Software down, music to go.

This is why the Digital Rights Management techniques of today are fundamentally flawed.

This is why the Digital Rights Management techniques of today are fundamentally flawed.

People are consumers. Really we're more than that, but to every company out there – from the smallest corner store on up to the largest trans-national conglomerate – we're nothing more than consumers.

Normal companies make widgets, market said widgets, generate interest in their widgets and finally (hopefully) sell lots and lots of widgets. If all goes to plan, they make a profit [PDF].

Software companies, on the other hand, make widgets, market said widgets, generate interest in their widgets and (look closely now) hopefully license lots and lots of widgets to make a profit. See the difference?

Software companies have been selling us 'licenses' to use widgets pretty much since the dawn of (computing) time. Buried deep within most 2000 word EULA's will be a clause stating that you don't in fact own any software, but rather the rights to install and use one copy of said software on one machine only. For some strange reason, the entire world seems to have accepted this double standard without much in the way of protest.

We've already lost the battle against software licensing. Many (including myself) still question the legality of click-wrap EULA agreements, but with most of the world simply not caring (this may change with Microsoft's new licensing plans), it's not looking good. However, we still have a chance to save music, the battle for which is just kicking into gear.

When you buy a CD, you own a physical product. You own the plastic disc and you own a copy of the information stored on it. Naturally I don't mean you own the copyright to said information. However, you do own that particular copy of it. It's like buying a bicycle: you can use it, break it, give it away or just throw it in the corner and forget about it. The only restriction with intellectual property (software, books, music and the like) is that you don't breach copyright.

Digital Rights Management originally sprang up to defend content owners from breaches of copyright. First applied to software (any method of preventing so-called “piracy” - technically a misnomer), we're now finding DRM technology increasingly applied to other forms of intellectually property such as movies, videos and music.

Despite the lack of DRM success preventing software copyright violation (hmm… using a software algorithm to restrict geeks from doing something they want to do with a computer. Yes, that'll work….), the music industry (in the form of the Recording Industry Association of America) has been pushing for DRM functionality in both software and hardware, to 'protect their rights' as IP holders. And the software industry, mostly in the form of Microsoft, has caved.

Cases such as the one linked at the beginning of this article highlight everything that's wrong with DRM. If a user stored legitimately obtained music on their computer, burned said music to CD-R for backup and then formatted their computer's hard-drive, the music should work just as well (both from the CD-R and after being copied back to HDD) as it originally did. However, thanks to the infinite wisdom of certain decision makers in Redmond, roughly 90% of the world's Internet users have some capacity for automated DRM on their system's.

While we could argue that anyone backing up music in WMA format is already beyond help, the simple fact is that Microsoft, with plenty of support from the RIAA, the MPAA and various 'paid for' US politicians, is slowly but surely changing the playing field for digital content. They're moving us all towards their idyllic nirvana: a place where, just as it is for software today, the majority of end users accept shelling out $30.00 to 'license' the latest Britney CD. Only this time, our 'license' will also define when, where and how we may use the content we've paid for.

If you're willing to see this sad situation become reality (or perhaps you just plain don't care?), think carefully: Do you listen to your music CD's in more than one place? Do you take your music CD's to parties? Do you lend your CD's to friends? If you answered yes to any of those questions, please send $US 19.95 per extra-use license, as well as a $US 199.99 per-incident license breach fee, direct to the RIAA – because DRM restricts them all.


--Brad Webb