SDMI compatible?

[rox1co]

i plan on purchasing music from buy.com and they insist that the player is SDMI compatible, i still have yet to receive a reply from cowon (almost 2 days now) so i was wondering if i could get a faster reply here

thanks

[afruff23]

SDMI is synonymous with playsforsure (P4S) DRM. The D2 will become P4S compatible soon with a firmware update I believe.

Try emusic.com. It has no DRM on the music, meaning any player can play them.

[nrwilk]

Down with DRM. [mad] [thumbdwn]

http://craphound.com/msftdrm.txt

[afruff23]

Everybody hates DRM. I believe EMI is planning to remove DRM from its songs.

[nrwilk]

Steve Jobs recently posted a letter on the Apple site about how he'd like to get rid of DRM in all music.
http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughtsonmusic/

The funny part is that the RIAA misread it, and thought he was supporting DRM.
http://www.engadget.com/2007/02/07/riaa-misreads-jobs-open-letter-on-drm-thinks-hes-offering-to/

Of course (most of) the record labels hate the idea:
http://playlistmag.com/news/2007/02/09/warner/index.php

Accept, the EFI label actually agreed with Steve on all of his points, and they might try experimenting with non protected music.
http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003543962

Good for Steve, cool for EFI, but the other labels and the RIAA can suck it.

[afruff23]

You mean EMI. Yeah, I heard about all those things, but honestly Steve just wants what makes him the most money (same with EMI). Neither of them hates DRM for its concept.

[nrwilk]

Neither of them hates DRM for its concept.

Did you read the letter? [smile]

[afruff23]

Yeah, the first day he published it. You just gotta see through the BS. If DRM helped their sales, then they would be all for it. They just hate how less consumers are buying their music because they're aware of the DRM restrictions.

[nrwilk]

Yeah, the first day he published it. You just gotta see through the BS. If DRM helped their sales, then they would be all for it. They just hate how less consumers are buying their music because they're aware of the DRM restrictions.

I don't think that public DRM awareness is very high at all. Most people I know have no clue what it is.

But, we can just agree to disagree here, I guess. No point in arguing about it.
[smile]

[afruff23]

You're right, people aren't completely aware about how DRM is bad. BUT they are aware that if they buy a song off iTunes, then they can't use it on any player that they wish, which is reason enough for them not to buy it. The whole DRM business model puts off all consumers, techies and regulars alike.

[JimS]

Jobs' letter was a great strategic move, but he knows that DRM does help iPod sales. Apple is currently involved in legal battles in Europe. Norway has said that Apple's choice to make is DRM only work on iPods and not license it to other manufacturers is a violation of their laws. The "we would love to not use DRM but the labels make us" letter was an attempt to deflect the blame from Apple to the labels. However, while the labels do require Apple to use DRM to protect their content, their contracts do not require Apple's DRM to only work on iPods, and in fact have suggested that Apple license their DRM scheme to other player manufacturers. Doing that would alleviate the legal battle with Norway and possibly other European nations, however it would mean that you could play songs purchase on iTMS on a device that's not an iPod. Currenlty, if you have a significant iTMS collection and your iPod dies, or you are deciding to get a portable player, iTMS purchases only working on an iPod is a driving force for iPod sales. Jobs is just making some nice tactical maneuvers that also has the benefit of appealing to a set of vocal consumers.

For all the people who talk about how bad DRM is, look how successful DVDs have been, VHS, SD, and on and on. The difference is that those DRM schemes are manufacturer independent. That is the key to making DRM painless for the consumer since it's a necessary tool for content producers.