I like this idea in theory but, and putting data protection aside, what is to stop people just cracking the revenue share info (or 50000 'idle' PCs playing my songs on loop for that matter) and earning themselves lots of money?
-----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Tom Kerswill Sent: Wednesday, December 07, 2005 11:55 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [backstage] iMP and alternative models to DRM 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]/ - 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]/
