Yes, that’s right (well, kind of). I was at a wedding tonight where the ceremony had started; everyone had walked down the isle except for the bride. The “other people walk down” music faded out and everyone stood to wait for the bride to come down, and…
… waited some more - in silence. After a while, everyone was feeling a bit awkward, especially the bride standing there waiting to walk down, and the guy running the music was scrambling away at his computer. Eventually another song came on (although you could tell it wasn’t the one they originally planned on) and things proceeded from there.
Later I found out what had happened. They wanted a particular song for the bridal entry, so someone went on iTunes and bought it. They probably tested it out during rehearsal and everything was fine. The problem came when they got to that day and all the songs were packaged up (probably via a USB stick or something) and handed off to be played on the computer that the DJ rig was hooked up to. Of course, when it got to that song, up comes the password prompt for the original downloader’s account, which the guy apparently did not have. Doh!
PS - Before Dan gets too excited - yes, I know that this isn’t Apple specific just because it was iTunes, and yes, I know there are many workarounds for this, and they should have burned a CD instead of actually playing songs directly off a computer in the first place for an event like this, but the main point is about how over-zealous DRM can really have crappy results. This guy paid his money to iTunes, and he’s probably only ever going to play that file one or two times in his whole life, but they still have to make darn sure that he doesn’t play it on more than one computer.
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Microsoft speculation…
Just thought I’d make a post out of part of my comment from this other thread, since it was going a bit off the original subject.
It’s in regards to a link that DaveZ posted about a Microsoft patent for a home video conferencing service.
Th…
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first!
just wanted to be first to comment since i’m sure this thread will have dozens of comments.
He should have bought the CD or used bittorent. That’s really the only other solution.
DRM sucks.
Does this illustrate how Apple products aren’t really embraced by the real adult world?
Dave: I don’t think so. The people involved in this incident (as far as I could tell) were all in their 20’s. I think Apple’s lack of “mainstream” market share is primarily due to its non-competitive approach to the business market, and other business (rather than technical or product based) reasons.
I think it just mostly goes to show how ridiculous the whole DRM thing ends up being. Anyone who actually wants to get around it can and will easily learn how, so the only people it ends up hurting are people who are innocently just trying to play a song they bought when they just happened to be on a different computer.
Luckily I still think that it’s only a matter of time before the record companies (and others) will have to embrace the new digital age whether they like it or not, and that will probably mean that they won’t make as much money as they did before. They just need to get over it.
When it suddenly becomes possible to infinitely duplicate a particular product or resource, whatever that resource is quickly becomes less and less “valuable” in the monetary sense. This is just a fact that the RIAA and MPAA will have to live with. Sure, they will continue to fight it, but their only chance is for the general public to accept all the new kinds of restrictions they want to build in to their new devices and delivery formats. I suspect that even though this will probably happen in the short term, people will eventually get sick of it and start choosing more free alternatives.
itunes is universally accepted by all age groups and is a great entertainment type of app.
I drive by MPAA twice per week. One thing they mentioned when I had an appt with them re video/webex com services was that it had to be lawyer friendly as MPAA dealt with so many. And that might make them reluctant to go away quietly in the above fight.
Now this(http://conferencingnews.com/news/12292 )
is what MS is doing and it will bring a tsunami of real social change including: saving the environment, reducing our oil consumption, reduce our vulnerability to terror, save tons of money for the masses.
Just out 8/18/2006
Oh yes also, It should make Bill Gates richer.
Re: the MPAA - that’s the great thing about the way I see it working out - it won’t be a legal battle, it will just be an issue of their products eventually becoming basically worth nothing.
I’m sure they will try to use all sorts of legal and other tactics to try to keep the price artificially pumped up, but sooner or later the fact that it doesn’t cost anything (or at least very little) to generate unlimited copies of the products they’re trying to sell will catch up with them.
I see. I wonder if there will be less music if the money dries up.
Hopefully. The world would be a much better place withouth B95.1 and the likes.
Yeah, I can’t say I’d really miss it too much of the “popular” music of today if the money (for the most part) went out of the recording business.
It might be a bit rough for some hard working musicians, but I think the reality is most of them get their money from shows, etc. these days anyway, unless they happen to have a big record contract, and even if they do have that contract, their piece is probably relatively small.
I suspect that we’d be left with the people who write and play music because it’s an artistic expression for them; something they do now and will continue to do because they want to, regardless of how well it pays. These are really the people I think I’d rather listen to anyway.
If I wanted to get ultra idealistic (Dave, don’t read this next part), I’d suggest that it would be awesome if our society was open enough in the area of sharing and providing for each other that artists, musicians, poets, etc. could be paid to do that professionally by the rest of society simply because that society recognizes the value that art brings to it. I’m not saying this would (or maybe even should) happen, but it sure would be great if we lived in a society where it even *could*.
Bringing it back to the topic, one reason this is unlikely to happen is that even if advances in technology did make it possible for everyone to dramatically increase the standard of living across the board (like clean, renewable energy sources, genetic food technology, etc.), people in our society would probably be much more interested in monetizing whatever made that possible rather than allowing it to enrich the world as a whole.
But what would Emma listen to?
That’s funny - I almost put that in when I was writing that.
“(Dave, don’t read this next part)”-funny.
Interesting thoughts about the sharing, it could be good, where would they meet? online? etc.
Do you see it as more ” viral ” in the new way that word is being used in the online community?
I see the tech that allows for reproducing music coming from the inflow of money into the industry and that technology is in large measure going to stop the flow of money for new technology.
That last comment was from me. Not sure why it says anon..
any thoughts on MS’s entree into Videoconferencing?
Dave - re: your first comment (the anonymous one), I don’t think they’d necessarily need to meet anywhere in particular. Could be online, could be in person wherever crowds of people gather, etc.
As for the technology, I don’t think that’s the case. We already have the technology that allows for unlimited reproduction of music right now, and I don’t think that technology itself is in any way dependent on the music industry.
As for the video conferencing, I didn’t have time to read the whole article, just a brief skim. I’m not sure if the article touches on this, but I think they’re in a pretty good position for the home market with the combination and integration of the X-Box with their other products (media center and possibly this, etc.) As time marches on, it will be more and more popular to have a computer taking the center stage of the family entertainment setup (replacing / extending TVs, stereos, etc.), and the X-Box is a pretty decent computer (hardware-wise) by today’s standards.
Looks like MS is looking to use a cable or sat provider as a backbone for videoconferencing in conjuction with whatever appliance they are developing - xbox or Videoxbox( from the patent app ).
It could work as ” go to channel 541 for your conference with x, y, z.
The connectivity would just be the user’s regular internet connection (cable, DSL, etc.). I don’t think satellite service would give you enough outgoing bandwidth to support good quality video conferencing, at least not at an affordable rate for the consumer.
The hardware in the current XBoxes is definitely enough to support it though, so I wouldn’t have a hard time believing that they could roll this out fairly quickly. I’m actually kind of surprised that they haven’t done more in this regard so far. It might just be that it’s because they’re spread so thin in trying to cover so many markets.
Perhaps with the recent change in leadership they can better organize their company structure (or even split up) to allow for more rapid advances in this kind of space (home user appliance type stuff like gaming, “media center”-ish stuff, and this). Seems like its a big opportunity that they’re kind of lagging on right now, and I’m speculating that it’s because they’re so focused on all the other stuff they’ve got going on.
Either that or they’re going to “pull an Apple” and do a surprise announcement of a new product/service that’s already ready to go, which would probably be good for them PR wise.
MSft has applied for a patent for a Videoconferencing appliance. And they are talking about it being hooked up to a 3rd party content provider.
Did you get the picture of MPAA that I sent yesterday in honor of this post?