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Music Companies Mull Ditching DRM
Journal written by PoliTech (998983) and posted by
Zonk
on Mon Jan 22, 2007 12:20 PM
from the dogs-and-cats-living-together-mass-hysteria dept.
from the dogs-and-cats-living-together-mass-hysteria dept.
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."
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Phonographic Memory writes "A new study has come out that purports to show a link between file-sharing and decreased CD purchases. Covering the period of 1995-2003, the study looked for a link between owning a computer and decreased CD purchases. The researcher found that 'some US music consumers could have decreased their CD purchases (prior to 2004) by about 13 percent due to Internet file sharing.' In its coverage of the study, Ars Technica notes that the scholarly consensus on the possibility of a link between file sharing and music purchases is missing: 'the dominant impression gained from reading these studies is that finding accurate correlations between file-sharing and loss of revenue for the music industry is tremendously difficult.'"
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Music Companies Mull Ditching DRM
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Undermining Apple? (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://en.wikipedia....thematical_induction | Last Journal: Saturday February 10 2007, @08:15PM)
From TFA:
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:
Can someone say, “chutzpah?”
Re:Undermining Apple? (Score:5, Interesting)
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? (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.jason-nemeth.com/)
Re:Undermining Apple? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Undermining Apple? (Score:5, Informative)
(http://www.khuffie.com/)
Re:Undermining Apple? (Score:5, Insightful)
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? (Score:5, Informative)
(http://www.nine-times.org/)
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 ... (Score:5, Informative)
(http://www.jwnyc.com/)
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.
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? (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://members.bellatlantic.net/~dutky | Last Journal: Thursday November 03 2005, @12:13AM)
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? (Score:5, Informative)
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? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Undermining Apple? (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.killbill.org/)
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? (Score:4, Informative)
(http://www.ceyah.org/~jandrese/ | Last Journal: Thursday September 13, @11:11AM)
Achilles' Heel (Score:5, Insightful)
(Last Journal: Wednesday November 07, @10:09AM)
From the article:
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 (Score:4, Interesting)
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... (Score:5, Funny)
(Last Journal: Tuesday February 06 2007, @09:13AM)
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... (Score:3, Funny)
(http://www.spacewalrus.com/)
About time (Score:4, Interesting)
(http://www.lostpacket.net/)
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 (Score:4, Funny)
Re:About time (Score:4, Funny)
(http://66.249.93.104/ | Last Journal: Monday November 20 2006, @09:27AM)
about time (Score:1)
Oh, the irony (Score:4, Funny)
Oh, the irony.
Re:Oh, the irony (Score:4, Informative)
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 (Score:3, Insightful)
Obligatory Fark Reference (Score:2, Funny)
-Admiral Akbar
(What? That quote didn't originate on Fark? Oh, frak.)
Good, but I don't forget that easily (Score:2, Insightful)
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 (Score:2, Troll)
(http://roostme.com/)
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 (Score:4, Insightful)
If they do it, great! (Score:4, Interesting)
(http://lindkvis.blogspot.com/)
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 (Score:5, Interesting)
The tinfoil headgear sporting subset of
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 (Score:3, Insightful)
Stupid comment of the day (Score:3, Insightful)
It was inevitable really, (Score:1)
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 (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://science.slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Wednesday August 13 2003, @04:18PM)
Looks like I was wrong. (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/atd7/)
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. (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (Score:5, Insightful)
Mulled Whine (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://slashdot.org/~Doc%20Ruby/journal | Last Journal: Thursday March 31 2005, @01:48PM)
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 (Score:1)
(http://www.abcomrents.com/)
Internet hurting their bottomline... (Score:1)
Sam
In other news .... (Score:2)
(http://www.qsl.net/wa2mze)
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? (Score:4, Funny)