On Thursday 17 March 2005 21:46, Ryan Malayter wrote: > Steinar wrote: > > > A) most users don't care about DRM. > > > > That's a shame. :-) > > That's the truth. Despite all the rhetoric on Slashdot, 95+% of > non-technical people wouldn't think of infringing on copyrights to feed > their media addiction. Such regular folks actually go out and buy CDs > and DVDs.
And then want to exercise their "fair usage" right to make copies for their own personal use. DRM has the effect of reducing this - the effect is to tie the license to one particular playback device. In addition the playback device sometimes has to be a specific brand e.g. iTunes content doesn't work (legally) except on genuine Apple iPods. > > If an average person doesn't want to pay $15 for a particular CD, they > don't download it illegally. Average law-abiding person simply *doesn't > buy it at all*. What a novel concept. Sure, but the effect of DRM goes far beyond "intellectual rights protection". In any case, I know that students are not "average people" (though some of them do grow up, eventually), but in my experience most students will download ten times as much illegal content as the purchase legally. They _do_ tend to purchase some of the stuff they like best, but probably wouldn't know about except for the P2P culture - so "illegal sharing" does in fact make a significant contribution to media companies' income. > > How about letting the free market decide this? We suckers, sorry consumers, didn't argue loud enough early enough, and now find we are being deprived of choice. > If you hate media > companies and their DRM schemes so much, simply STOP CONSUMING THEIR > PRODUCTS. You DO have a choice. Except that governments are starting to close down analogue broadcasts ... we were sold a dummy in so far as we were promised "more choice", "higher quality" etc. etc. all of which have turned out to be the reverse of the truth. I wouldn't mind paying a reasonable amount for content if most of the money paid went to the content creators i.e. the artists. In fact the artists' share is typically only one or two percent of the price tag. Download sales don't even involve manufacturing and transporting media & packaging, so the huge majority of the price paid is raw profit. In other words, the "free market" is IMHO nothing more than a rip off. It really isn't surprising that a large proportion of data flowing on the 'Net consists of P2P traffic in (mostly illegal) music and video files. Around 70% seems typical based on traffic to & from the University where I used to work. Regards Brian Beesley _______________________________________________ Prime mailing list [email protected] http://hogranch.com/mailman/listinfo/prime
