On Tue, 2005-11-08 at 12:13 -0800, PhilNYC wrote: > So from this perspective, DRM *is* very important to the survival > of the music industry.
More precisely, DRM is very important to record labels. The RIAA represents the record labels. But your broad statement raises a key question: what is the music industry? And is it important? If you step back a bit, before the late 50s, there was no mass market "record industry" While there were records since the 20s, they were not what we'd call widespread. Elvis, rock and roll, comedy records by Bob Newhart, etc. opened a whole new business model. Before then, no one, or next to no one, made any significant money from record sales. All musicians made their money from concerts. This goes back thousands of years. Musicians play and sang, people paid some money, or the King/duke/bishop kept the musician on a retainer (Mozart, Beethoven, etc.). >From the 60s on up into the 70s, records made huge amount of money for the labels. For pop stars, they made large amounts of money. For other genres, like Jazz, or classical, record sales were mostly pocket change, the real money was in concerts, gigs, or on TV. By the mid 70s, cassette recorders made a big dent in the label's money flow. CDs were invented to be more portable than LPs and to sound better than cassettes. They met those goals well. But the fortune of record sales have declined. It has always been a lot like wildcat oil wells, you do a lot and lose money on most, and if you are luck, make big bucks on one or two. On 60 Minutes a while back, The Dixie Chicks said that they make nothing on their CDs, it is their concert tours that make them money, and the CDs just whet folks interest in the concerts. Yet the Dixie Chicks sell millions of copies. So you have to ask, what is the music industry? Do you mean the musicians and songwriters? And singers? Or do you mean the five huge companies that control nearly all of the "recording label" and the lawyers that support them? Do the recording engineers, producers and businessmen owning recording studios count? Because the answer is that the five major labels and the RIAA are the ones interesting in DRM schemes. There is a reason that a lot of groups put songs up on websites, encourage "taper zones" at concerts, and feed the fan base. if you want to support a musician, go to a bar with music, listen and drink and leave a tip. > That said, to date there has not been a *good* implementation of DRM. > All the DRM solutions that have been attempted are clunky and intrusive > to consumers trying to enjoy music. This is not true. I built a very good DRM for OneBigCD, but the RIAA paniced and killed the company. The problem is that wimpy "encryption" schemes are doomed to fail, and real encryption is a royal PITA. It is way too hard to put real strong DRMs in mass market players like CD and DVD players. It is next to impossible to do it with mass market gear that sells for under $100. The only folks who can do it is Microsoft, by putting it in the Operating System. These are interesting times. -- Pat Farrell http://www.pfarrell.com _______________________________________________ ripping mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/ripping
