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The age of digital media, digital products and digital lifestyles has created nearly as many problems as it has benefits, at least for some people and companies. Recall that it was just a few years ago that a college student with a small homespun program called Napster brought the music industry to its knees as millions of people worldwide used it to “share” their music collections.
Now Napster is a legitimate e-commerce site selling licensed content loaded with digital rights management hooks to keep people from doing what the original Napster allowed. Most other music e-commerce sites, Apple’s iTunes store included, also use DRM to control (restrict) the use of the products they sell. In some cases those restrictions seem arbitrary (the number of copies that can be made, the number of PCs that can play the content) and some cases not so much. In most cases though they restrict us from doing things we grew up doing in the analog world so long ago.
Strangely, Apple’s Steve Jobs has come out against DRM, despite the fact that iTunes uses DRM that restricts its content from playing on any media player but iPods. He believes that if music studios let him lift the DRM then more people would shop at iTunes.
DRM, and the paranoia that goes with it, strikes in other strange ways. XM Radio (which is trying to merge with rival Sirius) is in trouble over its XM2Go products (the Pioneer Inno and Samsung Helix) which allow XM content to be recorded on the radio for later playback. The fact that the content never leaves the product and gets deleted when the owner cancels the subscription doesn’t register on the music studios.
When Microsoft released the Zune, with its Wi-Fi sharing capability, fans were thrilled with the idea of wirelessly sending music to the Zune user sitting in the next bus seat. However, the restrictions Microsoft placed on the feature quickly dampened that enthusiasm.
In this issue, a couple of products are profiled which permit recording of content. Such use may be viewed as fair use by some and infringement by others, so it’s important that consumers in this digital age be aware of their rights. In fact, more than that, it’s important that people be prepared to defend their rights if they believe they’re are being unjustly restricted, or worse. Digital rights, fair use rights and content ownership rights may not be causes as exciting as clean air or endangered animals, but it’s a cause worth being informed about and willing to take action on if the time and circumstances demand it. yy
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