This article is long over-due….it all started when I ‘n madcap were discussing about apple, DRM…’n I asked him…how do you think Ayn Rand’s philo will fit into all this….? ‘N the Q got redirected to me…’n due to lack of time? Said‘ll blog about it sometime…. ‘N having nothing better to do, coz of being sent home early due to ppl staging protestations in front of office, here I am inking my thoughts on the subject…
Disclaimer…
Let me clarify, this post is just to air my views or rather my lack of views, coz ‘m still not sure where I stand on this… ‘n coz I keep seeing this, thought will put in here also, though doubt if this topic is that controversial, anyways here it is –the views are mine alone ‘n not subscribed by my employer :D And all the said things below are based on what li’l knowledge I possess, so if some things are wrong then it is due to non possession of facts rather than any intentional over-looking…
Ok, let me begin with what started it all…iPod. Now I must confess ‘m a big-time apple fan but in this post I will try to be as un-biased as possible…. It started off with my confusion o’er what mp3 player to buy. Well I had always loved the apple’s click-wheel interface ’n the oh so classy look of ipods but they did have a major draw-back that they dint have any kinda radio support( which was a major major reqmt for me) ’n dint support that many file formats either. But even with these draw-backs I was considering iPod. At this time was asking everyone I knew about other alternatives ’n that’s where madcap came in- ’n he being my total opp. i.e. apple hater… , started off on a tirade against it. His major gripe was the ‘DRM’ of-course, well even ‘m against it but it dint bother me much coz me never plan to buy music off iTunes ’n neither am I rich enough to possess more than one player, so the Q of playing the bought music on other players doesn’t arise at all. :P Probably ‘m being selfish ‘n looking at only my needs, but if ‘m buying the player for myself, then it should follow that I should buy something which suits my needs…rite? ;)
A li’l history…
Anyways his take was ‘apple’ is evil, coz of the DRM, ‘n all that customers who bought the music have no where to go but stick to apple. I totally empathize with the ppl, it’s one sick situation to be in. But let’s start off from beginning….When iPod was launched, did any one ever (cud have) imagine (d) such a situation…? A song for 99c was such a brilliant move that it was instantly lapped up by ppl as well as by the music industry which was then fighting the ‘napster’ ‘n such p2p sharing. It was like, to quote Godfather – “I’m gonna make you an offer, you can’t refuse” ‘n to top that it was perfectly “legal” too….: D The record companies never imagined that iPod would become so bloody popular, I doubt even if Jobs himself imagined it would grow this much… So now you have ‘Universal’ music wanting a chunk of the cut, coz it considers all music on iPod as stolen!!!
Btw here’s a nice script of a hypothetical conversation b/n Jobs ‘n Doug Morris.
DRM…
Btw why did it take so long for any decent competition to arise for iPod? 2 yrs back I doubt if any one wanted to use any player other than iPod, but that was then. ’N the fact is that now ppl don’t want DRM, they want to pay only once for their music ‘n be able to play it on iPod, zune or any player. So why it is that apple is still sticking to DRM? ‘Coz IMHO it doesn’t need it to lock customers using it, coz iPod is such a gr8 prod by itself that ppl will use it anyway. Probably that explains why there has not been a major customer cry o’er this ‘coz ppl don’t want to use anything else…? But then as madcap was saying all these big-players ‘apple’, ‘M$’, ‘sony’… can all come up with a DRM standard which allows inter-operability. :D So then is DRM to prevent/disabuse P2P? If so, it’s a total failure coz as long as you have DRM you will get hacks to circumvent it…
Then is ‘Music Tax’ the way to go, like Peter Jenner says? ‘M not sure but what ‘m sure of is that DRM is defi not the way to go….
Artists, Record Labels, free music….
Free music…well rather music for free…are you really depriving an artist’s lively-hood when you d/w a song illegally off the net? When you d/w a metallica song, is it that they will lose one rupee, oh I mean one dollar from their millions? So you see it is really a bad thing to do…
It’s a different matter that new artists/bands don’t mind their music being distributed freely on the net, coz that’s how they will get popular but as soon as they start getting popular and get signed by record labels, there goes your free stuff…
Now record labels are painted across as the evil ppl, which is not entirely wrong considering that not much of the proceeds go to the artists who deserve it. But in this dog-eat-dog world, no one is free of blame: artists sign enormous multi-million dollar deals for a record whether they deserve it or not is another matter altogether. ‘n the consumer, of course if he is get something for free, will he pay for it else where?
Pls: On one hand you have artists like developers of ‘South Park’ whose sole aim of creating is so that people should watch their shows…’n then you have comedy central whose aim is to milk as much money as possible from the viewers…
How much greedy is greedy? Where do you stop? ‘N should you stop at all?...
Well guess this is the crux ethical Q involved in all the above.
All companies start off small; they develop one revolutionary product on top of which they start growing. So you had M$ beginning with MS-DOS, then Windows ‘n then came the Office ‘n IE. Now this is where the things got murkier. You had Netscape a pioneer in the browser ‘n Word Perfect but M$ started shipping IE ‘n Office integrated with windows. A gr8 business strategy some would say, but ethical? But then some ask what is ethics in business?
‘N then you have some companies piling upon patents on patents, which hinders the very purpose of ‘patent’. Patent concept was developed to foster innovation, but with all the patent filing by big conglomerates one never knows when one may use an idea unknowingly, which is already patented ‘n the big corporation comes knocking on your door for royalties.
Free s/w Vs Proprietary….it can be one entirely diff post altogether but for samplers - if I want to make money off what I code is it a bad thing? ‘Coz if you release the source, any normal intelligent person can compile it himself ‘n use it for free. It seems ppl have no problem with making money but it’s only when one starts to make too much off it they start having problem. They expect you to start allowing others to compete with your own product. This was where I thought of Ayn Rand. Remember ‘Atlas shrugged’ ‘n Hank Rearden's companies? No one should make you feel guilty of being rich when others are poor, when you have earned it. But in what way you earn it is what matters. ‘N in today’s competitive business environment there’s no way you can live without stepping on someone’s toes. So you have company like ‘Google’ with motto – ‘Don't be evil’ getting increasingly into danger areas where it’s being accused of wrong-doing.
Having said so much ‘m still no where near the answer for the above question.
‘Haves’ ‘n ‘Have-nots’ ‘n ‘Doers’ ‘n ‘Non-Doers’…who is black….who is white? But ‘As it always is - there’s only grey….’
pls: tried to post this frm Google docs as the blogger keeps telling me to....but da darn thing doesnt work! hope google stops advertising stuff which dont work...
