David Byrne’s comments on “Digital Rights Management”
(for those of you who don’t know, DRM is what keeps you from buying a song with itunes and then making a digital copy, for whatever reason)
David Byrne: Labels Should Ditch DRM, Accept Music Sales as a Loss Leader
David Byrne, former lead singer of the Talking Heads and pretty much the coolest geek on the face of the planet, spoke out against DRM and big record labels this week at South by Southwest. He predicted that online sales would surpass CD sales by 2012, forcing labels to choose between accepting music sales as a loss leader for tours and merch, focusing more on marketing for many artists, or only shooting for mega-stars like Britney Spears.
He goes on to say that labels need to drop DRM in order for sales to really take off, as he only gets his music from eMusic or downloads it illegally to avoid DRM. Once they ditch DRM, he says, iTunes will lose their “monopoly” and the market for online music will really open up.
As if we needed another reason to idolize David Byrne. You’re dreamy, David! – Gizmodo.com
I’ll admit that I’m very, very intrigued that all of the Big Names Speaking Out Against DRM are coming out after Steve Jobs made his grab-the-headlines-proclamation. When the EFF and sundry bodies have been campaigning against DRM for a very, very long time… Jobs just made it cool.
(eMusic all the way, baybeee!)
There were many music artists out there who spoke out against DRM in the past, it’s just that few of them did so in such high-profile manners, nor did they have as much money behind them as Mr Byrne (we call him sir in these parts).
What I find hilarious is that since Jobs there has been at least three CEO “Open Letters”. I find it totally ironic that CEOs are using the nomenclature of irritated consumer bloggers.
What we really need are more and more artists with the courage to speak out as he’s done. That and the courage to embrace alternative distribution means, like the old mp3.com, ampcast.com or IUMA.
Also, David Byrne really needs to work out more or wear that white suit again; he’s looking awfully skinny.
Keep an eye on Viacom vs YouTube. Copyright infringement case at its best.
This will likely change the face of YouTube, and could trickle down to affect what companies in the future will allow on their websites.
I hear that google is entirely unfazed, actually:
Media conglomerate Viacom Inc. ended six months of thinly veiled threats of legal action against YouTube earlier on Tuesday with a $1 billion lawsuit that accuses Google and YouTube of “massive intentional copyright infringement.”
But Google and YouTube lawyers said their actions are squarely within the protections offered by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) of 1998 and they were prepared to defend the company aggressively.
Reuters Pictures
Photo
Editors Choice: Best pictures
from the last 24 hours.
View Slideshow
The DMCA has served as the legal standard defining U.S. copyright law in the digital age. It limits liability for firms that act quickly to block access to pirated materials once they are notified by copyright holders of specific infringement.
“Here there is a law which is specifically designed to give Web hosts such as us, or… bloggers or people that provide photo-album hosting online … the ‘safe harbor’ we need in order to be able to do hosting online,” said Alexander Macgillivray, Google’s associate general counsel for products and intellectual property.
“We will never launch a product or acquire a company unless we are completely satisfied with its legal basis for operating,” Macgillivray told Reuters in an interview.
The revolution already happened, and it was called the DMCA.
He predicted that online sales would surpass CD sales by 2012
He’s probably right. If not by then, soon thereafter. I realize I’m in the minority, but I have to say this makes me sad. I like CDs and physical manifestations of music (like records!). I enjoy the process of picking out a CD from my shelf, carrying it over to a player, and putting it in. I find it satisfying to rip the covers off new CDs and look through the liner notes. I steal much more music than I buy because I’m poor.
I guess I’m a luddite in a lot of ways… I’m still clinging to film photography over digital whilst kicking and screaming. On the other hand, I think the DVR is the Best Invention Evah and don’t have one because I’m poor, not because I’m opposed to one. The digital world doesn’t do it for me that much tho, I guess. I like to touch things, feel things, smell things (mmm, fixer).
So while this digital revolution is inevitable, it makes me sad. I need to get an ipod so I can at least feel that up :)
Think of it another way – ten to twenty years from now, producing analog film prints will be a quirky anachronism, and twenty to thirty years from now, it’ll be a valuable artistic medium again, just like pinhole photography is now. :)
Ironistically, if iTunes got rid of the DRM I’d probably boy most of my music from them. It used to be that way, but joining emusic and getting a few non-apple devices in my ecosystem have made iTunes a sort of last resort. Sometimes I’ll, um, CONSIDER, buying it off iTunes and then just downloading the clean copy.