Music DRM in Critical Condition?

ianare writes "Universal Music Group, the largest music company on the planet, has announced that the company is going to sell DRM-free music. The test will see UMG offering a portion of its catalog — primarily its most popular content — sold without DRM between August 21 and January 31 of next year. The format will be MP3, and songs will sell for 99 each, with the bitrate to be determined by the stores in question. RealNetwork's Rhapsody service will offer 256kbps tracks, the company said in a separate statement. January 31 is likely more of a fire escape than an end date. If UMG doesn't like what they're seeing, they'll pull the plug. UMG says that it wants to watch how DRM-free music affects piracy rates."

Silly

UMG says that it wants to watch how DRM-free music affects piracy rates.

Well they should look back over the last few decades then. They've been selling DRM-free digital music ever since CDs were invented.

Re:Silly

And apparently regretted it ever since.

Re:GODDAMIT make it $0.01 and THEN maybe !!

Lets try another example;

fifteen or twenty years ago (when CD's were already fairly old technology) A computer probably not even as fast as the one you're using now was called a 'supercomputer' and cost about a quarter-million dollars. The cost of computing and the cost of network bandwidth has dropped two orders of magnitude since then.

The technology behind computers isn't just similar, it IS the technology behind distributing digital music. The processing power that cost a quarter million dollars twenty years ago costs a few hundred now. The cost of distributing a dozen songs (a CD that actually did cost a few dollars to stamp and ship twenty years ago) is now a download from a server that costs them only fraction of a cent, but they still want us to pay 1988 prices?

Re:GODDAMIT make it $0.01 and THEN maybe !!

The technology behind computers isn't just similar, it IS the technology behind distributing digital music. The processing power that cost a quarter million dollars twenty years ago costs a few hundred now. The cost of distributing a dozen songs (a CD that actually did cost a few dollars to stamp and ship twenty years ago) is now a download from a server that costs them only fraction of a cent, but they still want us to pay 1988 prices?

While I somewhat agree with a couple of things you say, I must add; Do you even know what you're talking about? I think you're just wildly spewing out numbers because you want something for nothing. Back up your figures or stop making things up.

Besides, your model of "cost" only takes the cost of distributing into consideration. The cost of creation needs to be taken into consideration too. Look into the pricing on your average studio. At your price of $0.01 a song, it would take anywhere between 50000-100000 or more purchases to make a song break even. That's not even counting money for the artist(s) to live off of, or the cut that the record labels want to get for their efforts in advertising.

I'm not saying the current price model is fair, I don't know the break down. I'm also not saying I agree with the strategies of the large record labels, I personally dislike them and the stranglehold they have on the market. But, consider the larger picture before you shoot off that songs should be available for $0.01.

Re:GODDAMIT make it $0.01 and THEN maybe !!

The underlying question is why is it reasonable to pay the artists over $200 grand a year? Why is it reasonable to pay executives so much?

I mean the average person earns $41k a year. The answer is- it's not reasonable. We got tons of music (and movies) in the 30's... 40's... and 50's... (and most of the 60's...) when everyone on the food chain made a lot less.

We got more of them because the artists had to produce more to make a living. And the idea of getting filthy rich didn't really start until the 70's.

There is no reason in today's world that we need 15 to 20 people feeding 200k+ per year incomes off of each song. This is why songs (and movies) cost so much. Because a parasitic industry has grown up around them due to their unique government protected monopoly.

Is there any reasonable way you can justify an author getting richer than the queen of england- becoming worth over a billion dollars in such a short period of time? Is there any other kind of work which pays that kind of compensation?

Clearly copyright is currently broken. It forces society to pay grossly inflated prices compared to most of the rest of history.

Re:GODDAMIT make it $0.01 and THEN maybe !!

Except for the lucky few, musicians or "artists" are rather on the poor side. I play in a local band, so many a time after a show we hang out with the headlining act. I see behind the scenes, behind the image... Signed musicians, and they sleep in their van, taking shifts driving to the next show. If they're lucky, someone in town offers them a place to crash for the night. That doesn't really sound like a bunch of people making >= $200k/year to me.

Yeah the stadium filling acts have tour buses and roadies and groupies and all that, but the vast majority of performing musicians make enough money to stay alive and on the road, if they're lucky.

Also, don't compare music and movies. Making music involves a band, a couple of engineers, and possibly a studio musician or two for the "extras". Next time you go see a movie in theaters, sit through all the credits... Try to count the names. Music involves a couple of handfuls of people to create, a movie requires hundreds. Now, to clarify, I'm not in any way for the high prices and I'm not defending current copyright laws (I believe the system is broken personally). I'm just pointing out that movies and music are on different levels.

Do not underestimate that service.

... tour buses and roadies and groupies and all that ...

What female groupies provide has tremendous value and should be considered a sizable portion of the income a musician receives. Just think about how much that service would cost if purchased outright.

Re:GODDAMIT make it $0.01 and THEN maybe !!

If you go into a hardware store and buy a hammer, you won't be paying the amount it cost to produce and ship it.

YES YOU DO IT. The cost includes all the profit margins, and to the competition those are reasonable. I want to continue with your hardware store example as this turn out to be really funny and you'll maybe see my point of view.

Consider that the majors have been trying to push bloody business models where one or more of those restriction apply to you:

1) Pay for each nail you hit with the hammer
2) Rent the hammer and pay monthly for ulimited strikes on nails - when the rent expires all your nails disappear
3) Be limited to use your hammer just in your room
4) Be limited to use only a specific brand of nails - In case this is overturned by a clever hacker all the nails can cease to work (see playsforsure against old MS DRM)
5) whatever else limiting to you but more profitable to them
6) Get sued if you lent/use a hammer from another person
7) Pay for a hammer that can be used to build 10 houses - Ops, sorry, after the sale terms are changes: only 7 houses (Apple FairPlay Cd burning)

From my humble point of view as noone would use such a tool [eff.org]. Conclusions: those corporations have been looking actively for extincion and fully deserve it.

If you can't beat em', join em'

You basically just described allofmp3.com.

Rather than trying to sue them out of existence, the RIAA would have been better off simply destroying them the capitalist way - Drive them out of the market with (possibly unfair) competition.

They could easily have charged twice what allofmp3.com charged and still done well for the following reasons:
1) Better selection if they did it right. (This would be hard - allofmp3 had a better selection than many of the "I only carry music from one of the major 5 labels" official online stores.)
2) Easier payment. EASY as hell compared to the nightmare that was getting credits on allofmp3 before they were totally shut down.
3) Still far less expensive than current prices. $1.30/track is a little to expensive for "impulse buy", and means that people are only going to buy tracks they've heard. With allofmp3, I would routinely buy entire albums if I liked one track because it was so inexpensive to do so. (Oddly, people buying entire albums is one of the things the RIAA wants people to do and why they resisted any form of online sales for so long...) Likewise, with allofmp3, I would routinely buy additional albums if I liked the first one as a total impulse buy.

The RIAA was stupid with how they handled allofmp3. They looked at it and simply saw, "we're not getting paid". They were too blinded by that greed to look at allofmp3's business model and the fact that allofmp3 was proof that if you gave people content at the right price and convenience, they were perfectly willing to pay for music rather than download it for free.

Re:Silly

I'd think you were joking, since there are so obviously other factors to be taken into consideration over that time period, but you're at +5 insightful. So, I feel I must point out: over those same decades Internet and computer adoption went up just a wee bit. Probably throws off the analysis slightly.

It's not that silly, though

It's not that new, though:

1. CD burners have existed for ages.

2. The possibility to just copy music to cassette or movies to VHS has existed for ages, and that existed even before CDs gained much adoption. Heck, in the 90's even half the portable stereos, and every self-respecting cassette deck, had room for _two_ cassettes at the same time and a button to copy from one to the other.

3. If you think people had to wait for the Internet to swap music or movies or programs, I dare say you don't remember high school that well.

4. Before mass Internet access, there were BBSs. Frankly, now that was a bigger pirate haven than the Internet... or than the Carribeans back in the 1600's ;)

5. Internet access isn't _that_ new and unlike everything before. Sure, only now it may have reached the grandmas or finally gotten very high speeds, but I don't think those were ever the biggest pirates anyway. If grandma wants to listen to folk songs from the 50's or for some good ol' fashioned symphonic music, she can get those for pence legally. Plus she already has her cassette and vinyl collection.

The biggest problems are teens who (A) are driven by peer pressure, and have to listen, watch, wear and say exactly what their peers appreciate. Even if he goes for the rebellious punk image, the average teenager won't actually be rebellious at all, he'll be a clone of whatever punk image is currently fashionable among his peers. And (B) face high prices for that image. And (C) don't have that much disposable income. So the pressure was always there to copy the latest fashionable album.

And those already had modems, virtually all universities had Interent as early as the early 90's, and most had access to a hi-fi where they could copy a cassette.

Plus, music companies have been complaining about Napster since the 90's, so at least at that point the world was already connected enough to make a difference, according to those music companies.

Re:Now is the chance

Isn't this the company that sued Sony in the 80's, and tried to make VCRs illegal? And, they are associated with the RIAA. I think it is too soon to start throwing money at any major record labels. The best solution would be to pirate exactly as much as you had been before.

TAKE THE RED PILL.

This has probably been posted a million times on slashdot, but we must repeat it until at least every slashdot person understands:

THERE. IS. NO. RIAA.

Not as such. It is a like shell company so that the major music labels don't get their hands (or label names) dirty whilst suing dead people, stalking 8 year olds, and extorting grandmothers that have never even seen a computer.

Universal IS the RIAA.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_RIAA_member_l abels [wikipedia.org] may help. I seriously propose not buying in to the Sony, Warner, Universal, et al. game of hiding behind the word RIAA as if it is some, nebulous, vastly distantly related entity. It isn't. Substitute "major music label CEOs" for "RIAA". So for example this headline from Arstechnica:
Judge greenlights RIAA to dig into man's past, employers

Should actually read:
Judge greenlights Major Music Label CEOs to dig into man's past, employers

Those CEOs are people. They make the decisions. They are responsible. Normal people can get their heads around that and hold those people responsible for their actions, if they so choose. The RIAA is some faceless acronym, just another brick wall. As it is surely intended to be.

Re:TAKE THE RED PILL.

CEOs are people

Spoiler!!!

Re:Now is the chance

Isn't this the company that sued Sony in the 80's, and tried to make VCRs illegal?

I don't remember, but I know they've bribed radio stations to broadcast crap music.

http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/news/tvstations/articl e_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002501367 [mediaweek.com]

Wikipedia also summarize it well:

In May 2006, an investigation led by New York attorney general Eliot Spitzer concluded with a determination that Universal bribed radio stations to play songs from Ashlee Simpson, Brian McKnight, Big Tymers, Lindsay Lohan and other performers working for Universal labels. The company paid $12 million to the state in settlement.

Now is the chance to give money to parasites

You buy if you want. As far as I'm concerned Universal can fuck off.

They're one of the worst. It is they who persuaded Microsoft to let them charge Zune users a Zune-tax. Let them lift that tax first.

They're still playing games. This time round, they are refusing to sell through the iTunes Store. This is an act of revenge. It's because Apple won't open their DRM to other distributors, because Apple doesn't want the hassle of maintaining this DRM (that it doesn't want in the first place and only has to use because companies like Universal insist on it) for every other distributor. IOW, Universal do want the DRM and are blaming Apple for not making it work for them across the whole industry - as if Apple, or anyone else, could.

YOU buy. YOU rush out and buy from these parasites. I shan't.

If I want to buy a download rather than a CD, I'll buy EMI at the iTunes Store or go to Magnatune or Linn records [linnrecords.com]. Universal can go boil its head.

Tip: here's how not to pay the Zune tax

They're one of the worst. It is they who persuaded Microsoft to let them charge Zune users a Zune-tax. Let them lift that tax first.

Here's a secret tip: you can decline to pay the Zune-tax. I did it, and surprisingly, it works like a charm!

Follow these steps carefully:

1. Do not buy a fucking Zune
2. ???
3. Profit!

Plus, with this method, you don't have yet another piece of plastic junk littering your living quarters.

Another half-ass job

If record companies want me to stop downloading music from P2P networks, they need to offer a better-quality product than that available for free. I can get all the 256kbps MP3s I want on P2P. The only way to make me even consider actually paying for a mere audio file (as opposed to a CD which has liner notes etc.) is to offer FLAC.

Re:Another half-ass job

256kbps is good enough for me, though I'd really only buy if the price point was closer to 10 cents. Lots of reasons for this, though the main one is simply that I live in Asia, piracy is common. Like it or not, that's what they have to compete with. 10 cents per song is about double the profit margin over pirated CD's, though if I can reliably go to an online store from the comfort of my home, then that's where I'd rather be.

Re:Another half-ass job

I'll download a song, and if I don't like it, I'll go buy it.

Wow, you're like the best consumer ever!

FLAC of the masters no less

Better than CD quality damn you. Oh, and a pony, I want a pony!

Re:FLAC of the masters no less

Oh, they only WISH they could give me a pony. I'm perfectly capable of stealing ponies for free. If they want me to buy a CD, they'll have to clone a dinosaur for me.

Re:Another half-ass job

I do accept the "right to exist" for the music industry

Why?

No Pirates

Everyone should make a mental note to not download anything illegal until end of Jan 2008, or at least don't get caught doing so.

Re:No Pirates

Everyone should make a mental note to not download anything illegal until end of Jan 2008, or at least don't get caught doing so.

Well, shoot. I was planning on getting caught somewhere in the Xmas timeframe, but I suppose I could put it off for a little bit longer....

nope

UMG says that it wants to watch how DRM-free music affects piracy rates.

Bollocks. I mean look up every "piracy" "statistics", they always talk about this and that much gazillions of good old bucks being lost because of piracy, yet no living human being has ever managed to give a reasonable and acceptable explanation about how those numbers make sense. Now they say they want to see how those numbers change if they sell non-drm-encumbered music ? Well, flip a coin, that'd make more sense to decide to continue or not. A better way would be to actually listen to what those pesky customers want.
 

Re:Where are the stats from?

My thoughts exactly. To look at how it affects piracy rates, you need some way of measuring piracy. AFAIK they have nothing other than RSITDANTMUFG* numbers for what piracy levels may be. Come on, how can you ever hope to count downloads on the many P2P networks when the whole point of them is that they're decentralised?
* RSITDANTMUFG = Random Stab In The Dark At Number That Make Us Feel Good

Normally I'd agree completely, but aren't you starting to get the feeling that the people that run these giant media conglomerates just have a huge cigarbox in the boardroom for their cash? As in:

Suit 1: (opens box) "Hey, there used to be more cash in here! I want more!"
Suit 2: "Oh noes! Why did the box stop making cash?!"
Suit 1: "Maybe someone TOOK OUR CASH!"
Suit 2: "Took... you mean, like... pirates?"
Suit 1: (gasp) "Pirates! Yes, must be pirates! We must kill the pirates!"
Janitor: "Hey, don't you guys actually make money from helping new artists distribute their music to a wider audience?"
Suit 1: "Huh? Who are you? Someone throw him out... Now, let's vote, who wants to kill pirates and so the box makes more cash?"
Suits 2,3: "Yay! More cash!"

Pirates... arrrrr....

Normally I'd agree completely, but aren't you starting to get the feeling that the people that run these giant media conglomerates just have a huge cigarbox in the boardroom for their cash? As in:

Suit 1: (opens box) "Hey, there used to be more cash in here! I want more!"
Suit 2: "Oh noes! Why did the box stop making cash?!"
Suit 1: "Maybe someone TOOK OUR CASH!"
Suit 2: "Took... you mean, like... pirates?"
Suit 1: (gasp) "Pirates! Yes, must be pirates! We must kill the pirates!"
Janitor: "Hey, don't you guys actually make money from helping new artists distribute their music to a wider audience?"
Suit 1: "Huh? Who are you? Someone throw him out... Now, let's vote, who wants to kill pirates and so the box makes more cash?"
Suits 2,3: "Yay! More cash!"

...and there it lay, the prize they sought. A financial district swollen with multinationals, conglomerates and fat, bloated, merchant-banks.

Did something like this happen next?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iakR7sB0skw [youtube.com]

Re:Where are the stats from?

But surely that's the wrong figure. If sales double why does it matter if piracy triples?

Music companies have woken up to...

Music companies have really just started waking up to why DRM is really bad, and it's nothing to do with their customers.

It has finally dawned on them that DRM - far from protecting them - will take control away from them and hand it to companies like Apple and Microsoft, who become the new gatekeepers since they own the DRM technologies that are popular. It's now dawned on the music companies that it won't be long before the likes of Apple and Microsoft get big enough in the music business to simply cut out the record companies and sign bands directly.

_That's_ why they are starting to drop DRM - they have finally come to the realisation that DRM is the trojan horse that will destroy them. Not piracy.

Correct, it's classical intermediation

In fact, it's what "entrepreneur" means. That's a word whose original meaning is not so muchy lost as deliberately concealed. An entrepreneur is someone who tries to insert himself in a flow - of cash, a commodity or other resource - and then act as the gatekeeper, thus making money. Because it means "taker in the middle".

The recording industry themselves are entrepreneurs, and now they realise that the software companies are not just another mechanism to enforce their intermediation, but an attempt to introduce a new, and harder to evade, middleman.

All entrepreneurs seek to enforce their control, either legally or through other means (such as owning the channels of distribution, or by monopoly patents.)

Entrepreneurs have a part to play when a resource does not have a market, but they find it very hard to lie down and die when the market is established. We don't yet know who will win this battle for control over the electronic music market, but improved search engines and technology availability could disintermediate the market in a different way - e.g. by sites aggregating direct sales by many small bands, cooperatively owned.

Re:Correct, it's classical intermediation

In fact, it's what "entrepreneur" means. That's a word whose original meaning is not so muchy lost as deliberately concealed. An entrepreneur is someone who tries to insert himself in a flow - of cash, a commodity or other resource - and then act as the gatekeeper, thus making money. Because it means "taker in the middle".

No, that's not what entrepreneur means. It's derrived from the same french word enterprise in derrived from - entreprendre, to undertake.

See the Online etymology dictioanry [etymonline.com].

And that is derived from ---

Latin, inter (between or among) and prehensus, to grasp or to take. To be fair, the French term "entreprise" goes back, in its meaning of a business undertaking, almost to feudal times. But what sort of undertaking in those times consituted business?

The concept of the manufacturing enterprise is largely an artefact of the Industrial Revolution (OK, everybody cites the Arsenal, but it's an exception.)The concept of the enterprise as trade (i.e. middleman) is pretty consistent. (The British Empire in India started from a trading monopoly that accidentally had to go to war to protect its interests.) From the 1300s on, any French person using the term "entreprise" would know exactly what the two root words meant, and clearly had no quarrel with that meaning. j'entre, et alors je prise, je suis entrepreneur.

No Love for iTunes

That is hilarious. Universal refuses to sign a contract, and will do business with Apple strictly "at will".

Oh the irony! The music giant that doesn't believe it should have to sign a contract just to get distributed.

No iTunes, no deal.

It seems like they're about to distort their own stats, by leaving iTunes out of the deal, FTA:

"One reason would be that Universal doesn't like Apple. UMG is the largest music company on the planet, which helps explain why they are trying to ruffle Steve Jobs' feathers. At issue are contract lengths and just who gets to determine pricing. Universal would clearly like to have more control over pricing than Apple is comfortable with. The company has also said that it would like a cut of every iPod sold, similar to a deal they have with Microsoft for the Zune."

So basically, they still want money. They'll try and fail to sell a substantial amount of DRM free music on rhapsody, call it a failure, publish the results and push congress more. just an 0.05 dollar prediction.

B.

Watch out for tracking software

Watch the evil companies, dont trust them. They will put tracking software in those non drm songs. Once they are shared on a p2p net, they will track every ip adres and every user. The p2p community will be doomed. Mwhoehahaha.... oh wait I am on the good side of this, so I should be crying.

99 each?

Look, I'm sure the summary meant 99 cents each, but knowing you guys would have international readers all over the world, would it kill you to add a five-letter word just to clarify things?

Universal DRM-free on iTunes

Surprisingly, Universal won't have DRM free music on iTunes [daringfireball.net]

Interesting Experiment

If I was the music company I'd place some kind of signature in my files and keep a watch on how many of them later appeared on common piracy sites. It would be interesting to see how many, or few, of them leaked out.

Won't affect iPod use

So people will now just buy their music through these online stores other than iTMS, transfer the mp3 to iTunes and then onto their iPod.

It's not going to hurt Apple, it is gonig to hurt consumers. I doubt the user experience of the other stores will compare, though I don't have a problem with every store doing it's best and at least if they are mp3s it solves the 'wont load on my ipod' problem.

I think they will still do quite well, IF people ever hear of them and have a good experience when they DO try to buy something.

We should cheer for Steve Jobs..

6 months back, he himself spoke against [apple.com] the negative effects of DRM and how Apple was implementing DRM only to comply with the wishes of the recording industry. Now fear of an Apple monopoly on DRM has finally forced Universal (for starters) to think about selling unencumbered music. So we have him to thank for scaring the recording companies into removing DRM! (hoping that they eventually will)

Re:We should cheer for Steve Jobs..

Even if you believe Jobs' DRM statement was a PR stunt, it is the single biggest shot across the bow of DRM from anyone anywhere near a person of Steve Jobs stature in the online media distribution industry. In this case, from someone who is the CEO of the company which is the third largest music retailer in the US, the largest online music retailer, the manufacturer of the most popular portable music player by far, the CEO of a major movie company, and a boardmember of one of the largest movie and media companies in Hollywood.

I'm sorry, but you can't just ignore the fact that Words Mean Things. You can't assume that just because a company makes a statement that it is pure 100% PR and nothing more, and that an individual, even a CEO, can't have his own beliefs and convictions that are exclusive of the corporation's desire to many money. Besides, if DRM-free is really the way to grow the market and make the most money, then doesn't coming out against DRM do that as well?

I have no doubt that Jobs is being pragmatic, but I also believe he understands - because it is articulated in crystal clear fashion in the statement - that DRM is crippling the online music industry, will never work, and will always be able to be defeated. I also believe he thinks that removing DRM will mean that Apple may end up with a smaller slice of a much bigger market, still meaning growth in absolute terms for iTunes.

And, my cynical friend, Apple has NEVER needed DRM to keep people on iTunes and iPod. The ease of use for normal people is what keeps people on iTunes and the iPod. I find it humorous that you're talking about computer jukeboxes and a commodity like a portable music player as something that shouldn't strive to be the best on the market, and outdo its competition. It's also laughable, if not somewhat sad, that after Apple made its statement AND became the first online music store of any consequence whatsoever to sell mainstream music from a major label - you know, music that a lot of people actually want - that you still choose to believe that Apple "really doesn't want to get rid of DRM".

The mind boggles, almost as much as at this statement and the associated analysis from Daring Fireball:

So Universal is going to sell DRM-free music through Amazon, Wal-Mart, RealNetworks, and others, but not through iTunes. Why?

But the music will not be offered D.R.M.-free through Apple's iTunes, the leading music service. The use of copy protection software has become a major bone of contention in the digital music business, where iTunes accounts for the vast majority of download sales. The record labels generally have required that retailers place electronic locks to limit copying of music files.

But Apple's proprietary D.R.M. does not work with most rivals' devices or software -- meaning that music sold by competing services cannot play on Apple's popular iPod. Some record executives say they believe that the stalemate has capped the growth of digital music sales, which the industry is relying on more heavily as sales of plastic CDs slide.

Um, Universal won't sell DRM-free music through iTunes because they don't like Apple's DRM? WTF? Am I even supposed to pretend this makes sense?

Also, various EU nations targeting Apple for DRM on iTunes and iPod are barking completely up the wrong tree. It's the labels that require DRM in every sense of the situation, not Apple. No matter what you think Apple "really" wants. And "interoperable" or "open" DRM? Give me a fucking break. The only "interoperable" DRM is no DRM at all. Even if everything on iTunes was DRM free, many, many customers would have no problem at all staying with the iTunes/iPod paradigm. Because, for the most part, it just works. Other more tech-savvy customers would be free to get other players and use them with music from iTunes. Apple is under no obligation whatever, nor should it be, to make iTunes interoperate as slickly and easily as it does with the iPod an

First step, done

I've always said, if there's a music store that sells good music without limitations, that's the place where I'll buy. Ok. The limitation part is gone. Now, let's talk about "good music"...

I predict there will be little if any change. We will certainly not see more piracy. Simple reason: DRM has not and will not stop someone from copying, so whoever wanted to copy already did and probably will continue to do so. An increase, because there is no DRM, makes no sense.

We might see more songs sold, though, since some people (like me) will turn to buying music online when there is no restriction on it anymore that limits my use in various devices of my choice. Goods I cannot use in the way I deem necessary have no value to me. If I cannot use it in my car CD player or on my MP3 player, the item is not what I want, and what I do not want I do not buy. This, though, the music without restriction, is what I want. So I will buy now when (and here's the catch) I find music that I would like to listen to. Sorry, but I don't buy the latest American Idol hypecrap just because I can media shift it.

The end of TPM chips?

Does the current trend towards less DRM means the end of motherboards with built-in TPM chips in the future?

DRM,Pricing,packaging; legal inferior to pirated

$.99 is just wrong. I have mp3 music on a dvd. At 5MB/song, I can fit 9.6GB/5MB ~=2000 songs. I would be happy to pay $25 for disks like this, but no way I pay alomst $2k for a disk.

I notice also that in markets that sells pirated music they come as MP3 on CD's and contain over 100 songs for $1. The lagal CDs next to them costs $10, and contains 10 songs.

The legal product is certainly inferior. Unless the music industry can deliver a superior product, they can not win this.

Too little, too late

It's not DRM that's on life support, it's Universal (and the rest of the "music industry"). Their sales and profits have been declining for a few years - now they're getting worried. They can see the end of the gravy train staring them in the face and there's no relief in sight.

They're still holding tightly to their fantasy about P2P downloaders costing them millions and billions - but they have noticed that their introduction of DRM technologies has received an almost totally negative response from their former customers. So they'll back off on this a little and "see if the piracy rate goes up". That's not what they'll be looking at at all, that's just some spin for the media. What they're looking for is some kind of upward bump to their profits; when they added DRM their income went down - so let's remove the DRM and see if our income goes back up.

What they still can't see through their pride is that DRM doesn't reduce piracy in any meaningful way; all it does is cause inconvenience to their paying customers. It's driven more than a few customers away; buy one CD that won't play in your player and it's quite natural to avoid any CDs from that company in the future. What they also can't see is that those lost customers won't be coming back just because of some mealy-mouthed PR statement about removing DRM from some music for a short period - they've been fooled once already.

"Piracy" (copyright infringement) is an interesting thing - it only happens with items that can be duplicated and sold at a price substantially below the price of the original product. If the record companies sold CDs for 69 cents each then the "pirates" wouldn't bother with music CDs. The record companies would never willingly reveal their cost of production - but you can safely assume that it's much less than a dollar. When they over-price the finished product at 20 dollars they create their own piracy problem.

Will they ever see this simple truth? "Pirates" are a fact of life; eliminate one or a dozen and a hundred more will take their place. As long as there's easy money to be made then people will be lined up to get their share. There is nothing that the music companies, their lobbying lapdogs, the government, the courts, or anyone else can do to prevent it. As long as the product is priced far in excess of its production cost, there's going to be a "piracy" problem.

Even the folks who just "want to get it for free" would become paying customers if the price was RIGHT. But the music industry keeps turning out formula junk with one or two good tunes per CD and then asking 20 bucks for it - and then they wonder why people aren't buying it. This is the root cause of their decline - expecting top dollar for bargain basement material.

But they weren't satisfied with shooting themselves in that foot - they decided to start up their "legal" extortion racket and run people over the coals for thousands of dollars - for downloading a song that has a market value of less than a dollar. They even decided to sue some dead people, children, disabled seniors, etc. just to make sure that they offended everyone. This bone-headed plan is pure public relations poison - but they just can't stop. This turns a bunch more customers into former customers and the sales drop off even faster.

Having shot themselves in both feet, they turned to their kneecaps with DRM and rootkits. While it's tempting, I won't belabor the point about what a bad idea this was. Now they suggest that they'll remove the DRM from a subset of their catalog - provisionally, for a short period of time. It almost sounds as if they believe they're dealing from a position of strength.

What a bunch of closed-minded fools. Their doom is upon them and they act as if they're in control of the situation...

I've said it before...

...and I'll say it until I stop getting modded Insightful/Informative/Funny for it. Piracy is an economic indicator that you are not letting the market balance itself. Specifically, piracy is caused by artificially fixing prices too high. People refuse to buy the good since it is too expensive, but still demand the good, so they steal/copy it in order to obtain it. The only way to discourage piracy is to lower your price to the point that people would rather buy "the real deal" than a cheap knockoff. Perhaps if CDs were not pegged at $20 each, and were sold at the more reasonable $5 each, the public would find it more preferable to go to the music store instead of the torrent search engine.

Uh?

UMG says that it wants to watch how DRM-free music affects piracy rates.

Whats piracy rates to them? They should look at their sales, nothing else. If they sell three times as much, but the piracy rate (whatever is that, anyway) multiply by ten, why should they care? Should they suppose that they are losing that sales, even if the sales data tells them that they would never have done a but a third of them in the DRM-way? That would be really short-sight... oops, music-industry executives you said?. Then forget it all, short-sightedness is a part of the required CV there, to all external appearances.

It will make no difference in piracy rates

Free will trump anything else every time.

Sure, there will be a few crusaders who want to "support the artists".

Sure, there will be a few people who can't figure out how to make bittorrent work who prefer the convenience of a one-stop download site for a fee.

But the majority of the users who have already drunk from the fountain of free music will continue to do so.