As we discussed earlier in the File Sharing section, once music moved from physical objects to bits and bytes, it allowed the music to be perfectly duplicated, and shared throughout the world without losing anything for the sharer. The largest music industry players have tried to curtail this by using new technology of their own. We discuss this to a limited extent in the File Sharing Can't Be Stopped section of The Survival Guide, but the term DRM has become so important as a topic that it needs to be discussed separately here. While it has something to do with File Sharing, it also has other aspects that deal with copyright, fair use, and the future of how people will obtain, and enjoy music. It's a broad topic that we can only introduce here.

Digital Rights Management, or DRM, is a content creator's way to try to limit how you use the content that you obtain from them. It's possible to create computer programs that constrain your use of a sound recording so that it's only played just once, or some fixed number of times. You can use DRM to revoke the right of the user to listen to something they have on their computer if they do something you don't like, like cancel paying for your service, or you can use it to let them make only a limited number of copies.

Although DRM is a very poorly considered concept, the reason behind it is understandable, especially to musicians. Once you sell someone a CD, they can basically just put it on the internet, and share it to the world. Why should anyone buy music if you can just get it for free? The digital world has created a place where information can be shared without constraints, and music has become information. You would like to regain control over what you're selling someone, and basically have them just be able to listen to the music, rather than give it away. What most non-musicians don't seem to understand is that just because music is easy to copy and share does not mean that it's easy to write and record. Some large music companies and musicians see this as a way of regaining balance.

Balance is not always on their mind, however. Based on what some of the DRM schemes do, it would seem that the large content creators want to go far past this, and put even more limitations on it. Imagine if DRM software could create a foolproof way of making you pay for each time you listened to a song on your iPod or computer. Pay per listen would become the norm, and the money would be beyond their wildest dreams.

Unfortunately, DRM is useless for just about every goal that they have set out for it. It's incomplete, is easily broken, and is often poorly written software on top of all of that. It most strongly effects the customers that pay for the music, rather than the ones that are setting out to pirate it. Few businesses do well when they make it difficult for their customers to use their products, and these companies seem to be finding this out due to lost sales, lawsuits, and bad press.

The key reason why DRM is such a poor idea has to do with a concept that we discuss in our File Sharing Can't Be Stopped article. As Bruce Schneier has said in his book "Secrets and Lies" only one person needs to be smart enough to break a protection scheme and share it with the world. It can then be turned into a tiny program that can unlock any protections that exist, and that can be run by average people. His second point is that no protection scheme can last, with so many smart people all over the world trying to break them.

Generally, you can write a software program that can limit people in any way that you wish. But it's also always possible to write software or use techniques to break those limitations.

For example, consider the two types of Sony DRM software that was covered in the news, and has raised the profile of DRM in the public awareness. The flaws inherent with the protection itself make it seem especially foolish. We're not even discussing the exceptionally poor idea of including a rootkit with the DRM software, or the other issues with the SunComm software, which loaded even if a user said "No" to the agreement. Remember, only one person needs to break these in order for the music to be file shared to the rest of the world:

• The DRM protection only works on Windows computers, and is useless on Linux, Macintosh, and other operating systems.
• On Windows computers, turning off the autorun feature, or just holding down the shift key when the CD is loaded will avoid the DRM management.
• For at least one of the schemes that Sony used, if not both, marking out a particular area of the disk with some tape or a marker will disable the scheme.

These are trivial ways to break the scheme, and once the DRM is broken, the files can be encoded and shared freely to the world. In fact, if there's even just one copy of the songs out there, everyone can eventually get a copy of it through the system that already exists on the internet.

The other goal of the Sony DRM was to limit the number of copies that could be made of the music, and to specify which formats were used on computers. This was especially surprising because the format that they specified didn't work on the iPod, the most popular type of music player in the world. If you give a consumer a choice of a crippled version of the music that they want for money, or an unencumbered version that you need to download from a file sharing program, you are actually forcing people towards the illegal choice. Years of watching the black markets flourish in communist countries should have taught a lesson regarding putting artificial limitations on choices that people have, when there's ways to get alternatives.

DRM doesn't just affect large companies that make poor choices for itself, it can affect indie bands too. While Beatnik Turtle dislikes DRM, we also make our music broadly available on as many digital services as possible. Many of those services have limitations via DRM software. Still, some people wish to buy from these services, and we do not wish to make our music unavailable to them. Note that from our website, we promote DRM-free versions of our albums.

One person bought our music from Napster, and then later had a problem with their DRM as he tried to transfer our album to another computer. He ended up angrily canceling his service, which revoked his rights to listen to our music. We ran into his blog entry about the problem, and sent him a digital copy of the music ourselves, because the last thing that we want is to make it harder for someone to listen to our band!

In spite of the negative publicity and problems with DRM, it will probably continue to be developed, as the large media companies with their narrow revenue streams try to protect their investments.

We think that indies should make it as easy as possible for fans to listen to their music any way that they want to, and avoid DRM. If those fans share it with their friends, or with the world, it's free publicity for us. Unlike the major companies, we don't consider that a lost sale. That's what we call a new fan.

Next: Why File Sharing is Good for Indie Bands: 6 Degrees of Distribution

Back to The Indie Band Survival Guide Ebook Home

As we discussed earlier in the File Sharing section, once music moved from physical objects to bits and bytes, it allowed the music to be perfectly duplicated, and shared throughout the world without losing anything for the sharer. The largest music industry players have tried to curtail this by using new technology of their own. We discuss this to a limited extent in the File Sharing Can't Be Stopped section of The Survival Guide, but the term DRM has become so important as a topic that it needs to be discussed separately here. While it has something to do with File Sharing, it also has other aspects that deal with copyright, fair use, and the future of how people will obtain, and enjoy music. It's a broad topic that we can only introduce here.

Digital Rights Management, or DRM, is a content creator's way to try to limit how you use the content that you obtain from them. It's possible to create computer programs that constrain your use of a sound recording so that it's only played just once, or some fixed number of times. You can use DRM to revoke the right of the user to listen to something they have on their computer if they do something you don't like, like cancel paying for your service, or you can use it to let them make only a limited number of copies.

Although DRM is a very poorly considered concept, the reason behind it is understandable, especially to musicians. Once you sell someone a CD, they can basically just put it on the internet, and share it to the world. Why should anyone buy music if you can just get it for free? The digital world has created a place where information can be shared without constraints, and music has become information. You would like to regain control over what you're selling someone, and basically have them just be able to listen to the music, rather than give it away. What most non-musicians don't seem to understand is that just because music is easy to copy and share does not mean that it's easy to write and record. Some large music companies and musicians see this as a way of regaining balance.

Balance is not always on their mind, however. Based on what some of the DRM schemes do, it would seem that the large content creators want to go far past this, and put even more limitations on it. Imagine if DRM software could create a foolproof way of making you pay for each time you listened to a song on your iPod or computer. Pay per listen would become the norm, and the money would be beyond their wildest dreams.

Unfortunately, DRM is useless for just about every goal that they have set out for it. It's incomplete, is easily broken, and is often poorly written software on top of all of that. It most strongly effects the customers that pay for the music, rather than the ones that are setting out to pirate it. Few businesses do well when they make it difficult for their customers to use their products, and these companies seem to be finding this out due to lost sales, lawsuits, and bad press.

The key reason why DRM is such a poor idea has to do with a concept that we discuss in our File Sharing Can't Be Stopped article. As Bruce Schneier has said in his book "Secrets and Lies" only one person needs to be smart enough to break a protection scheme and share it with the world. It can then be turned into a tiny program that can unlock any protections that exist, and that can be run by average people. His second point is that no protection scheme can last, with so many smart people all over the world trying to break them.

Generally, you can write a software program that can limit people in any way that you wish. But it's also always possible to write software or use techniques to break those limitations.

For example, consider the two types of Sony DRM software that was covered in the news, and has raised the profile of DRM in the public awareness. The flaws inherent with the protection itself make it seem especially foolish. We're not even discussing the exceptionally poor idea of including a rootkit with the DRM software, or the other issues with the SunComm software, which loaded even if a user said "No" to the agreement. Remember, only one person needs to break these in order for the music to be file shared to the rest of the world:

• The DRM protection only works on Windows computers, and is useless on Linux, Macintosh, and other operating systems.
• On Windows computers, turning off the autorun feature, or just holding down the shift key when the CD is loaded will avoid the DRM management.
• For at least one of the schemes that Sony used, if not both, marking out a particular area of the disk with some tape or a marker will disable the scheme.

These are trivial ways to break the scheme, and once the DRM is broken, the files can be encoded and shared freely to the world. In fact, if there's even just one copy of the songs out there, everyone can eventually get a copy of it through the system that already exists on the internet.

The other goal of the Sony DRM was to limit the number of copies that could be made of the music, and to specify which formats were used on computers. This was especially surprising because the format that they specified didn't work on the iPod, the most popular type of music player in the world. If you give a consumer a choice of a crippled version of the music that they want for money, or an unencumbered version that you need to download from a file sharing program, you are actually forcing people towards the illegal choice. Years of watching the black markets flourish in communist countries should have taught a lesson regarding putting artificial limitations on choices that people have, when there's ways to get alternatives.

DRM doesn't just affect large companies that make poor choices for itself, it can affect indie bands too. While Beatnik Turtle dislikes DRM, we also make our music broadly available on as many digital services as possible. Many of those services have limitations via DRM software. Still, some people wish to buy from these services, and we do not wish to make our music unavailable to them. Note that from our website, we promote DRM-free versions of our albums.

One person bought our music from Napster, and then later had a problem with their DRM as he tried to transfer our album to another computer. He ended up angrily canceling his service, which revoked his rights to listen to our music. We ran into his blog entry about the problem, and sent him a digital copy of the music ourselves, because the last thing that we want is to make it harder for someone to listen to our band!

In spite of the negative publicity and problems with DRM, it will probably continue to be developed, as the large media companies with their narrow revenue streams try to protect their investments.

We think that indies should make it as easy as possible for fans to listen to their music any way that they want to, and avoid DRM. If those fans share it with their friends, or with the world, it's free publicity for us. Unlike the major companies, we don't consider that a lost sale. That's what we call a new fan.

Next: Why File Sharing is Good for Indie Bands: 6 Degrees of Distribution

As we discussed earlier in the File Sharing section, once music moved from physical objects to bits and bytes, it allowed the music to be perfectly duplicated, and shared throughout the world without losing anything for the sharer. The largest music industry players have tried to curtail this by using new technology of their own. We discuss this to a limited extent in the File Sharing Can't Be Stopped section of The Survival Guide, but the term DRM has become so important as a topic that it needs to be discussed separately here. While it has something to do with File Sharing, it also has other aspects that deal with copyright, fair use, and the future of how people will obtain, and enjoy music. It's a broad topic that we can only introduce here.

Digital Rights Management, or DRM, is a content creator's way to try to limit how you use the content that you obtain from them. It's possible to create computer programs that constrain your use of a sound recording so that it's only played just once, or some fixed number of times. You can use DRM to revoke the right of the user to listen to something they have on their computer if they do something you don't like, like cancel paying for your service, or you can use it to let them make only a limited number of copies.

Although DRM is a very poorly considered concept, the reason behind it is understandable, especially to musicians. Once you sell someone a CD, they can basically just put it on the internet, and share it to the world. Why should anyone buy music if you can just get it for free? The digital world has created a place where information can be shared without constraints, and music has become information. You would like to regain control over what you're selling someone, and basically have them just be able to listen to the music, rather than give it away. What most non-musicians don't seem to understand is that just because music is easy to copy and share does not mean that it's easy to write and record. Some large music companies and musicians see this as a way of regaining balance.

Balance is not always on their mind, however. Based on what some of the DRM schemes do, it would seem that the large content creators want to go far past this, and put even more limitations on it. Imagine if DRM software could create a foolproof way of making you pay for each time you listened to a song on your iPod or computer. Pay per listen would become the norm, and the money would be beyond their wildest dreams.

Unfortunately, DRM is useless for just about every goal that they have set out for it. It's incomplete, is easily broken, and is often poorly written software on top of all of that. It most strongly effects the customers that pay for the music, rather than the ones that are setting out to pirate it. Few businesses do well when they make it difficult for their customers to use their products, and these companies seem to be finding this out due to lost sales, lawsuits, and bad press.

The key reason why DRM is such a poor idea has to do with a concept that we discuss in our File Sharing Can't Be Stopped article. As Bruce Schneier has said in his book "Secrets and Lies" only one person needs to be smart enough to break a protection scheme and share it with the world. It can then be turned into a tiny program that can unlock any protections that exist, and that can be run by average people. His second point is that no protection scheme can last, with so many smart people all over the world trying to break them.

Generally, you can write a software program that can limit people in any way that you wish. But it's also always possible to write software or use techniques to break those limitations.

For example, consider the two types of Sony DRM software that was covered in the news, and has raised the profile of DRM in the public awareness. The flaws inherent with the protection itself make it seem especially foolish. We're not even discussing the exceptionally poor idea of including a rootkit with the DRM software, or the other issues with the SunComm software, which loaded even if a user said "No" to the agreement. Remember, only one person needs to break these in order for the music to be file shared to the rest of the world:

• The DRM protection only works on Windows computers, and is useless on Linux, Macintosh, and other operating systems.
• On Windows computers, turning off the autorun feature, or just holding down the shift key when the CD is loaded will avoid the DRM management.
• For at least one of the schemes that Sony used, if not both, marking out a particular area of the disk with some tape or a marker will disable the scheme.

These are trivial ways to break the scheme, and once the DRM is broken, the files can be encoded and shared freely to the world. In fact, if there's even just one copy of the songs out there, everyone can eventually get a copy of it through the system that already exists on the internet.

The other goal of the Sony DRM was to limit the number of copies that could be made of the music, and to specify which formats were used on computers. This was especially surprising because the format that they specified didn't work on the iPod, the most popular type of music player in the world. If you give a consumer a choice of a crippled version of the music that they want for money, or an unencumbered version that you need to download from a file sharing program, you are actually forcing people towards the illegal choice. Years of watching the black markets flourish in communist countries should have taught a lesson regarding putting artificial limitations on choices that people have, when there's ways to get alternatives.

DRM doesn't just affect large companies that make poor choices for itself, it can affect indie bands too. While Beatnik Turtle dislikes DRM, we also make our music broadly available on as many digital services as possible. Many of those services have limitations via DRM software. Still, some people wish to buy from these services, and we do not wish to make our music unavailable to them. Note that from our website, we promote DRM-free versions of our albums.

One person bought our music from Napster, and then later had a problem with their DRM as he tried to transfer our album to another computer. He ended up angrily canceling his service, which revoked his rights to listen to our music. We ran into his blog entry about the problem, and sent him a digital copy of the music ourselves, because the last thing that we want is to make it harder for someone to listen to our band!

In spite of the negative publicity and problems with DRM, it will probably continue to be developed, as the large media companies with their narrow revenue streams try to protect their investments.

We think that indies should make it as easy as possible for fans to listen to their music any way that they want to, and avoid DRM. If those fans share it with their friends, or with the world, it's free publicity for us. Unlike the major companies, we don't consider that a lost sale. That's what we call a new fan.

Next: Why File Sharing is Good for Indie Bands: 6 Degrees of Distribution

In the past, the distribution of music was based on moving physical objects around. This limited the scope of how far music could go from an individual that would buy a copy of an album from a store. A person could make imperfect copies of their albums by cassette tape, and could to a limited extent share it with people by making another tape for people, but there was no way for this to get too far, because of the limitations of handling tape.

As we discussed earlier in the File Sharing section, once music moved from physical objects to bits and bytes, it allowed the music to be perfectly duplicated, and shared throughout the world without losing anything for the sharer. The largest music industry players have tried to curtail this by using new technology of their own. We discuss this to a limited extent in the File Sharing Can't Be Stopped section of The Survival Guide, but the term DRM has become so important as a topic that it needs to be discussed separately here. While it has something to do with File Sharing, it also has other aspects that deal with copyright, fair use, and the future of how people will obtain, and enjoy music. It's a broad topic that we can only introduce here.

Digital Rights Management, or DRM, is a content creator's way to try to limit how you use the content that you obtain from them. It's possible to create computer programs that constrain your use of a sound recording so that it's only played just once, or some fixed number of times. You can use DRM to revoke the right of the user to listen to something they have on their computer if they do something you don't like, like cancel paying for your service, or you can use it to let them make only a limited number of copies.

Although DRM is a very poorly considered concept, the reason behind it is understandable, especially to musicians. Once you sell someone a CD, they can basically just put it on the internet, and share it to the world. Why should anyone buy music if you can just get it for free? The digital world has created a place where information can be shared without constraints, and music has become information. You would like to regain control over what you're selling someone, and basically have them just be able to listen to the music, rather than give it away. What most non-musicians don't seem to understand is that just because music is easy to copy and share does not mean that it's easy to write and record. Some large music companies and musicians see this as a way of regaining balance.

Balance is not always on their mind, however. Based on what some of the DRM schemes do, it would seem that the large content creators want to go far past this, and put even more limitations on it. Imagine if DRM software could create a foolproof way of making you pay for each time you listened to a song on your iPod or computer. Pay per listen would become the norm, and the money would be beyond their wildest dreams.

Unfortunately, DRM is useless for just about every goal that they have set out for it. It's incomplete, is easily broken, and is often poorly written software on top of all of that. It most strongly effects the customers that pay for the music, rather than the ones that are setting out to pirate it. Few businesses do well when they make it difficult for their customers to use their products, and these companies seem to be finding this out due to lost sales, lawsuits, and bad press.

The key reason why DRM is such a poor idea has to do with a concept that we discuss in our File Sharing Can't Be Stopped article. As Bruce Schneier has said in his book "Secrets and Lies" only one person needs to be smart enough to break a protection scheme and share it with the world. It can then be turned into a tiny program that can unlock any protections that exist, and that can be run by average people. His second point is that no protection scheme can last, with so many smart people all over the world trying to break them.

Generally, you can write a software program that can limit people in any way that you wish. But it's also always possible to write software or use techniques to break those limitations.

For example, consider the two types of Sony DRM software that was covered in the news, and has raised the profile of DRM in the public awareness. The flaws inherent with the protection itself make it seem especially foolish. We're not even discussing the exceptionally poor idea of including a rootkit with the DRM software, or the other issues with the SunComm software, which loaded even if a user said "No" to the agreement. Remember, only one person needs to break these in order for the music to be file shared to the rest of the world:

·        The DRM protection only works on Windows computers, and is useless on Linux, Macintosh, and other operating systems.

·        On Windows computers, turning off the autorun feature, or just holding down the shift key when the CD is loaded will avoid the DRM management.

·        For at least one of the schemes that Sony used, if not both, marking out a particular area of the disk with some tape or a marker will disable the scheme.

These are trivial ways to break the scheme, and once the DRM is broken, the files can be encoded and shared freely to the world. In fact, if there's even just one copy of the songs out there, everyone can eventually get a copy of it through the system that already exists on the internet.

The other goal of the Sony DRM was to limit the number of copies that could be made of the music, and to specify which formats were used on computers. This was especially surprising because the format that they specified didn't work on the iPod, the most popular type of music player in the world. If you give a consumer a choice of a crippled version of the music that they want for money, or an unencumbered version that you need to download from a file sharing program, you are actually forcing people towards the illegal choice. Years of watching the black markets flourish in communist countries should have taught a lesson regarding putting artificial limitations on choices that people have, when there's ways to get alternatives.

DRM doesn't just affect large companies that make poor choices for itself, it can affect indie bands too. While Beatnik Turtle dislikes DRM, we also make our music broadly available on as many digital services as possible. Many of those services have limitations via DRM software. Still, some people wish to buy from these services, and we do not wish to make our music unavailable to them. Note that from our website, we promote DRM-free versions of our albums.

One person bought our music from Napster, and then later had a problem with their DRM as he tried to transfer our album to another computer. He ended up angrily canceling his service, which revoked his rights to listen to our music. We ran into his blog entry about the problem, and sent him a digital copy of the music ourselves, because the last thing that we want is to make it harder for someone to listen to our band!

In spite of the negative publicity and problems with DRM, it will probably continue to be developed, as the large media companies with their narrow revenue streams try to protect their investments.

We think that indies should make it as easy as possible for fans to listen to their music any way that they want to, and avoid DRM. If those fans share it with their friends, or with the world, it's free publicity for us. Unlike the major companies, we don't consider that a lost sale. That's what we call a new fan.

Next: Why File Sharing is Good for Indie Bands: 6 Degrees of Distribution

In the past, the distribution of music was based on moving physical objects around. This limited the scope of how far music could go from an individual that would buy a copy of an album from a store. A person could make imperfect copies of their albums by cassette tape, and could to a limited extent share it with people by making another tape for people, but there was no way for this to get too far, because of the limitations of handling tape.

As we discussed earlier in the File Sharing section, once music moved from physical objects to bits and bytes, it allowed the music to be perfectly duplicated, and shared throughout the world without losing anything for the sharer. The largest music industry players have tried to curtail this by using new technology of their own. We discuss this to a limited extent in the File Sharing Can't Be Stopped section of The Survival Guide, but the term DRM has become so important as a topic that it needs to be discussed separately here. While it has something to do with File Sharing, it also has other aspects that deal with copyright, fair use, and the future of how people will obtain, and enjoy music. It's a broad topic that we can only introduce here.

Digital Rights Management, or DRM, is a content creator's way to try to limit how you use the content that you obtain from them. It's possible to create computer programs that constrain your use of a sound recording so that it's only played just once, or some fixed number of times. You can use DRM to revoke the right of the user to listen to something they have on their computer if they do something you don't like, like cancel paying for your service, or you can use it to let them make only a limited number of copies.

Although DRM is a very poorly considered concept, the reason behind it is understandable, especially to musicians. Once you sell someone a CD, they can basically just put it on the internet, and share it to the world. Why should anyone buy music if you can just get it for free? The digital world has created a place where information can be shared without constraints, and music has become information. You would like to regain control over what you're selling someone, and basically have them just be able to listen to the music, rather than give it away. What most non-musicians don't seem to understand is that just because music is easy to copy and share does not mean that it's easy to write and record. Some large music companies and musicians see this as a way of regaining balance.

Balance is not always on their mind, however. Based on what some of the DRM schemes do, it would seem that the large content creators want to go far past this, and put even more limitations on it. Imagine if DRM software could create a foolproof way of making you pay for each time you listened to a song on your iPod or computer. Pay per listen would become the norm, and the money would be beyond their wildest dreams.

Unfortunately, DRM is useless for just about every goal that they have set out for it. It's incomplete, is easily broken, and is often poorly written software on top of all of that. It most strongly effects the customers that pay for the music, rather than the ones that are setting out to pirate it. Few businesses do well when they make it difficult for their customers to use their products, and these companies seem to be finding this out due to lost sales, lawsuits, and bad press.

The key reason why DRM is such a poor idea has to do with a concept that we discuss in our File Sharing Can't Be Stopped article. As Bruce Schneier has said in his book "Secrets and Lies" only one person needs to be smart enough to break a protection scheme and share it with the world. It can then be turned into a tiny program that can unlock any protections that exist, and that can be run by average people. His second point is that no protection scheme can last, with so many smart people all over the world trying to break them.

Generally, you can write a software program that can limit people in any way that you wish. But it's also always possible to write software or use techniques to break those limitations.

For example, consider the two types of Sony DRM software that was covered in the news, and has raised the profile of DRM in the public awareness. The flaws inherent with the protection itself make it seem especially foolish. We're not even discussing the exceptionally poor idea of including a rootkit with the DRM software, or the other issues with the SunComm software, which loaded even if a user said "No" to the agreement. Remember, only one person needs to break these in order for the music to be file shared to the rest of the world:

·        The DRM protection only works on Windows computers, and is useless on Linux, Macintosh, and other operating systems.

·        On Windows computers, turning off the autorun feature, or just holding down the shift key when the CD is loaded will avoid the DRM management.

·        For at least one of the schemes that Sony used, if not both, marking out a particular area of the disk with some tape or a marker will disable the scheme.

These are trivial ways to break the scheme, and once the DRM is broken, the files can be encoded and shared freely to the world. In fact, if there's even just one copy of the songs out there, everyone can eventually get a copy of it through the system that already exists on the internet.

The other goal of the Sony DRM was to limit the number of copies that could be made of the music, and to specify which formats were used on computers. This was especially surprising because the format that they specified didn't work on the iPod, the most popular type of music player in the world. If you give a consumer a choice of a crippled version of the music that they want for money, or an unencumbered version that you need to download from a file sharing program, you are actually forcing people towards the illegal choice. Years of watching the black markets flourish in communist countries should have taught a lesson regarding putting artificial limitations on choices that people have, when there's ways to get alternatives.

DRM doesn't just affect large companies that make poor choices for itself, it can affect indie bands too. While Beatnik Turtle dislikes DRM, we also make our music broadly available on as many digital services as possible. Many of those services have limitations via DRM software. Still, some people wish to buy from these services, and we do not wish to make our music unavailable to them. Note that from our website, we promote DRM-free versions of our albums.

One person bought our music from Napster, and then later had a problem with their DRM as he tried to transfer our album to another computer. He ended up angrily canceling his service, which revoked his rights to listen to our music. We ran into his blog entry about the problem, and sent him a digital copy of the music ourselves, because the last thing that we want is to make it harder for someone to listen to our band!

In spite of the negative publicity and problems with DRM, it will probably continue to be developed, as the large media companies with their narrow revenue streams try to protect their investments.

We think that indies should make it as easy as possible for fans to listen to their music any way that they want to, and avoid DRM. If those fans share it with their friends, or with the world, it's free publicity for us. Unlike the major companies, we don't consider that a lost sale. That's what we call a new fan.