Erika Foreman's List: Copy Protection

• Companies that choose to publish works under copy protection do so because they believe that the added expense of implementing the copy protection will be offset by even greater increases in revenue by creating a greater scarcity of casually copied media.

   

  Opponents of copy protection argue that people who obtain free copies only use what they can get for free, and would not purchase their own copy if they were unable to obtain a free copy. Some even argue that it increases profit; people who receive a free copy of a music CD may then go and buy more of that band's music, which they would not have done otherwise.

   

  Some publishers have avoided copy-protecting their products, on the theory that the resulting inconvenience to their users outweighs any benefit of frustrating "casual copying".

• The Publications Rights Clearinghouse (PRC) is a collective licensing agency for writers. It collects royalties on behalf of writers from publishers with whom it has agreements for distributing such royalties.

  This is similar to collective licensing for songwriters.
• riters give the PRC permission to act as their agent in licensing secondary rights to their previously published articles.
• When the PRC signs an agreement with a secondary user, it collects the copyright fees from that publisher and distributes the royalties to its enrollees.

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• "DRM doesn't anger consumers, content owners abusing DRM anger consumers."
• At a conference convened by the overlords of DRM, Sony vice president Scott Smyers admits that he circumvents the copy protection on DVDs (CSS) in order to make backups for personal use.
• The implementation requirements for AACS are even more stringent, even more exclusive. If you don't have a team of engineers available to make your new product work with AACS, then you're out of luck.
• The consumer electronics world is well aware of the devastating effects of DRM on innovation.
• elman says that if he were in the hardware business, he'd be focusing his attention on building a DVD-ripping movie jukebox. Yet this is something that is currently illegal and scares the DVD-CCA to death. The same activity that gave birth to the MP3 player and revolutionized the music industry is anathema to the content owners in Hollywood.

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• Yesterday the world’s third largest record company, EMI, announced that it would begin selling music from its artists as digital downloads without any kind of Digital Rights Management (DRM) or copy restrictions. The songs will have a higher sound quality than your typical iTunes download, but will cost $1.29 instead of the usual $.99. The company made the decision after hearing numerous complaints from its consumers that they preferred having format-less music that could be listened to on any computer or any device, using a multitude of programs.

• access control technologies used by publishers and copyright holders to limit usage of digital media or devices
• Advocates argue it is necessary for copyright holders to prevent unauthorized duplication of their work to ensure continued revenue streams.
• Some observers claim that certain DRM technologies enable publishers to enforce access policies that not only prevent copyright violations, but also prevent legal fair use.
• Many online music stores, such as Apple's iTunes Store, as well as certain e-book publishers, have adopted various DRM strategies.
• Windows Vista contains a DRM system called the Protected Media Path, which contains the Protected Video Path (PVP). PVP tries to stop DRM-restricted content from playing while unsigned software is running in order to prevent the unsigned software from accessing the content.

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  In 2002, Bertelsmann (comprising BMG, Arista, and RCA) was the first corporation to use DRM on audio CDs. This was initially done on promotional CDs, but all CDs from these companies would eventually include at least some DRM.^{[citation needed]}

   

  It should be noted that discs with DRM installed are not legitimately standards-compliant Compact Discs (CDs) but rather CD-ROM media, therefore they all lack the CD logotype found on discs which follow the standard (known as Red Book).

   

  However, these CDs could not be played on all CD players. Many consumers could also no longer play purchased CDs on their computers. PCs running Microsoft Windows would sometimes even crash when attempting to play the CDs.

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