Need Another Reason why DRM is bad? Here it is!

Martin Brinkmann
Feb 2, 2008
Updated • Nov 9, 2017
Music and Video
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I always asked myself what the main reason for DRM - digital rights media - really is. It - maybe - can be used to stop legit buyers from giving a song to their friends or relatives but it surely does not step the spreading of music at all.

Music pirates do get the music before any shop has them in their inventory which in turn means that anyone with a little bit of knowledge of P2P services can get their hands on the music for free and before legit customers can.

If it's not about preventing the music from being spread, what is it about then? That's the question. My thoughts are that someone sold DRM to the CEOs and Executives and that they, with their limited technical understanding thought that it would prevent music piracy. In the end, only the consumers who purchase music are screwed, as you can see in this fine example.

Sony decided to close down its Connect music store that tried to push a proprietary format that only works with supported devices. This miserably failed and that is probably the main reason for the closure. The problem for consumers however is that the music that was purchased from that store had DRM included in it.

Don't worry, the music will play just fine after the store closes down, that is, unless you happen to change your computer hardware. Because at this point, it will stop playing. Ain't that great ? You bought music thinking that you could enjoy it for the rest of your life only to find out that it won't play if you change computer hardware or use a new computer.

I'm not sure how you see this but I think that this is absolutely unacceptable. If they want to use DRM they have to make sure that music will play even if they decided to close down their store or change their policy or whatever. My advice: Don't buy music with DRM, ever.

Closing lines are from the Download Squad article, very fitting I think:

DRM does not prevent piracy. DRM merely shafts loyal, paying customers who choose to legitimately obtain their media online

Summary
Article Name
Need Another Reason why DRM is bad? Here it is!
Description
If you needed another reason to avoid media with DRM, the example of Sony closing down a service and leaving customers stranded should do the trick.
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Ghacks Technology News
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Comments

  1. Anonymous said on August 1, 2010 at 12:43 pm
    Reply

    Why not make use of the mplayer.conf?

  2. Mike J said on August 1, 2010 at 2:58 pm
    Reply

    Huh, I have never even seen this “font cache” pane; videos play at once for me, using VLC & XP SP3.

    1. Martin said on August 1, 2010 at 3:39 pm
      Reply

      Mike, in theory this should have only been displayed once to you, at the very first video that you played with VLC. The time this window is displayed depends largely on the number of fonts in your font directory.

      1. Mike J said on August 2, 2010 at 2:30 pm
        Reply

        huh, I lucked out for a change?? Amazing!!
        Apparently VLC keeps this info through version updates, but I didn’t see this message after a fresh OS install about 8 weeks ago, & a new VLC.

  3. myo said on August 1, 2010 at 5:52 pm
    Reply

    yes, yes, i have the same problem. sometimes, VLC crashes when it is playing .mov file.

  4. Kishore said on August 13, 2010 at 2:55 pm
    Reply

    Error:
    Buidling font Cache pop-up

    Solution:

    Open VLC player.

    On Menu Bar:

    Tools
    Preferences

    (at bottom – left side)
    Show settings — ALL

    Open: Video
    Click: Subtitles/OSD (This is now highlited, not opened)
    Text rendering module – change this to “Dummy font renderer function”

    Save
    Exit

    Re-open – done.
    Progam will no longer look outside self for fonts

    Source – WorthyTricks.co.cc

    1. Martin said on August 13, 2010 at 3:10 pm
      Reply

      Great tip, thanks a lot Kishore.

  5. javier said on August 14, 2010 at 1:50 pm
    Reply

    @Kishore, I’ll try your tips, but does this mean it will no longer show subtitles either?
    I do use subtitles, but the fontcache dialog box pops up (almost) everytime I play a file.

    Could this be related to the fonts I have installed? Or if I add/remove fonts to my system?

    I’ll try to do a fresh install also, if your tips does no work. I’ll post back here later…

    /thanks
    /j

  6. Kishore said on August 15, 2010 at 12:38 pm
    Reply

    @ Javier, The trick i posted will show up subtitles too. If not,

  7. Kishore said on August 15, 2010 at 12:39 pm
    Reply

    @ Javier, The trick i posted will show up subtitles too. If not,Dont worry, VLC is currently sorting out this issue and the next version will be out soon.

    No probs @ Martin !! Its my pleasure

  8. Ted said on October 22, 2010 at 3:57 am
    Reply

    Try running LC with administrator privileges. That seemed to fix it for me

  9. Evan said on December 8, 2013 at 1:48 am
    Reply

    I am using SMplayer 0.8.6 (64-bit) (Portable Edition) on Windows 7 x64. Even with the -nofontconfig parameter in place SMplayer still scans the fonts. Also, I have enabled normal subtitles and it is still scanning fonts before playing a video. Also, it does this every time the player opens a video after a system restart (only the fist video played).

  10. Mike Williams said on September 6, 2023 at 1:26 pm
    Reply

    Does that mean that only instrumental versions of songs will be available for non-paying users?

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