DRM is bad.
I put my pricepoint for music at something like 25 dollars a month. It was around 50 dollars a month before I bought the iPod, but since my music collection is around 10,000 tracks (48.66 GB) and less than 1000 of the files are legal, I have a problem.
To remedy this problem with the iTunes Music Store (iTMS) would cost me something like 3000 dollars since I don’t listen to most of the music in the library (3000 is 3/4ths of the songs on the iPod). I am completely unwilling to spend $3000 dollars on music. That’s 2 powerbooks. That’s money that could support a ministry. That’s “real money” at the college level.
Enter Napster. For $10-$15/month (oooh, consumer surplus) I could have access to their whole 1,000,000 track database, which is easily searchable and provides a pretty good download rate. Sounds like a great solution. Except for their bone-headed use of Microsofts DRM’d (Digital Rights Management) proprietary .wma format. Never mind that the solution has my rights managed by Microsoft, or that the solution would prevent me from using it on Linux or MacOS except through a back-alley python hack. It doesn’t work on the iPod. I would be willing to give them $120-$180/year, which like my cell phone bill I would likely pay to them for the rest of time, but if I can’t use my current mp3 player I won’t use their service.
So now I’m faced with 4 options:
- Have player I want, with insufficient music to make it worthwhile.
- Have the music I want, but not have anything to play it on (or be dissatisfied with a player that I’ll have to buy)
- Persist in blatant disregard for the law. See Romans 13:1.
- Give up music.
Why Microsoft is stupid with regards to DRM. This paper has the best opening paragraph.
Discuss amongst yourselves.