Is DRM music a solution or a dead end?

Here is the video we are supposed to discuss this week. The content of it is quite straight forward, and I do not think there is much I could say about it. From the video, we can learn that to use others' digital intellectual property,we do not always have to ask for permit. However,there are still four criteria that we need to follow. First, we have to transform the material into our own by adding voice or put some pictures together. By adding or editing, you transform the work into your own.Secondly, we can use some sentence from other's work without permission, but if we are using a whole image we probably should ask the original author before use. Thirdly, if you are not making money by using other's intellectual property, then you can use it for free. If you are making money, you would have a "negative economic effect" on the creator which is illegal.Finally, you have to cite the resource of the material you borrow properly. Only if you follow these four criteria, you are using digital material correctly.

Even though our teacher gave us four criteria to follow, the line between legal and illegal using of online resource is still blur. For example, the BGM I used in my digital story is downloaded from the internet. Of course, I did not pay for it. The soundtrack I use is called Annie's Wonderland made by Bandari and released in 1990. It has been around for a long time, so it is quite easy to download from the internet. I will do some transformation because I will add my voice into the video and the music is a background sound. I will not make money from my work and I will cite the resource carefully. Does this make my downloading and using of this piece of music legal? I am still not very sure. I think similar thing happens all the time. You want to listen to or use some soundtrack. You do not intend to download it illegally, but it is like everywhere and so easy to get. Under this circumstance, you would become so confused that do not know whether you could use this music at all. A feeling of being both a theft and a victim develops in your heart. Basically, it is the chaos of illegal music sharing websites to be blamed.

To solve this problem, DRM(digital rights management)  is invited. It is a special technology used on the music file. The quality of the music drops with every copy. Or it can makes the music being played with certain application, or on certain devices. This technology makes the illegal music sharing impossible and exterminate the concern that we might come across some illegal music without notice. However, this technology seems to be abandoned so after its release. The mean reason is that it is very inconvenient. People do not like it. So they will not choose DRM music which leads to a lost of benefits to the record company. As a result, itunes, amazon and many other music provider have DRM-free music now. What we can learn from this story is that costumers are really hard to satisfy.

DRM failed, but the battle against illegal music is still on. Hope we can finally come up with some solution which makes illegal music disappear and meets all people's expectation.