Why I won't buy a movie from Apple
 

Apple's new MacBooks have built-in copy protection measures

I make it a simple rule; I won't buy any technology that limits what I can do with it, so I won't ever buy one of the new MBP's either.

Yup, this is too bad. I'm really getting tired of the strings attached when purchasing technology.

At least I've already trained my GF to avoid the iTunes store like the plague. I've also broken her of her Blockbuster habit....and yes, I've learned to put the toilet seat down.

Apple sure has done wonders to polish their "Think Different" image while shoving DRM down people's throats.

I'll buy my first iPhone when I can get an unabridged version of Flash on it.

Yeah, CDs were released with no DRM strings attached, and look how honest and respectful of the people who made the music everyone has been.

Oh, no, wait a minute, that's not true. People are stealing music everywhere with absolutely no hesitation. People have said things to me like "I have bought my last music", and they have terrabyte hard drives filled with it. They have this mistaken notion that because they have the ability to easily steal music, that it is somehow their right, and that musicians, engineers, producers, studio owners, record stores, etc. just love to keep starving in order to feed their thefts.

So, the majority of actual traffic moving across peer to peer networks have proven that people will steal if it's easy for them to do so. (Yes, I am well aware of the legitimate uses of peer to peer networks, too, like new Linux distros, or musicians that WANT to distribute their music freely, and that's great. It's just a small small minority of the traffic.)

I can hardly blame other people who create new content, whether it's software, or movies, or whatever, from learning the lessons from the widescale theft of music, and trying to do SOMETHING about it. DRM is unfortunate, yes, in that it limits the legitimate rights of legitimate purchasers of content. And I much prefer to buy content without DRM, like physical CDs. And for DRM to be acceptable at all, I think that DRM has to be done right, with a sense of balance between the content creators and the purchasers of the content.

In my opinion, Apple's Fairplay DRM, as used on some iTunes music, has a good balance. A legitimate purchaser can have the music on several computers, even share a read-only version on their local network that anyone can listen to, as well as burn a song to CDs an unlimited number of times (and burn a playlist to CDs a limited number of times). This all seems like a reasonable balance between the various parties involved.

But I cannot feel a lot of sympathy for the anti-DRM brigade (not you folks above in this thread, but the hardcore ones) while living in a world where there are entire dorms filled with petabytes of digital music, none of which has been paid for.

Trevor

I understand all that, trevor; but because of that, I, who have never downloaded pirated material of any kind, pay a steep price -- I can't use my gadgets as I'd like to. The result for me? I won't buy anything with DRM. I have a substantial OLD CD collection, some DVDs and a lot of VHS cassettes.

Along the same lines, petabytes of pirated digital music contain thousands of tracks that will never be heard and would never have been purchased either.

Right, I agree. I would like to live in a world where I didn't need to lock my house and car doors. But because other people steal, I need to lock those doors. Other people's misbehavior has inconvenienced me, through no fault of my own.

In the same way, because so many people have taken to unlimited stealing of digital music, other digital media have locks on them which inconvenience me. I wish that those locks weren't there, and I will work towards supporting locks which have what I consider a balance of convenience vs. hard line loss of abilities, and will work against locks which I consider too draconian.

But I recognize that some locks, despite the inconvenience, are necessary for some content owners because other people steal.

Trevor

IMO part of the backlash to DRM has to do with the RIAA, and their lawyers' choices of how and whom to prosecute. How far will they go to protect their interests?

Where is the line between security and freedom?

I've honestly only downloaded a single song illegally, and don't purchase any products with DRM. I understand that all I can do is my part and vote with my dollars. Besides, a cover charge for a band is better than a studio produced CD any day.

I think this will come down to the artists in the end. Bands like Wilco, Radiohead, and others (?) are changing the industry and very well could start a movement away from the BMG/EMI/Universal monster.

Trevor, I agree completely with my left brain, but not with my right. Although I've never stolen copyrighted material, that's not to say that I haven't ever removed or circumvented a DRM scheme so I could accomplish what I wanted, e.g., remove the music without the video from a purchased concert CD so I could load it onto my iPod.

Unfortunately, this problem isn't going to go away until the entire notion of property gets a good rethink. The rationale behind digital media was to easily create faithful and portable reproductions of original content; the problem with digital media is that it easily creates faithful and portable reproductions of original content. ooops...

I have sympathy for the music and entertainment industries the same way I have sympathy for the dinosaurs: the world changed on them, and they weren't able to adapt. I'm sure the dinosaurs would have outlawed mammals, too, if they'd had the brains for it, but I doubt it would have done them much good.

Just to speak on my interactions with DRM:

I do like buying stuff from the iTunes Store because it is extremely easy, and I have never really run into any problems with FairPlay. Actually, the only thing I really want out of iTunes Plus is the 256kbps bitrate. The DRM I could care less for, because I use an iPhone as my music player. The DRM only really affects me because I'd like to stream some of that music off to my (now dead) Xbox 360, but I don't do that often enough to really warrant looking into a solution.

Of course, if I need to pull the DRM off the music I pay for, I'll either burn it to a CD then rip it back, stripping the DRM, or pull one off a P2P network. I know P2P networks hold tons of stolen music, but I figure that I've already paid my part for the music, therefore I should be able to have unlimited access to it. We don't go out and buy a 2nd copy of an album just because we broke the CD, do we?

Usually, another thing I'll do is have a friend burn me an album of an artist that they think I'll like. I'll listen to the album, see if I really like it, and if I think it's worth it, I'll buy the entire album. Otherwise, I'll just get rid of it.

And your suggestion for how to properly pay musicians (who are, after all, the ones making new music)?

It's easy to say that the current method is no good. So how would you suggest it get done?

What about your suggestion for how to pay moviemakers, if DRM goes away and movies are as widely stolen as music?

Trevor

A number of musicians have successfully jumped on the bandwagon of offering their music for free to build a fan base, then offering all kinds of special deals on concerts, memorabilia, etc., that can only be purchased on their web sites. Further, apparently, they also sell CDs directly from those sites by adding extras to them that aren't among the free downloads.

The key is that in the old music business model, no one thought a $20 CD enriched the artists much -- Lyle Lovett, for example, says that with 13 albums released he has never made a nickel from any of them; the record company absorbed all the profit. His income is from his concerts.

That some portion of intellectual property is given away for free to attract buyers to scarce goods that are not free seems to work.

This story at ArsTechnica is a good example of going over the line...

I'm not exactly sure how this system can be fixed. Maybe they could start with having political candidates pay royalties for music they use at rallies ;)

I sure hope they don't start putting product placement in music. I think I'd prefer DRM to a Tom Wait's Netflix jingle.

okay, he'd probly not sell out like that...but he's the first name that popped into my head.

Yeah, Lyle Lovett also got a lot of promotion from his record company, that a brand new artist giving away their stuff for free on their website doesn't get. Anyone who thinks that payola has gone away hasn't looked very hard.

But even if this could somehow be made to work for musicians (and I don't think that it could, but for the sake of continuing the discussion), how could this possibly work for moviemakers? If you get the next Robert Rodriquez making his debut movie El Mariachi for $7000, how does he make money giving that movie away? Or the next George Lucas with the first Star Wars movie for a considerably higher cost--how does he make that money back? And if moviemakers can't make their money back, why do they make movies?

I think that it's unreasonable to expect musicians, moviemakers, and software writers to be forced to give away their work, unless everyone of the consumers of those products are also giving away their work. I get paid for my work, and musicians, moviemakers, and software writers should as well.

Trevor

I agree trevor, absolutely. But remember that Prohibition, the War on Drugs, Smoking bans, crackdowns on illegal gambling and prostitution, etc., don't really work; there will always be a middle man to fill the blank for a widespread pleasurable habit...

In its own way, this is similar -- people want to be entertained and don't want to pay the going rate for it -- we agree that's not legal, we agree that artists should be paid, but we must acknowledge that there is nonetheless an active and effective black market for music with a relatively small risk. The old paradigm isn't working. All I'm advocating is a vigorous search for an alternative (that I cannot myself suggest), but there has to be a viable way for artists to make money and the DMCA clearly isn't it.

A small indendependent record label is a client of mine. I was talking with them one day about piracy. When they put out an album and find it all over torrent sites they know that those people are not their demographic. Bootlegging has been around for a long time, and technology has just made it easier.

There are people who buy music and people who don't, and enforcing tons and tons of DRM put those people on the fence to one side or the other.

I admit I am no saint when it comes to downloads, but I have a different approach. I buy the Vinyl record off of ebay or from a record store of the artist I want. Then file it in my record collection. Later I download the digital version because I don't have time to rip my vinyl, don't care to do all the work, and have already paid for the record anyway.

There are plenty of people who are on the fence when it comes to such things and heavy DRM pushes them to the refuse to buy it side. I hate how I have 4 Macs, and 2 PCs and I can't simply file share between my ipod touch and my iPhone. So, I have $1,000 investment in two Apple peripherals that I own and paid for with my own money. However, I can't take music on and off them at will, nor can I put anything on them unless it is the original computer my idevice is tied to.

What happens when I am at work and create a pod cast I want to take with me, but instead have to toss it on an external HD because I don't have the ability to push those things to my iPod. It sucks, and it is ridiculous and I do not support such restrictive DRM.

The pirates will pirate regardless, and DRM is shady when they sneak little things in that track what you do, or send/receive information back and forth about your habits or what you are doing with your media.

Bottom line is DRM doesn't benefit anyone, and it takes away and limits the consumer. I do believe in a free market.

"That's right, it filets, it chops, it dices, slices,
Never stops, lasts a lifetime, mows your lawn
And it mows your lawn and it picks up the kids from school
It gets rid of unwanted facial hair, it gets rid of embarrassing age spots,
It delivers a pizza, and it lengthens, and it strengthens
And it finds that slipper that's been at large
under the chaise lounge for several weeks
And it plays a mean Rhythm Master,
It makes excuses for unwanted lipstick on your collar
And it's only a dollar, step right up."

Tom Waits - Step Right Up

Nice, fazstp. I nominate yours for Post Of The Day!

Trevor

Has the piano been drinking?

Don't forget that no DRM is effective. Even if there exists an DRM solution which has not been broken, EVERY release of a given piece of music must be successfully protected in order for it to be truly effective. Once one vector of release is available in a DRM free version, any other DRM release WILL NOT stop a single determined user and WILL annoy and distance a large faction of the remaining users.

DRM as a whole is broken. The music labels are recognizing this as they move back to DRM free digital releases. The movie industry introduced DRM at a unique time where it didn't receive the same backlash as music. Given time it too will fade away.

suggestion? how should I know? I sincerely doubt I would have suggested big-brained monkeys as a replacement for dinosaurs, you know... :o

I'll point out one thing: the entertainment industry today runs on the hormonal energy of the 14-22 crowd. Adolescents respond to aggressive, hyper-sexed rebel-heroes, and to guilt/fear on the rebound. The entertainment industry knows this, and makes billions pouring out scantily clad bombshell-divas and irreverent boy-bands, making plotless movies where good-guy/wise-guy underdogs blow up hundreds of evil idiots (not to mention slasher flicks and socially-conscious ballads to eek out a few more bucks from the kids who are starting to grow up a bit). put in perspective, the EntInd is concerned that piracy is going to cut into the fairly obscene profits they make by filling the heads of youth with crap, and the worst-case scenario there is that the EntInd will just stop making crap. music artists with decent talent will lose their multimillion dollar mega-star status and go back to being normal stars; film artists with decent talent will make their movies anyway; distribution will be slow and un-promoted, and the stuff that actually survives that weeding out process will be good.

sounds good to me. of course, if you're truly worried that songs with lyrics like "hey ba-by hey ba-by hey!" might disappear from from the shelves, I would understand... :p

I'll never buy another Mac if that is true.
I can accept not "sharing" video or music I buy on the internet, but they're not going to tell me when and where I'm allowed to watch it.

My view to a "T". I own several electronic devices that are getting old, but the newer versions sport some form of inbuilt DRM so I'm not upgrading them. To be told what ancillary devices I am permitted to connect to my Mac is outside the pale.

Does seem pretty extreme to restrict the output devices. I'd probably avoid the iTunes content though rather than avoiding buying another Mac if that's the only time this restriction comes up.

Yeah, we are responding to rather scanty info.

The original linked article doesn't sound like it's a problem - it only blocks content with DRM, yes? All the anti-drm folks (seems to be most of the above) won't be bothered by it as their content is clean, and anyone else trying to put their iStore-downloaded movie through a projector will just have to learn about a couple more programs.

I'll buy a new box - I don't have anything with DRM :D

Neither do I, but think about that: it means that folks selling content are missing sales because we won't buy.

You mean that you'll never buy another computer then. Certainly not a Windows box, and I doubt very much that Linux won't end up with some DRM in it if you're ever going to see commercial movies available on the platform.

This is not coming from Apple. If you don't want DRM, you're going to have to apply pressure to the movie industry.

Linux is open source written by the people for the people so to speak and I highly doubt DRM will enter, because DRM can't abide by open source standards to begin with, which is why when I buy a DRM product from company A, I must use company A's preferred method of playing such media, and company A's DRM product won't play in my open source media players nor will it support other formats or can I transfer it to other systems.

DRM will have to change for Linux to adopt it. PC hardware is cheaper than a Mac anyway, you may be doing yourself a favor switching to Linux.

Windows, I can't argue there, there is DRM in it for sure. Then again I don't use any DRM products besides Windows itself on my Windows boxes.

Which means essentially what I wrote. If you don't get the movie industry to abandon DRM, then if you're ever going to see commercial movies available on the platform, either the developer who puts it there will have to agree to the movie industry's demand for DRM, or commercial movies won't be on the platform.

I don't care if I never see commercial movies on my computer if I have to live with ridiculous equipment hobbling to get them. Having said that, I have purchased exactly one iTunes track to test the water but nothing else in my playlists has come from iTunes.

Unfortunately, I think that's the only choice consumers have. If the movie makers aren't pressured, then the hardware/software is going to come with DRM or the platform won't have commercial movies.

It’s the temper of the times, CWT. One crazy tries to light off a shoe bomb on a trans-Atlantic flight and thereafter everyone (in the USA anyway) walks shoeless through airport security. My wife and I used to travel a lot, now restrict ourselves to places we can drive to -- can't bear the hassle of getting on an airplane, with all the restrictions that now apply. The same will apply to electronics -- make it sufficiently inconvenient and I'll stop doing whatever it is. We both still enjoy reading books, rarely watch anything on TV except news programs; the rest is crap.

Proving exactly what again?

I'm approaching 4,000 iTunes purchases (well, some are the freebies they post every week... like
videos from Coldplay, Sia, and others). I gotta say, using the iTunes Store has been an extremely
enjoyable user experience... and i've discovered hundreds of bands i wouldn't have otherwise.

There may be some deep "principle" behind your boycott, but you're actually missing out
on a lot of fun (for what still seems to be incomprehensible or confused reasons).

--

As for the new encrypted screens, like cwtnospam pointed out: that's not Apple's idea.
They have to follow suit in order to be allowed to get their equipment to play the stuff
that *other* forces have deemed necessary. Blaming Apple (see subject title) is dumb.

-HI-

And even the news is 90% fluff. Ain't capitalism $grand?

That I'm a cranky old fart who didn't like that I couldn't do anything I wanted to with that purchased sound (and I don't mean post it on Kazaa).

What is it you think can't be done then?
Once burned to CD it's 100% DRM-free.
You could even post it to Kazaa then. ;)

--

P.S. - while quite familiar with The Guess Who and Joni Mitchell and Rush and Triumph (as well as B.T.O., Diana Krall, Loverboy, Neil Young, Robbie Robertson, etc.), some Canadian artists who i otherwise probably would not have heard of and purchased music from (were it not for iTunes) include: Amanda Marshall, Amy Millan (Stars), Arcade Fire, Broken Social Scene, Caribou, Chad VanGaalen, Daniel Lanois, Death From Above 1979, Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton (Metric), Feist, The High Dials, Hot Hot Heat, Immaculate Machine, Jason Collett, The Kings, The Most Serene Republic, The New Pornographers, Pilot Speed, Ron Sexsmith, The Stills, Thousand Foot Krutch, and Vega4.

I'm truly worried that people like Tom Waits (see some of his lyrics above in this thread) might disappear from the shelves.

Although your example lyric sounds a bit like one from Neil Young, and I worry about him too.

Trevor

I didn't buy an iPod until 3rd gen Nanos came out, and while they are great products and I now own an iPod touch, I do hate, no I despise the fact that I am stuck using iTunes and that I can not easily transfer my media from one Mac to my other 4 via my iPod touch.

I would love iTunes a lot more if the sync could copy back and forth from all machines with all media files with out a hitch. While, no one can sit back there and blame apple for this at all, they can blame DRM, the media companies, and everyone else who wants a cut of the money involved in such things.

I jail broke my iPhone and my iPod and I would never use the native software because I don't like being told what I can and can't do with my products.

Apple makes a great end user product that I won't deny and that I will lobby for them. Their ways of telling you how to do sometihng is sometimes ridiculous. Apple has a way of making it really hard to accomplish something outside their scope at times and it is definitely frustrating.

All the while the consumer's options are very limited, and often are forced into a certain market or market type.

Of course my rant is not totally exclusive to DRM and the ITMS, but I think they tie in together. I think that Apple has definitely taken some small steps in the right direction. I would love direct high speed downloads over going out and buying media at a store, since I can instantly get it and it should be cheaper since bandwidth is probably cheaper than manufacturing costs and over head.

However, I digress a bit, that even though the right steps have been taken in my view, it has not been totally in the right direction. Apple has a market for this, and the customers are buying it. They are making money and they have proved it over the years. Apple could pressure the companies to say, hey, look at what we are doing and making money. You want a cut? Well play nice and allow us to give the consumers what they want. It isn't out of the realm for Apple to help pull for the end user.

That being said, I don't use the ITMS because I still buy and collect vinyl records. So, my opinion could be completely non valid to those who use and love the ITMS.

Distorted Loop.com: All majors plot path to iTunes Plus DRM-free - report

Trevor

yes I have heard those rumors too, but it is still a rumor until Apple actually does it.

See, Tom Waits is one of those artists I'm talking about. Waits would actually be more successful if it weren't for the entertainment industry. as it is, his music has always had to compete with the billions of dollars of promotion given to people like Britney Spears who pump out teen trash. I mean think about it - how many Waits songs have made it high up the charts when covered by a 'name' artist? 3 or 4 I can think of, and I'm no Waits scholar...

and even Ella Fitzgerald made a few crappy recordings, that should be (and mostly have been) forgotten... Nobody's perfect. :D

Here's Techdirt's take on "Free", i.e. no DRM.

Found this

http://arstechnica.com/journals/appl...cbook-near-you

I'm not talking OS here, but hardware. The article posited that Apple intends to DRM constrict at the hardware level, just like it's new Powerbook. That is what HDCP is. Windows XP doesn't even support it yet. Vista does, but it still requires the hardware to do so as well.
So actually, yes I could buy a PC motherboard without this built-in in the future.
I don't want to one day pop in the "Clone wars" Blu-ray for my kids to watch on the computer, only to have a message pop up "sorry, you can't watch this you pirate!" Of course, they'll surely find a way to software fark it as well, I'm sure.

What they're doing is merely going to push people to download more and more.
If I cannot watch my legally bought media, then I'll stop buying the media, and just download it to start with. I'm not alone.
I have never bought anything off iTunes, and probably never will.
I'll also never buy any content off of XboxLive marketplace.

>>>Music can and should be priced at $0.

That's beyond "no DRM". That's just retarded.
(Guess I've met too many musicians in my life... they gotta eat and pay bills too ya know.)

Ever read this?: "Thoughts On Music"

Read the article. Basically he's saying that there are other business models than selling the individual songs. As I understand it, from an artist's perspective there isn't a whole lot of money in selling albums/cds/songs anyway, since the labels use all kinds of accounting tricks to screw the artists. That's why they tour.

Royalties aren't something that just has to be. They can make money going on tour, selling t-shirts/autographs/used socks, playing bar mitzvahs...many other ways to get paid.

Maybe this means the days of producing a few tracks in a studio and sitting back and scarfing peanut butter and banana sandwiches while the millions roll in are over.

Time will tell.

And *because he says so* therefore, all music should be free? :D


But if artists didn't get screwed by those same "accounting tricks" they wouldn't have to tour, to get their fair share. They could tour when they wanted to. This is already happening, as bands (like Radiohead) have said goodbye to big record companies... and market their songs online.

C'mon... the Internet has opened up a huge online store where millions can purchase at will. Why break your back touring (with all the expense involved) to play for months to audiences numbering only thousands. Sure, they do it to help promote future music sales... but not 'tour' as the *only* means of income. Crazy? Maybe big name (famous) bands can do that... but not unknowns. When they "tour" it's small nightclubs... and yes, they sell their CDs by the stage when they go on break. And they keep 100% for the CDs they sell that way, not any 5 or 10%. (i refer to 'originals' bands, not 'cover' bands).

All composers reading this who want to give away their songs for free
(forgoing all 'royalties' as well), and sell t-shirts instead... say "AYE".

:rolleyes:

oh...its hdcp, most things have that now a days, hdtv's, and almost anything with a hdmi port like game consoles etc. It also means, say you want to use a dvi monitor on a console etc through the hdmi port, that monitor has to have hdcp to work. But now apple have upped what it can do. At least with windows pc's you can usually hack around these problems

If the movie studios are successful with it, then it's just a matter of time before you can't find any monitor that doesn't have it.
:(

iTunes Store: Sign on the indy labels and artists!
 

.
Here is what I would like to see Apple do with the iTunes Store:

1. Sign on every indy label in the world that wants to.
   
2. Sign on bands that wish to distribute their music directly, without having to deal with a record company -- providing, of course, there is no breach of contract.
   
3. Add a section for uncopyrighted music, such as historical stuff (for starters)...
   
4. Up the DRM-free quality to optional lossless downloads.

.
Two more things:

• I still cannot for the life of me figure out why there should be DRM on music sold via the Internet -- the same music that is sold without DRM on physical CDs in any music store.
  
• And I still cannot figure out why online music doesn’t come with a loss-less option. The way it stands now, consumers who buy online are paying a lot for an inferior product. The only thing that varies is how much inferior.

By all means tell me if I’m missing or misunderstanding something here.

-- ArcticStones
.

This would be an extremely small section--just a few things recorded by the Smithsonian, governmental agencies, or similar (and deliberately placed in the public domain). Copyright in the US keeps getting extended by the lobbying efforts of the Disney Corp. (and no, I'm not joking or exaggerating), so at this point copyright extends for far far longer than the original writers of copyright law ever intended. Historical recordings, in large part, still retain full copyright.

Trevor

It's the other way round - the only reason we DON'T have DRM on cds sold in stores is the legacy base of CD players.

i completely agree. happily - itunes is not the only media provider out there. if it ever comes to the point that one can ONLY play stuff purchased in itunes on a mac - then yeah thats the moment to dump apple. meanwhile there are so many other things about mac's that i love - i would not want to give up using them just because of drm. what seems so absurd is that the tighter they try to control things - the stupider they seem to get.

i was reading yesterday about the new identity cards they want to bring in in the uk. not only will one have to pay for the pleasure of carrying one - if one doesnt update ones details as they change, one risks being fined up to £1000 for not being honest. sorry i got a bit off off post here but maybe an identity card is just another form of drm !!!

Agree, agree! Then the 70¢ of the 99 could go directly to the artists.

Here's an article from back in 2000 that I find very interesting, mostly on the subject of this thread:

Courtney Love does the math

Trevor

That is nothing new, bands make all their money on tour. The ticket sales, the merch sale, including CD sales on tour is where it is at. I have done work with many independent recording studios, bands, and record labels and I generally charge them nothing or a 12 pack of premium beer for my support, which is damn cheap. I also accept free merch for helping them too. Got plenty of free CDs and band shirts doing this as well. Mainly, because I love music and I know they make absolutely nothing. I have never done any work for any major studio and if I did I wouldn't have a single problem charging them my full contract hourly rate, plus expenses.

How do you get rid of the middle man and the big 4 (since sony + bmg merged there are no longer the big 5)?

The internet?

The Internet is the answer, but too many consumer hate being locked into products. Or give it away for free but put a paypal link up and you can pay what you think its worth?

Radical ideas but I think it may work.