So I was idly flicking through the tv channels on the telly on Sunday, wondering what there was to fill ten minutes.

CBBC was showing some inexplicable clip show with Ted Rogers and a skinny camp goth. (The rubbish we feed kids these days). ITV3 had Inspector Morse on. Sky News was doing the news (I know, but you never quite know these days), while BBC News 24 was in the middle of a cut-down Click programme (see what I mean?). CNN was in one of their “we’ll show you anything but news, and we’ll fill it with ads every third minute to ensure you lose the will to live” moments. So I continued to flick through the channels, and landed back at channel 1 again, where one of the three local Icelandic TV channels was in the middle of showing an English programme with Icelandic subtitles.

I didn’t mention that I was in Iceland over the weekend, did I? Well, I was.

So, over a thousand miles away, and after my very sulphur-smelly shower, I still got to watch the BBC’s news coverage of the storms the next day. And waiting in the airport to fly home, supping a damn expensive Viking beer, the televisions showed a rerun of Soccer AM from a presumably illegal subscription to Sky Sports 1.

At home, my local pub (used to) show live Premiership football coverage from a peculiar Arabic TV channel, rather than pay Sky their money. BBC 1 and all the Sky Sports channels, while unavailable in Iceland, were available in Cork when I visited recently. BBC 1 is also available in the Netherlands and Belgium. Newspapers in Gibraltar list the TV listings for local channel Gib TV, but also for the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, and even Sky One.

Satellite delivery isn’t the most secure way of ensuring your channel is only available in the geographic area it’s designed for. Encrypting the channels (aka “adding DRM”) appears to make little difference, as the experience in Keflavik airport, or any Spanish/Gibraltarian pub, will testify.

Circumventing satellite TV’s DRM in this way is normally done by having a legitimate subscriber in the UK and exporting the card into a foreign system with a larger-than-anticipated dish, rather than any more technical means. It presumably accounts for a statistically insignificant amount of audience, which is, I guess, why the rights holders don’t appear to be concerned.

Similar DRM circumvention also happens on the internet. It’s a simple job to strip the DRM off any legally-downloaded Windows Media file, for example - two minutes with the hacker’s bible known as “Google” will show you how to do that. YouTube videos are downloadable with a little hacking, and that currently goes, cough, for other, ahem, popular video services on the, er, cough, internet. (Apologies, I’ve a sore throat.) Again, it probably accounts for a statistically insignificant amount of audience.

Back when the ‘unbreakable’ Windows Media DRM was hacked for the second time, Sky foolishly suspended their iPlayer-like service - but not because the rights holders asked them to, just because Sky thought they ought to. Their service returned shortly afterwards; Windows Media DRM is still easily hacked. (That news article even tells you the name of the software. Go, Googlers, go.)

I’d hope that the kind of paranoia that forced Sky to suspend their service has gone. All DRM is capable of is to make life a little more difficult for hackers, and much more difficult for the general public. Badly-configured DRM can seriously inhibit your use of the media you’ve purchased; however, DRM that’s configured well (my iPod, for example) is normally entirely invisible.

Just as satellite television stations, and their rights-holders, appear to be comfortable about the small amount of ‘piracy’ that occurs, so I hope that similar occurs with the internet. It would be embarrassing if a large amount of noise from a relatively small band of hackers forces rights-holders or broadcasters to retreat from their currently forward-looking stance of enabling video or audio on-demand.

Photo: Christy Bassman. Used under licence.

Picks from my Del.icio.us links, except looking halfway decent:

Apparently, DRM is dead, evidenced by a statement that “7Digital says DRM-free music sales now outnumber DRM-enabled music 4-to-1.” Meanwhile, shhhh, but illegal peer-to-peer downloads have a positive effect. “Our analysis of the Canadian P2P file-sharing subpopulation suggests that there is a strong positive relationship between P2P file-sharing and CD purchasing. That is, among Canadians actually engaged in it, P2P file-sharing increases CD purchasing.”

Wowsers. A wind-up MP3 player. All the better for playing BBC’s podcasts (now including music). If only they’d do a wind-up video player, I could use it for the really rather excellent Channel Flip range of video podcasts. (Yay! British video podcasts! Well-made! Excellently done! Yay!) Also, highly recommended, Mahalo Daily, where Veronica Belmont shows that online video shows needn’t be formulaic, can be produced with good production values, and with humour (even though they’ll spell it ‘humor’, incorrectly). So, so much better than Robert Scoble’s long yawnfests.

Talking about humour, if you’re going to put your content behind a registration wall, at least be careful about how much of the story you give away…

Photo: Stefan. Used under licence.

Photo: Noah Hall. Used under license.

Bizarre.

Not only does Amazon.com’s MP3 service sell 256k MP3s with no DRM at all… but it appears to work from the UK.

Order as normal. Use your amazon.co.uk username/password. Choose a credit card. It then asks you to update your address - I filled in my London address, and then chose “CA” for my state, and the ever faithful “90210″ as my ZIP code.

And I’m now the proud owner of a song (KD Tunstall, if you’re interested), for the sum of 44p instead of iTunes UK’s DRM’d 79p charge.

Amazon.com = iTunes killer.

If you follow the world of Content Restriction and Protection, aka DRM, it’s been an interesting week.

First came the news that Universal Music are trialling DRM-free music sales. This is big news; they’re the largest music company in the world, and they’re joining EMI in removing restrictions on music sales. And, while they’re still having an icky fit with Steve Jobs and refusing to do this in iTunes, it’s still very interesting; and comes hot on the heels of some research showing that people don’t like DRM.

The slightly more hidden story is probably rather more interesting. Boing Boing reports that one company is closing its video store - with the result that “after August 15, 2007, you will no longer be able to view your purchased or rented videos.” Yes, you thought you’d bought that copy of Star Trek - but you hadn’t. And now, this company is taking it away from you.

If your local Virgin Megastores went bust, you’d still be able to play the CDs or DVDs you bought from it. Indeed, if the record label went bust, that still wouldn’t render the CD unplayable. But in the heady world of DRM purchases, this is exactly what can happen. And, as this story shows, is happening.

So, as consumers buying products with crap in them - content restriction and protection in the form of DRM - we need to be more careful than ever before. Because if the deal we’ve got is too good to be true, and the company goes pop: so does your music. This is a massive step-change. We’ve never before had to be aware of the financial health of the companies we buy entertainment products from.

Being fair on the video store company involved, they are apparently giving you your money back - at least, in vouchers for their online payment system. It’s highly unlikely that a bankrupt online video store could do that; instead, you’d just be left with useless files, and no refunds. At least, the people behind the ‘uncrackable’ DRM would tell you they’re useless files. A quick Google search would tell you otherwise.

Mind you, a quick Google search would help pay for your refund. Because the company that has closed its video store and rendered its videos unplayable… is Google.

Following a tiny del.icio.us posting, in which I accused Frukt of ‘talking crap’, I got an email from a man called Steve who’s their Head of PR. It reads:

Hi James,

Saw that you picked up on the (rather harsh) Register article regarding FRUKT’s radio stats.

We hold our hands up on this and admit that the press release was far too sensationally phrased. As a result, we got a bit of a smackdown - fair enough.

By way of defence, however, just wanted to point out that there were some interesting and valid new findings in there:

We do stand by the fact that, according to our study of 904 UK consumers a surprisingly low number of 13-15 year olds (22%) are enthused enough to tune into traditional music radio over FM or DAB on a daily basis.

Obviously RAJAR is the gold standard for the radio industry, however, there are some fundamental differences in what they measure relative to our stats.

1) They cover adults aged 15+. Our study looked at this age group but also younger demographics that RAJAR doesn’t cover. While amongst all of our age groups 16+, more or less 50% listened to traditional music radio (FM or DAB) daily, the big difference we were pointing out was with the younger demographic, aged 13-15, where 22% listened daily (from a sizeable sample - 248 13-15s)

Our claims about the difficulty in reaching young people via radio have also been backed up anecdotally at least: A source from the Radio Academy told us off the record that commercial radio’s single biggest problem is that it cannot attract young listeners (i.e. the listeners of tomorrow). The source also said that most radio stations have singularly failed to make radio appealing to young listeners and as a result most are very worried about its future.

And there was some very positive stuff in there from Tim Grimsditch, Director of Strategy, FRUKT, “…the role of the radio DJ seems as relevant as ever. With 30,000+ new releases in the UK last year, and a world of music available on the Internet, we need DJ’s more than ever to help us navigate through music. Beyond their traditional role as music selectors, consumers will always want personalities to help tie programming together - you only have to look at Capital Radio’s lurching stock price and audience share when Chris Tarrant left the morning show for proof.”

Also, a recent interview with Radio 1 controller Andy Parfitt on the difficulty of reaching 12-16 year olds via radio can be found here.

And, finally, the article claims FRUKT are a “New Media” agency. We’re not. We are a music-centric marketing agency seeking to help the media industry (new and old) develop their models and build new business around music, for the benefit of creators and investing companies alike. We’re not just flogging new technology but genuinely care about and value music.

This is why we conducted the consumer research in the first place - to understand, in real terms, how UK consumers of varying ages are actually using technology and consuming music.

I’m meeting up with The Register this evening to chat about this and further stats we’re releasing in future.

I’d also be happy to keep you informed with future press releases etc.

Let me know if this would be of interest.

Best,

Steve.

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Here’s my reply.

Hi, Steve. You send this long and interesting reply, then disclaim it at the bottom to say that I can’t reprint it in my blog, which I assume was the point of your email. My clearly published terms and conditions of receipt of unsolicited email give you no guarantee of confidentiality anyway, so I’ll post your reply. And this reply back again.

Obviously RAJAR is the gold standard for the radio industry, however, there are some fundamental differences in what they measure relative to our stats.

RAJAR - either a ‘gold’ standard, or something that relies on brand recall and mostly writing from memory in a scruffy paper diary. It’s not great - though it’s the best we have, admittedly. But young (10-20) listeners have NEVER been big radio listeners. The ‘dip’ in listening in this age-group is similar in the 1980s, 1990s and now.

They cover adults aged 15+. Our study looked at this age group but also younger demographics that RAJAR doesn’t cover.

RAJAR does cover children - over 5,000 children aged 4-14 ever year (five times larger than your apparent survey).

Our claims about the difficulty in reaching young people via radio have also been backed up anecdotally at least: A source from the Radio Academy told us off the record that commercial radio’s single biggest problem is that it cannot attract young listeners (i.e. the listeners of tomorrow). The source also said that most radio stations have singularly failed to make radio appealing to young listeners and as a result most are very worried about its future.

Whatever Tre - your source - says to you regarding young listeners for commercial radio (a sector which has been particularly affected by a poor ad market and a strong BBC), the truth is that MySpace gets something like 20 minutes use per week for young listeners, while Galaxy stations get something like 7 hours a week. I’m sure he’s not confusing a healthy non-complacency - of course radio is worried - with agreeing with your figures.

And there was some very positive stuff in there from Tim Grimsditch, Director of Strategy, FRUKT, “… consumers will always want personalities to help tie programming together - you only have to look at Capital Radio’s lurching stock price and audience share when Chris Tarrant left the morning show for proof.”

Blimey, if that’s positive, I’d hate to see negative. But your Tim Grimsditch is confusing share price (a measure of the city’s confidence in management) with audience figures. Poor management and a badly-executed botch of a merger (both now fixed) has virtually nothing to do with what comes out of the speakers. The fact that Chris Tarrant was nearly 60 when he left Capital Radio (out of touch with London’s thirty-somethings, let alone kids), and that Capital itself had become complacent and out of touch with its area is worthy of note, but irrelevant when talking about ‘young people’.

We are a music-centric marketing agency seeking to help the media industry (new and old) develop their models and build new business around music, for the benefit of creators and investing companies alike.

From my viewpoint - the record industry is currently being advised to:
1. Work out how it can sue and punish its most passionate consumers
2. Discover how it can screw more out of the industry that promotes new music most effectively (that’s radio, incidentally)
3. Find out how it can put those inconvenient internet broadcasters out of business by charging unrealistic charges which make ad-funded broadcasting impossible
4. Disenfranchise the people that actually buy its products by smothering them in badly-executed digital rights management to ensure they cannot even use their legally purchased products in a legal way.

Yes, radio has issues attracting young people. I posted about it a while ago.

But, blimey, the record companies need to sanity-check their advice carefully.

(In my humble, personal, oh-so-personal, opinion).

If you pay 99p instead of 79p for your EMI download from iTunes, you get something special.

You get the music in double the quality - 256k instead of 128k. The music apparently sounds cleaner and more vibrant.

You also get the music without any Digital Rights Management. So you can copy it, move it around, play it on one of those nice new thin Sony Walkman nano-a-likes, etc.

And, as the Electronic Freedom Foundation have discovered, you also get those tracks embedded with your name, your email address, and possibly many other things too.

This, to me, makes perfect sense. They’ve stripped the DRM so that you can, for example, burn the tracks onto CD, or move them to your other player, play them on your mobile phone - a wealth of possibilities denied to us with DRM-protected files. However, they’ve not stripped the DRM to allow people to stick them on the internet for everyone to download or to share around the office; hence the embedded user information.

ArsTechnica appears to be fuming about this.

I don’t understand why.

Another on-the-button column by John Naughton this morning, describing the magical list of hex that renders a BluRay DVD copyable by all, and what happened when Digg tried to stop its users from posting it. The Observer coyly only prints 09F9 - but a Google Search for that reveals the lot, including the rather splendid 09f9.com - in over 2.6 million web pages. (The US’s DMCA appears to make this number illegal to post, since it could be used to illegally gain access to copyrighted material).

My own internal jury’s still out on DRM. One part of me hates it - if I buy music, then that’s mine to use personally however I wish. One part of me accepts it as a sad reality of life online today, given the undoubtedly large amount of Napster/BitTorrent-esque stealing/sharing that goes on from morally bankrupt users. One part of me defends DRM as “if companies want to do silly things like that, fine, but respect their decision and don’t steal/share their work without their permission”. One part of me might use ‘illegal’ services to get albums that the record companies have withdrawn from their catalogue, thus leaving me no other way to get the music I would have legally bought had the record company not made this impossible.

But, no matter. I’ve edited some of the hex codes out in my header, even though I’m not even sure whether the part of the DMCA that stops US citizens posting this seemingly innocuous code applies to us in the European Union [yet]. I don’t fully appreciate whether I am now liable (by UK law) since I’ve linked to the full code on this web page (but if so, Google’s clearly 2.5 million times more liable than I am). This shows legal absurdity on a massive scale, and a really obvious and clear demonstration of how many legal people Just Don’t Get It.

—update— There’s a good legal viewpoint on EFF’s website, for US law. An equivalent for UK law would be good.

—update2— The clever Wil Harris has posted a good background primer on what 09-f9 is - and apparently, it’s now useless anyway…

.

On the legal-purchase point, I was wondering last week about something, so, given it’s related, perhaps someone might be able to help me with the below:

I want to buy a (quite old) CD album.
- I can buy it new from Amazon, for £12. Some of this money therefore goes back to the record company.
- I can buy it used from Amazon/eBay, for £3. None of this money goes to the record company. £3 goes to the person who currently owns the CD.
- I can download it for free using BitTorrent. No money changes hands.

Presumably, #2 is legal, otherwise Amazon/eBay wouldn’t be able to do it. But how does the difference between #2 and #3 square with the “giving money to the artist” argument that the record companies talk about? In #2, since a third party is benefiting in financial terms from re-selling this CD, am I actually doing better if I download it instead?

My own past experience is that I downloaded an album from the Eels via Napster years ago, listened to it, and liked it. I’ve now bought at least three Eels albums, other Eels downloads, and went to see an Eels concert last year (rather misguidedly, it ought to be said, it was a bit miserable). Have the Eels benefitted from that initial illegal download? I’d think so.