Hand it to "The Decider" for nailing it.
"The model of the future is what Trent Reznor is doing today. What that means for the RIAA and its members is that it renders them obsolete."
His is the second TalkBack post commenting on our story about an executive from the Recording Industry Association of America predicting that digital rights management is set for a comeback. David Hughes, who heads up the RIAA's technology unit, argued that because "any form of subscription service or limited play-per-view or advertising offer still requires DRM" then it naturally followed that "DRM is not dead."
Um, not so fast.
As Greg Sandoval's piece noted, the top four music labels are warming up to unprotected music files while an increasing number of online stores now offer some open MP3s. If DRM is "not dead," that's not to say it's positively thriving. But Hughes maintains that the signposts are about to blow in a different direction. He told attendees at a music conference Thursday in Los Angeles that the move toward subscription services will necessarily return DRM to center stage.
I don't buy that, but I can't claim to be clairvoyant, so we'll see who's right six months from now. More immediately, does the RIAA understand how much ill will DRM fosters among music listeners? All he has to do is plug in the right search terms on Google. By now, who would be surprised to learn that DRM has only widened the gulf between the record labels and their audience? I've got to assume that the record labels aren't this clueless about their customers. (Then again, maybe I'm guilty of a Panglossian world view.)
Nearly two years ago, Chris Pirillo posted a neat little rant on why DRM drove him batty. The sad truth is that two years later, his complaint remains as relevant as it was when he authored the following lines in May 2006.
I've currently got a subscription to Napster, a trial account with Rhapsody, and another trial account with MTV's URGE. That's three separate subscriptions I've got floating across all my systems. Now, I've already downloaded Pearl Jam's new album through Napster. I can't listen to it in either Rhapsody or URGE. I've paid for it already! So, let's say I turn off Napster and switch to URGE. I'd have to download the album again. What's more, Windows Media Player / Windows Explorer doesn't tell me where the album came from - I have to guess. I have to play (by trial and error) to see which albums are supported by which service. THIS IS MADNESS! Why can't the individual file detect which service I'm paying for and then adjust itself accordingly? Why must I maintain three DRM'ed versions of the same song?
Is that the sort of publicity Hughes and the RIAA think will work to the advantage of the music industry? C'mon.
Sometimes there are words that really reverberate with people. What Thomas Jefferson wrote in the preamble to the U.S. Constitution is one. I think Barack Obama's disquisition on race in America is another. I'm curious to know how the smackdown Billy Bragg delivered to the social-networking moguls is going to be received.
If history's any guide, his New York Times op-ed on Saturday called "The Royalty Scam" will fall on deaf ears. Still, it's worth a serious hearing.
Best as I can tell, Bragg isn't a technophobe trying to turn back the clock. Rather, he's concerned about the livelihood of his profession and he wants to know how musicians will make a living in the cyberage.
"The musicians who posted their work on Bebo.com are no different from investors in a start-up enterprise. Their investment is the content provided for free while the site has no liquid assets. Now that the business has reaped huge benefits, surely they deserve a dividend.
What's at stake here is more than just the morality of the market. The huge social networking sites that seek to use music as free content are as much to blame for the malaise currently affecting the industry as the music lover who downloads songs for free. Both the corporations and the kids, it seems, want the use of our music without having to pay for it.
The claim that sites such as MySpace and Bebo are doing us a favor by promoting our work is disingenuous. Radio stations also promote our work, but they pay us a royalty that recognizes our contribution to their business. Why should that not apply to the Internet, too?"
He doesn't answer the questions he raises. But Bragg does recommend the creation of rules of the road to let artists "decide how our music is exploited and by whom." Rules? Consensus? Hoo boy, I can already hear the outrage, punctuated by dismissive peals of laughter. Too bad. He deserves a serious hearing. Now it's your turn.
Update 12:50 p.m. PDT: Over at Rough Type, Nick Carr has a good take on the topic that's worth reading. Especially this zinger toward the end:
"Exploitation is exploitation, no matter how lovingly it's wrapped in neo-hippie technobabble about virtual communities, social production, and the gift economy."
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