An ex-Apple exec who got enough of DRM

[TankGirl]

Sony's latest rootkit trick did it for Mike Evangelist, the former Director of Product Marketing for Apple's 'Pro' applications department, who has been an active CD collector and media consumer so far (see the attached picture of his personal media library).

From Mike's blog:

DRM - Digital Rights Minimization

The latest episode in the war between music companies and their paying customers (the one where Sony decides it’s OK to surreptitiously take over your PC so you can’t make a copy of the music you thought you bought from them) has finally pushed me over the edge.

I’ve been a big buyer of prerecorded ‘media’ for over 35 years. I have two or three hundred vinyl LPs, several dozen 45’s, a hundred or so audio cassettes, and roughly 60 prerecorded reel-to-reel tapes. They are jammed in my closet with a couple hundred VHS tapes, 450 CDs, and 500-odd DVDs. (Mercifully, I skipped the 8-track, Betamax and laserdisc formats.)

I have to believe the record companies and movie studios would consider me a good customer. But with every day that passes it becomes more and more obvious that the greedy bastards who run these media companies prefer to treat me (and all their customers) like criminals. They continually expect us to pay more for less, and even then they are not satisfied. They want to pretend to ‘sell’ us their product, but they don’t want us to actually have it. Well I’ve had enough.

From this day forward I will never spend a another dime on content that I can’t use the way I please. If I can’t copy it to my hard drive and play it using the devices I want, when and where I want, I won’t be buying it. Period.

They can all take their DRM, and their broadcast flags, and their rootkits, and their Compact Discs that aren’t really compact discs and shove them up their bottom-lines.

[Drakonix]

My sentiments exactly.

Before Napster, I bought less than 5 music CD's per year. While I was downloading music "for free" with Napster I bought several hundred dollars of music CD's per month. Did the recording industry lose out by me downloading "free" music? Obviously, Hell no.

Now, they threaten lawsuits against users of public p2p file trading. So now I'm not downloading music on public p2p systems anymore. I'm also back to buying very few CDs a year. Last year I only purchased one CD. This year (so far) it's zero. Did the music industry benefit from the legalized extortion of their own customers? Another "hell no" goes here.

Mike Evangelist is certainly not alone in his feelings about the assault on fair use of content. Consumers still have the ultimate say in this matter. The more consumers the industry alienates, the less likely its survival becomes.

Consumers are already turning away from movie theaters partly because it's too darn expensive for admission plus the overpriced snacks. As a result, DVD sales have surpassed revenue from theater attendance. So, the movie industry can start kissing goodbye to huge profits "the first weekend at the box office".

I wouldn't be too surprised if the "next level" of DRM requires special hardware be attached to your computer - namely a "pay-per-play" credit card reader.

Gotta love it:

They can all take their DRM, and their broadcast flags, and their rootkits, and their Compact Discs that aren’t really compact discs and shove them up their bottom-lines.