An Open Letter to Microsoft - Why you shouldn't kill FairUse4WM
By Peter Rojas 
posted August 27th 2006 1:08PM
posted August 27th 2006 1:08PM
We know that you're already probably working to fix the, um, hole that's been discovered in Windows DRM 10/11, but we're going to ask you this anyway: please don't stop consumers from using FairUse4WM to remove copy protection from music they've downloaded.
We understand why you put DRM on these files in the first place – the major labels won't grant you (or rather the companies that are using your DRM) a license to sell their music without it – but there are some good reasons why you should let this one slide.
For starters, it'll actually make consumers more likely to buy music and sign up for subscription services like Napster To Go and Rhapsody To Go. This sounds counterintuitive, but it's not. Being able to strip out the DRM on a file actually makes it more useful – and thus more valuable – for the consumer.
Shortly after posting the news, we got a slew of messages from readers and friends telling us they were signing up with a PlaysForSure service provider because they were no longer worried about being able to play the songs they've downloaded on their MP3 player. Since you can already get the same music for free if using P2P networks, all DRM does is make it harder for honest consumers to enjoy the music they're paying for. It's difficult to justify paying for a less useful version of a song when with a little effort you can find it elsewhere in a non-copy protected format.
We're big fans of the subscription services, here at Engadget, but let's face facts: the damn things don't work very well. It's pretty easy to download tracks, but it's a serious pain in the ass to successfully transfer them to a portable device. The only way for DRM to be successful is if it's painless and seamless, and we get tons of emails from consumers complaining about how hard it is to get Napster, Rhapsody, Yahoo Music Unlimited, etc. tracks on to their players, or, god forbid, Macs.
Are a lot of people going to pay $15 to sign up for a subscription service, download a ton of music, and then cancel a month later? Absolutely, but that's not a big deal. Those people were never, ever going to sign up for a service that offers locked down music anyway, so be happy that you squeezed any money out of them at all. (Yeah, this does make it tougher to offer free, unlimited trials, but that's not the end of the world.) Could those same people then put all the music they've just downloaded up on the P2P networks? Sure, but all that music is available there anyway, so it shouldn't make a bit of difference in the grand scheme of things.
So just try and look the other way this time. We've been on the verge of canceling our subscription services for a couple of months now (too many snafus involving DRM licenses and device syncing), but FairUse4WM has changed our minds now that we can actually download music with the confidence that we'll be able to enjoy it. Does the fact that we could quit and "keep" the music that we've been "renting" a problem? Theoretically, but what's going to keep consumers paying those monthly fees isn't the threat of losing access to their collection (though that's part of it); what keeps them paying is the continuing access to a large, frequently updated catalog of new releases and older tunes. DRM makes paying for music less attractive than stealing it; FairUse4WM flips that around and makes paying for music more attractive since you can more easily play the music you've purchased on the device of your choice.
Without a doubt you guys in Redmond are getting an earful from the record labels. You promised them a secure system, and you failed. They might already be threatening to withdraw their licenses for their music, but here's where you have to stand up and explain to the labels why they need to chill. Send Steve or Bill or J or whomever to smooth things over. We aren't assuming this is going to be an easy thing to make happen, but c'mon, you guys are /Microsoft/, if any company has the clout to make this happen and drag the entertainment industry into the 21st century, it's you. The music industry needs to accept that there is always going to be a certain amount of piracy, and then just get on with the business of selling digital. Let 'em keep the DRM in place if they want – we can all pretend that it still works -- just make it possible for anyone who really wants to get rid of it to take that extra step.
Besides, whether the RIAA likes it or not (or realizes it or not), you'll be doing the right thing for both consumers and the music business. (And isn't that the point of all this?) FairUse4WM means that all our PlaysForSure tracks will actually play for sure, so please don't go and spoil it.
Sincerely,
Your friends at Engadget
To casey chestnut: Where on (physical) earth do you expect to find individual tracks for sale?
oh, and as a note, a few months ago i read up (on a blog whose name i forgot, very likely one of the Weblog group blogs) that the decryption of DRM in PMP could cause the loss of a good chunk of battery life (10-15% if my memory isnt half-bad)
I'll continue to use allofmp3.com until one or more major subscription services offers DRM-less music(read mp3), at which time I'll immediately jump ship to that/those service/s. I am reminded each time that I use allofmp3.com that its catalog is not as deep as I would like, and yes, I realize that the artists don't get money from it.
However, allofmp3.com has been a reliable source of DRM-less music for me for 2 years, and frankly, I don't expect any subscription service to be allowed by the RIAA to offer MP3s. So, I expect to continue to send my money to allofmp3.com for the forseeable future.
@ Thomas Goddard:
They pay a fee to Napster (or whoever) to listen to their music. This program allows you to actually use that music in a PMP without error. The only way aroud that (other than this program) is to download it illegally. At least this way SOMEONE is getting money.
And if you're pissed about artists not getting money, mail them a check for their contribution to society, because they get crap from album sales. The only opponets of any "DRM stripping program" or "All use music files" are the heads of music industries who need their 5th Porche.
If Engadget is such a bad thing in your eyes, why continue posting comments in here?
It isn't a crime if it isn't illegal. That was already pointed out in the comments.
And the reverse is true. Stealing music is just as easy as it was in '99. And if I wanted drugs that bad, I can just find a recipe on the net.
I'm licensing music, but now with this program I'm not limited on what tool can use my music. I'm still paying, I'm still using their system. I'm not uploading every file to the net illegally. I'm deciding what player I can use.
I have a right to not be forced to choose a crappy PMP because it supports only this certain DRM.
Just an addition to teh talk about Apple's DRM. Apple's DRM has been hacked several times. There was a program called jHymn that would do great things. Most notably, it would strip the DRM from iTune purchased songs, but with every new iTunes upgrade they make their DRM more difficult. It's been about a year since jHymn worked, but I have faith that it will work again. The website is still up and the program still available for downlaod. I've recently used it to check the number of PCs my account is on and also to break my iTunes library so it would rebuild it from scratch after a music library switch.
The point is, MS may not go after the program (or even be able to if it's outside the US) but they will certainly strengthen their DRM. However, without having ONE proprietary music store and ONE proprietary music player the update will be slow to implement.
I assume they will make updates to players that will be mandatory to continue to download "rented" songs. Perhaps not, but that is the first place I'd refortify since a one month subscription could be the most profitable to pirateers looking to complete a collection quickly.
"BTW, it is only a matter of time until the FairUse dev or someone else pulls the same stunt on the Apple DRM."
It's called JHymn, and its compatibility was broken by, I think, iTunes version 5. It was good while it lasted.
Oh, and I call shill on what-about-the-artists.
I'm in favour of this.
Which is probably funny because I do a fair amount of work on making sure content producers get paid.
But at the same time I always argue that making the content freely available for the user to do what they want is better for a long term relationship - trust the user and they may respect your product/IP a bit more.
I don't use any of the PlaysForSure services at the moment becuase my portable player is an iPod. I also don't use iTunes Music Store because I don't like their pricing model - why does it cost pretty much the same for a restricted rights download as a rippable CD? Sometimes more if you trawl the bargin bins and "pre-loved" stores.
Given the continued existance of Limewire, AllOfMp3 and their like (and the Sony DRM fiasco) any restrictions which cripple my use of something I've bought and paid for (crashed HDD, stolen laptop etc) are not going to be my first choice for spending my $
For preference.. I still buy CDs (and AnyDVD makes sure I can read them), I buy unrestricted MP3 from unsigned bands who are actually doing something creative and I support the artists whos music I do discover thanks to the occasional shared rip from a friend (sometimes having to resort to Amazon to actually get it into the country because the label have decided not to release it in my little backwater)
Actually, you should encourage them to push for more and more DRM until the whole system topples over under it's own weight. Each move on their part pushes the consumer closer and closer to ending their relationship with RIAA members, which is what the industry needs as a whole.
Rather than saving everyone, kill it and start over. It's time to put RIAA down like a rabid animal and get a newer, tamer animal.
First I hate it when people can't wait for a company to go out of business, are you going to give money to those now unemployeed workers to feed their kids? I think not. Second, lets look how counterintuitive this is...ipods rule the market because they are cool, however if you want to subscribe to yahoo or napster you have to settle for a sub standard player because there is no apple support. Look originally when I first heard of this I thought about going all captain jack sparrow on them and just loot and pillage however after using the service and moving some of these to my ipod I really dig it. For as long as fairuse is usable I will continue to subscribe.
" They might already be threatening to withdraw their licenses for their music..." Question, If I, as a manufacturer, was dependent on only a few distributors for my product, wouldn't I realy be at the mercy of them? Would I be able to "threaten" them with pulling back my product from them? Let's face it, the music industry is way behind times, they better catch up and start working with the consumer, making their product more attractive, than trying to tighten down. This is going to blow up in their faces, hopefully soon, and then you'll see artists completely bypass the whole bunch of fu**s. and start utilizing online distribution, word of mouth (free trades!) and tours. Hell, if I was a fledgling band, I'd make my music available for free- you make most of your money on tours since the music industry sucks up most of it anyways.
I'd love to be able to buy all my music legally through a service and I hope some day I will. Currently I occasionally use allofmp3.com and while I have heard all the issues about "Russian Mob", etc I refuse to buy anything with DRM on it and/or of a less than ideal quality. I use to download from torrents, etc but I find its not worth the hastle, give me a legal pay alternative and I'm more than happy to use it..
allofmp3 allows me to pick my format and quality and the higher quality I want the more I pay for it and I'm fine with that. I download everything at 256k bit rate. I do not share my music, but I have 3 PCs, a Sun box, a car mp3 player, an ipod, home stereo, etc and I want to be able to play on all systems without any hoops to jump through. allofmp3 is cheap at $25 per GB and I'd be willing to pay double that or possibly more to a comparable legal North American system without DRM.
If the recording industry gives me that I say sign me up!
I shall have no truck with these content distributors. I've no interest in services that just assume I have criminal intent by default, and treat me as such. Until such a time as I am offered the same losslessness and flexibility I currently enjoy with Red Book CDs, they can forget it.
As for Microsoft's position, it's possible they realise how DRM can actually prove contrary to the prosperity of the entertainment industry and the artists involved, and they may even just go through the motions of updating their DRM, just to satisfy the narcissistic bullies running the show. But given their insistance of horrid product activation, a measure as effective at stopping piracy as a gnat is at stopping an 18 wheeler, I wouldn't like to speculate.
PS- I had to laugh at the "Stealing music is getting harder to do, and more dangerous" comment. Have you been to the internet before?
Great letter. And excellent points to make about what people really want.
Music for most people boils down to one thing: we want to decide when, where and what we listen to without restrictions. DRM complicates that to a large degree and having tools that remove the DRM, keep honest people happy and spending more money on music.
RIAA and the music industry is do far behind the times.... i mean, sueing your customers is just something I've never grasped as a way to keep people buying your product.
Piracy is going to happen regardless how many restrictions you put on music. It goes back to the days when we used to tape vinyl albums to cassette at a friend's house. Eventually, we purchase the music we like. I know I do and I know a ton of other people that do the same.
I don't think Microsoft will give a second thought to leaving this useful tool in place. They will see it as a hinder to doing business, but us consumers will see it as a way to justify spending more on digital downloads.
>>Send Steve [...] to smooth things over.
Absolutely. Nothing like a folding chair upside the head to ease corporate tension.
Seriously though, Engadget has the right idea.
Microsoft does have to attack this project as they have to protect the viewpoints of not only themselves, but with every record company that 'agreed' to sell their music with a DRM-related protection. You may not like it, but there are several artists who do not want their music unprotected and these artists might very well leave the Online Music business because they can no-longer drust the DRM protection that microsoft has designed.
This is not the right way to fight DRM.
DWM came, and the number of people illegally downloading music certainly didn't go down. In fact, the compatibility problems probably made it flourish.
there is no such thing as intellectual property that can be owned by the distributors of media. It is only owned by the creators and artist, programmers, musicians etc. They have already been paid by the distributors. When I buy a book, I buy the print and not the content. However, it depends quality of the print when i decide which price i am willing to pay for it. Again, I won't accept any claims on "intellectual property" from anyone else as the creator himself.
The music industry grew so big through artifical marketing techniques. Like everyone who had owned a music album on vinyl had to buy it again when the cd was invented. Why did he do this? because the Industry promised higher quality of the product (not intellectual, only technical) and more durability of the audio cd as a media. They lied to any which one of us, because the quality of the media wasn't better in quality nor durability. They cheated on us to pay again for an "intellectual property" which we probably already paid for, because in their minds we are only f...ing Consumers. Then they invented the CD-burner, to sell them to everyone and at the same time criminalize everyone who uses it. Now that everyone has a computer they try to sell you the same music AGAIN, claiming _their_ intellectual property, so that you can play them on your pc or mp3-player. Because in the near future you won't be able to listen to your own created mp3-files, ripped from your own audio-cds. because they put DRM in it. So, the media-industry grew fat and rich by stealing from a: the artists (by throat-gagging contracts)and b: you (by creating artifical need for products). And now they see their beautiful cardhouse fall to pieces, so they go even further and try to force the law to forbid any copying at all, even if it has always been practiced with audio-tapes and -rails. And if they can't forbid it, they#ll try to make it impossible. Well guess what, not the industry invented technology, people do. And just like wozniak (sadly what happened to apple) invented the Bluebox and later the computer, fantastic people like him (or here) invent methods to get around DRM. That's the nature of the free mind.
So the law may be different because law and politics really represent the industry, not the people. if law and industry go on and call me a thief, I am still not willing to accept that in any way and knowingly will break the law if I have to, because IT IS NOT FAIR.
All digital content should be free, copying is not stealing, taking "intellectual property" from the creators through contracts is stealing. Adn if a Microsoft-Employee thinks that piece of code he wrote for windows should be free and distributes it on his Website, than Microsoft would sue and fire him. But if everyone would think that way, Microsoft wouldn't have any employees and Major-Labels wouldn't have artists to sign on.
You say "It is a fact that it is illegal, so they are right to call you a criminal". You are sheep. People like you make the world an awful place to live in.
COPY, COPY, COPY. If you can't copy it, CRACK it, and then copy. free your mind. Don't be charged for an MP3-Album. They charge you for printing the Cover, even if you don't get it delivered (or maybe a low-quality JPG-File). Now, THAT's Stealing!!! Beat DRM in any way, it is NOT fair!!!
Microsoft leaked FairUse4WM to kill the anemic PlaysforSure and pave the way for a Zune DRM!
My two cents.
Whatsizface
Not that it is right to be downloading music/movies for free if you don't already own a physical non-DRMed format, but as we all know, people will always look for the free/cheaper way to get the same things they want and they don't want any hassles.
If you're hungry and there's your favorite food, free of charge, laying in front of you, would you take it? Or would you rather go somewhere else to pay and sit in a restaurant to get the same food? Or try hard and find the phone number of the restaurant to order take-out/delivery and wait? Same goes for illegal downloads and DRMed music/movies.
If music and movies are priced reasonably, very easy to get and are guaranteed to work on all hardware, most people will choose to buy. The current DRM scheme is not offering all of these things, and that's why people don't like it.
Lastly, I agree with koder that you should be allowed to copy/convert the music/movies you already own into another format, as long as you're not selling the copies for profit.
I for one like to burn a 1:1 copy of the more expensive CDs I bought so I won't be screwed even if I scratched the copied disc. Some people I know may also make photocopies/electronic copies of books so you don't have to worry about the book pages fall off, ripped out, water damage, etc.
It's also funny, I'd like to add, that pro-DRM-people (how can you even actually beFOR this???) like to mention the "right of the creator of content".
this isn't about the rights of the Creators at all. The real Creators have already given up most of their rights by signing a contract. They are gone, when it comes to sales. Musicians mostly don't get all to much from the sales. And, as Artists, which often also means "free thinkers" (not already assimilated by the man), most musicians are _against_ DRM. You don't believe it? Well, ask one! You think labels create Content? give an Sony-BMG-Exec a guitar in his Hands and see if he's another Santana! These people are cold, they think only in numbers. They don't give a damn about any one. People like that rule. If you argument pro DRM in _any_ way, then I guess you like to be ruled... I don't!!!
It is also very funny, that in the US it calls "copyright". In Germany we do not have copyright. No, over here it is called "Urheberrecht". And THAT means right of the creator. That also means, everything you create on your own will always stay yours. i.e, if I'm a writer and I write a Book and then my publisher says: "well, we really like the story, but we've changed that part, because most readers wouldn't like it and we wanted to be a little more John-Grisham..." Then you _always_ can sue his ass off! In an American copyright-based contract, you as the creator can give up that right. That is possible and common (well, not for books but maybe you write for a TV-Miniseries or something). In Germany such a contract would be totally against the law and so worthless. You have to give your ok to all they do with your creation and you have a veto-right to everything that doesn't suit you. It is not possible to give up your "Urheberrecht" completly, and you don't even have to write it down or put a "c" anywhere. As long as you are able to proof that you've created it on your own, it stays your own, no matter what.
And I don't give a shit about the musiv industry at all. They deserve to die, really. They eat up every small Label out there, they decide what's good and deserves to be published, even if there's a lot very better artists who noone will ever hear about. Nowadays they even create artifical artists, aka "one-hit-wonders" and people actually buy it through mass-media-manipulation. You know how much media corporations invest in the science of mind-manipulating advertising-techniques? Wonder why a jingle has a certain sound? That's because it sticks to your brain like malware on a computer,vlike it or not. Do you like to be mentally enslaved (well, if you're actually pro-drm you possibly already are). Copying may be against the law, but morally it is right and good. You will still pay for concerts, still pay for cinema, you'll still want artists to get something for their creation. You wouldn't want the grey men get filthy rich just for their skill to betray and cheat on people, do you???
Alternatively, you could save yourself the trouble and use Wippit's subscription service that offers 60,000 MP3s at any one time for $90 / £50 a year and lets you keep the music permanently.
One day all subscription services will be this way...
Aaahhh.. Sweet Dreams..
When will you people understand that the tech companies that want to have a music player and music store MUST follow the rules of the industry. This same debate happened with VHS macrovision.
BTW, Macrovision is still in force.
Get a grip and find a hobby.
what sucks is the fact every service use a different audio format with DRM so it is really a pain to know what audio player to buy.
I say Audio cause Ipod files needs to be in ACC and zune I sure will do WMA This is why I would never own such a device. Why can all compines just agree on a standard and let people copy their audio files to any player?
Until this happens I am boycotting these type of devices.
@Lee: I don't use Napster, so I could be wrong about this (please correct me if I am), but my understanding of their business model makes me thing of anything BUT fair use. Sure, you can download as much as you want and play it wherever you want, but as soon as you stop paying you can't use that music anymore. If it works for you, then by all means, keep at it. Personally, I don't want to rent my music.
As for other business models like those of iTMS and Rhapsody, I don't want my music to be tied to one kind of player, or become useless if I decide to get a new
device. It used to be that if I bought any old CD, I could play it on the CD player in my living room, the one in my car, or the one in my computer at work. And if they were to come out with a new kind of CD player, chances are it will be backward compatible, so I'll still be able to listen to that CD. Example, I no longer have a CD player in my living room because my DVD player will handle CD, SACD, and DVD-Audio as well.
Enter the age of copy-protected CDs. I've gotten disks that won't play in my car or MP3 capable stereo because it sees the copy protection and thinks it's trying to read a data disk instead of an audio CD. I don't even dare put it in my computer because I don't want some rootkit or driver being installed without my consent. Result: I won't buy a CD that says anything about any type of copy protection scheme. I'm not trying to pirate it, I'm actually trying to support buy it and enjoy it. And if it's not a plain-jane audio CD, chances are I can't do that, so I'll go "elsewhere" to get the music.
Same thing goes for DRMed files. I'd almost be willing to bet my whole music collection that DRM creates about as many pirates as it thwarts.
Very well said engadget. Why should people buy music with complicated DRM when they can get it on P2P? With technology these days, there are ways to download from P2P anonymously, and the RIAA cant do a thing if they cant catch you. Since this FairUse program makes people feel better about DRM, and more and more people are signing up for subscription services, why not turn it into an advantage? Because if Microsoft kills this, the people who signed up will drop their subscriptions and go back to P2P. And I can guarantee you all that they will lose much, much more money from P2P than they ever have a chance of losing with FairUse, or any DRM removal program. One more thing. No matter what the music industry does, there will always be a certain level of piracy. Every time that a company has patched a security hole, especially with music downloads, someone has been smart and created a hack for it. Believe it or not, there are programmers out there who are better with a computer than the millionaires at Microsoft. VIVA LA REVOLUTION!
Microsoft might have the "clout to make this happen and drag the entertainment industry into the 21st century", but there is a very good reason why they won't.
Keeping DRM in the files means the consumer needs to keep buying and using the OS' that supports the DRM. Currently of course, that's XP. In time, that will be Vista. Take the DRM out of the media and you lose another compelling reason to stick with the OS from Redmond. Jump ship to Linux/OsX for example, and kiss your music goodbye. Unless it's unprotected of course, in which case you're free to leave.
MS is all about keeping the shackles on, restricting the choice. So we can instantly see why MS will never do this.
"The only way for DRM to be successful is if it's painless and seamless, and we get tons of emails from consumers complaining about how hard it is to get Napster, Rhapsody, Yahoo Music Unlimited, etc. tracks on to their players, or, god forbid, Macs."
Have you actually used Napster? You plug in your player, napster detects it and shows a player area in the bottom right of the napster window. You drag an drop files from napster on to this and they are downloaded and transfered.
You are all missing the point here. You have no rights to the owner of the musics copyright other then that they grant you. If you dont like the terms they offer you then don't buy the music. Simple as that.
Your rights never extend to infringing others however much you don't like them.
Great argument for allowing for the removal of DRM. My feeling exactly. I stopped using MusicMatch once I got my iPod and switched to an PowerBook G4. What good is the music to me when I can't play it, or have to go through very contorted schemes to get it playable. (e.g. doing a digital capture from the audio card while playing the file)If anyone from MS or even the "music industry" is reading these comments. Please note that I am an example of a lost customer because these DRM systems. I also buy much less from iTunes for the exact same reason.
I use Napster to buy music, but I own an iRiver H140 - so I can't directly play anything on that player. To date I've been burning and re-ripping, but I can detect a drop in quality in some songs. I've purchased less music over time because of this, eventually all but stopping because it seemed silly to buy music I could play only on my PC (really, who uses actual CDs anymore other than to rip from them?). This tool coming out made me immediately go and buy MORE music, knowing I could losslessly convert them to a format my player WILL play. Breaking the DRM made me buy more music. It's not counter-intuitive.
Think.....its only going to be another Windows Update patch (most probably). So if you want to keep using this, don't update your computer.
Silly Windows Updates slows down your compuuter anyway.
This is going to encourage me to keep buying. Why didn't they making DRM become inactive once you've downloaded it to your machine (if you chose to do so)?
Voting with one's pocketbooks doesn't work any more than electing politicians. Except instead of it beign a war with a ton of ppl on hte sidelines, its just... a bunch of people on the sidelines with pirates fighting corporations guerilla- style. Come on! We have to have complete control, or we don't have enough to value it, and if we don't value it, we lose it! We have to have a direct democracy in which we control EVERYTHING, or we'll never have as much control as we want or need.
Think about it. Free market creates unfree people. Eliminate it already! We have IT! This could be implemented now! Eman out.
The DRM is why I don't buy online music. I have several friends that do but I got tired of hearing how they couldn't transfer files from one device to another. If I break my current my3 player and purchase one from a different vendor, I didn't want to worry about not being able to use my music.
The DRM is all about money anyway. If the music studios had there way, you would have to but a the same music cd several times, one for you car and house and a different one if you wanted to play music on the go.
@Randall: iTMS files are in protected AAC format, but the iPod can play good ol' fashioned MP3s, AIFFs and WAVs as well. The default encoding format in iTunes when you import a CD I believe is AAC (at least on Macs), but you can easily change that in the preferences.
Instead of begging for them not to patch this hole, give them another route to money.
Imagine if Microsoft started their own WM-based subscription service, and spent the next few years systematically replacing old holes with new ones, such that their hackers would go home and tell their buddies how to get at the new holes, and new versions of FU4WM keep getting made for the new holes. Microsoft and all other subscription services would stand to make a ton of money, all because of a very convenient conflict of interest that strongly benefitted the consumer.
...It's dishonest maybe, but it's an idea.
A business interest people are forgetting is the need for Microsoft to make you keep that collection in Windows Media Format. It's the reason Windows Media format exists in the first place. If you break the DRM you can transcode into something like Ogg Vorbis, and Bill Gates forbid[1] switch over to Linux!
- Richard
[1] I doubt God cares about your software choice.
I really appreciate your help.
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why shouldn't we kill
why shouldn't we kill