music_news 91 posts

The Universal Music Group made an announcement that it would offer a wide selection of music on-line without DRM protection.

It will be an experiment within a set timeframe (from August till January). The services selling the songs will include Google, Wal-Mart, Best Buy Digital Music Store, Rhapsody, Amazon.com and others but not the iTunes store. Also DRM-free music will be available through the artists’ web-sites.

The music will not have DRM but it will have watermarks which help to identify where tracks come from in case they come up in P2P networks.

Read more:
Chart-topping hits mark open-MP3 test by Universal Music Group, UMG press-release
Google's Role And Other Details Of Universal DRM Free... read more

DRM and its shortcomings analyzed in an article in Forbes.

The original purpose of the DRM technology was to “to convert the digital ecosystem into a legitimate marketplace, which simultaneously offers security and safeguards for owners of content, as well as appeal and flexibility for consumers.” However, DRM has failed in certain ways:

--“DRM is unable to protect content fully. The scale of file sharing in "dark nets" continues to eclipse sales of protected music and video content. Meanwhile, the "walled gardens" constructed by DRM remain permeable to hacking.

--It also serves to frustrate fair uses of content. As such, it arguably provides an incentive for consumers to search for free and open content elsewhere.

--DRM has fragmented the marketplace into "autistic" ecologies of software and hardware, which are unable to speak to one another. Debates surrounding the interoperability of digital music are illustrative.

--DRM has functioned as a mechanism of market control. By controlling... read more

This week the Warner Music Group, the forth-largest label has started to sell digital downloads without DRM protection.

The company opted not to work with the iTunes store for this project, although it’s been announced that downloads are iPod compatible and are priced similarly as at iTunes: around 99 cents per song.

To prevent downloads unprotected by DRM being leaked to the file sharing networks, files are downloaded straight to portable MP3 players without being stored on a PC.

The Warner Music Group is the second label sell DRM free downloads after EMI did the same last month.


Read more:
Lala Launches Free iPod Music Service, Reuters
read more

Warner Music Group has announced last week that it intended to sell digital music content via the MySpace Music Service. The label plans to offer its top selling artists. The downloads will be in available in DRM protected WMA format making them unplayable on iPods.

The prices and further details haven’t been revealed yet.


Read more:
Warner Music Group's Artists to use SNOCAP MyStores to Make Music Available for Sale Through the Myspace Music Service, Company press release
Warner Music Group Joins Snocap, MySpace Initiative, Digital Music News

Last week Warner got very displeased with an online store which tried to sell Warner albums without DRM. The site offers albums in MP3 format at a discount compared to a physical CD. Customers get MP3 files plus a CD could be shipped later as an option.

According to Reuters “Warner Music Group on Thursday demanded that online retailer AnywhereCD remove its digital albums from the site, saying the start-up had violated their agreement by selling Warner's music without copy protection software.”

It’s OK by Warner if the store helps customers to rip the CDs into MP3s but it’s not OK if those MP3s are without DRM. This way of selling music "flagrantly violates" the agreement between the label and the store.

Earlier this year Warner Music Chief Executive Edgar Bronfman had expressed his views on DRM. "There is no reason to conclude that music is the one content category that should not or cannot be protected, simply because there is an unprotected legacy product available in the physical world," he... read more

The Norway Liberal Party (Venstre) which is holding 6% of the seats in parliament has issued a resolution stating that “Copyright law is outdated”.

“A society where culture and knowledge is free and accessible by everyone on equal terms is a common good. Large distributors and copyright owners systematically and widely misuse copyright, and thereby stall artistic development and innovation.”

Here are some changes proposed by the party “to reinstate the balance in copyright law”:
- Free file sharing for personal use “Laws and regulations, both national and international, need to be changed so they only regulate limitations of use and distribution in a commercial for-profit context.”
- Shorter commercial copyright term (the current span in Norway is 70 years).
- Ban on DRM – “…anyone who has bought the right to use a product... read more

Microsoft has hinted last week that it plans to start selling DRM-free music from EMI and others.

"We've been saying for a while that we are aware that consumers want to have unprotected content," said marketing director for the Microsoft MP3 player Jason Reindorp.

The company sees the EMI’s decision to offer unprotected music as an opportunity to gain a bigger market share as "It potentially makes the competition more on a device-to-device or service-to-service basis. It will force the various services to really innovate." Microsoft hasn’t yet given any exact dates when DRM-free tracks will be available from its store.

Read more:
Microsoft sees DRM-free music in Zune's future, CNET News

On April 02 EMI announced that its catalogue would be available for downloading without DRM. iTunes “ a true pioneer” will be the first on-line store to offer CD quality downloads without DRM which could be played on any device. According to EMI’s CEO this move reflects the current “consumer demand”. A track will cost about $1.29 in the highest quality. Also customers will be able to upgrade the files they already have downloaded to a DRM free mode for a mere $0.30.

According to the corporate press release announcing this historic decision “new premium downloads [will be offered] for retail on a global basis, making all of its digital repertoire available at a much higher sound quality than existing downloads and free of digital rights management (DRM) restrictions.” EMI believes “that offering consumers the opportunity to... read more

According to a new market research report from Insight Research Corp. DRM related spending will exceed $9 billion by 2012. This will include spending on soft- and hardware “technologies that enable the content owner and distributors to assign and control rights and conditions for viewing, listening, and employing the content present in digital media and applications”.

In 2007 total worldwide DRM spending will reach $1 billion.

Looking back “DRM evolved over the last two decades to serve corporations that needed a means to deal with information piracy, peer-to-peer file sharing, and various regulatory requirements. So in a sense DRM did not arise to meet the needs of end users, and in fact, it may be said to have evolved to spite the end user," says Robert Rosenberg, President of Insight. “… by and large the focus of the DRM industry is to protect the rights of the owner of the content, not the end user," Rosenberg concludes. However, more often than not it is the end user who finally pays the cost of development of DRM... read more

Universal is testing offering music downloads without DRM. The label admits these are “some micro tests” which do not indicate immediate change of policy. Indeed, only one album by a French artist Emilie Simon has been made available only in France. The cost of the DRM-free album is €9.99.

Similar tests by EMI last year had been very short and did not lead to any changes in the label’s business model.

Other labels haven’t even yet allowed a possibility of DRM free music downloads.


Read more:
Universal begins DRM-free downloads trial, PC Pro

The music industry met the Apple’s proposal to abolish DRM with no enthusiasm.

Rather music executives pointed to Mr Jobs that interoperability is the issue and that Apple shouldn’t pretend its all labels’ fault when European consumer protection bodies outlaw iTunes for its proprietary DRM. IFPI commented that contrary to Apple’s CEO argument interoperability won’t be that disastrous to quality control and security. The Apple’s appeal to the labels that they are selling 90% of their music without DRM protection anyway was rejected with indignation.

The Norwegian Consumer Council which had recently declared the iTunes store illegal was not impressed either with Apple’s efforts to shift the blame on the labels.
... read more

Last week there was a story in the Wall Street Journal that EMI was about to release its catalogue in MP3 format with no DRM protection.
Some “people familiar with the matter” told the Journal that the label had been inquiring online stores as to what size advance payment they could offer if EMI submitted its catalogue in DRM-free MP3s.
All parties supposedly involved in this story have declined to comment so far.

Read more:
EMI in talks to sell unprotected MP3s, Associated Press via. USA Today
EMI mulls unprotected Web song sales: sources, Reuters
read more

Yesterday Steve Jobs, Apple’s chief executive posted an open letter on the company’s site in which he defended Apple and put all the blame for the inefficient DRM system on labels.

Jobs denies that Apple tries to lock customers who bought iPods into using the iTunes store and hasn’t been using its DRM system for that purpose. He argues that on average there’s 22 songs purchased from the iTunes for each iPod ever sold. However, average iPod now holds around 1000 songs. Thus users are not being locked into the iTunes store as 97% of their music comes from elsewhere.

Moreover, Apple sees abolishing DRM as a way forward as neither the current situation with many proprietary music stores nor opening its FairPlay standard will work. “Imagine a world where every online store sells DRM-free music encoded in open licensable formats. In such a world, any player can play music purchased from any store, and any store can sell music which is playable on all players.... read more

The Norwegian consumer ombudsman ruled this week that Apple violates consumer protection laws because songs from the iTunes store can only be played on iPods.

The issue should be resolved by 10 October 2007. Apple might open its code to other producers; abandon DRM or jointly develop some new protection system. If the company doesn’t find a solution then the issue will be taken to court with a possibility of closure of the service in Norway altogether.

Some European countries might follow Norway in this action against Apple (Germany, France, Sweden and Finland). The Dutch ombudsman has already “… lodged a complaint not only with the newly formed Dutch Consumer Authority (ConsumentenAutoriteit), which will act as the enforcer of 15 European consumer protection directives, but also with the Dutch anti-trust agency”. (The Register)

Apple responded that it’s “…aware of the concerns … and hopes that... read more