Apple did something interesting this Tuesday with its removal of DRM from most of its digital music catalog. Not only was the DRM removed from new music, but you could also get it removed from music you had already purchased – for an “upgrade” fee. I’ve bought a few tunes on from Apple’s music store because it was so easy, and at the time, I saw DRM as a concession we’d just have to make in order to coax the record industry into the 21st century. Yes, I was willing to pay extra for what should have been there (or not there) in the first place. Paying the “upgrade” fee to remove DRM from previously purchased music didn’t make me feel like a complete sucker, though, because I was also getting tracks that were encoded at a better quality. Now the quality is still not CD quality. It’s just closer than what I had before. It’s also closer than the files that I ripped from my CD library when I started the shift towards a hard disk based music library – at a time when storage space was slightly more expensive and I just couldn’t justify taking up more space for a gain in quality I could hardly hear. But here’s what I think is really cool. My “upgrade” was actually a format shift, not unlike the format shift from records to tapes and from tapes to CDs. A file type and encoding is analagous to a tape or CD in that it is a container to make transporting that idea that came from some artist’s head easier, with an acceptable fidelity. The difference is that this format shift was able to happen on the same medium.
(more…)
SpiralTruth
Just another post-modern quest for meaning.
Looks like the RIAA is dropping the policy of suing individuals who share music online in favor of one that cuts off their internet access after repeat violations. Before you say, “That’s fair,” consider the importance of Internet access today. Consider also that, unlike Cory Doctorow has suggested before, the reverse (cutting off the Internet access of companies who make repeated spurious copyright claims) would be met with outrage from the same people who support such a system. Finally, consider that this creates a situation where the RIAA is effectively allowed to pursue vigilante justice. So, what we’re really saying is that, when big business deems it acceptable, we can strip citizens of basic rights (i.e. the right to free speech in a communication channel that has permeated every aspect of our lives) without the use of our legal system. Read more here.
Or perhaps instead of trying to destroy everything that doesn’t fit the RIAA’s perception of reality (file sharing, the internet, our basic rights, etc.), they could just change the way they approach the business of making money off of music. I hate to invoke Orwell, but the similarity is too obvious to resist.
Brian Toder of Chestnut & Cambronne is the lone voice of reason within the article, which almost makes it sound like the RIAA is doing everyone a favor, when he says this: “People like to share music. The Internet makes it so easy. They have to do something to change this business model of theirs.”