On 4/3/07, Daniel Morris <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Note that many CDs have some form of DRM on them. I was under the impression that DRM'd CDs were flawed, and have largely stopped being sold? (Not to mention the bad public reaction of people using their pc as a hifi buying a cd only to find it not working!)
In Britain, hardly any CD releases contain DRM - however, in parts of Mainland Europe and South America, most major label releases (and a fair few indies) contain macrovision software or a similar DRM system - an ad-hoc survey I carried out in the Lisbon branch of FNAC last summer gave me an estimate of 60-80% of releases (based on a sample of one 6' rack in their pop section - I'm not a statistician, but I would imagine this is hardly a representative sample). There are also leaflets available explaining to parents how DRM stops your children becoming criminals - i have one of these at home i'll try and scan and translate at some point. It seems to me (and this is pure conjecture), that the record companies are of the opinion that filesharing can't now be stopped in the UK and US (although they can continue to litigate in the hope of scaring people off, and gaining a little compensation in the process), however, in areas of the world where internet access is not yet as common as here, DRM is much more prevalent, as they are attempting to lock down the recorded music market *before* pervasive internet access becomes a problem for their business model. Cheers, Tim
