DRM, RIAA, WTF?

the East Bay Express has an article about Gracenote that functions as a kind of "state of the union" on issues of digital rights management.

I'm of a mixed mindset on this. I think that it's important for things to be available, but I also think that artists and content creators should be recompensed for their efforts. Granted, Radiostar is free, but it would be nice if we got something other than satisfaction out of the deal. We're actually looking at putting out some "Best Of" CDs which would have some extra content that you can't get online.

One thing that I think helps is streaming technology. Having a song or a video stream through a flash environment or other system that makes it technically inconvenient to do more than listen to it once or twice as a kind of demo, seems fair. I want to listen to the new Tori Amos CD before I buy it, so I can stream it off of her site and if I like it, or just like parts of it, I can then buy the mp3s. That's workable. I'm not buying a whole CD based on a single I heard, or off of reputation, but I get to know what I'm getting. I can find new bands in the same way. Go to the site, see what I like, and then I have the option to buy. Can these things be hacked? Sure. Everything can be hacked, but 95% of users wouldn't know how to get an MP3 file out of a flash player so that they could store it permanently on their machine and then play it on their iPods.

I'm not happy about the "sue anything that moves" methodology, but sadly that seems to be how Americans do business.

As for me, I'm all about Creative Commons, which allows content creators to determine how much or little their work can be appropriated, reused, and reshaped.