Posts tagged as: copyprotection

David Berlind at Harvard

David Berlind's luncheon talk at Harvard's Berkman Center was interesting, but we have different approaches to predicting the future. David takes the traditional journalist's perspective of discovering who is doing what to effect change, while I try to figure out why people will adopt that change and whether they have ever made a similar decision in the past. For example, David recounted the various software, standards making, and political activities taking place in an effort to replace Microsoft Office with an open standard. While I, on the other hand, tried to find any sign of people looking for an alternative to Office. Of course Word is buggy and cumbersome, but I can't remember any time in the last few years when a real end-user has told me that they wish they could switch from Word to something else. Are they too dumb to realize they would be better off with a replacement for Word? No, I think they are too smart to waste their time looking for alternatives when they just want to get their work done. They aren't lazy, they're busy. If you want to beat Word's monopoly, you have to give people a powerful reason to switch, you can't just point out a better alternative. In marketing terms you can't just present a better mouse trap, you have to convince people that they have mice and that not getting rid of them will cause serious consequences. This isn't meant as a criticism of David. What he does serves a valuable purpose, and he certainly knows his stuff when it comes to the issue of alternatives to Microsoft. He also needs to incorporate a more market driven and historical perspective into his analysis.

I made my pitch to get David to use the term copy protection instead of DRM. He was sympathetic to the issue, but not too interested in making the change. He understands the issues of DRM so much better than I do, including the legal aspects, that he sees the problem of DRM as much greater than just not being able to move content to a new computer. He is right, but you aren't going to get people upset enough to demand change by providing more details. You need a simple hook. Maybe copy protection isn't scary enough. I'm not great at coming up with really compelling marketing terms, but I do know how to recognize them. When I find a way to describe DRM that makes people's eyes go wide, I'll know I've hit the target. If you have any suggestions for a really repulsive name for DRM, please let me know. I'll do my best to promote it.

I just signed up for Mashup Camp

I was thinking about going to O'Reilly's Emerging Technology conference in March, but Mashup Camp in February looks much more interesting. The caliber of the people signed up already is great. The camp is being run by David Berlind and Doug Gold, and I'm also going to see David speak at Berkman today. Its being webcast, if you can't make it to Harvard. I'll be the one who keeps saying copy protection every time he says DRM.

It's copy protection, not DRM

The blogosphere was so eager to suck up to Google last week that it missed the most important aspect of Google's video announcement at CES. Luckily, BusinessWeek's description got it exactly right.

That's right, you pay Google to "buy" a video, but you can only watch it in an environment that allows Google to control the delivery of ads.

The most important part of this quote is BusinessWeek's use of the term "copy protection" instead of DRM. They don't even mention DRM in the article. They go on to explain what is waiting for consumers because of this copy protection scheme. The only good thing about Google's move is that it accelerates the pace at which consumers will become aware of the massive scam being perpetrated against them. Don't get me wrong. I'm a free market capitalist. I'm not screaming "content wants to be free." Content providers and authors should and must be paid for their work. I just find it offensive that the word "buy" is being used when it should be "rent." The sooner consumers understand this, the sooner they will demand alternatives.

How can bloggers help? By dropping the term DRM in favor of copy protection. Digital Rights Management is one of those marketing terms like "enhanced experience" introduced by marketing scum. I actually heard the head of TIvo explaining on NPR how ads in the Tivo stream "enhanced the user's experience" while watching recorded shows. If we said copy protection whenever a publisher or content vendor said DRM we would make a major contribution to raising public awareness.

So far the blogosphere hasn't been following this approach. Blogpulse shows that DRM and copy protection are used as synonyms, but DRM is in much greater use. I want to see these positions reverse over the coming months.

What I would really like to see is the invention of a new term for copy protection that will instantly raise the alarm. Its like "web bug." When they were just called cookies, only people who didn't understand computers were afraid of them. Like Tony Soprano, who once warned a mobster to turn off his computer, because the feds could listen in with cookies. As soon as the term web bug was applied instead, even hard-core hackers flipped out. (Yes, I know web bugs are technically different than cookies, but the point is the effect of different words being applied to the same type of practice.)

Until this more frightening term comes along, my New Year's resolution is to be like SNL's subliminal man. Whenever I hear someone say DRM, I'm going to mutter "copy protection." That should make me real popular at David Berlind's talk on DRM (copy protection) at Berkman this week.

DRM too shall pass

As the realization sinks in that you don't actually buy music from iTunes, you just rent it until your computer crashes, bloggers are making dire predictions about a world where DRM eliminates the possibility of owning digital content. While I agree that Apple's DRM is a vile scheme that delivers much less than users expect, I don't see this as an inevitable downward slide. I remember when software was copy-protected in the early Eighties. In those pre-CD days all software was delivered on inherently unreliable floppy disks. Users were forced to insert the original disk every time they wanted to start a program. To make matters worse, you could only run one program at a time in DOS or CP/M, so users were forced to swap floppies in and out as they moved between applications. Within a few years these "key disks" started to fail and users found themselves unable to run their programs or access their data. The backlash forced all but a small fraction of software companies to abandon this model and accept piracy as a fact of life. Did they do this out of sympathy for their beleaguered users? No, they were forced to make the change by competitors who found that they could make a lack of copy-protection into a competitive strategy. The other forces that killed copy-protection were corporations and the Department of Defense, which refused to be dependent on software that they couldn't back-up.

Apple's iTunes music store is now a little over two and a half years old, about the same length of time as the copy-protection phase for software, and once again users are beginning to recognize the evils of the present system. I'm not suggesting that music downloads will go back to being free, but it is clear that a competitve advantage is opening up for any music publisher that is willing to abandon the present DRM model. That will never happen with the greedy music industry you say? It is precisely because businesses are profit oriented that they end up obeying the demands of their users. They may end up kicking and screaming, but they will be dragged away from DRM.