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Download Free Music Without A Mess
By Walloon Brabant
Is it possible to download free and create a mess? Yes, indeed and it is all due to an obstinate little acronym known in the biz as DRM. DRM, for those of you who are newbies in the biz parlance, means digital rights management. And DRM happens to be a double-bladed sword that will dictate how you download free without a mess or with a big splashy mess that can leave you bankrupt.
DRM means that the original creators and owners of a piece of digital data (like a file) have the rights to restrict access to and ownership over their original product. People who believe in DRM say that this helps artists benefit from a continuous revenue stream due to sales of their original product over the years. This sounds fair, doesn't it? Ah, but there are ironically people who don't believe in DRM. These devil's advocates believe that DRM stands in the way of improving the level of competition in the industry and helping the public benefit from increased open access to copyrighted music.
How can you then download free without a mess? That is the sticky part of the dilemma – at the rate data copying technologies are being advanced, promoted and disseminated to the public, it is becoming harder and harder for the original creators and owners of copyrighted to exert control over who can get ownership over their original product. And if these original creators and owners cannot control access they also cannot control their profits.
Next question then is: do these original creators and owners of original copyrighted material have any right to more royalties over their original creations when more people acquire more copies of the original products? DRM advocates say yes of course, that is the whole point of having rights over your original creation in the first place. DRM opponents say no, because it does not create a level playing field and makes some people (ie. the artists and the labels) richer
in the process. By rights, the DRM opponents say, such rich people should not get richer from future sales of their own products.
As you can see, the problem hinges on perception. From the perception of an artist who slaved for years to perfect his skills in so he can come up with a great product, he has every right in the world to benefit from continuous sales of his file through the years from anyone who cares to use that in any form whatsoever. From the perception of a label, the company has the right to profit from the distribution of that product in agreement with the original owner (the artist) because it took a risk by opting to distribute the product for the artist. But, from the perception of a music-hungry public that wants free (like getting to eat its cake yet enjoy it forever anyway), these artists and labels have no rights to their product which only "oppress the poor public."
As you can see, it is very hard to download free without a mess. It makes more ethical sense to simply pay for the CD or download then take good care of your purchase for the rest of your life. That is what ethical business is all about. If you do intend to download free without a mess, it better be from the authorized source of the label and the original artist. Otherwise, it is better not to try to download free without a mess. |
