eHomeUpgrade prints a press release from an organization that did a survey showing some consumers don’t mind having ridiculous restrictions placed on their rights to fairly use copyrighted material: Consumers Amenable to Music CDs With Copy Protection.
Contrary to widely held industry beliefs, U.S. consumers are not overwhelmingly antagonistic toward the concept of copy-restricted music CDs, provided these CDs come with the proper incentives, according to Parks Associates’ forthcoming report Digital Rights: Content Ownership and Distribution.
Among respondents in Parks Associates’ survey Profiles of PC Usage, when given a choice between a normal music CD and a “copy-once” CD priced $5 less, 33% of those who do not rip CDs and 27% who rip CDs preferred the copy-once CDs.”
Consumers are “not overwhelmingly antagonistic” toward copy-protected CDs. That is a pretty powerful piece of spinnin’, I must say. I shook my head as I read this cosmically stupid release, which appears to have been written to please some client who is not interested in facing reality. Please allow me to dismiss it with a few bullet points:
-
The survey says 27% of those who rip CDs were willing to take a $5 bribe that restricts their right to freely use the content on the CD. Dusting off my old slide rule, I calculated that 73% of respondents did not prefer this option. That’s a fairly large percentage of people who appear to think this idea is not so hot.
-
The opinions of those who do not rip CDs are irrelevant – and even so, the fact that only 33% of respondents would take the $5 discount was revealing.
-
Did anyone ask those taking this survey how they would feel if they learned that copy-protected CDs [have] had problems playing in some CD players and computers, prompting customer complaints and even recalls? If they knew this, would they still answer the same way?
Oh, and a 2004 poll shows that 34% of Americans think “the First Amendment goes too far in the rights it guarantees.” They’re wrong, just like the people who said yes to this survey.
Fortunately, there are still plenty of artists who aren’t afraid of the idea that people might listen to and share their music. Today I heard an interview and live performance by Wilco on NPR’s Talk of the Nation that addressed this issue perfectly. Toward the end of the broadcast, host Neal Conan asked lead singer and songwriter Jeff Tweedy about the band’s decision to make their groundbreaking album Yankee Hotel Foxtrot available for download free on their Web site, and about their casul attitude toward fans who downloaded the follow-up CD A Ghost Is Born. Tweedy replied, “I just think that the arguments against those kinds of things are based on fear. I don’t think that as a band you should be afraid of people hearing your music and sharing it. I think it’s a great thing.”
Ed Bott 