Digital Rights Mis-management

I enjoy online music purchasing, and really don’t mind spending $10 for, say, all 4 Brahms symphonies. Not only are peer-to-peer sources unreliable (Limewire is my favorite, but it takes forever to fetch a file), they leave me feeling like a freeloader.

Although in 1986 I railed against the undue extension of copyright, I nevertheless believe that artists highly deserve remuneration (certainly more than music companies or politicians do), and paying for a copy is still the predominant way to do this.

Despite these noble sentiments, I feel used and abused for playing on the up-and-up. Though I’m now ethically pure, I’m not happy. Giving the Devil his due has resulted in his taking a mile rather than an inch (to mix idioms). Technically, I no longer OWN anything. Not like I did when I purchased a piece of vinyl (that dates me, doesn’t it?)

I’ve used iTunes, the “new” Napster, MSN music and a variety of others (Magnatune is a wonderful, if limited, service and and exempt from this rant). As a Windows user, I especially enjoy the integration with Media Player (which, though now a pariah in the EU, is perhaps the best of the Windows music software clients).

Each time I play a purchased track, the software checks for the existence of a license on the machine. If it doesn’t exist locally, it goes online (usually after a nasty warning) to find a license. The DRM software not only tracks the number of burns I’ve made, it prohibits format conversion or playback on anything other than the purchasing machine.

This is a problem. I purchased a Creative wireless music router that plugs into the RCA jacks on my stereo, allowing me to play music from the computer (I give it 3 of 5 stars), but it refuses to play DRM protected files. Of course, it has no problems with the music I’ve “stolen”.

Not only that, a while ago I had to rebuild my machine, and lost the licenses (yes, these should have been backed up, but why put the burden of proof on the customer?), and re-acquiring them is not nearly as seamless as it should be, and has failed in a number of cases – requiring that I write customer service and wait for a solution.

My solution to all this points up the absurdity of these DRM schemes: I burn the purchased music to a CR-RW and then rip it back to high bitrate MP3 or WMA – sans DRM protection. It’s cumbersome and time consuming, but it works. The information is free again (in the sense of being liberated, rather than for-free).

This is not only a gigantic hole in the scheme; it’s an absurdity and an imposition at the same time. It’s like requiring duplicate keys to open the car door each time – it doesn’t stop the thief, but it’s a heck of an inconvenience for the owner. The counter-incentives that DRM creates will ensure a thriving piracy market for a long time to come. How stupid can big corporations be?

These experiences make me highly skeptical of the notion of "software-as-a-service" as well.