Saving the future of DRM'd content - central clearing house
Downloadable content is all the rage. While there are many of us that have been downloading content for years, starting with BBS systems, it seems that you can't play a game or sign up to a service where there is not some downloadable content on the menu. While we grew up with packaged goods at the principal mode of getting content into the home, more and more companies are turing to virtual goods and digital distribution. Convenient. Fast. Abundant. Problematic.
The latest casualty in the DRM digital content marketplace was WalMart. Er...let me rephrase that. the latest casualty in the DRM digital content marketplace were the people who PURCHASED said content from WalMart. WalMart is currently moving to (and good thing too) a non-DRM MP3 marketplace. However, they offered DRM music for quite some time and announced that they would be shutting down their servers that authenticate DRM'd music by October 9th, 2008. If you changed your e-mail, throw WalMart e-mails in your junk filter, etc. you may be in for a surprise when you try to move your music to another device/computer and nothing works.
What if Apple followed through on their threat to shut down their iTunes music store if the royalties on music downloads increased from $.09 to $.15 by order of the Copyright Royalty Board? Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed and the board left the current royalty fees stand (although the royalties for ringtones now net music companies 3 times that of full songs) The repercussions for the consumer could be staggering as there will be hundreds of millions of DRM'd pieces of content out there with no way to use, move or reuse. Sorry folks, but these threats are starting to REALLY wear thin.
DRM has become such a problem that the inclusion of such "safeguards" in the highly anticipated Electronic Arts game, Spore, became the focus of the review. In fact, angry consumers "bookstomed" ("gamestormed"?) the reviews section for the game on Amazon.com. So, how do we strike a balance between consumer rights and the right for content creators to protect their output? Well, I have one suggestion.
We need to create a central clearing house for DRM keys.
That's right folks, time to build another organization backed by the collective media industry, not any individual company, that holds DRM keys to any media sold to consumer markets. This silo of information is there to provide access to a consumer's content should the company who sold the content go out of business or, simply decide they just "don't wanna!" run their DRM servers (as an aside, really, how much money would it have cost WalMart to keep the servers running. Seriously.).
Having a clearing house that received all copies of the DRM keys, customer information, affords a consumer the ability to safeguard their investment in digital media while allowing the media companies the ability to continue using DRM technologies. Sounds reasonable, right? How likely is it to happen? Hmmm......
But why do we need DRM at all? Does it even work? If it actually had any effect on piracy then all the torrent sites would have given up and there wouldn't be DRM stripping tools available. It's about as useful as CSS encryption on DVDs is or any form of protection on games consoles. The fact a company can just decide to turn off their servers is further proof that it's a bad idea.
The whole idea of controlling our usage of "digital content" is flawed and is proven time and time again to not work.
If the might of Sony, Nintendo or Microsoft (or the entire movie industry) are unable to prevent people ripping their products apart and totally defeating the protection then why would a central repository be any better? It's a single point of failure/attack. How long would it be before the encryption keys were revoked or someone created a universal DRM removal tool?
There has to be a better way than this. I own CDs from over fifteen years ago, and vinyl records from much earlier than that. I don't hold much hope that in ten years time the music I've bought from iTunes will play. But the music/media industry doesn't care about this, which is the problem really.
Posted by James on October 07, 2008 at 07:44 AM EDT #
James,
Not saying I disagree with any of the fine points you made here. What I am suggesting, however, is that if companies still demand to use DRM methods we should have, as consumers, an "insurance plan" to allow us access to the content we purchased or leased.
I am in the same camp as you. I own CDs from the same period. I own over 1000 cartridge/CD/DVD games. Over 750 DVDs. I love the fact that I can still play all of my media, although with changes in TV over the years, some games are now unplayable unless I have an older tube TV (which I do for such games).
The reality is that a company can do what they want with the products or content they make. That is their right. They can choose the distribution method, playback device, etc. However, they do so at the risk of alienating X % of the possible install base. So, companies need to figure the balance.
Occasionally, they make the wrong choice. What I am suggesting is that we have a way to allow consumers balance in the equation and ensure access to what they purchased and is not subject to market or corporate whims.
Posted by Chris Melissinos on October 07, 2008 at 08:41 AM EDT #
If you want to take any frustrations you may have with Electronic Arts, DRM, and SecuROM one step further, there's a campaign to refuse to buy EA games until they remove DRM and SecuROM from their software. Check it out at http://www.thepoint.com/campaigns/ea-games-without-drm-and-secu-rom
Figure each game costs $50, and if 500 people sign on, that would be $25,000 in lost revenue. For its loyal customer base, secretly adding DRM and SecuROM in their install is just not the way to treat us.
The three issues are that DRM and SecuRom are being installed without the user realizing it; DRM limits the number of computers you can install it on; and SecuROM has been affecting some people's computers to the point that they needed to re-format their hard drive and uninstall the game to get their computer returning to normal.
And it takes just a minute to sign up.
Posted by Paul in Chicago on October 14, 2008 at 12:58 PM EDT #