Is DRM a Dirty Word?
Consumers are strongly reacting negatively to DRM. But here will always be situations where it's better accepted, such as for business and hard-to-share content. I wrote about this in "The Future of DRM."
Strategy Analytics has researched this area and written a report called "A Roadmap for DRM: Business Impact for Content Owners and Technology Vendors." Beware – it's a vendor and content (not consumer)-driven perspective.
Here is their introduction:
This report charts a road map for Digital Rights Management (DRM) technologies. Extensive research in the music and video spaces indicates that DRM will increasingly undergo a process of recalibration rather than abandonment or perfection. In a balanced and inter-operable form, DRM will provide the technological architecture for new business development in the 'digital ecosystem'. The road ahead will foster new services for consumers and new revenues for creators and investors. Ultimately, DRM is needed to harness the commercial value of the 'rip, mix, burn and share' culture.
May 21st, 2007 at 1:22 pm
DRM is *the* dirty word it seems in the music industry — but, at least it looks like companies are taking a stand against it. In the last several months, Amazon and Apple have come out against DRM, and We7 and Grooveshark are putting together software platforms to serve mainstream DRM-Free music. This is on top of sites like eMusic. It should be an interesting quarter in the music industry.
December 4th, 2007 at 2:47 am
DRM was supposed to be a good thing, at least wehen it came out, but it now seems to me it did more damage than good to both the industry and the consumer