Paul McCartney Releases Album As DRM-Free Download

Medieval Cow writes "Sir Paul McCartney has a side project called The Fireman and he's just released their new album, Electric Arguments, as a digital download. Why this is of interest to this community is that he released it 100% DRM-free. You can purchase just the digital files, or if you purchase a physical CD or vinyl copy, you are also given access to the digital download. Not only that, but the download is available in 320-kbps MP3, Apple Lossless, or even FLAC format. If you're interested in trying before you buy, you can listen to the entire album in a Flash player on the main page of the site. It's so nice to see a big musician who gets it. Bravo, Sir Paul!"

Interesting how artists, when given a chance...

[NinthAgendaDotCom]

...usually like to release DRM-free, or even free, period (Radiohead, NIN. etc.). With certain exceptions *cough*Metallica*cough*.

Re:Not quite your average artist

[MoellerPlesset2]

Yes, but McCartney is also an unusual artist by virtue of the fact that he owns the rights to a vast number of songs (something like 3,000) which he didn't write himself. Among others, Buddy Holly's back-catalog. So, seeing it from the viewpoint of a rather large rights-holder releasing songs DRM-free, the shoe is on the other foot.

No news here

[drinkonlyscotch]

And Radiohead did it a year ago. If anything, it's disappointed it hasn't caught on than anything else.

Re:FLAC

[Jamie's Nightmare]

You could ask for Monkey's Audio, which not only compresses better than FLAC, but also features both a GUI and command line interface from the get go.

Re:No news here

[ghighi]

Actually Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor played with the idea quite a lot.
He released Saul Williams' album, which he produced, under a "pay what you think is fair" scheme.
His conceptual album 'Ghost' was released 100% digitally & DRM free with the first (out of 4) CD freely distributed.
His last album "The Slip" is freely available for full download [nin.com] as a gift to the fan.
Most of his track material is released under the Creative Common scheme for the fans to remix, and he built a comunity site to support these. For all I know, he created the sourceforge of Music.
Nine Inch Nails is definetely a major band/artist too, and the first one of such importance to explore new way of distributing music.

1.6 billion reasons why....

[Computershack]

Paul McCartney has an estimated worth of $1.6 Billion so it's not as if he's going to be affected by people pirating it so is far better placed than up and coming groups to be able to afford to take the hit.

$1.6 Billion in the bank allows you to be able to afford to have altruistic ideas.

However, the vast majority of musicians aren't in such a position so need the sales.

Flac rocks

[onceuponatime]

The only reason I didn't download other drm free ones in the past was the lack of flac or ogg. Flac is best of course, as it's just like buying the album for real. Using one price for the globe is also cool. I never expected it to come from Paul McCartney though considering comments from him in the past. I've never downloaded an album illegally in my life, but then I've never bought an album via a download either till now when finally someone makes flac available. To be honest though, I'm mainly doing it out of principle to support good sense finally. I'd like to see Madonna's albums like this, I wouldn't have to all the way to the shops :-)

He has money, so what?

[VertigoMan]

So he has a butt load of money. The fact is that he took the step and a lot of artists have been inspired by his music so perhaps they will be inspired by this move and follow his example. Does it really matter if he needs the money or not? Oh and it doesn't matter if you like his current work or The Beatles his name is very well known in the music industry. If more big name artists take steps like this then things just might start to change.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Metallica did the same

[g253]

When they released Death Magnetic, they put a flash player on their website so you can listen to the whole album to see if it's worth buying. You can still listen to it now : http://www.metallica.com/index.asp?item=601231 [metallica.com]

I was very surprised at the time that nobody seemed to give a flying fuck, I thought it was a very interesting move, especially coming from Metallica... It was not even mentioned in online reviews ffs! I hardly saw any mention of that anywhere, and had to add it myself to the Wikipedia page (it was deleted instead of being expanded, natch).
Really, I've no idea why, but nobody cared. At all. (Not even fans, before you say noone cares about Metallica period)

This album sells extremely well, btw.

Am I missing something?

[nmg196]

Am I missing something? I've bought dozens of DRM free albums over the years. Nothing on Amazon MP3 or 7Digital.com has DRM as far as I'm aware, so how is this news? At first I thought the album was also FREE (price wise), but it's not - you have to pay for it, so I don't get why this is a story??

Well, what point are we arguing here?

[hey!]

After all, most slashdotters are not anti-copyright. The industry position on DRM is based on confusing DRM with copyright and (ironically) compensating musicians.

Acknowledging a sizable die hard "information wants to be free" contingent, I think the consensus position here is that artists should be able to make money with copyrighted but DRM free music, priced reasonably, and packaged for convenient purchase and use. True, that means the only the most efficient distributors make money, which is bad for some cherished institutions like the neighborhood record shop, but it should mean more music being heard.

I would venture that listening to music is a habit. Habits, once acquired, lead to purchases. In an ideal world for musicians, people would go through life in a habitual cocoon of music. The problem with most DRM schemes is that they work against the habit by making using a song in some context a conscious economic transaction. For similar reasons, I think that unlimited copyright terms work against the habit of music. There's only so many times you can listen to Louis Armstrong recordings from the 30s, but the education in jazz makes you more likely to buy recent recordings.

While the notions that DRM and extended copyright work against the habit of music are consistent with each other, they are neither necessary to each other. One can believe one without the other. This seems a reasonable test of the DRM notion, one that is entirely within the rights for McCartney to attempt.

Now, I happen to think that at this point, if the Beatles catalog was in the public domain, there'd be more people interested in McCartney's recent music. He'd make less money, but he'd get a lot more new fans. However, even if he were inclined to do such an experiment (which he is apparently not) he'd have to buy out others with a proprietary interest in the old copyrights to do it.

DRM has been good for us

[Theovon]

We're the good guys, right? DRM is evil (true that), and we offer alternatives. But the fact is that before DRM came along, piracy of music on the internet was rampant. People (good and bad) didn't give it much thought since it was just so easy to copy. We now say "give it to us without DRM, and we'd gladly pay a reasonable price." But for most people, this is a lie. If it weren't for DRM, they would have no concept of the value of the thing they're copying. They would not have "paid a reasonable price" because they would just have downloaded it for free. Only when they were threatened by having that taken away did they think about opening their wallets.

The RIAA and DRM have been an important corrective event in our society. Because of them, we have become more aware that the producers of this content have a right to protect their investment. Whether you're an artist publishing a song or a coder licensing under GPL, respecting copyright is important for our economy, our access to artistic works, and our freedom.

We still have an uphill battle against the RIAA and their efforts to lock down every little bit of content and take away our right to listen to the content we paid for on any device we wish, let friends listen, etc. When the dust settles, a happy compromise will be reached where sharing with a friend (who will probably turn around and buy the whole album as a result) is reasonable fair use, while the same is not true for posting the copyrighted work on a P2P sharing network, completely taking away the livelihood of the artist who created the work.

My favorite band is They Might Be Giants. Not all of their stuff is fantastic, though, so I have sought ways to listen before buying. But in the end, I have legally bought and paid for every one of their albums. Maybe that's mostly because I'm a fanatic, but I also see it as a statement of respect to people whom I want to produce more of the same kind of brilliant stuff.