Music Companies Mull Ditching DRM

PoliTech writes to mention an International Herald Tribue article that is reporting the unthinkable: Record companies are considering ditching DRM for their mp3 albums. For the first time, flagging sales of online music tracks are beginning to make the big recording companies consider the wisdom of selling music without 'rights management' technologies attached. The article notes that this is a step the recording industry vowed 'never to take'. From the article: "Most independent record labels already sell tracks digitally compressed in MP3 format, which can be downloaded, e-mailed or copied to computers, cellphones, portable music players and compact discs without limit. Partially, the independents see providing songs in MP3 as a way of generating publicity that could lead to future sales. Should one of the big four take that route, however, it would be a capitulation to the power of the Internet, which has destroyed their monopoly over the worldwide distribution of music in the past decade and allowed file-sharing to take its place."

Undermining Apple?

From TFA:

[DRM-free music] could change the equation for Apple, which has dominated the sales of both Internet music and digital music players.

Makes me wonder if they're not motivated to undermine Apple, who fought tooth and nail to maintain $0.99/download against the industry's will.

The record industry views the Occident, paradoxically, with more suspicion than the Orient, though we're their biggest customers; it wouldn't surprise me, therefore, if they began to roll this out first in the East:

EMI Group last week said it would offer free streaming music on Baidu.com, the leading Web site and search engine in China, where 90 percent of music is pirated.

Can someone say, “chutzpah?”

Re:Undermining Apple?

The industry wanted higher prices however. If they came in selling mp3s at double the price on apple, it would be very interesting to see which way customers went...

On the other hand apple might decide to ditch DRM at that point also - I don't think its ever been completely decided if DRM helps ipod sales and loyalty or not (I dont have a single ITMS store track on my ipod and its full) - its certainly possible that apple would use mp3 instead if they had the option - first and foremost DRM was used to appease the record companies and persuade them to let their music be downloaded legally.

Re:Undermining Apple?

I doubt Apple would ever switch to MP3s. They've got too much invested in their format to abandon it now. However, I think that if the music industry would let them they'd be more than happy to sell unprotected AAC files. They've gotten as far as they have because of the iPod itself, not the DRM locking users into the system. If you ask iPod users without any iTunes Music Store purchases if they'd switch players when it's time to upgrade, I doubt more than a small percentage plan to follow their iPod up with anything else.

Re:Undermining Apple?

It'd be interesting if the rest of the industry started selling DRM-free music, yet Apple was forced to continue selling their DRM'd music (it's likely in their contract, after all). I'm sure they'd love to stick it to Jobs, especially after he screwed them out of their variable pricing scheme. I think all that would do is hurt the iTunes Store, though, and not iPod sales.

Re:Undermining Apple?

Apple has been given permission by indie labels to sell their music without DRM, music said labels sell without DRM in places like eMusic.com. Apple refuses to sell unprotected AAC files, even at the request of copyright holders.

Re:Undermining Apple?

God, it never ceases to amaze me the extremes that people are willing to explain away to justify the companies that they like. And then they never miss an opportunity to read evil into the actions of a company that they dislike.

News: Apple doesn't sell music without DRM. Response: Oh, the labels won't let them.
News: Some labels gave Apple the opportunity to sell music without DRM, but Apple refuses. Response: Oh, what if there was a mistake? The legality! Apple is safer this way.

Give me a break.

And just as bad is the post above about how Apple only uses a proprietary DRM to combat Microsoft's EVIIIL proprietary DRM.

Re:Undermining Apple?

I doubt Apple would ever switch to MP3s. They've got too much invested in their format to abandon it now.

On a side note, it's not "their format". AAC [wikipedia.org] was made by many of the same groups that put together MP3, and it's just as standard as MP3, but actually less patent-encumbered than MP3 (though still not patent-free), and with generally superior quality at the same bitrate. Apple's DRM is proprietary, but the AAC format is not.

And no, they won't switch. There's no compelling reason for Apple to move to MP3, and technically Apple would have to pay patent-holders to distribute MP3s. According to the wikipedia article, AAC doesn't require licensing fees to be paid to patent-holders for content distribution.

Re:Anything but MP3 ...

AAC or OGG please, but not MP3 - you need twice the bitrate for comparable quality :(

Can we please just put this myth to bed once and for all? I mean Christ, this test was posted right here on this site, years ago: http://www.listening-tests.info/mf-128-1/results.h tm [listening-tests.info]

Scroll to the bottom - the difference in quality is negligible at the same bit rate. It always has been (well, ever since LAME popped up). And given the tradeoff in convenience and industry support, I'd take mp3 any day of the week.

Re:Undermining Apple?

GizmoToy [slashdot.org] wrote:

I doubt Apple would ever switch to MP3s. They've got too much invested in their format to abandon it now.

When, in the last decade, has Apple shown any reluctance to abandon proprietary technologies, in which they had a large investment, rather than adopt industry standards? Hm, lets see:

• I doubt Apple would ever switch to PCI. They've got too much invested in Nubus to abandon it now.
  
• I doubt Apple would ever switch to IDE. They've got too much invested in SCSI to abandon it now.
  
• I doubt Apple would ever switch to USB. They've got too much invested in ADB to abandon it now.
  
• I doubt Apple would ever switch to USB2. They've got too much invested in Firewire to abandon it now.
  
• I doubt Apple would ever switch to Intel CPUs. They've got too much invested in PowerPC to abandon it now.
  
• I doubt Apple would ever switch to PDF. They've got too much invested in QuickDraw to abandon it now.
  
• I doubt Apple would ever switch to VGA/DVI. They've got too much invested in their proprietary video connector to abandon it now.
  
• I doubt Apple would ever switch to a multi-button mouse. They've got too much invested in the single button mouse to abandon it now.
  

Apple just hasn't shown, in the last 10 years, any reluctance to abandon existing, home-grown, technologies when the market has provided an adequate alternative.

Besides, the iPod and iTunes already support MP3s, all Apple would need to do is switch the format that iTunes uses to distibute purchased music.

Re:Undermining Apple?

Digital music sales are flagging? Looks to me like they're still growing.

What the linked article doesn't tell you is that they're counting all music sales - not just online store sales. Overall, music sales are still falling, and the increase in digital music sales isn't offsetting the collapse of CD sales. Record companies are looking for anyhting that will open the field up and get people to start spending money on any delivery format for music.

Of course, don't tell the astroturfers who write articles like this. You might bring them a little too close to reality.

Digital Music Sales Doubled in 2006 [msn.com]

Digital Music sales to more than double in the next five years [forbes.com]

Re:Undermining Apple?

Man, I'm all for this idea in theory, but do you realize that the Beatles didn't tour from 1966 - 1970? Concerts for generating 100% of the revenue might work for some bands, but if that model had been in place 40 years ago, we'd have no Sgt. Pepper's, White Album, Magical Mystery Tour, Abbey Road. Pretty much all of their best stuff.

Re:Undermining Apple?

I suspect they expected the PlayForSure side to prevail. PlayForSure meant an atomized online music market. It meant no single company dominated it. It meant labels still controlled access to the market.

But Apple prevailed. FairPlay prevents current iTMS customers from switching to another online music store. It ensures current iTMS customers remain future iTMS customers. FairPlay is the cornerstone of Apple's total domination on the (legal) online music market. It means Apple controls the access to the market, and no longer the music labels.

Every time a customer downloads a song that is infested with DRM at the request of the RIAA, record labels are putting an additional nail into their own coffin. If they want to break free from Apple's de facto monopoly, they have to drop the DRM requirement. Looks like they finally got it.

Re:Undermining Apple?

Eh, China's "average income" is a tricky thing to measure though. The vast throng of peasant farmers don't download digital music anyway because they don't have a computer. The moderized city dwellers however have the disposable income to spend on CDs/online music if they wanted to, but don't because pirated stuff is available everywhere and the legitimate stuff can be difficult to find. By offering people a way to buy stuff legitimately the labels aren't planning to wipe out piracy, but rather to actually make some money in a market where they've previously done almost nothing. You might say "but why would I buy something I can pirate for free?", but I'd point you to the iTunes Music Store and how much money it has made despite being in a very similar situation.

Achilles' Heel

From the article:

Most of the push for music unencumbered by digital rights management, or DRM, systems over the past six months has come from technology, electronics and Internet companies. In part, it is because these companies have been largely unsuccessful in their efforts to produce digital locks that are simple and flexible for the consumer, foolproof to the hacker and workable on numerous makes and models of players.

Which is why DRM is quite useless. Come on -- if worse came to worse, people would play the music on the stereos and record it using digital recorders then run it through their favorite piece of audio manipulating software and have just about the same quality recording. The music industry cannot hope to stop the myriad of innovative ways of copying music and they are fooling themselves if they think they can make DRM "unbreakable." If this report is true, perhaps some in the industry are finally coming to their senses.

Re:Achilles' Heel

If this report is true, perhaps some in the industry are finally coming to their senses.

I doubt that. It'll probably end up being them claiming it was their great idea all along and it's "best for the artists" and blah blah blah. They would never admit that DRM is a failure.

ohh, this isn't a good thing...

next thing you know, they'll be using OSS editing tools
then servers...
After that?
It'll be pandemonium, they'll be joyfully frolicking in the free and open streets... Arms flailing, chainsaws revved...

Wow! This is going to make some great reading...

...right after I get back from my ski trip to hell :-)

About time

From where I stand (or sit) DRM wasn't much of an issue, as it was released it was promptly circumvented. I am old enough to recall buying vinyl and when CD technology was introduced the complaint then was the cost of CD's.
The music companies said the cost would come down with acceptance of the tech but it never really did come down.
God bless the Internet.

What's this vinyl you speak of

Vinyl? They make siding out of that right?

Re:About time

*shuffles his feet* :/

about time

about time! I hope they finally change there ways.think the problem will be that they will charge more for the non DRM songs and have to levels or something in that case I'll probably keep buying CD's until they figure it out. If they ever figure it out!!

Oh, the irony

Microsoft cripples Vista with DRM and the potential users of DRM don't want it?

Oh, the irony.

Re:Oh, the irony

\puts on tinfoil hat

Perhaps M$ want DRM to tie down the PC hardware market to The One OS. The whole: "its the content providers that made me do it", is just the PR department.

So it goes like this. In the future to buy something online your bank needs you to have a certified trusted computing OS. To get certified reqiures 50,000 US dollars, so there is no free certified version of linux that would work. Then the hardware won't even run a non certified OS because of the "dangers" of uncertified drivers and code running on the hardware. It will be call Genuine Lockin.

\takes of tinfoil hat

Change only comes through

PAIN, and now the Music Biz is feeling pain, so they have to adapt. What else can they do? Their monopoly is over, but they should understand that most 'ordinary folks' will prefer to download music from a legal site, and those same folks dont understand DRM, they just want it to work. .....Its amazing that Apple hasnt taken over the world with that notion of 'it just works'.

Obligatory Fark Reference

"It's a trap!"

-Admiral Akbar

(What? That quote didn't originate on Fark? Oh, frak.)

Good, but I don't forget that easily

It is very good that they are considering to ditching DRM.
But its not by their own will they are considering that, its because they have to.

Now, DRM-less music is fair. I will never ever buy DRM-crippled music.
I wonder what prices they will take, low, reasonable or overpriced?

Either way, just because its fair with the non-DRM music, does not mean I will just forget what they did and happily and gladly buy their music now even if its not DRM-crippled.

All their lobbying, scare tactics, intimidation, and evilness. I won't forget that. I don't forget that easily.

Goodbye itunes

I surely regret commiting to Apple'S DRM and look forward to DRM-free, legal music purchases.

I really liked the itunes music management, ease of ripping my 300+ CDs, and ease of purchasing new music. But, now I realize I've built my own cage. :-(

Vendor lock-in is bad for the record companies

Current DRM is mostly useful for locking the consumers into one single vendor for their mp3 players. It might give the record companies some benefit in the long run, as customers would have to buy their music a second time if they buy a new mp3 player, but it certainly eats into their profits right now.

If they do it, great!

But it also has to be reasonably priced. The iTunes price of $10, £8 or 10 per album isn't actually much cheaper than what you can get on the high street and you can buy a full CD for similar prices on Amazon.

That is not reasonably priced. People expect lower prices when they receive less and when it costs less to distribute.

I might very rarely buy an album at £8, but at £4 I would probably buy every album I like.

Apple would just sell DRM-free music

Those who think that this would somehow immediately undermine Apple's dominance with the iPod are misguided as to why the iPod is successful imho.

The tinfoil headgear sporting subset of /.ers might like to see Apple's DRM solely as a lock-in scheme, and while no doubt Apple finds any lock-in a reassuring safety net in case they do someday drop the ball on iPod design, for the moment (and for the foreseeable future with the iPhone) Apple doesn't *need* lock-in. The iPod isn't selling because people have huge collections of .m4ps they need to keep compatibility with, it's selling because it's slickly good at what it does and it's a brand a lot of people are pleasantly familiar with.

The simple reality is that if the Music companies start allowing DRM-less downloads, then Apple will probably make even *more* money selling iPods than they are now, as more people start to buy unencrypted music via their computers to put on said iPods. In the long term their share of music sales may be hurt, but as the world's 4th largest seller of music, they already have plenty of momentum and market power; combined with their slick store and integration in iTunes, I would think they can do just fine in a less partitioned market, and retain a good deal of influence with the music industry selling unencrypted music.

There are alternatives

Perhaps, they are realizing that DRM is causing them to lose not only revenue (in terms of people buying less) but market share (people buying elsewhere). I used to buy music that I heard on the radio like everyone else. Since the Sony rootkit mess I get my music from eMusic [emusic.com]. I've found a lot of great bands/labels. Now, no matter what the major labels do, I'll never go back to them 100%. Another less techie friend of mine just recently got fed up with iTunes DRM and ask me to help find something else... guess where I'm pointing.

Stupid comment of the day

Stupid comment of the day, courtesy of the article: In addition, Bainwol said, the ability of consumers to use legally purchased tunes on different devices is not crippled by DRM systems per se. "We're for interoperability," he said, "and there's nothing intrinsic to DRM that prevents interoperability."

It was inevitable really,

At some point they'd figure it out. My expectations for this are still very low, since it's been demonstrated that these record execs are a bunch of conniving bastards, and they'll probably find a way to make this crap.

Still, money talks, and a decrease in sales is just what the doctor ordered, with a healthy injection of brains, in that business.

This has been coming for some time

Last week I had a chat with the former managing director of one of the big four labels in my country (and in a few others as well). His personal opinion is that DRM has to go. When asked directly, he stated that in the music industry boardrooms, about 50% of the people are by now convinced that it has to go, whereas 50% have not yet reached that point. One of the things that's holding them back, is that the movie and especially the games industries are putting pressure on the music one not to drop DRM because they fear the domino effect.

Looks like I was wrong.

In a previous post on a different article, I commented that the music industry was stupid not to look at the success of allofmp3.com and learn from it. While allofmp3 was bad for the RIAA in that the revenue stream broke down between the user and the RIAA (it ended at allofmp3), its success proved that users ARE willing to pay for their content if provided conveniently at a reasonable price in a usable format.

In short, they need to make themselves cost competitive with P2P. How do you make yourself cost competitive with something that is free?

The same way people compete with (and/or make money from) freely available open-source software. Don't market the product itself, market convenience associated with that product. For open-source software, that convenience is packaging and tech support/customization contracts. For music, that convenience is selection and a guarantee of quality. allofmp3 succeeded for three reasons:
Very low prices (Probably too low for the RIAA's tastes, but even twice the price of allofmp3 would have appealed to many. RIAA could make up for the low per-track revenue via significantly higher volume. e.g. back in the days of pyMusique, I bought quite a few single $1 tracks, but no complete albums. With allofmp3, I frequently would purchase an entire album for $3-$4 even though I was only looking for one track from that album initially.)
Convenience - allofmp3 had a great selection that made it far easier to find music than on any P2P network. Only the RIAA has the capability to actually beat that selection. Also, people would be more willing to give credit card info to a "trusted" source rather than a clearly shady Russian company with apparent mob ties.
Last, but clearly not least - no DRM. DRM goes way beyond nullifying the above "convenience aspect", and in fact makes P2P the more convenient option, free or not.

Re:Looks like I was wrong.

"In short, they need to make themselves cost competitive with P2P. How do you make yourself cost competitive with something that is free?"

That's the rub; the entire industry is built upon monopoly control, it is _not_ cost competetive. Allofmp3, eMusic, last.fm, etc have proven there are a multitude of models around convenience that work fine for music distribution (even for uncopyrighted classical music), but _only_ if you have a cost structure that supports the model.

That means no more media blitzes. No huge launches. No payola. No hundreds of thousands of free cd's sent to dj's and radio stations. No half a million dollar videos for MTV. No coke parties.

But without those things, they cant control the market anymore, they wont be able to shove their particular artists down the listeners throats and push the independents to the side. They need the huge per-artist revenue and expenditures to minimize the variability and risk in the market, and that entails a high level of control and a high unit price to recoup the expenses.

Wrong problem, wrong solution

The music companies seem to think that by making online music without DRM, they will help their sagging sales. I don't think that what plagues the industry. Like all industries, the music industry wants growth every year. But they compare sales today to what it was in the boom days. Back then, sales were booming because the CD was replacing tape and vinyl as the preferred medium. The industry didn't seem to see that some sales were people replacing their collection as opposed to buying new music. There are other reasons too (some which were self-inflicted), and it was covered in a Frontline episode called The Way the Music Died [pbs.org] that chronicles the music industry today.

Mulled Whine

Can you imagine what "mulling" is like at the executive level of these big music publishers?

A roomful of people unfit to work in any industry not underwritten by a century-old monopoly. Whose added value lies in conning artists into working for a tiny fraction of the value they create, or their weight in drugs, whichever is less. Or in conning consumers to pay over and again for either some good products produced as "pop" generations ago, or some awful products produced more recently that they sell to children as soundtracks to free music videos and the lives of talentless celebrity models.

These people don't "mull". All they can do is whine and fail when their crooked old tricks don't work so good any more. Years of lying about DRM and piracy hasn't reversed the drop in their profits, as the least-dumb people have all fled their business. Their decisions are made mainly by listening to tech vendors tricking them into broken tech protection of a broken business model, instead of changing the model. If they do drop DRM before they go permanently broke, it'll be because they can't afford it themselves, or just because they screw up their stupid strategy by making irrecoverable mistakes implementing it.

Information might not want to be free, but nature abhors a vacuum. The empty space at the top of the music content pyramid is sucking control of all that content inevitably out to unimpeded access by any consumer who wants it.

Goodbye DRM

It is about time, maybe DRM will die off. Then maybe I won't feel so guilty for stripping it from my downloads from itunes and napster ;-)

Internet hurting their bottomline...

I don't know about the average person, but before I got a computer, I would borrow a friends cd, press play, pipe it into the casette deck and press record, and probably collected 100's of cassette tapes for my walkman like this. They can't claim the Internet is what started all this, it just made it more public to them (they can crawl the file sharing sites, but they weren't spying on the friend at my house bringing his cd collection over).

Sam

In other news ....

Pigs warmed up and ready to fly, Temperature in Hell drops to 75F, and "W" announces we are pulling out of Iraq.

Sounds like the RIAA's IQ has risen by a few notches. Now I wish they'd also offer the choice of ogg in addition to MP3. You know, they could still 'finger print' the music files with tags to identify who the original customer was that paid for the download. That way, they could still sue anybody who shared their purchased music. The finger printing would NOT prevent inter-operation of the files.

Flagging Sales?

For the first time, flagging sales of online music tracks are beginning to make the big recording companies consider the wisdom of selling music without 'rights management' technologies attached.

But I thought we needed harder DRM because the flagging sales were caused by those Evil Content Pirates(tm)!!!!!

I'm so confused, I don't know what to believe anymore!!!

I'd still rather...

I'd still rather head over to my favorite private torrent tracker - reproduction and distribution rights be damned, never cared, never will -, download to my heart's content, then buy the albums I really enjoy in physical, tangible media. I have absolutely no interest in paid music downloads, DRM or not (props to eMusic, though). I still want the actual CD with a nice booklet and the possibility of making backups whenever I feel like it, whether for archival or space-shifting purposes. That's what I've been doing ever since Napster, and that's what I'm going to keep doing until file sharing disappears.

I've never bought DRM tunes

And I used to buy a lot of CD's. I buy fewer now, because I'm older and pickier, and I've looked at iTunes and other stores, but I just didn't want to have to go through the buy, burn, rip cycle to remove the DRM. If the label actually allow drm'less mp3's, and make it as easy to buy as an iTune purchase, I'll buy a lot more music a song at a time on impulse.

How controversial can it really be?

The record companies have made most of their revenue selling unprotected CDs (and unprotected tapes and unprotected vinyl discs). Selling non-DRM music is a known good, safe, conservative, proven business model to which the record companies owe just about every penny they have. Without this business model, they simply wouldn't exist today.

DRM was a radical, speculative tell-the-customers-fuck-you-we-don't-want-your-mon ey-go-away model that has a track record of failing. Look at the software industry of the 1980s when copy protection was widely used. It didn't make a dent in piracy (because no one ever invented copy protection that actually works), but the interoperability problems sure as hell pissed people off (e.g. "whaddya mean this won't run on my new AT?!?", "whaddya mean my defrag utility trashed the 'secret' sector that wasn't allocated to a file?!?") and increased support costs.

Nobody knows if the record companies will actually decide to continue to remain in the having-customers business, but one thing is for sure: it's the obvious no-brainer thing to do, if protecting/increasing shareholder value is anywhere on their list of priorities. There's nothing controversial about wanting to maximize profits. Telling customers, "sorry, our new product isn't compatible with your equipment, costs more, and doesn't work as well as what you're used to, because we really just don't like you, so please buy someone else's music instead" on the other hand, is pretty out-there.

It's the Economics, Stupid

The Economics of a matter drive behaviour. DRM is not economically viable. The RIAA is greedy, but they aren't stupid. Follow me:

*It costs money to produce new DRM schemes.
*DRM is easily and routinely cracked or bypassed by pirates.
*The people who want to pirate will pirate, the people who willingly buy music will continue to do so.

Abandoning, or at least containing DRM is just a matter of time and is really just an acceptance of reality. It's pointless and costly. Even if they don't totally abandon DRM, I can see them giving up on building the perfect scheme and just sticking with the easily bypassed and/or cracked schemes they have now. If someone claims that it somehow cost-effective to try and stay a step ahead of the pirates' ability to crack DRM, I'd say that person is deluding himself. And once it becomes too costly to keep up the arms race, they will stop. I'd say we're close to that point.

Undercuts Apple and Microsoft

This could work out for the music industry, partly because it cuts out the take that Apple and Microsoft get now. If music files are plain MP3 files, anyone can make an player, and players will cost $29.95. No more iTunes store. No more lock-in. No more 50% profit margin for Apple.

This is the RIAA's revenge against Apple. In a year, the iPod could be irrelevant.

Removing DRM: Necessary? Sufficient?

It will be interesting to see. Personally, DRM IS the #1 reason I don't buy more music. I can't be bothered fooling around with p2p networks. Busy, bad quality, lawsuits, spyware, etc. Unacceptable. On the other hand, I don't want to buy from places like iTunes - though I occasionally do - because I'm already irked about CDs I can't locate or that suffered damage when moving that I can't rip. I'm not interested in a bunch of music I won't be able to play when Apple goes bankrupt or only produces mp3 players I hate. (long live the iPod)

But am I normal? I don't think so. Some of my other technical co-workers have argued that iTunes and the iPod have won massive acceptance via ease of use, and that's all most people think about. I'm not completely in concurrence: I think people know that "mp3" means fully cross-platform compatible. No matter what you're using for software or hardware, the mp3s will play. People confused about what will work - iTunes, iPod, Zune, playsforsure, Rhapsody, ogg, m4p, m4a, aac - could easily get dizzy from the myriad technologies in play, and simply not want to buy. They get iPods, rip their CDs, and that's that.

I don't think that DRM-free music will kill filesharing. But I am quite certain it will not ENABLE more filesharing. It's already trivial, and frankly, p2p networks are now overrated. People have built such monstrous mp3 collections and storage is now cheap that the duplication is happening en masse. People who connect in real life can easily swap gigs of data. Broadband is more widely deployed, and a simple memory stick with 2GB worth of music is a fast way to distribute massive amounts of music. Or burn a data DVD.

But even if DRM inhibits online music sales to would-be legitimate customers like myself, is that sufficient? Would music priced at $.99/song and $9.99/album be sufficient to attract? Certainly I'd buy a fair bit. I'm not at all against flexible pricing, because I buy music for the long haul, and my interest in collecting the latest hits is nil. I'd prefer access to a backcatalog for less, over $.99 fresh hits. (Although they could price the backcatalog cheaper AND still cap at $.99)

Either way, DRM is bad for consumers, bad for music, and AT BEST non-impactful for record companies. Removing it may not save them, but it won't hurt them. There's only upside here.

I am not bothered by DRM

This might come as quite a shock, but I don't care about DRM. I have been buying media off iTunes for over a year now. I have spent over $1000 at iTunes. (Mostly TV shows)

HOWEVER, that being said I do want the freedom to play the media on ANY device or OS that I own. Yes, that means my cell phone regardless of provider or model, my Linux server, my Playstation 3, AppleTV, my Macs, etc.

Thats a perfect world though, which will never happen. I don't mind DRM to protect the content makers, but I don't want to be crippeled because someone out there chooses to not pay for content.

Did anyone else noticed

The MS general marketing manager with an expression of "Now what am I going to do with this locked down piece of shit?" I think we should thank MS for creating a system so draconian and restrictive to show that it would only cripple the buyer and nothing more.

Cluestick and consumer votes

For the first time, flagging sales of online music tracks are beginning to make the big recording companies consider the wisdom of selling music without 'rights management' technologies attached. The article notes that this is a step the recording industry vowed 'never to take'.

Wow, a cluestick is finaly showing up. The reports of only 22 purchased tracks per iPod sold is showing that consumers are voting down DRM with their pocketbooks in a big way. Wow, we finaly got enough votes in to be noticed.

A few bands jumping ship to go to a non-DRM music site is probably the biggest clue stick they got. If they don't have a monopoly on the artists, they have no control. These are desprate times for the labels. Bare Naked Ladies has gone to e-music. Some of the newer TSB stuff is not on RIAA cartel labels. (Too bad the Wizards of Winter track is in a RIAA cartel album. It's the reason I haven't bought it yet.)

The RIAA cartel labels have to make a big move fast before this leak grows and takes down the ship. They are busy trying to patch the P-P hole with a product that doesn't sell well because it is mostly useless to most people.

Maybe soon I can buy tracks in MP3 that I can play besides some obscure indi stuff on e-music.

Remember, I have rejected DRM music tracks and stuck with the most universal standard in the world. MP3's play on my flash player, all my computers, my DVD player (as MP3 CD) and in my car.

No other format is that compatible in my mixed environment. The incompatible DRM formats has kept me out of online music stores. Now if they will do something about the price fixing at a high price. Even better would be to fix the "for private home use only" restrictions so I can also legaly do one of the Christmas Light Shows, or play a ripped CD with a wedding slide show at a wedding reception, and post the video without breaking a bunch of license clauses in the process.

They have no simple way to use CD's in any public performance such as a public light show, a public wedding slide show, or DJ'ing the reception dance as an amature DJ. All these public performances are prohibited by the Private Home use clause.

I would have bought lots of music if I could have actualy used it. It was too restricted to be of much use in todays world. DRM was just icing on the cake making the expensive product even less useful.

It will be the last act of the recording industry.

Because practically the second they start offering DRM-free music in a format that is of relatively high quality (say 128Kbps MP3 or better--the current standard) and is delivered online (meaning you don't have to rip your CD's, which already are mostly DRM-free), the recording industry will have signed their own death warrant.

Most people I know are already obtaining the majority of their music files via some means other than outright, legitimate purchases--even when they understand that I am a recording musician and that at least part of my livelihood depends upon the ability to sell my recordings. Even some recording musicians I know do the same thing. DRM is the only method by which profit can be extracted from digital media sales, barring other barrier technologies (it's currently time-consuming and/or difficult to transfer CDs and DVDs, and storage requirements and processing power required are still relatively expensive, and bandwidth isn't what it needs to be quite yet for high-quality delivery of large files--however, all of these problems are well on their way to being solved).

Now, you may argue whether or not this is a good thing or not, but for my own part, I believe the end result will be a net detriment to society. Granted, it will break the power of the large studios, but it will also break the profit model entirely for everyone. Technology does not discriminate between a greedy studio exec and an individual musician. You may spare us your ideas on how to make a decent living as a musician sans the sale of recordings unless you yourself are prepared to hit the road and perform night after night. Those of us who have done it already know it doesn't work very well.

Unfortunately, I also believe that in the end, no DRM scheme is workable in the long term, both for technical and ethical reasons, but human nature is what it is, and secrets aren't secrets if two people know them.

You think the state of our musical culture is bad now thanks to the RIAA? Wait until DRM is gone. I guarantee you'll regret it.

Value for Performers

Way back, all value was received by the performer &/or shared with his support crew/director, clear back into the times of Shakespear.

That was what copyright was for was to allow the original content creator to receive compensation from the print copy of his work.

No many users may have 1000-10,000 songs on their hard drive (I have 1000 from my CD's, thats it).

How many of those songs have I listented to? How many will I never listen to? If I had 10,000 songs would I ever be able to listen to them all? Should I pay for something I will never listen to, regardless of the "copy"? No comment on the legal side as IANAL.

The basics still apply for the vast majority of musicians in that they earn their livings from performances and from local sales at those performances and as such, DRM doesn't mean much to the average muscian.

DRM only means something to the "mass media conglomerates". They have held a monopoly that has gradually eroded over the evolution to digital, and now they face the inevitable march of technology and will have to give up the idea that listening to a recording = royalty. Radio has given users "songs" for nearly a century now, but no one stopped buying better copies or albums. I suspect the new "performance packages" will be updated frequently and "sold" as DRM free, and with creativity, the conglomerates will still earn fair incomes off the mega-acts. Thus the "songs" will come with posters, tickets to concerts, video clips, etc., as the world moves on.

Capitulating to the power of 'internet' ?

is there ANY question as to the opposite could have happened ?

Internet IS 'the people'. Internet is "us". "WE" are internet.

Tell me JUST one thing that have fought against the power of "the people" and succeeded ?

If they were smart...

...the music companies would pay someone to develop a good, open-standard, drm solution that would be interoperable, easy to use and allow people to authorize a reasonable number of devices for access. It wouldn't really be *that* hard to do... but if they give up entirely, it won't really hurt my feelings...

I'll buy music now

If this happens I'll buy music. I have over 10 devices that I like to transfer music too. People may say that's a little ridiculous but I had been downloading music since before the RIAA made it officially Illegal. I don't have a problem purchasing music if it's not DRM'd. Good move by the music industry.

Isnt it obvious ?

let me tell you one thing,

if they sold the songs in mp3, high quality format, and guaranteed that they will be available forever, i would not even bother saving zillions of mp3 in my hard disks and trying to transport them to new pcs, friends', relatives', acquintances' computers, worry about the loss of mp3s in the event of a hd format is needed (windows reinstall etc), and so on, and instead just DELETE them whenever im in distress and just get what i want from the OFFICIAL site for 1 cents per song again.

same goes for movies. WHY the hell try to maintain them in cds, dvds or etc when you can just download them in high quality format from its ORIGINAL seller ? JUST sell it for something reasonable, NEGLIGIBLE - for maybe, say, $5 ? It is not even the price of a regular hamburger dammit ? WHENEVER i want to watch a movie, i would just download it, watch, and delete without any worries. No disk space use, no corruption, hell and even no worries that children might find and watch some no-no movies for their age ...

Games. god. If games were sold for $5 or so a piece, why not buy MANY games ? huh ? Just for the sake of trying, there is no barrier to buying them $5 per piece. Even the thought that, 'i might want to play something like this maybe sometime' would without any worries of expensiveness or anything would let anyone buy the games they would NOT normally buy then. Heck, even for collections maybe.

Actually, the execs, policy makers and old coots in the helm of media companies, you are witless idiots.

Have you gone such a road, internet would be busy with zillions of terabytes downloaded everyday from your products and you would be busy trying to get more accountants to do the accounting instead of lawyers for trying to fight against 'the people'.

It's just like the matrix really...

People need to think they have a choice for it to work.

Now you're barking up the right tree!

I'd welcome such a move from the music industry, but I don't think I can go back to buying RIAA tunes until they pledge to stop suing their customers.

It's about time they shitcanned DRM.

And anyone who supports apple with their restrictive DRM nonsense, only allowing playback on Apple hardware, and only at medium-low bit rates, needs to have their head examined. Compare this music with anything you rip from a CD at high bit rates, say VBR between 192-320kbps. If you tell me you don't hear a difference, you're stone deaf.

Say apple goes up in flames tomorrow, your iPod stops working after a year due to age. What are you going to do with your $2000 (now worthless) music you "purchased" from apple? Good luck with your DRM infested crap.

Don't assume for a moment I'm an apple basher. I'm a microsoft basher with 200% more vehemence. The same applies to their 'plays for sure' which 'sure doesn't play' on their very own baby, the rat-turd zune. Way to go, media industry. And thanks microsoft for the incredible amount of thought you put in to DRM. You're so dense, I hear there's huge surges of gravity around Redmond, and signs of black hole formation.

Struggling archaic top-heavy publishing empires.

Surely bandwidth will reach a point where it is no longer required to store the 'licensed' audio or video on the customers device, in all cases it should be streamed from the publisher. Instead of the customers pirating material, it should be encouraged - 1st and 2nd generation copies only, each degrading and expiring after a limited amount of time: viral marketing - P2P filesharing is 'radio'.

Say no to DRM, say yes to certificates

People don't want DRM. But, people do want certificates that verify the digital music they are buying is from a legitimate source, in comparison to being duped, tricked, into paying for warez, ie. like some of the illegitimate DVDs being sold on Ebay or on the streets of NY or in India or in China- "25 movies on 15 dvds for $50" kind of scams. DRM is Wrong. Knowning that you aren't being scammed is good.

Re:Huh?

Nothing you can do can prevent digital information from being copied. DRM, however, limits what you can do with the copies. Apple's DRM, for example, prevents you from playing back DRM'd music on anything other than an iPod or an authorised copy of iTunes. You can copy a DRM'd AAC from iTMS to as many computers as you want, but then you can only play it back on the five you authorise.

What he means

is that everything would interoperate just fine if everyone used the same DRM scheme. But they don't.

Apple has the most popular store and the most popular devices. And it isn't about to let other stores or device-makers benefit from that. Basically, Mr. Bainwol is just crying about that big old meany Steve Jobs.

All this is very fortunate, because if they had been able to reach an industry-wide standard for DRM, it would have taken them even longer to realize what a stupid idea DRM is in the first place.

Re:Huh?

Maybe it's like that HDMA or whatever crap, where you get exactly the same results, as long as you pay for expensive hardware, and then some expensive cables to go between your devices? Hmm.

Re:I might even be able to buy music again...

You want good music with a way to preview online and no marketing madness?

It sounds like you're not aware of www.cdbaby.com :)

They sell CDs of independent musicians with $6-$12 from each CD sold going to the musician. You can listen to songs via a stream so you can hear before you buy. I dunno how large thier selection is, I just know they carried the two groups I was wanting. :) (brobdingnagian bards and jonathan coulton if you're curious)

I'm like you, except that I just boycotted the RIAA labels. There's no need to needlessly deprive myself, especially when there's starting to be good alternatives out there. :)

Re:Shrinking CD sales

People have been complaining about CD prices for almost 25 years, and sales never suffered until Napster came along and provided an alternative. In fact, if you account for inflation, CD prices have dropped dramatically.