“Digital rights management (DRM) is an out-and-out disaster both as a concept and as an always changing technology,” John C. Dvorak writes for MarketWatch.
“Most technologists have always believed this and apparently now Steve Jobs is saying it publicly,” Dvorak writes. “He is begging the music industry to give up on all the DRM initiatives while subtly predicting they may spell its doom. He is dead right.”
Dvorak writes, “Jobs is no idiot and after already proving that selling music online is a money-maker you’d think the big labels would pay some attention to him when he tells them to get off this DRM nonsense.”
“Of course they will pay no attention whatsoever,” Dvorak writes.
Dvorak writes, “I would like to finish with the marketing observation that the record industry hates. During the heyday of Napster and open free music sharing and trading, when million of people swapped songs, the CD business was booming. Once Napster was shut down, and along with it the social network of music discovery, sales began to plummet. They are still falling.”
Dvorak writes, “Apparently these people are clueless about their own industry and how it works.”
Full article here.
Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies. Rivers and seas boiling. Forty years of darkness. Earthquakes, volcanoes…The dead rising from the grave. Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together. Mass hysteria. Dvorak making sense. Sheesh, what’s next?
Related article:
Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ posts rare open letter: ‘Thoughts on Music’ – calls for DRM-free music – February 06, 2007
I used to think that Apple was using the music industry as an excuse to retain DRM. Maybe they did, but I’m not so sure now after reading the open leter.
What’s next? Perhaps record company execs finally getting a clue.
You fools! Dvorak is being sarcastic most of the time. He baits for hits! Therefore, he always makes sense.
My Zune. Your envy.
I walked on water once.
This must be the seventh sign of the Cyber-Apoclypse!
Regardless of why Dvorak says what he says, he’s right about this. Piracy won’t kill the music industry, and DRM couldn’t stop it. One thing that Steve Jobs got wrong was saying that there has never been DRM on a CD. History would point to Sony puting mac and pc compatible root kits on their discs until they were called on it.
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“Once Napster was shut down, and along with it the social network of music discovery, sales began to plummet. They are still falling”
Just one gripe here… this little observation falls down.
What’s the explanation… that… Napster was turning people onto music and then they’d… share it with their friends (after stealing the music)… then… go pay for it??
How’s this… “since the Napster p2p fiasco, and the subsequent bittorrent phenomenon, paid media consumption across the board is down. Artists ranging from musicians, to actors and directors have less incentive to do what they do best, and hence, produce less goods/experiences”
Do you realize it’s been 4 years since Linkin Park put out an album? The first one was a multimillion seller, and the second one was markedly less so (by that time, filesharing was rampant)… god knows the sales of the 3rd one will be a huge disappointment… people will love the album, but many will steal it.
You just can’t tell me that movie ticket sales and music sales are doing well in any capacity. Beyond the LOTR trilogy, and the odd Sundance film, there has been, effectively nothing out of Hollywood. How do you think they feel about Bittorrent?
DRM is not the problem. The technology is there to stop crooks, and does NOT affect normal people. I fail to see who is harmed by DRM. The 5% of people who have non-iPod players? They already have many ways to buy music.
Come on… these are the same geeks whining about bitrates… apparently they’re esteemed enough to demand pristine bitrates, but childish enough to listen to … Bon Jovi and… Enya? (okay, i have no clue what these guys listen to… i just checked Thurrotts list)
Non-issue, I say.
Though, for those of you playing at home, there is absolutely NO downside for Steve Jobs… people will keep buying millions of iPods, even if it means loading them with stolen music.
*shrug
(I have a lot of CD’s, which are ALSO in my music collection. I also have tons of free music and free movies)
Thats Dvorak’s evil twin
or maybe Dvorak is the evil twin??
and … Microsoft weighs in by giving away a couple dozen DRM free songs courtesy of Zune over at ArtistsDirect. heh. Well, good. Nice little nod, that.
DRM is stupid, it pisses off the legitimate customer (just like the all that security tape that makes it impossible to open a legitimately purchased CD) and does nothing to stop piracy.
I do like having my name listed in the “Purchased by” field. I bought it and I don’t mind showing it off.
Oh, I almost forgot, Dvorak is an embarrassment to the journalism community.
He’s also laughing all the way to the bank.
Napster was all about music discovery, but the labels don’t like you discovering whatever you please. It’s all about forcing consumers to discover the artists they want you to. I used to be a marketing rep for Sony Music and we would spend hundreds of millions of dollars giving away free music samples, but only to select artists.
I personally used Napster to discover and listen to European artists that I couldn’t even buy here in America if I’d wanted to.
…Rob Enderle apologizing for misleading his readers ?
mike:
“What’s the explanation… that… Napster was turning people onto music and then they’d… share it with their friends (after stealing the music)… then… go pay for it??”
Yes, after discovering many artists on Napster, I went out and bought their albums after. People still want to compensate artists, own the artwork and liner notes, etc.
“You just can’t tell me that movie ticket sales and music sales are doing well in any capacity. Beyond the LOTR trilogy, and the odd Sundance film, there has been, effectively nothing out of Hollywood.”
The reason why there is nothing out of Hollywood is because they have no good ideas. They’re washed up. They’ve tapped nearly every TV show and remake they can think of. The odd Sundance film is good because the independent filmmakers are still coming up with fresh ideas and not using computers to come up with plots for movies.
Maybe his evil twin is Dorothy Sbornak from the Golden Girls. She’s hepped up on estrogen and maalox and ready to teach you somethin’ new, like only a substitute can.
I’m done now.
Dvorak is still a huge douche. Don’t click the link.
I mean after all what is he going to say? He loves DRM? He can’t. Theres only one way for him to go here and that’s to agree. Don’t give him a page hit.
If Dvorak is behind it, DRM free music will never be sold on iTS.
“…Napster was all about music discovery…”
Napster was all about nabbing as many stolen tunes as you could before the inevitable shutdown. It was like getting free TV’s at a riot. Don’t try to make something pure and ethereal out of Napster. It was mass theft, let’s be honest.
And while we’re at it, let’s be honest about this – if there had been no piracy, there would be no DRM. Little thieving geek bitches caused every bit of this. Crying out about the ‘labels’ and the ‘consumers’ sounds like some tired 60’s ex-pat marxist railing about the proletariat and the bourgeoisie.
It seems to me that SJ’s open letter was an attempt to put the blame on the music industry for the iTS using a proprietary DRM. With the Euros coming up with ways to deal with the emerging situation, the timing of this letter was superb.
Technology provided a boon for the music industry in the release of the CD format. And they ripped us off good and proper. However once people worked out how to rip back, then providing digitalized songs seemed no longer clever. That’s a price one has to pay for new technology.
Forget Dvorak. He just piles on whenever something happens.
About Napster and the labels. Napster was not cool. Everyone was trying to get music for free. It was not pretty.
The labels are usually dumb, but the labels are truly caught between two problems. Stop DRM and more songs will be stolen, passed around for free, eroding sales for what is truly someone’s original artistic and intellectual property. Keep DRM and they are the bad guys, while still losing sales. They’re going to lose either way. Of course, it’s easy to be unsympathetic towards them when they make so much money and release mostly junk music. But it’s a difficult situation for them and the whole biz is in trouble from top to bottom.
re: Zune Tang
Hey Zune Tang! I just went to the bathroom and gave birth to a bouncing baby Zune. ROTFLMAO!
Charles: One thing that Steve Jobs got wrong was saying that there has never been DRM on a CD.
No, he was right about that. Phillips owns the trademark “Compact Disc” and “CD” and they refuse to let round shiny plastic things to be called CD if they do not meet the specs and putting all kinds of crap constitutes not meeting the specs. Your statement is true only if you consider the generic use of term CD to call round shiny plastic things that is not a DVD or an LD.
MacDailyNews Take: Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies. Rivers and seas boiling. Forty years of darkness. Earthquakes, volcanoes…The dead rising from the grave. Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together. Mass hysteria. Dvorak making sense. Sheesh, what’s next?
Laughing out loud . . .
Of course, file sharing sites increased CD sales! Haven’t you ever been exposed to a whole bunch of free music — on the radio, at a friend’s house, borrowing a friend’s CD, downloading a free song — and then all of a sudden you discover a group that you really love & you want to own everything they’ve ever made? You then buy a bunch of their CD’s! It makes perfect sense!
Same industry did its best to make internet radio uneconomic. A form of music discovery that did not provide perfect digital masters.
Frigtards.
Still not gonna click on a Dvorak link.
Remember a stopped (analog) clock is right twice a day….
If Dvorack was as brilliant as he thinks he is, he would have published “the letter” before Jobs then railed against Apple’s CEO for not publishing the letter before he did. Dvorack is simply trying to make himself seem thoughtful and intelligent by agreeing the obvious. Of course, Dvorack probably “recognized” the significance of “the letter” after someone else explained its meaning to him.