Bird Song: A requiem for DRM
by T. Colin Dodd
Video written by T. Colin Dodd with Islam Elsedoudi, art direction
and design, and Napoleon Wright, sound design and animation.
DRMs are often designed by ambitious, well-funded consortia, with top-notch engineers from every corner of the industry. They spend millions. They take years. They are defeated in days, for pennies, by hobbyists.
- Cory Doctorow, Guardian Unlimited
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Sure, it’s probably too early to dance on the grave of Digital Rights Management (DRM), but we can certainly continue pounding nails in its coffin after Wal-Mart drove a stake through its heart this week. And that’s not counting all the garlic, silver bullets, and hemlock showered on DRM recently by Apple, EMI, Amazon, and Universal (not to mention “consumers”). It’s still twitching and gasping, and we may have some zombification ahead of us, but the tipping point is nigh. You can smell it.
The important thing isn’t that another copy protection technology that’s worse than the problem its designed to solve is imploding. That always happens and will happen every time something impedes the flow of culture too effectively. What is important about the demise of DRM is that it gives all those who railed against it a sense of their own power.
A community grew around the DRM fight, found common cause and common values, stood up, and prevailed. This bodes well for future fights: in favor of net neutrality, against onerous copyright enforcement that inhibits free thinking, against absurd patents that stifle innovation, [add your own issue here].
It’s good to win, even when the victories are fleeting and there is more to be done. DRM brought us together and truth happened.
To celebrate the beginning of the end of DRM, we’ve created a prototype agit-prop cartoon, a parable with a bird. It is being released as a prototype under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States license with an open invitation to use, share, add-to remix, as long as you give us and those before you some attribution (or ask not to), don’t use it for commercial purposes, and share your production under the same terms.
We’ve got the basic story down, now you can add the details. Have at it.
August 25th, 2007 at 1:36 am
It’s unfortunate that some people/companies fail to see that there is always money to be made at the fringes of things, even if 99.9% of the ecosystem is simply free. The 0.01% represents billions. It trumps the amount of money anybody could make by trying to actually control the ecosystem. The 0.01% of the ecosystem where you can lucratively sell products and services has enthusiastic customers, who keep coming back for more. Just look at Google. They simply index what is available for free. Don’t they make good money? Doesn’t everybody love that kind of service? It spawns a secondary market of keywords that are bought and sold as if they were exotic commodities. Companies who, on the contrary, fail to see the value of a free ecosystem or tis moneymaking capabilities will simply go under. That’s at least three quarters of the current technology industry. They’re doomed.
August 29th, 2007 at 8:00 pm
Today’s anti-DRM crowd are analogous to the “free _insert noun here_” hippies of the 60’s — give it out free, give it out now, and don’t allow evil corporations to profit from it. It’s simply a narcissistic philosophy intended to justify stealing. Digital downloading is a privilege that is not compulsory. If you do not like DRM then buy CDs and DVDs. Oops, I used the “b” word.
There is a specific distinction between something intended to be free, such as Google searches, and something that is not, such as Google AdWords. Google has it within their power to protect the latter from abuse. But what about the musician or film producer who sinks time and money into a project for their livelihood? They are at the mercy of the pirates and other proponents of thievery that hide behind such self-serving terms as “fair use”. It is no surprise to me that the druids of the open source doctrine are applying their flawed liturgy to DRM now. If you want to produce something for free, more power to you. But if you do not
The only truth that has really happened is that DRM enables digital distribution of material produced by hard work and investment - a concept scorned by torrent squatters everywhere. The DRM technology may be flawed, and there may be too many schemes, but the idea will not go away. It will only get more consumer friendly.
August 29th, 2007 at 8:45 pm
OK, so what happens after I buy a DVD or a CD, what can I do with it? Having paid for it, do I own it. The producer has my money, what do I get?
What are my copyrights as a user? What rights am I paying for? The producer gets my money, what, exactly do I get?
Tell me that.
August 30th, 2007 at 12:43 am
You shoulda been there the day I bought a cd from iTunes. I also had a bad batch of cd-r’s. I proceeded over the next few days to keep burning cd after cd and it not working… I finally realized that the DRM on my “bought” songs (that’s with a “b”, like “buddy”) wouldn’t allow me to burn any more. Ever.
Yeah, that was AWESOME. So, what did I do? Well, I love the band and only bought the album online because I wanted to hear it right then… so, I went out and bought it on cd as well.
I wonder how much of that money went to the artist…
Oh yeah, and to support them more, I followed them around to 5 concerts, cause I know they make most of their money there.
The point is: what did that DRM actually get me?
August 30th, 2007 at 3:07 am
I say if DRM seems to be alimiting way of screwing the consumer out of the right of ownership, then “Software Piracy” is the modern day Robin hood.
When will publishers get it into their THICK heads that a very affordable cost to the consumer will drastically reduce piracy, and also get more copies to the masses.
OK you’d have to sell more to get the profits. but if a software(music or application) is downloaded 1 time or 100 times, it doesn’t cost the producer anything extra!
The answer is plain, affordable, cheap downloads, with little or no protection.
August 30th, 2007 at 8:56 pm
DRM technology: When I first started hearing about DRM (2002).. My first thought (as a technician) was to troubleshoot and crack. The reason why I take this approach is very negative at best. I (as a technician) think it will somehow cause a problem with the operating system and I will benefit by being the there to get that repair dollar. Having said that. I am also a witness to the thievery that is going on ot there commercial and residential markets. People always crying poor about how the “companies:” are screwing the little guy. They are just like we are looking out for number one. Who isn’t? Not pointing fingers but my customer’s are end users who pay two different ways. 1. Bitorrent, P2P, MIRC or crack sites send bots to take advantage of the users greed by slowing down their processors. Creating ore money for me. 2. Running around crying poor because of the hard earned dollars spent on ridiculous fixes and vaporware that will never solve computer their performance problem(s) it also introduces even more problems (WinAntiVirus2007 very nice indeed!!). I am for the artists in this DRM argument and the companies. If these folks were downloading DRM licensed songs in the first place. The customer’s wouldn’t have the opinion that they were being taken advantage of. I have a DRM account on Napster account. I pay 15.00 a month for their (to go) service and they store every song I have ever owned (about 500 songs)backed up on their SAN. All those songs are mine and I love them. I also have DRM burn rights. I can download them to a replacement system and move on with my life like some people should continue to do. Give the artist their percentage like they disserve. Pay me for hardware upgrades not ad-ware removal and virus protection like I disserve. By the way.. At Tower records CDs used to go for 15.99 for real good album. How much are they now folks. Any amount of money is too much for some sorts. Happy Bitorrents to everyone complaining while our world goes into the new dark ages with no art progression at all. We can all just keep copying each other’s stuff. If I were an artist listening to this argument. I would quit show business and go back to bussing tables.
August 31st, 2007 at 11:02 am
to T. Colin Dodd,
I am against DRM, but what do you mean “What do i get”. You get the cd/dvd that you bought and now you can watch or listen to it, thats the point of buying it. What else would you like dinner too?
August 31st, 2007 at 4:10 pm
For Tim,
I’m trying to get user rights back into this debate. Fair use shouldn’t be left out of the discussion. That is the grey area in the middle where consensus will be found anyway.
The public discourse on this issue has been framed as artists vs. pirates, when it is actually big business vs. all users (and a few pirates).
So when I ask, “what do I get?” It’s a rhetorical question meant to remind people that what you used to get for the money you paid for a book or a record was the right to share it with your family and friends. You (the reader, listener) had obligations too, to give credit if you used an idea, for example. Obviously, you couldn’t make money from it.
But this 1/0, on/off, black/white portrayal of the issue as a bunch of hippie lefty pirates who want to steal is wrong. Typical users are losing rights, copyright terms are getting longer, and enforcement of the rules is invasive and draconian, and all of that is wrong.
So, no I don’t want dinner. I want what I used to have.
September 1st, 2007 at 10:38 am
Oh Pleease Mark. I and 100% of my friends prefer to purchase ALL of our music. Across our careers we have used many OS’s Linux, Windows, Mac etc. Being technically savvy we demand cross platform usage, DRM does not deliver that. The big music labels prevent us on using our purchased music where we want to use it even when the law protects our rights under the fair use clause within the copyright laws. I put my money where my mouth is by buying only from music labels that deliver MP3. Hat’s off to web sites like eMusic.com that supports independent labels that rather produce and sell music instead of trying to control and restrict cultural development. I also support EMI for there MP3 initiative as well.
September 1st, 2007 at 8:35 pm
Having read through the comments I find there appears to be a blurring of the distinction between Copyright Laws and the philosophy of DRM as practiced nowdays.
Copyright laws exist to protect an artist’s work from being taken, plagiarized, copied or otherwise used by an unscrupulous person (who did not originally create the work) to be sold for their own profit or gain. Therefore the existing copyright laws already protect the artist’s property rights against theft.
Next, retailing the produced artwork. We all know that some sort of theft occurres at retail stores. The amount of loss suffered by any retailer due to such theft is easily quantifiable by any accountant and that loss is already factored into the purchase price of the items we buy at that store. So we already pay the price for piracy as part of buying the product of interst up front.
When we buy a book, what do we own? We pay for the pages, the covers, the bindings of that book and the privilege of reading the words of the author. We do not own the words of that author or any of the book’s artwork as those belong to the creators alone. Therefore, we cannot use any of the authors material in any way for our own work but we can sure let others read that same book without legal consequences for breaking a law.
Now along comes DRM which in essence says that when we buy a book, we are the only one allowed to read that book. If our wife wants to read it, she must buy her own copy and any friends must also buy their own copy. If we try to copy that book for posterity or protection from harm, the ink has been made not copyable so we are forced peruse only the the original book.
We cannot enjoy the fulfillment of our purchase even though we have not broken any laws. That is an encroachment and an invasion of our rights as a purchaser and user of lawful material. DRM, IMHO, is simply a scam used to justify more sales of a producers product by limiting users rights to certain numbers all the while proclaiming it exists for the interest of stopping piracy. That’s Bologna, again IMHO :).
September 19th, 2007 at 6:21 am
Some folks here are assuming that all musicians have or “deserve” to be paid for their hard work. To get away from such big-label rhetoric some of us are embracing alternative licenses like Creative Commons.
Please be careful not to use too wide a brush when painting scenarios and forming arguments against p2p and file sharing. We use p2p for sharing our music legitimately through Jamendo and other trackers.
As for DRM, we’ve been fighting on many fronts, the most insidious imho is the automatic encapsulation of DRM on some portable audio players.
If you think DRM is a good practice try looking up “sony rootkit” on google, or read Cory’s views online, he has it pretty much nailed.
September 19th, 2007 at 5:41 pm
Roger, well put.
I have no issue paying for the music that I want to listen to. What bothers me is this. I buy the music with rights to back it up, burn a cd, listen to it forever (assuming that the licensing site is still around to validate my DRM license when I play it). What I can’t do is download it more than 3 times (Napster limit) or let me wife listen to it on her computer.
Upgrade your computer a couple of times and your out of downloads. Copying the files don’t work because the DRM implementation SUCKS and gets in the way.
I don’t want to give everyone my music. They can but it like I did, that’s only fair for the artists. My bought CD’s don’t stop working after I put them in 3 different players. Give me the MP3s the same way.
Something easier is the key.
:Jeff steps down from his soap box now:
September 20th, 2007 at 11:28 am
I am all for Artists and the company they work for. For me
I used to listen to a lot of music, and bought lots of Records, Tapes and CD’s. I don’t buy as much new music, mainly because most of the new stuff suck in my humble opinion. But when I do hear something I really like I buy it. I have ripped all my CD’s and use the MP3’s for my own personal use, and have only downloaded MP3’s from albums I own in Record or Tape format, I don’t think there is anything wrong with that. What really gets my shorts in a knot is the DRM on Video products, such as VHS and DVD. I used to collect movies, and discovered quite a while back that I could not convert my VHS tapes to DVD because of macrovision, and the numberous VHS players I discarded because they could not track properly, or would not play audio properly was due to Macrovision. Recently Sony put root kits on it’s DVD’s and since it is supposed to be illegal to use the decription library for linux I am supposed to allow my Windows computer to become infected. I do not sell or distribute artists work, and I don’t steal it, I would just like to play their music and watch their movies legaly on my linux workstation, or a windows machine without being infected by nefarious software or be required to connect to the internet to verify the license to enjoy the product.
September 28th, 2007 at 8:42 pm
[…] A bit late (exactly a month in fact), but in case you missed it the first time as well, Red Hat posted an amazing short about DRM titled “Bird Song: A Cartoon Requiem for DRM”. Its a beautifully made animation and Red Hat has gone the distance in licensing the different elements under a CC BY-NC-SA licence. […]
September 30th, 2007 at 11:22 pm
Bird Song: A Requiem for DRM
By way of Jessica Coates and the Creative Commons blog, I have discovered a beautifully produced and remarkably insightful cartoon by the folks at RedHat, to celebrate the beginning of the end of DRM. While I wouldn’t make that claim…
October 1st, 2007 at 3:03 am
[…] Red Hat обявявиха началото на края на DRM - по своеобразен за тях начин - предлагайки видеоанимация-прототип, наречена Реквием за DRM. Публикувана е като свободно произведение под Creative Commons Признание - Некомерсиално - Споделяне на споделеното, заедно със съставните и компоненти и провокация към всички за модификации и ремиксиране. ;-) […]
October 1st, 2007 at 5:26 am
David Campbell says: “The customer’s wouldn’t have the opinion that they were being taken advantage of.”
Yeah… keep them ignorant so that they don’t complain they are being ripped off, because they won’t even know.
This, combined with the cries from the big studios like “now that people can buy single songs they won’t buy the whole album which only has 2 good songs and the rest is crap” is what makes people hate them and the artists who defend them (which are usually the ones releasing crap)
October 2nd, 2007 at 4:02 am
confusion:
you buy an album by X shop and it will play 100 times.
you buy an album by Y shop and it cannot be recored.
you buy a move by Z shop but it can be copied 3 times, but just on special dvd.
You downloaded an adware-album by D shop but you have to login again on their site to be able to maintain the license.
nice collection isn’t it?
cross platforming:
that X mp3 is not playable on linux because of patents on mp3 format in the USA
that Y mp3 is not playable on winodws because of some incompatibility problem (random!)
that Z mp3 cannot be played on other players but Ipod of the moment
that D mp3 cannot be downloaded\played because the software for download\playing is not available for V operative system
how many OS\device must I have?
distribution:
Major X has just removed your X favourite artist from the site you have an account because they want a different DRM
Major Y has just removed your X favourite movie from the site you have an account because they want to make money by themselves
Major Z has just removed your X favourite band from the site you have an account because few was downloading it or for any other reason you don’t have to care about
how many account you need to do?
privacy:
An X operative system notice that you changed a lot of hardware. you have to re-activate.
An Y file is found shared on the net. A unique serial number say You, Mr. X Y, are the first seeder of it. Get a good advocate.
A Z DRM system installs S rootkit full of vunerabilities without your agreement. You always need their agreement but they don’t.
your Y flat internet contract has been found downloading “too much”; you’re banned and have to refund the ISP (this is also DRM too, they decide your “rights”)
You buy D phone, but you have to use it as it has been designed for, otherwise it will stop at all. Sorry you can’t use it like an vibrating … probe. Not allowed.
financing who?
maphia. (corporation, politicians, Internet service providers..)
now I’m bored of writing.
DRM SUX, badly.
It’s firstly a matter of freedom, then of interoperability, respect, and mind sanity.
A guy with self-respect just don’t choose DRM.
Who likes the ARTIST doesn’t buy DRM: why?
You are financing MAJORS, not artists. Majors just wan to make money using artists work, abuseing you, your money and your time, making evil pacts with other corporations and powerful politicians.
Are you blind or something? Just analize reality and you see DRM is just a part of the BIG BROTHER \ MASS CONTROL project.
Care about your freedom, your RIGHTS!
right to have fair use, right to share it with your family, right to make a backup copy. DO THEY RESPECT YOUR RIGHTS? NO.
NOT TO MENTION THAT YOU ALREADY PAY FROM YEARS “EQUAL FEE”, which by itself should be already enough to make your free to use their media, since YOU ALREADY PAY THEM FOR IT BY PAYING THE EQUAL (EQUAL MEANS IT’S ENOUGH!) FEE.
there is still a lot to be said about DRM, but you have a mind and you can think by yourself.
Sorry for my english, i’m Italian.
October 14th, 2007 at 10:43 am
Its good to know that DRM (Digital Restrictions Manager) is not implemented in Redhat or any other GNU/Linux distributions I can think of.
March 12th, 2008 at 7:09 pm
Having been in the music support business for 40 years, One thing has always impressed me: The fact that the most “popular” artists are seldom the “best” artists. The more popular artists have generally learned how to please the audience, which certainly makes the concert more enjoyable. It is a historical fact that the recording companies are very skilled at screwing the artists as much as possible. I understand from his son that Mario Lanza for instance from the 50s made millions for the producers from his many movies and recordings, yet left his family with some $6 million in debt after his untimely death at the height of his popularity. Interesting, isn’t it? Who is the thief here? This sort of thing is not that unusual from what I understand.
What I hope for from the internet, etc is that many wonderful artists will become known and loved because the wide distribution of their music. I think that prospect scares the media companies more than most are able to contemplate.
Pin