The Small Print Project                                       

A couple tidbits regarding everybody’s best friend, Digital Rights Management:

Gizmodo posted the quick fix to bypass Microsoft Zune’s WiFi sharing DRM

RIAA Declares DRM Dead — Paul Birch, an executive at IFPI (International Federation of Phonographic Institutes) said “DRM as we know it is over. There may be Son of DRM but that’s another matter. Right now its dead, the majors are moving towards the new model. The one thing you can be sure of is they will still be at the centre of the world music industry whatever happens. The independents are another matter. As our sector’s share has fallen by almost half in just over twelve months, the new model for us is partnership. It always was, I’m just not sure we got it.” — via Cory.

Cartoon via User Friendly

Learn Out Loud is brilliantly promoting their products by a much linked-to post on their blog titled “The Top 10 Arguments Against DRM.” With over 7,000 audio and video files, they aim “to promote the use of audio and video educational material for personal and professional development,” according to their Wiki. While they’re prices seem competitive with the likes of Amazon, et al, they promise to deliver all digital downloads devoid of DRM. Any online media company that subscribes to the Defective by Design ethos, definitely has the right idea.

In fact, they’re giving away download’s of Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War” for free this month.

Here’s the breakdown on their top 10 v. DRM, counted down Letterman-style (read the article here).

10. Whenever you buy DRM’ed content you support the system of DRM
9. DRM fundamentally changes who is control of your media.
8. Your media devices of the future will be significantly different than your media devices of the present.
7. DRM-free content will play on your device of today and your device of tomorrow
6. Often the costs of the DRM are passed along to the consumer as well.
5. There’s a huge hidden cost in trying to sell DRM’ed content
4. DRM adds a lot of costs for content producers
3. Anyone selling content on CD is already selling unprotected files anyway.
2. All it takes is one person to crack the file and it can be made available to everyone.
1. DRM doesn’t prevent illegal use of files, it just makes it a bit more difficult to access them.

Comments(1)