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Puretracks Music Store Drops DRM
Posted by
kdawson
on Thu Feb 22, 2007 11:15 AM
from the apple-could-do-this dept.
from the apple-could-do-this dept.
khendron writes "The Canadian online music store Puretracks (a store I have generally avoided because of their Microsoft-specific solutions) has announced that it will immediately start selling part of its catalog as DRM-free MP3 files. The site's unprotected catalog, which includes artists such as The Barenaked Ladies and Sarah McLachlan, will initially feature only 50,000 of its 1.3 million tracks, but their number will grow weekly. The Globe and Mail says the move will likely profit Puretracks because its DRM-free-music will be playable on iPods. It quotes one industry watcher saying 'We're seeing the death of DRM.'" Essentially Puretracks is relaxing the major-label mandated DRM rules that it had initially applied to all labels, even the indies that wanted no part of DRM.
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Yes, Apple "could do this"... (Score:5, Interesting)
And while we're at it, let's fix the title of this submission:
Puretracks drops DRM from less than 4% of its tracks; even less when you consider well known commercial artists on major labels; changes format and delivery mechanism for such songs
Let's face it: like it or not, that's important.
I do agree that Apple should aggressively work toward this, and they should absolutely drop the "all-or-nothing" mentality with DRM on the iTunes store, because dropping all DRM at once won't work. They definitely need to start somewhere, even if it's with relatively unknown artists and/or labels. Consider, too, that some of Apple's existing contracts may have stipulations that all other music sold on the same store or via the same mechanisms have the same protections.
The article notes:
Essentially Puretracks is relaxing the major-label mandated DRM rules that it had initially applied to all labels, even the indies that wanted no part of DRM.
What if Apple isn't currently in a legal, technical, business, and/or support position to do that? What if it is, in fact, planning to do just that, but can't move quite as quickly as people seem to think it should be able to. This isn't a "2-3 day" operation as some people think it should be. It may be months before any fruits of this are seen on the iTunes Store.
Consider further that Apple may not want to sell, e.g., MP3 format specifically, for a variety of reasons. If a label (like EMI, which is talking to everyone BUT Apple about its possible no-DRM experiment - perhaps some ulterior motives of their own?), specifically wants "unprotected MP3", what if Apple's format of choice is "unprotected AAC"? Should Apple start selling multiple formats as well as multiple protection levels? How much of the years-proven consistency of operation and ease of use should Apple sacrifice on the iTunes Store?
There are a lot of unknowns here that don't automatically mean that Apple "doesn't really want to drop DRM."[1] Yes, actions speak louder than words, but Jobs' landmark statement on DRM, concisely shredding any arguments in favor of DRM, is, in fact, a pretty big action in itself. But Apple has a lot invested in the iTunes Store ecosystem, and they're not going to make rash decisions, screw things up, break support models, confuse customers, or do anything that would cause them to lose one or more large commercial content providers.
So while other fringe and marginally known stores may be able to make moves in this direction, it's a delicate situation for Apple. Hopefully Jobs' strong words, which have already caused a firestorm of circling wagons among some pro-DRM entities, and other stores with the luxury of being able to move more quickly into experimental areas, will push the balance toward "no-DRM". Regardless of what the bloggers and pundits think, who instantly came out with all of these "Apple doesn't really want to get rid of DRM" arguments believing this was a carefully crafted PR play, Jobs' DRM statement is the strongest stance from anyone at such a high level in music and media, and that's exactly what it will take to move the industry forward.
[1] Also, Apple doesn't use "DRM" or trusted computing/TPM on Mac OS X, in any way [osxbook.com]. The restriction is a manifestly a licensing one, and any technical difficulties of running Mac OS X on non-Apple hardware are incidental (even if intended to make it non-trivial).
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
...as the from the apple-could-do-this dept. statement opines, but only for the artists and/or labels with direct legal standing to make such a request with Apple. Hint: it's not anywhere near the number people think it is. Even some artists who sell or provide DRM-free music via other channels may not actually have such a (legal) capability with Apple, for example, because their label's contract with Apple (or other stipulations) doesn't currently allow it.
I'd say the chances are about 80% that one of Apple's agreements with the RIAA stipulates that all music sold from the iTMS will have DRM on it regardless who it is from. It is likely Apple is contractually obligated to not provide DRM free tracks of any music, regardless of that label's wishes. I don't know why everyone seems to assume this is not the case in light of other contracts the RIAA has put such stipulations in.
Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is (Score:5, Informative)
EMusic [emusic.com] has been around for years. Everything on the site is MP3.
They don't seem to be having any business difficulties. And for the record, I've been a subscriber for years.
Parent
Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is (Score:4, Informative)
But eMusic wasn't just his company. Hoffman cofounded the company with Bob Kohn [wikipedia.org]. Before that, both of them served on the board for Pretty Good Privacy [wikipedia.org]. I know. Total "asshats".
Either way, the current CEO [emusic.com] is David Pakman who has been speaking out against DRM [typepad.com] since long before Steve Jobs did.
While I agree with boycotting companies for their beliefs and behavior (I don't buy major label music or anything Sony), I have to call bullshit in this case. eMusic provides distribution for many small record labels in a way that lets their users play the music whenever, and on whatever digital music player they want. They are priced fairly (I pay ~ $.18 a song). They have a good business model, and they're legal.
I'm sure it is possible to rationalize not paying for music no matter how it is provided to you. And if the option to obtain it for free exists, you certainly can take advantage of it. But criticizing a good company in a public forum based on outdated information to justify your refusal to pay for music only makes you look like an asshat.
Parent
Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is (Score:5, Insightful)
That makes me a hypocrite because I am not buying from one specific store? Do I have to buy milk at every store in town to prove I believe in a free market?
They are not the first: Emusic was first to sell (mostly) indy music in a large-scale DRM-free way.
Parent
Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is (Score:5, Informative)
actually, one of them - magnatune - was recently integrated in amarok.
after that, there have been several interested parties in such integration, all of them providing unencumbered tracks in free formats.
an amarok developer is working on a generic music store interface, so it should be even easier to purchase such music and increase music available.
of course, this unified interface is still some time away, but until that everybody can go to magnatune or any other shop that is not only selling non-drm stuff, but also providing it in open an high-quality formats
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
is not available for Mac OS. (Score:4, Informative)
What's the point, other than some site smaller than Balmer's nuts trying to gain more exposure...?
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Me: I think Ferraris are too expensive.
Judge: Ah, case dismissed.
Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is (Score:4, Interesting)
"The point of copyright is that the creators of intellectual property should be the ones who decide how their work is distributed."
This statement actually hurt me to read. The point of copyright is not to control the distribution of media, the point of copyright is to compensate the producer for their work - thus giving a monetary reason for them to continue producing something we as a society find beneficial. The arts aren't required for human life like food and water is, however, as a society we have created things like copyright to help promote something that we find valuable.
This debate should not be about if copying for free is right or wrong, it should be about compensating the artist for their hard work. Piracy doesn't do that, but honestly the majority of labels don't much either... it's obviously time we rethought our strategy altogether.
Parent
Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is (Score:5, Insightful)
WE: Son why did you copy all these songs we didn't buy?
Son: I wanted them dad.
WE: Well son, you need to apologize and get rid of them and we'll call things square even tho we are suing dead people, people that don't own computers, and computer novices every day. It's an important lesson son- the rules don't apply to you because your in a "better" class of people.
Son: Ah dad, I get it! (Goes off to secretly download songs but now nows to do it more discretely).
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
If I copied everything about the Ferrari except the actual emblem, that would be okay, because it's legal to reverse engineer engines and shocks and transmissions...Just not software. and if I copied the emblem, it still wouldn't be a copyright issue. It'd be a trademark violation.
Downloading music isn't theft. It's not a trademark violation. It's not a patent infringement. It's copyright violation. Very simple.
Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is (Score:4, Insightful)
What "charges"? Theft? Nothing was stolen. Trademark? If the guy made it himself and didn't sell it, no. So what?
Just say no to car analogies.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Which is the lie? Or are you referring to window-shopping?
Assumedly it would be harder to find the unprotected version if there were only one source that had it, somewhere on the planet. Making more work for you to find the song would be the impact DRM would be having on you. The fear of peo
Setting up a strawman (Score:5, Interesting)
1. Drop DRM on a bunch of music that nobody cares about
2. Collect sales figures for 6 months
3. Issue a report saying that sales did not increase for non-DRM'd music - "See, removing DRM doesn't make people want to buy more music!"
This old dog may actually now try something new (Score:5, Interesting)
DRM-free music may actually motivate me to get excited about buying music again. It may also, however, hasten the death of CD-based commercial music sales. Ability to rip from a CD and yield DRM-free content seems to be one of the few remaining advantages of this format. Why the heck would I drop $14.99 for a CD now if I can just grab the one or two tracks that I like for a fraction of that price? Sure, I may not discover deep tracks that do not enjoy radio play, but this still does sound like a major advantage to me. How many of us have CDs that seem like a collection of marginal tracks surrounding the one or two that we actually like?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Ahhh, yes, the good old days of mp3. Back when Audioactive was a decent player. Back when the Shockwave export plugin was the ONLY way to encode an mp3 on a Mac (although it ended up in a
*sniff* You're making me all teary-eyed...
Don't believe the hype (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Don't believe the hype (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:Don't believe the hype (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm also puzzled by the "We apologize, but www.puretracks.com is not available for Mac OS." message.
Not True (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Not True (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
There's nothing to see here... Move along.... (Score:2)
Re:There's nothing to see here... Move along.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Not so fast (Score:2, Informative)
Either they aren't doing this "immediately" or someone screwed up. I can't find a single BNL song that is available in anything other than WMA from Puretracks.
Re:Not so fast (Score:5, Informative)
If you go to the Canadian site and you're not in Canada it moves you on to the US site.
So we need someone in Canada to verify the story.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Two clicks is too much to expect from the average Slashdot bandwagoner, I guess.
Re:Not so fast (Score:5, Informative)
I followed your link, and got this error page [puretracks.com].
I suppose it might be the case that this system for auto-redirecting all Mac users to an error page dates from the time when all their songs were DRMed, and hasn't been updated. But it certainly doesn't convey the impression that they've changed anything.
I am in Canada, btw.
Parent
There are two online shops, parent is not a troll (Score:3, Informative)
The Canadian one, available only to people in Canada, sells WMAs and the new MP3s. The US one (which everyone else outside Canada gets, because I'm in Spain) sells only WMAs.
If you see a Mac error page it makes sense because you're not in Canada and can only download WMAs.
If you checked the links to MP3s that posters have given and you get told you're being sent to the US shop, now you know why.
Finally, it might be useful to bear in mind that the world doesn't revolve around the US. Not completely, an
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
No DRM iPods? etc. (Score:2)
I was given an iPod shuffle at a company party last year, and am probably in the minority because I haven't gone hog wild downloading my favorite music from iTunes -- specifically because of the DRM restrictions. Now then, let's say that eventually Puretracks offers me those same tunes without DRM, and I can put them on my iPod for when I am out walking/jogging/etc., or convert the songs I paid for into one copy of a CD that I can play in my PC at work, o
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I call BS. (Score:2, Informative)
Microsoft-specific solutions? (Score:2, Informative)
Do you mean Microsoft-specific DRM solutions? Because if you're avoiding them simply because they've chosen to build their website/infrastructure with ASP and
My wife tried puretracks. (Score:4, Interesting)
"I'd rather get my music illegally, and have them work on my MP3 player," she said.
From The F'in Web Site (Score:3, Informative)
FTFWS:
http://www.puretracks.com/res/img/macsplash.gif [puretracks.com]
Ah, you're on a Mac. Here's the thing about that.
Thanks for visiting.
Our current music sotre uses Windows Media technology to play our music files. Unfortunately that means our songs are incompatible with your operating system. Furthermore, Aple's iTunes FairPlay system is currently not available to us for use with iPods.
We'd love to offer our music to Mac users, and we are currently working to offer content in new formats.
Ah, comme ça vous êtes sur Mac. Sauf que...
Merci de votre visite.
Notre magasin de musique utilise présentement la technologie Windows Media pour jouer nos fichiers musicaux. Malheureusement, cela signifie [sic] que nos fichiers musicaux sont incompatibles avec votre système d'exploitation. De plus, le système iTunes FairPlay de Apple [sic] ne nous est présentement pas [sic] disponible pour fins d'utilisation avec des [sic] iPods.
Nous aimerions offrir notre musique aux utilisateurs [des] Mac[s], et nous sommes en train de travailler sur la possibilité d'offrir notre nouveau contenu sous de nouveaux formats.
This is nearly worthless unless... (Score:3, Insightful)
Even if 90% of their music was DRM free, if I don't find out until I get to the song in question, it's going to be a very aggravating browsing and shopping experience. Imagine finding a song you want to here, only to discover you can't use it. Unless they offer a way to filter out the stuff I can't use, why should I waste my time looking through their stuff? It would be bad enough if it was mostly DRM-free - but given that it's mostly stuff I can't listen to, why would I waste my time?
Re:This is nearly worthless unless... (Score:4, Informative)
Wrong. Click the "MP3" link (4th item on the menu bar at the top of the page). Although I suppose I have to take into consideration that you may not be aware that MP3s contain no DRM.
Or, if that's too much work, click here: http://www.puretracks.com/content/viewer.aspx?cid
Parent
Come off it (Score:2)
As soon as any of the music stores start selling RIAA-covered music without DRM, expect the RIAA to come down on them like a ton of lawyers.
Re:Come off it (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Canadians only, the story is NOT bogus (Score:5, Informative)
I live in Canada and we're seeing the links. I suspect that since the RIAA rules your dominion, you guys are stuck living in a DRM world for Puretracks but for Canadians, we're finally seeing some MP3's on this site.
You guys gotta stop flaming other people and claiming the story is bullshit until you do a little research. Just because you live in the US doesn't mean that you can get to it. It's the same thing that pisses me off about American websites that advertise the ability to stream TV shows but the moment I try it, no luck because I live in Canada.
BTW, since I have bought stuff from Puretracks in the past, I received an email from them just prior to reading the post on Slashdot. Here's a copy of the letter.
----
Thank you for being a Puretracks customer. We are very excited to announce that as of today Puretracks will be offering MP3 files for sale on our site at Puretracks.com: http://www.puretracks.com/content/viewer.aspx?cid
And as the first North American digital service provider to launch 'a la carte' MP3 music downloads, we're happy to offer you a free MP3 track from the popular Canadian band The Barenaked Ladies.
The track, called 'The Sound of Your Voice,' will be delivered along with the February 27th Puretracks newsletter. You will need to be a registered newsletter subscriber to be eligible to download this track.
If you don't currently receive our newsletter (filled with weekly free tracks and exclusive content), click here to register.
MP3s at Puretracks
MP3 tracks are easy to download (no licenses required) and can be played on all digital audio devices. Puretracks currently offers over 50,000 tracks in French and English from popular artists such as: Sarah McLachlan, Broken Social Scene, Feist, The Barenaked Ladies, Jean Leloup and Richard Seguin. Track prices starting at $ 0.79 each.
Be sure to register now for the Puretracks newsletter to get your free MP3 track from The Barenaked Ladies! Click here to register. If you are already registered, watch for your February 27th Puretracks newsletter to get your free track.
Regards,
Alistair Mitchell,
CEO
oh Canada (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.werkshop.com/ [werkshop.com]. I just wrote about this today: DRM and legal music in Canada [typepad.com]
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
And it is the artist's right to not produce the music you believe you have the right too. How will you feel if there isn't any new music being produced by full-time musical artists because they have to take other full time jobs to pay the bills?
I don't believe in DRM, and I think
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
"We apologize, but www.puretracks.com is only available to Canadian residents"