The Clicker: Digital content -- why the sense of entitlement?
By Stephen Speicher 
posted Sep 22nd 2006 11:57AM
posted Sep 22nd 2006 11:57AM
Stephen Speicher contributes The Clicker, an opinion column on entertainment and technology:
There is something that I've never really understood when it comes to the digital entertainment debate. That is: where do people get their sense of entitlement with regard to content? Don't get me wrong -- I understand the hatred of DRM. I too have been bitten by incompatible formats and locked-down systems. I understand the digital claustrophobia one feels when in the bear hug warm embrace of DRM. DRM is often a nasty (if necessary) evil, and its existence nearly always degrades the user experience. I understand all that. What I don't get is the sense of entitlement people feel for the content itself. After all, it's not really our content. At the end of the day if that's how content owners choose to sell it, isn't that their right? Isn't ours simply a choice of to buy or not to buy?
Somewhere along the line people started to lose perspective in this whole DRM debate. Somewhere along the line people started to categorize music, movies, and other forms of entertainment as exempt from the normal rules of commerce. Well -- that's not quite true. It's not that people gave blanket exemptions to entertainment "theft." It's that for some odd reason, people determined that they were the ones who should choose what was right and wrong when it came to the buying and selling entertainment content. Instead of the all-too-familiar set of rules for selling goods (i.e. the seller and the buyer mutually agree on the terms of sale; if either of the parties doesn't agree, there is no transfer of goods) consumers felt perfectly justified in writing their own personal rules. Often times, merely because they could.
Law-abiding, moral people do things with entertainment content that they wouldn't dream of doing with physical goods. Can you imagine walking into a restaurant which you knew to be overpriced, eating, and then leaving without paying just because the you felt the place was a rip-off and not worth the prices they charged? Worse yet, can you imagine doing it the next day also? Of course not!
Yet people feel no such compunction about appropriating media content without paying anyone for it. Why is this the case?
The entertainment industries would have you believe that the dreaded "perfect copy" is responsible for people illegally acquiring and sharing content. That is to say, because this new digital world offers heretofore unprecedented levels of quality in bootlegs, people steal. Frankly, that's a load. It confuses the cause and the effect. Sure, the existence of perfect copies has made the piracy problem more wide-spread and tougher to "fix," but people's disrespect of "entertainment value" happened well before the internet was even a glimmer in Al Gore's eye.
We all did it when we were younger; we'd pay to watch one movie, and at its conclusion we'd scurry down the hall and pop into another. "Why not?" we thought. "It's not like we're actually going to pay to see Bio-Dome. Besides, the seat is empty." There is no arguing the logic. It's impeccable. It's clearly a case of no harm, no foul. There's only one problem: that's really not the rule. Believe it or not, there is no "I wasn't gonna pay for it anyway" clause in the commerce rulebook. Nor is there an "I disagree with your terms so instead I'll just take it" clause. Yet, for some reason, when it comes to entertainment -- and the goods become intangible -- these become perfectly acceptable arguments.
The obvious answer is that people have no respect for goods where the marginal cost of production is zero or close to it. It doesn't matter that work went into its production. It doesn't matter that the sales of current goods pay for development of future goods. It seems to only matter what production costs. And, of course, what the consumer's self-proclaimed set of rules are.
I'm always reticent to suggest that people are ever "stealing" entertainment. Despite the best efforts of the industries involved to paint them as such, few of these people are criminals. Yet, they each break the rules and feel very little remorse about it.
So today we'll try something different. Today I'm going to ask you some questions. Do you have different rules for content vs. tangibiles? If so, why do you consider entertainment to be different from say, groceries? What are your personal rules about personal use of copyrighted -- often DRMed -- digital content??
For instance, I have a friend who buys music via an online store and then immediately torrents "clean" copies. Does he have a right to do so? Absolutely not, but he's fine with it. I've spent the last couple days loading up my new 5.5G iPod with movies I've previously purchased. Did I lose sleep over it? Nope. However, at the same time I recognized that I was indeed breaking the rules and it would be perfectly within the copyright holder's rights to slap so much DRM on there that I couldn't do it in the future -- just like it would be perfectly within my rights to not buy the movies if they did so.
I know others who only torrent broadcast shows. Still others torrent shows their cable companies don't carry or carry with bundles they don't like. On the more extreme side, I know people who feel perfectly within their rights to download music because "the label is screwing the artist."
Share your rules with the world. What's the most interesting rationalization you've developed for bending the rules for entertainment content, and why is it ok? I want to know, and something tells me you've probably thought about this before.
If you have comments or suggestions for future columns, drop me a line at theclicker@theevilempire.com.
There is something that I've never really understood when it comes to the digital entertainment debate. That is: where do people get their sense of entitlement with regard to content? Don't get me wrong -- I understand the hatred of DRM. I too have been bitten by incompatible formats and locked-down systems. I understand the digital claustrophobia one feels when in the Somewhere along the line people started to lose perspective in this whole DRM debate. Somewhere along the line people started to categorize music, movies, and other forms of entertainment as exempt from the normal rules of commerce. Well -- that's not quite true. It's not that people gave blanket exemptions to entertainment "theft." It's that for some odd reason, people determined that they were the ones who should choose what was right and wrong when it came to the buying and selling entertainment content. Instead of the all-too-familiar set of rules for selling goods (i.e. the seller and the buyer mutually agree on the terms of sale; if either of the parties doesn't agree, there is no transfer of goods) consumers felt perfectly justified in writing their own personal rules. Often times, merely because they could.
Law-abiding, moral people do things with entertainment content that they wouldn't dream of doing with physical goods. Can you imagine walking into a restaurant which you knew to be overpriced, eating, and then leaving without paying just because the you felt the place was a rip-off and not worth the prices they charged? Worse yet, can you imagine doing it the next day also? Of course not!
Yet people feel no such compunction about appropriating media content without paying anyone for it. Why is this the case?
The entertainment industries would have you believe that the dreaded "perfect copy" is responsible for people illegally acquiring and sharing content. That is to say, because this new digital world offers heretofore unprecedented levels of quality in bootlegs, people steal. Frankly, that's a load. It confuses the cause and the effect. Sure, the existence of perfect copies has made the piracy problem more wide-spread and tougher to "fix," but people's disrespect of "entertainment value" happened well before the internet was even a glimmer in Al Gore's eye.
We all did it when we were younger; we'd pay to watch one movie, and at its conclusion we'd scurry down the hall and pop into another. "Why not?" we thought. "It's not like we're actually going to pay to see Bio-Dome. Besides, the seat is empty." There is no arguing the logic. It's impeccable. It's clearly a case of no harm, no foul. There's only one problem: that's really not the rule. Believe it or not, there is no "I wasn't gonna pay for it anyway" clause in the commerce rulebook. Nor is there an "I disagree with your terms so instead I'll just take it" clause. Yet, for some reason, when it comes to entertainment -- and the goods become intangible -- these become perfectly acceptable arguments.
The obvious answer is that people have no respect for goods where the marginal cost of production is zero or close to it. It doesn't matter that work went into its production. It doesn't matter that the sales of current goods pay for development of future goods. It seems to only matter what production costs. And, of course, what the consumer's self-proclaimed set of rules are.
I'm always reticent to suggest that people are ever "stealing" entertainment. Despite the best efforts of the industries involved to paint them as such, few of these people are criminals. Yet, they each break the rules and feel very little remorse about it.
So today we'll try something different. Today I'm going to ask you some questions. Do you have different rules for content vs. tangibiles? If so, why do you consider entertainment to be different from say, groceries? What are your personal rules about personal use of copyrighted -- often DRMed -- digital content??
For instance, I have a friend who buys music via an online store and then immediately torrents "clean" copies. Does he have a right to do so? Absolutely not, but he's fine with it. I've spent the last couple days loading up my new 5.5G iPod with movies I've previously purchased. Did I lose sleep over it? Nope. However, at the same time I recognized that I was indeed breaking the rules and it would be perfectly within the copyright holder's rights to slap so much DRM on there that I couldn't do it in the future -- just like it would be perfectly within my rights to not buy the movies if they did so.
I know others who only torrent broadcast shows. Still others torrent shows their cable companies don't carry or carry with bundles they don't like. On the more extreme side, I know people who feel perfectly within their rights to download music because "the label is screwing the artist."
Share your rules with the world. What's the most interesting rationalization you've developed for bending the rules for entertainment content, and why is it ok? I want to know, and something tells me you've probably thought about this before.
If you have comments or suggestions for future columns, drop me a line at theclicker@theevilempire.com.
This isn't about the sale, its about the aftermath. The fact that my song may not be playable in a week because of a decision the company makes is what sucks. The fact that my music player that I invested 300 dollars into may suddenly not be able to play the music I bought for it is what sucks. Completely missed the point.
I think that is the point exactly. You have a choice as to what, where and how to download or rip your content. If you choose to download from a site that has severe restrictions on its use, then it's your fault. Go somewhere else. It's just like the restaurant scenario above. If you don’t like the food or service don’t go to the restaurant. BUT you don’t have the right to try the food and then say it was bad and walk out without paying. Caveat emptor.
I only torrent network shows or shows that I do indeed receive on my cable, but can't watch because I only have a single-tuner TiVo. Recent example being last night, my girlfriend was watching the Grey's Anatomy recap show while The Office and My Name is Earl played at the same time.
I have no problems with content migration - ripping DVDs I own for my iPod, or CDs to MP3s, and I wouldn't strip the DRM if I didn't have to to do so.
I think the sense of entitlement comes from the CD days. You would buy a CD and you'd own those songs. You could rip them to CD, convert them to any format you wanted (and with that, put them on any device you want) or burn a copy and use that as to not get the original scratched. Now you buy the songs for the same price on iTunes and you can ONLY use them on an iPod. What if down the road iPods really start to suck, or someday Apple decides to retreat from the music player business. Then what? You "own" a song in AAC that you can't do shit with but play in iTunes.
That is why I would never buy any music that is DRM'd.
You could make mix tapes from records and tapes long before you could from CDs, but it was never really covered by the license agreement. Just because you CAN do something doesn't mean you're authorized to do so.
And anyway, you can burn protected AAC tracks from iTunes to an audio CD if you want to, no problem.
Remarks were spot-on; for some reason we just don't connect inherit value to things that are cheap to produce.
That's interesting... how much 'inherent' value is there in something that is 'cheap to produce'. Doesn't the 'inherent' value of a good stem (at least in part) from the cost to produce it? And from limitations on it's supply? I'm not sure that digital content really is cheap to produce (rather than cheap to copy and distribute), but if we assume that it really is, and that there's no natural reason** for limitations on it's supply, then doesn't that mean that it has very little 'inherent' value?
I'm certainly not an economist, but it seems to me that the intangibility of the goods is one of the main keys to understanding how the digital content marketplace really works. And, distinct from other intangibles, such as a contract or financial instruments, digital content literally has to be experienced in order for the buyer to assign their relative value to the thing. If you buy a movie without having seen it first, you are doing so based on very incomplete information. Far more incomplete, it seems, than buying produce without tasting it. I'm not sure where these observations might lead, but they seem relevant if we're really trying to understand how and why parties behave the way that they do in this market.
** An un-natural reason would be if distributors offered only 1000 downloads of a song or movie, in order to great a sense of scarcity.
->R
I believe the sense of entitlement comes from the precedent that was set by the open source natures of formats of the past. With VHS, Cassette, and so on people grew accustomed to the fact that after they bought something they could do what they liked with it. When you buy a car can you not mod it and apply all sorts of styling changes to it, maybe even swap out an engine? Sure you'll probably void your warranty, but is any automaker going to sue you for it? When you buy a head of lettuce, it's "meant" for human consumtion, but what if you feed it to your rabbits.
You cannot apply the "normal rules of commerce" to something on the consumer end of things, when the producer side of the equation doesn't do the same.
Yes, I agree, we could just not consume these products to show our distaste for the methods being applied to them. But really one must ask, why did the system have to change? It was fine the way it was (or is in the case of most things).
"At the end of the day if that's how content owners choose to sell it, isn't that their right?"
I think this comment is where the heart of the debate is. The real debate is if you can own content and under what terms. Some feal content can't not be owned at all; while others feal they should be able to control it in every way they can imagen.
Owner ship is the core of the debate.
I don't understand the whole DRM debate. If people have such issues with DRM, then why not just buy cds? Who wants to pay near the price of a cd for shitty compressed audio anyway? This sense of entitlement is just bullshit that people use to try to justify not wanting to pay for something that they can get for free. I used to do the same thing.
People still buy CDs for some things. However, this gets into what's called the "long tail", or the idea that the Internet provides unlimited (or close enough for most cases) distribution ability. You don't need to worry about whether Wal-Mart has your favorite (obscure) band's new disk, you don't have to leave your house to get the music, and without DRM, you wouldn't have to spend time configuring and ripping the music for your digital device. We have the first two down with things like iTunes, but people are so used to the third (doing what they want with something they paid money for) that they want it back.
I think the reason people aren't inclined the buy the CD is that the "buffet" nature of online downloading is too hard to resist. The logic is that if I only want 3 songs from a CD why should I pay $10 when I only have to pay $3?
Glad somebody's saying it.
Jeremy... then do what I do. Don't download DRM music. Buy CDs. Apple and the record label could both go completely belly up, and I'll still be able to play my music as long as the battery in my iPod holds out. Oh, wait...
why is it hard to admit that most people do not steal because of 1)fear of getting caught, 2)remorse for the victims. In most entertainment theft, there seems to be no victim, or at least not one we relate to, and there is little chance of getting caugth. We just dont care, and we dont even feel the need to rationalize it well if at all. people steal all the time, wether its candy froma coworkers desk or money found in the street. this is just avaliable to the public and the public does what it wants to do- take for free
They were raping us with music CD prices and software prices before, now we have them by the balls, theyll still make loads of money, just not as much as before.
I say screw them, the only time I(gladly) pay for legit software is when I buy my Nintendo games :p .
"the seller and the buyer mutually agree on the terms of sale; if either of the parties doesn't agree, there is no transfer of goods"
Here is the crux of the issue. Here on the interwebs, almost everyone is likely to know about DRM, why it is bad, and refuse to succumb to it. In the wider world, people don't. They don't know they're paying the same as a CD for a file that may or may not play the next day, or at someone else's house, or on their portable player. But they'll pay anyway, because they don't know, and the seller isn't going to tell them. The buyer is agreeing to terms of which they are unaware of.
Yeah sure people have always stolen creative works, but what I think is different is that both sides, the music/movie industries and consumers, have become more polarized. When the record companies and movie studios treat consumers like criminals, then consumers will revel in being pirates.
How do we get away from the polarization. Put the copyright laws back the way the founding fathers of this country wrote them. Treat the consumer with respect. Target the true criminals, and not the student that copies a CD from a guy down the hall. That'd be a start.
That's just it. There WERE no copyright laws written or intended by the Founding Fathers. So by the time any actual copyright legislation was written and enforced in this country, it was written under the influence of copyright holders and therefore was tailored to suit their wishes rather than those of the consumer. The whole problem has only become more unfair since then. Example A: The DMCA.
Re: DRM.
Imagine Ford, Toyota, Honda, and GM decided to start putting large pointy spikes squarly on the drivers seat (umm. for whatever reason :-). You could simply choose not to buy those brands, but then you'd be relegated mostly to Citroens (read: weird indy distributors). It seems to me that when large stakeholders in the market decide to screw up that market, consumers voicing their opposition aren't without merit. Point being, if I can't buy the music I want because it's going to install trojans on my computer, I won't buy it, but I'll also might start yelling in frustration.
I think that is the point exactly. You have a choice as to what, where and how to download or rip your content. If you choose to download from a site that has severe restrictions on its use, then it's your fault. Go somewhere else. It's just like the restaurant scenario above. If you don’t like the food or service don’t go to the restaurant. BUT you don’t have the right to try the food and then say it was bad and walk out without paying. Caveat emptor.
No sense of entitlement, just want lower quality, digital downloads to not restrict me more than if I just bought the disc/physical form of an item, which can be had for a few dollars more. The article mentions both sides agreeing or no transfer is made. The problem is no one in entertainment does offer what consumers really want, so eventually you have to give in and just pick one. Doesn't mean you don't have the right to bitch about it if you want to. Article calls it entitlement; I just call it bitching about services rendered.
I would liken the sense of entitlement to cable television. I pay for my chosen channels, and no matter what shows appear on those channels, I need not pay more for them. In other words, I have already paid my entry fee, and feel completely within my rights (because, with television, I am), to watch whatever my receiver shows me.
The corollary here is that I pay for my internet access, and feel that said payment should allow me to freely browse any content my browser has access to. While there are vastly different legal and ethical arguments at work, in some cases, it's perceptually the same: I have paid my entry fee, I'm in the club, and I want to be able to walk around.
"Yet people feel no such compunction about appropriating media content without paying anyone for it. Why is this the case?"
You tell me. Did you pay to use the Pirate Bay logo?
Well played, although news reporting is an explicit defense to infringement under US copyright law. So reporters are normally covered, depending on some other factors. On a related note, I wonder if the Pirate Bay guys would consider this a compliment or not to visually associate _all_ copyright infringement under their logo...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use#Fair_use_under_United_States_law
If I buy a song I should be able to play it on any device I like not just the ones the provider of the content likes. It's like buying a car you can only drive on certain roads. The other side is most people feel ripped off paying 30 bucks for a new album. It simply cost too much for most. My reason for always pirating is the most common I'm cheap and i don't care about ripping off an industry that makes billions anyway. I do buy music and other digital content from the small indie firms they actually do need the support.
@ wolff000:
Would you rip off a hamburger (or whatever they call them) from McDonalds? I hear they make billions.
I don't have enough money to justify owning a car right now (college student). Is it alright for me to just steal one? If so, should I steal a Ford or a Citroën?
I think the DRM issue usually gets confused into the entitlement issue. You could rip songs from a CD, but guess what, you bought the CD and are making copies for yourself. DRM stopping you from using it on certain devices is just a pain, certainly you could just buy the CD and rip it to the formats you like.
Personally I think it has a lot more to do with the fact that it is intangible. Most people have no issue buying that $300 ipod because it does something and I can "use" it, while the music or video is just there. There is also no arguing that people want to stick it to the labels for the years of overpriced cds as well.
I think a lot of people recognize that stealing music doesn't directly hurt the musicians, but the evil record companies. That's part of why they're ok with illegal downloading. Yes, the band spent months writing and recording the album, but if you went to a store and bought the CD, the band would see hardly any of that money. You support the band by catching them on tour.
I do agree, though, that people have lost sight of the fact that digital content is property like any other tangible good. Including myself. I missed the season premiere of 'The Office' yesterday, and I'll probably just torrent it. No ads, no support for the network, nothing.
Hmmm
Yeah, but musicians need album sales to recoup the cost of recording and marketing via the label. If we don't buy the albums we put them on the fast track to being dropped. Just becuase someone only sees 8 cents and album doesn't mean the rest of the money isn't helping them stay afload through their label. Of course this is all under the current systems bands are forced to live by if they want to reach the mass market. The system would need to change for your argment to have more validity.
The problem is that if I pay for content (music, movie, whatever) I should be able to play it, in my car, house, portable anywhere I want. I should be able to take my movie over to a friends house and watch it or take my music with me to a party and play it. If I get a new portable regardless of who makes the player, it should work it that to. Untill these things are adressed a merry pirate i shall be!
Not so, your choice of a new player should be based on whether it will play your existing content. If you have a library of VHS tapes and you bought a Betamax player, your library is worthless. If you had a large cache of gasoline and then you buy a new diesel truck, you're equally out of luck. If you have a bunch of Playstation games and you bring them to your friend's house who only has a Nintendo, what are you going to do?
A quick note: DRM more explicitly exposes the fact that you are not, as you correctly state, the *owner* of the music directly, but the owner of the *license* to that music. DRM is a way of enforcing that license.
Basically, because the Audio Home Recording act of 1992 allows consumers to make private and personal copies of their music, the only legal way around this is to wrap a digital file in some sort of DRM. The genius of that is that the recording industry THEN made it illegal to break digial copyright protections of any kind!
So you have a direct conflict in law. People can make copies of whatever they want, so long as they don't break the copyright control while doing so.
I agree, that its our job as consumers to NOT purchase DRM on whose terms we disagree with. I think thats the reason the iTunes music store has been so successful: It strikes a balance between purchaser and producer that most people find acceptable.
The only issue I take with this is the fact that the choices are being removed. I can buy a copy restricted DVD, or I can buy the copy restricted iTunes version, or the copy restricted Amazon version, or the copy restricted Guba version, or the copy restricted CinemaNow version. That's not really much of a choice. Of course I could simply stop buying movies all together, or stop watching movies all together, but isn't that the wrong message for the industry to send consumers? I mean, don't they and-by proxy-the artists they represent, need us?
My biggest problem with DRM is that it doesn't stop piracy, it simply "keeps honest users honest." Perhaps I'm being selfish, but I don't need to be kept honest. I buy music because I want the music, and I buy movies because I want the movies and, thanks to DVD, the features that come with them. I make a decision to exchange money for a good that I perceive has a value that is somehow equal to the amount of money I'm exchanging. Yet I'm the one that has to be kept honest. That seems strange to me, like writing tickets for everyone who drives a car capable of breaking the speed limit (which is every car on the road today) since they could theoretically break the speed limit.
DRM and anticircumvention don't stop piracy, in fact it seems to drive people towards piracy. When sheet music publishers wanted to ban the piano roll they failed, and piano roll publishers had to pay a license fee that sheet music publishers had to accept. When broadcasters wanted to ban cable they failed, and cable companies had to pay a license that broadcasters had to accept. Why can't the same thing happen with content on the Internet?
I think that it boils down to the fact that digital content, most times doesn't come in a solid, real form. A commentor above mentioned CD's, which you can buy and hold and trade, and borrow. When you download a file it is just a file, it is virtual, not in the real world at this point, so what is it worth? I don't have to buy blank media to make a copy, it costs me nothing to email to a friend or post it to a site or otherwise send it around the internet.
This has been happening for years with software, games and the like, why do you think Nintendo makes cartridges instead of just downloading a file, media has now entered the realm, what the heck did they expect. DRM doesn't equal value to the customer, it takes away some the value. When the consumer sees the value of the product then the trading will subside.
Well written article! It is chock full of kindling to spark comment and conversation, so I shall.
Artists are often tied to companies. Many times the two have very different agendas. And only when an artist reaches cult status can they "try" and change the rules.
I look at Prince and The Grateful Dead as prime examples. But of course they had "status".
Can artists survive on concerts, t-shirt sales, and other material goods? Does someone who loves their work "sell-out" so they can achieve cult status, or never sell-out and stay true? You ask many questions about the reader's use of DRM but maybe the root cause is earlier in the process.
there ought to be a way for people to pay bands they like directly. This isn't a well thought-out argument or anything, but i would certainly have no problem paying a band i like for their CD as i do at gigs or off the street.
The issue of labels screwing the artists is a well-trodden one. One solution could be for the labels to be more transparent about what kind of monies actually make it to the artists. This could relieve some resentment - ultimately however, ideally, i'd like to buy my music directly from the artist.
My wife and I are musicians and the sad reality is that most of the money you pay for a CD or song download through a record label never makes it to the artists. (If you'd like to read the full story of how the music industry works, pick up a copy of Donald Passman's All You Need To Know About the Music Business.)
However, there are several ways to support artists directly. Online independent distributors, such as CDbaby.com, have been an incredible tool for artists to get their music distributed and still keep the majority of their sales. Consumers can also, as mentioned previously, go see the artist on tour and buy their album/merchandise at the show.
I've also noticed a lot of talk about DRM'd music being inferior to physical media. To that end, I wonder if piracy would decrease if iTunes/Rhapsody/etc offered CD-quality .wav files with DRM enclosures. The same holds true for movies. If you could download a full movie with special features, etc. from iTunes and then burn it to a DVD, would people still complain? And, would people continue to bittorrent movies? Sadly, I think both would continue, but to a lesser extent.
As an artist and an individual, I think the reason that iTunes (and others) has succeeded is because they have found the right balance between consumer and content creator rights. As a consumer, I feel that ninety-nine cents for a song is a fair price, and the ability to burn a CD and then rip it into any format alleviates my fears of platform obsolescence. As an artist, I know that I will sell more songs based on the convenience of fans being able to download music from the comfort of their own home and then load it immediately onto their portable music player.
Pending DRM issues, such as the infamous broadcast flag and HDCP, are a little more disconcerting. However, I honestly feel that the market will strike a balance. Personally, after reading about Amazon's Unbox license agreement at http://www.boingboing.net/2006/09/15/amazon_unbox_to_cust.html, I will not be buying from them. But, other people may be perfectly fine with the terms. Ultimately, if someone is providing an inferior product or service (i.e. locked-down, rootkitted media), then that just means that there is an opening in the market for someone else to provide a better alternative.
============================
Allen Guthier
Manager, Marce's Music
Marce - "Gainesville's Joni Mitchell"
http://www.marceonline.com
http://www.myspace.com/marceonline
I've made justifications in the past (I've stopped downloading videos now, though - never really downloaded music). For a while I downloaded TV shows that I was already to get off of cable, but just so I could catch up on shows I wanted to start watching live. I know it's against "the rules" as you say, but I felt it was dumb to keep me from watching their show just because I hadn't seen the earlier episodes, and I wasn't going to jump into it.
The event that made me the most indignant towards the movie studios is for the last TV show episode that I downloaded (before being sent a warning from my ISP and the production studio). It was for some TV show which I was watching live, and my incompetent local TV network cut off the end of the show. I took the risk of downloading it, after sitting through the commercials, and look where it got me. I don't enjoy that show much anymore, and I stay away from that network/studio.
I think I have a negative reaction to copyright holders because they have unreasonable expectations. I don't care that they want money. I go out and buy all my music and movies and TV shows on physical media. I do that because I think the price is reasonable. But if we move into this world of digital media as everyone expects, and I'm still being charged the same amount for something of less value (a DRM'd barebones digital movie vs a full DVD with special features and packaging), then I'm going to think seriously about "breaking the rules."
Jeremy,
I think you are missing the point of the article. When you buy a good, you agree to the terms that come with that good. I.E. you buy a computer with a 3 year warranty, you agree to the terms of that warranty and whether or not it covers you dropping your laptop on the floor. OR you buy a shirt on clearance, you accept when you buy it that you may not be able to return it. Also, most service company contracts come with clauses that they can change the price of your service at any time, as long as they give you notice. When you sign up for cable tv, a phone line, or a cell phone you agree to the terms provided. Similarly, when you buy a song from iTunes or from Rhapsody, or any other online music store -- you are also agreeing to the fact that the songs only work with certain players, can only work on a certain number of computers and the rest of the limits. It is inherent in your purchase -- you have agreed to the terms of trade. So if in those terms, it states that you can download unlimited songs but the songs only work for as long as you have membership -- you don't have the "right" to rip off the DRM because you feel that a time limited or service dependent contract is fair for your music. If you buy software that works on windows xp but suddenly decides to stop working on your new computer with vista -- that is something you accepted when you bought the software. Many games no longer work with newer operating systems -- does that give you the right to steal new games, since you never know when they will stop being supported or stop working with a new operating system?
Whether or not it is "fair" that DRM exists or limits your ability to enjoy your music is not the scope of this article (in my opinion). Instead, all that is being said is that you have a right to either buy or not buy what is being offered -- not a right to steal it.
I concur exactly with your comments NG. The problem many people have is that they have lost the point of the terms and conditions that come with a purchase. If the product terms says you will not copy this or make a backup then that is what you must not do. If you disagree with this then go buy the product elsewhere. If you are using iTunes then you understand IN ADVANCE, that the products on this store is for the computer, to burn to a CD or for the iPod only. It's not for stripping the protection and dumping to another firm's MP3 player. The terms and conditions are paramount to the purchase. The DRM is there to protect those terms and help ensure you abide by them.
The arguments about 'fair use' is meaningless anyway. If the terms say you cannot do this or that then you cannot do it. Additionally fair-use arguments often get muddled in the consumers mind. Frequently such laws apply only to American consumers. Here in the EU we have never had such laws. There was a plan to allow up to 3 copies of a product to be made from a CD - the logic being, a copy for the car, one for the computer and another for an MP3 player, however this became irrelevent when the terms and conditions of a downloaded purchase would superseed this and the European Parliament did not approve it.
The point is you do NOT have the rights to do what you want with a product you have purchased unless the seller gives you those rights. You may disagree with them but that's your choice, you still have no rights to steal or break the terms of that agreement you entered into with the retailer just because you've changed your MP3 player etc.
Because Fair Use is our well established historical LEGAL right. IMHO the DCMA was in acted to erode a well established legal rights due to lobby from greedy executives. Big industries (Oil, Recording, Software, whatever) shouldn't have trump card over well established laws simply because they have the money to lobby our government more effectively with their dirty money. They are in business because of the consumer TO serve the customer, not to trample their rights or the environment.
EFF:
4. What's been recognized as fair use?
Courts have previously found that a use was fair where the use of the copyrighted work was socially beneficial. In particular, U.S. courts have recognized the following fair uses: criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, research and parodies.
In addition, in 1984 the Supreme Court held that time-shifting (for example, private, non-commercial home taping of television programs with a VCR to permit later viewing) is fair use. (Sony Corporation of America v. Universal City Studios, 464 U.S. 417 (1984, S.C.)
Although the legal basis is not completely settled, many lawyers believe that the following (and many other uses) are also fair uses:
* Space-shifting or format-shifting - that is, taking content you own in one format and putting it into another format, for personal, non-commercial use. For instance, "ripping" an audio CD (that is, making an MP3-format version of an audio CD that you already own) is considered fair use by many lawyers, based on the 1984 Betamax decision and the 1999 Rio MP3 player decision (RIAA v. Diamond Multimedia, 180 F. 3d 1072, 1079, 9th Circ. 1999.)
* Making a personal back-up copy of content you own - for instance, burning a copy of an audio CD you own.
The comparison to walking out of a restaurant to bittorenting music (and other media) is completely wrong. It's more like someone setting out free sodas on a sidewalk and putting a sign "don't take." Of course there are people that wouldn't take them but most of us wouldn't even think twice and for people to get upset when people choose the free product is ridiculous.
The reason people have a different set of rules for entertainment content is because people are offered a choice between free un-DRMed media and expensive DRMed media and unlike the restaurant comparison you won't get arrested for downloading illegal media (if you have any idea what you're doing) and the society we live in now doesn’t look down on it.
I've had this debate many times...
Many people seem to associate the cost of a DVD with the physical disk and box. They just don't grasp the concept that you are paying for a portion of the movie/software's original production costs. It's the same with cars - some people believe that you are paying for the parts and labor to build the car, but do not understand that they are also paying for a portion of the engineering costs.
I feel that when you go to an online music store they say they are "Selling the music" Nowhere do they say there are just renting the music to you, or loaning it. They say you will own the music. Yet, you pay them good money for music, then suddenly you cant burn it onto a cd, you can only listen to it on one computer, and you can only listen to it on certain MP3 players which will more likely than not be obsolete in less than a year.
Not only these problems, but it has been proven that DRM reduces the battery life of your mp3 player by up to 25%.
I fully support buying music, I would buy it offline in a heartbeat, I am not argueing that that people should steal music. However, I dont see programs that remove DRM from music you already own to be a problem.
Just because DRM is currently the only solution, I dont think we should just say, Oh well, it is a horrible solution, but it works... Because it doesnt work, it forces more people to go to download websites to get music that they can then use anywhere they want.
You are not renting from the music companies, you buy the music, you should be able to use it where you want to use it. However owning the music does not give you the right to give it to other people for free.
Why should I pay $20 for a movie on DVD, another $12 for the same movie on iPod video and yet another $15 for that same movie on UMD?!??! What I don't understand and am frustrated with is the fact that it's technically not legal for me to rip the DVDs that I own down to PSP/iPod videos and load them onto each device. I figure that if I pay $20 to buy a movie on DVD, I should be able to freely disseminate that onto other devices that I own. And, it shouldn't be so difficult to do so!
One thing that's been forgotten about is "fair use" -- the law _explicitly_ states that content owner's don't get to micro-manage a user's use of their content, as long as that use falls within "fair use" guidelines.
Content owners are trying to eliminate any possibility of taking advantage of the fair use provision in the law -- so let's not be so quick to blame the consumer.
Time/place shifting are fair use. Photocopying for your own personal use is fair use. Is converting a DVD to DivX really any different than photocopying? No -- it's fair use, but the content owners are trying to prevent that. Why is the customer the problem here?
People are angry because 5 years ago you paid for content and you owned it. Now you pay the same price to rent content. 5 years ago there were fair use rights, but slowly and surely the RIAA and MPAA have (and continue) to legislate those rights out of existence.
Mostly though, technically savvy people are pissed off because the war that content providers are waging on technology is ridiculous. Restrictive DRM doesn't do anything to punish those that steal content. It only harms those that actually purchase today's digital content. Plus, any product that is slightly innovative inevitably gets sued out of existence. I have a Slingbox and I love it, but it is only a matter of time until content providers, cable/dsl providers, and mobile providers gang up on SlingMedia and run them out of business.
Products like the Slingbox expose the reality that today's marketplace only serves to suck consumers dry and rip off content creators.
It's call Europe. That's where people get the feeling of entitlement. It's two totally different framings of rights. The fact is that US law favor's the "rights holders." Hmmmm, doesn't sound so bad when you hear it that way. What if you made music and sold it online, on CD, etc. And each of those formats comes with the rights for it's intended use. You don't buy the rights to copy the music from your CD to the computer when you purchase a CD.
In Europe it's all about "consumer rights." Who cares what the maker of the product thinks. That's their attitude.
In reality, content rights holders should just release the content in one place with all the rights (like on DVD, or online w/o DRM). Now it's going to be a lot more expensive.... is it worth it? I don't think so. No one wants to pay 3 times as much so they can actually own the rights to do whatever they want with the music.
"Jeremy... then do what I do. Don't download DRM music. Buy CDs."
Man, where the hell have you guys been for the last couple years? Rootkit, anyone? Buying CD's is often *worse* than buying DRM'd downloads, and worse still, many of the DRM schemes used on CD's are shrouded in secrecy. We didn't know about the rootkit fiasco until millions of these CD's had already been purchased and hundreds of thousands of PC's infected. We don't know about a lot of the other DRM schemes still in use; their makers purposely do not release details on them, lest they be broken.
Buying CD's is no longer a solution to this problem.
As for this "entitlement" nonsense, no such sentiment exists. This is an argument put forth by the RIAA, since it supports their cause. But it's just like when the Republicans say the Democrats want to "cut and run" in Iraq. No Democrat has ever suggested that; it's a Republican argument. Same thing here. Make the argument that your opponents want to do something that's obviously stupid and wrong, even when they have made no such argument. It puts them on the defensive, as they now have to explain their position. And often, the accusation sticks even in the face of a compelling counter-argument.
I may as well say "why does the RIAA want to steal your babies and sacrifice them to Satan? How can they defend this position?" Now, I'm just a little guy, so nobody's going to listen to me. But what if, say, a large corporation said it? Or a lobbying group the size of the RIAA? Or a respected politician? You'd have blogs, newspapers and TV shows all over the place inviting the RIAA to defend themselves and their position. You'd have Hardball doing talking points on it. You'd have Bill O'Reilly putting it in his no-spin zone.
Well, I'm not going to explain my position. I don't feel I have to. DRM is evil and that's it. The reasons why are self-evident, and no accusation that I feel I'm "entitled" to steal content is going to cloud the issue for me. What I am entitled to do is use what I pay for in the way I see fit, which is the same as any other product.
Nobody should ever get paid or have to spend money on anything. Everything in the world should be free and money should not even exist.
The core of the issue lies in whether or not there is value in digital content (ie intangible content). If we are honest, we realize that someone did have to work to create it in the first place, and therefore it does have value. People feel entitlement with regards to digital rights because there is no sense of guilt. The commentary in this article about that is spot on. Furthermore, the line on what value to ascribe to something is quite blurry. What is the value of an episode of "scrubs" that appears for free on non-cable television? Is a free show really all that different from downloading a DVD quality copy of "the usual suspects" which we know will sell for approx $15 at best buy. It probably isn't and Viacom (or whoever produces scrubs) should set the price for downloading it after it has aired. And, as in all other transactions in a capitalistic society, we must accept that the creator of the content gets to write the rules/conditions on the sale of the content. In a fair world, the one most people want to live in, we shouldn't feel entitled to take whatever we want from whoever we want to take it from. That is called anarchy and I don't think it works.
I think that the purpose of a portable media player is just what it says it is, it plays media, and it can move with the user. When CD's were around, you bought them, and man did I love buying CD's. I brought it home and put it in my Stereo, and if I wasn't finished with it when I left the room, I took it from the stereo and placed it in my portable media player, I mean discman. the discman didn't say, "f- you, pirate, you can't play that here, you didn't buy it for discman, you bought it for stereo".
If a friend wanted to borrow my CD, I had no qualms with that. It was his decision whether or not to copy it. And even then, there was that little thread of guilt because, "damn, I am copying this CD, that's kinda wrong." The honor system played into it a whole lot more.
In comes DRM, the rootkits, the self-destructing files, the licenses. When the hardware gave way to software, the principle should never have changed. You should be able to put this in whatever media player you choose, and if you don't own the media player, well, thats the moral decision on your behalf, the honor system still applies. The rules should not have changed. They haven't for the consumer, just for the producer. It is their fault, and they have brought this massively overplayed delima upon themselves.
It is funny that no one really addressed the actual question... namely, why don't people respect 'content.' Most of the responses rely on the the old 'straw man' -- DRM. No one acknowledges the fact that consumer choice is the real mechanism of change, not evasion. If you don't like DRM, if you are concerned that 'big-bad-media' is neffariously intent on disabling your ability to play DRM'd content 'sometime in the future' then you make a choice not to buy DRM'd content. The 'solution' of not paying for something you obviously *want* -- why do you possess it if you don't -- is no solution. You are breaking a societal covenant.
That covenant is what the question is really asking about... no one has made anything resembling a coherent argument for figuratively "dining and dashing."
Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?
I stand firmly in the middle of the road. If it's available to buy on iTunes, I'll buy it. I can always burn it to CD & convert it to non-DRMed mp3(although inconvenient). My big problem is the LACK of legal content. Not everyone listens to top-40 crap and their are a lot of tunes you can't find in one store. Oh sure, maybe it's on another service, but then it's wrapped in a DRM format incompatible with my Ipod. I think most people would like to be legal, but until I can get that special remix track without driving to a specialty store 2 hours away or ordering it from Germany or Japan, I'll keep my P2P up and running.
A couple more comments on entertainment content rights.
First, I have always thought that taking music/software/video without paying the producer is a bad thing unless it is something that is freely available (a TV show or a recording from a radio station). However, I can understand when someone takes this kind of content because of how much money is made in this industry (or these industries if you want to split it up). After all, when you hear that was paid tens of millions of dollars to star in some movie, are they really going to miss your five bucks (or eight or ten or fifteen)? If misses one album sale out of ten million, does it really matter? It does not feel like you are doing the same damage as, say, stealing a car from a dealer's lot. Of course, if everyone does it, then there is a bigger issue.
Second, can you sleep at night when the trade association whose members you are stealing from is suing 12 year olds and trying to put them in jail? Yeah...I wouldn't loose alot of sleep over it.
Have you READ the DRM licenses? THEY can CHANGE THE TERMS of your ALREADY COMPLETED PURCHASE any time they want. So much for "Instead of the all-too-familiar set of rules for selling goods (i.e. the seller and the buyer mutually agree on the terms of sale; if either of the parties doesn't agree, there is no transfer of goods) consumers felt perfectly justified in writing their own personal rules."
You think consumers write their own rules? DRM not only eliminates several estabilished legal rights consumers have with traditional media -- it also gives the seller the power to alter the terms of the sale AFTER THE FACT. Consumers don't even KNOW what they're agreeing to with DRM because it can change ANY TIME. (Apple, the favorite DRM distributor, for example, has changed the rules of their DRM several times -- and all the files purchased under the old rules now follow the NEW rules WITHOUT any new approval by the consumers.)
Only an idiot, or someone who didn't understand completely would agree to most DRM sales. (Interestingly, the subscription model is the model that makes the MOST sense. You pay until they change the rules in a manner you don't like -- and then you stop paying and forfeit access. Simple and easy to understand.)
I tend to agree with your article but I have a question for the RIAA.
I remember back in the day of vinyl. The local radio stations would always have a time period where they would play an album in its entirety. They would tell you where the break woud be so you could change or flip your tape. It was clearly designed for people at home to record the album. It was apparently widespread because it happened in the two places I lived, New York and Virginia.
Why did the RIAA not make a fuss about that? Why didn't they take radio stations to court?
Where do I get my sense of entitlement from? From vinyl, tape and CD, that's where! It's the entertainment industry who now has changed the 'contract'...but where was I in the renegotiation process?
And it's not just that, it's the sneakiness of it all. Hell, even in your blurb you say DRM is a neccessary evil. BULLSHIT. It is not neccesary....numerous studies prove that those who download most are also the ones who buy most; what people want is cheap digital music without restrictions. The service to first offer that will beat iTunes to hell and back. It's not worth destroying my equipment with DRM to protect the puny music industry...and the only way that could have happened is through bribery and corruption; the engineering industry, electronics, design, simulation etc etc etc...these industries are much larger than music and are actively hampered by TC/DRM scemes.
Tangible goods are one thing, but information that is copied thousands of times for pennies is the difference. Production costs do matter. I dont want to pay for information which is only a small fraction of the creator's compensation. If I listen to it, I might just go to a concert, buy a tee shirt or some other tangible good from the artist, which will compensate him for creating good content, not just any worlthless content. Its a joke that production studios can even get away with DRM. Imagine buying a Sony VHS and being told it will only play in a Sony VCR's. If this was the case, digital formats would not be as usefull as they are now.
in the days of napster and then kazaa, i just downloaded things because it was easy. later when the DRM issue came up and legality of it all, i chose to continue downloading certain content as a form of protest. for example, 15 dollars for an album is too much. i bought the offspring cd in the store recently, becuase it was discounted to 5 dollars. thats fair in my eyes. i bought the dvd to a pink floyd concert becuase it was discounted to $15 dollars (btw, newbury comics has great deals on certain stuff). however, i will not pay 35 dollars for a concert dvd, i will not pay 20 dollars for a movie.
downloading things illegally is a form of protest or boycott. i will continue to do so untill the prices change.
I'm going to buck the question - What gives a sense of entitlement - and say that media piracy is, at least for many, not so much a sense of entitlement than a sense of empowerment. In so many commercial transactions, the consumer is placed in a position of deep inequality with the seller (think back to the last time you tried arguing with your cell phone company). During the nineties, what with ever increasing pricetags on CDs (wasn't there a class action lawsuit to stop that?) the consumer was placed in a very bad position by record companies, which engaged in price fixing behaviors based on a realization that they had an imperfect monopoly on a good that, to some extent or another, people "needed." When Napster hit, there was a great sense of justice to it all, like the people had just risen up against an oppressor. I think to a certain extent, that's what's still going on today. The record industry is a big faceless moneymaking machine (unless you consider Justin Timberlake it's face), and people feel like this is their chance to get something back. Yes, this requires them to feel that they deserve reparations, "entitlement" as you speak, but it's also about the opportunity, the new sense of power. That's how the last 7 years have felt from this chair, at least.
You could just pay for the work upfront and then have everything available for free. Copyright is a relic of the feudal guild system -- we need to design a system to support creative work that is more in touch with the 21st century.
See for example out "Artistic Freedom Voucher" proposal, [http://www.cepr.net/publications/ip_2003_11.pdf]
My objection to DRM is twofold:
First, the entertainment companies are committing fraud by placing restrictions that they are not always up front about.
Second, I do not like the fact that entertainment companies have bribed congress into passing ridiculous laws extending copyright. The original purpose of copyright was to encourage people to create new works - not to allow giant cartells to endlessly make money off the same old material. Disney, for example, built its empire by retelling stories from the public domain - mostly from Hans Christian Anderson. Under the new copyright laws that Disney helped put in place, Disney would never have been able to get started in the first place.
Third, these laws are unenforceable. As a society we are harmed by the existance of unenforceable laws. Such laws ruin the public's respect for law in general and require the police state tactics to enforce which hurt our liberty.
While I do not break the law, I no longer buy commercial music or movies because I don't wish to support the entertainment industry. They are scum. Instead, I choose to enjoy the many works thare are available under terms that I find more acceptable (public domain, creative commons, etc.)
The problem is that the content providers seem unwilling to provide consumers with what they want. The restraunt analogy isn't exactly appropriate in this case.
Let's assume that there are no grocery stores or fast food options, the owner of the overpriced gourmet restraunts have made sure of that. Then assume that you are not allowed to share a meal with any of your family or friends. Or maybe you can, but then you have to buy far more food than you really want or need including food that you don't like.
This is more comparable to the situation with digital content today. I would think that in this kind of situation, the moral qualms about not paying the restraunt owners would begin to decrease, significantly. You'd be lucky if people weren't rioting in the streets.
Content owners today are ignoring one of the most fundamental rules of business, "the customer is always right." If you can't give the customer what they want for a fair price, they're going to go somewhere else for it. However, when is no one competing with the current business model where are they going to go?
I'm not condoning piracy, but people are tired of the rules that the industry is forcing on them. They're tired of re-buying albums in new formats. They're tired of DRM'd files that won't play where they want them to. They're tired of having the rules dictated to them on how they can do things.
It all started with intangibles- with companies trying to get more money for their goods and at the same trying to prevent the easy reproduction and distribution of those intangible goods.
I mean, when printing presses were big bucks and you sold books, it was understood that people could read the book as many times as they wanted. They could read it aloud to their kids or their friends. They could let a friend borrow it, and their friend could let another friend borrow it, and so on. They could sell the book to a used bookstore or whatever.
Once we got this notion of intangible goods, such as software (before all this digital music stuff), things changed. Software companies insisted they weren't selling you goods, they were selling you a highly restricted license for limited use of the goods that you just paid them for. Really, buyers were just morons for paying for the stuff. And everyone knew that there wasn't much the software companies could do to enforce their outlandish licensing agreements. "Per seat?" Gimme a break.
This whole notion of "copyright" on songs and stuff is relatively new. Used to be that someone would sing a song in public, and if you could memorize the words and the tune, you could sing it too. You could even sing it in public and put your hat down for money.
Of course, since large corporations now "own" the "rights" to "songs," they see the things we used to understand as "fair use" as a threat to their rickety business model. So they lobby and pass legislation to re-define "copyright" into something it never meant before, and was never meant to mean when it was originally codified into law.
Of course people make all sorts of justifications about "doing wrong" when it comes to these intangibles. When it comes down to it, they're RobinHood-style thumbing their noses at the evil kings who have taken lands by the sword and declared the timeless and common act of feeding your family some delicious meat "illegal poaching." Passing around mix tapes and recording tv shows onto videocassette and giving them to your friends to watch... it isn't illegal, it isn't wrong. Sure, they can make all sorts of laws that say "it is wrong." Or they can say that when you pay them for the content that you give up your fair use rights to it. Hogwash.
The argument about the restaurant also bring up a good counter point. If I eat at an expensive restaurant and I am not happy with the quality of the food I can complain to management face to face and demand something be done (usually the meal would be on the house). Now big corporations don't really care about consumers, only profits. So if I want to buy a CD to avoid DRM I have to live with all of the tracks and I cannot return the CD to the store if I am not happy with it. How many CDs have you bought in the past because you liked one or two songs only to find out that the rest of the CD is just filler that sucks?
The distinction that content you buy cannot be returned and you are stuck with whatever 4 point legalese BS they type makes content totally different from physical goods that can be returned to a store if you are unsatisfied.
Entertainment has the power to touch us emotionally in ways that something bought off a shelf cannot, and this is the key to the entitlement that people feel. It comes from the fact that our shared experiences via entertainment are core elements of modern culture, spawning shared language and shared perspectives on the world.
For example: I saw Star Wars when I was a kid, and it's undeniably become a cultural icon for multiple generations. It's quite easy to question why anyone should be allowed to charge money for what has now, in my mind, become more than a mere movie and instead become a cultural and generational experience that I share with so many others. Although I don't steal entertainment, I admit that this approaches a grey area in my mind, and I would have little compunction about stealing this movie. When movies and music cross over to the masses, there is some part of them that then belongs to the masses.
Note that teenagers are perhaps the ones most likely to steal entertainment, and are simultaneously the ones most culturally affected by and immersed in it.
Dude, this argument has been going on since the days when my Parents would tape the radio.
Anyone remember the Jhymn project? Its mission was to take music that was legitimately purchased at the Itunes music store (which i do) and remove the tagging that makes it drm. It would convert to MP3 if you wanted, and for a the first couple versions of Itunes (4-5 or so) it worked awesome. In version 5 it actually had you log in to apple's servers with your ID for your songs (part of the duping process).
Apple couldn't shut them down legally, so they just kept working around the software until they finally just gave up.
Recording companies have also started taking down guitar tab sites. Guitar tabs are made by musicians who listen to a song with a guitar in their hands so they can figure out what the artist is playing, and then writing it down and putting it on the internet so other people can play it.
Part of the point of music, and what makes it so magical, is the ability for me to play and sing the same song as a guy in Indiana as a guy in Montreal as a guy in London and so on. A good song can sometimes unite people who live across the world from one another. During my time in northern Albania (its in the balkans) we would sing contemporary christian songs in two different languages. We couldnt speak each others languages, but the music was a way to bridge that gap.
Anymore, churches here are starting to have to pay for the right to sing artists songs.
Is it going to be illegal in 10 years for me to get out a guitar and sing a song someone else wrote?
in that kind of world, whats the point of music?
The guy on page 1 who said that the only reason people don't steal from restaraunts or grocery stores is because you'll get caught hit the answer, I think, the most dead-on of everyone.
Just about the only thing I use my computer for is bit-torrenting network television which was broadcast in HD. I still use my TiVo for the SD stuff, and if I ever buy an HD TiVo (I'm waiting for it to be out long enough to drop in price), then I'll stop bit-torrenting.
Almost.
I also just last night downloaded a full XBox game. A full, brand new, very expensive game. I have absolutely no excuse or rationalization for this at all. None. If I could walk into my local EB Games, pick up the game, and walk out of the store, I would've. But, someone would've stopped me. I understand fully that doing what I did is equally as illegal, but no one stopped me. And I didn't care. Plain and simple.
So, why'd I do it? I don't know. I really truly don't.
Here's the thing though. I still buy DVD's. Why is that? I also have no idea. I can download 'em just as easily as that XBox game. Is it because they're cheaper? It really doesn't matter, because I buy more of them. And, when it comes right down it, I'll use them less hours than I will a game. So, in terms of cost-per-hour, they're actually a lot more expensive, and yet, I pay for them.
I have over a hundred movies and I've paid for every one of them. I have barely a dozen XBox games, and I haven't paid for one. That's right. Not one.
Why is this? I have no idea. None. I just don't care. That's all there is to it. I steal because there's no closed circuit television, magnetic sensor, or security guard in my bedroom - but at the mall, there is. And, get this! I don't lose any sleep over it either.
Once, I met a guy who worked at EA. He was actually a programmer. He spent time and effort on something which I had copied. Illegally. And he was a really nice guy too. We're not friends, but I could easily get in touch with him if I had to. There, right there, I was to face to face with the guy I was stealing from. But, ya know what? He got paid anyway. So I still couldn't bring myself to care.
In short, I don't know why. I just don't know.
Oh, yeah, I forgot one more thing. These "terms" that we as customers of digital media are "agreeing to"... hahahahahahahah - do you think anyone besides the 3 readers of engadget whose anal retentiveness is off the charts actually read those license agreements?... Those terms are subject to change at the seller's whim.
And despite the fact that courts are moving into this "digital age", and that license agreement has been enforced as legally binding... should it? Should you be able to buy microsoft word, click "accept" to a popup, and give away your right to free speech for any document you create with word? That is the equivalent usurpation of rights that happens when you install iTunes and click "accept" before you even purchase any music. We just don't have as great a sense of the value of fair use compared to our other natural rights.
And if anyone is wondering about my philosophical viewpoint- I have an iPod, use iTunes, and have purchased "DRM'd" music from the music store. I'm not torrenting stuff or whatever, but I recognize the actual infringement of rights the the digital media corporations are propagating as inherently wrong.
People feel entitled to download music because that's what digital music is for. You might as well ask why people felt entitled to sit at home and listen to the free radio instead of paying admission to Vaudeville hall down the block. When radio started, they didn't pay artists (because there was no easy way to license music). The music industry responded (eventually) by offering blanket licensing to radio stations. People weren't over-entitled thieves for listening to the radio: they were people who'd intuitively come to grips with the purpose of radio.
Likewise, the majority of Internet users use P2P -- more than 70 million in the USA alone. They intuitively understand that the Internet is a machine for efficiently copying bits with as little control as possible. They feel entitled to download from the Internet the same way they feel entitled to use a TiVo to skip a commercial or a CD burner to make a mix-tape. They understand what the contours of the law should be, even if the government doesn't.
Telling music-fans that their preferred way of acquiring and using music is crooked won't turn them into customers. Offering P2P download licenses to ISPs (the way that BMI offers licenses to radio stations, or ASCAP offers licenses to venues) will make money for artists, and you don't have to tell your best customers that they're wrong and they're crooked.
What successful business was ever based on telling people to stop doing something they loved and that enriched their lives?
[[This comment is licensed under a Creative Commons BY license. It is NOT copyright 2006 by Weblogs, Inc.]]
Making a copy of something you don't own isn't "stealing", it's called "unauthorized use". For it to be full-on theft, the original party must be without the item in question. So, taking a CD without permission, that's theft. Copying a CD, that's unauthorized use. Those are two very different crimes in the eyes of the law.
Copyright laws allow us all to make two backups of whatever medium we own. My "sense of entitlement" comes from this law. How I store, organize, or place my music for my benefit is my business. This concept is nothing new. DRM Is attempting to take that legal right away. It's giving record companies arbitrary control over something they historically have not, nor should have.
I'm particularly sensitive to this, having been bitten by two examples. I use a product called Waves (an effects plugin for Cubase and other music creation software). I bought version 4.0. Their system requires remote activation, which is OK and did so a few years back, but I tried this about a year ago with it and found I couldn't register because I haven't purchased their hardware key. So... my existing software that I paid $1500 for that worked perfectly several years ago is now WORTHLESS unless I buy their $249 dongle. No thanks - I've gone on to other software that isn't so draconian, but it's a $1500 lesson.
The other is Norton Ghost. I booted my machine up the other day and it says my "License has expired" and the product no longer runs. I bought a copy of NG a year ago, and this product is also useless, and unless I pay my $29 annual fee, no more Norton Ghost. So in this case, No More Norton Ghost.
This type of attitude from companies selling their software is something that will prevent me from ever buying a DRM'd copy of anything.
Copyright laws can be confusing and difficult to interpret but the most basic understanding goes back to the copyright and agreement of use that comes with the product. If Norton Ghost says you are purchasing only a one year licence then you have no comeback or rights to complain once you open the package and install it.
The laws of the US and EU may differ here but in the EU if you copy a CD for 'backup' then you have broken the law. There is no concept of 'fair use' in the European Union and never has been. Harmonisation of the copyright laws is underway and perhaps something may result from this however there has never been permission to 'backup' music. Strictly speaking 'ripping' a CD to copy to the iPod is illegal in the EU as one has not obtained the permission of the copyright holder to do so. This may be different in the US but this law has not been changed in the EU it has simply been ignored by technology changes, the same way recording a programme from the TV was initially ignored when video recorders became common. In the UK there was a belated law passed to overcome the anomoly which gave permission to keep for 7 days and only if for personal use.
Fair-Use is often a misunderstood and badly used argument in the US examples as this can be superceeded by a licence agreement which states, 'you may not copy or reproduce the contents of this CD/DVD/Book' etc. Again going back to the terms and conditions argument earlier in the thread. If you buy a product or download you agree to the terms and conditions that come with it and if they indicate that they may be altered in the future then you are bound by that too. Now you could argue "I bought it understanding these were the rules and you've changed them to my inconvienence" and that's where you would have a valid point but as long as the product is usable in the original sense with the arrangement it was bought for e.g. iTunes to iPod available at the time then Apple can bring out a whole new iPod which plays a completely different format and you wouldn't have any leg to stand on because the new iPod wasn't around at the time and you did not buy the music on the understanding that you could play it on said future new iPod.
The point is the terms and conditions of use explain what you can and cannot do. If you choose to ignore these then you are in breach of these and possibly copyright too.
Here's the real problem. I simply don't care if they don't get paid for downloaded music. Let me ask you all this: Can anyone here record themselves working one day. And the next day, not show up for work, and give your boss the recording of you working the day prior. No, so why do any of you think that artists should be entitled to this form of work. Prior to the advent of the record, artists got paid for performing. They still get paid for performing, and now they also get paid for endorsements, can you say "Air Force Ones", as well as their CDs, records, tapes, videos, DRM'd downloads. Look up online at Metalicas concert totals for the last decade, they are like 60 million a year, this number doesn’t include ANY other form of income just concert ticket sales. I will not loose any sleep because Metalica isn't going to make any money from people downloading their music. Who cares, I will be lucky to make anything near that in my lifetime, and neither will most of you. Who let it be ok for this group of people to make money this way, and why do you defend them so much. Let them get paid the same as everyone else, by working or performing live. As for the people thinking "It costs allot of money to make their record, that’s true, because the recording labels take so much of it to pay their execs. It has been possible for years to make your own music, post it on your web site, send it to a radio station, play it at a club, and then get paid for performing at a show.
Screw the record labels, artists that can't perform live, DRM'd music, the RIAA, MPAA (Stop treating these last two as government agencies, THEY ARE NOT, they are just a lawyers office, sue your ISP if they give out your information to these people, if McDonalds calls your ISP and asks for your information, do you think they should give it to them too?)
Boo Hoo
I don't like to see grown men earning millions playing children's games.
I don't like the idea of people getting rich "making pretend" in front of a camera.
I don't feel that the prices they charge justify the content. Music is not worth the money people are paying for it. Go pay for lessons and make your own.
Why was this guy given a platform? How can you even begin such an inane discussion without mentioning the first sale doctrine?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine
And as much as the shills would like to characterize this issue as ripping off those poor beleaguered content producers, there are existing norms for purchasing media, and the vast majority of people abide by those norms, because it is the honest thing to do. The sense of "entitlement" are rights established through decades of copyright law.
But now content producers are attempting to change those norms, and are using DRM, given teeth by DMCA, to change all media into software which is used to impose EULAs that dictate how we can consume the bits we don't actually own.
If content producers actually catered to the demands of its customers, digital content *would* emulate the rights afforded by physical media, and every song and movie you purchase would play on every compatible device you own, and you would have that right in perpetuity. It is what we expect because it is the way it has always been in our lifetimes.
But they don't, because you're all dirty thieving pirates, and you'll take what they give you and you'll like it. Or something like that. People would respect content producers if they were respected in return.
The second and consequent copies cost exactly zero cents to produce, so there is no real reason why should anyone pay for them in a trully free economy. Copyright is an exemption to the free economy created to restrict commercial copying and now extended to private copying. Commercial copying creates profit that goes into hands of counterfeight producers. Private copying creates no profit - it should not be restricted by anyone and anything. The copyright law has been overstreched by interests of Hollywood and record labels against the interest of broader public. The artists survived quite nicely before the time music could be recoded and replayed. The movies survived quite easily before one movie could open up on millions of cinemas aroung the globe on the same day.
There is no reason for copyright law to exist anymore - it is obsolete, just like patents.
INFORMATION IS NOT PROPERTY!
"At the end of the day if that's how content owners choose to sell it, isn't that their right? Isn't ours simply a choice of to buy or not to buy?"
The answer to your question is in your own words. We feel entitlement because the words "buy" and "sell" imply a certain degree of "ownership". If you "sell" somebody something, they have the right to decide how to use it, to repair it if it breaks, etc. Digital media gets a bit grey because making an entirely seperate copy as a backup isn't really something you can do with a chair, or a car. But functionally, it's just another form of protecting the investment of paying however much to "buy" an album.
DRM is more like a lease than a purchase. I mean think about it. You buy a house, you buy the rights to edit and modify that house. You lease an appartment, and you don't. I think if they refered to DRM'd products as things you "lease" rather than "buy", they'd get a lot less shit for tromping on people's "entitlements". Course, none of the people who want that entitlement would be inclined to "lease" music if it was actually called that, because that's not what they want. They want to buy it. Because they've got copies of Beatles albums in six different formats now, and they're sick of paying for it again every ten years cause they're discs die.
About a year ago, I used the Napster service to buy music. I had bought more than $200 of music (I was 14 or 15 then, so thats a lot of money). One day, I tried to mess with my registry to make a program run from my primary hard drive and... none of my music worked. (It wouldn't let me redownload, either)
I realize that they have the legally right to break my content, but morally, its still mine. I figure, if they steal $200 and the time it takes me to get the songs back (illegally, and I charge $30/hr ;-) ), it is only fair that I can "steal" from them too. An eye for an eye, right? It's not like they are going to go 'blind'; $200 is pocket change to them.
Your restaurant analogy is off-mark. "Can you imagine walking into a restaurant which you knew to be overpriced, eating, and then leaving without paying just because the you felt the place was a rip-off and not worth the prices they charged?"
Better said, someone walked into this restaurant, took his overpriced food back out to the sidewalk and started giving it away.
Now if I want the full dining experience, (and occasionally I do), I'll go inside and take a seat, otherwise, I don't mind eating leftovers.
"...consumers felt perfectly justified in writing their own personal rules. Often times, merely because they could."
Yeah, and that's EXACTLY what the industry who's selling us this content is doing as well. So who's right? We want it our way (priced reasonably, able to play on whatever device we want, not free...) and they want it their way (full control, significant restrictions on use, overpriced.)
So on one extreme we see the industry trying to force foolishly restrictive DRM and on the other extreme we see people downloading music for free. Just like with every big issue, things usually swing to extremes before settling somewhere in the middle.
Entertainment products (music, movies,etc) are not a god given right, but I would propose that the culture of downloading entertainment is not solely used as a freebie for all. Personally, I will download music purely for the basis of determining how good the material itself is. If its a quality album from start to finish, then i purchase it. Otherwise...delete. The problem with the music inductry is that there is no accountability when it comes to quailty. Big record companies can sell a band's CD based on the popularity of a single song. No matter if the rest of the CD is absolute crap. There really is no other industry with such a model. At least if you are dissatisfied with a product you buy, usually you can return it. Not so with music. You open that CD, its yours. Why should I be forced to buy something if i think its substandard after fully examining the product? I would hope that this culture of downloading music forces record companies to find quality artists and actually promote them. Furthermore, what happened to the whole singles/EP industry in the US? Its still a thriving model in Europe and plenty of other places. In my mind, this is the record companies just getting greedy. They figured people would plop down the 15 bucks for the whole thing if you market the artist's image aggresively enough. In a way, MTV can be blamed for taking this whole 'image' thing to another level. Since the advent of MTV the music has lost its integrity, and given way to promoting an image. I believe that digital music has brought music back to its roots, MUSIC. Music is an auditory experience, not a visual one, save for live concerts. This brings up another point, downloading live music. Why have record companies not siezed upon this avenue of publicity? Its a virtually untapped marketing bonanza. Very little manpower is required to publicize concerts and put them out on the internet. Bottom line is that the internet is a cheap form of publicity, and if the music meets my standard, then i will never hesitate in purchasing a copy of the music I enjoy. Lesson to all, just buy the CD...its alot easier.
If I go to the grocery store and buy a tomato I have the right to use that tomato as I see fit. I can wash it and eat it as I would an apple. I can slice it up, sprikle it with salt and pepper and put it on a salad or eat it as a seperate side dish. I can throw it at someone or something if I so desire. I can even let it sit on my countertop and leave it untouched till it rots and I have to throw it out.
My personal philosophy is that I respect the idea that an artist should be compensated for their work, but once I purchase that work for the agreed upon price it is my right to put that video or music on any of my personal entertainment devices (computer, PMP, PVP, DAP, etc.)
My problem with DRM is that it restricts my right to consume the tomato as I choose (within the limits of the current laws). When I purchase a tomato, the farmer does not have the right to tell me that I can't slice it into wedges or chop it up to use in salsa or spaghetti sauce. This tomato now belongs to me. If he wants it back, then he can refund my money.
When I download something that is for sale, if I watched it, I feel obliged to go out and buy the DVD. It is that simple. Just like all software should have a demo period where you can fully evaluate if it fits your needs before plunking down some hard earned cash.
Considering the restaurant analogy again with content you already purchased: can you imagine ordering Chinese takeout (content) and being forced to eat with chopsticks (their media player) after you paid for your take out?
But you say to the waiter (content provider) "I have my own flatware (different media player) to eat with."
He replies: "we made the meal, eat our way or not at all, that's the rule."
How many people would frequent said establishment.
A better business model might be to find ways for everyone to enjoy the meal, and not just those facile with chopsticks.
(i realize the restaurant analogy has it's limits, but the nature of all analogies is to only emphasize a particular aspect of a real world situation and breakdown otherwise)
Another thing...
How is it, that people who make music, movies, games, stories, etc. get to have unlimited and infinite ownership of thier creation, but if you design a machine or device you only own the design for 17 years? When did entertainment out-weigh real product and actual work?
Is content software, or goods?
The music peddlers currently argue both. After "purchasing this track" (their words), the DRMed content is now leased to the consumer of this "software" that has a "license".
At the same time, "copying music is stealing". Well wait, I thought it was software...and copying software isn't theft.
Basically the masses that would never steal a CD are copying music, on their WinXP corp keyed machines. They/We don't really seem to mind circumventing copyrights, so why all the surprise?
Let's say Tom buys an artists CD at the local music store. He listens to it and enjoys it but that's the end of it. He's just a real shy guy.
Now let's say Bob downloads a torrent of the same album, from Pirate Bay. He listens to it and loves it. He tells all his friends about how good this group is. Gets on all the music related forums and spreads the word about how great this artist is.
Now lets say out of all the people he has told how good this music is, 10 of them go out and buy the CD.
Whom did the artist benifit from more?
We do have the right to use this entertainment the way we see fit. It is not a simple "buy or don't buy" issue. Living within a world of "everything is created for the maximum amount of profit possible" is something that many of us do not support or adhere to. If a television program plays, the producers, actors, television networks, etc have already made a large amount of money. Copying and viewing this the way we want to is our right, not theirs.
Musicians and producers make their cut of money when I click BUY on itunes. Now if I want burn a cd, mix it or play it on another type of device, that is MY right, not theirs.
When did we become such pushovers when it comes to our rights as individuals?
DRM protection and other types of limitation malware should not be tolerated and should always be broken.
Hollywood ads often say "Own it now on DVD!"
I think that is very misleading and irresponsible message to advertise.
The main issue, is that the old brick and mortar recording companies are fighting the digital transition tooth and nail. They are so resistant to the emerging market structure, that they have done everything in their power to cripple it. What they fail to realize is that the emerging marketplace is actually a better one, with the potential to yield far greater profits. This "entitlement" as you call it, is not entitlement at all. It is the consumers sending the message, often without even knowing it, that the market structure is unacceptable and unsustainable. I truly believe that if an iTunes track were priced at half of what they currently go for, you would see much broader accpetance. Regardless, DRM only hurts the legitimate consumer. I'll say it again, DRM only hurts the LEGITIMATE consumer. Since when has DRM stopped a single unscrupulous person from unlawfully obtaining a 'clean' copy of anything? Only the people who go out of their way to actually purchase digital music are hamstrung by the ludicrous DRM. What about this? How about we only embed purchaser identity information in purchased tracks. That way we could play the music anywhere we damn well please, and we'd be unable to anonymously share the music online. I have to stop writing now. This issue is so maddening to me!
My question is: If/when it becomes possible to clone your food in the restaurant, do the same rules apply to your food as does your digital music? At that point though, money is worthless. If you can clone food, why not money? Where are we getting the energy for this? Cloned solar panels? Ok...we got that far, but according to physics, you need matter to create these objects. You can't just "create" matter. Where does this matter come from? Should you have to insert cubes of dense partical matter? Where do these come from? You still have to have something to create this cube of matter. Maybe you bend over, scoop up a pile of dirt and rearrange it's electrons to create your new item. Maybe you take that old media you no longer listen to and change it into a paper airplane. This seems a little far fetched, but with technological advances, it is possible (theoretically.)
How does my post mean anything to this argument? These things are all tangible objects, but in a way, they bring about the quesiton of origination. Who is going to come up with the original objects that everyone else will just clone? How will they get paid? Money means nothing. Do they want recognition? Should all these clones come with their name stamped on the side? Would it then be illegal to remove that part of the "plan"? How is someone going to punish you for taking that off? How could they trace it? How could they catch you? Your DRM of the future. But who benefits from this? Definately not the person that generated the first copy.
Sorry, enough of the theoretical economy...
-------------------------------------------
Maybe we need to remove the "industry" from the music and give the bands the right to "publish" their own music. They can do it for the fun of the music...to get their name in lights. They can host a site or upload their own music, select a genre, title, etc. People can listen to this music and rate it. Others can see the ratings. Radio stations can play the highest ranked songs or songs that are raising quickly. Radio can still benefit from playing your music first (and still gain revenue from commericals.) People will still pay to go see these bands in concert. If their music is popular, venues will host them and they can profit off the shows. If people want a physical copy of the music, they can go buy a cheap physical copy of it. The cost of this would cover the manufacturing cost and the cost to warehouse the item (maybe even the cost to host the website where you order your songlist.) Those that simply want ot listen to the music over and over until they are sick of it and never go to a concert will make the choice to never hear that music again. If they like the band, they can shell out some cash to "donate" to their cause. Maybe the music will start to raise in quality for once from all the competition.
DRM is a way for the fat wallet publisher CEOs to keep thier jobs. I say the music "industry" must change and adapt, but the current CEO doesn't like the idea of becoming useless or having to register a domain and work for a living.
FYI, I know Apple already does embed this personal information. I have no problem with that whatsoever. It's the DRM that prevents portability/compatibility that I'm arguing we do away with...
I think you should be able to put a low res, compressed version of a movie you've bought on DVD onto your iPod. It's not like you could take your TV and DVD player in the car with you, and if you had an all in one portable DVD player you could take the movie to watch. What's not OK is putting your friend's DVD collection on your iPod.
The only shows I've got from a torrent are ones that are not available in this country by any other means. While this may seem like the 'I wasn't going to pay for it anyway' get-out, it's not quite because I would be willing to pay for them if only someone would supply them.
I wonder why the iTunes store limits transactions to geographic areas..? I can (and do) order UK CDs from Amazon UK and have them shipped to the USA. Why can't I buy UK music on iTunes..? It would still be DRM'd with the same system to my account.
>>I wonder why the iTunes store limits transactions to geographic areas..? I can (and do) order UK CDs from Amazon UK and have them shipped to the USA. Why can't I buy UK music on iTunes..? It would still be DRM'd with the same system to my account.
I agree this is a problem and is probably on dodgy ground within the EU. While buying from the US store could be legally blocked, I am not certain that a UK buyer should be blocked from buying from the German iTunes store. This distorts the single market. I am legally allowed to buy a CD from amazon.de but not itunes.de. Why? I've asked my MEP to look at this but as far as I understand it Apple utilitises the option of choice where to sell. It doesn't have to sell German CD's to a UK customer and therefore chooses not to to please the record companies. That's where it's on thin ice.
Whether this encourages people to go downloading tracks illegally form the Internet rather than buying from Amazon or other store is a matter of personal morality and nothing to do with Apple's decisions.
I think it depends on how you define entitlement. Content "goods" (like movies, music, etc.) are not the same as physical goods (ie. groceries, or the aforementioned steak). Intellectual property isn't the same. So the analogy breaks down, when the law treats them as if they were. If you review the definition of copyright in the Constitution, it is not an absolute property right, it's defined as a limited monopoly for Congress to promote the useful arts and sciences. And at some point, those "intellectual goods" were always meant to become "common property" (ie. become part of the public domain, the commons). It would seem to me that at root, that's where the sense of entitlement comes from.
As the government has extended the terms of copyright, and especially as corporations have gotten more aggressive at defining their rights, to become an absolute property right, consumers have pushed back by redefining the terms for themselves.
Copyright was always meant to be a balance, and it has tilted so far out of balance, that consumers are rebelling. I don't think that's going to change either, no matter how many lawsuits corporations file against their customers.
Please note, I'm not condoning the activity, just phrasing why I think it is, in a sense, at least as justified as the draconian DRM efforts. I would suggest, as a possible solution, that companies stop treating their customers as criminals and start finding ways to make them want to buy things.
Also, to take the expensive restaraunt analogy on again... if you don't like the prices there, you can get a steak at a different restaraunt for less. But if you want the latest Madonna, you have no choice but to deal with the entertainment industry's terms. True, Madonna isn't necessary, but let's not pretend that there are equivalent choices. Copyrights are monopolies on a given piece of intellectual property.
--mj
RE: Marky
I don't know if you're an idiot, but you're wrong.
After knocking "fair use" by saying it is meaningless, you say "you do NOT have the rights to do what you want with a product you have purchased unless the seller gives you those rights." YOU ARE WRONG! THAT IS THE ENTIRE POINT OF FAIR USE, it GIVES YOU those rights!
Yes, you have a point about America vs. EU. But here in America, the federal law supercedes the "rights" that a seller gives you in regards to fair use. Taken out of legal context, you're never going to convince me that because a seller said I can only use a product one way, that I can't use it another. I'll justify it to myself by saying I paid for it, you can call me immoral or whatever, it just won't change anything.
You must be a RIAA/MPAA schill.
Music: I stopped buying from iTunes when I could no longer strip the DRM. Why? Someday, I may choose to switch from an iPod to a competing product, and I refuse to buy all my music over again to conform to the different DRM requirement. Unless, of course, you are implying that the DRM is part of the content, and different hardware should require us to repurchase the music.
You will say that when CDs came out, I had to repurchase all my LPs. Not necessarily - I could have legally ripped my LPs to CD, and the inferior quality (arguable) was my problem. as long as the ripped content was for my personal use, this is fine. But CDs were a physical medium, requiring marginal costs to produce, market, transport and sell (not just the one-time fixed cost of digitizing a sound stream or securing the sound stream with a new DRM encryption scheme), so it was reasonable to assume that a consumer wanting to upgrade their music to CD quality should have to repurchase it.
DRM will become legit for music when there is one standard, and upgrades/changes to that DRM standard are accompanied by a gurantee to the consumer that they can re-download their content in the new standard, so that the content is future-proofed for future/stronger DRM and future hardware. I'll pay for new content, but not for new DRM.
Movies: I have an Archos AV700. I rip my Netflix movies to it and watch them when I want to. I delete them after I watch them. Any movie I want to keep, I purchase the DVD. Block me from doing this, and I will cancel my Netflix account, and resort to torrenting.
TV: I copy Tivo content to my PC, strip the DRM and move it to my AV700. I delete it after I watch it as well.
As for HD-DVD and HDTV content, I have no need to view this on anything but my plasama TV, so I don't care if they ban me from performing transfers/rips with HD content - as long as I can continue to do so with non-HD content.
I think its not about entitlement but rather a matter of being secretly policed. When you buy a CD no one says its legal to rip the cd but no one polices you so that you don't. Companies that use DRM don't want to just keep you from using the track elswhere but they don't even want you to concider modifying what you bought. The problem being that the companies that sell you the DRM content are trying to policy what you do with it. They are breaking the commerce model by attaching a string to the content they sell so that they can pull it back whenever they want to force and pay for it again. To top it off they try and lie about what it is they are doing by hiding behind copyright laws.
I agree. My aversion to DRM and legitimate buying began in junior high when I realized that I could burn CDs for roughly 15 cents apiece, rather than buy them for 15 bucks apiece. I buy the CDs of the bands I truly love, but other than that, I do what I please because for some reason, it's okay in my mind. Oh, and I wouldn't ever shoplift. The mind is a strange thing, isn't it?
Cheers,
Jarrod