This is interesting after yesterday I found an article about digital music sales going up, CNN is reporting that musicians (and it seems labels) are actually telling people how to get around copy protected discs. Often with the classic – Burn/Rip/D&D to iPod method.
I don’t quite know what to make of it. Are the artists seeing that they are annoying their fans when the labels responsible for publishing the music make it difficult if not impossible to use? Are people getting more aware of how they can access their music? I’m hoping it’s the later.
Even if all the majority of people know only enough to take cell phone pictures and play music on iPods, then at least there are starting points for us to get them able to use other technologies. My guess is that a fair portion of secondary students would be able to do those two tasks, the trick is to get them doing more.
The other nice thing this does is help people (and kids of course) understand a little more about DRM and the politics behind it. Technology is never without a societal skeleton in the closet. eg – Sony wants Apple to license FairPlay so that it can protect it’s music in an iPod compatible manner, Apple doesn’t want to. Music buyers are caught in the middle encouraged to either side with one corporate titan or another, or go underground and “trade”.
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