Puretracks Music Store Drops DRM 236
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.
Time to put your money where your mouth is (Score:1, Insightful)
And to everyton else please make sure you reply to all such posters with a question" How many puretracks recordings do you own"?
Even if their selection is small you are obliged to buy something to support the movement and show the world this giant latent market of people who really dont want to steal music and would really pay but are currently rightteously protesting DRM and thus are forced to steal. Show them the market for righteous people like yourself exists. This is the first one to put major bands on it's free list in quatitity. If you dont' support them no then there wont be more...
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:Time to put your money where your mouth is (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:DRM is a stopgap against obsalesence (Score:1, Insightful)
Those "fools" are the people who get to decide which artists keep working and which ones hang the guitar on the wall and go into accounting. The only people who won't pay for music are those who don't care about it.
I was an anime fan back in the day when you couldn't buy it in the US for love or money. Real fans still spent as much as they could on merchandise, wherever they could get it. Now the stuff is everywhere, because people chose to help finance it -- not because they signed online petitions.
This isn't a feudal system or a monarchy. We don't have some aristocracy somewhere that decides which arts will be done and which artists will be sponsored. If you abstain from that decision, then please be silent when you don't like the results.
Re:This old dog may actually now try something new (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...
Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Don't believe the hype (Score:2, Insightful)
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).
Re:No DRM iPods? etc. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Don't believe the hype (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm also puzzled by the "We apologize, but www.puretracks.com is not available for Mac OS." message.
Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is (Score:3, Insightful)
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.