RSSThe era of DRM fades further with Sony BMG's switch
By Ed Oswald | Published January 4, 2008, 12:10 PM
The lone holdout of the big four music labels caved to pressure from the rest of the industry and will begin to sell tracks free of the restrictive technology.
EMI and Universal Music Group had announced their plans to drop DRM earlier in 2007, and Warner Music Group announced its plans in December. With Sony BMG's announcement, a majority of the top acts in music today will now be available in MP3 format.
The first tracks are likely to appear in the first quarter of this year, sources told The New York Times. With all four major labels now supporting DRM-free playback, it is likely only a matter of time before any smaller holdouts follow suit.
It also makes good business sense. Selling tracks without DRM means that iPod users can break free of iTunes and download songs from anywhere to play on their devices. Fairplay, Apple's proprietary DRM, kept those users locked into Apple's own service.
The first service to benefit from Sony BMG's new business model will be Amazon's MP3 music store, which is expected to feature Sony artists such as Justin Timberlake when it launches a promotion with Pepsi during this year's Super Bowl to give away 1 billion free songs.
Further plans are not yet known, as the Japanese electronics maker has declined to comment on the MP3 deal.
In any case, Amazon stands to benefit the most, and could end up becoming the first true competitor to iTunes, even for iPod users. With MP3 tracks from all four major labels, the service could market itself broadly as the first service to offer major acts for any player.
DRM may not be completely dead however, argues JupiterResearch analyst Mark Mulligan. "With DRM poised to disappear from premium download stores it can play a strong differentiation role for ad-supported and subsidized services," he said.
He continued to say that the next step would be DRM-free subscription services, which could effectively be considered licensed P2P. Some supporters of peer-to-peer technology have already been arguing for that point for a considerable amount of time.
Oh didn't you hear? They're calling it TPM now.
http://en.wikipedia.org/...Trusted_Platform_Module
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|a sign of the times. Finally they realize that DRM just ain't gonna work in the consumer market of digital distribution of music. My only question now is what kind of quality are we going to expect: Crappy 128kbps MP3s, HQ VBR or 256/320kbps tracks?
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|ideally: 320 CBR
realistically: 192 VBR
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|Finally, the giant DRM is slayed...
Now to take Apple's lock on the MP3 Player market
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|Microsoft Zune.
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|It doesn't surprise me that Sony was the Last holdout... I'm sure they are thinking of some type of root kit to make up for it meanwhile...
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|I wonder if you've purchased anything in DRM format if you will now be able to get it DRM free and FOR FREE - rather than having to pay for it yet again.
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|Yay! Hopefully it's rootkit-free as well!
2008, and Sony finally figures it out. That's about 9 years of revenue they've given up. Nice going...
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|Well, I am tempted just to buy a track in mp3 format just to show how much I hate the DRM system.
As yokozuna said, it is a shame we've had to wait this long.
Whats really happened with DRM is that people who wanted this freedom have found 'alternate' ways to get their music. They've gone looking on p2p networks, torrents etc and while its said that a majority of them wouldn't have paid for music if there was DRM free music services in the first place, there was a lot that would have.
Now that they'd found and become a custom to their pirate ways, there is little the fatcats can do to change wouldbe-customer's mind, especially considering how they've been treated in the past (free rootkits, DRM, lawsuites etc).
No dout they'll compain lack of sales, and its the pirates fault.. yeah but whos fault is that at the end of the day..
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|Good, but pity that:
1. consumers had to wait for so long for this step
2. and they had to pay for this DRM crap supported by the bloodsuckers from the labels
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|Why can't these guys do DRM free songs with all the music services? I equate this to a company letting Walmart sell a CD but only letting Target sell Cassette Tapes. Don't these guys want to sell as many tracks as they possibly can?
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|Because these are big companies, and big companies tend to be:
1. Stupid
2. Sloooooooow
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