Streaming (which pays labels and artists much less) only exists because it's the compromise that solves the "service problem" side of piracy.
One of these attempts that I assume most people are familiar with but is an interesting read for those that aren't: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootk...
The movie industry unfortunately never gave up no matter how vain the attempts are.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeCSS
We have Derek Fawcus, "mdx", "DVD Jon" et al to thank for making DVDs worthwhile.
Now, 480i is something I'd rather leave behind but even that is a lesser concern than the content of the film.
"To begin, it is useful to remember that all iPods play music that is free of any DRM and encoded in “open” licensable formats such as MP3 and AAC. iPod users can and do acquire their music from many sources, including CDs they own. Music on CDs can be easily imported into the freely-downloadable iTunes jukebox software which runs on both Macs and Windows PCs, and is automatically encoded into the open AAC or MP3 formats without any DRM. This music can be played on iPods or any other music players that play these open formats."
And this part might be interesting in the context of the article:
"The third alternative is to abolish DRMs entirely. Imagine a world where every online store sells DRM-free music encoded in open licensable formats. In such a world, any player can play music purchased from any store, and any store can sell music which is playable on all players. This is clearly the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat. If the big four music companies would license Apple their music without the requirement that it be protected with a DRM, we would switch to selling only DRM-free music on our iTunes store. Every iPod ever made will play this DRM-free music.
Why would the big four music companies agree to let Apple and others distribute their music without using DRM systems to protect it? The simplest answer is because DRMs haven’t worked, and may never work, to halt music piracy."
Which is "piracy" - not that that makes it ethically wrong. It's actually the main kind of copying that is targeted by DRM since users of the LimeWire kind never see that.
When I was a teenager we had _dial-up_. My first 2 iPods were strictly playing ripped CDs, which I, friends, or family had bought. Buying the iPod itself was probably cheaper than 2 months worth of internet traffic back then.
In otherwords, it's theft if the law says it is. Simple as that.
It's incredibly disheartening to know that one of the easiest ways to success is breaking the law and hoping it doesn't catch up to you before you have enough money to be above the law. That crime does pay. That lawsuits ruined people's lives for downloading MP3s and some of the biggest companies on the planet stole everything and walk away with a slap on the wrist.
This isn't an anti-LLM comment, it's just depressing how we live in a system with 2 very different sets of rules based on how much money you have.
When Apple gets something right, they really do get it right. A shame a lot of other aspects of Apple Music are bad or wrong.
I don't know. iTunes at the time was notorious for deleting all of your library if it thought you didn't buy something through them
Utterly tone deaf Steve, we don’t all like your music.
I had more than that on CDs at the time.
Now technically it’s “piracy” in the U.K. to rip your own cd.
I really should go back to buying CDs.
On the flip side, Sony lost the consumer devices market for this very reason. Sony's single-minded pursuit of proprietary formats was a disaster class of corporate mismanagement.
It disgusts me because I used to love their products so much. Sony's competitor to the iPod was a marvel of a device called the NW-HD1. It was beautiful, had a ton of space, and great battery life. But it wasn't an MP3 player. It could only play ATRAC music. That means you had to transcode all of your MP3s to their proprietary format just to listen to them.
I remember trying to debate the virtues of my Sony NW-HD1 versus the iPod, but having to keep my computer on throughout the night just to transcode a couple albums was indefensible.
Ah, something tells me it wasn't the technical capabilities that held this very pronounceable and fashionable product back.
Sony's response to this was to use their bubble-era money to start buying US record labels, purely so they could force them to support their formats. But they ultimately wound up buying the exact same mentality that they were fighting against, and the labels won that fight internally. Sure, Sony had Minidisc releases of major label music, but the format flopped anyway, because they were entirely unwilling to market it for recording in the US. Outside of the US, Minidisc was the Apple "Rip. Mix. Burn" experience half a decade prior to the iPod; but in the US that experience basically didn't exist unless you knew exactly where to look.
Am I the only one here who legit purchased MP3s downloads for 99 cents off Amazon? (This was the era after Napster stopped working.)
If I’m remembering right, the tagline on the Mac mini was “rip mix burn”
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Apples-Rip-Mix-Burn-camp...
You can’t really call it a pro-piracy message though. Ripping implies you have the original CD already.
Of course not. That would probably infringe on advertising standards. But it is the clear implication.