willyhoops;200406 Wrote: > i am sorry not to have responded for a while. I decided to take the > discussion to a more enlightened crowd.
Am I right in assuming that by 'more enlightened', you actually mean 'pro-DRM'? (Never mind, don't bother answering that). Nevertheless, you are now at least asking some sensible questions - though the answers are most definitely up for debate: > (1) Is DRM possible? Not with any current hardware. The implementation of a truly secure system would require consumers to throw away all their existing players, replacing them with new ones that support the new tamper-proof chip. Add anything even approaching $50/unit to the cost of anything other than an audiophile-grade player would be commercially ruinous - it would double the cost of an MP3 player, for example. In fact adding even $5 to the raw BOM cost of such a device would be completely unacceptable to manufacturers, just ask anyone who works in the electronics industry. > (2) Would consumers buy it? Highly unlikely. The young people, who both buy and pirate the most music, simply won't hear any difference on their budget and portable systems, and the increased file size and DRM means both reduced storage capacity and battery life. The idea that they should consider replacing all their playback equipment, never mind their entire music collections, is truly laughable. The benefit of 96/24 encoding might be appreciated by the small proportion of the market that represents 'audiophiles' - though they too are unlikely to replace perfectly good, high quality equipment with something new, just to accommodate a DRM chip. They are also the people most likely to pay for their music in the first place, so DRM provides minimal benefit to the record companies. > (3) Would the world be a better place with DRM? Better for whom? For the record companies, maybe. They find themselves in a position where they can truly charge whatever they like - in fact they're legally obliged to do so, if it maximises the benefit to their shareholders. Philanthropy is neither an historical virtue nor a future probability. For the consumer? A huge bill to replace perfectly good playback equipment, music becomes more expensive, reduced ability to play the music they've paid for where and when they choose... the ONLY potential benefit is a rather vague suggestion that there might be a greater variety of music out there to choose from. Though the case for labels promoting endless, over-hyped dross in a DRM-free world has been made, the case for NOT doing so in a DRM'd one has not. "They could afford to, and I'd like it if they did" is not a case. Bill Gates could afford to buy me a new laptop, and I'd like it if he did - but he's not going to. Why should he? > (4) Would record companies invest in it? No, because it would be commercial suicide for all the reasons described above. (BTW who gives a stuff about tags, really? My music includes the artists' names and song titles, and that's plenty - I can find the album I want easily and play it. What display issue are you getting at?) > (5) What about subscription services? Good idea. Pay some reasonable amount per month and download music in the format of your choice - say, FLAC or MP3 - quickly and safely from a secure server that's guaranteed to work, to be available, and not to be full of malware. I'd subscribe to that, and I'd keep subscribing provided that the flow of new, interesting music kept coming. It would be a whole lot easier than trawling P2P networks, the quality would be guaranteed, and that would make it worth the reasonable fee. Of course, it wouldn't be a 'per-album' fee, though. -- AndyC_772 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ AndyC_772's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=10472 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=34928 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
