Worldwide Digital Chaos - The Week in Review

● First, you know it's a bad sign when the finance folks feel the need to pipe up about the mismanagement of the digital music industry – twice in one week. Up first, Anders Bylund (Motley Fool) who talks about the politicization of issues regarding copyright and intellectual property among music and video entertainment, as well as the problems created by overly-restrictive DRM among consumers who want what they want when and how they want it. "In the end, the thumbscrews will have to loosen up. There will be little incentive for today's media pirates to go looking for legal trouble when legal downloads are easy to find, reasonably priced, and not burdened with draconian restrictions. Music downloads have shown the way, and results from current experiments with cheap and less-restricted movie downloads in China and Korea are suggesting that piracy thrives in restrictive environments but dies when the same thing is legally available at reasonable terms." For another perspective on the article, be sure to head over to Coolfer. The second commentary came from Rick Aristotle Munarriz, again at The Motley Fool, who essentially told the major labels to wake up and smell the coffee because digital music distribution, even with piracy, will make them the real winners in the long run: “Music-file sharing may have hurt the music makers in the near term, but it was also the perfect set of training wheels to teach the masses how to embrace portable music-listening solutions. Does anyone really think that Apple's iTunes store would have lapped the billion-download mark if consumers hadn't already gotten a taste from Napster? Piracy is bad, but in this case, it proved to be no different from the chicken joint at the mall's food court that hands out free samples on toothpicks, all to bring in the bigger sale down the road…” ------------------------------------- ●Next up, citing the desire to make a clear distinction between copying for personal use versus copying for third party distribution, the British government agreed to turn a blind eye to consumers who transfer music to their PCs or portable devices (BBC News). The consumer response to the decision? Oh, was that not legal before? Our bad, but glad you’re catching up to us. (check out this Slashdot thread for fun reading) ----------------------------------------------- ●Norway (Mac Daily News) and the UK (MSN Money) followed in France’s tracks by speaking up against the DRM practices of Apple (and others, including Microsoft, though Apple is catching most of the heat). Said Peter Jamieson, chairman of the trade association for the UK’s record industry (BPI): “It’s not particularly healthy for any one company to have such a dominant share…We would advocate that Apple opts for interoperability.” ----------------------------------------------- ●The British Phonographic Industry sues Allofmp3.com (The Register), citing its distribution of music downloads is not legal (though the BPI says they will not sue individual downloaders and only the site itself), but not in time to stop a resurrection of the issue of fair pricing of digital downloads (Times Online-Britain). The article argues: “While Apple’s market-leading iTunes Music Store sells individual tracks for 79p, people using the Russian-based AllofMP3.com website, the second most popular download site in Britain, can purchase entire albums for £1.” Of course, the BPI is suing Allofmp3 over that pricing, but the lack of clarity about the true “value” of a digital download remains a big issue to consumers. The article goes on to state that, while Steve Jobs has called record label execs “greedy”… “Apple’s iTunes has also been criticised for charging customers in the UK more than in other countries. The company sells tracks for 54p in America and 68p in France and Germany.” ----------------------------------------------- ●DefectiveByDesign organized nationwide protests at Apple stores in a stand against their DRM practices (Business Week) Earlier this week, Defective by Design’s Gregory Heller posted this statement (For the full post, check out the DbD blog) : "Apple claims that people would steal from them if they didn't use DRM, and that they have to protect themselves. This is how they would like to portray it, but it's not how it is. Inclusion of DRM in products sold by Apple and other companies is inspired by their greed and desire to control us. To accomplish their goals, they want to monitor, report, and regulate your every interaction with your computer and electronics." ----------------------------------------------- ● SIRA, Section 115 Reform Act, is debated in Congress, creating an intensely heated debate between the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) and the Digital Media Association over digital music licensing (Digital Music News) . (More heated debate at The Velvet Rope). ----------------------------------------------- ● Daddy Yankee says it’s ok to steal music – if you’re poor (AP/Yahoo News) ----------------------------------------------- ● And, the granddaddy of them all (drum roll, please), Former RIAA head Hilary Rosen speaks her peace regarding lawsuits waged against illegal downloaders (typos are hers, not mine) (The Huffington Post): “But for the record, I do share a concern that the lawsuits have outlived most of their usefulness and that the record companies need to work harder to implemnt a strategy that legitimizes more p2p sites and expands the download and subscription pool by working harder with the tech community to get devices and music services to work better together. That is how their business will expand most quickly. The iPod is still too small a part of the overall potential of the market and its propietary DRM just bugs me. Speaking of DRM, it is time to rethink that strategy as well......... At some point, I will write more comprehensively about those years and these issues....then again, maybe not.” Technorati Tags: music,digitalmusic,RIAA,BPI,DRM,apple,iTunes,SIRA,EFF,copyright