Media Companies Go Too Far in Curbing Consumers' Activities

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Monty Solomon <monty () roscom com>
Date: October 24, 2005 12:59:11 AM EDT
To: undisclosed-recipient:;
Subject: Media Companies Go Too Far in Curbing Consumers' Activities



October 20, 2005
Media Companies Go Too Far in Curbing Consumers' Activities

By WALTER S. MOSSBERG

In some quarters of the Internet, the three most hated letters of the
alphabet are DRM. They stand for Digital Rights Management, a set of
technologies for limiting how people can use the music and video
files they've purchased from legal downloading services. DRM is even
being used to limit what you can do with the music you buy on
physical CDs, or the TV shows you record with a TiVo or other digital
video recorder.

Once mainly known inside the media industries and among activists who
follow copyright issues, DRM is gradually becoming familiar to
average consumers, who are increasingly bumping up against its
limitations.

DRM is computer code that can be embedded in music and video files to
dictate how these files are used. The best-known example is the music
Apple Computer sells at its iTunes Music Store. Using a DRM system it
invented called FairPlay, Apple has rigged its songs, at the
insistence of the record companies, so that they can be played only
on a maximum of five computers, and so that you can burn only seven
CDs containing the same playlist of purchased tracks. If Apple hadn't
done this, the record labels wouldn't have allowed it to sell their
music.

DRM systems are empty vessels -- they can enforce any rules copyright
holders choose, or no rules at all. Apple's DRM rules are liberal
enough that few consumers object to them. In fact, obtaining
relatively liberal DRM rules from the labels was the key to Apple's
success in selling music. But some other uses of DRM technology
aren't so benign.

...

http://ptech.wsj.com/archive/ptech-20051020.html



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