No kidding

No kidding

Posted Dec 22, 2005 21:32 UTC (Thu) by graydon (subscriber, #5009)
In reply to: No kidding by jeaton
Parent article: GStreamer to support DRM

"artists who have a right to get paid for their art"

I see this assertion often, yet it is false. Artists do not have a right to be paid for their art. If you have an employment contract or a sales agreement, sure, you can enforce the agreement. Art in general? No. Society does not owe someone money because they create art.

If you create art, you have certain limited rights to control its replication, performance, association with your name, etc. For a while. If you cannot monetize those rights in the alloted time -- say because you produce lousy art, or are a lousy salesperson, or made the mistake of locking it inside a DRM scheme -- that is your problem.

Customers broadly understand that failure to pay will eventually result in production drying up. They'll pay for stuff. Most people are honest buyers of stuff priced at reasonable-seeming prices (i.e. not ever-rising prices when production and distribution costs are obviously falling).

People are not going to buy something "because you wish it so", or think you have a right to it. You have to be selling something a customer wants, at a price they like. If DRM turns out to be "sorta sucky", people don't have to buy it. They can buy a skipping rope, or put their money in a jar.

Here's a list of "sorta sucky" aspects of various DRM schemes which will drive potential customers away:

- no ability to timeshift
- no ability to share with friends
(which may result in friend buying)
- no ability to move between devices
- no ability to play on competitor's device
- no ability to reformat for another device
(small screen, lower CPU, different codec format, etc.)
- no ability to produce mixes, tributes, fan art, mods, extensions
- no ability to make backups to survive original media wearing out
- no ability to survive media, device, software upgrades,
requirement to buy all music again with each generation

All these things make the DRM'ed content unappealing from a sales perspective. They are not "sellable" features. Customers will not ask for them. Some customers might tolerate them, if you're the only game in town. But a certain number will just decide that your art sucks, isn't worth the hassle. They might go to your non-DRM-selling competitor. Or, if you're a real jerk and have legislated all non-DRM-selling customers out of business, your customers may just go play a video game. Or go for a walk. You have no right to their money.

---

(Log in to post comments)