Somebody is doing it!

[bladespark]

Hot dog! There's a major music label offering high quality digital downloads without DRM! http://subs.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10432317

Man, if I had more money floating around, I'd be spending so much there! Just the very idea makes me gleeful.

I hope I'm not the only one. In fact I hope this does so well that EMI starts to totally pown the digital market. The article seems to be saying that the other companies are tisking at EMI for diving into this without doing enough research beforehand. I say who needs more research?! What's the worst that could happen? The worst that could happen is they make a few sales and then sales would drop off as the pirates got the pirateable music and spread it around to everyone. But that's BUNK, really, because there's hardly a song on the planet you can't pirate already! You can even get super high-quality versions of most of 'em. So what then? DRM-free just doesn't sell? It's not selling now, since there's no such thing.

And given that the DRM-free songs are also very high quality, well... some of us would pay the extra just for that, and others would pay it for the conveniences of being able to use it on all their devices and send copies to friends, while yet others have personal and moral objectsions to DRM, and will pay the extra just to not have it on their music. Between the three things, I figure they're going to make a killing.

I've said for a long time that the first music label to ditch DRM is going to clean up. I really didn't expect to get a chance to see if I was right so soon though.

Comments

[nsdragon.livejournal.com]

Oh, but DRM-free music had been already selling, and quite well, until the US forced Russia to crack down on AllOfMp3.com.

I wonder, though, if this is a legitimate attempt by EMI, or if they're going to pull out some nasty trick and somehow report lower profits and then blame it on pirates.

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

It doesn't look like it.

And if it's meant as a trick, it's because they're expecting sales to slow down after opening this. If (or should I say when?) sales instead pick up, the'll quickly do away with any such plans and just take advantage of the money rolling in.

*pokes at allofmp3.com* Ah, I see. An interesting model, but the legality is indeed somewhat questionable. When I pirate something I may, perhaps, be stealing it, but the person I'm pirating it from is giving it to me free, they're not making money off of it. Whereas those guys, well... I can see why the music industry might be up in arms. The labels aren't getting any money at all out of all those sales, after all, and I have to question exactly how much the "voluntary payments" to individual artists are. Real reflections of value, or just peanuts meant to sound good when mentioned? But EMI IS a label with actual contracts with artists, so... that problem won't come up. This is totally 100% leagl, above board, and I find it awesome.

[nsdragon.livejournal.com]

Being EMI part of the RIAA cartel, it wouldn't really surprise me if they did pull something like that. If not EMI themselves, the RIAA as a whole. But I do agree that it's a good opportunity for customers and for the industry itself.

My point on AllOfMp3.com was that there is indeed a market for DRM-less music, but yeah, the whole thing was very ambiguous as to the legality of it. They claim to be legal in Russia indeed, and that the money eventually reached the hands of the artists themselves instead of the labels. I bet that last thing, in addition to the ease of use, is what drew most people to it (well, the geeks that kind of follow these issues anyway), and the fact that the Big Labels weren't seeing any of that money is partly why they went after the site too.

Now, this being completely legal is great too. At least people won't have to worry about getting sued and such. But if this takes off, how long until the artists finally cut the middleman?

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

Artists are never going to cut the middleman. The nature of the middleman may change, but /somebody/ has to tell the sheep who to listen to, and who to buy. That's the main purpose of record labels nowadays, is to promote. Nobody actually needs them to record anymore.

[nsdragon.livejournal.com]

Well, by "cutting the middleman" I actually meant do away with all the labels and the marketing and the contracts and exclusivity and the monetary costs all that entails, and switch over to something else. Like, say, MySpace. There seems to be a lot of bands there, promoting their own stuff themselves.

Of course, it could be argued that MySpace is actually a middleman of a different nature.

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

Quite.

How would this DRM-less thing being a success change that though? Is it just that it's going to keep the label in business longer? I honestly can't imagine conttracts and exclusivity and all that just... going away. I mean, humans are humans here. There's always going to be something like it, even if the current form of it falls apart.

[nsdragon.livejournal.com]

If they play their cards right, the labels will live.

It'd all come down to which one gives the artists more benefits. Should they become independent and get a larger share of the profits, but at the cost of more work in the form of promotion, production and such; or should they stay with the label and perceive less overall and bind themselves by a contract, but with more or less secured income and the backing of a huge, experienced company to produce thousands of copies without hardly breaking a sweat?

[2dlife.livejournal.com]

A record label is like a publisher. You don't expect publishers to die even though people can print their own books at home and it's even easier to just mash together a digital book using OpenOffice than it is to do all the sound editing needed for a professional sounding track.

Publishers (and music labels) provide editing, critiquing, promotion, and supply huge upfront costs (at great risk to themselves) and thus get rewarded with a substantial chunk of the return. And the consumer benefits by having professional work pretty much delivered to their door.

[kainhighwind-dr.livejournal.com]

Yeah I saw another article on this earlier this morning in my perusal of the Macworld site for the daily news, and figured you'd be pretty happy! I think it's great. Now if they do the same for video media, an Apple TV-type device might actually be worth something to me!

[silveradept]

People will likely buy the DRM-free versions because they know they'll work, work properly, and they won't have to worry whether their devices are authorized for it. For those of us who hate DRM with the fire of a thousand suns, this is a step forward. Let's see if EMI takes it to the bank.

[privatepony.livejournal.com]

DRM-free MP3's have already been out there for a while. I don't understand all the hubub about this. EMI's charging $1.30 instead of the normal $.99 for a downloaded song. So, basically, you're paying 30% more for the same thing that you could get for 100% less off of Bit Torrent. The great thing about BT? It's free, and the MP3's there don't have DRM, either.

Back on the topic of the math of EMI via iTunes... Normally, an album costs $15 on iTunes (15 tracks x $1.00 each). For one of EMI's albums, you're now looking at $20 for a 15-song album (15 tracks x $1.30 each).

"But you get to put it on whatever you want!!!!" Yeah, you do.

I haven't had a problem with that in four years, and still have a lot of the same MP3's from back then, and you know how much /I/ paid? $0.00.

It's all well and good that the music industry is embracing this finally, but honestly, it's too little too late, because we (the pirates) have been three steps ahead, and now it's much more financially sensible to grab stuff off of BT than iTunes.

[2dlife.livejournal.com]

Contrary to internet lore (and what the music industry has been claiming up to now) most people try to avoid breaking the law when there are viable and easy alternatives. Most of us don't mind paying artists for their work, just as we don't mind being paid for ours.

Yes, we all pirated music back in the day (pre-2000) because burning CDs was still unreliable technology, and borrowing a CD and ripping it still took too long and too much effort. It wasn't that it was free music (heck, back on dialup and being charged by the minute, it was actually very expensive music), it was just easier than going to the store and buying the CD and then having to swap out CDs when you want to listen to different songs. (Heck even back the days of tapes, you could go to the library, borrow a tape, dupe it and have "free" music. But it was way too much effort.) Nowadays, digital music is more convenient (what with keeping a thousand songs in your pocket) and downloading music is near-instant gratification. People are willing to pay for the convenience. That the artists (and yes, the record companies that invest in the artists) get some money out of the deal is just bonus.

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

Yeah, what C said.

I pirate music when I can't afford to buy it, but when I have money I would much rather be legal. Maybe it's "financially sensible," but so is shoplifting.