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When will BigPond start selling DRM-free video, too? E-mail
by Alex Zaharov-Reutt   
Thursday, 14 August 2008
Why is it ok for music to now be sold in a DRM-free format, but not video? It’s all just digital data, zeros and ones, isn’t it?

Although consumers have been anti-DRM from the word go, it appears that it will take a massive anti-DRM push from the likes of Steve Jobs, who issued an anti-DRM creed for music, and a few months later, premiered DRM-free AAC files on iTunes.

Companies such as Amazon and others followed suit in the US, and now Telstra and its BigPond arm have done the same with music in Australia.

Clearly, however, video will be next. Everybody knows it. But while music studios – some of which are owned by movie studios – have come to this realisation for audio, they’re yet to come to the same realisation for video.

The same threats from piracy apply, the same types of hackers are defeating DRM and users want the freedom to watch video they’ve legally purchased on any number of different devices, from mobile phones to computers to Apple TVs to DVD players – without resorting to illegal downloads or fiddly conversion tools.

DRM for music is dead.

DRM’d video: we’re (literally!) looking at you.

But with iTunes only getting movie downloads and rentals in Australia and New Zealand today, years after it debuted in the US, expecting video DRM to die a quick death is like expecting a DVD rewinder to be effective.

The death of DRM for video won’t happen overnight. But... it will happen!

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