Hi backstage people,
I'm a bit of a lurker on the list and have been catching up! Especially
on the iMP and how its DRM has apparently been cracked.
Someone mentioned alternatives to DRM and I just thought I'd throw
something I've been thinking about into the melting pot. I was thinking
of it in terms of the music industry mainly, but it would be applicable
to any kind of content.
Rather than stopping people listing to what they want by using DRM, how
about every user paying a license which allows them to listen to any
music, but then sample / monitor what they listen to. For example -
last.fm tracks what I am listening to on iTunes, whether it's a CD, a
download from iTunes, or a bit of music from a website. Taking all the
data, you can build a profile of who's listening to what music. You can
then split the revenue from the license amongst all content creators,
depending on how much their content has been listened to. Just like the
PRS does with radio airplay.
Going back to the iMP. As it is really an extension of a radio / tv
player --- albeit one where the user chooses when and what content they
listen to --- why not just treat it like any other TV / radio / content
channel? Sample what everyone is listening to and pay royalties based on
that?
I know that this is a huge simplification --- and probably licensing
laws for old content don't allow it --- but surely in the future this is
going to be the simplest way to do it? Because it does always seem that
people work out how to crack DRMs eventually...
... even if the "cracking" is as low-tech as simply plugging an mp3
player into the phono output of your computer while playing a BBC show.
Tom
-
Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please
visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html.
Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/
