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Music Piracy and Digital Rights Management (DRM)

IT professionals require an awareness of the business, economic, legal and social issues of Computing Technology in the modern world.

A poster opposing DRMBefore we delve into the reasons for Digital Rights Management’s disapproval let us overview the case in support of it.  The case for enterprise DRM is synonymous with the case for a well-articulated, role-based technology and data protection policy. DRM simply moves the point of data security from that of the network hardware or the computer software down to the individual document, or even right down to document-based operations (Compton, 2005).

Simon Halberstam, a noted expert on the subject gives an interesting insight:

“Legal protections for digital IP theft have been generally strengthened in the UK and in major jurisdictions such as the EU and US, but a lack of synchronization between them and dubious enforceability in many other markets, keeps companies looking for more proactive protections. It’s difficult to impose UK laws on someone operating in Eastern Europe or China. In other words, if you want people to respect your rights, you need technological means of achieving it” (Compton, 2005).

But the flaws inherent in the DRM system, which is largely as a result of Information Technology industry’s lack of foresight and rigorous testing of the new business model, has been drawing concerns from commentators right from its inception.  For example Robin Gear, a reputed technology analyst associated with PA Consulting expressed the following words of caution at a very stage of the technology’s application:

“If you have documents going around for the board’s eyes only, you can encapsulate data in that way. You can set up lists of people who have rights to view, modify, forward, and copy, etc.  One thing perimeter security does well is that it keeps outsiders from getting in and getting information, but it does nothing to stop insiders from malicious behaviour” (Compton, 2005)

The Digital Rights Management (DRM) initiative is an industry wide agreement on a robust and fool-proof data security technology.  The necessity for such a sophisticated technology is the rapid growth in online commerce, especially the businesses related to entertainment.  This includes downloadable movies, music albums, electronic books, etc.  A very successful application of DRM technology is seen in Apple’s iTunes service.  Music offered for purchase is encrypted and the unlocking the encryption is only possible by a “compatible player with the correct password”.  For example, when a new song is bought, the buyer is required to send the unique code of his music player to the iTunes technical department.  After this, the iTunes manufacturing unit encrypts the music file based on the customer’s unique music player code.  This way, the file could not be opened by any other player than that of the customer’s (O’Brien, 2004).

The Digital Rights Management technology was hailed as an ingenious and fool-proof one when it was first proposed to online music companies.  But, its practical success did not seem to match the high expectations that it created initially.  What could be the reasons?  Well, while there are a myriad of factors contributing toward this result, one significant one is the inadequate domain knowledge of people in the music manufacturing industry.  In a world that is becoming ever smaller, specialization in one skill and ignorance in allied areas will no longer work.  For example, the Information Technology gurus of music manufacturing industry are proficient in fitting high volume, high quality data in the most convenient of mediums at the cheapest of prices.  But unless a broader understanding of the context of the business in terms of its legal, economic and social aspects is paid heed to, success will be difficult to achieve.  Let us look at the reasons why this is the case.

The following is a classic example of creative application of technology but poor commercial results.  For example, if a customer buys a film DVD from an online shop, he/she could be charged for each view of the film in a video player that does not correspond to the encryption code.  While this restricts customers from benefiting from someone else’s purchase, it turned out to be a bad public relations exercise.  Circulating DVDs among friends is a popular way of maintaining social contact and exchange of information.  But, the fact that the customer could never really “own” the DVD unless he views it with his own player can be very offensive to the customer.  Secondly, reselling is a longstanding tradition associated with all retail content – be it entertainment or information.  The DRM makes it impossible for second-hand sale of the content it offers, irking the customers again.  What the above case of DRM’s failure shows is a lack of understanding on part of the manufacturers (basically Information Technology professionals) about the social aspects of digital data consumption (O’Brien, 2004).

Danny O’Brien gives another example of the short-sightedness of the decision makers in the Information Technology industry.

“…seems to have completely missed the bigger picture, which is that copyright owners are using DRM to trump the legal rights that society has till now expected from copyright holders in return for the privileges granted to them. If rights we now take for granted are to be protected in the era of digital media, action is needed now. At the very least, the regulators should force Microsoft and other DRM patent holders to find ways of making DRM technology compatible with these rights before the technology is deployed more widely.” (O’Brien, 2004)

A review of the scholarly literature on the subject lays open to the reader layer upon layer of poor perspective on part of Information Technology professionals.  Let us leave alone all the other negative implications of the DRM systems in place presently.  The least we can expect from DRM is a little progress toward curbing digital piracy in general and music piracy in particular.  But DRM has failed to achieve its bottom-line in even the most liberal of evaluations.  All DRM implementations ranging from Apple’s FairPlay to Advanced Access Content System employed for HD DVD versions have been circumvented by the resourceful.  All entertainment content – be it music or movies – could be tapped off air.  In other words, one need not hold a doctorate in electronic communication to record/copy protected content as it is playing.  It is hard to believe, but nevertheless a fact, that the best brains of the Information Technology industry could not fathom this, let alone trying to address it (Goodman, 2007).

In addition to the above discussed disadvantages, DRM systems have other negative consequences too, including the loss of a customer’s rights under prevailing copyright laws and the potential for malicious vendors to exploit the customer’s personal preferences for unsolicited marketing purposes.  Further, there are considerable usability issues with the initial version of DRM software. As users discover more such problems, they are likely to pressurize manufacturers in bringing about a solution that improves usability and protects their rights (deCarmo, 2001).

While the United States is the largest market for online-music consumption, the European Union countries are trailing close behind.  While American online music corporations seem indifferent to the plethora of problems with the DRM technology, their European counterparts are quite ahead in their thinking.  In Europe, as in the rest of the world, hackers have been successful in attacking DRM systems for quite some time now, without raising alarms.  But, the opposition against the DRM system has been growing in strength of late (Information Week, 2007).

At the Music 2.0 conference held in Los Angeles recently, Yahoo Music chief executive Dave Goldberg summed up the prevailing industry sentiment. He also emphasized his opposition to DRM in his communication with shareholders and in his regular columns with periodicals.  Other significant decision makers of the Information Technology industry have joined the chorus to unlock digital music. So, when the members of the industry themselves admit the failure of the DRM enterprise, its ineffectiveness is proved beyond doubt.  A survey conducted among the music industry executives and members of information technology industry in 2007 shows that most of the respondents – a group comprised by employees of major and independent record labels, industry and special interest groups, digital stories, and services and technology providers – express similar views on the issue. The results are as follows:

“Among the executives surveyed, 62% agreed that dropping DRM would drive adoption of digital music and 54% said that DRM was overly restrictive. Presented with the statement “DRM is essential for online music,” 56% of respondents disagreed. Only 11% of those surveyed believe that DRM-free music would threaten revenues.” (Information Week, 2007)

The above results are as much a reflection of IT professionals’ ignorance of the business, legal and economic conditions of their industry.

In the final analysis, the lack of awareness among IT professionals – the ones who decide the technologies being applied – has brought about a situation where DRM’s days are numbered. The changes are already in the air.  Leading the progress is EMI Records, which has been “experimenting with distributing unprotected digital music downloads and is reportedly reviewing its position on content protection technology for CDs”. Some analysts predict that the year 2007 would be the last of DRM days.  James McQuivey sums up the situation succinctly thus: “There’s no evidence that a DRM-free world is more injurious than the one in which we already live.  There’s no evidence it’s going to suddenly ignite a new firestorm of piracy and anarchy” (Information Week, 2007).

References:

“European Music Execs Dissatisfied With DRM; Could 2007 be the year that one of the major music companies breaks ranks and gives up on DRM?(digital rights management). .” InformationWeek,. (Feb 14, 2007)

“In the beginning, there was rhythm.(music piracy control by using digital rights management technology). .” Personal Computer World. (Dec 5, 2006):

Compton, Jason. “Data Business – Lock up your data – DRM comes to the enterprise. Documents can be more of a security risk than the repositories they sit in. Jason Compton looks at how digital rights management can prevent sensitive data from wandering out of the workplace. ” Computing. (Nov 24, 2005): 44

O’Brien, Danny. “Stand up for your rights: overzealous copyright enforcement is changing the way we enjoy books, music and film. We risk losing some of our most basic freedoms. ” New Scientist. 183.2463 (Sept 4, 2004): 15(1).

Goodman, Michael. “ANALYST SPEAK: Why media owners will never make DRM work.(digital rights management). .” New Media Age., (June 14, 2007): 10.

deCarmo, Linden. “Media Alert – New digital rights technologies protect content creators’ interests, but what about users’ rights?” PC Magazine. (June 26, 2001): 80.

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