DRM winding down: In a Turnabout, Record Industry Releases MP3s - WSJ.com --- Soon, the dam is breaking

Link: In a Turnabout, Record Industry Releases MP3s - WSJ.com.

"The music industry has long resisted selling music in the MP3 format, which lacks the copy protections that prevent songs from being duplicated endlessly. But now, Blue Note Records and its marquee artist, jazz-pop singer Norah Jones, are selling her latest single through Yahoo Inc. as an MP3 -- despite the risk that it may add to piracy problems.

The move represents a small but significant retreat from one of the central tenets of the music industry's digital strategy. EMI Group PLC's Blue Note and other music companies are beginning to think they will have to sell some MP3-formatted music both to satisfy customer demand and to provide access to Apple Computer Inc.'s iPod for songs that are sold by online stores other than Apple's iTunes Store.
[Test Tunes]

Blue Note yesterday began letting Yahoo sell MP3s of Ms. Jones's latest single, "Thinking About You." Another EMI act, Christian rock band Relient K, also released two MP3s through Yahoo yesterday. All of the songs will come without any of the software that normally keeps users from making unlimited copies of songs they buy online.

The releases come as some high-tech and music-industry executives are becoming increasingly concerned about Apple's growing clout in the music business. Only online music files purchased from iTunes, ripped from users' own CDs or downloaded from pirate services can be played on the popular iPod. Copy-protected songs purchased from Yahoo and other legitimate sources don't work on it. By selling music in the MP3 format without copy-protection software, Yahoo can offer music that works easily on iPods...."

Another 3 -6 months for flat-out open MP3 offerings by the first major labels.  Digital Sales are down - everyone hates drm. not surprising. THIS is the crucial reason:

Check out my podcast on this...

Comments

[Gerd Leonhard]

Thanks for the comments! Now there is more juice flowing into this subject: Norah Jones / Blue Note / EMI is offering MP3 downloads via Yahoo: http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&tab=wn&ncl=1111760170

[Lutz]

very valid comment, it absolutly fits with my ideas of DRM. DRM is restrictive now, but its not the intention, it must become reliable. two days ago i wrote in a german blog http://www.nicorola.de/?p=2138, that it is a long way until we reached a management for the masses. its not about customers today, because there are to few, its about market share in the future and about the extension of the apple vs microsoft area. Interesting is, that there exist very few worldwide standards (e.G. Genfer Convention), but in the internet, everybodys claims to get one! Is there a need ? "Dont talk about, do it" thats how jobs or gates think about it!
i guess :)

[William]

Any music site/model that as a choice forces drm standards that are not open and that do not allow interoperability between existing mobile music players (ipod) are doomed to a quick failure.

All of the major media players support mp3. None of the major music players support the proprietary drm of any of the other players.

Today drm is not about protecting the rights of the artist; it is about selling hardware and software, as well preventing the disintermediation of old world distribution channels .

If any of the major software and hardware makers decided to release their drm formats to one another there would be no drm issues. If this scenario were played out it would not matter what format you choose or which player you purchased.

A unified drm solution puts the artist and the consumer in control of the distribution channel. If an artist has to go to a major media company to have there content distributed in the predominant drm format for the most popular player; who is in control of distribution. Certainly not the artist, and certainly not the consumer.

At this point choosing a drm format that cannot be played with the player with the highest market penetration rate would be a choice that would render your content un playable by most of the current market for music downloads.

One thing to understand is that even if an artist chooses to use any of the current drm standards, this will not prevent anyone from recording the music or from finding a way to crack the drm. Any protection that the artist perceives that they have is an illusion.

It is only a matter of time before there is an open, unified and real digital rights management system that allows all music to be played regardless of player (And this may mean that a new one needs to be created) or software. Once this point is reached artist and consumers will become the distribution channel.

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http://www.darmik.com