Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Free your music

Thanks to a demand from (internet connected) music lovers everywhere, there are now more places online to buy music from in various formats. But now DRM has reared its ugly head and very few consumers know what it's all about. Well, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) would like to educate you in that regard with their awesome The Customer Is Always Wrong: A User's Guide to DRM in Online Music. It tries to summarize what limitations are imposed upon you when you buy music from various online services. But it's not all bad news.........

Michael Robertson presents yet another article meant to illuminate the issue - only he also presents alternatives to purchasing music online that are not DRM-crippled.

Knowledge is power..........

2 comments:

Canuck Girl said...

Thanks Karl. As always, you provide links to interesting music related sites that I enjoy following. This was information that I was unaware of.

Hhmmmm, time to formulate a plan...

Karl Plesz said...

Although I have been known to download the odd song, I also own a substantial store-bought CD collection. I only began downloading music from peer-to-peer because I felt a)music in general had lost its value in CD format (one good song to 10 bad ones); b)I no longer choose to buy music until I've had a chance to audition it first; c)I don't believe a compressed copy of a song with DRM restrictions is worth $0.99 - $0.05 maybe....

Just because I haven't embraced the online model yet (for value reasons only), doesn't mean I have to promote illegal activity to other people.