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February 25, 2008

legal

Hymn to the fallen

Posted Feb. 25, ’08, 8:08 AM PT by Dan Moren
Category | Legal

Hymn ProjectWe can’t really blame you if you haven’t really been paying much attention to the Hymn Project, which had as its goal allowing you to strip the DRM from songs that you purchased iTunes for your own personal use. It appears Apple wasn’t terribly enthused about the project either, since they’ve issued a Cease & Desist letter to Hymn’s ISP, asking that they remove all download links.

Said Hymn forum moderator DRMBytes:

In no way has this site ever promoted piracy. Those of you who’ve attempted to discuss such topics know that we take a very heavy handed approach. This was partly to protect us but also because we feel that artists should be compensated for their work. We truly believe that people should be able to free the music they’ve legally purchased from the shackles of DRM. So, we’ve attempted through the years to keep a balance of fair use.
Despite the fact that I understand where Apple’s coming from on this front, it’s still kind of a shame. Over a year ago, Steve Jobs proclaimed he would liberate us from the shackles of DRM and yet EMI remains the only major label selling DRM-free music on iTunes. Meanwhile, Amazon’s got the full deck as the remaining majors try to issue some heavy-handed market corrections and rid the world of Apple’s devious market majority. Not to mention that Apple has to spend time defending a DRM scheme that it ostensibly doesn’t even want.

I wouldn’t be surprised, in fact, to find that the record labels still see their deal with Amazon as an attempt to get Apple to license their DRM to rivals. If iTunes does continue to outsell its competitors, the record labels can take it as a sign that consumers don’t mind DRM-encoded music, and may eventually conclude that Amazon is a failed experiment. Which means that, if we really want to help abolish DRM, we should be buying all of our music from Amazon.


3 Comments

Michael said:

The only problem with that idea is that the Amazon "buying experience" leaves much to be desired as compared to the simple and streamline process of using iTunes.

And in a way, I really don't mind DRM so much. With less than the 5-machine limit in my household sharing files, I'm content with the reasonable restrictions imposed on the files. And if I wanted to, I could just burn my songs onto a CD and re-rip them as mp3's.

February 25, 2008 9:47 AM
Dave-O said:

Unless you can get it as an iTunes Plus track/album. That's what I do (most of my purchases of late have been classical, so I'm not forced to look at one label, much less one artist). Buying from Amazon merely plays into the market manipulation game they're playing.

February 25, 2008 9:51 AM
Charles said:

Have to agree with Dave-O. I buy iTunes Plus tracks, but generally get the rest of my stuff from Amazon or eMusic (or buy a CD if it's someone I really like/something I really want). I am not so much worried about the five machine rule as the risk of future obsoletion - i.e., five years from now, if Apple turns all 1996 on us, will I be able to play my music? That is why DRM bugs me. (And, please, don't everyone take offense at my slight against Apple - we are talking about a corporation here, and corporations do make mistakes and sometimes they go away, even if people really like them).

February 25, 2008 10:18 AM

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