I've been thinking about the whole issue of Digital Rights Management (DRM) a lot lately. Partly it has been occasioned by my use of a lot of free software (open source) on my Macs and PCs. Partly, because of the whole music downloading issue which has been in the press a lot lately.
If one reads the EULA (End User License Agreement) that you implicitly agree to when you open many commercial software products, you'll find that you have been laboring under the misapprehension that you purchased the software. This is not so as I explained in an article I wrote for Streaming Media a couple of years ago.
It's insidious, but you've only "licensed" the right to use the software. Now, this isn't quite the case with an album of music or a book. We don't have to agree to "shrinkwrap" agreements with these. Indeed, when we loan a friend a great CD to listen to, or a book to read, we are not breaking any laws.
So why the fuss? I would imagine it's because we are not copying the book (for example) and giving the copy to a friend. So the argument runs that we are depriving the artist of sales because if we can copy it for free, why would we buy it? However, as this article by one of my favorite authors points out this perception is changing in the literary community. I think its somewhat fitting that the charge has been led by the futurists amongst us.
Baen Books has been a leader in this sea change of thought on rights management and ownership. Indeed, I was lead to this when I recently went looking for content to put in my eBook reader (I use MobiPocket) on my Palm Vx. I've got a whole host of books and essays in it right now (including this pretty gnarly exposition by John R. Boyd called Creation and Destruction that I'm still working my way through). But I wanted more content. So where to find it? There is a ton of stuff at Project Gutenberg but what if I wanted modern fiction or poetry or critical essays?
Then today I had a serendipitous moment. I have been reading through (and buying in hardback) the military sci-fi series by John Ringo. These days when you buy a Baen hardback you will find a multi-format (PC/Mac) CD-ROM in the back. I had always ignored these and filed them in the back of a desk drawer thinking they were just promo pieces for books.
Today, on inserting it into my laptop, I found that that this CD contains some twenty free books in various electronic formats (rtf, html, eBook). The basic premise is that one can try out the works of different authors and if you like the books, odds are you'll probably buy one. Their sales have apparently proved this to be the case.
So what does this do to the whole question of how downloading music rips off artists? I know that after hearing Norah Jones in MP3 format I went and bought her album. So I have a personal data point.
I guess the jury is still out. But some artists have decided to cut out the record companies and self-publish their music and keep a much larger share (~50%) for themselves. This is just what the music industry is afraid of. I don't know what deal most artists get but I would be surprised if they got more than 5% net of the revenues of their albums.
The Greatful Dead went the route of permitting taping at their show many years ago. Even now there is an active trading scene for their music on DAT tape. Why not? Live shows have an ephemeral existence and why shouldn't fans have access to them.
I don't know what the future will bring. I suspect, as Eric Flint at Baen argues, that people want to be honest more than dishonest and we will see the iTunes model of micropayments become more common.
I certainly hope so. I know I plan to use the iTunes store to download music I already "own" - simply because it's in currently inaccessible album (vinyl) format. How can that be bad for the artists?
Posted by artandscience at January 12, 2004 08:43 PM