Originally published on December 28 – bumped and updated
Tuesday, January 8: Last month, Warner Music Group, one of the four major record labels, offered Amazon’s digital music download store a 2.9 million-track, DRM-free catalog of music, which left Sony BMG as the DRM hold out. EMI and Universal ditched DRM awhile back.
“[I]t’s only a matter of time before Sony does, too,” I wrote.
Last week, Sony announced it would offer some DRM-free tracks. Freeing the music is good, of course, but…Despite Move to MP3s, DRM Will Haunt Record Labels. I’ve got at least a few hundred tracks in the WMA format and locked down with DRM. Converting them to MP3s reduces sound quality. Unless someone creates a program that allows high quality conversion, those tracks with “haunt” me, and I’m forever chained to two digital music players if I want to listen (with high quality sound) to all the music I own. Woe is me (or is it I?). 
Only in a country where citizens to have so much leisure time is this considered a problem. 
In other news, online music service Napster will begin selling digital music in the universal MP3 format (as opposed to non-universal WMA).
Later…Forgot to mention this. Remember the Washington Post Gets It Wrong /RIAA post? Reporter Marc Fisher misrepresented a brief in an illegal file sharing case. He said the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) claimed that ripping a CD to your hard drive was illegal. The RIAA claimed no such thing. Storing those ripped files in a file sharing network folder where others have access is illegal. That’s why the defendant is being sued.
For those who care, the newspaper finally issued a correction (emphasis added):
“A Dec. 30 Style & Arts column incorrectly said that the recording industry ‘maintains that it is illegal for someone who has legally purchased a CD to transfer that music into his computer.’ In a copyright-infringement lawsuit, the industry’s lawyer argued that the actions of an Arizona man, the defendant, were illegal because the songs were located in a ‘shared folder’ on his computer for distribution on a peer-to-peer network.”
Better late than, as they say, never. I’m scheduled to appear on NPR tomorrow around 1:30 p.m. EST. This might be one of the topics.
—————————————————————————
The term “digital rights management” means little to people who aren’t downloading and/or trying to transfer digital music, but to those of us who are, it’s a pain in the butt.
As I mentioned in Death to DRM, digital rights management technology was designed to reduce piracy. Users are prevented from copying music files, even those obtained legitimately, to other MP3 devices or computers. But more music companies are unlocking digital music files, giving users the freedom to copy and transfer at will.
DRM, I’m happy to report, is dressed in funeral garb, poised to take the six feet plunge. Warner Music Group, which owns such labels as Atlantic Records, home of “bad boy” Sean “Diddy” Combs, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Madonna, announced this week that it will offer its 2.9 million-track catalog exclusively to Amazon free of DRM and in the universal MP3 format. Read more about it at Google News.
That leaves Sony BMG as the last record company holdout among the four major labels. EMI and Universal have already given up the DRM ghost, and it’s only a matter of time before Sony does, too. Online music services such as Rhapsody – which I like for its large catalog of music, 25-songs-per-month full (and free) sampling feature, and obscure-to-me recommendations – unfortunately offers files loaded with DRM. So does iTunes.
It’s unclear whether Warner has plans to offer DRM-free digital files to other music services, including iTunes, in the future. As you may know, iTunes sells songs from certain Warner artists.
Apple’s iPod is pretty much running things in the MP3 player department, and iTunes isn’t doing half bad, either. Last summer the service saw its three billionth download. As fond as I am of my iPod (it’s not his fault – he didn’t do anything wrong), I don’t like iTunes. Songs on iTunes are locked down tight with Apple’s own version of DRM, although it recently began offering some music files in the universal MP3 format (as opposed to MP4 format, which Apple uses) and without DRM (which means non-iPod owners can buy music from iTunes). If Sony offers online music services its DRM-free catalog, all the major record labels will be DRM-free. Will iTunes be far behind? These companies are out to break Apple’s digital download monopoly, and getting in the DRM-free bed with the likes of Amazon (still in beta!), behemoth that she is, is a smart start.
So, what does this news – and the tech-speak – mean for the average person? Well, I don’t know if the average person has more than one MP3 player (as I do) or regularly burns MP3s to CDs (which I don’t). But if you do one or both, buying, downloading, listening, copying, and transferring music just got easier. One day, all the music will be “free.” And as we Americans know, freedom is good.
Update: Commenter and blogger Nicole makes a point:
A note about iTunes and DRM, Steve Jobs has made it clear that iTunes only places DRM on the music files because it is required by the record companies themselves. As soon as someone would let him, he took DRM off music. Apple won’t be far behind. In your post you make it seem as if Apple wants to put DRM on their music downloads, which they don’t.
For more info see Steve Jobs Thoughts on Music.
Blogger commentary:
Recent reviews and posts:
- Review of Net, Blogs and Rock ‘n’ Roll
- Review of This Is Your Brain on Music
- David Byrne On Digital Age Music Distribution
- Stop, Thief! Before You Rip That CD…
- Old Fogie Embraces New Medium…
