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PlaysForSure

DRM, Digital Content and the Consumer Experience: Lessons Learned from the Music Industry

March 1, 2010 by Kirk Biglione

This is a screencast of the DRM presentations I gave last week at O’Reilly Media’s Tools of Change for Publishing conference.

Filed Under: DRM Tagged With: Apple, DRM, ePub, FairPlay, Kindle, Piracy, PlaysForSure, RIAA, TOC

Teaching Consumers About DRM

October 5, 2006 by Kirk Biglione

Some day in the near future you will purchase a digital audio or video recording and find that it doesn’t work exactly as you expect it to. Maybe it will simply stop playing after a few days, or perhaps you won’t be able to convert it for use on your portable media player, or maybe you won’t be able to skip past the annoying promos at the start of the program. When this happens you can blame Digital Rights Management (DRM) for your dissatisfaction.

While we talk a lot about DRM here on Medialoper, it’s not at all clear that everyone understands what we’re talking about. In fact, a 2005 survey of European digital music consumers (PDF file) revealed that 63% had never even heard of DRM, while 23% had heard of DRM but weren’t sure what it was. There’s no reason to believe that American consumers are any more well informed on the issue.

[Read more…] about Teaching Consumers About DRM

Filed Under: DRM, Medialoper Tagged With: Consumer Rights, digital-media, DRM, FairPlay, PlaysForSure

The Futility Of DRM

August 31, 2006 by Kirk Biglione

2006 will go down in history as the year the entertainment industry finally started to take digital content distribution seriously. So far this year we’ve seen television networks and film studios experiment with a surprisingly wide variety of new distribution models, while the recording industry has started to realize that there may be a future in downloadable music. If there’s a downside to the recent explosion of digital content it has to be the entertainment industry’s unhealthy obsession with digital rights management (DRM).

In the past entertainment companies have been hesitate to distribute content digitally due to piracy concerns. Those concerns have apparently been replaced by a complete and total faith in DRM. Or, at the very least, a belief that it will be possible to build viable new business models around DRM protected content.

There’s just one problem — DRM doesn’t work. It’s a futile exercise in artificial scarcity that punishes honest consumers while doing little to slow the tide of piracy.

[Read more…] about The Futility Of DRM

Filed Under: DRM, Music, Piracy Tagged With: Digital-Rights-Management, DRM, emusic, Fair Use, FairPlay, PlaysForSure, Zune

Is Zune A PlaysForSure Killer?

July 27, 2006 by Kirk Biglione

Earlier this week I told you the 10 things you need to know about Microsoft Zune. While that list will get you through small talk at most cocktail parties, there’s one item that merits more discussion — the fact that Zune will not be PlaysForSure Compliant.

[Read more…] about Is Zune A PlaysForSure Killer?

Filed Under: DRM, Microsoft, Music, Zune Tagged With: Apple, DRM, iPod, iTunes, Microsoft, Music, PlaysForSure, Zune

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Previously on Medialoper

  • Certain Songs #2581: Supertramp – “The Logical Song”
  • Certain Songs #2580: Supertramp – “Even in the Quietest Moments”
  • Certain Songs #2579: Supertramp – “Bloody Well Right”
  • Certain Songs #2578: Supergrass – “Sun Hits The Sky”
  • Certain Songs #2577: Supergrass – “Alright”

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