USS Clueless              Voyages of a restless mind

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Stardate 20011126.0706 (On Screen): It's amazing how so much of the news coverage of digital music seems to forget about the consumers. This article discusses a two-way tussle between the record producers and the companies which make players, indicating that right now they are going in divergent directions. It then suggests that they make becoming together and that diplomacy will prevail and peace will rule the planet and it's the coming of the age of Aquarius...

Well, not exactly. Like so much of this coverage, it forgets that the customers themselves are also a party. If the producers of portable digital players and other devices for listening to digital music do indeed give in to the RIAA's wet dream, the result would be a collapse of sales as the customers refuse to buy. For customers, the ability to make copies of music is part of the value proposition. As soon as music can no longer be copied (to portable players or onto CDs in personal compilations of favorite tracks) then the music itself will be seen as substantially less valuable, and if the price doesn't come down then the customers won't buy any longer. (And I can't believe that anyone will be willing to buy music with an expiration date.)

I think that the companies making players know this, which is why they haven't been playing along with the record companies on incorporating digital rights management into their products. That's part of why SDMI fell apart, and it's why I think that despite what this article says there will be no industry-wide adoption of DRM unless it's mandated by law. (Which better not happen.)

So why the articles? I think it's fluff from the companies trying to push their own versions of DRM. This article mentions several of them by name, and they're trying to push their own products with an "Of COURSE this is going to happen" point of view. Only it ain't. (discuss)