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Labels Push for a Unified DRM Standard
thejoelpatrol writes "Bad news for Apple fanatics but good news for all the crazy slashdotters who want an iPod but feel dirty using Apple's DRM: the labels are getting together and insisting that online stores standardize their DRM methods. Being the providers of the music, the labels clearly wield a lot of power, but so does Apple: without iTunes, the online music business is next to nothing. Will Apple give in? Not if they can help it -- they're on top of the world. Before anyone messes it up, AAC is an open format, while the Fairplay DRM standard is not."
Not at all. Do you honestly believe that the labels are doing this for your (the customer's) good, to enable you to choose the mediaplayer and format you want? Then you're truly naive. Labels are greedy, greedy and greedy, in that order. The only reason that they are banding together on DRM now is that they are afraid that they will lose control (=revenue) over their digital music offerings to Apple, Microsoft or some other digital content provider. Which would serve them right.
----- One learns to itch where one can scratch.
I don't know what "open" means in this case, but AAC is patent-encumbered. If you want to distribute an encoder or a decoder you have to license those patents:
So, in a way, the submitter already messed it up.
"but I can't run OS X if the proprietary ROM isn't there"
Incorrect. Mac OS Classic requires the ROM to boot, but Mac OS X does not. If you were to write the proper drivers (go ahead; the core OS is open-source, so it can't be too hard), you could probably run Mac OS X on an AmigaOne or even a GameCube.
It would, however, violate the license, which says you must not run OS X on non-Apple computers.
I for one am a Magnatune customer and find that this is all music I need. Creative Commons doesn't mean it does suck. The fine folks over at Blender chose one Magnatune artist for their SIGGRAPH demo reel. The rest ain't shabby either.
Try Cargo Cult, Curl, Brad Sucks or their shoutcasts for starters.
If you chose to buy, you set the price. Money is evenly divided between artist and label. Download options include wav, flac, vorbis and mp3.
Sure, I still buy the odd CD. But I only do this after a concert right out of the hands of the performers. Prefer my media handsigned and not watermarked, thank you.
I haven't listened to the radio in years.
20 minutes into the future
I recorded a CD and released it online. I also allow some of the tracks to be downloaded for free at MacIdol. And here's what I've found...
As I have made more tracks available for free downloading, CD sales have INCREASED. I think I know at least one reason. We all can recall an artist that we sorta liked on first listening, but then liked more and more as we listened more and more. When you allow several songs to be downloaded for free, you increase your chances of this happening. If people dig the music enough, they might order the CD. If they don't, then you've lost nothing. But they still have your "free" songs out there and they have friends, and you never know.
And instead of releasing the worst songs from the disc for free, I released what I thought were the best songs. I wish big artists would do this.
I'm in line to get the CD into iTunes, but the waiting list to get in is long, so it can take months for a little guy to get in. But I just see iTunes as another way to get exposure. Once the CD is on iTunes, I will still allow free downloading of some songs, because I really believe it will help, not hurt, CD sales. My freely downloadable songs are located at:
http://www.macidol.com/jamroom/bands/999/music.php
Music - www.richardmac.com
Previous engines were external combustion engines, namely the steam engine were the fire was outside and the force of the fire through steam was put inside the engine.
So someone thought Hmmm wouldn't it save a lot of trouble if we could remove all the steam and hot water and boiler and get the fire inside the engine.
The various ways in wich this has been done have been patented, giving the inventor of the way to do the idea several years protection BUT the idea itself could not be patented.
That is the original idea behind patents. To allow inventors a small amount of time to recoup their investment while at the same time making sure the invention would soon be available to the entire world. We now think that 1 year is a long time but when patents were tought up people thought in decades.
of course since then the patent system has gone to hell with ideas now being patented but that is because it is being abused.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
"The RIAA is back to square one and the artists gets screwed again. How quickly they forget the past."
I wasn't aware that they ever left square one.
Apple's already released updates for the iPod firmwares multiple times; if the DRM changed, they'd just release a new firmware for the existing iPod owners. They already released the new 'Apple lossless' codec in an iPod firmware update.
--Rachel
Also lets get a few other things straight.. Balmer was wrong in saying the most common format was stolen music, actually the most common formate is PREVIOUSLY bought music (ie CD's) his methodology in saying that was that .mp3 = stolen. Balmer was in no way trying to say people download from elseware, he was just trying to scare the labels into using Windows user rights free DRM.
Also your right iTunes is ecensially a iPod selling tool... but last I checked Apple owned 70% of the market for music devices as well... so its working. Likewise, Apple DOES make 3 cents a track.. .03 * 1 mill isnt chump change. Also Apple is selling the distrubution method. Remeber the lables HAVE tried this before... they failed misserably.
Also might help if you used tags to format your post ;)
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."