With the music business testing burn-proof CD technology, and Clear Channel buying the patent for technology letting musicians upload live concert recordings onto USB flash drives right after the final curtain, questions have arisen on how us ordinary souls can buy music or use what we buy.
Rivals Macrovision and SunnComm International are said to be developing digital rights management technology that would limit the number of copies consumers can make from CDs they buy. SunComm has said BMG Music Group is already testing their version, unsurprising considering BMG's aggressiveness in pushing for such copy protection previously. Macrovision's version is expected in a few months.
CNET has said this new technology could alienate some music customers if it gets widespread implementation, but the record labels "are moving ahead cautiously" in search of hitting on an idea that works for everyone.
"There is a fine [DRM] balance that nobody has struck, especially with physical CDs," GartnerG2 research group analyst Mike McGuire told CNET. "If there's somebody who's making 25 copies for the world and finds they can't do that, then few people will probably complain. But if someone finds they can't make a copy for their kid so he can play it in the car, you're going to have a lot of people returning broken CDs."
And, a few more problems if government decides to step in and try to answer these and other questions about this kind of technology on a political level.
"I think digital rights management has a very important and valid role to play in the future of intellectual property," Adam Thierer, director of telecommunications studies for the Cato Institute, told AVNOnline.com. "As a technology, it holds great promise in helping artists protect their works. However, that does not tell us how public policy, laws, or regulations should be structured around DRM technologies."
Thierer said DRM should neither be banned nor mandated as a matter of law. "We should allow creators of music and video and whatever else to utilize DRM on a voluntary basis to protect their own works," he said, "but we should not invite government in to either ban of mandate specific types of DRM technologies or applications. That could end up stifling or skewing markets in one direction or another. I'm open to and excited about the role DRM can play in our technological future, but I'm very paranoid about how government might come in and muck things up."
Just as problematic is the Clear Channel purchase of the patent for technology that has allowed such as the Allman Brothers Band, Billy Idol, and others to sell concert CDs right after they've played the final notes of a show. Clear Channel now claims to have the exclusive right to sell such discs, according to Rolling Stone, and claims the patent covers all 130 of its own venues and every other one in the country.
"We want to be artist-friendly," Clear Channel executive vice president Steve Simon told the magazine. "But it is a business, and it's not going to be 'we have the patent, now everybody can use it for free.'"
The performers in question have made some handsome money with those instant CDs of concerts. Rolling Stone estimated they make $10 on every $20-25 disc sold regardless of the company they use. In April, one such company, DiscLive, told the magazine they were expecting a springtime take of $500,000 from such discs – until Clear Channel bought the patent.
"It's one more step toward massive control and consolidation of Clear Channel's corporate agenda," said Mike Luba, manager of String Cheese Incident. The band, Rolling Stone said, fought with Clear Channel last year over burning CDs right off its live performances, with promoters reportedly blocking the band from using their burning equipment.
The Pixies were planning to burn discs off a fall reunion tour, according to several published reports, before they learned DiscLive can't sell the recordings after shows at Clear Channel-owned venues. "Presuming Clear Channel's service and product are of equal quality, it may be best to feed the dragon rather than draw swords," the band's manager, Ken Goes, told ArsTechnica.com. "Still, I'm not fond of doing business with my arm twisted behind my back."
What a difference a few years makes. Just four years ago, rock fans were stunned to find – count 'em – 72 CD releases of Pearl Jam in concert: the quintet released individual CDs of every show they played on tours in Europe and the United States, the better to make an end-run around bootleggers, following the release of their album Binaural.
ArsTechinca.com said sentiments such as that of Goes might begin taking hold all around the music industry. "With the threat of Clear Channel wielding the 5 Mace of patent enforcement," the Website said, "would-be competitors may very well choose to exit the market all together."
Au contraire, Thierer said. "I can imagine a scenario," he said, "where alternative technological solutions will develop, and people will find new ways of doing the same things. They always do."
