The REAL truth about battery life
I was really surprise last week when I read this CNET review. I usually don’t care much about attacks to DRM but I have to respond to this propaganda. If you’re going to attack DRM, at least make an effort to get your story straight. In the article, the author (James Kim?) goes on by saying that playing DRM tracks on your portable device will drain your battery 25% faster. Ok that’s fine, I can believe that..maybe. So I read the experiment they made. They went and compare DRM free mp3s with wma DRM tracks from Rhapsody (and Napster). Ok how about comparing apples and oranges!
Everyone that has a little bit of technology background would know that codecs have different CPU requirements which means they have different battery requirements. To really prove the point, you would have to compare a DRM free wma with a DRM wma AT THE SAME BITRATE and then you’d have a better comparaison. Talking about bitrate, I know as a matter of fact that Rhapsody subscription tracks are encoded @ 160 kbps (at least they were when I was there). So you can’t compare them with 128 kbps MP3s. Note that the article doesn’t mention any bitrates.
Another absurd quote from the article: “Those who belong to subscription services such as Napster or Rhapsody have it worse. Music rented from these services arrive in the WMA DRM 10 format, and it takes extra processing power to ensure that the licenses making the tracks work are still valid and match up to the device itself.”
Ok, first of all, checking that a license is still valid doesn’t require any work, mr smart ass. What requires more processing power is the actual decryption of the content. The crypto part used in content decryption is a lot more expensive than the license validation. At least, it should be in a properly designed DRM :-). The license describes what the device can do with the content, there’s really no need to encrypt it. However it needs to be signed to ensure integrity (meaning to ensure that nobody modified it). In any case, verifying a signature is a lot faster than decrypting the content. Even though Asymetric encryption is used for signatures, the verification (decryption) is always fast because decrypting with a Public key is always faster then decrypting with a Private Key (since it’s smaller). Symetric encryption (and decryption) is however faster than Asymetric encryption (and decryption) which is why content is usually always encrypted with a symetric algorightm (like AES-CBC or the old 3DES). But, since only the hash of the license (160 bits) is being signed and not the entire license, and generating a hash (SHA1) is very fast, it just doesn’t matter compare to decrypting MBytes of content. You see now why decrypting content is always going to take more CPU (thus power consumption).
Now, of course DRM is annoying. Damn I hate it. However, I think I am better off because I accept the fact that there is no way around it. DRM will always exist. You think IPTV will be all free and clear? You think Cable will deliver unscrambled feeds to everyone and trust you to not “tune” in for free? Come one, get real people.
Now, what my job is, working for a DRM company, is to create a DRM that is as transparent to a user, as flexible as possible to create new business opportunites and as easy to implement as possible. I believe a DRM system should be opened and standardized just like Cryptographic algorithms are. Because, in the case of Crypto, the robustness is in the key not in the algorithm. Same thing goes for DRM.
When a user will be able to move content from a device made by Manufacturer A to a device made by Manufacturer B without thinking why it couldn’t be done, then I’ll know I’ve achieved my goal. We’re note quite there yet but I know we’re not far…stay tuned.
Apr 11, 2006
[…] Finally someone was smart enough to realize that CNet experimentation as described in my previous post was completely flawed. Bravo Engadget for that! […]
Apr 13, 2006
I am not going to say I totally disagree with your statement about how DRM is a necessary evil but I will throw out another idea for you to consider.
DRM is one solution to list of problems that the internet and new technology creates for media companies. There are other options (see below). There are pluses and minuses for each solution. I think DRM is a solution where the media companies pay the smallest price. That is good for them because their business is affected the least. It is the public that pays the biggest price for DRM. That is a shame.
To demonstrate my point about other alternatives to DRM.
The main reason file sharing is illegal is because no one gets paid when it happens. DRM is one way to solve it. It simply prevents access to people who have not paid for the content. The EFF has suggested another approach. They call it “Voluntary Collective Licensing”. It is very similar to the way performance royalties currently work with radio. Except with new technology, it could be even more accurate than the way performance royalties are distributed. Check it out. It is an interesting read. http://www.eff.org/share/collective_lic_wp.php
I think the proposal makes a lot of sense. So why wouldn’t the media companies go for it? They would get paid. It is debatable if they would get paid as much as they do today. Only time would tell on that. I think this proposal does not address the issue of control. DRM certainly enables media companies to control things. Even beyond what the law suggests is fair use. Thanks to the DMCA, it is now a felony to circumvent DRM to try and get access to protected media.
The whole thing is a mess.
Apr 14, 2006
I haven’t read the whole article yet but I cannot see the economics of this idea working. They’re talking $5/month. No DRM. This means this is cheaper than a subscription service AND users get to keep the files after they’ve downloaded them. This is great for users bu is clearly not going to appeal to the Labels when they’re already arguing with Steve Jobs that .99c / song (with DRM) is not enough.
In an ideal world (more utopic than ideal), this could work if you remove the cost of artist promotion that Labels have a harder and harder time to recoup. I don’t see this happen anytime soon unfortunately.
However having said that, it might not work for Music but might for Movies. Since most people see a movie only once and don’t care much about seeing it again, Movie Studios have to price the cost of seeing a movie high. If they were to adopt a Netflix approach, where I would pay let’s say $20 bucks a month, and I get to download 3 movies with no DRM then that would be appealing to me, especially if I can keep the movie if I wanted to. Most users won’t, so Studios don’t have to worry as much as Labels do.
What do you think?
Apr 15, 2006
[…] In response to Nick’s comment about DRM, I suggested that Movie Studios would be more likely to approach a subscription service and tentatively without DRM. Well it sounds like someone is thinking along the same way as I have just read very interesting news about why the true video ipod is being delayed. As if it was due to technical reasons. Right. […]
Apr 16, 2006
You saying that this concepts behind Voluntary Collective Licensing would not work for music but this proposal is very similar to the performing rights royalty system we have today for broadcasting songs on the radio. This system has been in place since 1920s. It does work. It is working. A similiar concept could be applied to the internet.
Why is the subscription business model more profitable than paid download store business model? People can stream as much as they want but at the end of each month, they stream much less than $10 worth of royalties. Yet they continue to pay because they are paying for the freedom and the selection. It is similar to going to a buffet. You can’t eat all the food at the buffet but you still think it is a good deal because you can choose what you want and have as much of it as you want. At the end of the day, the cost of what you eat is less than what the restaurant has charged you and the restaurant makes money.
Imagine a subscription service in which everyone pays $5 a month. It could be part of your ISP bill, a media tax that maybe most consumers would not even be aware of, that would allow you to download anything you wanted off the internet. The service would track what was being traded just like Big Champaign is already doing. The media companies would register what they own in a monitoring database. Then at the end of each month the media tax collection pot would be paid out by percentage of usage. In the end, more people would be paying $5 and using much less than that. AOL has 21 million subscribers for example. I think 18 million are dial up. I would suspect they would use much less than $5 worth of music. The labels would probably make more money and the people would have legal freedom to consume the media they want.
You talk about artist promotion costs. A lot of artist promotion money is wasted on artists and releases that the public does not like. The monthly reporting that a company like Big Champaign could provide would enable much more efficient use of those dollars. Trends could be monitored quickly and easily to determine where new releases are resonating with the public.
Your argument is that the proposal will not work because the economics of the industry would not remain exactly as they are today. I will agree with you on that. But with or without the adoption of a proposal such as this, the economics of the industry are going to change no matter what.
As a consumer, I wish I did not have to pay the price for the media companies to keep their control. I have had several bad DRM experiences over the past two weeks.
1). I down loaded an e-book from my public library 2 weeks ago and wanted to move it from one computer to another so I could take it on the train to read. SORRY! You can’t do that. You must wait two weeks to do that. You can’t check the e-book back in and check it out again on another computer. Too bad!
2). I wanted to try out the Tivo-To-Go software. I can not get my computer and tivo to agree that the media key I enter is the same as the one that the tivo says it is. Tive tech support has been unhelpful. SORRY! We are not sure what the problem is.
3). I downloaded a free video podcast from iTunes (because it was the only place on the internet it was posted). It is a .m4v file. I tried to move it to the creative labs zen vision. SORRY! This file format is not supported! I tried to find a converter but nothing seemed to work.
All 3 of my attempts are completely legal and legitamite attempts to move my media to other platforms. Yet I am prevented from doing so. The technology is obviously flawed and I believe that in order to fix it, the technology companies will have to incorporate highly invasive techniques that will cause privacy concerns. But that is a whole other discussion.
Apr 16, 2006
Labels are not worried about radio (although they were at some point) because:
1/ People can record but it’s analog.
2/ Playlists cannot be advertised ahead of time, preventing people to be ready to record what they want to record.
3/ Most songs beginning are being cut off or talked over by the host.
4/ The rotation on public radio is terrible. The same top20 songs are being played over and over.
People like subscription models because if they were to go with a la carte, the cost of listening to all the songs they have in a month would end up costing a lot more than the per month they pay. The catalog for subscription or a la carte is pretty much the same. I believe that it’s a little bigger with subscription but not that much. Now for Online services, subscription model works better because royalties are cheaper. And royalties are cheaper because labels cannot charge as much as they do for a la carte. The reason they do that is because after you stop paying your subscription, the songs stop playing. So clearly they cannot charge as much as a la carte since technically you “owe” the songs when you choose that model (even though you really don’t). For that reason, a subscription model without a DRM would break that logic.
The only reason a subscription model without a DRM would work is IF the value the Labels get out of each user exceeds the cost of all the songs they would “lose”. Your example with tracking popularity and trends could help offset the promotion costs.
Let’s take an example. RealNetworks management announced publicly that there was an average of 200 songs being streamed per month by subscribers. A a la carte user would have to shell out $200 for the same activity instead of $10. That’s a $190 difference. Labels probably get 90% of that. If Labels were to adopt a subscription model without a DRM, for $10 a month, a user could acquire 200 songs a month and keep them even after unsubscribing. Instead of $1 a song, it’s now 5c a song. It’s also $190 that Labels lost per user per month. Last Realnetworks number indicates they have 1/2 million subscribers. That’s $1.1 billion dollars ! Do you really think Labels are going to throw away that money?
Ok a more realistic number now. In the 4th quarter, Apple sold $0.1 billion worth of digital downloads. That’s $.4 billion last year. Still, I don’t think the Labels are ready to throw away that much money.
Your ISP proposal has already been in place. RealNetworks bundle Radio Plus with Comcast. When users upgrade to Rhapsody, they’re charged directly on their bill.
Now for the DRM experience you’ve had. I am not surprised. To solve this problem, 2 things:
1/ Clearly a need for a better DRM that can support more legitimate scenarios.
2/ A Unified & interropable schema that would allow other DRMs to communicate.
Your 2 first scenarios will be solved with the new Intertrust DRM (Marlin). The last scenario has nothing to do with DRM actually but it’s an interesting point though. Apple not only has a monopoly on the device market but on the media software application too now. They were able to achieve that by being the only one to offer a Podcast directory integrated with iTunes. I am really surprised that no other Media Companies (Real? Microsoft? AOL?) has tried to integrated podcast and rss feeds into one application and provide transcription for all devices. Maybe it will be in Rhapsody 4 ?
Oh and one last thing, there is no need to incorporate invasive techniques to solve the problems you are talking about. Marlin will solve these problems without haveing to give your life away.
Hint: no DRM has introduced the notion of Domain yet. Like a home domain where all your devices can talk to each other because they are part of the same domain.
Mar 23, 2010
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