Pay for your music, and keep paying...

LONDON, England (Reuters) -- If technology firms like Sony and Microsoft have their way, songs and movies will expire after a single play -- unless you pay the copyright holder their due.

The technology that makes this possible -- known as digital rights management, or DRM -- will forever change the way we consume media and software, experts believe.

Software and media companies continue to push new content security initiatives, each plugging their own version of DRM that aims to protect content from unwelcomed eyes. In the near future, e-mails, spread sheet programs and Webpage content alike will be secured with digital locks.

Sun Microsystems said this week it plans to roll out new software to protect copyrighted content stored on mobile phones and smart cards. Meanwhile, Warner Music, a division of CNN's parent company AOL Time Warner, released the new Steely Dan album "Everything Must Go" on CD and DVD Audio, the latter being an encrypted, "rip-proof" format.

www.cnn.com...

I dont worry too much about stuff like that. They can create all the copy protections they want but smarter people will always find a way to hack it. So I dont worry much about stuff like that.

What... after all those free downloads of music, you thought they wouldn't do anything about it?

Im not worried about the copy protection, but Im not really interested in buying music I have to keep paying to listen to it....

Thats the sort of crap that drives people to file sharing.

I dont mind paying for music. I buy new cd's every week. I only use filesharing to preview a cd b4 I go buy it. I always rather have the original.

Yeah, if I like the mp3's I hear I try to find the album.

I refuse to pay for it when the prices are marked up to incredible rates by record companies.

Bear in mind these things cost $1 to make but on places like cdnow they can sell for $30 an album.

Screw that

30 bucks for a music cd?
eww


Sometimes I just like to steal.

David

Your assessment of music product costs is not really fair to all segments of the music industry.

Creative talent needs to be rewarded.
Production staff need to be rewarded.
Studio time. Artwork.
Facilities and overheads need to be paid for.
And a fair margin to the retailer.

The cost of pressing a CD is minmal, yes, and that is the most minimal part of the equation.

Problem is, when CDs replaced vinyl, arsehole multinationals took a quantum leap in their profit margins when they were able to position the new medium as a better product. Even though it was cheaper to produce.

You punish the independent artist with your piracy choice, and you will end up with the same stream of pap now coming out of the major record labels, forever.

Try another strategy.

they can sell for $30 an album.

WHAT!!! 30 bucks an album?!?!?! Where the hell do you buy your music? I buy all my music from amazon and I rarely pay more than $15 for a cd.

1. Watch currency conversions.

2. Some albums imported to the US from Europe, Asia or Oz can retail for US$30 or more.

In those cases it might make more sense to pay the freight yourself and buy the album at source.

didn't they try that pay to play crud with DIVX (not DIVX ;-) the video codec). remember about 2 years ago Circuit City and a couple of movie studios came up with a type of DVD called DIVX that would only play once unless you called them and paid extra for the privledge of watching the movie a few more times? it failed miserably, because people like to buy media outright (like buying a DVD or CD in a store) or not buy it at all (eg. downloading it). I can't believe they're bothering to dig up that idea from the grave.

WASHINGTON - The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said Tuesday he favors developing new technology to remotely destroy the computers of people who illegally download music from the Internet.

The surprise remarks by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, during a hearing on copyright abuses represent a dramatic escalation in the frustrating battle by industry executives and lawmakers in Washington against illegal music downloads.

During a discussion on methods to frustrate computer users who illegally exchange music and movie files over the Internet, Hatch asked technology executives about ways to damage computers involved in such file trading. Legal experts have said any such attack would violate federal anti-hacking laws.

"No one is interested in destroying anyone's computer," replied Randy Saaf of MediaDefender Inc., a secretive Los Angeles company that builds technology to disrupt music downloads. One technique deliberately downloads pirated material very slowly so other users can't.

www.washingtonpost.com...

Maybe some hackers need to visit the good senators computers???

dr

Great idea from the Senator. Ashcroft should run with it, and develop the software necessary to also destroy the computers of people who talk about free downloading in emails, chat rooms and message boards. Oh and the computers of people who want to get rid of Ashcroft and this corrupt administration too.

Well, the one thing that we CAN do is simply vote with your entertainment dollar... DONT BUY ANY PRODUCT FROM COMPANIES THAT DEVELOPE AND ENDORSE TECHNOLOGY THAT INFRINGES ON YOUR RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS AS CONSUMERS.

About time for a boycott, dont you think?

The drones can't defy their masters

i've already pretty muched stopped going to movies on a sat nite $13.50 i can rent for $5 and watch it more than once without ppl bugging me

2. Some albums imported to the US from Europe, Asia or Oz can retail for US$30 or more.

That doesn't include the completely LOST 30 bucks when you find out that the folks selling the album over amazon.com zshops is full of crap. You send your 30 bucks for the album, and they send you a US-release of the album without the extra songs. "Oh sorry, our mistake, send back the album and we'll send you a refund"... "yeah, right".

Until the music industry starts doing something about these arseholes, I'm going to continue to preview my music via free d/l before I buy the album. Most nice bands have previews of their new albums on their websites anyways, so I see it as a moot point.

The actual artists see very very little of the money that they earn, when you compare it to how much their record companies, managers, tour managers, etc benefit from their music's success.


[Edited on 18-6-2003 by MKULTRA]

Originally posted by MorningtonCrescent
didn't they try that pay to play crud with DIVX (not DIVX ;-) the video codec). remember about 2 years ago Circuit City and a couple of movie studios came up with a type of DVD called DIVX that would only play once unless you called them and paid extra for the privledge of watching the movie a few more times? it failed miserably, because people like to buy media outright (like buying a DVD or CD in a store) or not buy it at all (eg. downloading it). I can't believe they're bothering to dig up that idea from the grave.

a new dvd out by I think nappy roots contains some kind of dye that is released and destroys the dvd after it is watched 1 time. The dvd costs alot less then normal dvds since you can only play it once and it is sort of a test to see if people would buy it or not.

Like Ocelot said there will always be ppl to find away around! plus maybe file sharin is good for the music business. Instead of bubble gum pop groups commin out of a factory we can have real talented artist come out. Who dont need to be found by record companies and can produce there music by themselves. What drives a musicain now??? MONEY if we eliminated that i think we would have better music