James Delahunty
7 Aug 2007 19:36
While most readers of AfterDawn and similar sites probably have no love for Digital Rights Management (DRM) based on knowledge of it, the average consumer probably doesn't know the difference right? Wrong! A recent survey conducted by Entertainment Media Research, working with media law firm Olswang, showed that many British consumers may avoid legal downloads due to DRM and that awareness of DRM's ugly side is spreading fast.
1,700 UK music consumers, selected from a pre-existing panel of more than 300,000 music consumers in the UK, were part of the lengthy survey. A huge 68% of those that offered an opinion on the matter believed that music is only worth purchasing if it has no DRM restrictions at all. However, less than half (about 39%) are willing to pay an extra fee to remove DRM and 18% would consider keeping it to save money.
Of the respondents who claimed some awareness of DRM, 61% believed it affected the rights of the music consumer to hear their music on different platforms, 38% classified it as simply a nuisance and 39% also expressed concerns over privacy. However, 63% agreed with the aim of DRM (to protect copyrighted music from illegal file sharing), showing that the problems they have with DRM are how it affects legitimate consumers.
However, DRM does not protect music from file-sharing at all, as fully ripped albums will still appear (almost all the time sourced from CDs) regardless of DRM - a fact pointed out by Steve Jobs earlier this year in an open letter to the music industry.
Source:
Ars Technica