/Big Mouth/ Achtung, baby!
21/09/2006 | Filed under Discover > Big Mouth
P2P networks might rob the recording companies of profit, but DRM is literally destroying music collections. This month Gary Marshall reveals how you could soon find your record collection vanishing before your eyes.
U2’s Achtung Baby is a great album. I bought the CD in 1991, and over the years I’ve listened to it on cheap Walkmans; on Aiwa, Sony and Blaupunkt stereos; in Vauxhalls, Volkswagens, Saabs and Renaults; on PCs running Windows 95, 98, Me, XP and Vista; on two iBooks, a Mac Mini and a PowerBook; on a Creative MuVo; and on three or four iPods. Not bad for £12.99.
The shop that sold me the album is long gone, but that doesn’t matter, because I still have it. However, as customers of MyCokeMusic (www. mycokemusic.com) are about to discover, things have changed. MyCokeMusic is dead, and that means its customers’ music collections are living on borrowed time. Sooner or later, their music will die.
MyCokeMusic shut up shop in July, and customers who need to re-authorise their music because, for example, they’ve changed PCs, need to email OD2 (www.od2.com), the firm who built the MyCokeMusic site, to sort out any licence issues. But what if OD2 goes to the wall, or just decides to end support for MyCokeMusic customers? Then it’ll be thank you and goodnight.
You don’t just need to worry about firms going out of business, though. With digital downloads, the rules can be changed retrospectively. In the Netherlands, for example, customers of several different ISPs have been told that record companies don’t want to support computer-only download licences any more, so any music that comes with such a licence will expire in January – even though the files were bought rather than rented. Back in 2004, Apple did something similar when it downgraded the number of playlist CD burns from ten to seven, in a move that didn’t just affect new purchases, but previous purchases, too.
Imagine if my copy of Achtung Baby had been protected by DRM in the same way as today’s digital downloads. Would I have been able to listen to it on my various computers, in my cars or on my MP3 players? Probably not, but then I doubt I’d have got the chance to find out. The shop I bought it from went bust in 1992, so if the CD contained 2006-style DRM, the album would have died on me only a year after I’d purchased it.
The thing about DRM is that most people don’t know it’s there, so I’m in complete agreement with the all-party group of MPs who think products with DRM should be clearly labelled as such. But how do you create a labelling system that points out the risk of firms going out of business or withdrawing their services; of their partners deciding to revoke their support of particular licences; of retrospective changes to usage limits; and of the problems you’ll encounter switching platforms? Ironically enough, the answer comes via the iPod-fl ogging, DRM-musicpromoting Bono. Thanks to him, we can get the point across with just two little words: achtung, baby!
Gary Marshall was writing for .net when the web was still mostly just fields. He’s a journo, a software expert, a musician and very opinionated. Check out his blog at www.bigmouthstrikesagain.com.
Comments
Peter Gasston / 21/09/2006 / 13:59 / http://www.petergasston.co.uk
Bit of a misleading intro; MP3 doesn't have DRM, so if you've switched to MP3 you're probably OK; it's WMA and M4A/M4P you need to look out for.
Dan Oliver / 22/09/2006 / 09:57 / http://www.willwriteforfood.co.uk
Peter, thanks for pointing that out. We've now edited the piece accordingly.
Dan (.net editor)
Gary / 27/09/2006 / 09:25 / http://www.bigmouthstrikesagain.com
Did I write the original intro? If so, I'll go and slap my own head.
Ivo Gasser / 30/09/2006 / 20:37 / http://www.ivogasser.ch
A very enlightening, but also worrying article. Thanks a lot, Garry. Keep up the great work! Best regards from a .net Reader in Dubai.
Harry Selent / 30/03/2008 / 13:20 / http://www.medicalcharting.com
Seems like publishers and distributors want their cake and eat it too-- they want to fine the public for sharing, but don't want to create a "safety net" if they go out of business- Shame on Them!
