"Steal this Comic"

[iago]

Today's XKCD is fantastic:


I opted to post this in 'general' rather than 'humour' because, although it's presented in a satirical way, it isn't funny at all, but the truth.

Who does DRM affect? The people who legitimately buy a product. And the people who pirate it? They get something much better. It's pretty ridiculous.

[Chavo]

The obvious solution in the comic is to buy non-DRM media.  Nothing speaks louder than consumers spending their money elsewhere.

[iago]

Absolutely.

Of course, if enough people start doing that, the sales of the DRM record companies will fall, and they'll blame piracy. Catch-22.

[MyndFyre]

Absolutely.

Of course, if enough people start doing that, the sales of the DRM record companies will fall, and they'll blame piracy. Catch-22.

Tough to blame piracy when sales of non-DRM media go up.

[iago]

Absolutely.

Of course, if enough people start doing that, the sales of the DRM record companies will fall, and they'll blame piracy. Catch-22.

Tough to blame piracy when sales of non-DRM media go up.

That's true, but numbers can be twisted.

[Joe]

"In a race of two stock cars, the United States beat Russia. A Russian newspaper reported that their car finished second while the United States' finished second to last."

[Newby]

It is very true. But it is also very sad. Amazon sells non-DRMd stuff but their collection pales in comparison to iTunes. I am able to find things on iTunes that I can't on Amazon, and I can find even more on the internet floating around that would constitute "piracy."

Corporate companies don't have a clue. There was an article from the RIAA once that said something like, "Think that perfect christmas album is too good to be true? it is, it's bootlegged!" My question is... why don't they make that perfect christmas album for the consumer?

[Sidoh]

Yeah, iTunes is massively convenient, I must admit.  I haven't used it but a few times, but I was impressed with how easy it was to use and how well it worked (other than the shitty DRM, of course).

That being said, I think Randall hit the nail on its head with this one.  I couldn't agree more with the underlying argument.

[Camel]

It is very true. But it is also very sad. Amazon sells non-DRMd stuff but their collection pales in comparison to iTunes.

Amazon also sells V0 MP3s, which are technically lossy, but of comparable quality to a lossless format. iTunes sells music of substantially lower quality - which I suppose doesn't matter to the millions of customers who put the DRMed song on their shuffle and listen with the shitty ear buds that came with it.

[leet_muffin]

iTunes faiiiils. I wish I still had a rockbox compatible ipod...

[Camel]

iTunes faiiiils. I wish I still had a rockbox compatible ipod...

Why? When I used Rockbox, it didn't have any features that my iPod didn't have, and it can't play DRM protected files.

I've heard it will play video on non-video ipods, but it's choppy.

[Newby]

When I used Rockbox, it didn't have any features that my iPod didn't have

Besides a lack of need for iTunes, more codecs (ogg, flac), skinning, better selection of games (e.g. gameboy emulator, Doom), voice recording... totally worth the battery life dropping by a bit.

[deadly7]

Besides a lack of need for iTunes, more codecs (ogg, flac)

Putting FLAC on an iPod is just a dumb idea, imo.

[Sidoh]

Besides a lack of need for iTunes, more codecs (ogg, flac)

Putting FLAC on an iPod is just a dumb idea, imo.

Yeah, I agree.  I won't argue that lossless codecs don't have a place, but even with pretty good sound equipment, I cannot distinguish a V0 from a FLAC unless I look at the file sizes -- then I definitely notice...

[deadly7]

Yeah, I agree.  I won't argue that lossless codecs don't have a place, but even with pretty good sound equipment, I cannot distinguish a V0 from a FLAC unless I look at the file sizes -- then I definitely notice...

I was going more along the lines of "You could fit like, 7 mp3s for every single flac, and when you're dealing with TRANSPORTING music to listen to, it makes sense to go with the higher density format."

[leet_muffin]

I used to use my ipod as a very handy external/music player. So I could listen to music and then give the music to a friend off the ipod. Can't now.

Also, I hate using itunes.
Also, I hate having itunes attempt to organize all my music, it's much better off in the directory I have it in.
Also, I actually used it for flac (only certain things (goa trance, jazz) where I see the need for flac)
Also, doom was awesome.

Although, explaining to people what rockbox is gets old.

[Camel]

When I used Rockbox, it didn't have any features that my iPod didn't have

Besides a lack of need for iTunes, more codecs (ogg, flac), skinning, better selection of games (e.g. gameboy emulator, Doom), voice recording... totally worth the battery life dropping by a bit.

Regardless of where you stand on the V0/FLAC argument, the iPod can't reproduce the quality of a V0 (to be precise, this is only true of the headphone port; the line out on the dock connector should be near-perfect, but Rockbox is incompatible with anything that uses that), so there's no point in putting a FLAC on an iPod even if you do have Rockbox installed. The iPod can already play Apple's lossless codec, and iTunes will convert incompatible files automatically for you.

Rockbox does not work with my car stereo (pioneer), which uses the line out on the dock connector.

I've never had any trouble getting around using iTunes, between Winamp/Songbird for Windows, or Amarok for Linux. Also, I don't understand why people hate iTunes so much; it used to be unstable in Windows (emphasis on used to be), but there has never been anything inherently wrong with it.

I don't really care about skinning on a portable music player, it's going to spend most of its life in my pocket or glovebox. I actually found the Rockbox user interface pretty hard to navigate, which was a huge turnoff for me.

[Hitmen]

When I used Rockbox, it didn't have any features that my iPod didn't have

Besides a lack of need for iTunes, more codecs (ogg, flac), skinning, better selection of games (e.g. gameboy emulator, Doom), voice recording... totally worth the battery life dropping by a bit.

Regardless of where you stand on the V0/FLAC argument, the iPod can't reproduce the quality of a V0 (to be precise, this is only true of the headphone port; the line out on the dock connector should be near-perfect, but Rockbox is incompatible with anything that uses that), so there's no point in putting a FLAC on an iPod even if you do have Rockbox installed. The iPod can already play Apple's lossless codec, and iTunes will convert incompatible files automatically for you.

Rockbox does not work with my car stereo (pioneer), which uses the line out on the dock connector.

I've never had any trouble getting around using iTunes, between Winamp/Songbird for Windows, or Amarok for Linux. Also, I don't understand why people hate iTunes so much; it used to be unstable in Windows (emphasis on used to be), but there has never been anything inherently wrong with it.

I don't really care about skinning on a portable music player, it's going to spend most of its life in my pocket or glovebox. I actually found the Rockbox user interface pretty hard to navigate, which was a huge turnoff for me.

If other people like it more, or want features that you don't care about, what is the problem? People are different.