Torrentspy names alleged MPAA hacker

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I recently posted this elsewhere...

....but it's equally relevant to films - though much more of a problem for the film industry.

The notion of digital rights management is never going to work, IMO.
Ultimately, you HAVE to convert to audio - the human brain doesn't accept direct digital input. *smile* ....... Yet ... *eek*

People happily accept the inevitable slight decrease in quality caused by the conversion to the extremely compact mp3 format.

Play your music and re-record the audio output to convert back to digital in a file form that is free of any restraints.
With a Pro sound-card (high-quality converters) the consequent quality loss of the double-conversion is very small indeed.
....and you can do WTF you like with it, copy it to play on "anything." *top*

....so we are faced with a choice .....
Buy their DRM product at an extortionate price and suffer all the restrictions and problems of future obsolescence of format/player/License
- OR -
Rip-and-Burn via audio.
AFAIK, this loophole is unpluggable.
I was in the studio business while the industry was (wasting huge amounts of money and everybody's time) trying to create an "audio-based DRM type protection"
This was the era of panic caused by the invention of audio cassettes and - much later, the first CD's
The results of the various audio-based protection attempts were judged utterly atrocious by the Association Of Professional Sound Engineers* for the dire audio consequences clearly audible at the official demonstration of the proposed system.
Strangely, ( *razz* ) the unanimous horror of the audiophiles wasn't shared by any of the assembled record-company people, who continued to talk up their proposals even as the audio experts almost vomited in the aisles.
Indeed, very few accountants - oops....record execs .... saw/heard anything wrong with the protection at all and but for the the wholesale rejection by anyone with functional hearing - including the very artistes whose music this was going to "protect" - we WOULD have been had this atrocity inflicted upon us!!

So now they are wasting money (YOURS! *mad* ) on developing a system which has an inherent work-around - quite apart from what any hackers/crackers may achieve in the future.

The truth is - the days of the big record companies are over. For ever.

In the past, an artiste had to create and demo their work and persuade a record-company to invest a large sum of money to finance the cost of professional recording, promoting and plugging.
These days musicians are a lot more tech-savvy with regard to recording and the capabilities of quite cheap, easy to use software can rival the product of a pro-studio.
.... if everyone in your band has cloth-ears then you'll need a Producer to keep you on track and give the product "audio gloss" but there are plenty of those guys around these days.

As for promotion/sales/distribution .... Gnarles Barkly and now Ms Horne have shown that the internet can already be all you need.
...Oh..... you'll need some talent too, of course *lol* (...probably *wink* )

How the artiste themselves protect their undeniable right to payment for their efforts is another closely related question of course, but whichever and however the long established role of the record companies is inevitably over.
DRM for music is their desperate attempt to hang on to their income and industry control, but their day is over.
They're obsolete in their present form, because their niche has been filled in and bypassed.

Meanwhile, we're prolly looking at another decade of DRM attempts with all its frustrations, inconvenience (to us) and costs (to us). *mad*

DRM ...... Desperate Record Moguls
[url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/5041684.stm] UK ministers demand clear labelling [/url]
[url=http://ct.zdnet.com/clicks?t=2488740-54f1197672643c754bf0ce19a16d0169-bf&s=5&fs=0] Problems of DRM [/url]

Posted by: Castanet   Posted on: 06/23/06 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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