Minus Apple and Disney and others, a new DRM group starts up
How’s this for Orwellian abuse of the word "ecosystem"?
The Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem, aka DECE, is supposed to allow interoperable DRM and all that—for users of video media. Trouble is, some major companies such as Apple and Disney are AWOL.
Sigh, here’s yet another negative example for the e-book industry. If publishers really care about interoperability, then it’ll be far, far more ecologically correct just to back off from DRM.
Consumer inconvenience, an inherent problem when platforms are always changing, isn’t the only issue. Other than apps where permanent ownership of content isn’t an issue, DRM is really just a toll on publishers, writers and others who create genuine value. And even in those cases, there might be alternatives such as Web-browsable books with expirable access.
I know DRM continues to have its fans in Contentville. Might this, however, be just another variant of the Stockholm Syndrome—where captive are just a mite too close to their captors?
Related: Ars Techica story.
A reminder: My problem is with DRM, not the people behind it. I encourage them to speak up here with their side.
September 15th, 2008 at 2:03 pm
They should have stuck “Universal” in the middle of the name.
Then at least it would acronym to DEUCE.
September 15th, 2008 at 3:14 pm
Here is Steve Jobs’ view of DRM:
http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughtsonmusic/
“Why would the big four music companies agree to let Apple and others distribute their music without using DRM systems to protect it? The simplest answer is because DRMs haven’t worked, and may never work, to halt music piracy.”
and
“So if the music companies are selling over 90 percent of their music DRM-free, what benefits do they get from selling the remaining small percentage of their music encumbered with a DRM system? There appear to be none. If anything, the technical expertise and overhead required to create, operate and update a DRM system has limited the number of participants selling DRM protected music. If such requirements were removed, the music industry might experience an influx of new companies willing to invest in innovative new stores and players. This can only be seen as a positive by the music companies.”
There is evidence Apple ‘gets it’. There is also some evidence that Apple is working behind the scenes to free DRM from the music business. We can then hope the publishing business learns from this and comes to their senses quicker than their musical counterparts.
Unlike Disney, Apple does not own the copyright on the materials being distributed. Apple has to convince those copyright holders of the logic Jobs cites in message in order to for the world to change.
Though many would like to place Apple on the “naughty” side of the naughty/nice list, I believe iTunes and the general movement towards electronic distribution of music may provide a proving ground for DRM-less content and ultimately help usher in a DRM-less marketplace for other materials such as books, magazines, and even games. It took a long time to get to this point. The next steps will not be easy. But, if CEOs ultimately succumb to the logic of this we’ll have a DRM-less world eventually.
September 15th, 2008 at 4:13 pm
” … we’ll have a DRM-less world eventually.”
I hope so, if only because it doesn’t work! It penalizes the honest user and is easily circumvented by the pirates, so what’s the point, other than providing a comforter to paranoid execs? This argument has been rehearsed so many times I’m amazed that Jobs’s viewpoint is not more widely shared.