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http://www.wired.com

With all of the Big Four record labels now jettisoning digital rights management, music fans have every reason to rejoice. But consumer advocates are singing a note of caution, as the music industry experiments with digital-watermarking technology as a DRM substitute.

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peacemaker's picture
Created by peacemaker 14 years 19 weeks ago – Made popular 14 years 19 weeks ago
Category: Legal   Tags:
EdLesMann's picture

EdLesMann

14 years 19 weeks 20 hours 13 min ago

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Just my 2 cents.

If you make a product that you wish to be paid for then I understand why you want to protect your investment.
However, once I pay /my money/ that /I earned/ though hard work for a product, I no longer care about your opinions on how I should or shouldn't use the product. That choice is up to me.

Digital Restrictions Management is evil and I will not stand for it because it allows others to dictate how I use the product I purchased. The only experience I have really had with DRM is MSN Music. 6 hours, a Debian box, OS X box, 3 Windows boxes, and an hour w/ tech support later I had invalidated my license for my 128kb mp3 album without ever listening to it. 20 minutes on pirate bay and I had a FLAC version of the album. I paid MSN for the album so I feel no guilt in the matter and I have stood against DRM ever since.

I do not share my music out with the world. I don't hand copies out to everyone I know. It is even extremely rare that I burn a Music CD! I just want to be able to play my music on my Debian box, I want to stream it over to my Xbox Media Center to listen in the living room, and I want to take it with me on my Rockbox Ipod. If there truly is no DRM that prevents me from playing my music where I want and how I want, then what do I care that there is watermarking?

The only thing that bothers me about it is how they will handle the situation should someone be caught with a file being distributed. The person that is sharing terrabytes of data with the world should be treated different then the 7 yr old girl who gave her friend a copy. To me there is a big difference between the college student who doesn't realize that their C$ share is still active and the college student that has a shared folder called "Listen to my Music collection" and has 20 different p2p programs on their computer (both of which I have seen recently while scanning the network at the college I just graduated from).

I am all for getting rid of DRM. As long as the watermarking doesn't mess with the quality of the sound and doesn't restrict where and how I listen to it then I personally don't care. It protects their investment while not harassing the paying customer. Maybe thats just me but I fail to see the problem with watermarking. Any one care to explain what I may have missed?

motters's picture

motters

14 years 19 weeks 14 hours 54 min ago

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The watermark of the beast

This article is quite right. Proclamations of the death of DRM may be premature, and it could be that DRM simply mutates into a different kind of technology such as watermarking. Unrestricted MP3 files could still be watermarked and marketed as "DRM free" to unsuspecting music fans. As the article points out it may then be easy for unethical organisations, such as the RIAA, to put pressure on ISPs to detect and block watermarked files.

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