Ivory Tower - August 2006
Dumb Hum Drum DRM and some Apple Goodness
By Ted Bade
I would like to revisit the Digital Rights Management (DRM) debate. I recently read an article which tried to explain why a particular vendor that makes MP3Ős available to public libraries couldnŐt use Apples DRM, but could use MicrosoftŐs. Apparently one thing that MicrosoftŐs DRM does that AppleŐs doesnŐt is that the license expires. Which means that the company can say the borrowing period is three weeks. After three weeks, whether you are done or not, the downloaded file no longer works.
For a librarian, having a set period to borrow an item is a familiar thing. However, most libraries will let you borrow a book (and most other items), multiple times. Additionally, you can renew most materials without returning it. So why is a borrowing time period so important?
What happens if the period is over and you havenŐt finished the audio book you borrowed from this service? ThatŐs easy, use Windows Media Player to make a copy of the material! Want to know how? Visit the web site of the vendor claiming they need the Windows DRM to protect the material: http://www.overdrive.com/MediaConsole/QuickStartGuide.asp#transfer. It doesnŐt sound like this company really wants to protect the material, if they give you an easy means of mass distribution!
AppleŐs DRM doesnŐt expire, at the moment, but it does gives you license to only use it on computers you own. This method protects the material as well as an expiration would. Only, it doesnŐt serve to annoy the patron who doesnŐt have time to finish the material in the alloted time. Egads, people, it is an audio book! How terrible would it be if I listened to it six or seven times? You know, I have borrowed a couple of the Harry Potter audio books from our local libraries several times. You know what else? I sometimes think about the material in the book. I remember scenes I enjoyed or situations I found interesting, and most important of all, I dream about what the next book will hold. Is this misuse of copyrighted materials?
So what if I can listen to a book I download more then once! What am I going to do, memorize it?? If they used AppleŐs DRM I could listen to it on my computers or on my iPod. And yes, if I really wanted to, I could burn a copy to CD and give it to all my friends. But that doesnŐt change anything, they already tell you how to do that with the Microsoft DRM.
I almost forgot to point out that the Microsoft DRM doesnŐt support iPods at all, even if they are connected to Windows based computers. The companyŐs solution for PC iPod owners? Burn a copy to CD and rip the CD so you can put it on the iPod. (What are you going to do with that CD? I donŐt know, perhaps give it to a friend ;-)
Like so many other companies these days, they give say the ŇrightÓ things about protecting media, but really donŐt care. In my opinion, the real reason they donŐt want to support AppleŐs DRM (and therefore the iPod), is that Microsoft gave them a better deal on the DRM license. Who knows, Microsoft might even have provided it for free!
I really think this company has hood-winked the library community by using a keyword they resonate with, Ňloan periodÓ. You mean a patron can borrow some material for a certain period of time and we donŐt have to worry about getting it back from them?
I have a lot of respect for librarians and the services they provide. But I disagree with offering a service that excludes 80% of the portable player market just so you can have an enforced loan period. Leaders amaze me. When questioned why they donŐt support Macs in a particular industry, it is because they are such a small fraction of the computer market. Go ahead, ask the company Overdrive why they donŐt support the marketŐs majority player! I dare you!
It is because Microsoft doesnŐt provide a version of Windows Media Player that works on iPods. How else can they worm into a market dominated by Apple? Only by playing nasty tricks to exclude iPods from using their DRM, then providing the DRM at extremely low, low prices to anyone who will use it. It is a dirty business practice. I for one am happy to pay a company like Audible.com who supports the Macintosh and the iPod, rather than get ŇfreeÓ stuff from a company who doesnŐt.
By the way, there are rumors that Apple might provide a service that loans movies for a period of time. Obviously, if the movie has a loan period, the license will expire. There is nothing firm on this yet.
If Safari is any indication - A recent study of which browsers are used the most, put Safari in third place after Internet Explorer (or should we call it an Ňopen ticket to my PCÓ?), and Firefox. Safari has 3.17% of the share in June of 2006, which is about a 49% increase over last JulyŐs number of 2.13%. http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=0&qpmr=15&qpdt=1&qpct=3&qptimeframe=Y
In a related article on the Mac News Network site http://www.macnn.com ,they point out that some sources consider that Safari usage can be correlated to the Macintosh user base, because it only works on Macs (most other browsers support multiple platforms. http://www.macnn.com/articles/06/07/05/safari.market.share/
I hope it is true. It would be very nice to see Macintosh users on the rise again!
The virus issue, again - I recently discovered a very fair article on the Symantec site concerning Mac OS X and malicious software. If you are like me, PC friends read these terrible headlines about how there are now many viruses for the Macintosh. Yes, there are lots of articles out there saying this, but frankly, they are pretty much wrong. Thirty-odd articles from fifty different web sites make it seem like there are hundreds of pieces of malicious code written for Mac OS X! But it just ainŐt so.
If you are being bugged by PC friends, pass this link along to them. It doesnŐt say there are not pieces of malicious code for Mac OS X and it doesnŐt say there wonŐt be. It does say there was one piece of malicious code and it was a worm (code that spreads itself, but doesnŐt necessarily do any harm).
A related article on a Mac-centric site (but a thorough article never the less), can be found on the Mac News site http://www.macnewsworld.com/story/BF9bCtn38raYDu/Macs-More-Secure-Than-PCs-Says-Sophos.xhtml# In this article, they discuss a mid-year security report provided by the security company Sophos http://www.sophos.com Essentially, they say that Mac OS X is more secure than Windows. Note that the important thing is that they are saying this publicly. Read their article for all the details, it is pretty good.
iPod killed the radio star - This is a side effect of iPods that I never expected to see. A radio station in Chicago feels that the iPod has lead to the demise of its Jazz shows. According to the following article:
ŇWBEZ, Chicago's National Public Radio (NPR) member station and among the oldest public radio outlets in the United States, has decided to scrap scheduled music programming -- the bulk of which was nightly jazz. Ó
While this is bad news for the radio station, it points to a major change in our culture. Instead of depending upon the tastes of the local DJ and station management, with an iPod (or any digital music player for that matter), a person can create a playlist of their favorite music pieces, which they can enjoy any time they like.
One reason I personally stopped listening to radio shows is that the shows that play stuff I really like (like Jazz, electronics, and some New Age), tend to schedule the shows at hours that are not convenient to my life schedule. I donŐt listen, because I am doing something that prevents me (like sleeping). When I have time to sit back and listen to tunes, they have shows on that I donŐt care for.
My two solutions have been to listen to playlists of my favorites in that genre when I care to and to record a couple of these shows I really like, so I can listen to them when I have the time. From the above article, I get the idea that this isnŐt all that uncommon across the US. I seriously doubt it affects mainstream pop music much, but for those genres that appeal to smaller percentages of the population, I expect there is a large impact.
I also expect to find more and more Internet only ŇradioÓ shows. Ones I can download or listen to when I want to, rather then when they are being presented.
Polsters take note - People in the USA love polls. We poll our leaders, our coworkers, and even ourselves. One of the more well known and prestigious polling groups is called the Harris poll. They annually take a poll called ŇBest BrandsÓ, in which people say which brands they think are best. This isnŐt industry specific like I like Apple better then say HP for computers, but a general which brand name is the best type poll.
In any case, Apple has made it into the top ten for the first time (they took the number 10 position, but hey they are there!) You might want to note that two companies were pushed out of the top ten this year, GE and our friends Microsoft. (The report on the Harris Poll site didnŐt indicate where these two companies went to, if they currently have any position. Take a look at the results page yourself by visiting; http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/index.asp?PID=682
Apple has been doing a lot to make itself known as a leader in electronic innovation. I guess a poll like this shows that people are taking notice.
Apple 3rd Quarter financial information - The Mac faithful always love to hear when Apple has a good financial quarter. Apparently Wall Street does as well, since the stock rose over 12% the day after the results were released. If you want all the details as published by Apple visit: [http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2006/jul/19results.html].
Here are some of the figures. Apple posted a revenue of $4.37 billion and a net quarterly profit of $472 million. Apple shipped 1,327,000 Macs and 8,111,000 iPods during the quarter, representing 12 percent growth in Macs and 32 percent growth in iPods over the year-ago quarter.
I heard a rumor that iPod sales are down based on the previous quarter even though the number surpassed the year ago quarter. Frankly, I feel that the portable music player market might be getting a bit saturated. Apple will have to start selling them to cats and dogs to continue the growth rate it has seen in the past! My home has three ipods and I am waiting for Apple to bring something totally new to market to tempt me later this year!
