“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.
It used to be that I would listen to the radio, find things I liked, and go out and buy them. But nowadays, radio stations rarely tell you the song and artist you are listening to. No way to go our and buy.
I agree! I disagree! I agree! I disagree! I agree to agree! I agree to disagree! Pay me now! Not clicking the link, I am. This guy’s a has-been.
Free Napster gave people music they’d never pay for; it also gave the music industry sales they would have never made.
DanielN
Here in Europe, DAB broadcasting takes care of that problem for many stations by actually broadcasting the song title and other metadata in the optional data stream so it appears on the radio’s control surface.
You can see similar functionality in some Internet radio stations, especially those run by Virgin and Sky. I would be surprised if North America’s satellite radio stations don’t have similar functionality.
“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.”
I still think bandwidth speeds increasing have made it so easy to steal music, and that’s why the sales have plummeted.
“The reason why there is nothing out of Hollywood is because they have no good ideas. They’re washed up.”
Well, my assertion was that Hollywood is not willing to put out expensive movies, knowing that they’re going to get ripped off. The best they can do is put out a lot of action movies that are (way) better on the big screen than in rental/bittorent mode…
It’s like saying, if you were a Chinese author, and you knew you had no copyright protection, wouldn’t you get out of the country before publishing your book (ie. not publish the book in China at all).
The downside to having no protection, is that suppliers discontinue the ‘property’
DRM is there to assure the artists that they will be paid. Without it, they are taking an enormous risk.
More people download using P2P now than they ever did with Napster, yet sales are still falling – the reason is simple: price. When consumers think something is over priced they stop paying for it.
E – music comes with more restrictons than the physical CD; and for back catalogue music it is often more expensive.
You cannot put the rip ‘n’ burn genie back in its box.
Until downloads offer an incentive to attract customers the level of use on ipods will remain at less than 3%.
Earth to Mike, earth to Mike. You said, “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.”
You must not be paying attention. DRM is a growing cancer and Microsoft, with Vista, is trying to turn it into a massive assault on consumers. Just read and learn:
The Longest Suicide Note in History
“Jobs is no idiot”
Dvorakspeak for compliment.
And remember guys, if the music industry is being hailed for its stupidity, what would one say about Microsoft’s DRM activities on its own software and content too.
If it came to a vote as to which was the more stupid or evil or less costomer friendly of the two MS might even win!
“Dvorak making sense.”
Someone check this Dvorak for a long scar on his left side.
Dvorak still a scmuck.
Don’t feed the trolls.
what’s next Jobs and Gates on the SAME stage denouncing DRM
Not that’s a WOW, so do we see Apple taking out DRM in OSX so it will also work on PC’s. Same difference.
../.:”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.”
Well then, what do you call this?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_Music_Entertainment#Controversy
1. Lets not forget prices – that is a major part of the problem. In spite of the fact that CDs are so cheap you can get them for free on cereal boxes, the prices keep going up, as production costs go down. In fairness, there has been some respite, but why aren’t they $3.99? Heck, a movie costs less.
And why is the music company take from iTunes 65% vs. 25% or thereabouts from CDs?
Please don’t say its the artists – the artists have been raped by the music companies for many years – the marketing guys.
The music industry is an ugly cartel. Its not life critical, so price regulation is unlikey but, apparently, death by greed and stupidity a very real possibility, at least for the music industry in its current form.
I understand that in South Korea, where they have full 3G networks (i.e. broadband on your cellular phone) the record industry got tired of declining sales and went to all you can eat for $15/month. Sure, its rental, but as far as I can tell, that’s the only sustainable model. Not sure about South Korean DRM.
2. Steve saying no CDs ever had DRM, while technically correct, is misleading in the extreme, and thus, in my view, false from a reality perspective.
The general person will think those circular things that Sony, appropriately, got their head pounded over are “CDs” because they look like CDs and act like CDs and came from an offical source, Sony. Sure, they didn’t meet the requirements for the use of the trademark, thus they can’t be called CDs, officially, but they are CDs in every other way.
“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.”
I was harmed by DRM when i used a PC and used various download sites. My computer crashed, and I lost everything. Even tho I had backed up the files, I still wasn’t able to play them because either the license wasn’t backed up, or because the files weren’t allowed to be on multiple computers. And of course, I had burned some CDs, but WMP wouldn’t allow me to rip them.
Atonal music! Dogs and cats having sex!
Dvorak is a loser and along with other MS writer losers are sinking with the ship.
Last night I noticed at least 6 different web sites writing about how Microsoft is losing it. NO innovation, crappy Vista, DRM that will not let you play HD DVDs etc if there is any issue with security or even just having certified equipment (and right now almost NO ONE is certified
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Just my prediction:
Microsoft is going to see more and more negative articles from news sources and MS owned fanboys like Dvorak and Enderle and others are just going to fade into the dark (or worse, try and pull an about face and hope no one notices.).
And as more negative articles appear, more and more sources will jump on the band wagon. Its a bad time to own MS stock or be a director at MS.
Ahhh, I love a good Dr. Peter Venkmann quote…
MDN MW – “Green” as in “Microsoft just released a new Zune color – Envy Green…”
Et Tu, John?
I won’t abandon Steve Ballmer at this time. As Ballmer said: DRM is the future and I wholeheartedly support him. If we don’t fight the pirates on their turf, we’ll have to fight them at home.
Stay the course, Dvorak. If you aren’t with us, you’re against us.
Your potential. Our passion.
The CDs with the root kits were a publicity nightmare. For all intents and purposes, there have never been any market-functional CDs with consumer-accepted DRM. It is a slight mistake in Jobs’ open letter, but a minor point. The rest of it is dead-on correct.
Look, I never downloaded music from Napster or any of the other p2p networks. I’d hear things on the local community radio station that I liked, I’d try to find them at the local music store, fail, then go buy the CD at iTMS. Burn an audio disk and reimport it into iTunes without the DRM. I want to be able to retain the music when my current computer and iPods die.
So I’m living within the current DRM world quite comfortably. But I don’t like the way it’s going, and I agree with Steve Jobs (AND John Dvorak, for that matter) about where the blame lies and where this is all going.
Personally, music, particularly music from the major labels is down in the last five years slightly from the DRM, slightly from piracy, but MOSTLY because the major labels, as an industry, have a way of just completely squelching anyone who sounds even mildly different. And those mildly different artists are the ones who inspire the next major stadium stars. Mostly, the major labels and the consolidated radio stations in the US are just killing both their market and their product.
Ghostbusters was great! Nice take, MDN.
Go Dvorak!!!! Yea, I like this article. Finally something he and all of us agree on.
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See? Even a dumb monkey like Dvorak can see how futile DRM is. I hope the major labels get this message…
“You must not be paying attention. DRM is a growing cancer and Microsoft, with Vista, is trying to turn it into a massive assault on consumers. Just read and learn:”
Try to stay on point here, buddy. We’re talking about music. If you find examples of MICROSOFT using heavy DRM tactics, that has nothing to do with Fairplay, does it?
Dvorak: Even a broken clock is correct twice a day.
I read Dvorak’s article and shortly after, a pack of monkeys flew out of my butt.
The end is nigh.
-c
This wasted corpse has spewed green pea soup so many times every time I see his name I feel the need to clean someones birdcage.
Dvorak is my father. He lies to get your hits! Now he pretending to be on Mr.s Jobs side, don’t fall for it. He is pure Microsoft Blind Ignorance. You’ve been warned.
Dvorak….making sense……I don’t know what to say.
I guess there is the “WOW” for the week, not Vista.
In the olden days there was Napster and everybody used it to steal their music.
Then the evil Record Company Executives threatened and bullied the poor good guys at Napster and shut them down.
The Record Company Executives patted themselves on the back and said to each other, “good job!”
But the pirates just divided up into smaller groups and hardly missed a beat. The old timers who know of such things went off to a place called “Usenet” and with the proper tools began to upload and download whole albums complete with cover art. A whole flock of peer to peer groups started with different names but in essence were “Napster” all over again. And then there is Bittorrent.
Say what you will, but if you think the pirates are history you are sadly mistaken. Since all my music heroes date to the days of LP’s and 45’s I already have my collection. But we all know the truth. The pirates thrive.
C1: “I read Dvorak’s article and shortly after, a pack of monkeys flew out of my butt.”
Are you sure that wasn’t from coming home late from that wild monkey party?
(j/k)
BTW, be more careful. That snack bag said Rhesus Pieces.
FtP: “Say what you will, but if you think the pirates are history you are sadly mistaken.”
Shouldn’t you follow that with, “ARRRRGGHHH!”?
(and put one hand over an eye like a patch for effect)
Steve. The next time someone asks you if you’re a god, you say YES!
Dvorak is a dork is a dork.