the possibly accurate nowMon, 19 Dec 2005
[10:59] A New Phone - The Moral Dilemma
I've been eyeing off new phones because the dinky little Samsung I'm borrowing at the moment is REALLY annoying. I hate clamshell phones and this one is so old that the battery will only hold charge for 20 hours, once it gets low it starts complaining, LOUDLY, even in "silent" mode. While I'm at it (a small tangent I promise) WHAT THE HELL IS UP WITH VIBRATE OR RING. WHY CAN'T IT DO BOTH??? It's not just me either, as this Google search shows.
Hence, I was looking at the new Sony Ericsson W800i. I really liked my old T610 and the form-factor is very similar. There are a few other reasons I was eyeballing the W800i:
- I'd like a little "happy snap" camera and the W800i has a 2 Megapixel camera built in. The demos I've seen on the web show that it takes some really stunning photos considering the package it's in (ie a phone not a camera).
- The "Walkman" feature. This phone can take a SD Memory card, up to 1Gb I believe, and acts as an MP3 player.
- It's a USB Key! No proprietry software is required either, you plug in to a USB port and voila, you can drag and drop or mount just like a normal USB device (and it's USB2).
- Oh yeah, it also functions as a telecommunications device
A couple of people at work have them and someone let me have a play with theirs. I had a bit of a mess around and it turns out that there are a couple of things I don't like about it:
- The FFWD time is quite slow, there doesn't seem to be a progressive speed up so if you've got an hour long MP3 and you want to start at the 30 minute mark then scolling through it can be quite tedious.
- The chassis has a few buttons that operate seperately to the keyboard. These include the camera button, a rocker that controls volume and track forwards/backwards and a play/pause button. I had two problems with these. The first is that you can't lock these keys at all. Even when the phone keypad is locked these keys remain active. I can see a point to that but it means that these keys are always going to be liable to accidental pressings. The second problem comes from the rocker button. If you tap it quickly then it turns the volume up/down. If you hold the button down for a second it skips to the next/previous track. The distinction between "tap" and "hold" seems to be very close and I can see that becoming quite frustrating.
Little gripes really and I was all but ready to purchase one (well, go on contract anyway) when I stopped to think. This phone is made by
SonyEricsson. That would be the same Sony that has has such an exciting couple of months with their DRM r00tkit and looks set to have quite a few more if the current furore surrounding "borrowed" GPL code is anything to go by.
The phone can play any MP3 at the moment, but not any other format (
Ogg or
WMA for instance). I wonder how long before it will only play music encapsulated in some kind of Sony DRM? Would they do that and risk alienating the market? I don't see why not, most will be unaware of the issues and alternatives and those who are aware may be to complacent to care.
In the end I decided I wouldn't purchase one, because Sony is evil.
OK, so that's a little melodramatic but sadly I consider it to be true. I have a substantial CD collection back home and it includes more than a few Sony (or Sony affiliate) produced CDs in it. I pretty much stopped buying CDs from them and indeed most other big labels a few years ago. The lack of good music initially precluded any purchases and the initial stumbling, bludgeoning attempts at DRM decided me. I've been trying to support unsigned bands (a task made a lot easier in Australia by the unflagging support of new music by Triple J) and buying music directly from the band themselves since then. The internet is only just starting to become a valid method of promoting your band (why it's taken so long I don't know) and as the podcasting phenomenon moves into the mainstream
more and
more great bands are utilising the internet via podcasts and websites to not only promote but actually sell their product.
The revenue framework of the music industry as it exists today has been crumbling for some time and as this trend of self-promotion and self-supply by the musicians continues, it will continue to degenerate; but they won't go down without an almighty stinking fight and I wouldn't be surprised if, on the way out, they manage to pull some kind of "if we can't have it, you can't either" stunt.
I don't believe that the way Sony and Co are approaching the whole DRM issue is right. Supporting them, either by buying CD's (DRMd or otherwise) or by buying hardware produced by/for the Sony conglomerate is rather hypocritical. This is unfortunate because I really like buying
good new music and I really like the SonyEricsson phones (Nokia blows goats).
The DRM battle has been a long time coming. The concept is already well entrenched within major corporations; companies like Microsoft and Sony and PC hardware manufacturers like Intel and AMD (see the
Trusted Computing FAQ for some interesting reading), the craziness surrounding the next generation of DVD - would you like your content to belong to Sony, Apple, Dell, HP, Hitachi, Panasonic, Philips and TDK (in the Blu-Ray corner) or Microsoft, Intel, Toshiba, Warner Brothers and NEC (in the HD-DVD corner)? A lot of money has been spent on making sure the public has no problems with DRM, mostly using old Microsoft
FUD techniques. Now is the time for those on the other side to use the Sony mess to bring the alternatives to the public eye. The DRM battle started along time ago but now we're all on the front lines!
I don't have a solution to the DRM "problem". Am I honest enough to purchase the music I like and download? I like to think so. Obviously there are things like iTunes from Apple, the VirginDigital service, heck - even Woolworths and Tescos have jumped on the music download bandwagon! The problem is, it's all DRM encumbered (I can't vouch for Tescos or Woolworhts there actually, I'll verify that) and if I want to drop a track onto my generic MP3 player, forks to me! As far as I can see, the only way forward is:
- Support the artists who are actively avoiding DRM.
- Educate others who are unsigned
- Lobby those who are signed up to unsign themselves
- Stop paying for DRM!!! This means not giving money to the companies actively working on this stuff. Don't buy it and LET THEM KNOW YOU DIDN'T AND WHY. I decided not to but a phone and I dropped Sony a line on their feedback page explaining why. I also discussed all of this with a friend and he decided to forgo the Sony MP3 player he was going to buy and went with an alternative. Every little bit counts.
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