September 1, 2005
The Customer Is Always Wrong: A User’s Guide to DRM in Online Music
If you buy music from an online music store, you may be getting much less than you thought. Today EFF released “The Customer Is Always Wrong: A User’s Guide to DRM in Online Music,” which exposes how today’s digital rights management (DRM) systems compromise a consumer’s right to lawfully manage her music the way she wants.
The guide takes a close look at popular online music services provided by Apple, RealNetworks, and Napster 2.0, as well as Microsoft’s “Plays For Sure” DRM campaign. In an effort to attract customers, these companies try to obscure the restrictions they impose on you with clever marketing. Unfortunately, bypassing these hidden restrictions to make perfectly legal uses puts you at risk of liability under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).
This guide “translates” the marketing messages, giving you the real deal rather than the spin. Understanding how DRM and the DMCA pose a danger to your rights will help you to make fully informed purchasing decisions. Before buying DRM-crippled music from any service, check out the guide and be sure you understand how the service might limit your ability to make lawful use of the music you purchase.
Filed by Derek Slater at 3:58 pm under General news
3 Comments
The consumer alwas get the short end of the stick!!
I’m not a fan of DRM, but I did have a problem with your article. When you mentioned the change that Apple made to the way their DRM works, where you can now only burn the same playlist to CD seven times instead of ten, to be fair you should have mentioned that they also INCREASED the amount of computers purchased tracks could be played on. But, I guess saying that wouldn’t have helped your goal as much.
Some may present the argument of DRM and fair use in the light of real space with respect to the online retail concept. If, for example a retail store in real space had no alarm, and no loss prevention systems in place (cameras, personel, etc…). Would it change the liability of the retail center legally, or for insurance purposes, and maybe even the price at which one center may distribute? Now if you take the same concept to cyber-space does the concept change? I don’t ask questions in refutation to the post, but it seems like all of these questions are without answer. From what I have read in your blog, I would say I stand on the same side of the fence as you, but also think some questions are not answered fully. And I think those questions would change the framework of consumer rights. Not saying consumers are not being shafted –shafted from personal experience–, but I am saying the underlying reasons for the copy-protection may provide more structure to finding a common ground for “consumer rights” in the future.