How I became a music pirate

[Neon]

http://consumerist.com/consumer/drm/how-i-became-a-music-pirate-245644.php

Read it. Great letter.

[gemini]

Very good read.

[Say_Ten]

Quite.

[RocketKnight]

You are mad to buy music with DRM on it. Not just because of how it negatively impacts on you, but because it goes into the pockets of the record companies and it makes them think it's OK to use DRM. It really isn't. I feel sorry for people who have experienced issues with DRM, but if you're stupid enough to pay money for an iPod + iTunes and DRM music then you only have yourself to blame and you've made yourself part of the problem.

If we didn't buy into it, it would case to be profitable and go away.

[Rich]

Never EVER get anything with ANY form of DRM on it. It's the only way they'll learn.

I only brought a DRM based album once. Where you get to "activate it" 5 times to play on your machine. 5 windows installs later I no longer have the album I paid £9.99 for. Ridiculous.

The stupid thing is, you could of burnt these WMAs to a CD, then ripped them back down as an MP3.

It really rages me, like the "YOU WOULDN'T STEAL A CAR SO DONT DOWNLOAD MOVIES" trailers at the start of the DVD you just legally purchased. ARRRGGH!

And in actual fact, if I could steal a car in 3 mouse clicks and there be no come back what-so-ever then yes I would quite happily steal a car. You'd also be able to drive that car on more roads than if you had paid money for it at the show room ;)

[Big Giant Head]

What really annoys me is when you buy an album and then have to find a torrent for the mp3's because the copy protection makes it more of a pain to mp3 than to pirate something you've just bought.

It is interesting though, geeks will always find a way round fairplay has been cracked a fair few times, there's always an online source for mp3's, various hacks to redigitise sounds as it passes the soundcard (forgive my technical ignorance I'm sure there's a better explanation). The people they are really hurting with this DRM are regular folks who just want to buy some music and put it on their IPod, lend it to their mates etc.

These are 90% of music consumers and they don't care/understand why they can't do this and they are the people who will force the record companies to change their mind, no matter how much lobbying techies etc do.

[Say_Ten]

Not to mention that the people that are downloading the MP3s would most likely never have purchased the album ever anyway. The independents have actually created their own body to help them deal with internet based sales, only way they can compete with the big four. They're not putting DRM on anything they do.

[Jobabob]

this was digged I believe, a good read and I agree with all the points (though I must say I'm hardly the most 'ethical' pirate as he)