4 ms·

Here is a fun fact regarding DRM: Ever since I discovered how easy it is to buy music from Amazon, both legally and conveniently, I have not downloaded a single

by krylon 9y ago

Here is a fun fact regarding DRM: Ever since I discovered how easy it is to buy music from Amazon, both legally and conveniently, I have not downloaded a single piece of music illegally. I do not mind paying for music. Making music is hard work. There are many gifted musicians I would rather pay for their efforts if that means I get to enjoy more of their music. I do mind jumping through all kinds of insane hoops that effectively punish me for playing fair while the kid next door gets his music illegally from the Pirate Bay and has no trouble putting it on any device he or she chooses. I really wish film studios understood this simple fact: If buying movies was as easy and painless as buying music from, say, Amazon, I would be happy to do so. Making movies, too, is hard work, and compared to making music, it is fairly expensive, too. I have no problem with paying for a movie. But having to watch a trailer that tells me I cannot make copies of a movie or watch it on a DVD player from another continent, being unable to watch a movie with its original audio track without subtitles, while the kid next door gets his (illegal) copy online, a copy that does not force him to watch a trailer that basically insults him for being stupid enough to pay for a legitimate copy, where he can choose to watch or not to watch the movie with subtitles, in any language he or she likes -- THAT annoys me to no end. It's not even that movie studios (ab)use the law to cling to a moribound business model - it's that they lack the creativity (ironic, given that their whole business is about creativity) to imagine it could work any other way, and that they effectively distrust their customers. Maybe I am just a naive dreamer, but I think if the movie studios trusted their customers enough to let them actually use the movies / series / ... they actually ____ing paid for in the ways they see fit, the problem DRM is - at least officially - supposed to solve, would at least shrink so much it would become negligible in practice. Okay, just in case I lost you there, let me repeat my key point: Buying music legally, from Amazon or one of many other companies, is so convenient it actually trumps downloading music illegally. Paying money turns out to be the least problem in the whole process. If buying movies legally was as hassle-free, I would happily go on a shopping spree of epic proportions. You don't even need to look at the ethical dimension of the whole issue. Just do the ____ing math. (Yeah, okay, sorry for ranting. If you are still reading this, you are probably the last person that needs convincing anyway.)

alexland 9y ago
Gabe Newell said it years ago. Piracy is almost always a service problem, not a pricing problem.
- CaptSpify 9y ago
  I'd go even further and say it is an economic problem. We no longer need gatekeepers for digital media, that is clear. What we need is a way to support the artists creating that media. But we've set up our economic system to put money into the hands of companies under the guise of giving it to the artists. Sure, artists typically get a small fraction of that, but they should be getting the whole thing. Our economic models are seriously awful.
  - krylon 9y ago
    That is a very good point! I remember reading an article by Courtney Love, where she explained how her band got a record contract worth $ 1,000,000 and ended up owing money to the record company which happily billed the band for things like renting a record studio or making a music video. In other words, things that one would consider a record company's job. There are models for supporting artists directly, like bandcamp. There is something like Kickstarter for musicians where people can participate in financing an album. I vaguely remember Younger Brother using it for their third album. So there is a glimmer of hope, at least for music. I don't think crowdsourcing would work very well for movies, at least not for 100-million-dollar blockbusters (then again, one could argue, that a bigger budget does not necessarily make for a better movie; maybe it even makes it harder, because now you have to appeal to a wider audience).

by krylon 9y ago

alexland 9y ago

Gabe Newell said it years ago. Piracy is almost always a service problem, not a pricing problem.

CaptSpify 9y ago
I'd go even further and say it is an economic problem. We no longer need gatekeepers for digital media, that is clear. What we need is a way to support the artists creating that media. But we've set up our economic system to put money into the hands of companies under the guise of giving it to the artists. Sure, artists typically get a small fraction of that, but they should be getting the whole thing. Our economic models are seriously awful.
- krylon 9y ago
  That is a very good point! I remember reading an article by Courtney Love, where she explained how her band got a record contract worth $ 1,000,000 and ended up owing money to the record company which happily billed the band for things like renting a record studio or making a music video. In other words, things that one would consider a record company's job. There are models for supporting artists directly, like bandcamp. There is something like Kickstarter for musicians where people can participate in financing an album. I vaguely remember Younger Brother using it for their third album. So there is a glimmer of hope, at least for music. I don't think crowdsourcing would work very well for movies, at least not for 100-million-dollar blockbusters (then again, one could argue, that a bigger budget does not necessarily make for a better movie; maybe it even makes it harder, because now you have to appeal to a wider audience).