11-17-2015, 10:25 PM
Lux Interior wrote:
[quote=silvarios]
You didn't read what I wrote. You travel someone with your content and you can't get it off your iPod.
I get it. I only used my iPod as a portable music player. And at 5 GB in 2001, it was fsckin awesome.
Of course if was. That's the mythology. It was awesome only being able to use Macs to use an mp3 player. By the way, it was $400, which was really awesome too!!!!!!!
Lux Interior wrote:On the flip side, the fact you can't access your DRM content without iTunes is also pretty crappy. I switched to Linux, how do I get my content?
It may be crappy, but that's business. Why should Apple care if you switch to Linux? But now their music is DRM-free, so yay Apple?
Nice cut and paste that dropped the whole quote. There's a whole use case I just posted. The point is Apple makes money on something then dictates the whole experience for the rest of your life. Also, music might be DRM free, but apps and movies certainly are not DRM free. Let's not worry about apps right now because that's a whole other ball of wax. Never mind all the music I already have in DRM format, which isn't a ton of money thankfully, maybe $20 or so, but it's another $25 to unlock that music. At that point, I could just repurchase the music from another store.
No, the real point is let's not forget the lesson learned from the start of the thread. DRM servers go dark all the time so there's always the chance it can happen here as well. Again, why are we encouraging DRM? Just because it is from Apple? I see why a stockholder would think that way, but a user? As I once wrote about FairPlay DRM:
"If one has to tolerate a DRM scheme, one could do worse than FairPlay."
and
"To reiterate, the iTunes Music Store (iTMS) isn't a horrible service, and you could certainly do worse, but I'd like to believe the digital music buying public will show their support for better existing options of DRM-free digital music. Higher quality, a wider range of formats, and a more open mechanism (the browser) for purchasing content should be more than enough incentive to test the waters with those previously listed alternative services."
http://www.lowendmac.com/thompson/06/0524.html
What we are forgetting is that if iTunes decides to stop selling content say, to push streaming services instead (because it's the right business decision), your DRM laden purchase won't disappear immediately, but you won't even be able to reinstall the OS on those devices current functioning and you will never be able to transfer the content. It's funny UltraViolet gets a bad wrap, but every device I've tried to use with it has actually functioned. Do I want UltraViolet DRM? Nope, but I would take interoperable DRM over FairPlay any day. Which mirrors the same opinion I had when FairPlay and PlaysForsure were the big options at the time. In hindsight, had Microsoft provided some kind of "DRM shim" for Mac OS, Linux, etc. I would have backed the Microsoft initiative, given the wider range of playback device. Still would have been suboptimal.
I actually don't mind DRM as much when it's streaming content, largely because I don't own the content anyway. If I stop paying, then it goes. Yet, DRM for purchases is the pits. You essentially pay more for the right not to own the content.