Bill G’s tool for greedsters: Expiring music files–and maybe clocked e-book files later?
Bill Gates is an odd bird. He’s made tens of billions off us because he wants to sock away cash and own everything. Love of ownership is strong. Why else are people so POed about e-books that end up unreadable–because the supposedly trustworthy vendors went kaput?
Now Billg plans to offer some new delights from Microsoft for his friends in the music industry–songs that expire, via clocked DRM, if you don’t keep your music subscription current. A brand-new Pocket PC Thoughts article has inspired a flood of anti-Microsoft diatribes from PPCT readers.
Already, of course, the library world has used the clocked DRM approach. It’s a necessary evil there if libraries want to avoid the “permanent checkout” model I suggested for library e-books.
But enough’s enough. Now Gates and friends seem intent on turning us from a nation of CD owners into mere renters. The plan is for songs to reach you via a subscription and electronically disembowel themselves, even on your portable devices, not just your desktop, if your subscription expires. The best-case scenario for Gates, I suspect, is to have everything rented, books and music alike. William Gates, lord of the manor–presiding over us landless serfs from his $50 million lakeside mansion, where the library books are on paper and won’t expire.
It’s almost surrealistic when Bill’s father talks about the evils of inherited wealth and the need for estate taxes. What’s to inherit when Microsoft and the rest have sucked the rest of the world dry with content-rental schemes? Hyperbole, of course. But the clocked DRM is another attack on fair use, which Microsoft and similar outfits all too often seem intent on coding out of existence to serve business partners in Hollywood.
(Thanks to Mike Cane for spotting the PPCT item.)
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