hi, I posted this in M$'s forum, but no replies...

OK here's what I want to do...

I'm going to try and sell podcasts online in 2 ways:

1) A monthly fee allowing the customer to listen to the podcasts/audio
streamed online
2) Charge the customer a fee per podcast/audio. So they can download it and
listen to it on their computer or put it onto their mp3 player etc.

NB: both will be extremely cheap

Now I'm looking for the best solution to stop people from simply sharing
these podcasts/audio with their friends or uploading/sharing it online.

DRM:

1) Does it actually stop piracy?
2) If not, give me an idea of what they can do to get around it?

...I've read somewhere that all is required is that the file be burned to a
CD and the DRM is removed... is this true? What about P2P stuff?

3) Can files using DRM be easily used with all mp3 players? e.g. such as the
iPod?
4) Does DRM cost anything to use? (from the distributers view)
5) Any other methods you can think of to help me protect my files from piracy?
6) I've been thinking perhaps about embedding some identifying information
into the podcast in real-time (perhaps using ID3 tagging) and simply using
this as a way of deterring piracy as I can track who bought a particular file.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

cheers
nathan

Umm, sorry, but considering the fact that most podcasts are free, I dont think youlll get a lot of money. Also, probably illegal to sale without paying the industry. Also, if youre actually going to attempt to sale podcasts to people, and you dont want piracy, make something to where they can only have a description and a 30 second sample, and they have to pay to get to the actual podcast. And, sorry, but they will be able to share it anyways, because useful tools like Tunebite and Muvaudio(THANK GOD FOR TUNEBITE!) are good for bypassing DRM. So, youd be screwed as far as that goes, because not even the RIAA seems to be able to stop Tunebite, because its technically legal. It uses loopholes in the legal system. Sorry, but I personally dont think youll manage to sell podcasts, and I dont think youll be able to stop people from spreading the same podcasts around for free .

Saddly, for distributers, there are programs that remove ANY DRM. Tunebite records the songs, while playing them. And yes, if you burn to a CD, the DRM is removed when ripped to a computer. My sugestion: make the DRM so it can't be burned to a CD. That will help, but there's still Tunebite. Tunebite is expensive though, just for some podcasts. It is easy putting DRM music on an MP3 or iPod. They will play just how they do if you download from iTunes. iTunes uses DRM. So far, I have not found any free easy source of DRM, I actually posted recently. You have to pay per licence (download).