Sony's Idea of DRM-Free Music

edmicman writes "Leave it to Sony to mess up DRM-free music downloads. What is the point of DRM-free tracks if you still have to go to a retail store to buy them? From the Infoworld article: 'The tracks will be offered in MP3 format, without DRM, from Jan. 15 in the U.S. and from late January in Canada... The move is far from the all-digital service offered by its rivals, though. To obtain the Sony-BMG tracks, would-be listeners will first have to go to a retail store to buy a Platinum MusicPass, a card containing a secret code, for a suggested retail price of $12.99. Once they have scratched off the card's covering to expose the code, they will be able to download one of just 37 albums available through the service, including Britney Spears' "Blackout" and Barry Manilow's "The Greatest Songs of the Seventies."'"

Re:thepiratebay

[ThirdPrize]

Yeah, but is it any good? Browse music and sort by #seeds (only guarantee of being able to download something) and what do you get?

Amy_Winehouse-Back_To_Black_(Deluxe_Edition)-2CD-2007-UKP
Alicia Keys - As I Am [2007][CD+SkidVid_XviD+Cov]192Kbps
Top 40 singles Uk 06.01.2008 DHZ.Inc Release
Ministry Of Sound The Annual 2008
Kanye West - Graduation (2007) 224kbs
Timbaland-Present_Shock_Value_(Deluxe_Edition)-2CD-2007-SMO
Juno Soundtrack
Alicia Keys - As I Am (2007) Soul And R&B [BYANOUS]
Lupe Fiasco-The Cool (2007) Rap & Hip-Hop [BYANOUS]
The_Killers-Sawdust-2007-404
Daft Punk - Alive 2007 + Encore [Splitted into tracks]
Britney Spears - Blackout [2007][CD+SkidVid_XviD+Cov]192Kbps
Billboard 2007 Year End Top 100 Charts (Pop 100 and Hot 100)
Rihanna - Good Girl Gone Bad [2007][CD+SkidVid+Cov]192Kbps
Linkin Park - Minutes To Midnight [2007][CD+SkidVid+Cov]192Kbps
Robert Plant & Alison Krauss - Raising Sand (256Kbps)
Foo Fighters-Echoes Silence Patience & Grace[FullCD+Video][320kb
Top 1000 Pop Hits of the 80s (4.32gb)
Leona Lewis - Spirit [2007][CD+SkidVid_XviD+Cov]192Kbps
Radiohead - In Rainbows
Top 40 singles hit 40 Uk best of 2007 DHZ.Inc Release
The Rolling Stone Magazines 500 Greatest Songs Of All Time
Michael Buble - Call Me Irresponsible [2007]
Birdman - 5 * Stunna
Wyclef_Jean-Carnival_Vol_II_Memoirs_Of_An_Immigrant-2007-404
Tiesto-Club_Life_037-Cable-12-14-2007 -Legal-Ups
Bob Marley Discography
Gorillaz-D-Sides-2CD-2007-OURLEADERiSSiTEOP_ORLY
OneRepublic-Dreaming Out Loud[FullCD+Video][320kbps]-FiNsTeRc
Now That's What I Call Music 68

I would have to call that a fairly random selection of commercial rubbish. for more alternative music it's still easier to get it from a shop or on-line. And yes, I did once leave my PC on for a wek trying to download one album.

The whole list

[De Lemming]

These are the 37 titles (from http://gift.musicpass.com/ [musicpass.com]):

The initial slate of Platinum MusicPass titles is as follows:

Platinum MusicPass Albums with Bonus Material (slrp $12.99):

Alejandro Fernandez, Viento A Favor
Alicia Keys, As I Am
Avril Lavigne, The Best Damn Thing
Backstreet Boys, UnBreakable
Barry Manilow, The Greatest Songs of the Seventies
Bob Dylan, Dylan
Boys Like Girls, Boys Like Girls
Brad Paisley, 5th Gear
Britney Spears, Blackout
Brooks & Dunn, Cowboy Town
Bruce Springsteen, Magic
Calle 13, Residente o Visitante
Camila, Todo Cambio
Carrie Underwood, Carnival Ride
Casting Crowns, The Altar and The Door
Celine Dion, Taking Chances
Chris Brown, Exclusive
Daughtry, Daughtry
Elvis Presley, Elvis 30 #1 Hits
Jennifer Lopez, Brave
John Mayer, Continuum
Kenny Chesney, Just Who I Am: Poets & Pirates
Martina McBride, Waking Up Laughing
P!nk, I'm Not Dead
Santana, Ultimate Santana
Sara Bareilles, Little Voice
Sean Kingston, Sean Kingston
The Fray, How To Save A Life
Three Days Grace, One-X
Tony Bennett, Duets

Platinum MusicPass Compilations (slrp $12.99)

Various, 70's POP HITS
Various, ROCK OF THE 70's
Various, SENSATIONAL 60's
Various, COUNTRY GOLD: THE 90's
Various, 80's POP HITS
Various, CLASSIC ROCK
Various, Everlasting Love

Expanded MusicPass Titles (slrp $19.99 versions which include the complete album, bonus material, plus choice of one additional album from that same artist's rich catalog of recordings.)

Kenny Chesney, Just Who I Am: Poets & Pirates
Celine Dion, Taking Chances

Re:thepiratebay

[timster]

The "police" don't do so much to prosecute piracy in the US either, at least where it comes to individual music downloads. The enforcement activity is being driven by the industry in the form of civil lawsuits.

Re:What is a 7/12" ??

[jackpot777]

IIRC, there were three sizes of vinyl. The seven inch, played at 45 rpm, was the single. A 10" disc was called an EP, and held two songs per side (EP stood for extended play). And then there was the 12" platter.

Twelve inch discs used to be just albums, played at 33 1/3 rpm. But the rise of dance remixes meant releases were put on 12" discs to be played at 45.

Or, if you were John Peel, just play everything at 78 rpm [google.com] and say "I think I played that at the wrong speed..."

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:thepiratebay

[FunWithKnives]

It depends. Are these magical, self-cloning car stereos and GPS devices? No? Then your argument holds no water. It is not even a question of apples to oranges. At least those are both fruit. Copying and stealing are completely different. As much as I do not want to explain this yet again, I will. When you steal my car stereo, you have deprived me of it. I must then purchase, at my own cost, a new one. When you copy my entire music library, there is no deprivation involved. I still have my music library, and you now have an identical reproduction of it.

Once you realize the differences here, the situation becomes a purely moral one. Is it ethical to share what you have with others, if doing so deprives you of nothing? What about the corporate music industry? Is it ethical to deny these major labels a profit on something which can be so easily reproduced with such a miniscule amount of labor?

Musicians, on the other hand, are different. They are the ones who create the art. Even so, however, that does not mean that the creation of this art fits the established definition of "labor." Any musician who plays or sings for the love of it, which is as it should be, does not view what they do as labor. Creating music is not the same as an eight hour day in the cube farm. It is not a chore. It is something done out of love and often necessity. You could compare it in some ways to why Open Source and Free Software developers do what they do. It is like an addiction.

Still, artists should be compensated accordingly for their live performances, and donations in exchange for copies of their recordings would also be nice, though not necessary. The issue is that musicians are regular people as well. They should not be treated as some sort of royalty and end up millionaires. They should be able to bring in enough from their music to support themselves, of course, but twenty cars, four mansions and a private jet is absolutely ludicrous. Also, what most major artists make is a drop in the bucket when compared to what the music executives take. Food for thought, that.

To wrap it all into a neat little bundle: Cheap recording equipment, along with peer to peer and other technologies made possible by the ubiquity of the Internet, should be utilized to cut out middle-men completely. The antiquated music industry should be completely destroyed and replaced with a system that allows free copying and trading of music. Artists would become popular by, what a novel idea, the people deciding whether or not to listen to them. They would support themselves via live performances, merchandise if applicable, and donations from fans.

Buisinessmen should not have control over an art-form.

Re:thepiratebay

[FunWithKnives]

... Tell a working musician ...

Being that I am a working musician, I know exactly how much I put into every song that my band creates. It is a different type of "labor," however. It is a labor of love. If we (I am assuming from your signature that you are also a musician) ceased to receive any form of monetary compensation for the work that we do, would you still do it? If your answer to that question is in the negative, then you are not playing music for the right reasons, and I suggest you quit.

I do not play music for monetary gain. It is an outlet. Other people identify with our art, and that makes me happy. If they would like to pay the five bucks to see us live and purchase a shirt or something, then that is even better. I am intelligent enough to realize, however, that I need a day job. The fact that I am a musician does not entitle me to anything. It simply means that I have chosen music as an avenue for my creativity. I do not invest my time and talent into what I create in order to make money, and in my view no musician should, because that is not what it is about. I suppose you feel differently, and I respect that, but it does not change my stance on the matter.

Rewriting history...

[argent]

Smaller labels sold unprotected MP3 files through sites like eMusic.com, gambling that the increased sales and notoriety that would come with easier access to their music would outweigh sales lost through unauthorized copying.

That argument eventually won favor with Apple [...]

You mean "that argument eventually won favor with EMI". Apple was MAKING that argument to the music industry before they even opened the iTunes Music store, according to the Rolling STone interview with Steve Jobs just a few months after the iTunes Music Store opened:

Because of their technological innocence, I would say. When we first went to talk to these record companies -- you know, it was a while ago. It took us 18 months. And at first we said: None of this technology that you're talking about's gonna work. We have Ph.D.'s here, that know the stuff cold, and we don't believe it's possible to protect digital content. -- Steve Jobs, 2003.

More recently, after EMI finally made the break:

We've always known Steve's view on the subject, long before his open letter. [...] We remain optimistic that in due course digital growth will outstrip physical decline. It hasn't happened yet but clearly we think this is a big step in helping to promote digital sales. Don't ask me to predict exactly when it will happen because I can't. It's important to say that digital is still very much in its infancy. Despite the sensational job that iTunes has done over the last four years, this is an industry in its infancy. The opportunity is massive. -- EMI chief exec Eric Nicolai.

I don't see any link that has really been broken because people have always been able to take music that they've gotten from elsewhere, such as ripping their CD collection, and put it on iTunes or any other music player. People have always been able to buy music on iTunes, burn it to a CD, burn it and rip it, and put it on any player they wanted to. -- Steve Jobs