ADRM: Anti-DRM music wrapper

Another idea–
Anti-DRM music wrapper meant to allow those who do not want their file to include DRM restrictions at any point. This may include artists who want songs to spread without restriction such as Creative Commons.

This could be useful for services such as Microsoft’s Zune service which ostensibly adds a DRM wrapper on non-DRM audio files in order to wirelessly transmit them to another Zune player, but can only be played 3 times beyond that.

Artists may not want their files to be restricted for many reasons. Adding DRM indiscriminately to a file that is meant to be open to anyone to listen and share how they desire could negatively impact an artist’s reputation who strongly believes in open source music. It also degrades the publicity and good-will value of a freely shareable file which can drive traffic to a musician’s other products.

Indiscriminate DRMing can also keep a file from spreading through the Internet or other networks (such as the wireless Zune network), dismissing the value of the file to a temporary one that cannot be enjoyed freely.

Any indiscriminate DRM method should respect the wishes of the origin of the file. The point of DRM is greater control by the artist over the spread of their intellectual property. If we truly respect the artist’s intent in this matter an ADRM tag in the file should be interpreted as a command not to add DRM to it. This flag could be standardized; using a PGP like method where companies like MS have a public key that anyone can use to create an ADRM flag which can be interpreted by the company or individual adding DRM indiscriminately.

“Bulletin Board”: Copy & Paste over the Internet

Bulletin Board
-Integrates with buddy list from your favorite IM program.
-Allows you to right click (or Edit menu, or keyboard shortcut such as shift-cmd-c), and using the menu item “Copy To” (or “Cut To”, send the current selection to a person in your buddy list. The person can be chosen from a menu that expands from the right click menu, or a small window which lists the names in your Buddy List near the location of the cursor. Alternatively, after choosing “Copy to” one could prioritize and zoom focus to the buddy list, which turns into a single-click name selection mode. The person receiving your copied object (be it text, graphics, even Excel data, etc) have a corresponding item in their menus, in which they can for example press shift-cmd-v or Edit menu->”Paste From” and the applications will insert the received clipping. If more than one clipping has been sent since the last Paste From, a small window will come up with previews of the received materials, requesting the user to select which clipping they would like to use.

Notes on functionality:

-Using a control panel/system preference, an option could possibly be set to allow communications to other channels besides just people on a buddy list, such as shared computers on a local network, “Bonjour” connected computers, IP addresses, possibly even members of address book, tied through a mail program which sends specially encoded link that can be recognized upon receipt. This control panel could also allow viewing of history and setting privacy options.

-Users could launch a separate application called “Bulletin Board” that shows each network copy & paste (or clipboard) (possibly as a sticky note on a corkboard!, but more elegant most likely…) that the user has privileges to–eg, each one she has sent or received (either as an individual receive or a group receive). Also, user can invite others to bulletin board, at which point bulletin board is filtered so only the notes shared between those in the conference share. For two users, it will be the ones they send back and forth to each other. For 3 or more, it could be the one that the team leader sends out to the group and which everyone needs access to in order to work together on. It would be easy to allow objects to be shared with other users if you have privileges and want to share those privileges with others int he conference. Objects could be sorted just as on a real clipboard in either mode, and notes could be sent to the background or minimized somehow if irrellevent. Great for writing notes for collaboration on a tablet pc while viewing the clipboard contents (which are resizable).

-in the right click menu or the Edit menu drop down box (if possible), on the same horizontal space as the words “Copy To”, the right side should have a number in red. This is the number of failed sends, or unreceived sends.j Clicking on the number brings up a window with a preview of the sent objects. Clicking on one brings up the history viewer discussed earlier for further inspection of problem. It is not necessary to use this to try to resend the network copy contents, as the program automatically tries resending the sends in error automatically at an interval set in the control panel.

-Likewise, on the same horizontal space as the words “Paste From”, the right right side of the containing box with the menu options should have a green number. This is the number of clipboard items that have been received but not yet pasted. Clicking allows a preview of awaiting items. Clicking on one will paste it immediately.

Hmm, I think that’s about it. Sounds complicated but in practice i want it to be incredibly elegant–as easy as using cmd+c or cmd +v is now, with the only added complexity being the step of choosing the destination. Thus, choosing the destination should be incredibly intuitive. The menu show pop up instantly around the cursor and make it simple and fast for the user to quickly identify the correct user for sending to and use one quick click to initiate the process (with all network activity happening in the background–as soon as the target is selected, the task is done. Likewise, it should not be intrusive for the receiver. Notifcation should be VERY subtle, perhaps even relying solely on the right click or Edit menu “Green Number” to indicate received clips. After all, this will mainly be used when two people are interacting to some degree already, and the person expects the clip to arrive.

Hmm. Thinks that’s all!

Aug 31 2006 WBW