Digital Rights Management - downloads might not only be for pirates...

by Garrick Jones

The opinions and debates over online piracy and Digital Rights Management (DRM) are endless. At the end of the day, you're either in favour of the consumer's right to download content for free or you're in favour of the artists, networks and labels making profits from their work.

We all remember the fall of Napster and more recently the large settlement from KaZaA with the major record labels and motion picture studios. But could we be seeing the age of a middle-ground?

Finally we are seeing legal headway in addressing the piracy issue. But the answer surely lies in preventing the need for piracy in the first place. Enter DRM - but is it logical or possible to pursue this?

We can see that there are positives to be taken out of using DRM - like artists being able to widely distribute their content online for a profit while maintaining the integrity of that content. It also allows consumers to be sure that the content they are downloading is of a high quality and that they are not inadvertently pirating copyrighted material.

But these positives are only in theory. The reality is that the pirates that the software is designed to target are just making use of DRM-cracks to overcome this obstacle, while those genuinely honest individuals are being forced to break the law to get the media on other portable devices. The list of disadvantages for the consumer is great.

The solutions would need to differ for music, TV series and movies. We have already seen examples in the music industry in Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails and Coldplay. They can make their music free for download and use this as a marketing tool for other revenue streams - freeconomics. The problem is that bands find themselves restricted by contracts with their record labels.

With TV series and movies, there are no live tours. The revenue needs to come from somewhere else. The question is where, the answer may be ads.

Introduce ads into content and make it another legal form of media. How will this effect the viewers? Are they prepared to sit through advertisements in an online environment?

Hiro is an example of software that facilitates this process. Ads are inserted into the content, but then it can also be legally transferred between individuals via websites, P2P and social networks. Take a look at what's available here.

You might be asking yourself, can the user not just skip through the ads; you can do this on TV with PVR? The answer is no they can't. So basically (if you're staying legal), you can watch the episodes before they broadcast on television and sit through the ads or you can wait for them to come on TV and skip through the ads using your PVR.

The next question is, “Will users be willing to sit through these ads?”. I think that if the show is something that they would really like to watch, they would.

Models like these would provide great value to the consumer and the artist. We would however see a negative effect on the record labels and the studios. Bad thing?

Alternatively, one could make use of the DRM converter programs. Personally I'm not an advocate of piracy and I hate to see artists lose out, but I do feel that consumers should be put at the centre of these industries. For this reason I lean towards the model of freeconomics. I think it's an interesting model for all involved, but also understand that it's one that may not make sense for all parties.

2008/05/23 | permalink | comments (1) | trackbacks (0)

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