Universal Music - When idiots refuse to learn.

DRM is evil for lots of reasons. The funny thing is now the music industry is festering in the waste land of it's own making.

First, it artificially limits the audience the media was meant to be sold to. Instead of selling your wares to anybody with a few bucks in their pockets, your market is now restricted to those who have already invested in your particular schema. Anyone else simply doesn't have the tools to use your content even if they were interested in it. It would be like Ford producing a new proprietary gas tank tomorrow. Ford cars can only be filled by special Ford pumps. These pumps of course cost way more than the rest of the market; as does the gas. Does anyone really doubt how that would play out? I predict you could kill Ford in a matter of years pursuing such a strategy. It certainly seems to be doing the trick for the music industry.

Second, it removes almost all the value from the actual creation of content. Why bother making anything, when you can ensure that anyone who does produce anything has to go through you? Now Ford doesn't need to compete with BP or ExxonMobil. If you want gas for your new Ford you have to get it from them. Regardless of quality or price, you have to buy it to use that flashy new car. Since they control the pump they simply squeeze all the value out of making the gas in the first place. Who cares where the gas comes from or how much the market says that gas is worth? You HAVE to buy it from those new Ford pumps, so they make the rules. In short order it becomes difficult to find many people that interested in producing the gasoline. There is simply no longer money in it. The money is in controlling the channel. What is that you say? Seems like there has been a noticeable drop-off in the quantity and quality of new music in the last few years?

Third, it creates bizarre long-term problems. Nothing is forever, and this includes companies. Imagine the Ford pump does not work out so well. It takes a few years, but eventually the market decides that open free gasoline pumps is really the way to go. Where does that leave you with your new Ford? It is worthless. One cannot even put new gas in it, let alone make repairs. If we can all imagine for a minute that maybe Apple is not immortal we have a real problem. What happens to all that content that has been created/distribued through them? Do we just start accepting that potentially decades worth of content should just be inaccessible to future generations? Oh sure the files will still be around, but no apple to let you play it. Or even better, 80 years down the line specs have changed. The DRM on that old music or movie you found on an old computer is simply not supported anymore. Let us hope it was not the last copy.

Fourth, it creates a booming black market. Now all official Ford dealers across the country are only selling these new Fords. However, some small companies have started retrofitting new Fords with gas systems compatible with current pumps. Through some bizarre twist of fate these old gas lines can be sold back to manufacturers for much more than the cost of putting in an old system, which reduces the cost of the car.

Now you the consumer have a dilemma. You want to support Ford. They make vehicles you enjoy and you would like to see more in the future. However, these pirate cars are staggeringly better. They use open gas pumps that enjoy higher quality and lower prices. They cost less to run (gas) and maintain (non-proprietary gas system) because you can use open parts. Oh, and they will be supported by the open market long after Ford has stopped caring about them. Oh, and the car costs less.

It's so staggeringly one sided, only a fool would choose to buy the regular Ford. Then the Ford execs all stand around scratching their heads wondering why this is happening? Are you kidding me? This is the innevitable conclusion of the policies they chose to pursue.

Problems 1, 2, and 4 have already come to pass. Does anyone doubt 3 is on the horizon? DRM was just a bad idea on all levels. The first thing it did was reduce the size of the potential market. Then it created so much extra value in piracy that it was all but over. When the cheaper version is better than the pay-for version on every possible level, you will always lose. Always.

Music has sold in lots of forms, for the entirety of human history. We like music. Every single generation claims the new technology is going to destroy them, and yet, music is still being created. We have never had DRM before, and music has always sold, why is the internet any different? To find working examples all you need do is look at companies like AllOfMp3.com. Sadly it seems we are finally putting the final nails in their coffin, but their mere existance should give us pause.

We are being told on a nearly constant basis that the music industry cannot survive without DRM. Yet, here is a company that sold no DRM at all and gave it to you at the quality you wanted. They should have died, according to RIAA myth. Yet, they were actually one of the biggest online retailers. Their legality not withstanding, the point is they were selling music. Lots of it. When the prices are reasonable, the quality good, and I can use it on any device I have today or get tomorrow, there is a lot of value in that. People are willing to pay for that.

I believe most people want to support their favorite artists, they are just being brutalized by a group of companies that refuse to sell it fairly to them. I think $.99 for a song is ridiculously expensive. If it cost that to produce the CD, how can it cost that when there is no more physical media being produced, shipped, and stocked? Even then I could probably stomach it, except then the files won't play on my Windows Media Center.

Guess where I have to go to download files that can?