1960s that had the word “unbreakable” on the sleeve or the record label.

So nobody can tell me that I shouldn’t expect to be able to play my LPs as long as I can find a working record player, and given the continued relevance of hip hop, I expect to be able to obtain a turntable and replacement parts (needles, etc.) for same at an affordable price long into the future. So there.
randomcat

Good thing DRM wasn’t around when Michaelangelo was alive.

Hey, media moguls, newsflash: your products aren’t necessary. Sure, I enjoy them and I am willing to pay for your services as part of making them available to me. But I’m not putting up with this DRM BS — why should I? I don’t really need your products. Before I buy ANYTHING with DRM in it, I’ll use DRM-free content, make my own content, or just go for a picnic or a bike ride or something. kthxbye
Brainspore

Maybe he’s trying to compare DRM to the hardware devices that play media? Except that I’m pretty sure my CD player will continue to work if Sony suddenly goes out of business.
Anonymous

My kids used to laugh at my near-obsession with owning old-timey physical storage media (most notably CDs) versus their enthusiasm for mp3 files. They aren’t laughing any more.

#57: You’re right, I don’t agree. I have many LP recordings (“In 3-D Stereo Sound!”) from the ’50s and ’60s of great classical performances – Herbert von Karajan conducting Mozart and Beethoven, E. Power Biggs playing Bach and Mendelssohn – that simply aren’t available on CD or other digital media. I have produced CDs from these old LPs to avoid wearing out the grooves on the vinyl discs. If this is a copyright violation, so be it. If Sony Classical or Deutsche Gramophon were to release these grand old recordings on SACD or as .wav files (please, no leaky low-res mp3s), then they would have a ready customer in yours truly. But until they do, they should kwittheirbitchin’.
folkclarinet

In the old-old days before recordings of music, people just bought the sheet music and entertained themselves at home.

What if our society could go back to this wonderful form???
Brainspore

@ Folkclarinet #32:

Um, interesting that you would make such a suggestion via a global network of electronic computing machines.
Thad E Ginataom

If digital media is going to be restricted in such ridiculous ways, let’s just go back to buying only physical media.

Let us not forget that we are the consumers, and these things are in our hands.

New technology has brought cash-till jingles to the minds of those who wish to exploit it. Literally exploit it, that is.

They can find themselves with their faces in the mud very quicky if we, simply, do not buy it — their ideas or their products.

The music companies have already collected twice from many of us, as we bought the CDs of the vinyl LPs we already owned. Due to far-sighted imaginative contracts with musicians, little of that second round of income found its way into the pockets of artists.

Enough of the greed!

Movie/record industry rep says that you shouldn't expect to be able to play your media for as long as you own it

Read more in Music at Boing Boing

More at Boing Boing