currybetdotnet DRM archive

Doctor Who and The Pirates
In the 1960s, as Patrick Troughton's era drew to a close, Doctor Who faced The Space Pirates. By the 2000s it was Internet pirates who posed a threat to the Doctor's adventures. Audio drama producers Big Finish have found their officially licenced Doctor Who stories leaking onto peer-to-peer file-sharing networks. To help combat this, they've launched their own legal download service. I spoke to Paul Wilson from Big Finish about the 'battlefield' they face. A little while ago I...

Read the full post - Published March 2, 2008 in DRM, Doctor Who, Popular

Copy-protection for vinyl in the 1970s
When I was thinking about an iconography for DRM, I began to think back to the old days of recording vinyl onto my portable tape deck using a 5-pin DIN plug to connect the two machines, the advent of tape-to-tape decks, and being poised over the pause button to record tracks from John Peel sessions. It was all so simple and blissfully analogue in those days, without a hint of copy protection in place. Well, that isn't strictly true. I...

Read the full post - Published January 1, 2008 in DRM, Music, Nostalgia

A visual iconography for DRM
In a recent BBC News article Paul Garland, head of intellectual property litigation at law firm Kemp Little, said about DRM: "The biggest problem is that it is actually quite difficult as a consumer when downloading content to know what you are able to do with it. If DRM is going to survive, there needs to be much greater effort to tell purchasers what they can or can't do with it." It is a problem I have struggled with myself,...

Read the full post - Published December 31, 2007 in DRM

BBC iPlayer launch: The first 14 days
With just ten days to go until the launch of the BBC's much anticipated iPlayer software, I thought I would gaze into my crystal ball and predict what the first two weeks hold for the software... Day #1: iPlayer launches Day #2: The press reports that the BBC website 'crashed' due to demand for the iPlayer, because someone emailed someone at The Telegraph saying they couldn't download it over their dial-up connection. A BBC 'source' is quoted as saying that...

Read the full post - Published July 17, 2007 in BBC, DRM, Linux, Popular, iPlayer

Free the BBC from the same old tired DRM debate
I was pointed via Wonderland yesterday at the Free The BBC site, where a petition is gathering against the BBC's proposed use of DRM in the upcoming iPlayer application. And of course, a quick look shows that this has sparked the same tired circular arguments on the backstage.bbc.co.uk mailing list. One person has been arguing that DRM is a bad thing because their sister accidentally wiped clean their iPod, whilst someone else is claiming the only basis for the BBC's...

Read the full post - Published June 13, 2007 in BBC, DRM, Linux, Media, Microsoft, Popular, Radio, Television, Web, iPlayer

The depressing DRM debates on the BBC's backstage.bbc.co.uk mailing list
Since the announcement that the BBC's iPlayer would contain elements of Microsoft's DRM, and that any forthcoming versions for the Apple or Linux OS would also need to incoporate some type of DRM, a debate has been raging on the backstage.bbc.co.uk mailing list. Opinion is broadly split into two camps. There are those who understand that in order to facilitate any kind of on demand service, the BBC needs to protect the interests of the rights-owners involved in making...

Read the full post - Published March 6, 2007 in Apple, BBC, DRM, Linux, Microsoft, iPlayer

Thoughts on being locked out of my iPod's content by Apple's DRM
With his open letter to the music industry, Steve Jobs has done an excellent job of shifting the attention away from Apple's iPod/iTunes DRM based lock-in, and onto the music industry that supplies the content driving the sales of Apple's hardware. I think my favourite quote amongst the responses I stumbled upon on the web was: "The greatest trick Apple pulled was to build a market where lock-in is mandated, but convince the world that this was something they did...

Read the full post - Published February 15, 2007 in Apple, DRM, Music

A "scientific" equation for musical piracy
Sometimes outraged tabloid newspapers run stories about scientists who have spent x amount of taxpayers money and researched a formula for happiness or beer goggles or the perfect cup of tea. Following on from my post yesterday about what drives people to use legal music download services when there are free (if illegal) alternatives if you know how, I've derived what I think is a broad formula outlining the factors in people making a choice between a legal purchase and...

Read the full post - Published February 9, 2007 in DRM, Music

Why people download music legally
A lot of my recent blog entries have been about downloading products from the entertainment industry, whether TV or music, by fair means or foul. A few days ago someone left a comment on one of my posts about the music digital download market, saying: "It's still a mystery to me why people actually go to sites and pay to download music. Any explanations?" That got me thinking about the primary motivations behind either stealing or purchasing music, so I...

Read the full post - Published February 8, 2007 in DRM, Music

DRM protecting me from playing my new video clips
This week one of the customer service team left a comment on one of my previous entries about having trouble buying digital music, which I thought was very pro-active customer service from them. I think it is a good thing for companies, especially those in the digital economy, to be looking at their online brand reputation, and where they feel it is necessary, passing comment. I mention this because I have had problems with another digital music purchase made via...

Read the full post - Published January 25, 2007 in DRM, Music

Getting Sony's SonicStage for Christmas

Published January 15, 2007 in Apple, DRM, Music, Sony

Sony loses DRM court case in France over the Sony Connect store

Published January 10, 2007 in Apple, DRM, Music, Sony

OpenMG Pre-Ripped for PC

Published October 13, 2004 in DRM, Music, Sony