EMI + iTunes - DRM = The Way It Should Be!

So those rumours a few months back were right - EMI and Apple had a big thing in London today where they announced that EMI would be releasing their entire catalogue through iTunes DRM free! DRM stands for Digital Rights Management - It's what keeps (or it's what is supposed to keep) us from sharing music we purchase from the iTunes media store.

This is a big step for the music industry. They say that they are losing money because people are no longer willing to fork out money for songs and albums that are available freely on line either through bit-torrent sites or through P2P applications. DRM was supposed to slow the "sharing"down but hackers soon found ways around the digital protection.

Universal Music are so strict about their music being protected that they are getting $1 from Microsoft for every Zune that is sold to compensate for losses due to music piracy on the device. [tangent] Maybe JVC should give $1 to the film industry for every VHS player sold, and Dell should give $1 to each the film industry, the music industry, and the software industry for the piracy that takes place on their machines.... Fuckit, maybe Nissan should give money to the insurance companies around the world to compensate for insurance claims from people who crashed their Micra..... [/tangent]

I'm not sure if other music publishers will follow suit, but I don't see why they shouldn't. They are already selling DRM free music everyday on CDs and copyright laws haven't changed, so why not give us back the freedom we used to have when we were able to buy an album or a single on CD for example and copy it to a cassette tape to listen to in our Walkman or the car.

Now, at least, we can buy songs from the EMI catalogue, copy them to our iPod, CDs, our friends iPods, and their CDs......! Hopefully this is just the start of things to come.

Dear Mr. Steve Jobs,

If by chance you read this, I want you to know that I have money sitting in the bank with your name on it. In fact, I have been considering getting my pay cheques made out to Apple from now on - It would save me the bother.
Do you think you can find it in your heart to release Leopard and the Mac Pros with the H.264 chip, BlueRay and HDDVD RW drives, along with the much rumored Final Cut Extreme in the near future? My iMac can't handle HDV footage and I'm waiting to buy a Canon XH-A1 so I can shoot this TV pilot a few of us are working on. RTÉ need submissions in by August and unless we get shooting soon we won't make the deadline.


All the best,
Alan Slattery

Still Waiting

I've been waiting for the latest OS X release, OS X.5 Leopard, from
Apple for so long now that I'm starting to believe that I'll never see it at this stage.

I thought that I'd be able to buy my Mac Pro in January, but instead I got a promise of the iPhone. I'm was holding out until NAB in April, but apparently all we're getting then in the latest installment of Final Cut Studio. Now I really want the new Final Cut, but it's not much good to me until I get me new mac. Next we pushed back to the WWDC in June. But now I hear we'll have to wait until October! What the fuck!