Music Execs Think DRM Slows the Marketplace

MacGod writes "From BBC News comes a story about a Jupiter Research survey conducted before Steve Jobs's anti-DRM essay, indicating that most music industry execs see DRM-free music as a way to expand sales on digital tracks. The survey covered large and small record labels, rights bodies, digital stores, and technology providers. To summarize: 54% of music execs think that current DRM is too restrictive and 62% think selling unencumbered music would be a way to boost sales. Even limiting the survey to the record labels themselves, 48% believe this. Yet, many also believe it's not going to happen without significant governmental intervention — even though most insiders think DRM is harmful, the labels are keen to stick with it. Is this yet another sign of the typical media industry 'head in the sand, refuse to change' approach, or might we be seeing the early stages or some actual change?"

Comments

Usurpers

[Digital Vomit]

Is this yet another sign of the typical media industry 'head in the sand, refuse to change' approach, or might we be seeing the early stages or some actual change?"

Sounds more like preparation for those wretched music execs to put out non-DRM'd music like it was their idea all along; as if their customers haven't been shouting for DRM-free products all this time.

OK I am really confused.

[Anonymous Coward]

I was confused by the summary at first, and now that I've R'ed TFA, I am no more enlightened. The article says that music industry execs think they can boost sales with unencumbered music, but that music labels won't allow this to happen, and that in the future music execs want DRM to allow them to manage their rights rather than encumber music.

So, can somebody please explain:

(1) What is the difference between the music industry execs and the people who run the labels, and

(2) If the music industry execs are saying they do or the don't want DRM?

Thanks.

Re:Alvislujia

[TheMeuge]

I disagree. I think that they've seen what happened to their MPAA buddies when they spent countless millions developing DRM for HD-DVD and BluRay, only to see them broken before the sales got off the ground.

I always had a sense that while the RIAA execs had the information about the uselessness of DRM all along, their greed and anger was too great for them to admit it to anyone, especially themselves. But this recent fiasco, along with a very high profile essay by Jobs might have just been enough to jolt them into realizing that the reason that they're losing money, is because they're failing at their primary business model - music distribution.

They got so caught in copyright protection that for awhile it seemed like this was their primary focus. It was almost clear that the RIAA lawsuits were becoming a profitable side-business in the form of outright racketeering and extortion.

But perhaps the decreasing sales of CDs in the context of a flourishing DVD business, and very healthy iTMS sales, they've finally come to their senses.

The goal of RIAA is to distribute music at a price to the consumer. So that's what they should be doing. If the labels got together, and opened an online music shop with non-DRM custom-format/bitrate downloads from 96kbps to uncompressed, a-la-AllOfMP3, they'd make a killing!

So perhaps long-term greed reinforced by reality and logic has finally triumphed over old-school throat-ripping greed...

Re:I don't understand. Help.

[Ngwenya]

1) DRM *THE WAY WE'VE DONE IT* is bad.
2) No way will we get rid of it, we'd rather have bad DRM than none. We need to be able to resell Elvis tracks every 5 years to the same consumer.
3) What we're hoping for is the government mandates a technical solution, since Apple has really screwed us up, and we don't seem to be able to work together to come up with a viable solution on our own.

The more I look at it, the more the music labels seem to resemble strung out junkies.

They know that DRM hurts more than it helps.

They know that infringing copying is rampant, and DRM schemes do nothing to stop it. I think they even know that the losses due to copying don't really make that much difference to their situation. Some difference, but not much. In fact, the most swapped music tends to enrich the bands at live gigs and sell more merchandise.

They want to stop, but they just can't. They can't make that first step. One of them (EMI, maybe?) will go cold turkey for a bit. Their tracks will then be all over P2P as they already are and always were, but this will be enough for the pushers (DRM manufacturers) to say "See? Do you want that sort of pain for your back catalogue?", and enough of them will start hurting. Enough to continue the sad cycle.

Eventually, they will phase out CD sales, and replace them with (DRM'ed) downloads only. Fine. I don't care. I won't buy them, and I won't even hack round them. And the bands I do buy from will be those who market themselves well enough, and play good gigs.

An old industry dies. A new one lives. It's a fair trade.

--Ng

Competition?

[kthejoker]

What really strikes me as amusing about this whole conversation is that the members of the RIAA and the industry at large are no longer even pretending like there is any actual competition going on at the music distribution level.

And even better, everyone here in this discussion basically assumes that the industry is acting as one singular beast. They say things like "Well, when DRM is removed, blah blah blah..." as if all of the companies will, you know, COLLUDE to just end DRM one day and that'll be that.

The sad part is that, of course, all of these posts are right. The industry no longer acts as a bunch of competing units. They are essentially acting as a philosophical (if not legally binding) conglomerate on all of the ideas about music distribution. That's just sickening.

Why can't one company take that risk now? Why not, you know, offer a *COMPETING* business model of DRM-free music at the upper levels? Of course there are a number of independent companies who do just that, but why can't EMI, for example, just dump DRM? It's because they're all in bed together.

I think we should resist at all times the premise that the RIAA is just some mythical octopus, a single unit with many arms. These types of industry-wide assurances and reclamations are damaging to the whole premise of business as it is. The fact that none of them are even attempting to compete on these terms is just proof that we have already let them cement their status as a de facto monopoly. To not even fight them on that front is disheartening.

To music executives: Your industry is in crisis. Take a fucking risk!

Re:head in sand vs change

[cayenne8]

I dunno what their problem is. People WILL always copy songs, and try to get them for free. They did it with vinyl and recording it to 8-track and cassette. Hell, my friends and I did as kids...we'd figure out that each one of us would buy 1-2 albums, each different, and then swap them to record them. That's they way it happens.

However, now that I'm older...I got money to spend...plenty of discrecionary money. However, I have never bought a single song online. Have I downloaded any mp3's? Years ago when I first discovered them on USENET, sure I did a few...mostly bootless Zeppelin/Stones stuff I couldn't find anywhere else...but, for the most part I pretty much own all the CD's of music I like. I have a high end stereo, and I like to play the best version of a song that I can.

If they would offer for sale online...lossless songs without DRM so that I could burn hardcopy backups, and my own lossy versions for my car or portable (no big deal with such a poor listening environment)...I'd be all over that. While I like a good deal and free stuff as much as the next person, I don't mind spending money for things I want. I think there are plenty of people out there just like me that they'd make plenty of money off of if they opened things up.

I just don't want to buy music/video that is of lesser quality and hinders me from doing what I've done with it in the past when a copy I bought was mine to use, play and store as I wished.