Like we needed more proof that DRM is a BAD IDEA

Saw this post on Boing Boing today.

shaking head

To-date I haven’t had a problem with DRM’d content that I’ve purchased online (I have only bought content through iTunes). Of course in Canada we can’t buy movies or TV shows on iTunes (grumble grumble) so perhaps I’m not a frequent enough user to get burned.

However the more people shift to online content purchases, the more crap you’re going to see here with companies seeming to care more about their supplier relationships than their customers. Or legally beaten into caring more. Hard to tell the inside story.

Interesting to see this in the wake of some recent postings by Michael Geist on some optimism in the Canadian music industry, and his older posting on the new Canadian study showing some tenuous correlation between frequent downloaders and frequent purchasers.

DRM is a bad idea. Crippleware software is a bad idea. Come on people. You don’t have to be a socialist, you can come up with the right business model.