Since last month’s flurry of anti-DRM press one might conclude that it’s just a matter of days and all media distributions will be going to market sans any form of Digital Rights Management.  With Steve Job’s open letter on the subject, EMI mulling over the option of going DRM free and a dizzying chorus of industry types now denouncing the evils of DRM, heck it’s going to be nothing but blue skies ahead, right? 

 

 

Down with DRM

 

Not so fast…. I’m I the only sane person to stand up and say this is all just a bunch of fanciful nonsense?

 

Let me state clearly for the record – DRM is from the Devil, or perhaps just “is the Devil” (that’s for all you Waterboy fans out there.) I would love nothing more than to see all DRM eliminated. I do not work in the media industry, and can not agree more about what a sham copy protection and encryption techniques on everything from music to movies to software have become.

 

DRM wastes the time of those looking to exercise legal “fair-use” rights on the media they have purchased, punishes those who attempt to comply with the law, and does nothing to stop the dedicated/skilled pirates hacking it.

 

But hey all that is in the past? After all, Steve Job’s has said that he doesn’t see any need for DRM, and in fact that it’s the record labels that are forcing Apple to apply DRM and locking iTunes/iPods together. Whatever Mr. Jobs, Whatever – weren’t you the one propagating the “fact” that the IBM/Motorola PowerPC (RISC) architecture was the way of the future and so much faster than Intel X86 could ever produce? Hum.. I digress.

 

Even Steve Job’s well intentioned commentary aside, DRM is not going away people. It stings to even admit that, but the truth hurts and this is a cold hard truth.  Just like true campaign finance reform, the parties involved are way too deep into their own mud puddles to seriously consider that they may be getting themselves and those around them irrevocably stuck.

 

So instead of accepting the reality of the predicament, listening to the market, and correcting, most publishers prefer to mask the solution. After all it’s so much easier to blame the problem on insufficient technology, or a poor implementation, and promise to make the next flavor of the month “even more better!”

 

Look at the Microsoft “Plays for Sure” debacle. Not only is the product name a bunch crap, as the Zune (another MS DRM infested product) does not even support Plays for Sure DRM; but this is only a two year old form of DRM that is being deemed obsolete and incompatible with new products from the same company.  TWO YEARS…  The idiots who force this restrictive maniacal on consumers are not backing away from DRM, they’re busy building new, more incompatible and restrictive formats!

 

So perhaps I’m just too cynical, but I don’t believe you Steve Job’s. And I certainly don’t see any signs of Microsoft pushing back at the content producers, demanding they publish DRM free versions of works.

 

Finally to my fellow pundents and prognosticators, I’m with you – I’d like an end to DRM as much as you, but endlessly writing/talking about 2007 as the year that DRM was abolished, is simply a pipedream.  Here is a prediction I feel confident about – the same people naive enough to believe that DRM will really be abolished this year will still be talking about how 2008 (or insert the year of your choice here) is going to be the year we finally go DRM free.