Yahoo! News - Norway's 'DVD Jon' breaks through Apple's iTunes: report

Yahoo! News - Norway's 'DVD Jon' breaks through Apple's iTunes: report

Yet another round in digital rights management (DRM) and mere mortals.

My Take on DRM

I think both sides need to get their heads out of their asses on this. The content owners (who may not necessarily be the content creators) need to realize that the public will want to access the content in a variety of ways. We will want to play our DVDs on Linux machines, rip them to portable media systems, or who knows what in the future. Content consumers also need to realize that it takes money to make movies, music and art of all types and people need to be compensated. It is not that we are paying US $20 for a CD or DVD that only costs $1 or so in materials, we are paying for what is on the discs.

I am not against DRM. It is unfortunately the only way we content owners can keep at least some pirating at bay. What I am against is content owners feeling they can dictate what we can do with the content we buy. Many years ago, with the advent of the cassette tape and photo copier content owners realized that they will need to allow people to change the format of older media to newer formats. That is the basis of fair use.

Frankly, there are some people who will NEVER pay for any content, regardless of the cost. No matter what content owners do they will find a way around it, as is evident by this story.

What we need is DRM that allows us to move our legally purchased media around easily among various devices that we own. If I want to burn something I buy from iTunes for my own use it should be easy. When I move to a new computer the DRM needs to be easily transferable to a new machine. When my MP3 player craps out I should be able to easily transfer my songs to the new player. Likewise if I have multiple players (which many people do have) I should be able to transfer these songs. Again though the critical thing there is - FOR PERSONAL USE.

I think the content owners need to realize that the old model is not going to work. I feel that the movie industry did learn somewhat from the music industry and DVD prices are, in my opinion, reasonable. I have seen older movies available for under US $5, and I have seen where prices have slowly dropped the longer that DVDs have been available. The music industry still don't get it, I think.

Both industries need to get their act together or become irrelevant. The internet already allows musicians to easily distribute and promote their music with the need for a label. It is not easy, yet, but it can be done. The movie Star Wars: Revelations1 shows that the idea of a "freeware" movie is doable. Podcasts are minimizing the importance of radio. Could a "podcasted" TV show be too far behind? I agree with many who feel that Creative Commons could be the answer to copyright.