I recently discovered this acoustic version of All within my hands on Youtube. Even though St. Anger has some highlights I must admit that it isn’t my favorite Metallica album (that is of course Master of Puppets). However, I really liked the acoustic All within my hands and I wanted to get it eh … all within my own hands.

It turned out that it was played at the yearly Bridge School Benefit for children with severe physical impairments and complex communication needs. I am no big fan of people running after me in the streets or calling me on the phone to ask me to donate money to whatever reason. Even though the causes are good I just don’t like being nagged into doing something. I prefer doing it of my own will. I must admit though that I am not much of a charity giver (shame on me) but when I could get good music and support a good cause I felt it was right.

The solution was of course the live Metallica catalog which I think is a good source for music and a great store. The store sells all (?)  live Metallica shows since 2004 and gives you about 20 older shows for free. The music comes without DRM in either MP3 and FLAC. You’ll get the MP3 version of a show for $9.95 and the FLAC version is going at $12.95.

Metallica played at the Bridge School charity both the 27th and the 28th of October 2007.  Metallica played only 8 songs each night (some covers and some Metllica songs) so the shows are a bit expensive. However, you have to remember that all net proceeds goes to the Bridge School. The set lists have some variations between the two days. Of the cover songs I really liked I’m only happy when it rains.

This is by far not the first thing I have bought after seeing it on youtube or somewhere else. I just don’t see why people are against it and so afraid of people posting copyright protected material there. I think the exposure it gives an artist and the sales this generates is well worth the potential loss of income. I could have chosed to continue listening to the youtube version but I wanted to have the song and I decided to pay for content of higher quality in the sense that it is Flac and therefore also transportable to other devices but my computer.

I knew they didn’t care but I was really surprised when I read this. Even Sanvold Roland complained in his blog that he could not by the pre-order the new Dave Matthews Band record through iTunes. The response he got from Warner Music‘s Terje Pedersen (on myspace) through Twitter was rather incredible: “I think you should steal it and brag about the process on your brat blog afterwards. Don’t want you to be angry.” (translated from Norwegian)

First, he incouraged him to steal the music and second he insulted him. What kind of customer relation is that? Even though Terje Pedersen apologized a bit later it illustrates how much (some) people in the music/movie industry actually care about what we, their customers want. The music/movie industry has climed up too high and totally lost touch with its customers the last ten years (Napster anyone?), now they are taking the fall for not opening their eyes.

Edit: I found another English article on the topic. You should digg it to spreat the word.

This is happy news for us games who perfer to buy our games. After hearing about The Sims 3, and knowing that Prince Of Persia and World of Goo were released without DRM there might still be hope for consumer friendly products?

Personally I really do not understand why EA and others are using SecuRom and similar products to “protect” their games. I assume the intention is to either (1) stop piracy or (2) stop people from selling used games. For me, the only thing they achieve is stopping me from buying their games.

Piracy is clearly a problem on the PC platform. It is a shame that people does not pay for the games they play and it is understandable that the industry tries to stop this. However, there does not exist any effective copy protection (yet) and I do not think DRM is the right way to stop piracy. DRM is only making it harder for the customers.

I have a stronger beliefe in digital distribution of quality games which are updated after their initial release to a reasonable price. Much like what the guys at Stardock intends to do with their “Gamers Bill of Rights”. This is of course a PR trick but I agree with them in most of what they say.

Back to DRM, copy protections like SecuRom are just creating problems for the people who pay for the products, not stopping piracy. Pirated versions of Spore and NoCD-cracks sirculated, probably even before Spore was released. I want to play the games I buy anywhere, at any time and I want to be able to install them as many times as I like. I payed for the bloody game didn’t I? I wouldn’t buy a bike which I could only use four times, within the city limits on Sundays!

Spore is unfortunately not the first game which incorporates such DRM solutions. Both Bioshock and Mass Effect have received massive amounts of flack for their DRM solutions which created a lot of problems for a large number of users.

So why? Dear gaming, record and movie industry. Why do you use DRM when it creates problems for the paying users, does not effectively stop piracy, increases the price of your products and give you a lot of negative media coverage? Some of the vendors have got it and they are pulling the plug on DRM as we speak. But Walmart, what about the customers who were unfortunate enough to by DRM (infested) music who are not able to play their music any longer?