Advice You - Internet and Businesses Online

The media is abuzz with reports of illegal music and movie downloading, peer-to-peer file sharing and the related ongoing legal and legislative battles being played out in our courts and in Congress. Most of these discussions perpetuate a myth that existing, or soon-to-be-developed, digital rights management (DRM) technol

According to USFDA, a combination product is one composed of any combination of a drug and device; biological product and device; drug and biological product

ogies are the key to solving the entertainment industry's piracy woes. As support for this notion, many cite Apple's successful iTunes music download service. The conventional wisdom is that since Apple uses DRM and Apple is successful, then technical copy protection mechanisms must have been instrumental in Apple's succ

; or drug, device, and biological product and fixed dose combination would include two or more combinations of drug.

Examples of combination products may in

ss. The truth is that Apple's DRM technology, called FairPlay, was indeed instrumental in Apple's success, but not because it prevents digital piracy.

For preventing piracy, FairPlay is not only totally ineffective, it was implemented that way on purpose. Once you purchase a song via iTunes, you are allowed to burn it t

lude drug-coated devices, drugs packaged with delivery devices in medical kits, and drugs and devices packaged separately but intended to be used together.

a CD. Once you burn it, the song is completely beyond the control of iTunes. You can rip the song off the CD by using perfectly legal software, such as the Windows media player; post the music on a file share; re-encode it in MP3 format; or make a million copies of the CD and give them away in Times Square. FairPlay does

here is enormous increase in the number of combination products entering the market in the recent years. Combination products have proven advantages but fixe

othing to prevent people from doing those things. So, since the notion that FairPlay prevents piracy crumbles in the face of logical analysis, why did Apple bother to create it?

There are two very logical justifications for FairPlay. One has nothing to do with the effectiveness of DRM and everything to do with marketing.

d dose combinations are still in the process of convincing regulatory authority on their advantages over the single ingredient formulations.

Combination pro

That is, having a DRM illusion made it much easier for Apple to convince record labels to distribute their music through iTunes. Another reason for FairPlay's existence has nothing to do with protecting rights holders from piracy and everything to do with protecting Apple from competition. The iTunes service and Apple'

ucts have become life saving products for the pharmaceutical companies who doesn’t have many innovative molecules in their product pipeline and have been inc

iPod player were designed to work together and the proprietary FairPlay technology helps to exclude interlopers. Any iTunes or iPod clone-maker would have to reverse engineer FairPlay, making the task of creating clones all the more difficult and giving Apple both technical and legal counterattack options. For example, w

easingly used in the product life cycle management. Even the companies having product patents are trying to extend their product life cycle through the combi

en RealNetworks introduced Harmony, a technology that makes the RealPlayer Music Store compatible with iPods, Apple responded with a threat that future Apple software updates would likely break the compatibility and even went so far as to question the legality or Real's action under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DM

nation products and maximize the revenues. But the companies involved in this practice are overlooking that they are burdening the patients both economically

A), which makes circumventing copy protection illegal. This case clearly demonstrates that Apple intends to use FairPlay to protect its own commercial interests, which have nothing to do with preventing piracy.

Although hackers have compromised FairPlay, digital content pirates do not have to; they can simply take advan

and physically. They need to rightly judge the benefits of the combination products and they have to even look at the risks involved when combining the produ

tage of a gaping, built-in hole. But even if we ignore all past experience with copy protection and assume that FairPlay could be made foolproof, it would still provide little or no protection to rights holders from piracy. Copies of digital content are exact copies. They do not degrade no matter how many times you dupl

ts. Some of the combination products were well accepted by physicians while others suffered. Companies involved in development of combination products are fi

cate them. Consequently, even just one in-the-clear copy of a digital work can be perfectly duplicated millions and millions of times while being distributed by using file sharing networks. Since many of the latest file sharing technologies are "open source" applications, such as Bittorrent, that are owned by no one and

ding difficulty in defining their combination products and facing various challenges from selecting a combination to marketing it.

Following aspects would a

vailable to anyone, the tactic of litigating against companies that operate P2P networks is becoming pointless. Technical measures for thwarting file-sharing have been attempted, but countermeasures are created almost as fast. The inescapable fact is that, short of a complete government-enforced lock-down of the Internet

dd to the challenges in developing combination products:

Which markets to tap where the combination products can do fairly well?
Which combination prod

entertainment businesses will increasingly have to face the challenge of competing with free.

In the real world, a significant number of microwave oven clocks blink 12:00 for years on end because consumers are either unable to learn how to set the time, or they are just unwilling to bother. Yet some in the entertainment

cts are meaningful and rational?
Which therapeutic categories to select?
Which Combinations can address unmet needs of the patients?
Do combin

industry continue to flirt with a fantasy that consumers will not only tolerate, but also pay for, DRM-based solutions that are terrible for preventing piracy, but that are pretty good at inconveniencing the very consumers upon whom commercial success depends. This notion that DRM can protect rights holders and help them

tions increase the patient compliance?
What would be the developing cost?
How to tackle the risks encountered during combination product developmen

o compete with free is perpetuated by the purveyors of multiple incompatible DRM solutions. These vendors find an eager audience with some executives who are so desperate to insulate their business models from change that they are willing to believe that the DRM snake oil will protect existing revenue streams.

Apple's iT

t?

As combination products don't fit into the traditional categories of drugs, medical devices, or biological products, the USFDA is in the process of devel

nes has demonstrated that you can indeed compete with free. But as this document has shown, the effectiveness of Apple's DRM in thwarting illegal copying played no part in that success. It is important to note, however, that Apple could not be successful with iTunes solely by creating technical and legal barriers, or by

ping new procedures for reviewing their safety, efficacy and quality.

Professional from academic institutions, pharmaceutical industries, health care indust

romoting its DRM to rights holders as an elixir to piracy. The other half of the iTunes formula for success is completely dependent on peoples' behavior: if consumers did not recognize value in iTunes, they would simply not use it. Moreover, virtually every song legitimatly purchased through iTunes can be acquired fairly

y and representatives from various regulatory agencies are working out to design the regulatory requirements for manufacture and sale of combination products

easily for free via illegal means. Apple's iTunes service, in combination with the iPod player, offers consumers a complete and integrated solution that is easy to use, flexible (e.g. you can burn songs to CD) and stylish. Apple is attractive to consumers, not because Fairplay DRM is restrictive, but in large part beca

.

As there is an increasing trend of the combination products companies manufacturing such products should be able to tackle the problems involved in the de

se it is not.

Pundits and vendors are doing a profound disservice to the entertainment industry by perpetuating the DRM myth and holding up iTunes as an example. With iTunes, Apple has not demonstrated the value of DRM to either consumers or rights holders. Apple has shown, however, that you can successfully compete wit

elopment. They need to be wiser in analyzing the market trends and the regulatory requirements.

Companies that provide selfless information through particip

free, and get consumers to open their wallets, if you can offer them convenience and value. The entertainment industry should take heed from the real iTunes example: give consumers a great offering at a reasonable price, and you just might eliminate the incentive to acquire works illegally and make digital piracy obsolete

tion in industry events and feedback to regulatory authorities would be able to face the challenges and will be successful in developing combination products

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A lot of companies have gotten it right in the digital realm, only to drop the ball once you meet them on the physical plane. People show up to shop and retailers don't always have a good grasp of what to do with them.

A common complaint bill collectors hear from debtors is that no one cares about us, or our finances or our situation. Just like someone with a negative attitude, many times debtors place the blame on everyone else but themselves, this includes the bill collector that is trying to collect the debt they owe their creditor. The bill collector, even if they are as nice as they can be, is immediately considered the evil enemy, just because they are what they are, a bill collector.

If you are forming an alliance with another business, you will need to make sure that there are PROFITS for both of you. Here is some advice on what to look for.

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Advice You - How to Compete with Free: Debunking the DRM Myth

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