Macrovision advocates better DRM
In an open letter which appears to be written in response to recent Steve Jobs' letter about music DRM, Macrovision CEO and President Fred Amoroso argues that DRM should not be abandoned because that would diminish incentives of content creators and "delay the availability of premium content in the home". He also advocates interoperable "open" DRM and offers "to assist Apple in the issues and problems with DRM" and "assume responsibility for FairPlay as a part of (their) evolving DRM offering and enable it to interoperate across other DRMs, thus increasing consumer choice and driving commonality across devices."
Amoroso believes that the reason why users currently go around DRM and share DRM-free content is that DRMed content isn't yet as easily available as DRM-free content hence posing that DRM should be improved to make it more convenient for people to use while still protecting the "rights" of content creators. You can read the whole letter on the Macrovision site (thanks to p2pnet for a link).
The idea of an open and convenient DRM seems like an oxymoron though and talking about protecting rights of creators is misleading. Some of Amoroso's arguments are classic and repeatedly disproved, such as that if restrictions weren't in place to "protect rights" of the creators they wouldn't want to create. Just a look at CreativeCommons.org and CCMixter should be quite enough of a proof.
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The paragraph starting with
The paragraph starting with "* DRM increases not decreases consumer value –" is pretty mad in my opinion, stating that people who want to use their e.g. music on more than one player will have to pay more than if they had only one player. What Macrovision don't seem to understand is that people who buy their music expect to be able to do whatever the hell they want with it - it is *their* copy of the music; use shouldn't me metered.
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Quite true. It'll take a lot
Quite true. It'll take a lot more that Amoroso's letter to convince anyone that DRM can make things more convenient for users and increase value of their purchases. And at this point Amoroso doesn't come even close to convincing. He's just absurd.
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Amoroso wrote: I believe
I believe that most piracy occurs because the technology available today has not yet been widely deployed to make DRM-protected legitimate content as easily accessible and convenient as unprotected illegitimate content is to consumers.
The only way DRM'ed content could be just as easily accessible and convenient is by not being DRM'ed. Even if you don't consider the ethics, it's crystal clear that the majority of consumers would find it inconvenient if they had to pay to be able to give a friend a copy (and the friend would find it inconvenient to be forced to pay after listening/viewing/reading/... a few times to something shared free of charge).
As for "rented" content and having to pay twice to be able to listen in two places... Why is it that people keep thinking digital information should be forced to behave the same way as information on paper, vinyl and celluloid used to do? Got stuck in the eighties? Playing the Sims too much?
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Stuck in the eighties
Stuck in the eighties indeed. Some people equate everything there is with "products" of physical "stuff" that can be boxed and sold. Quite a closed minded primitive view of reality really.. and even when they see it doesn't really work that way no matter how they try to artificially make it work.
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translation
http://daringfireball.net/2007/02/macrovision_translation
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thanks a thing
thanks a thing
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That translation nails it!
That translation nails it!
Thanks.
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