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Making Money Selling Music Without DRM
phaedo00 writes "Ars Technica's Nate Anderson has an excellent writeup on the rise of eMusic and how they're suceeding despite their unwillingness to hop on the DRM bandwagon. From the article: 'The Holy Grail of online music sales is the ability to offer iPod-compatible tracks. Like the quest for the mythical cup itself, the search for iPod compatibility has been largely fruitless for Apple's competitors, whose DRM schemes are incompatible with the iconic music player. For a music store that wants to succeed, reaching the iPod audience is all but a necessity in the the US market, where Apple products account for 78 percent of the total players sold. Perhaps that's why eMusic CEO David Pakman sounds downright gleeful when he points out that there's only two companies in the world that can sell to them--Apple and eMusic.'"
It's nice to see a company that selling music in a drm-unencumbered format. It's basically doing things right - instead of locking your customers in (after they've bought a track, they find out lots of players can't play it).
Also, eMusic supports indie artists. Really good to see, because some artists get less then half a cent per purchase from other online music stores.
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
There's just something graceful about a service that surprises you with new bands all the time. I've been able to wade my toes into genres that I wouldn't have touched otherwise, like twee-pop. (Heavenly is a great band.)
It's nice to know that these guys are not only successful, but they're successful in all the right ways. I have a feeling that there'll be a point where eMusic gets so successful that the major labels have to start taking notice and talking to them more seriously. Beyond the lack of DRM, they just do so many things right.
ShortFormBlog: Writing a little. Saying a lot.
I think even more influential is the Barenaked Ladies initiative they've had on this entire issue.
I attended a concert in December and purchased a coupon I could redeem at the website for a live recording of that concert. I finally got around to downloading it last week. No DRM, various formats I could download in (either tracked or two huge mp3s perfect for burning)
as well as PDFs of CD covers and inserts that could be printed.
I could also purchase any of the other shows they've done, as well as some other things.
Couple that with the fact that they seem to be a major force behind: http://www.musiccreators.ca/
and you've got one great band that hasn't let me down in 15 years.
Its nice that a retailer is pushing no DRM, but I think its more important for the artists to get together like they have here. This should be a more important message because its what the artists really want, the retailers are just middle men and their opinion shouldn't hold that much weight with the lawmakers and standards.
It's a little sickening how you got modded up to 5 just buy throwing a lot of legal verbage (in links no less), none of which actually makes your point.
.99/song off iTunes, when your "in the know" friends have been paying .9-.25/song.
Your own first links that you cite point out that phonographs, legally copied, are allowed to be imported. Then you point out that downloads are not physical items, and declare phonographs a "red herring".
This is the real point, that NONE of your legalese refutes:
These songs were legally produced in Russia; in Russia, downloading an mp3 and listening to a song are considered about the same thing; the reason the allofmp3 songs are so cheap is because you're basically paying to hear it on the radio (when you consider how many of us used to tape our favorite songs off the radio as kids when we couldn't afford to buy the cassette, this practice isn't that revolutionary).
If the RIAA doesn't like having its music sold at the rate of radio tunes in Russia, it's free to stop doing business with companies in Russia, free to stop accepting royalties, etc.
NOTHING in the links you posted implies that legally produced mp3s that are legally purchased and imported for personal use have been found illegal. Certainly, if you did something like share the files around with your friends on bittorrent, that would be a different story.
But thank you for throwing up that MOUNTAIN of irrelevant legal verbage to disguise the fact that you resent having to pay