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More Copy Protection Ridiculousness
from the when-will-they-realize? dept
It's getting quite crazy in copy protection land. On Wednesday we posted the story about how BMG was going to copy protect all their European releases, and if it didn't work on your CD player, well, that was the fault of your CD player (obviously). Now, the Register is reporting that EMI is taking a similar attitude as found in this quite impressive letter (though, the actual origin and translation of the letter might be questioned). The logic of the letter is scary - and it's particularly funny that they say you don't need a degree in economics to get what they're talking about. If they did have a degree in economics, maybe they'd realize why their claims are not valid. At the same time, it seems that a new law in the UK means that if your new copy protected CD doesn't work you have little recourse other than to complain to the Secretary of State and hope he or she doesn something about it. I'm beginning to lose hope that any of these music companies will come to their senses.
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Lucky for me...
... that I'm so old and tone deaf that all of this 'music' just sounds like screechy noise to me anyway!
But seriously, these people are clearly insane. How long do they think people are going to put up with this kind of consumer unfriendly crap? They're going to put themselves in a prisoners dilemma situation. The first large producer that says "Screw that, we're going to be the consumer friendly company" is going to kick their asses. It'll take awhile for existing artists' contracts to expire, but who do you think they're going to renew with? Right, the company that hasn't alienated their entire fan base.
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Re: Lucky for me...
Two valid points - A) there is currently very little music put out that is worth buying - hence the one track wonder's drove Napster (and clones) into being by consumer demand.
B) unlike the airlines, the gov isn't going to bale out the failing music companies for Hilter-istic style of consumer relations.
As pointed out above, sooner or later even the less then average intelligent people will stop buying retail music and the music companies will have to change their business model or go under.
What's amazing is that consumers have put up with this treatment for so long. PEOPLE - vote with your dollars, stop buying any type of music. Just a few weeks with zero sales and the music companies will have to "rethink" their current "the consumer is the bad guys" tactics.
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