Why DRM Sucks

I tend to agree. ;o)

I have been recommending BarterBee.com for a number of reasons:

- If you have the CD, trade it for one you’d rather have. Then feel free to rip it to your fav MP3 player. So long as you own the CD, you are OK legally.
- RSS feeds are made available (Note: I’m not sure about personalized feeds and they also forgot to add auto-discovery links in their tags, duh)
- Bottom line - $1.00 per transaction and it’s capped at $5.00 per month. Any trades after your 5th is free. And you earn “points” (1 point equals 1 dollar) for each sales transaction.

Don’t know about you, but I am looking into this. As an experiment, I am going to simply “sell my stuff”, so in turn there no money is ever actually “spent” on my end once I am ready to go shopping! DVDs, CDs, small, flat elf-like creatures are all acceptable.

I agree that DRM sucks, but Apple’s DRM sucks the least and this is why. You can buy a song and download it. Put it on as many iPods as you want. Put it on a few of your computers. Burn it to CD as many times as you want. Stop buying new songs from the iTunes music store and you still get to keep the song, play the song, burn the song, iPod the song. Until someone matches Apple’s DRM policy in a non-subscription format and can allow the song to be played in an iPod, all the competing DRMs will fail or maintain distant seconds.

I have used http://www.allofmp3.com for about a year and have no DRM issues as they do not have any. I do hope but do not know for sure if the artist are truley paid for the albums I download but assume they are as I am paying for my music. The music is good quality and most have tags. No way am I going to get suckered into Napster or Itoonies ( itunes ) or any other DRM junk. Many years from now I will be listening to my music without DRM..question is..ARE YOU?

While I agree with your assessment of DRM - I don’t understand the problem you’re having here.

Are you talking about using the Napster application to playback files you downloaded from Napster versus files from Urge?

I have files from multiple services (Napster and MSN, though I’ve had Yahoo in the past) and never had a problem playing any of them in WMP regardless of where they came from.

Of course, there are huge questions surrounding AllOfMP3 at the moment. http://www.out-law.com/page-6956 Whether they are paying the artists, etc. So you may have to go back to iToonies or some other service to get music. LimeWire? :)

I agree with Jeff, and a lot of other people do too, that Apple’s DRM sucks the least. What’s Urge’s DRM like? Although, the fact that Urge uses Windows Media format files, I won’t touch them.

Since all of these files will play through WMP, I dont understand what Chris is talking about.
I wonder if he is posssibly confusing downloaded tracks via the subscription service with purchased tracks.
Its doubtful that artists are paid through AllofMP3, I mean at 11 cents a track and considering bandwidth costs and the like,
what do you think is left over for the artists?
AllofMP3 will be shuttered soon anyway by the Russian goverment as it is becoming a sticking point in their negotiations to enter the WTO.

Try turning off any one account… WMP won’t update that very same file with your new account’s DRM.

Im sorry but I dont follow this
I have Napster and WMP imports all the files into the player library, with WMP 11 it will download the album covers as well.
If you purchase tracks you should not have to update the DRM.
Downloaded tracks through the subscription service are not tracks that you get to keep, otherwise people would pay for a months service go download happy and then quit, it doesnt work that way of course, you do realize this, no?

[...] Sucky Mondayby Heng-Cheong Leong This is a story about why DRM sucks — which we all know. But, more importantly, this is also a story about why Microsoft’s horizontal integration of the music business sucks even more with DRM thrown in. [...]

Since Urge is part of WMP11, what exactly are you talking about?
There is no Urge player they play through WMP same as Napsters files, you do need to have update licenses online turned on in the player though, possibly you have that setting switched off.

Is this an Apple Centric blog?
Since what Chris is saying here makes no sense at all that would explain things.
: )

iTunes are encoded at 128kb/s. If they are burned to CD and then ripped to MP3, the sound quality is degraded even further. Napster’s files are at 192kb/s. They will sound as good or better then the iTunes originals even after converting to MP3.

If DRM bothers you MP3 is the only way to go.

You also might want to research the analog hole. Capture those Napster sub tunes through your sound card at 192 kb/s, and make an MP3 that sounds better then anything from iTunes.
The Audio Home Recording Act (AHRA) of 1992 allows for analog recordings of anything for private use. The resulting MP3’s are legal and of acceptable quality. It’s $9.95 a month for all you can eat…..and no DRM.

Chris Pirillo

DRM Is Killing Music. And here’s the T-Shirt to prove it.
http://www.voidstar.com/node.php?id=2691
http://www.voidstar.com/node.php?id=2686

Apple’s DRM may well be the least worst, but you’re still buying over-priced, low quality downloads that are infected with DRM. Which is stupid, isn’t it?

Somebody should follow the money with AllOfMp3.com (which may be hard, given that it’s Russia). Do they actually pay ROMS? Does ROMS actually pay the copyright owners? How much?

Just Say No To DRM. You know it makes sense.

[...] Posted: Mon May 29, 2006 3:18 pm — I just discovered something … URGE is incompatible with other subscription services: http://chris.pirillo.com/2006/05/28/why-drm-sucks/ [...]

[...] This is a story about why DRM sucks — which we all know. But, more importantly, this is also a story about why Microsoft’s horizontal integration of the music business sucks even more with DRM thrown in. Read more… How iPods Took Over the World Source : Slashdot: Apple    Sunday, 17:43 An anonymous reader writes “The Observer has a piece today about the iPod’s ascension to dominance of the mp3 player market. The author argues that it’s largely the result of clever business tactics and the iTunes music store.” From the article: “The second thing about the iPod: it puts you, not them, in control. Basically, the record labels are devotees of the Henry Ford business model: ‘You can have any music you want so long as it’s what I want to give you.’ But using the cyberspace jukebox, you’re no longer at their mercy. You don’t have to pay for the four filler tracks on every album. You don’t have to buy albums at all. You can put country next to classical, punk next to jazz, Barry Manilow next to Placido Domingo (wait, that’s a joke).” [...]

Go to:
http://www.pearljam.com/goods/
and order the album. Rip in Linux to avoid DRM

OR

http://thepiratebay.org/details.php?id=3483324
then send cash to:
http://www.pearljam.com/etc/contact.php

Peace.

the album again. What’s more, Windows Media Player / Windows Explorer doesn’t tell me where the album came from – I have to guess. I have to play (by trial and error) to see which albums are supported by which service. THIS IS MADNESS! – Chris Pirillo

[...] Looks like URGE, Napster, and Rhapsody are equally frustrating. [...]

[...] This is a story about why DRM sucks — which we all know. But, more importantly, this is also a story about why Microsoft’s horizontal integration of the music business sucks even more with DRM thrown in. [...]

Why DRM Sucks! =p Why DRM is great??? =p no i am pretty sure it sucks Why apple DRM sucks [IMG] scroogle: a history of googles screwing behavior…as if you didnt want to know…its the latest corporate porno leak story…well no but…it could beat up dead anna nicole smith any day…because she was taking pills from

? Why, the man running Linspire - Michael Robertson. Obviously, I already have my credit card out and am making selections to support what I see being a very important step forward away from this music DRM nonsense. After all, I want to see the artists getting paid! And the fact remains that DRM sucks for everyone, not just those not using OS X or Windows. Special rules, renting your music, it’s all very silly in my eyes.

[...] Lets face it, if you are reading my blog you probably hate DRM. Good, now that we have that clear, the vast majority probably “borrow” most of your music from the vast repository of low grade swag that is the internet. Honestly, most of you would probably pay, but Steve Jobs hasn’t given you a very good reason to yet. [...]

not an easy and smooth operation, apparently, especially if your player is already set up to pull down a whole bunch of exceptional podcasts, but the mode switch is reversible and I’m willing to give it a shot. In the meantime I’m with Chris Pirillo.DRM sucks!

If you don’t think drm sucks try loading a wma file to you ipod

I decided to pay for all my downloaded songs on Napster a few months ago. It cost me over £500. Everything was fine for a about a month and then i got a message saying the licenses were corrupt. How can all of them be corrupted. I contacted Napster and asked for a refund but they told me they didn’t do that. They just gave me a long list of things to try. None of them worked. So now i’m stuck for all these files that I can’t even use. I’m back on Limewire now. If they want people to pay for music then make sure that it works. And I’m sick of people saying why don’t you just buy cd’s. It’s 2008, who still does that? They take up space and only about 3-4 songs on the cd are good. It’s not like before, like in the 50’s-80’s where you could get a tape and listen to the whole thing.

DRM has only widened the gulf between the record labels and their audience? I’ve got to assume that the record labels aren’t this clueless about their customers. (Then again, maybe I’m guilty of a Planglossian world view.) Nearly two years ago,Chris Pirilloposted a neat little rant on why DRM drove him batty. The sad truth is that two years later, his complaint remains as relevant as it was when he authored the following lines in May, 2006. I’ve currently got a subscription to Napster, a trial