Slashdot Log In
Music DRM in Critical Condition?
Posted by
CowboyNeal
on Fri Aug 10, 2007 02:14 AM
from the can't-happen-soon-enough dept.
from the can't-happen-soon-enough dept.
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."
Related Stories
[+]
Wal-Mart Ditches DRM, Keeps Censorship 455 comments
Smiley Face writes "Wal-Mart has hopped on the DRM-free bandwagon with today's announcement that it will be participating in Universal's DRM-free sales pilot. The quality looks good: 256Kbps MP3 for 94 cents apiece, but customers are likely to be turned off by the retail chain's continued censorship. 'It's a bit hard to believe that all the customers who shop at the world's largest retailer want censored versions of music, though, but that's what they get. Only edited versions of albums with parental advisories are available, just as they are in Wal-Mart's offline stores. This isn't a new policy; Wal-Mart's online music store has carried only edited versions for years, but it's worth pointing out to potential new users tempted by the lower prices and lack of DRM.'"
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
Silly (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:GODDAMIT make it $0.01 and THEN maybe !! (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Parent
Re:GODDAMIT make it $0.01 and THEN maybe !! (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
Parent
Re:GODDAMIT make it $0.01 and THEN maybe !! (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Re:GODDAMIT make it $0.01 and THEN maybe !! (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Parent
Re:GODDAMIT make it $0.01 and THEN maybe !! (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Parent
Do not underestimate that service. (Score:4, Funny)
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.
Parent
If you can't beat em', join em' (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Re:Silly (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
It's not that silly, though (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Another half-ass job (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Another half-ass job (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Another half-ass job (Score:5, Funny)
Wow, you're like the best consumer ever!
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
And if they do, you'll demand that they give you uncompressed 24-bit recordings as a justification for your continued piracy.
-:sigma.SB
FLAC of the masters no less (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:FLAC of the masters no less (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Another half-ass job (Score:5, Funny)
Why?
Parent
No Pirates (Score:5, Funny)
Re:No Pirates (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
nope (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Where are the stats from? (Score:3, Insightful)
* RSITDANTMUFG = Random Stab In The Dark At Number That Make Us Feel Good
Re:Where are the stats from? (Score:5, Funny)
* RSITDANTMUFG = Random Stab In The Dark At Number That Make Us Feel Good
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!"
Parent
Pirates... arrrrr.... (Score:4, Funny)
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!"
Did something like this happen next?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iakR7sB0skw [youtube.com]
Parent
Re:Where are the stats from? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Music companies have woken up to... (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Parent
Re:Correct, it's classical intermediation (Score:4, Interesting)
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].
Parent
And that is derived from --- (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Parent
No Love for iTunes (Score:5, Funny)
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. (Score:5, Insightful)
"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 (Score:4, Funny)
99 each? (Score:4, Informative)
Universal DRM-free on iTunes (Score:5, Informative)
Interesting Experiment (Score:5, Interesting)
Won't affect iPod use (Score:3, Insightful)
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.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:We should cheer for Steve Jobs.. (Score:4, Interesting)
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:
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
Parent
First step, done (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
DRM,Pricing,packaging; legal inferior to pirated (Score:5, Interesting)
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 (Score:5, Insightful)
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... (Score:5, Insightful)
Uh? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Now is the chance (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
TAKE THE RED PILL. (Score:5, Insightful)
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_
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.
Parent
Re:TAKE THE RED PILL. (Score:4, Funny)
Spoiler!!!
Parent
Re:Now is the chance (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't remember, but I know they've bribed radio stations to broadcast crap music.
http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/news/tvstations/artic
Wikipedia also summarize it well:
Parent
Now is the chance to give money to parasites (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Parent
Tip: here's how not to pay the Zune tax (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Parent