EMI Experiments With DRM-free MP3's 271
trifster writes "Ars Technica has an article about EMI selling DRM-free MP3's through Yahoo Music's US online store. It should be noted that this trial is an attempt to increase sales and competition with online music that is not necessarilary available on iTunes."
From the article:
"Why the sudden interest in non-DRMed formats? It appears that the record labels are slowly beginning to realize that they can't have DRMed music and complete control over the online music market at the same time....
There are signs that consumers might be growing irritated by the Balkanization of the online music scene. Nielsen SoundScan reports that online music sales dropped during the second and third quarters of the year."
Great! (Score:5, Funny)
Nothing new (Score:5, Funny)
Good job guys (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Good job guys (Score:5, Insightful)
I suspect the problem is that people who see things the same way most of us do are the 20/early-30 something iPod owning executives who do not have that much weight with the companies; I expect that in 15 years most record companies will catch up to today's reality
Re:Good job guys (Score:4, Insightful)
And where will that put them? Oh, that's right. 15 years behind the times...We can only hope that their thinking will be so "progressive."
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Sheep (Score:2, Insightful)
Stop buying CDs altogether and the **AA suing everyone's grandmother would die in less than 30 days. baa baa
Re:Sheep (Score:5, Interesting)
Hmmm, guess it has little to do w/the sheep and more to do with the power of the conglomerates and their lawyers.
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http://www.mp3sale.ru/ [mp3sale.ru]
http://www.gomusic.ru/ [gomusic.ru]
http://mp3stor.ru/ [mp3stor.ru]
Re:Sheep (Score:5, Insightful)
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I wonder... If iTunes would distribute shadily licensed work from Russian artists, would Russia be able to shut down the entire iTunes via the World Trade Organization?
Or am I not understand this issue fully?
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No, that is the RIAA public relations and political lobbying lies. Their primary tactic is chant "priate" endlessly until they get what they want.
Russian law operates on the exact same legal principals as US law on all relevant issues here.
Pandora.com (an American company) operates in full compliance with US copyright law, under a statutory license.
AllOfMP3.com (a Russian company) operates in full com
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Hah! They're still running, despite claims to the contrary. Getting money into your account now involves getting a Blizzard gift card first, but that takes about five minutes. My downloads are running at break-neck speed while they're around. I think it's sad that the most user-friendly and effective music distribution site in the world is being shut down.
It's not about money, it's about control -- I don't want some DRM-damaged crap that won't be playable in five years. Allofmp3 delivers what the cu
Re:Sheep (Score:5, Insightful)
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And listen to the collection you already have?
And borrow/trade from your collection with your friends?
It isn't like he's saying you will never get any new music ever again.
I'm sure many of us have gone more than a year without acquiring any new music.
Sales dropping (Score:2)
Does anyone have numbers on this? (Score:2, Interesting)
Christians are supposed to be honest and pay for stuff anyway, right? Just how big a risk is this little online venture?
If these files start showing up on P2P lists, what does that say about us all?
Re:Does anyone have numbers on this? (Score:5, Funny)
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Personally, I find that too dire a punishment to risk, so I'm going to avoid downloading any Christian music...
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That we really don't practice what we preach? In other words, people aren't as religious as they claim themselves to be. Which isn't breaking news. Studying actual church attendance statistics will tell you as much.
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Ehh, don't read much into the Christian label. Theres nothing real specifically Christian about their music (same with MxPx). They basically just don't do drugs, drink to excess, sleep around and their music generally has positive overtones.
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It's the price, stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's the price, stupid (Score:5, Interesting)
"Wake up RIAA and realize that the price of music drives piracy."
Pricing drives shoplifting, auto theft, and lots of other crimes. Businesses can take this into account, but no matter what industry you're in, there's always going to be a certain percentage of people who will try to help themselves to your product for free and use pricing as a rationalization.
"People will always have an incentive to crack DRM if they can't get the music for a fair price legally."
Agreed, but for many people, "fair price" has been sliding downward so that it's below whatever price the industry sets. Remember six years ago when CDs were $20 and online tracks were $3 and hard to come by? People justified P2P usage back then because CDs were so expensive and legit online tracks were expensive and offered little selection. Today, new CD releases are south of $15 and selection of online music is plentiful at $0.99 and below. Yet this price is still not "fair." For many people, it never will be. Those people likely aren't high on the record companies' target audience... unless you're counting lawsuits.
"I imagine the music industry is scared to death of sliding music prices, even though that's where it's going to head eventually. There is some point between "overpriced" and "free" at which both consumers and most artists will be happy."
...and the industry has found that at $0.99. The iTMS has been an overwhelming success, despite the fact that everybody on Slashdot hates it because the pricing isn't "fair" and because the product is DRM-laden.
You are not going to believe this, but if online music pricing dropped to $0.80, $0.70, or even $0.50, I would not buy more. I buy all the music I want online, and $0.99 is not a burden to me. It's conceivable that I'm the only consumer on the planet for whom there's no elasticity between $0.99 and $0.50, but that's highly unlikely. Pricing theory is all about finding that point on the curve that makes the most profit, even if it means that you're limiting your potential customer base.
"Those artists who expect to become millionaires from a popular record (and who don't tour), are going to be sorely disappointed. Those artists who are happy making a decent living, and who actually produce good music, will prosper."
This sounds a lot like many arguments I hear for lower music prices which end with some form of "artists will just need to accept their new place in society." Why should they want to do that? Many people would trade fame for money, but many would not. If I offered to make you more well-known but your salary would have to drop by $20K a year, would you do it? Do you think everybody would take me up on my offer?
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The problem is tha
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"The problem is that 0.99 is not a fair price. Its easier for them to distribute yet the price per song is still higher than just buying the album. If an album has more than 15 songs on it, you're losing money. Forget about "boxed" sets that have ~100 songs on them but retail for ~$40."
Volume incentive pricing is hardly new; it's not "fair" (if I understand your meaning) that a four-pack of bottled water or toilet paper costs much more per unit than a 12-pack. Part of the disparity is often because ther
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Though, factoring into that is the fact that I actually found quite a few bands this year that I enjoyed, which is a rarity. Personally, I'd like to see them get rid of the copy protection and DRM and leave music prices where they
Re:It's the price, stupid (Score:4, Insightful)
How do you define "overwhelming success"?
We know from simple division that even among iTunes Music Store customers, the average number of purchased tracks is 21. We also know that the number of illegal downloads continues to outnumber legal downloads by 40 to 1. (Both of these stats come from previous - and recent - stories posted here.) People continue to fill up their iPods with music they have obtained elsewhere (legally and illegally). If such a small percentage of music sales can be deemed an "overwhelming success", then what would constitute failure?
I think the music industry has seen these stats, they know these stats, and they also know that even with whatever limited success iTunes and the like has had (and it is "limited" at best, not "overwhelming"), most of that success belongs to Apple, Real, etc. Not to the music industry itself. So they know they've still got big problems.
This sounds a lot like many arguments I hear for lower music prices which end with some form of "artists will just need to accept their new place in society." Why should they want to do that?
Whether they want to or not is not really relevant. The fact may be that they have to.
Look at it this way. In the late 1800's, a lot of people made a lot of money in the railroad business. By around the 1950's, that was no longer possible - the business just wasn't what it was anymore. Media is just like any other business, and in fact the exact same thing is happening to the newspaper and magazine industries right now. You can never count on a business to make you rich forever. How you feel about that as a member of that business matters not at all.
Unless you want to count classical composers who often consorted with kings and queens (but were rarely really rich themselves), the whole notion of getting rich by writing and playing music is an entirely recent phenomenon. It's not something anybody would have assumed 100 or even 50 years ago. It was something people did for the love of the music, and hopefully they did it well enough to make a living. That living was mostly made through playing live, not through sales of media.
Many people think the music industry's run as it currently exists is simply over. It does happen. Industries come and go as times change; they are not static things.
That does not mean music will go away. It just means the current major label-dominated industry itself might, along with the ability to get rich by selling records. Being a musician may become more like any other profession, where the savvy and talented can make a good living provided they continue to work year-round playing live, releasing new music and creating other related merchandise. Labels will still exist - there does need to be someone to do the real production and promotion work - but they may not be dominated by the four majors. The entire industry may look a lot more like the indie record industry of today. eMusic may be the new model. Or, the opposite may happen, and it already sort of is - musicians that want to get rich will need to become "brands", transcending their career in music and turning themselves into full-on multimedia campaigns. Or, there could be some combination of both models, which is probably the most likely scenario. But you won't be able to get rich just selling records for very much longer.
It probably sounds far-fetched to you, but then in 1930 there probably wasn't a man alive that thought there'd come a time when the New York Central wasn't steaming from New York to Chicago six times a day. Things change in business, often dramatically. And new technology is what drives that change.
$5 works (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe for some people. But for "many" people, $5 seems to be a good target.
I've made/sold compilation CDs with a bunch of local musicians, almost all of us (with one or two exceptions) with only small followings. The idea was to cross-pollinate our audiences, really, but we were going to do our best to sell as many CDs to whoever would b
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Kudos to you for supporting emusic. They've seen some success lately and I'd really like to see them do better, so they can convince more artists and labels to get on board.
Your "then / now / forever" observation applies to countless products in my world. I will never buy an SUV that costs more than $40K; nor will I buy a Hugo Boss suit (not than I'm against nice suits; I simply prefer Armani), nor an HP computer, and I will not even buy breakfast cereal -- all for the reasons you mentioned. Yet all of th
It Will Not Be Long (Score:4, Insightful)
People want to do what they want with the things they own, period. Companies should not be deceiving consumers by giving the illusion of ownership when they purchase a song. Instead they should be prompted warned that buying said song from said service will result in the following restrictions. Well maybe they are better off telling them they are not allowed to do anything with the song besides X and X, just to save time and space :)
If the DRM was explained and the restrictions spelled out, as they should be, sales on iTunes and other services would begin to fall as soon as any alternative that allows people to do what they want with the songs comes out. Of course, seasoned digital music consumers have found an alternative already, but no money is being made off that yet... If no alternatives are allowed to hit the market then the average user, as they become more knowledgeable about the issue, will result to the same methods.
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Quality / Bitrate..? (Score:5, Interesting)
DRM free..? Well, okay... I'm listening (so to speak). But if the quality isn't 192kps and up then I'm not interested.
Personally I'd rather see a "more legal" version of allofmp3.com... Choice of format, bitrate, etc? Yes, please. I'd be very happy to part with my hard earned cash in that case.
Patent free? (Score:2)
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But allofmp3.com is completely legal. They are doing nothing shady, legally, they are completely abiding by the law.
Oh you mean they don't comply with the laws of *your* country? Too bad. The US administration's references to them as illegal is absurd.
We might as well go around calling women drivers criminal too. After all, it's illegal for women to drive....well in some middle eastern countries anyway, but that doesn't matter, because Amer
Wow (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Wow (Score:5, Funny)
I know you're trying to make a point, but Celine Dion isn't quite THAT bad.
Allofmp3.com (Score:3, Interesting)
This is the same cartel convicted of fixing the price of CD's. This is the same cartel has the ability to maintain an artificially high $10-$18 per new CD. Look at the demise of allofmp3.com. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AllOfMP3.com_legalit
The money to be made by eliminating your right to first sale is too powerful.
Balkanization of media download services clearly benefits the media cartels.
Consider this story another sad footnote in the history of your rights being taken away.
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I have 5 moderator points, and I was almost going to mod you up as insightful, since you are mostly correct. But I'm giving up my ability to mod this thread just to disagree with you on one point:
Look man, defeatism helps not at all. Cynicism is okay, but rally people to be active about something. Defeatism just helps the enemy.
I know, there's a hell of a lot of bad news out there, and it gets discouraging. Bu
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the recording industry has lower sales numbers and higher piracy, as do the artists
fans have a smaller selection of music AND hardware lock-in if they go with Apple
Retailers have to deal with angry customers when their new MP3 player won't play the songs they just bought
Which song? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Which song? (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.amplified.com/thinkingaboutyou [amplified.com]
Oh yeah, FF users, ignore the message about "No Windows Media Player". You don't need it. Just click OK.
Re:Which song? (Score:4, Informative)
Not Easy to Find, Not Easy To Buy, but I did it. (Score:5, Informative)
But this "amplified.com" site is in fact selling it. However, I've never heard of them before, and like a lot of other online retailers who I've never purchased from, I'm reluctant to hand over my credit card number. So I decided to use a feature my credit card offers called "ShopSafe", which lets you generate temporary numbers with a given limit and expiration date.
I decided to use a temporary number I created two weeks ago that had one dollar left on the account. The purchase came back "declined due to insufficient funds". Odd, given that the track was supposed to be $.99, and there's a dollar left on the limit.
OK, I decided to create a new number, just in case the old one was the problem. Limit $1, expires 2/07.
Declined due to insufficient funds.
Well, maybe like many companies, they actually ding you for just a bit more for some reason. OK. I bumped the limit on the temp number up to $5.
Declined due to insufficient funds.
Suffice it to say that if this was just about purchasing the song, I would have given up by this point for certain. But I don't want some brain-damanged analyst who is unable to fathom the very idea of *ease of experience* to attribute the failure of this promo to piracy (or worse "people like DRM"), so in principle I want to support it.
$10 limit: declined due to insufficient funds.
I'm sorry? $10 in an account is not enough to purchase a $1 song? This must be the kind of Math that the analytically challenged record labels use to determine their loss figures.
I was finally able to buy when giving the card a limit of $25. For a $1 song. Not to mention 20 minutes of work.
It is an MP3, and it's not bad. For the song itself, it wouldn't be worth the hassle.
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They want access to the iPod Market (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't think this story is really very much about the record industry starting to recognize consumer frustration and so on. They simply want to distribute digital music through channels other than iTMS and still maintain access to the iPod market, which is enormous. This is the sensible explanation put forth by the WSJ (although they speculate consumer demand is a driver as well): In a Turnabout, Record Industry Releases MP3s [wsj.com]
From the article: Blue Note and other music companies are beginning to think they will have to sell some MP3-formatted music both to satisfy customer demand and to provide access to Apple Computer Inc.'s iPod for songs that are sold by online stores other than Apple's iTunes Store.
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The fun part of this is that it can only benefit consumers. It's not like people are buyin
this is crap (Score:2)
This is PR crap, and Yahoo along with EMI don't deserve the light of day for exposure about this stunt.
I went to the yahoo music web site, and nowhere on "page one" is there a hint about selling mp3s.
So, yahoo and EMI skate by getting a publicity tour out of this while not even really brushing up against what non-DRM music is all about? (I remember the last unencumbered debacle, they were selling a Jessica Simpson track, and they would customized the track to put your name in the song.... Sheesh)
I reall
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My favourite non-DRM MP3 source... (Score:3, Informative)
I'm not affiliated, other than being a very happy customer.
No such signs (Score:3, Insightful)
This bit of misinformation has been getting around lately, actually they claimed the same thing last year. Perhaps they're hoping that if they say it enough it will become true? (Paging Godwin)
Look 4Q is always the highest, think Thanksgiving and Christmas... followed by 1Q, think people using their iTunes gift cards or trying out the iTunes Store now that hey have a new iPod. I'm sure practically every consumer goods business has a similar sales graph where things drop off after Xmas. It's just interesting to me that analysts are using this to predict the death of the iPod
The model that would work for me. (Score:2)
You record that you sold a license to me.
If I need it again in the future, you will allow me to get another copy of it for a nominal charge such as 10% of the original purchase price. This will be reasonably limited to one replacement copy per year. However, if I'm brought up on charges and have a copy of that version of the song in my possession, the license cover it and protect me from prosecution. I am not authorized to offer the song for upload but I can transfer my license to ano
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What i do with it, is my problem. Not Yours.
You can't control to whom i seel it to, or i delete it.
I can't ask you for another copy of the song if i delete it. Similarly, you can't prevent me from doing what i want with it except public broadcasting.
I can convert the MP3 to a Ringtone, change it, Karoake it, etc. But i can't plagarise it, just like i can't plagarise a paperback.
That's what allofmp3.com does.
RIAA may claim t
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I have to pay a yearly fee to have them acknowledge I own something.
I have to pay a fee to give my music to someone else.
I have to pay a fee if I want to download the song again.
Wouldn't it be simpler just to buy a CD? It's cheaper, and I don't need to pay some mega-opoly to acknowledge that I just paid some mega-oply.
I realize your heart's in the right place, but it seems we're doing an awful lot
Zune (Score:3, Insightful)
It could be that MS did us a favor by abandoning play for sure.
itunes (Score:2)
The ipod is more and more entrenched in popular culture every day. They are trying to break apples grip on this market with the zune, but its not working.
So if they cant control the DRM used, they don't want anyone else having this kind of control. They know that
In other news... (Score:3, Funny)
Not news... (Score:3, Funny)
pretty good.
Thoughts and Solutions (Score:3, Interesting)
The MP3 debate is near and dear to my heart and I've given it a lot of thought. So here is my 25 cents (inflation):
CD prices are not, as such, artificially inflated to an outrageous degree. However, they are IMO spending their money inefficiently.
A LOT of the money they collect for a CD has already been spent in marketing.
If we're going to point our fingers at them and say that they're bad people, we should do it because they're ramming (successfully) horrid music down people's throats.
If you listen to the music put out these days, you'd find that almost all of the songs from a given artist sound exactly alike. *cough* metalliwhiner *cough* or any of the other popular bands.
The reasoning behind this is simple: when mary-muffins goes to buy the latest CD, she is less than happy if all the music doesn't sound as good as the 1 or 2 tracks splattered across pay-for-playdio. (I don't like getting a CD for a single song and have the rest of the CD suck either.)
Mary-muffins would know good music if it hit her in the face, she is just never allowed to hear it. The current RIAA members are the gatekeepers. Remember (anyone?) mp3.com? I do.
I found over a dozen bands that never appear on the splaterworks. Small, little bands with unique sounds and really interesting songs.
CNET bought them and for some odd reason, destroyed the entire music catalog and the service. It no longer exists.
Song (as well as movie) piracy exists for a single reason, and it has little to do with money above a certain age: ease.
If I can download a song or 6, in mp3 or better, at an acceptable bitrate in which I can hear the songs before hand (lower bit rate is acceptable for that of course), and if it is as easy as getting songs from bittorrent or whatever (click and go), then I'd buy.
Otherwise, if I can get superior service, packaging, delivery, and ease of use for free... why wouldn't I?
(Spare me the legal or moral argument. I consider the RIAA to be far more reprehensible than someone infringing on their copyrights. I consider them to have sleazed their way into many of the copyrights they own in the first place. I cite http://www.jdray.com/Daviews/courtney.html/ [jdray.com] as Courtney Love's take on the music industry and http://negativland.com/albini.html/ [negativland.com] as Steve Albini (producer of Nirvana's "In Utero".)
Knowing that the music industry spends a LOT of money on promotion, and that live events and selling goodies (like t-shirts and whatnot) make the bands more money and promote at the same time (assuming people want to see them, unlike the ditzy shizz (those idiotic morons that maligned their country and alienated their entire clientele then wondered what the hell happened)), the music industry simply needs to change tactics.
They would earn (tons) of money, get to keep themselves as the gatekeepers, and take less risk in promotion if they followed this plan:
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Never seen 'Xian' used before, I thought it was some kind of oriental thing
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Never seen 'Xian' used before
Heh. I used that as a note-taking shortcut throughout Bible school. It's not common, but it is used.Re: (Score:2)
??? The "X" stands for Christ. It comes from the Greek letter Xi. If you see some churches, there is a Xi and a Rho in stained glass along with a picture of Jesus, since the Xi and Rho are the first two letters in Christ (in Greek, of course). As to the person who responded to you saying that only rugs are oriental: "Oriental" is opposed to "Occidential", or basically anything that is not Western. "Asian" is simply more spec
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As for Christian bands, there are some good ones such as Norma Jean, Demon Hunter, and Underoath (a little emo, but still good).
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Just because someone may prefer one name over another doesn't negate the definition.
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-Eric
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Do they use different maps over in 'eastern' countries? I mean the pacific is a pretty good place to cut off a map, being a mostly empty space. The only other thing you could use usefully would be the atlantic, I guess that could put asia in a more central location. If you wanted you could tu
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"Westerner" isn't really commonly used as a term as far as I'm aware, although when I have seen references to "the West", it's also actually still often a Eurocentric term, inherently (it's a term that Westerners basically use for themselves)
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The trouble with "Asian" is that it's less specific than "Oriental". An Asian could be from Iran, or Siberia, or Kazakhstan, or Korea, or Sri Lanka. "Oriental" means you're from the easternmost part of Asia.
Another thing... "land of the rising sun" is clearly a Sinocentric term, yet the Japanese don't seem to have a problem with it.
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The term "asian" isn't really about specificity, so I don't think the trouble you cited is really relevant. It is only "troubling" in the same way that European or African is similarly "less specific".
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Certain words keep getting relegated to the ranks of "bad" words despite their accuracy, because some idiots consider it an insult and greater idiots hand the word over and scurry around trying to find a more round about way of saying the same thing. Retarded, cretin, spastic, oriental are examples. It's the same idiocy that has led to absurdities such as 'differently abled' and 'someone of colour.' It offends me because trying to avoid using a word with a correct meaning, is a tacit acceptance that there'
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Re:W00t - not. (Score:5, Interesting)
"Selling a couple xian tunes w/o drm isn't going to exactly cause a wave of common sense to break out. Does anyone actually listen to this crap?"
Norah Jones has had a couple of multi-platinum albums in the past five years. She's a bona fide star. Relient K are one of those "crossover" Christian bands that have managed to release three consecutive gold albums. By the way, I found this data with about two minutes of Googling.
Per Ars Technica, these artists were picked because their audience skews older. P2P usage skews younger. The Slashdot demographic is also younger, so most people reading this see the world as one where everybody uses P2P to get their music and nobody listens to lame artists like Norah Jones, but EMI is apparently looking at the big picture.
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Well, we know how that one ended.
This a trial balloon, and a very big deal.Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Arrrrrr.
Yup, most christian rock/pop sucks. But then again most rock/pop sucks. However Reliant K and veggie tales just make me happy.
Re:W00t - not. (Score:5, Insightful)
They're doing exactly the same thing they did with DRM on CDs; they're releasing them in very limited quantities so they can guage the public reaction.
This is a big deal. It's not big because the numbers are big, but because they're actually looking at the format at all. At one point (yesterday?) we were forced to use quasi-legal tools and we were treated like criminals if we wanted to have cross-platform music. Now at least there's hope.
My suggestion is run, don't walk, to your computer and buy these tracks, even if you hate the artists involved. The music industry is quite predictible in that they always seem to go in the direction that they think will make them more money. We want to encourage this behavior.
TW
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I would disagree. Not only should these artists not be supported but I have qualms giving my money to companies who promote the RIAA system.
RIAA as a group should be removed. They are the problem. Not just the DRM. They destroy art and ruin independent music.
Maybe I'm just bitter, but if you want to support non-drm music then buy it from non RIAA groups like www.emusic.com
Re:W00t - not. (Score:4, Insightful)
TW
Exactly! (Score:3, Interesting)
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Sorry. I'd rather just pay a decent price for a CD and then encode/index/tag/etc the stuff to be used with my computers/sansa as I see fit.
Why is this simple concept so hard for everyone to grasp?
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How many MP3s do they expect to sell from that offering - 100 tracks worldwide? I think their selected offering is a maneuver to "prove" that DRM-free mu
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Build a bad product and, no matter how you cripple your product, no matter how many Weasels in Suits(tm) you hire to sue the consumers of your product, no matter how much you spend in popular media to use the Goebbels Big Lie technique for re-defining words like "steal" to then morally brow beat people into buying your product, the bottom line is still: you built a bad product. People will no
Re:W00t - not. (Score:5, Funny)
AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!! [runs quickly out, slamming door behind]
[unlocks door, comes back in jabbing pointy stick] [sits shakingly back down at computer]
ahem, sorry. I believe God smote them.
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just to help their little experiment be successful.
Exactly! While it's fashionable to bash the recording companies, sometimes it helps to encourage them when they're making a positive step. So far I've seen complaints about the artists chosen, the assumed recording quality of the mp3's, demands for different formats, moans about the price, and demonization of the company and industry in general. All the usual responses I see every time here on Slashdot when DRM and media gets mentioned.
I don't lik
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