In Short, DRM Sucks
Cory Doctorow takes Robert Scoble to task. Scoble argues that, because Windows has more licenses for its DRM’d audio format, it’s preferable to the iPod. Cory’s point (which I wholeheartedly agree with) is that DRM is lousy, regardless of the flavour. Whether you get your music at MSN.com or the iTunes store, you just getting a different flavour of lock-in:
Microsoft can pursue the bone-stupid strategy of kowtowing to the music labels instead of delivering the tools its customers want, but it’s a dead end. When Sony invented the VCR, it did so after the movie companies had already decreed that they would only license their movies for use on the “Discovision,” a hunk of shit best forgotten on the trashheap of history (much like the products that Sony later delivered instead of MP3 walkmen). With the VCR, though, Sony delivered what its customers wanted, and the movie companies got rich off of it, dragged kicking and screaming to the money-tree again.
Until there’s a reliable, reasonably-priced, DRM-free subscription service, I’m never going to pay to download digital music. Once that’s available, I’ll be all over it like a drunk salesman at a Christmas party.
