Posts tagged DRM

It never ceases to amaze me how dense corporate types are when it comes to DRM. They repeatedly venture into the realms of stupidity and self-destruction. Supposedly, DRM exists to prevent people from pirating ‘intellectual property’. But because of the brain-dead decisions corporations make regarding DRM issues, it instead has the same effect on piracy that Bush’s War has on terrorism. The latest case is Microsoft’s decision to stop supporting the DRM licenses from its defunct MSN Music service.

The net effect of Microsoft’s decision amounts to a massive inconvenience: those who purchased music from the service won’t be able to play it on new computers without first burning it to CD, then copying to the new machine. That’s not as bad as not being able to play it at all. But, um, what about the people who bought several CDs worth of music? Of course, one Microsoft executive has this rock solid rationale to justify the move:

Microsoft exec Robert Bennett defended the company’s decision to destroy its MSN servers, arguing the move will affect only a small number of people.

That, of course, makes everything alright. Yeah, right.

While I sympathize with the MSN Music customers who are getting hit by this bit of silliness, the bigger picture is what concerns me most. This sort of boneheadedness does nothing to help the negative perception of DRM by consumers at large, but goes a long way toward making it worse. People who have never bought music from MSN are now going to point at it as an example of why DRM sucks and why they won’t bother buying any DRM protected music, ever. If that were all, there’d be no problem. But the greater issue is that this now becomes one more excuse people will use to rationalize their piracy of music. And more people who have never pirated music, after throwing up their hands in frustration, will realize that pirating is much easier and free of hassles.

Ultimately, the pirates aren’t alone in ruining it for the rest of us. The lion’s share of the blame can be laid at the feet of the corporations with their failure to handle the situation with common sense. Whether it’s music, videos, ebooks, software, or any other copyrighted digital content, all of the lower end, usually independent, producers of such content are ultimately getting screwed because these corporations have their heads up their asses. This crap could have been greatly slowed a decade ago had the corporations had the foresight and the common sense to adjust their business models to address the growing shift in consumer behavior. Not to mention the creativity to work out solutions other than the draconian DRM measures we see today. And still, after all of this time, they haven’t learned their lesson. Either they collectively have the mental capacity of a rock, or they live in a corporate bubble where reality is what they see when they close their eyes.

In the fast moving world of the internet and other technologies, it really helps if the people making decisions at a corporation really understand what’s going on. The days when you could live for a decade in ignorant bliss are long gone. The world is changing rapidly and companies who are affected by current and emerging tech need to be led by people who aren’t tied down by the bottom line, who can quickly make decisions based on unknown trends, who can recognize a shift in the market before it happens, and who can meet these challenges head on with solutions that make customers happy instead of treating them like criminals. Those who can’t keep up are going to lose money, alienate their customers, and, in some cases, cause irreparable damage to entire markets.

It’s sink or swim. And I’m tired of all those who are drowning bringing the rest of us down with them.