frankhagan.com

Not being one to call for legislation very often, I would much rather see a market-based solution to the problem of Digital Rights Management (DRM), the 1984-esque term that really means “crippled and limited”. But I fear it may be too late.

DRM is really copy protection for video and audio, and like the efforts with copy protected software early in the computer revolution, it is a miserable failure. It doesn’t prevent unauthorized copying and distribution, a practice that is already illegal but widespread. It serves to inconvenience only those who legally purchase digital music or video products.

A case in point is Microsoft’s MSN Music Store. Microsoft, a 291.4 billion dollar company, chaired by Bill Gates – one of the richest men in the world – is stealing .99 songs from the MSN Music Store customers. From ARS Technica:

MSN Entertainment and Video Services general manager Rob Bennett sent out an e-mail this afternoon [4/22/2008] to customers, advising them to make any and all authorizations or deauthorizations before August 31. “As of August 31, 2008, we will no longer be able to support the retrieval of license keys for the songs you purchased from MSN Music or the authorization of additional computers,” reads the e-mail seen by Ars. “You will need to obtain a license key for each of your songs downloaded from MSN Music on any new computer, and you must do so before August 31, 2008. If you attempt to transfer your songs to additional computers after August 31, 2008, those songs will not successfully play.”

This doesn’t just apply to the five different computers that PlaysForSure allows users to authorize, it also applies to operating systems on the same machine (users need to reauthorize a machine after they upgrade from Windows XP to Windows Vista, for example). Once September rolls around, users are committed to whatever five machines they may have authorized—along with whatever OS they are running.

While it provides a good reason to never upgrade to another Microsoft product when there are increasingly viable alternatives, I am struck by the callousness of this decision. Surely within that 291.4 billion dollar company there is room for an automated license key system to enable their customers to continue to enjoy their music. After all, music is eternal, unlike Microsoft’s products that become obsolete due to the advance of technology. Bach and The Beatles are still played and enjoyed, even if Windows ME has blissfully gone to software hell, where it will be tortured for the appropriate amount of time (I just checked, and it has a few million years to go).

Music and film are art, and as such, are timeless. Once you purchase the work from the artist, it is yours forever. Any event perpetrated by a third party to interfere with that right is theft.

Our laws already require that manufacturer’s set aside reserves to meet warranty obligations; in the case of DRM for timeless art, it is not unreasonable to require manufacturers to ensure that whatever restrictions they impose can be serviceable for life.

Culture, Tech

Once again, we’re faced with the complexity of the tax code. For ordinary wage earners, it should not be this difficult.

The withholding rules are screwy enough that we are once again getting a small refund from the Federal Income Tax and paying about the same amount to our California State Income Tax. What irks me the most is I’m using THEIR formulas to calculate my withholding amount, and it is never correct. In fact, the state is assessing a penalty for underpayment this year, as they have decided it was foolish of me to think they know what the heck they are doing when they set the withholding rates. Silly me.

We claim zero exemptions. Now, I’m having an additional amount taken out each pay period. I’ve calculated the extra amount based on the amount per month to make up the shortfall in 2007, pro-rated for the remaining months in the year. I have a note on my calendar to adjust this extra withholding amount in late 2008 to reflect the non-prorated amount each pay period going forward. My personal situation doesn’t change much from year to year, but the tax laws do. I fully expect the (Democratic) morons running the state to change the rules and penalize me again in 2009 for some other crystal ball failing.

Its all because I’m rich, of course.

Before you think I’m among the “top 1%” you keep hearing about, think of your combined household income. Add together the gross salary … before taxes … of all the wage earners in your household. For most households, that’s a husband and wife or other domestic partners. Now that combined figure will determine if you are rich. What’s your number?

Is your household number OVER $44,000? That’s the median household income. You might think you are in the middle class if your number is over that amount, but certainly not rich.

Is it over $80,000? You are in the top quintile, sharing that level of income or higher with just 20% of the highest earning Americans. You are, in a word, rich.

If you and your spouse both earn $19.50 an hour …. you are rich. No doubt about it, and its about time you started paying your share! We must tax you more to help those that live in households where they earn half of what you earn.

If you object to this line of reasoning you are not only rich but you’re stingy too.

Family, Politics

I’m starting to build a modest, entry-level audio system with an eye toward leveraging the ease of using digital music. Rather than swapping CDs in and out of the player, a “music server” can play songs stored on your computer through your stereo. There are a few things I’ve learned that I’ll pass on to my blog readers:

Problem: Poor audio quality of MP3s “ripped” from your CDs
Solution: Get Exact Audio Copy, and use the LAME encoder to create a variable bit rate MP3. It will be slightly bigger than the standard, 128 bit MP3, but sound much better. Configuration can be a chore, and there’s plenty of older instructions out there that don’t work with the current versions of the programs. I went through a bit of frustration until I found an excellent WIKI article at HydrogenAudio.org. Use the links there to get the latest version of both programs and configure them. Well worth the effort.

Problem: High cost of audio and video cables at retailers.
Solution: Yikes! I found out that the narrow margins on audio equipment at retailers is more than offset by the high price of their cables. As an example, a 3′ optical audio cable (“toslink”) is $19.99 at Best Buy, but just $5.55 at monoprice.com. I found similar savings for all my cables, and for under $40 had the equivalent of $250 worth of cables delivered. Monoprice shipped the same day, and confirmed the order and shipment via email. Don’t fall for the premium cable hype; you honestly won’t tell the difference between inexpensive cables and the most expensive ones.

More to come as the project proceeds.

Culture, Tech