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Surprises

by Joseph Weisenthal

Fri, Feb 9th 2007 4:53pm





Shouldn't Sandisk Be Eager To See The End Of DRM?

from the sansa dept

You'd think the company running second, behind Apple, in the market for digital music players, would have the most to gain from the abandonment of DRM. After all, despite what Steve Jobs says, the iTunes DRM does serve to lock consumers in to buying iPods. So it's a little disappointing to read Sandisk's own open letter on DRM (via Engadget), in which CEO Eli Harari seems mainly interested in sucking up to the music industry. In it he calls out Jobs for being confrontational, and says that while consumers deserve fair use, there also needs to be mechanisms to ensure the rights of musicians and content owners. This stance might be understandable if DRM actually worked, but it doesn't. It deprives music listeners of their choices without bringing any benefit to music labels or the musicians on their roster. At the end of the letter, he does suggest that walled gardens are a bad idea, but it doesn't sound particularly convincing, after what came before it.

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  •  
    identicon
    Anon, Feb 9th, 2007 @ 5:29pm

    Come back to your RIO roots!

    Come on SanDisk! Join The Bandwagon!

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]

  •  
    identicon
    scate, Feb 9th, 2007 @ 7:11pm

    As the number two player, Sandisk currently benefits from the status quo. Forcing Apple to license Fair Play would be great for Sandisk who could then demand MS license Zune Marketplace. Sandisk could bank on being in the best position to capitalize on forced licensing deals in a way that less successful companies could not.

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]

  •  
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    Bumbling old fool, Feb 9th, 2007 @ 7:54pm

    Well someones got to do it...

    If his jobsness gets too brazen and the label cut itms off, then someone will have to step in to fill those mighty shoes. I'm sure that wouldnt be too much of a hardship for poor old sandisk...

    Or at least, I bet that is what Eli is banking on by pandering to the mafiaa...

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]

  •  
    identicon
    ScytheNoire, Feb 10th, 2007 @ 12:35am

    thanks Sandisk

    well, that just helped me with my purchasing decisions in the future and NOT to purchase any Sandisk products. support the MAFIAA, lose sales.

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]

  •  
    identicon
    UniBoy, Feb 10th, 2007 @ 7:04am

    Apple's competitors want licensing

    Apple spent millions to develop the iTunes Store (from which they make no profit) and the iTunes Jukebox software (which they give away). Apple does this so that it can offer users' the best experience and sell more iPods.

    SanDisk and others are hoping for licensing that will allow them to produce players that work with iTunes. Thus forcing Apple's expenditures in this area to become a subsidy to their competitors. There is NO FairPlay without iTunes. These companies have failed to build decent software and websites to support their players, so now they want to demand that Apple give them theirs.

     

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  •  
    identicon
    Blackimp, Feb 10th, 2007 @ 10:29am

    Apple's competitors want licensing by UniBoy

    Thank you for that insight UniBoy. Well said.

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]

  •  
    identicon
    locoHost, Feb 10th, 2007 @ 10:48am

    Or buy Creative and play anything

    Or you can buy one of the Creative Zen players and be totally unrestricted. Play any type of audio and video format and get content from any site you like. My Zen Vision:M is absolutely amazing. I love NO restrictions.

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]

  •  
    identicon
    Erv, Feb 10th, 2007 @ 7:28pm

    I love DRM and al restrictions, it's like being married but aren't

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]

  •  
    identicon
    Tyshaun, Feb 11th, 2007 @ 1:53pm

    The paradox...

    Most people on this site appear to be anti DRM, but almost all of the comments above pan SanDisk. SanDisk, it appears, is the biggest MP3 player that doesn't have built in DRM, isn't that a good thing? It's obvious that the letters are just a business tactic and shouldn't be interpreted as any real backing of DRM (or else their players would be loaded with it).

    Seems to me the best thing that SanDisk can do is bank on the continued proliferation of people who decide to illegally circumvent DRM. That erodes the market share and name recognition of iPod and Zune. So, we are actually supporting companis that take SanDisks position of "kissing up" by distributing unlicensed content of software. They are banking on more and more people turning away from DRM and making their products more appealing and in that sense SanDisk will do everything in its power to reinforce DRM. weird!

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]

  •  
    identicon
    Jesse Pintado, Feb 13th, 2007 @ 6:52am

    DRM is a joke...any kid can turn a song with DRM into an mp3. Labels need to lower prices of albums/songs and sell direct to consumers. The middle man is slowly dying; this is good because frankly, when I went to Tower Records, all they had was top-40 mainstream garbage for the masses. Brick and Mortar is dead, and so should be the middleman's cut of the pie. Also, The RIAA's efforts against file sharing are soon going to be a thing of the past with all of these new softwares that offer encrypted exchanges. Look at GigaTribe for instance ( http://www.gigatribe.com ), their free software lets users exchange entire folders of albums in a few easy clicks, and not even the ISPs will be able to spot what's being exchanged. The music model is changing rapidly, and consumers and small/medium artists are going to be the winners.

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]


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