The latest episode in the war between music companies and their paying customers (the one where Sony decides it’s OK to surreptitiously take over your PC so you can’t make a copy of the music you thought you bought from them) has finally pushed me over the edge.
I’ve been a big buyer of prerecorded ‘media’ for over 35 years. I have two or three hundred vinyl LPs, several dozen 45’s, a hundred or so audio cassettes, and roughly 60 prerecorded reel-to-reel tapes. They are jammed in my closet with a couple hundred VHS tapes, 450 CDs, and 500-odd DVDs. (Mercifully, I skipped the 8-track, Betamax and laserdisc formats.)
Part of my media collection
I have to believe the record companies and movie studios would consider me a good customer. But with every day that passes it becomes more and more obvious that the greedy bastards who run these media companies prefer to treat me (and all their customers) like criminals. They continually expect us to pay more for less, and even then they are not satisfied. They want to pretend to ’sell’ us their product, but they don’t want us to actually have it. Well I’ve had enough.
From this day forward I will never spend a another dime on content that I can’t use the way I please. If I can’t copy it to my hard drive and play it using the devices I want, when and where I want, I won’t be buying it. Period.
They can all take their DRM, and their broadcast flags, and their rootkits, and their Compact Discs that aren’t really compact discs and shove them up their bottom-lines.
Additional Thoughts
Nov 11 – 8:50 AM
I’m blown away by the reactions my little tirade has produced. A raw nerve must have been hanging right out there in the open.
But there’s a few points I want to add/clarify.
- I said I was going to stop buying content that is burdened with these ridiculous and futile restrictions. I did not say I was going to start stealing that content. My point is to patronize only those companies that treat their customers with some respect.
- I forgot to mention the looming disaster of HD video on disc. Both of the competing HD disc standards will come equipped with the most monstrous, invasive, and customer-hating DRM ever devised by engineers and lawyers. If you want something to boycott, that would be it.
- Finally, a further rant. How did this shit come to be called copy protection? It is clearly intended to be copy prevention.
Ya…right.
Apparently you did not read what I wrote. I have spent a large amount buying content in my life, and yet I’m treated like a criminal by the people and companies who profited from my purchases. Mike
Yep, you don;t need the RIAA for music. I;ve been listening to unsigned bands for years now, and when you find something you like, drop them an email, get Paypal details and buy their own CD. They get 100% of the net revenue and carry on writing. My podcast TPN Rock, http://www.thepodcastnetwork.com/rock showcases 6 new bands every week in MP3 format (no DRM, no restrictionson passing the full file around to friends). New music is out there, and it’s miles better than Generic Boy Bnad
speaking of shoving things..
back in September i made the Shove your DRM up your ass group on last.fm
Mike Evangelist, it is apparent that the tighter the industry’s grip, the more consumers slip though their fingers. I am talking about consumers that have been purchasing legal music for many years. Many may recall that time when his or her downloaded mp3 collection overtook the legally acquired music. When superimposed over the industry’s greed, they will be proportional. The compromise (for the industry) is to accept the reasonably small portion of pirates and take care the mainstream, legal consumers. Take care of the fans, and you take care of the artists. Stunts like the Sony rootkit and busting 14-year-old P2P file swappers gives the industry a black eye and drives further pirating now not of need, but of idealism. When evil is legal, no one want to obey the law.
famous music artist – you will find contention among your creative contemporaries.
Russian Mob, RIAA, Corporate Record Executives… what’s the difference?
Check out Harvey Danger – they bypassed the record company and released their latest album independently through their website. It’s a great record too. Hopefully more bands/artists will make a similar move and give a high hard one to the record company bullies.
Thanks for posting this, Mike. For any others who feel this way about Sony, you might want to check out my Sony Boycott blog, where I’ve been gathering feedback and news about the fallout from this DRM issue.
Why stop at music? Why not everything on your computer too? Oh, right, Mactivist.
Tim – Thanks for pulling all that stuff together; it’s useful and informative. Mike
All that vinyl and cassettes (as well as commercial VCR tapes) that you “own” – aren’t those basically DRM restricted as well? I can’t take an LP down to the record store and trade it in for the equivalent CD, for some small media exchange price – but if I “own” the music and the right to play it as I want, I should be able to. Instead I paid for the LP, paid for the 8-track, paid for the cassette, paid for the CD, and am now being asked to pay again for crappy DRM’d non-mp3s. So because the record industry *****s us there, and has been for years every time a new media format comes out, I’ve decided it’s okay to **** them – especially for items I’ve bought before. And as you, not buy again till they’ve worked this out.
For me (and a lot of us) this is a matter not only of cost, but of physical space. LPs take up a lot of space, even CDs take up shelf after shelf – and now that it’s on the computer taking almost no space at all, I’d like to get rid of the original physical copy – but since I can’t get credit for it, I just sell it back to the used record stores, ****ing the music industry once again.
But for that matter, this applies not only to VHS/Laserdisc/DVD as well – but also to books. I’d really rather have digital copies of the books I own – especially if I’ve read them already – than have to carry around the paper. I’d rather own a licence and disposable media, than preservable physical media.
One other issue that I’ve pondered, is what constitutes the “artwork” that I’m buying a “copy” of – do the album covers count? Do the inserts? Do the fuzzy CD sleeves? I own a copy of Sgt Pepper’s picture disc – if I get a digital copy, why don’t/can’t I get a hires digital picture of the disc as well? ITMS only sells me postage stamps of album art.
Anyhow, I agree – boycott till the copyright issues are sorted out in the consumer’s favor.
Perhaps a grassroots movement? It’s building anyway. We sign a contract (with outselves? other signers? whatever…) agreeing that we will no longer purchase DRM materials.
As a minimum, it’s a count of honest people being made criminals, at best it’s a warning to the industry.
Careful, though. DRM hardly stops at music. Many times I have had to “crack” software I legally purchased simply because the “copy protection” was unwilling to work with my CD. PC games have been installing windows services to remove your rights for years.
Also, with the growth of on-line gaming you never actually own anything. You lease the right to play, and they reserve the right to change the license at any time. Once that grows into online applications in general, the the siht will hit the fan.
“Famous Music Artist” is a fraud. If he was really any kind of musician, he’d know that individual track sales and album sales are money for the Record Companies, not for the artists. I won’t bother going into a breakdown that’s been done to death, but as musicians, we live off our live shows, and pray someone wants to use our song to sell Hamburgers.
So, as a musician, a real one, I pray you keep downloading my music, regardless of the cost. (Or should I say lack of cost) Please, deprive me of a 1/2 cent royalty and make my song a top ten hit. Then, maybe they’ll want it to sell Hamburgers with. That’s my payday folks….
Famous… You really want to compare this to rape or theft?? When someone downloads your song, what don’t you have anymore?? Can you no longer listen to it?? Rape is a violent act, not just theft… So when has someone held you down and abused you to download a song?? If there’s anyone in this equation who deserves to be accused of Rape and Theft, it is the RIAA and their assorted Minions.
The bottom line is, Artists make music for people to listen to, and the success of any recording, from the artist’s perspective, is how many people listened to it and liked it. The A&R guys love to lure you in with the promise of national exposure alot more than money, and many working, gigging musicians sign bad contracts for the promise of fame… In the process the Record companies take ownership of your songwriting, the band name, your own REAL name, etc…. Whatever they can slip by in a contract without anyone noticing. Kind of a Date Rape…. Why, because they can… There’s no law stopping them….
I encourage everyone to check out CDbaby.com. I sell my stuff there, and have been wildly impressed by their service… One of my faves off the site is “Cisco”… Michelle Shocked is also selling her stuff up there, she turned me on to it.
http://cdbaby.com/cd/patmacdonald
Buy a CD, I need to pay for my new Guitar.
I’ve blogged a few days ago about why SonyBMG might turn out to be Apple’s best friend. And today have updated the story to mention new info:
1. Italian, NY and CA Electronic Frontier groups are bringing suit against SonyBMG.
2. The first trojans exploiting the SonyBMG rootkit have been discovered in the wild.
3. The SonyBMG boss running this mess Thomas Hesse cares not one bit: “”Most people, I think, don’t even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?”
4. The EULA you click in to allow the SonyBMG CD to insert its wares contains unbelievable restrictions.
No, that’s not what folks are saying. Nobody is saying that having purchased an album in one format, the record company is obligated to give you free versions of that album every time a new format is invented. What they *are* saying is that you should have the right to convert an album you bought from one format to another. With an LP or cassette, you can do so — making a cassette from an LP is simple, with most stereo systems. Ripping a track from an LP or cassette to MP3 is slightly less simple and requires extra equipment, but it’s possible if you want to.
And as for trading an LP for a CD for a “small media exchange price”, you can — it’s just that the used record store will probably pay you less than $3 for the LP, and a used copy of the CD will probably cost at least $5. This is the kind of thing that DRM advocates would love to stamp out — they’d love it if when person A purchases a CD, person A is the only person ever who can listen to it. No selling it to a used record store, no putting tracks onto a mix tape to listen to on long drives, none of that. A lot of us consider that unacceptable.
God bless you, Rant.
Regarding iTunes store, I don’t see this as being a problem. I’m not about to pay one penny for lossy compression, much less a dollar. It never gets my consideration, DRM or not.
I for some time have not bought anything that is DRMd. So, therefore, I join you, and the more of us that join this silent protest, the more powerful our argument becomes.
DS