I hate DRM…
This topic has without a doubt been something that has been talked to death but unfortunately, I have to put in my two cents. Its simple, I hate DRM, its killing me.
Let me be clear, I’m a pirate, by the standards of the MPAA, RIAA & such I am a pirate because I want to use the media that I have PAID for in whatever way I like. Unfortunately in this day & age, the media industries have forced us to be come pirates. I want to be legal, I really do, but they make it harder to be legal and PAY for my content then it is to steal it. Are they really so dumb as to not understand this.
Let me be a bit more clear. For years iTunes was DRM music which means that if you purchased a song through iTunes you could only play it in iTunes or on an iPod. This seems like a reasonable restriction until your iPod dies and your forced to use something cheaper. You do have the option of burning your music off to CD & then re-ripping it back to MP3 which removes the DRM but lets be honest, I don’t want to have to WORK for something that i just paid for. So in essesnce, Apple gave me to options:
- Purchase my music on iTunes and take an additional hour AFTER paying for my music to actually make it playable all places I want it.
- Fire up piratebay, limewire, kazaa or whatever is popular at the moment and spend 3 minutes searching for and downloading a song that will play anywhere
I will not say which I chose but lets be honest, I want the easy route in all cases, especially when I’m paying for it. The flip side to this is that now music on iTunes is drm free and since this has happened to all their music I have not only purchased all my music from iTunes and stopped using ‘other sources’ that I may have used previously but I’ve actually started buying more music, so in the end, iTunes wins and I’m happy too. So for music, I’m happy, moving onto other places where I am definitely NOT happy…
Movies: I’m going to leave this one short & sweet. If i want to buy a movie on iTunes(Movie, TV Show, whatever). I can’t play it on my Xbox (which is hooked to my tv). If I buy a movie on my Xbox I can’t watch it on my iPhone. Let me be clear, if this were an incompatibility in formats, I wouldn’t be happy, but it would be justifiable. Player X can’t play the format of Player Y. Thats not the case, this is just more stupid drm and because of that the consumer gets screwed. I want to be able to buy my movies, tv shows etc and just have them work! I don’t want to have to use torrent sites, limewire or whatever, I would much prefer to be legal but unfortunately, they are making this harder & harder!
The last point I’m going to talk about in this post is actually the reason that I decided to write this point: www.audible.com. Oh Audible, you are like a beautiful woman who offers me all that I want and once I’ve give up all others, I find out your are crazy and neurotic. Let me explain.
I love audiobooks. My wife loves audiobooks. We use a LOT of audiobooks. So we decided a few months ago to purchase the audible platinum plan which would allow us to purchase two books a month. I was very excited about this because once again the honest truth is that I WANT to pay for my content and quite frankly, the more books I can consume, the better. Audible has a great selection and if you delete a book you can always download it again so there is no concern of backing up, where could the downside be? DRM…shocking huh?
Over the past few months, I’ve came into multiple times where audible has royally ticked me off due to DRM. Apparently with all audible files, if you do not play a file directly in iTunes once every week or so, your files will not work on your iPhone/iPod. I don’t listen to my audiobooks on iTunes, EVER, thats why I have an iPhone so the way I discover this problem is while I’m at work in need of a book to relax while working on computers and it will not work. Not only does it not work, it doesn’t even tell me why! The audio just doesn’t come out!
I’m sure your thinking to yourself at this point, “You know, all you have to do is click that little audio file once in a while and the problem is solved”. The truth is, you’re correct but thats just dumb. I paid for this, I want full rights. If I never connect my iPhone to iTunes again, it should work just fine & dandy. The absolute least audible could do is be kind enough to warn me while I’m syncing that it hasn’t been played recently and to enter my password. Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t the fix I want but it is at least a fix!
So whats the point of all this? DRM SUCKS. Its a simple as that. No pirate in the world has been slowed down by DRM in fact the only people who are slowed down by DRM are the ones who are actually trying to use this stuff legally! iTunes goes DRM free, my music purchasing increases, wheres the downside here? I may be wrong b/c I don’t just by looking around, iTunes going drm free definitely doesn’t seem to have increased any pirating. Please, MPAA, audible, whoever you may be, stop trying to hurt us. Stop trying to prevent us from using the things we have LEGALLY purchased in proper ways. Just give me the files and no one gets hurt…