I’m sure by now you’re well award of Steve Job’s open letter to the music industry to stop requiring Digital Rights Management on dowloaded music (if not, go search and find the story).
In my mind this is a debate about the wrong thing. The problem here is the gadgets, not the content.
A powerful aspect of music, movies and books – ALL entertainment – is sharing. When I was a kid, this meant lugging your LP, single or cassette over to someone else’s house and playing it on thier equipment. Pirating wasn’t an issue because of sound degradation on our limited equipment. Don’t get me wrong, we taped stuff, but duplicating for millions and millions of people was very rare.
Of course digital music changes that, but what if our gadgets allowed sharing via a key of some sort. There are two parts needed: A usb, wireless or bluetooth connected dongle with an encrypted, personal ID of some kind that plugs into all devices. Then, every piece of music I download gets encoded with that key. First up, I could play or record MY music on any piece of gear I own. Beyond that though, the music will also play anywhere I go with my dongle – a friends house or car for instance.
Online, I can also send the song for listening purposes, but not recording. This allows sharing, but prevents duplication – at least MASS duplication. Yeah, I know, this can all be hacked, but by eliminating the friction for 99% of music lovers, the vast majority of hacking will be pointless.
Thoughts?
