Thoughts on DRM – Jai

Write a post on whether or not you think streaming (or licensing) music/tv/movies has positively impacted DRM, if there is no physical disk, is it easier or harder to copy? Is it no longer important to “own” music/movie/tv? And what impact do you think this has on remix/sampling?

I think licensing and streaming has positively impacted DRM on behalf of the publishing companies that hold the copyrights on material, not necessarily the artists that created it. Streaming & licensing is very lucrative for publishing companies because they are able to retain sole rights to material and they can compensate artists at pennies on the dollar. It is harder to copy music/tv/movies because it is not a physical disk, yet streaming allows these materials to travel further than they would being a physical disk only. Artists of today are still able to be inspired by art from around the world and access fairly easily, but they now are constantly faced with the threat of having their work removed/confiscated/sued because of how much leverage and power copyright holders now hold.