Puretracks Music Store Drops DRM

khendron writes "The Canadian online music store Puretracks (a store I have generally avoided because of their Microsoft-specific solutions) has announced that it will immediately start selling part of its catalog as DRM-free MP3 files. The site's unprotected catalog, which includes artists such as The Barenaked Ladies and Sarah McLachlan, will initially feature only 50,000 of its 1.3 million tracks, but their number will grow weekly. The Globe and Mail says the move will likely profit Puretracks because its DRM-free-music will be playable on iPods. It quotes one industry watcher saying 'We're seeing the death of DRM.'" Essentially Puretracks is relaxing the major-label mandated DRM rules that it had initially applied to all labels, even the indies that wanted no part of DRM.

Comments

Yes, Apple "could do this"...

[daveschroeder]

...as the from the apple-could-do-this dept. statement opines, but only for the artists and/or labels with direct legal standing to make such a request with Apple. Hint: it's not anywhere near the number people think it is. Even some artists who sell or provide DRM-free music via other channels may not actually have such a (legal) capability with Apple, for example, because their label's contract with Apple (or other stipulations) doesn't currently allow it.

And while we're at it, let's fix the title of this submission:

Puretracks drops DRM from less than 4% of its tracks; even less when you consider well known commercial artists on major labels; changes format and delivery mechanism for such songs

Let's face it: like it or not, that's important.

I do agree that Apple should aggressively work toward this, and they should absolutely drop the "all-or-nothing" mentality with DRM on the iTunes store, because dropping all DRM at once won't work. They definitely need to start somewhere, even if it's with relatively unknown artists and/or labels. Consider, too, that some of Apple's existing contracts may have stipulations that all other music sold on the same store or via the same mechanisms have the same protections.

The article notes:

Essentially Puretracks is relaxing the major-label mandated DRM rules that it had initially applied to all labels, even the indies that wanted no part of DRM.

What if Apple isn't currently in a legal, technical, business, and/or support position to do that? What if it is, in fact, planning to do just that, but can't move quite as quickly as people seem to think it should be able to. This isn't a "2-3 day" operation as some people think it should be. It may be months before any fruits of this are seen on the iTunes Store.

Consider further that Apple may not want to sell, e.g., MP3 format specifically, for a variety of reasons. If a label (like EMI, which is talking to everyone BUT Apple about its possible no-DRM experiment - perhaps some ulterior motives of their own?), specifically wants "unprotected MP3", what if Apple's format of choice is "unprotected AAC"? Should Apple start selling multiple formats as well as multiple protection levels? How much of the years-proven consistency of operation and ease of use should Apple sacrifice on the iTunes Store?

There are a lot of unknowns here that don't automatically mean that Apple "doesn't really want to drop DRM."[1] Yes, actions speak louder than words, but Jobs' landmark statement on DRM, concisely shredding any arguments in favor of DRM, is, in fact, a pretty big action in itself. But Apple has a lot invested in the iTunes Store ecosystem, and they're not going to make rash decisions, screw things up, break support models, confuse customers, or do anything that would cause them to lose one or more large commercial content providers.

So while other fringe and marginally known stores may be able to make moves in this direction, it's a delicate situation for Apple. Hopefully Jobs' strong words, which have already caused a firestorm of circling wagons among some pro-DRM entities, and other stores with the luxury of being able to move more quickly into experimental areas, will push the balance toward "no-DRM". Regardless of what the bloggers and pundits think, who instantly came out with all of these "Apple doesn't really want to get rid of DRM" arguments believing this was a carefully crafted PR play, Jobs' DRM statement is the strongest stance from anyone at such a high level in music and media, and that's exactly what it will take to move the industry forward.

[1] Also, Apple doesn't use "DRM" or trusted computing/TPM on Mac OS X, in any way. The restriction is a manifestly a licensing one, and any technical difficulties of running Mac OS X on non-Apple hardware are incidental (even if intended to make it non-trivial).

Re:Yes, Apple "could do this"...

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

...as the from the apple-could-do-this dept. statement opines, but only for the artists and/or labels with direct legal standing to make such a request with Apple. Hint: it's not anywhere near the number people think it is. Even some artists who sell or provide DRM-free music via other channels may not actually have such a (legal) capability with Apple, for example, because their label's contract with Apple (or other stipulations) doesn't currently allow it.

I'd say the chances are about 80% that one of Apple's agreements with the RIAA stipulates that all music sold from the iTMS will have DRM on it regardless who it is from. It is likely Apple is contractually obligated to not provide DRM free tracks of any music, regardless of that label's wishes. I don't know why everyone seems to assume this is not the case in light of other contracts the RIAA has put such stipulations in.

Re:Yes, Apple "could do this"...

[1u3hr]

I'd say the chances are about 80% that one of Apple's agreements with the RIAA stipulates that all music sold from the iTMS will have DRM on it regardless who it is from.

I'm not a lawyer, but that sounds illegal. Surely non-RIAA companies could sue Apple and/or the RIAA about such terms being forced on them by a competitor.

Re:Yes, Apple "could do this"...

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

I'm not a lawyer, but that sounds illegal. Surely non-RIAA companies could sue Apple and/or the RIAA about such terms being forced on them by a competitor.

It's only illegal if you get caught. These agreements are almost always trade secrets and no one has standing to reveal them to the courts. Just because Apple says they won't sell you music without DRM does not mean the courts will let you see the trade secret agreement between Apple and the RIAA. Apple could reveal the info voluntarily, but unless the courts were effective they would have just flushed their licensing agreement down the toilet and seriously damaged their multimillion dollar iPod business. Nobody takes a risk like that for no good reason, especially when legally obligated to act in the best interests of the shareholders. The RIAA has already been convicted of cartel abuse twice for price fixing and once for payola so it is not like this would be unusual behavior for them.

Re:Yes, Apple "could do this"...

[Dubwise]

I do agree that Apple should aggressively work toward this, and they should absolutely drop the "all-or-nothing" mentality with DRM on the iTunes store, because dropping all DRM at once won't work. They definitely need to start somewhere, even if it's with relatively unknown artists and/or labels

Bang on. There's a lot of obscure catalogue sitting around that should be on emusic, but it isn't because the major labels think that if they sell a non-DRM file the world will end.

Last year, Warner Music took ownership (from Rupert Murdoch) of the great New Zealand (formerly) indie label Flying Nun Records, home of the Clean, Chris Knox and others - 430 releases. The 25th anniversary of the label passed last year. The good thing to do would have been putting the catalogue on emusic, where someone might actually discover it. But no, Warners would rather not sell music at all than sell it without DRM ...

Hmm

[ReidMaynard]

I bet it grows weakly too.

Setting up a strawman

[TheWoozle]

I wonder if this is just a variation on a theme we've seen before:

1. Drop DRM on a bunch of music that nobody cares about
2. Collect sales figures for 6 months
3. Issue a report saying that sales did not increase for non-DRM'd music - "See, removing DRM doesn't make people want to buy more music!"

Re:Setting up a strawman

[cHALiTO]

"See, removing DRM doesn't make people want to buy more music!"

Probably not, but it won't make people buy less, and it surely will reduce production/distribution costs (no DRM-related development/soft/licenses/etc). So even if sales stay the same, they're better off without DRM.

The only case where they will want to keep DRM is if they're right and drm-free mp3s induce piracy to such an extent that they start loosing more money on that than what they save on avoiding DRM-related costs.

And I honestly doubt that is the case.

Re:Setting up a strawman

[JimDaGeek]

no DRM-related development/soft/licenses/etc

Well, the #1 non-DRM format is MP3. It costs money to license MP3 since the patent is still valid. MP3 is probably no less, cost-wise, than crappy WMA. So I don't see any cost advantage to go with MP3.

The only advantage to a non-DRM format, cost wise, is if enough of the highest selling content is available without crappy DRM. I believe more people would be willing to buy non-DRM content than restricted content. I know I personally would buy music if there were no DRM.

This old dog may actually now try something new

[scuba_steve_1]

I was a very early adopter of MP3s. I converted much of my collection in the mid to late 90s when conversion took place at 0.5x real time on standard home PC. That said, I have never bought one track online. Why? DRM. Funny thing is, I hardly buy CDs anymore either.

DRM-free music may actually motivate me to get excited about buying music again. It may also, however, hasten the death of CD-based commercial music sales. Ability to rip from a CD and yield DRM-free content seems to be one of the few remaining advantages of this format. Why the heck would I drop $14.99 for a CD now if I can just grab the one or two tracks that I like for a fraction of that price? Sure, I may not discover deep tracks that do not enjoy radio play, but this still does sound like a major advantage to me. How many of us have CDs that seem like a collection of marginal tracks surrounding the one or two that we actually like?

Re:This old dog may actually now try something new

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been into mp3s for so long I can remember when PLAYBACK occurred at 0.5x real time on my standard IBM mainframe.

Re:This old dog may actually now try something new

[gEvil (beta)]

was a very early adopter of MP3s. I converted much of my collection in the mid to late 90s when conversion took place at 0.5x real time on standard home PC.

Ahhh, yes, the good old days of mp3. Back when Audioactive was a decent player. Back when the Shockwave export plugin was the ONLY way to encode an mp3 on a Mac (although it ended up in a .swa wrapper). And back when it cost far more to store your mp3s than it did to just go out and buy the actual CDs...

*sniff* You're making me all teary-eyed...

Re:This old dog may actually now try something new

[blueZhift]

I'm actually hoping those $14.99 CDs will drop in price to something like $9.99 or less because I still like being able to rip my own mp3s and have a physical backup without having to make it myself. Well, that last part may be a little lazy, but I do like having the physical artwork and occasional lyrics and liner notes. I guess I'm saying there is still a place for physical CDs, but only if the price drops considerably.

Re:This old dog may actually now try something new

[websitebroke]

Why the heck would I drop $14.99 for a CD now if I can just grab the one or two tracks that I like for a fraction of that price? Sure, I may not discover deep tracks that do not enjoy radio play, but this still does sound like a major advantage to me. How many of us have CDs that seem like a collection of marginal tracks surrounding the one or two that we actually like?

I know what you mean, but maybe you should look into different musicians. The vast majority of CDs that I own (mostly Indy music) are a collection of tracks that I actually like surrounding one or two marginal tracks. It would be a bummer to miss them by buying only one track.

Don't believe the hype

[sulli]

Boing Boing debunks this story. In brief: stay the hell away.

Re:Don't believe the hype

[$RANDOMLUSER]

The page for Barenaked Ladies lists WMA as the only available format.

Re:Don't believe the hype

[Merlynnus]

Funny, this page: http://www.puretracks.com/catalog/details.aspx?pid =indy_624284002354_mp3&mod=1 lists 7 albums available as MP3, with one only available as MP3.

Re:Don't believe the hype

[kenaaker]

I've bought flac files of Sarah McClachlan's work from werkshop.com. They also have Barenaked Ladies available in different formats. I've also found flac files of Loreena McKennitt's work at quinlanroad.com. Just in case someone is interested.

Re:Don't believe the hype

[$RANDOMLUSER]

And that one redirects me to "only available in Canada".

Re:Don't believe the hype

[khendron]

That's the USA version of the store. Try (if you can) going to the Canadian version of the same page.

Re:Don't believe the hype

[Eatingdogs]

The PARENT is total bullshit. The website specifically states that "MP3 files have no Digital Rights Management (DRM) restrictions and cost the same as the Windows Media Audio (WMA) files that we sell." THough you still can't buy tracks on a Mac, but they are "definitely working on it."

Re:Don't believe the hype

[Methuseus]

Unfortunately the DRM-free tracks are only available in Canada. If you try to see them from a US IP address you get a page saying those albums are only available to Canadian residents.

Re:Don't believe the hype

[Lockejaw]

The Mac restriction confuses me. There is a Windows Media Player for Mac OS X, so .wma files should be playable, even if they're not hassle-free. When I have the time, I may try browsing the site through a Canada-based proxy and see if it works.

Re:Don't believe the hype

[Yvan256]

The Windows Media Player is no longer available for download, and never offered DRM compatibility anyway.

I'm also puzzled by the "We apologize, but www.puretracks.com is not available for Mac OS." message.

Re:Don't believe the hype

[KingEomer]

Perhaps they haven't properly updated the website? Has anyone actually tried running one of these MP3s on a mac? If not, I would suggest waiting until somebody has actually shown that it is infact DRM laden, and not a problem on the side of the site admins, before calling shenanigans.

Re:Don't believe the hype

[Anonymous Coward]

I even tried a Canadian proxy (after clearing my cookies), and still got bounced to the US page. Feh.

I was prepared to buy a track or two from them as a reward for starting to act semi-reasonably. Oh well...

Re:Don't believe the hype

[Lockejaw]

Here it is. Yes, it's old and incomplete and buggy, but it's not totally unavailable.

Re:Don't believe the hype

[ArtDent]

It seems the Mac restriction stems from their use of some weird ActiveX-based downloader, instead of a normal HTTP download. I assume it's tied into a their MS DRM scheme somehow, and they haven't gotten around to replacing it for MP3 downloads yet.

But I can confirm that, once downloaded, the files are DRM-free, standard MP3s, as advertised. They're encoded at a constant rate of 192 kbps.

Re:Don't believe the hype

[JimDaGeek]

While I agree with you about staying _away_ from this crappy, MS-Only, Canada-Only site. I don't think "Boing Boing debunks" anything.

From the Boing Boing site:

if you hit their web page on a Mac, you get this screen. In which they tell you they use Windows Media and claim they're incompatble with Macs because they can't use FairPlay (ah, that old myth again!) (emphasis mine).

How is it a "myth" that no other site can use "Fair"Play? Seriously? No other site can sell "Fair"Play crap. I personally have been stung by "Fair"Play crap. I have never bought WMA, MS-Only crap, and never will. However, I have bought 3 seasons of "The Office" off of iTMS, only to have it freakin locked down. I won't be buying any "Fair"Play junk again. I won't be buying _any_ DRM crap again. I am tired of some corp freak telling me where or how I can watch content I _PAID_ for.

Sorry if I went off on a tangent here, however, _NO_ audio/video content available from Apple is any more "free" than WMA crap. It is all DRM encrusted crap to me. Meant to restrict me as a _customer_.

Re:Don't believe the hype

[Stewie241]

My experience...

Okay, decided I would give this a shot to see what there was to it...

I am from Canada, so that wasn't an issue. I run Linux, so Windows only would be a problem.

So I went to the website, and had no trouble at all browsing music. Some is available in MP3. Majority seems to be WMA only. There is a MP3 section though, so I took a browse through it. I found a Canadian artist that is fairly well known (Sarah Mclachlan) and pretty popular (has had hit singles). Added to my cart.

Didn't have an account, so I signed up for that. You get one free track when you sign up, and apparently one free track every week if you sign up for a newsletter. Well, that's kind of cool.

So I went to check out, everything went smooth. Then I went to download. Well, the standard installer was a no-go. It was trying to load an Active-X component to download it.

Then I noticed a link below that said "Alternative download method". So I tried that. It was actually a link to an exe file which it downloaded.

wine had no trouble running the exe. It asked where I wanted to download the file. No problem.

Well, when I opened up the terminal to find the file, it turned out that the file had a wma extension. Hmmm.... don't like that.

When I play it with mplayer, I get:
Requested audio codec family [mp3] (afm=mp3lib) not available.
Enable it at compilation.
Opening audio decoder: [ffmpeg] FFmpeg/libavcodec audio decoders
AUDIO: 44100 Hz, 2 ch, s16le, 192.0 kbit/13.61% (ratio: 24000->176400)
Selected audio codec: [ffmp3] afm: ffmpeg (FFmpeg MPEG layer-3 audio decoder)

So I'm guessing that WMA is a wrapper format around specific codecs, which in this case is around mp3 (or the file has just been renamed).

Bottom line, I successfully downloaded the file and played it on my linux box, and mplayer is detecting it as wma (I haven't had luck with other wma or wmv files - I don't think I have the codecs installed). So I see no reason that a Mac user (at least an Intel Mac user) shouldn't be able to use puretracks (they can use wine on Macs, right?). May have to get the browser to fool puretracks, but shouldn't be too much of an issue.

Re:Don't believe the hype

[ArtDent]

Hmmm...using the primary download method (the ActiveX downloader), I actually got files with a .mp3 extension.

Well, it seems there are still a few rough edges. But, I definitely give them credit for what they've done. They're not just talking the talk (ala Jobs), but really offering an open alternative. I'm pretty confident the technical problems will be worked out.

I did send them a message congratulating them on their move, describing the inconvenience of using their proprietary downloader, and encouraging them to move quickly to an open solution (preferably a simple in-browser HTTP transfer) for their MP3 downloads, at least.

Re:Don't believe the hype

[ArtDent]

The CBC has the full story now.

The summary: MP3s are available on the Canadian store only; US visitors are redirected to the US store which still sells only DRM'ed WMA. They use a crusty old download manager based on ActiveX technology, which is why the store isn't available to Mac users yet. There are actually two different downloaders: an ActiveX plug-in for IE and a standalone Windows executable (for users of other browsers). MP3 files are available through either downloader, but the latter renames them to have a .wma extension. The renaming problem will be fixed today and a solution for Mac users will be available in 30-60 days (I hope it will include all non-Windows platforms).

Not True

[govtpiggy]

This article is completely wrong. This store actually uses standard Windows PlaysForSure DRM on all it's tracks. The friggin' PlaysForSure logo is on their homepage. http://www.puretracks.com/

Re:Not True

[Yer Mum]

Might it not be the case that this error page is a hangover from the days when it was a 100% DRM shop?

Re:Not True

[Methuseus]

As said earlier by myself and a few others, you can only buy DRM-free tracks if you live in Canada, or at the very least if you are not coming from a US IP address.

There's nothing to see here... Move along....

[8127972]

They are NOT making their entire offering DRM free. If they did, then I would care. This is simply being done to make them look like "leaders" in this industry.

Re:There's nothing to see here... Move along....

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a lot more than many companies are doing. Slashdot went wild when Jobs released a PR piece that was obviously only released in an attempt to appease the Europeans. Unlike Apple, this company is actually trying to do something about it instead of just trying to place the blame on others and continuing to ignore the problem completely. It seems perfectly deserving of an article to me...

Re:There's nothing to see here... Move along....

[Maximum Prophet]

The easiest way to become a leader is to find out which way the crowd is going and jump in front.

Re:There's nothing to see here... Move along....

[happysonic]

The site won't even let me in on a Mac - I really hate when Windows-only services do this! As I DO have a PC running Windows, and even a Play For Sure compatible MP3 player, I just happen to be on the Mac right now but still might be interested in browsing their catalog. But instead get a MacOSNotAllowed' page...

Re:There's nothing to see here... Move along....

[Yvan256]

The worst part is, I also can't access the "Contact Us" page to let them know I can't access their DRM-free catalog.

Now, I know this DRM-free thing is new, but they should have planned for Mac OS and Linux/BSD users too before starting their "now selling regular MP3s" thing.

Not so fast

[Wubby]

It looks like some users over at BoingBoing have already debunked this one Link. According to them, all the track on the site, including the supposedly "DRM Free" are Windows crippled WMA.

Either they aren't doing this "immediately" or someone screwed up. I can't find a single BNL song that is available in anything other than WMA from Puretracks.

Re:Not so fast

[Yer Mum]

All tracks on the US site.

If you go to the Canadian site and you're not in Canada it moves you on to the US site.

So we need someone in Canada to verify the story.

Re:Not so fast

[Merlynnus]

Didn't try too hard did you? From the main page, click "MP3". Next, click a BNL album, like this one: http://www.puretracks.com/catalog/details.aspx?pid =indy_624284002354_mp3

Two clicks is too much to expect from the average Slashdot bandwagoner, I guess.

Re:Not so fast

[saforrest]

Two clicks is too much to expect from the average Slashdot bandwagoner, I guess.

I followed your link, and got this error page.

I suppose it might be the case that this system for auto-redirecting all Mac users to an error page dates from the time when all their songs were DRMed, and hasn't been updated. But it certainly doesn't convey the impression that they've changed anything.

I am in Canada, btw.

Re:Not so fast

[LordNimon]

There is no "MP3" link when I go to the main page. The MP3s are only available to Canadians. US residents get only WMA files.

Re:Not so fast

[Anonymous Coward]

From their FAQ:

Can I download MP3s from Puretracks? Puretracks and its affiliates utilize Microsoft's DRM (Digital Rights Management) technology to provide secure licensing for our track downloads. The MS DRM technology supports the .wma (Windows Media Audio) file format and has not yet been developed by Microsoft to be compatible with the MP3 file format.
So you're above quote is indeed a troll

Re:Not so fast

[straterpatrick]

I just bought a whole mp3 album. They are real mp3 and not anything shady. Maybe they were looking at the American version of the site. (I'm Canadian!)

Re:Not so fast

[AikonMGB]

Shrug.. I went to www.puretracks.ca (same as .com) and right on the front page, under "New Releases", you can see the new album by BNL and two little buttons, "WMA" and "MP3". So, in my humble opinion, you can buy tracks without Windows-media crippleware. I did notice, however, that the MP3 versions of the songs are $0.20 more expensive than the WMA versions.

Maybe its just because I'm IN Canada.. I don't know, but I certainly do see a (relatively) wide selection of music available in MP3. Not surprisingly, a lot of the artists available in MP3 seem to be on the Canadian Music Creators Coalition

Aikon-

Re:Not so fast

[ThrasherTT]

I was able to see the Canadian version of the site from a US location, but I couldn't buy anything . It appeared that there were 50+ artists that had one or more albums available as MP3 as well as WMA.

This might not work: MP3s for an artist...

Re:Not so fast

[ptr2004]

Common on this is slashdot and not CNN. Can't somebody just use a canadian proxy ???

Re:Not so fast

[PKFC]

I haven't fully tested it (they offer your first download free though after registering), but changing your user agent to IE in XP seems to work so far.. Maybe they'll redesign their site to not quarantine mac users

Re:Not so fast

[Adult film producer]

The parent (which is complete bullshit) and it's inclusion of a boingboing url reminded me of this,

http://www.xkcd.com/c202.html

Re:Not so fast

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm in Canada and it worked for me under FC5 and wine 0.9.27:

1. Went to www.puretracks.ca and registered.
2. Selected mp3 version of track and went throught checkout (twice - wouldn't work
      the first time).
3. Got download page. Requires activex. Selected "alternate download method".
4. Downloaded "download manager" exe.
5. Ran exe under wine. It works!
6. File extension is wma (arhh).
7. Renamed to mp3 and moved to ipod. It works!

Re:Not so fast

[RomulusNR]

Or view it via a Canadian proxy. :)

Re:Not so fast

[Wubby]

Hmm, let me think... Well the label on the site read "Available Formats: WMA". Hmm.. Of course that means "MP3 inside". How could I have been so stupid! Let me look at them all now...
Hmmm...
Mmmm...
Oh...
No. No MP3s inside either. How could that be? Maybe I really DID look at the site, and really DID try to find them... No... I must have just clicked once and given up, then they moved them all out as I looked again. I bet they will move them all back in when you go to look.

Let me try YOUR link...

We apologize, but www.puretracks.com is only available to Canadian residents. If you are a resident of the USA, please click here to access our American store.

Well, looky there. I must not have read the whole article, because it clearly must have stated "Canada Only"... Oh, it didn't? Well. How about that!

I have to end the comment now, I have a bandwagon to catch, I think I hear a MicroSoft bashing article getting posted somewhere!

No DRM iPods? etc.

[CodeShark]

Now this seems like a step in the right direction.

I was given an iPod shuffle at a company party last year, and am probably in the minority because I haven't gone hog wild downloading my favorite music from iTunes -- specifically because of the DRM restrictions. Now then, let's say that eventually Puretracks offers me those same tunes without DRM, and I can put them on my iPod for when I am out walking/jogging/etc., or convert the songs I paid for into one copy of a CD that I can play in my PC at work, or at home, etc. On my WinXX system or my Linux system or my car stereo. Let's even say that I put together my greatest hits anthology on CDs that I paid for the tracks for, but get tired of them and give my collection to my kid, or sell it at a yard sale, and then I delete all my copies. Still legal, still one paid for copy -- vs. DRM restricted usage.

Guess who gets my money?

Re:No DRM iPods? etc.

[Anonymous Coward]

Money? Why would anyone get money for this. Nobody I know is using iTunes. They charge for downloads. There are lots of places that you can get music, without any restrictions for free.

Why aren't you using those services?

Re:No DRM iPods? etc.

[CodeShark]

Because the music I have downloaded is copyrighted, and I don't believe in music piracy.

Re:No DRM iPods? etc.

[DustyMac]

The iTunes Store already allows you to legally make an unlimited number of CDs containing a song you purchase there as well as copy it onto an unlimited number of iPod and play it on up to 5 computers simultaneously if you so desire.

DRM is a stopgap against obsalesence

[Sobrique]

DRM is the 'media industry' trying to hold on to the idea that information is a finite resource, that you buy.

It's just not true any more. You can still go and buy a CD with the lastest stuff on it, but ... well, MP3s are infinitely replicatable at minimal cost to the distributor.

DRM is giving a locked box and the keys to it. You can make the key and box as complicated as you like (and lets face it, they probably have) and it's _still_ not going to work, as long as I can point a camera at my display screen, or sit a mic next to my loudspeaker.

iPOD (And their ilk) have demonstrated that there _is_ a market for easily accessible music, with a pricetag. What the 'media thugs' _should_ be doing is concentrating on implementing a new model for distribution of media, rather than trying to enforce the unenforcible. I'd be prepared to bet they'd get a _lot_ more sales if 'everything' was distributed as a function of bandwith needed to transfer + a small license fee. Price per unit down, but with negligable manufacturing and shipping costs, free publicity and 'easy access' I'd be of the opinion that it'd pay for itself.

Of course, it'd be nigh on impossible to turn back the tide once the floodgates open, so they probably never will.

Re:DRM is a stopgap against obsalesence

[Anonymous Coward]

If some people pay, they are fools or do not know the same places to get free stuff that i do.

Those "fools" are the people who get to decide which artists keep working and which ones hang the guitar on the wall and go into accounting. The only people who won't pay for music are those who don't care about it.

I was an anime fan back in the day when you couldn't buy it in the US for love or money. Real fans still spent as much as they could on merchandise, wherever they could get it. Now the stuff is everywhere, because people chose to help finance it -- not because they signed online petitions.

This isn't a feudal system or a monarchy. We don't have some aristocracy somewhere that decides which arts will be done and which artists will be sponsored. If you abstain from that decision, then please be silent when you don't like the results.

Re:DRM is a stopgap against obsalesence

[Methuseus]

If you go to (I believe this is right) werkshop.com they do basically that. The unencumbered MP3 tracks and albums are slightly less expensive than the unencumbered FLAC recordings, presumably because the FLAC files cost them more bandwidth to transfer to the buyer.

Re:DRM is a stopgap against obsalesence

[StarvingSE]

Nobody, ever, is going to get me to pay. I have all I want for free today and I believe it is my right to always have it that way. If some people pay, they are fools or do not know the same places to get free stuff that i do.

And it is the artist's right to not produce the music you believe you have the right too. How will you feel if there isn't any new music being produced by full-time musical artists because they have to take other full time jobs to pay the bills?

I don't believe in DRM, and I think the whole idea of a "product" breaks down when you try to sell digital content. However, I don't think people should believe it's their right to have things for free.

The fact is the major music corporations are simply trying to make as much money as possible, and trying to find more ways of doing that. If they had it their way, they'd charge you everytime you sang in the shower. I think the ultimate solution to the DRM debate will be to have some kind of subscription service where you pay a flat monthly fee and get unlimited (or limited, however they want to work the price points) downloading of mp3's or other content. These would be DRM-free files. Will some people redistribute them to their friends? Probably. My friends had "burn parties" where we'd bring our collection of cd's and a pack of cd-r's to share. Before cd's we did this with cassette tapes. Music sharing has been around as long as there has been music, it's just that with today's technology its a lot easier to do.

I'm wondering when the RIAA will start to realize that their music has been being copied well before the mp3. And I'm also wondering when they will realize that the reason people don't buy as many cd's anymore is because no one wants the over-produced generic crap they call music.

Re:DRM is a stopgap against obsalesence

[Turn-X Alphonse]

Video camera quite often come with a built in "defect" while recording TVs. They will display black lines running just down the screenm and hence ruin any recording.

Re:DRM is a stopgap against obsalesence

[frogstar_robot]

The electron beam in the TV and refresh of the sensor on the camera aren't in sync. Hence the black lines. You may have better luck recording an LCD screen but even here moire patterns will probably bite you. To get acceptable results out of any "point a camera at the screen methods", you need a way to have common sync between the two devices. This usually means studio grade equipment.

I call BS.

[JayPee]

http://www.puretracks.com/content/viewer_page.aspx ?cid=UserDetection_MacOSNotAllowed

Time to put your money where your mouth is

[goombah99]

Okay all you folks who said, "I'd pay for music rather than steal it" if they would just remove the DRM now's the time to go visit puretracks. In the future I want to see every post complaining about Apple DRM or MS DRM state an oath at the bottom that they have actually bought music from puretrack. Otherwise you will be condsidered a hypocrit and ignored.

And to everyton else please make sure you reply to all such posters with a question" How many puretracks recordings do you own"?

Even if their selection is small you are obliged to buy something to support the movement and show the world this giant latent market of people who really dont want to steal music and would really pay but are currently rightteously protesting DRM and thus are forced to steal. Show them the market for righteous people like yourself exists. This is the first one to put major bands on it's free list in quatitity. If you dont' support them no then there wont be more...

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[Anonymous Coward]

Otherwise you will be condsidered a hypocrit and ignored.

EMusic has been around for years. Everything on the site is MP3.

They don't seem to be having any business difficulties. And for the record, I've been a subscriber for years.

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[Damastus the WizLiz]

I still only buy used CDs, they are cheaper and still let me make DRM free MP3s.

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[snarlydwarf]

Why on earth should I buy from Puretracks when I already buy from other sites that offer DRM-free downloads (emusic and dgmlive mostly) and physical CD's for things not available DRM-free.

That makes me a hypocrite because I am not buying from one specific store? Do I have to buy milk at every store in town to prove I believe in a free market?

They are not the first: Emusic was first to sell (mostly) indy music in a large-scale DRM-free way.

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[Bert64]

And what if the music you want to listen to is not available from them in this form?
I will be investigating puretracks, and if they are selling songs i want to listen to in an unencumbered format i will buy from them.

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[maxume]

What about everybody that thinks it's still too expensive?

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[richlv]

there are a lot of other online stores that not only sell non-drm, music they also provide oggs, flacs, ability to re-download...

actually, one of them - magnatune - was recently integrated in amarok.
after that, there have been several interested parties in such integration, all of them providing unencumbered tracks in free formats.
an amarok developer is working on a generic music store interface, so it should be even easier to purchase such music and increase music available.
of course, this unified interface is still some time away, but until that everybody can go to magnatune or any other shop that is not only selling non-drm stuff, but also providing it in open an high-quality formats :)

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[Anonymous Coward]

Simple. I don't want to pay. I have speent years getting music for free and I don't really remember buying a CD... ever. Tapes and stuff were old before I was shopping for music.

The Internet is all about eliminating the cost of distribution and it makes it possible to turn everyone into a publisher. So, I publish music for everyone else to download. Now, everyone can have music for free. If they know where to get it.

This means that some people are going to have to pay, becuase they don't know where to get it without paying. This is the way it has always been, with knowledge being power and money.

DRM? As long as there is one source, somewhere on the planet, that has it unprotected then DRM has no impact on me.

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[TheRaven64]

I just went to the puretracks site. It said:

We apologize, but www.puretracks.com is not available for Mac OS. I didn't buy anything.

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[Anonymous Coward]

Judge: Son, why did you steal this Ferrari?
Me: I think Ferraris are too expensive.
Judge: Ah, case dismissed.

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[diggum]

Will AllOfMp3.com do? No DRM, bitrate and format of my choosing, lots of metadata and a huge selection. What's that? The RIAA isn't getting money from any sales there? Oh, it's because of their own thuggishness and refusal to accept payments because by doing so, they'd be agreeing to the compulsory licensing and definition of broadcast media according to Russian Law? Well, that sounds like it's their own damn fault. Weird that the Russians would manage to put together such an amazing business model and service while the major American corporations can't get beyond the starting gate. Oh well, off to go listen to the Sigue Sigue Sputnick greatest hits album I just downloaded from there. All I have to do now is decide which device I want to listen to it on.. My iPod? My iRiver U10? My TiVO's music streaming tool? Maybe my mac laptop or my windows system down in the basement. I guess that's up to me.

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[Anonymous Coward]

I would put my $$$ where my mouth is if they would let me - I went to www.puretracks.com this morning to buy some DRM-free Sarah McLaghlin, but lo and behold the page says, "We apologize, but www.puretracks.com is not available for Mac OS." WTF?!

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[Anonymous Coward]

"We apologize, but www.puretracks.com is only available to US residents. If you are a resident of the Canada, please click here to access our Canadian store."

No go for Europeans, anyway. Call me back when you can actually buy the music as MP3, in Europe.

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[MightyYar]

Ah, another enlightened analogy between real property and intellectual property.

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[geoffspear]

Weird that the Russians would manage to put together such an amazing business model and service

Why is that weird? They had almost 75 years of experience under a regime that believed in taking property from the "evil capitalists" who owned it and redistributing it to the masses. It's not that weird that they'd figure out how to apply that to "intellectual property" as well.

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[Maxo-Texas]

No no no. You mean "Warner Executive".

WE: Son why did you copy all these songs we didn't buy?
Son: I wanted them dad.
WE: Well son, you need to apologize and get rid of them and we'll call things square even tho we are suing dead people, people that don't own computers, and computer novices every day. It's an important lesson son- the rules don't apply to you because your in a "better" class of people.
Son: Ah dad, I get it! (Goes off to secretly download songs but now nows to do it more discretely).

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[straterpatrick]

I just did! I bought my first mp3 album online! (Barenaked Ladies - Barenaked Ladies Are Men)

It was less than $8 bucks Canadian and sounds great. And I can put it only any mp3 player I want legally and without any worries about compatibility!

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[the_womble]

More accurate version

Judge: Why did you make a car for yourself that is an exact copy of a Ferrari?
Me: Because Ferraris are too expensive for me.
Judge: ?

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[Aladrin]

Well, once they un-DRM some music I want to hear, I will consider paying the $1 per track for it. In fact, they HAVE some music that I've been thinking of re-obtaining...

Cake's Fashion Nugget cd has some tracks that I miss. (A friend had the CD.) But they haven't MP3'd it yet.
Queen, same deal... (My father's CDs)
They don't even have Nightwish... (AllOfMP3.com had them.)
No Dirk Freymuth..
Shaggy isn't MP3...

Yeah, I'm already sick of searching. And nothing on the mp3 page caught my eye. I'd -love- to put my money where my mouth is, if only they'd help me just a bit here.

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[ketsugi]

This is the image that shows up when trying to access PureTracks using a Mac browser: http://www.puretracks.com/res/img/macsplash.gif

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[AK Marc]

Even if their selection is small you are obliged to buy something to support the movement and show the world this giant latent market of people who really dont want to steal music and would really pay but are currently rightteously protesting DRM and thus are forced to steal.

Just because you state it is so does not make it true. Should I have to buy a Prius before stating that I like hybrids? I can't search by format on the site (or if so, it is hidden) and I typed in the names of a few things I would like, if they have them, and got only DRMd WMAs in search responses. If the MP3s are the same price as the WMAs, then I would buy a lot of music from them, if they make available songs that are on my list. Otherwise, I'm making a donation to a for-profit corporation. When I make donations, I prefer them to go to places that I think will make better use of them, like the large number of needy non-profits.

But go ahead and feel free to rant about your "put up or shut up" ultimatums. I'll continue to ignore irrational zealots like yourself until someone actually provides mainstream music for download without DRM. Oh, and I checked the top 100, and all but 2 were listed as WMA. The other two had a blank field for file type, so I don't know what they were. There were zero listed on the top 100 that are in MP3 format. That doesn't sound very "available" to me.

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[soft_guy]

Puretracks is super-lame.

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[Yvan256]

Even more accurate version

Judge: Why did you make a car for yourself that is an exact copy of a Ferrari?
Me: Because Ferraris are too expensive for me.
Judge: The Ferrari look and design is still property of Ferrari, charges are not dismissed.

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[SatanicPuppy]

I assume you mean, "Even more strained analogy"

If I copied everything about the Ferrari except the actual emblem, that would be okay, because it's legal to reverse engineer engines and shocks and transmissions...Just not software. and if I copied the emblem, it still wouldn't be a copyright issue. It'd be a trademark violation.

Downloading music isn't theft. It's not a trademark violation. It's not a patent infringement. It's copyright violation. Very simple.

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[Yvan256]

Weird, because all I get is website layout with "We apologize, but www.puretracks.com is not available for Mac OS." for content.

http://www.puretracks.com/content/viewer.aspx?cid= UserDetection_PlatformNotAllowed

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[jfengel]

You're not a hypocrite if you like the indie music. Indie musicians are generally desperately in need of exposure, and so are not much hurt by free downloading and copying. (It's hard to get somebody to download you if they've never heard of you. You literally can't give it away, much less get paid for it.)

The grandparent post is complaining about the people who want the major-label music and use DRM as an excuse for not paying for it. Those major artists have plenty of exposure; their labels paid for it. They want to sell the music instead; you're not doing Britney Spears any favors in spreading the gospel of her music by giving it away.

Some people are content to let the labels and Clear Channel force-feed them their tastes, and don't want to go looking for anything more interesting among the indies. But it's hypocritical of them to then demand to download the music for free and claim that it's only the DRM that's preventing them from paying for it legally.

The grandparent isn't challenging users of eMusic. He's challenging users of P2P clients and, I suspect, allofmp3.com, whose legality is doubtful. Would they rather pay for genuinely legal music, or are they content to take technological and legal loopholes to get the same music for free?

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[CurtisAutery]

I don't really remember buying a CD... ever.
Tapes and stuff were old before I was shopping for music.

Which is the lie? Or are you referring to window-shopping?

As long as there is one source, somewhere on the planet, that has it unprotected then DRM has no impact on me.

Assumedly it would be harder to find the unprotected version if there were only one source that had it, somewhere on the planet. Making more work for you to find the song would be the impact DRM would be having on you. The fear of people who, like yourself, flaunt their sense of entitlement by serving files they have no legal right to is one of the reasons labels mandate DRM. So you, young man, are your own problem.

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[jfengel]

Your analogy is also inaccurate. Building a copy of a Ferrari would take a lot of work. They don't really suffer a lot of financial loss to people trying it.

Slightly closer would be if you stole the plans to the Ferrari. If you managed to reverse-engineer a Ferrari and build your own the lawyers would be puzzled, and probably ignore you. You're probably an enthusiast and using it for maintenance, not to compete with them. (Maybe they'd get bitchy about you not buying parts from them.)

But if you stole the plans for one and put them on the Internet, I assure you they'd be all over your ass.

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, yet another lame rationalization. Whatever helps you sleep at night I guess.

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[Anonymous Coward]

How many puretracks recordings do you own?

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[Yvan256]

I'm guessing the guy would still be in trouble because the look of the Ferrari is probably trademarked or something.

But you're right about music not being theft, patent or trademark violation. And I also wish the MPAA/RIAA would stop putting their can't-skip-over-it "Downloading music is THEFT!" crap on DVDs.

Besides, I sometimes "download music" from the iTunes Store, and last time I checked it wasn't illegal. So the only true part of their FUD message is the part between "downloading music" and "theft". ;-)

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[YrWrstNtmr]

EMusic has been around for years. Everything on the site is MP3.

Emusic is great. If you like their very limited catalog. I've been a subscriber on and off for years too.

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[MoxFulder]

I'd like to get that album too, but the US version of the Puretracks site lists the whole BNL catalog as being available only in WMA infested with DRM :-(

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[ZPWeeks]

I love eMusic as much as the next guy, and yes, they are limited by the lack of major labels, but they are still the *second largest store* with over 2 million tracks. I love the variety. This Canadian store is no different, both tout BNL as their biggest artist.

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[flitty]

Judge: Why did you steal this Ferarri?
Kid: I didn't. It's a replicated copy. My version I bought is at home in the garage, so I don't wreck it.
Riaa Judge: GUILTY of copyright infringement!

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[Hijacked Public]

There always has been and always will be an if.

Unless, of course, the labels just start giving the music away free of charge. And pay for the bandwidth to transmit it to everyone. And buy us all MP3 players. With headphones. And apologize for being mean.

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[PitaBred]

It's a great tour, too ;) I saw them when they came through Denver. Their live shows are well worth it.

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[Deagol]

If I recall correctly, the CEO of EMusic one of the asshats on the other side of the table against Napster during Orrin Hatch's "Napster Hearings" back in the day? No way I'd patronize that short-sighted man's company.

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[MustardMan]

I'm guessing the guy would still be in trouble because the look of the Ferrari is probably trademarked or something. Only if he used the car to generate profit in some way. If he built a ferrari from scratch to drive back and forth to work, he would be in the clear. Hell, even if he built it for the purpose of somehow parodying ferrari and made money from that, he would be well within his legal rights. Of course, that never stopped the bloodsuckers from suing the hell out of him anyways.

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[badasscat]

I still only buy used CDs, they are cheaper and still let me make DRM free MP3s.

Exactly. The DRM argument, in my opinion, has really mostly been one about value. You have this thing called music, which you then need to turn into a commercial product. That means either creating a physical thing that contains the music, or making a file that can be downloaded/streamed/stored/whatever. How you do either or both of those things determines the resulting worth, and what you then charge for the end product determines the value of a purchase. In other words, it's the set price in relation to the product's worth that determines value.

Ditching DRM instantly raises the value of any downloadable track because you can now do more things with it for the same price. You can keep a copy in your car, another at your office and another in your living room. You can transfer it to any number of portable devices. The music industry hates this, but for the consumer, that makes the file a lot more valuable than if it were locked down. That means there should be more sales.

The problem is downloadable files still need to compete with CD's, which despite a few high profile cases are still relatively DRM-free and as close to archival quality as you're going to get. Their intrinsic worth is higher than even a DRM-free downloadable track for most people, both because of the physical packaging (including liner notes, photos, etc.) and because of the quality. So you can't take a CD album and a downloadable album and charge the same amount, even without DRM on either one. The CD will win out every time.

Ditching DRM is a good first step in raising the value of downloadable music. But there is still a disconnect between the amount that's normally being charged for downloaded tracks and the amount that they're actually worth. That's somewhat subjective but also somewhat not, because we do have the CD to compare to, and CD's are often less than $10 these days with 10-15 tracks or more. (Of course, that's assuming you want all those songs, but a lot of us still like to buy full albums.)

In order for me to really start buying downloaded music, one of two things (or probably a bit of both) will have to happen:

a) the prices will have to come down significantly

and/or

b) the quality and included features will have to go up significantly.

(That's assuming no DRM; the inclusion of DRM is a deal-breaker regardless of anything else.)

But I think the fact is those of us who have been railing against DRM have put our money where our mouths are, by continuing to buy CD's. The question is if the music industry realizes that the DRM argument is less a political or idealistic argument than a value argument. If they do, then they will know that this is just the first step in righting their sinking ship. If they don't, then they're going to continue to wonder why music sales are in the toilet, throw up their hands and say "we tried!" and get even more militant about converting their business model into one of endless litigation rather than music promotion.

Call me a pessimist, but I think I know which answer's gonna turn out to be true.

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[pkulak]

I get all my music from Amazon and Half.com. They are totally DRM free. I'm not sure why I need PureTracks.

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, that never stopped the bloodsuckers from suing the hell out of him anyways.

Why is why I'm afraid to go to the bathroom. I always fear UPS lawyers will come and get me.

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[stu42j]

"A lot"? Maybe you can enlighten us and list more than one.

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[1u3hr]

Judge: The Ferrari look and design is still property of Ferrari, charges are not dismissed.

What "charges"? Theft? Nothing was stolen. Trademark? If the guy made it himself and didn't sell it, no. So what?

Just say no to car analogies.

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[MightyYar]

What is lame is that you have allowed yourself to buy into the ridiculous notion that there is any moral basis to copyright law.

If the politicians decided that auto theft was no longer illegal, would it still be immoral to steal someone's car? Of course it would be.

If the politicians decided to disband copyright law, would it still be immoral to copy a song? Of course not.

See how it is "wrong" to steal a car because it is immoral? See how it is not immoral to copy a song?

Unless your personal morality is based on laws, in which case I think you need to re-examine you value system.

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[diggum]

I'm going to invent a device that makes sarcasm on the internet obvious.

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[s4ltyd0g]

I tried. If you run MAC OS X the sight kicks you out saying sorry only for windows and wma format.
Time for online music stores to stop talking trash and announcing BS

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[snarlydwarf]

Nonsense.

Puretracks is not going to release, say, Columbia artists without DRM. Nor will they release Warner artists.

The ONLY thing they will release is the indy artists.

To that I say "So What" -- Emusic already has most of them. Nettwerks, one of the labels they say they will release without DRM has had drm-free downloads on their own site for years. Again, so what?

Why on earth should I, as the grandparent argued, have to download Nettwerks artists from a middleman to avoid being a hypocrite? (I have, in fact, paid to download tracks from Nettwerks in the past.)

Please RTFA: nowhere does Puretracks claim to be releasing "major artists" -- they are only releasing indy artists who allow their tracks to be DRM-free (and who own their music so they can make that decision for themselves). The big labels are not letting Puretracks sell music without DRM.

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[abigor]

Ah, another comment from someone who has never created something of value.

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[abigor]

Have you ever had trouble with handing over your credit card number to them? I've heard bad stories about buying from Russian mp3 sites - mysterious charges appearing, etc.

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[Anonymous Coward]

Even more lame rationalizations. See, if artists and labels want to give their stuff away for free, they can. If they don't want to, why is it up to MightyYar to decide that they have to? I, personally, believe that there is real value in the big record labels, major recording studios, and in good producers and that these people should be rewarded for their work.

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[diggum]

Nope. Historically, they have used third-party payment processors who have been well-regarded and trusted. I've spent probably $150 there and never had a weird charge or problem.

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[mrchaotica]

I'm guessing the guy would still be in trouble because the look of the Ferrari is probably trademarked or something.

Ferrari can't do that!

The only thing companies in sane (i.e., not computer-related) industries are allowed to trademark are logos. So yes, a person could make a car look just like a Ferrari, legally -- as long as they didn't copy the actual Ferrari logo.

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[MightyYar]

If your work only has value because of government protection, then forgive me for not being too impressed.

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[shark72]

"What's that? The RIAA isn't getting money from any sales there? Oh, it's because of their own thuggishness and refusal to accept payments because by doing so, they'd be agreeing to the compulsory licensing and definition of broadcast media according to Russian Law?"

If, say, the record companies could get $0.02 per track from ROMS, they would have to pay the mechanicals to the composer/lyricist (often around $0.07) as well as any contractual royalties owed to the performers. This would be a net loss of at least a nickel a track, and possibly a lot more -- royalty payouts on downloads are typically around $0.15 for major artists.

The RIAA has lobbied in the past to get the mechanicals lowered, at least on downloaded tracks, and it was (to put it mildly) not warmly received by the Slashdot crowd. I think the Slashdot zeitgeist is that we don't want the record labels to pay the artists any less per track, yet we would like the record labels to license music to outfits that pay royalties that are lower than the royalties that the record labels are bound by law to pay out.

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[MightyYar]

I believe that copyright is valuable, too - though I also accept as reasonable opinions to the contrary. Personally, I think that the current copyright law goes to far (90 years???), but that reform is all that is needed to bring sanity back to the system.

I am not saying that we shouldn't have copyright, only that equating a song pirate with a car thief is not very reasonable. They are more like a speeder - exceeding 55 MPH is against the law but it is not necessarily immoral.

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[IDontAgreeWithYou]

So you don't listen to music, read books, use software etc? If you do, then you obviously get some value out of them. The point of copyright is that the creators of intellectual property should be the ones who decide how their work is distributed. Has it gotten out of control in some areas? Yes, but that doesn't mean you get to unilaterally decide to do whatever you want. If the creators want to give their work away for free that is their right. It's also their right not to. If you don't agree with their decision, you don't listen, read or use their work. You don't go out and get it for free.

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[dlim]

First of all, the CEO of eMusic during the Napster Hearings was Gene Hoffman, and yes, he did agree with the court ordered injuction against Napster. Before he made that statement, he asked Napster to remove eMusic files from their index. He also asked that users who shared the songs be unbanned from Napster. Frankly, if I were selling unprotected music, I wouldn't call it "short-sighted" to ask another company not to let people give it away.

But eMusic wasn't just his company. Hoffman cofounded the company with Bob Kohn. Before that, both of them served on the board for Pretty Good Privacy. I know. Total "asshats".

Either way, the current CEO is David Pakman who has been speaking out against DRM since long before Steve Jobs did.

While I agree with boycotting companies for their beliefs and behavior (I don't buy major label music or anything Sony), I have to call bullshit in this case. eMusic provides distribution for many small record labels in a way that lets their users play the music whenever, and on whatever digital music player they want. They are priced fairly (I pay ~ $.18 a song). They have a good business model, and they're legal.

I'm sure it is possible to rationalize not paying for music no matter how it is provided to you. And if the option to obtain it for free exists, you certainly can take advantage of it. But criticizing a good company in a public forum based on outdated information to justify your refusal to pay for music only makes you look like an asshat.

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[winnabago]

eMusic is still fairly anti-consumer with their subscription model. I was ending up with tracks I didn't want just to use them up at the end of the month - so, yeah, you're getting $.18 songs, but only if you work really hard at it. And recently they raised rates, making it pretty tough to stay a customer.

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[exi1ed0ne]

The only thing companies in sane (i.e., not computer-related) industries are allowed to trademark are logos.

Application to have the sound of Harly Davidson motorcycles trademarked:
http://www.lectlaw.com/files/inp14.htm

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[JimDaGeek]

Okay all you folks who said, "I'd pay for music rather than steal it" if they would just remove the DRM now's the time to go visit puretracks.

I just did. Everything on the homepage is only in WMA format. No thanks. In fact, 96% of all their music is in crappy MS-Only WMA. Oh, the site also says: "We apologize, but www.puretracks.com is only available to Canadian residents. If you are a resident of the USA, please click here to access our American store.".... WMA-Only!!!

Your suggestion doesn't make sense to me. This Candada-Only store is offering _very_ few songs in a non-DRM format. What percentage of those songs are any good? Are they the most purchased songs? I bet the non-DRM songs are among the least purchased. Seriously, how many people will buy a song by Uncle Goober singing I "widdled a piece of wood on the porch" just because it has no crappy DRM? So IMO, PureTracks will see very little purchases of the non-DRM songs and then the RIAA will have "ammunition" and say "see, no one want non-DRM encrusted music".

Give me a call when there is actually _real_ content available to _all_ people in a non-DRM encrusted format. Then I will start buying (big time). For now, I will spend my money on that Russian site :-)

I bought crappy DRM encrusted content. I purchased all three seasons of "The Office" (at $2 a pop) off of iTMS. I have been trying to get my wife to watch the show since I really like it. However, she will not sit in my office with me and watch it on my 17" iMac and she won't watch it on our 13" Macbook. We have a 50" HDTV and a 32" HDTV. Why can't I burn those episodes to a DVD to watch on a real TV? Because of DRM. I stopped buying any content from iTMS because of this.

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[DaggertipX]

While I agree with most of your post, I have to nitpick on one point :

"The point of copyright is that the creators of intellectual property should be the ones who decide how their work is distributed."

This statement actually hurt me to read. The point of copyright is not to control the distribution of media, the point of copyright is to compensate the producer for their work - thus giving a monetary reason for them to continue producing something we as a society find beneficial. The arts aren't required for human life like food and water is, however, as a society we have created things like copyright to help promote something that we find valuable.

This debate should not be about if copying for free is right or wrong, it should be about compensating the artist for their hard work. Piracy doesn't do that, but honestly the majority of labels don't much either... it's obviously time we rethought our strategy altogether.

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[Technician]

emusic sells to the USA. One the Puretracks Music store site, they state they sell to Canada only. So for me, it's still emusic.

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[JimDaGeek]

You are way off man. The Ferrari emblem is copyrighted so I would need to buy that from them. However, the "look" of the car is not. Haver you never heard of a kit car? They are perfectly legal. You can make them as fast as you want (within street legal limits). You can build one your self or buy a "turn key".

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[h4rm0ny]

Well there is CDON. An oasis of wonderful mainstream music just out of reach in Norway. For want of a Norwegian credit card, I'm unable to purchase it. But look at that catalogue! And DRM free!

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[MightyYar]

First of all, I think you have me confused with someone else. I was arguing that violating copyright is no more of a moral offense than say, speeding. I was not arguing that we should not have copyright, or that copyright violations should go unpunished. It's just that stealing someone's car is morally wrong no matter what the government says. Copying a song does not suddenly become "theft" just because the government says so.

I do like my music and books and software and I have no problem paying for them (though I usually go to the library for books and use open source software as much as possible, and I'm currently boycotting the RIAA). That said, those advocating disbanding of copyright altogether also make a sound argument, and are not necessarily communists, thieves, or idiots.

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[Deagol]

After reviewing his statement for that hearing, I'll revise my opinion of him to that of a pompous asshat. "Oh, look at me! I'm the youngest CEO in the NASDAQ. I sold a company to PGP, Inc., and I bought 4 companies so far with EMusic. I create jobs!"

In spite of being a slick businessman, he was (as they all were, and still are) short-sighted.

What has changed in the file sharing scene since this event? Not much, at least in principle. People are still sharing, with even more bandwidth and impunity than before. Content producers still lobby for more laws, still rake in profits, and continue to sue those who enjoy illegal downloads/uploads. Sure, P2P networks have gotten more diffuse and sneakier, and iTunes exploded onto the scene. But 2007 looks and smells a lot like 2000 in terms of people getting free music. And you know what? RIAA labels and EMusic are still in business! The industry didn't implode! Maybe money *can* be made even when people download free stuff.

So what was the point of all his hot air, again? He still believed, after the walls of artificial scarcity had fallen, that digital IP still had some sort of monetary value that should be protected. He was wrong.

Face it. Napster let the cat out of the bag, and today we're all benefiting with that cat's many offspring. Metallica's recording of "No Leaf Clover" has no value in and of itself anymore. All revenue should be made from added value. Seeing the song performed live adds value. Buying a CD with lyrics and cover art adds value. Being able to purchase the music file from Emusic and iTunes via a slick, drool-proof interface onto a slick hardware player adds value. AllofMP3 raked in money, and it was essentially charging for bandwidth and indexing. Had my credit card not rejected the authorization on their payment site, I would have spent a fair bet on tracks, but instead I spent my time pulling down crap from spotty torrents.

There's value added to water -- one of the most plentiful things on this entire planet! People get water for free (more or less), yet will still go out an buy bottled shit, whether it's a pint of Evian or a gallon of generic distilled water from Wal Mart. Hell, I've got my own well, and I buy the occasional gallon of distilled water. So don't go telling me that the producers of entertainment cannot make a buck if the stuff gets away from them and is available for free.

But make no mistake, chasing loose MP3s around the 'net makes no money for the producers or performers. It only makes money for the lawyers and those who play catch-up with the P2P scene, such as NetPD and Copyright Control Services (mentioned in the transcript I linked to). I argue that inventing value-add to the music tracks is a more profitable pursuit, as opposed to walking against the tide.

Short. Sighted.

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[erikdalen]

Okay all you folks who said, "I'd pay for music rather than steal it" if they would just remove the DRM now's the time to go visit puretracks. In the future I want to see every post complaining about Apple DRM or MS DRM state an oath at the bottom that they have actually bought music from puretrack. Otherwise you will be condsidered a hypocrit and ignored.

I've always said that and have bought some DRM-free albums on klicktrack.com since I found them.
It's a pretty limited catalogue, but some good electronic music and all DRM-free

For the rest I visit Pirate Bay

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[speculatrix]

I think a better analogy:

Judge: Son, why did you take a hires photo of this poster and print your own rather than buying a copy?
Me: because it cost too much and I wouldn't have bought it ever at that price

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[El Long]

And for the record, I've been a subscriber for years.

- Anonymous Coward

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[bane2571]

The point was not that people that have been downloading legal DRM free tracks should use this new source but rather that now that a legal source is available those using illegal sources would be hypocrits not to use. Since the excuse on slashdot I've seen most is "I can't download it anywhere else whether I pay or not" I see the point but I think the GP post missed that most of the tracks that are being released will already be available through the sources you have mentioned.

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[radish]

Well for one thing, I don't steal music, I do pay for it - just not from places which use DRM. Most of the music I buy is on plain ol' CDs but I also use services like beatport, audiojelly, playittonight and so on. All of these stores sell licensed music from major artists (in the specific genres they service) on mp3. Beatport even offer WAV downloads which are the actual studio masters (for an additional fee to pay for bandwidth). So I'm probably not going to buy anything from puretracks, but I already consider myself to be supporting the non-DRM vendors.

As an aside, it always impresses me how much the dance music labels understand their customers and support sensible (non-DRM) download stores. Beatport has become amazingly succesful and has full back catalogue from pretty much every major (and minor) label in the industry.

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[snarlydwarf]

Did you read the post you are defending? Geesh. Look here:

Even if their selection is small you are obliged to buy something to support the movement and show the world this giant latent market of people who really dont want to steal music and would really pay but are currently rightteously protesting DRM and thus are forced to steal. Show them the market for righteous people like yourself exists. This is the first one to put major bands on it's free list in quatitity. If you dont' support them no then there wont be more...

See that, even if I don't like their selection I am supposedly "obliged to buy something to support the movement"

That is pure bullshit. Seriously: the milk analogy is spot-on. If you support free markets capitalism, you are obliged to buy something from every new store to show your support. If you don't you are a hypocrite and probably a communist according to this "logic". Do you really believe this argument?

I already buy my music. Why should I have to give money to some new store to "support the movement"?

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[rtb61]

Judge: Son, why did you COPY this Ferrari? Me: I think Ferraris are too expensive. Judge: Ah, hmm, would you mind telling me how you managed to do it, and can I make a copy the same way?

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[abigor]

That's good information, thanks very much for responding. There are a number of albums I'd like to buy from there, simply because they were released in such limited quantities that they are extremely expensive to buy used (> $100).

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[Millenniumman]

You realize that applies to everything, don't you? Without something (e.g., a government) to protect you, labor can forced from you without compensation, and any products can be stolen.

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[IDontAgreeWithYou]

Hurt as it might, that is what copyright is. It is the exclusive right of the holder to make copies (ie distribute) his/her work. The only way to ensure that a producer of copyrighted material is compensated is to make sure that they control the distribution.

From the American Heritage Dictionary:

Copyright: The legal right granted to an author, composer, playwright, publisher, or distributor to exclusive publication, production, sale, or distribution of a literary, musical, dramatic, or artistic work.

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[mudshark]

Emusic *was* great. Before Universal/Vivendi bought them and borked their early adopters in 2003. Not only did they change the terms of their subscription agreement retroactively, but they made it difficult for customers to download queued items before the deadline for cancellation vs. acceptance of a 14.99 automatic monthly fee. Fuck that, and fuck Emusic.

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[IDontAgreeWithYou]

MightyYar:

If your work only has value because of government protection, then forgive me for not being too impressed.

Perhaps you can see why I am confused, as copyright is government protection of the value of artistic/creative work. From your posts above, you sure sound like someone who thinks that copyright should be abolished. I apologize if I was mistaken

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[Stewie241]

I already buy my music. Why should I have to give money to some new store to "support the movement"?

Original Post:

Okay all you folks who said, "I'd pay for music rather than steal it" if they would just remove the DRM now's the time to go visit puretracks. In the future I want to see every post complaining about Apple DRM or MS DRM state an oath at the bottom that they have actually bought music from puretrack. Otherwise you will be condsidered a hypocrit and ignored. And to everyton else please make sure you reply to all such posters with a question" How many puretracks recordings do you own"? Even if their selection is small you are obliged to buy something to support the movement and show the world this giant latent market of people who really dont want to steal music and would really pay but are currently rightteously protesting DRM and thus are forced to steal. Show them the market for righteous people like yourself exists. This is the first one to put major bands on it's free list in quatitity. If you dont' support them no then there wont be more...

This post wasn't directed at everybody. All the poster was saying is that for those that are stealing music on principle because it is not available non-DRM. Then they say, well, I would like to buy, but I don't want to buy DRM. When that when that music becomes available without DRM, they had better go and buy it, or else they are being hypocrits.

I, personally, don't see how you could argue this. The question he wants to ask is wrong though: it should rather be, how many songs do you have that have not been paid for but are available DRM free from puretracks? I think this is what the OP intended.

If people can find music they like on puretracks, they should support it. When children learn to walk, we don't criticize them when they take their first step because they aren't running. We applaud them. If people truly want to see DRM free music being sold, we need to encourage the industry to do so by rewarding efforts that are being made to move in this direction. It is like teaching lab rats to walk through a maze. Corporations are stupid - the only stimulus that really works is the dollar.

I don't listen to a lot of music. But I just might wander over to puretracks and buy a track or two of DRM free music. I don't think anybody should be obligated to do this, but I think it is a good thing and will move us technologically in the right direction.

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[Stewie241]

okay... so why don't you go and buy the DRM version, and then download the non-DRM version? That way you can do whatever you want with the music, but you are still paying for it?

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[Anonymous Coward]

"If, say, the record companies could get $0.02 per track from ROMS, they would have to pay the mechanicals to the composer/lyricist (often around $0.07) as well as any contractual royalties owed to the performers. This would be a net loss of at least a nickel a track, and possibly a lot more -- royalty payouts on downloads are typically around $0.15 for major artists."

Why? Wouldn't the applicable law be Russian in regards to royalties as well? US terms for music sold in Russia make no sense- that's why they would only be getting 2 cents anyway.

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[richlv]

just on amarok mailing list possibilities of further integration have been asked about by representatives of two of such music stores :
http://www.ind-music.com/
http://www.mp3ninja.com/

(though looking at the second one it seems somewhat qeustionable ;) ).

this alone is far from "a lot", but given amarok's overall market share and publicity (relatively low), i am sure there are more (which would constitute a lot in the end ;) ).
i must admit, i am not bothered enough to search, though...

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[Weedlekin]

"I was arguing that violating copyright is no more of a moral offense than say, speeding."

As holder of a number of copyrights, I would argue that speeding is significantly worse in a moral sense than copyright infringement, because people who drive too fast for the type of road or conditions _have_ injured or killed others, and the degree of injury to both pedestrians and passengers in other vehicles is directly related to the speed of the collision. Non-commercial copyright infringement on the other hand only does _potential_ damage to a copyright holder's income (it is potential rather than actual because neither I nor any other copyright holder can conclusively demonstrate that an infringer would actually have bought our works if they weren't able to obtain them without paying), which is rather different from a moral viewpoint than acting in a way that has conclusively been shown to both increase the risk of injuring another, and make those injuries more severe.

I must admit to being puzzled by the fact that people need to define ludicrous moral or actual relationships between purely abstract concepts such copyright infringement and usually car-related acts with a real effect on the physical world. We don't attempt to describe other abstracts such as philosophy in terms of cars, or for that matter other crimes that don't involve or affect cars, so why then does every discussion of IP eventually end up with people swapping absurd car analogies?

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[Mr2001]

See, if artists and labels want to give their stuff away for free, they can. If they don't want to, why is it up to MightyYar to decide that they have to? The artist doesn't have to do anything. If you're an artist and you want to sell copies, that's fine - just don't interfere when someone else uses his own resources to give them away. Live and let live.

Likewise, as an artist, you don't have to produce anything in the first place without being paid for it. If you're afraid that no one will buy copies of your song from you, because they can download copies elsewhere for free, then demand payment up front from your collective fan base before you record it. Just as the internet has made it possible to share information on a massive scale, it's also made it possible to fund significant projects with thousands of small contributions.

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[ArtDent]

This Candada-Only store is offering _very_ few songs in a non-DRM format.

Their DRM'ed offerings may only represent 3.8% of their total catalog, but that's still 50,000 songs. That is not a small number.

Granted, they're not available to you if you're not in Canada, and that's not terribly helpful. I don't know why, but I would guess that it's related to the different industry composition in Canada. We have a good number of mainstream artists signed to larger independent labels (notably Nettwerk) that are eager to embrace DRM-free online distribution. I believe that many of these artists have redistribution deals with the major labels in the US, who are, of course, still insisting on DRM.

What percentage of those songs are any good? Are they the most purchased songs? I bet the non-DRM songs are among the least purchased. Seriously, how many people will buy a song by Uncle Goober singing I "widdled a piece of wood on the porch" just because it has no crappy DRM?

How do you want to objectively define "good" music?

Puretracks is not actively seeking out poor selling music to offer as MP3s. Rather, they are offering whatever the labels will allow them to. Right now, that pretty much means everything from the indie labels. Indie music is certainly not bad music; indeed, many people refuse to listen to anything else. And, as I said above, many mainstream artists in Canada are actually signed to indie labels.

Right now, the fifth best selling album at Puretracks (Barenaked Ladies are Men, sorry, Canada-only link) is in MP3 format for $7.99 Canadian (each track from it is 79 cents). The same album in DRM'ed WMA is at number 11 and dropping.

This is not an effort that's designed to fail. And, eventually, this will have an impact on everyone.

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[DaggertipX]

And that's what I get for commenting on the spirit of the word without doing the homework and looking it up to ensure I wouldn't be soundly bitchslapped.
Well played, good sir, well played...

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[MightyYar]

Are you really comparing slavery to an artist's life without copyright?

People will create art no matter what the government's stance is on the subject. No one is forcing you to be a musician/painter/writer. This is completely different from forced labor.

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[MightyYar]

I do not want to see copyright abolished. I want to have a system in place to encourage works, and to encourage artists to make their works public. I think that current copyright goes too far, and that something like 30 years is a more reasonable term. I also think that we should explore the possibility of having copyright only apply to commercial transactions - this would make it legal for me to make a mix tape and give it to my friends (which is happening anyway).

I don't think we can have a healthy discussion about copyright, however, when people insist on comparing it to laws with a moral basis like theft or murder. Theft and murder are always wrong, no matter what the government says. Copying a song can be wrong or right, depending on what the government says. We should be arguing over what the copyright rules should be, not calling each other names (especially names that don't even apply).

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[MightyYar]

We all have cars (well actually I don't currently), so it is one common reference point. And most of us go about 5-10 MPH over the limit, because we know they won't pull us over for that.

In my case, I was using speeding because 10 years ago the speed limit was apparently arbitrarily set to 55MPH nationwide. Now it is higher than that in most places simply because the government changed its mind. Thus, it is very hard to say that someone exceeding 55MPH 10 years ago was acting immorally - they were simply breaking the law. As long as you follow the flow of traffic I don't think you are causing a hazard. Obviously someone exceeding the limit by 20MPH and weaving in and out of traffic is behaving immorally by endangering others.

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[Weedlekin]

"We all have cars (well actually I don't currently), so it is one common reference point"

Most of us also live in dwellings, and I'm pretty sure that nearly everyone on Slashdot has at least one computer, at least one sound system, at least one TV, and at least one camera.

"In my case, I was using speeding because 10 years ago the speed limit was apparently arbitrarily set to 55MPH nationwide"

OK, fair enough. You do however have to remember that (a) not everybody's from the US, and we have no way of knowing you are, and (b) "speeding" without any qualification covers everything from "pushing it a bit" on a deserted motorway at night with good visibility (you call them freeways, I believe) to doing 120mph in a town centre full of people at lunch time. Thus, while some "speeding" may be morally justifiable, this is not the case for speeding in general, because excess speed has been shown rather conclusively to increase both the likelihood of an accident, and the severity of any injures that are sustained.

NB: I believe that the 55mpg limit in the US was put there during the "oil crisis" in the 1970s in an attempt to reduce fuel consumption because car manufacturers told your government that 55 was the most efficient speed for most vehicles. However, I thought it had been repealed some time ago; I know Wikipedia isn't a particularly reliable source, but this article seems to indicate that rural inter-states have speed limits ranging from 65 in Delaware to 80 in Texas, with the average being about 70 for that type of road (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_limits_in_the_ United_States).

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[MightyYar]

I guess we (Americans) just have cars on the brain :)

We got state control of the speed limits back in 1995. Montana was probably the most notable for making their daytime speed limits simply "reasonable and prudent".

I'd love to make up an analogy with a dwelling, stereo, TV, or camera, but I'm having trouble coming up with a non-intellectual-property and non-moralistic crime that people might be committing with those things. I guess you could put an antenna on your roof despite a town ordinance forbidding them for aesthetic reasons - but not everyone's violated local building codes. I guess that you could play your stereo too loud for a local ordinance even if you don't have any nearby neighbors that could hear you. Beyond that, I'm at a bit of a loss. Sorry you didn't like my analogy :(

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[Millenniumman]

No. I am saying that you need a government (or something acting as it) to get money for any products or services.

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[MightyYar]

I would never argue that government does not offer essential services. But it is a very different function for the government to simply offer protection than it is for the government to create a market for something.

There is a market for food whether or not a government exists. That a government protects you from having your food stolen is a great bonus, but has nothing at all to do with the market for food. IP, on the other hand, does not even exist without a government. That is a very fundamental difference.

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[Anonymous Coward]

If the creators want to give their work away for free that is their right. It's also their right not to. If you don't agree with their decision, you don't listen, read or use their work. You don't go out and get it for free. But they can give ideas away for free, just as you said - so you do go get it free if that's the case.

And I don't think there is a real way to control the distribution of an "idea" or "intellectual property". Actually, there is one, just keep it from release to the general public.

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[Millenniumman]

There is definitely a market for intellectual goods without a government. Do you think people wouldn't want software, books, etc anymore? The government does not create that market. The difference is, it would be much harder to get paid for it. The same is true for any service. The concept of property belonging to who has it rather than who can take is is a very useful one, but it is still not some law of the universe. Someone has to enforce it.

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[MightyYar]

Of course there would be a market for a book, just not for the information contained in the book.

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[Weedlekin]

"I guess we (Americans) just have cars on the brain"

The use of car analogies isn't just an American thing -- everyone seems to do it, and not only on Slashdot.

"I'd love to make up an analogy with a dwelling"

Entering somebody's home without their permission, even though you don't steal anything.

"stereo"

Recording radio broadcasts.

"TV"

"Pirate" cable or satellite decoders.

"or camera"

Taking photos or videos of womens' bedrooms, or store changing rooms / toilets without their knowledge (people have been prosecuted for all of these).

"Sorry you didn't like my analogy"

It wasn't your analogy in particular, but the fact that car analogies inevitably seem to crop up in any discussion of IP as a general thing, which is IMO playing into the hands of the recording and movie industries, who are doing their best to equate IP infringement with crimes against physical property in the collective public mind. That's why I think that (for example) the cameras in womens' changing rooms is a better analogy, because the only thing this damages are somebody's dignity and privacy, which like IP, are completely ephemeral concepts that are nonetheless protected by laws in some parts of the world.

Re:Time to put your money where your mouth is

[MightyYar]

Entering somebody's home without their permission, even though you don't steal anything. Well, this would really depend on your motivation as to whether this were moral or not. Going in to shut off a source of running water would be altruistic, but most other motivations would not be. It's certainly not something that everyone does, like speeding (I hope!) :)

Recording radio broadcasts. Well, first off this is specifically legal in the US, and second I was trying to find a non-IP analogy.

"Pirate" cable or satellite decoders. Another copyright-based crime, which I was trying to avoid.

Taking photos or videos of womens' bedrooms, or store changing rooms / toilets without their knowledge (people have been prosecuted for all of these). Once again, I don't think a moral person would be violating people's privacy like this. Also, I'm pretty sure that most people can't relate to this :)

dignity and privacy, which like IP, are completely ephemeral concepts that are nonetheless protected by laws in some parts of the world. I'd like to think that humans have a fundamental right to dignity, if not to some measure of privacy. That is, I think it would be wrong to take pictures in the ladies (or mens!) room even if the government said it was okay. I picked speeding because everyone does it and it is, as you say, an ephemeral concept - in the US it is constantly changing at the whim of the government. I agree with you 100% that people should not compare copyright law to anything in the physical domain, and that's what my original snarky comment was all about.

Microsoft-specific solutions?

[nganju]

(a store I have generally avoided because of their Microsoft-specific solutions)

Do you mean Microsoft-specific DRM solutions? Because if you're avoiding them simply because they've chosen to build their website/infrastructure with ASP and .NET, you've gone off the deep end with your Microsoft-hating.

Re:Microsoft-specific solutions?

[khendron]

I mean that when I first tried to buy music from them (last year sometime) I was forced to use IE (Firefox was not supported at the time). There was no helpful error message or anything telling you to use IE. When you went to the checkout, you would simply get a message saying transaction failed. It's like they didn't even consider that other browsers existed. Only when I contacted their support was I told that IE was mandatory.

They've fixed the Firefox support problem (I just bought some mp3s), but they still do not support Mac (though they claim to be working on it).

Cool - but I hear nothing on Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

when I try to check out the albums songs. Any ideas?

My wife tried puretracks.

[edunbar93]

When I bought my wife her Sony Network Walkman she decided to try Puretracks so that she could get digital music legally. After a week and the realization that "we won't let you copy the songs *you bought* off your computer", she dropped them like a hot rock.

"I'd rather get my music illegally, and have them work on my MP3 player," she said.

From The F'in Web Site

[torstenvl]

Is this what's meant by "immediately" ???

FTFWS:

http://www.puretracks.com/res/img/macsplash.gif

Ah, you're on a Mac. Here's the thing about that.

Thanks for visiting.

Our current music sotre uses Windows Media technology to play our music files. Unfortunately that means our songs are incompatible with your operating system. Furthermore, Aple's iTunes FairPlay system is currently not available to us for use with iPods.

We'd love to offer our music to Mac users, and we are currently working to offer content in new formats.

Ah, comme ça vous êtes sur Mac. Sauf que...

Merci de votre visite.

Notre magasin de musique utilise présentement la technologie Windows Media pour jouer nos fichiers musicaux. Malheureusement, cela signifie [sic] que nos fichiers musicaux sont incompatibles avec votre système d'exploitation. De plus, le système iTunes FairPlay de Apple [sic] ne nous est présentement pas [sic] disponible pour fins d'utilisation avec des [sic] iPods.

Nous aimerions offrir notre musique aux utilisateurs [des] Mac[s], et nous sommes en train de travailler sur la possibilité d'offrir notre nouveau contenu sous de nouveaux formats.

This is nearly worthless unless...

[FuzzyDaddy]

I can search for only DRM free songs. I've just checked out the website, and found no way to look only for non-DRM music.

Even if 90% of their music was DRM free, if I don't find out until I get to the song in question, it's going to be a very aggravating browsing and shopping experience. Imagine finding a song you want to here, only to discover you can't use it. Unless they offer a way to filter out the stuff I can't use, why should I waste my time looking through their stuff? It would be bad enough if it was mostly DRM-free - but given that it's mostly stuff I can't listen to, why would I waste my time?

Re:This is nearly worthless unless...

[Merlynnus]

I've just checked out the website, and found no way to look only for non-DRM music.

Wrong. Click the "MP3" link (4th item on the menu bar at the top of the page). Although I suppose I have to take into consideration that you may not be aware that MP3s contain no DRM.

Or, if that's too much work, click here: http://www.puretracks.com/content/viewer.aspx?cid= GlobalNav_MP3

Re:This is nearly worthless unless...

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, you mean the "MP3" link stuck right in the middle of the nav bar in plain sight, yeah, we Canadians are sneaky, we hid the MP3s from the Americans, right over there, beside the weapons of mass destruction.....


http://www.puretracks.com/content/viewer.aspx?cid= GlobalNav_MP3

Re:This is nearly worthless unless...

[FuzzyDaddy]

Ah, I'm glad to see that manners are alive and well. Have you ever heard of the concept of transference? You might find it interesting

Come off it

[jimicus]

I have my doubts that this article can possibly be true. Remember that the music is only being sold because the big labels of this world - the RIAA (do they cover Canada as well?) say that it may be.

As soon as any of the music stores start selling RIAA-covered music without DRM, expect the RIAA to come down on them like a ton of lawyers.

Re:Come off it

[despisethesun]

The RIAA specifically does not exist in Canada. That's a U.S.-only cartel for American-based record labels. In Canada, there's the CRIA, which is made up of the Canadian branches of those major labels, plus whatever Canadian-based indies have decided to join. So it's basically the same thing, but specific to each country.

Re:Come off it

[DustyMac]

In Canada it's the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA)

Re:Come off it

[dlim]

Another thing to note, if you RTFA, is that not all music on the site is being sold without DRM. I'm in the US, so I can't buy any music from them without DRM, but the article suggests that it's the indie labels that are offering music in mp3.

This isn't Slashdot's Fault

[Sneakernets]

the CBC reported this wrong. Completely wrong. Why this even got to the internet as a news story I have yet to understand.

Re:This isn't Slashdot's Fault

[Yer Mum]

CBC is a Canadian broadcaster. You are not Canadian. CBC sees the MP3 tracks on the site when they access it. You don't, you are redirected to the US shop where there are no MP3 tracks.

Doesn't work Re:This is nearly worthless unless...

[Anonymous Coward]

I tried your link, and I just get the anti-mac splash page that others have reported.

Remind me again...

[djupedal]

...what did 'DRM' stand for, exactly...?

Re:Remind me again...

[AnalogDiehard]

...what did 'DRM' stand for, exactly...?

Doesn't
Replay
Music

is not available for Mac OS.

[djupedal]

...and not only that, available only to canucs? Seems to limit who can claim to be honoring a promise to support non-DRM'ed content. Yep, this is really going to make a splash in the music world.

What's the point, other than some site smaller than Balmer's nuts trying to gain more exposure...?

Re:is not available for Mac OS.

[Yvan256]

I'd rather see a mainstream Canadian store like PureTracks.com start selling non-DRM'ed MP3's than seeing "iTunes Canada now forced to sell DRM'ed WMA files by USA government because of USA lobby groups".

This may not affect you right now, but it does set a precedent.

Re:is not available for Mac OS.

[abigor]

Because if it wasn't limited to Canadians only, then you guys would freak out and declare war, and then we'd have to head down there and torch the White House yet again. We don't want to do that - it's a nice building.

Re:is not available for Mac OS.

[ThousandStars]

we'd have to head down there and torch the White House yet again. We don't want to do that - it's a nice building.

It is a nice building -- the occupant is the problem.

There are two online shops, parent is not a troll

[Yer Mum]

The Canadian one, available only to people in Canada, sells WMAs and the new MP3s. The US one (which everyone else outside Canada gets, because I'm in Spain) sells only WMAs.

If you see a Mac error page it makes sense because you're not in Canada and can only download WMAs.

If you checked the links to MP3s that posters have given and you get told you're being sent to the US shop, now you know why.

Finally, it might be useful to bear in mind that the world doesn't revolve around the US. Not completely, anyway.

DRM or mp3 makes no difference

[2TecTom]

I won't pay for compressed, overprocessed, overpriced downloads, what I will pay for is flac files at a dime a pop, indeed, when it's cheaper and easier to download than to share or rip, then, and only then, will music "sales" reach their true porential levels.

The way I see it, artists need to dump the middlemen and sell directly to the public. Neither artists, nor audiences need anything to be between them at all, in fact.

Re:DRM or mp3 makes no difference

[Anonymous Coward]

Have fun living in total silence, buying CDs at inflated prices, or ripping off music files because your ridiculous demand for ten cent uncompressed files will most likely never happen.

Re:DRM or mp3 makes no difference

[kidcharles]

I've got the same problem; I cannot bring myself to pay for lossy-compressed music files. I consider 128kbs MP3's to have unacceptably bad sound quality and this seems to be the standard rate. Give me FLAC or give me death!

Re:DRM or mp3 makes no difference

[Anonymous Coward]

i'd bet a buck we'll soon see songs for pennies

Re:DRM or mp3 makes no difference

[Yvan256]

The Canadian and American iTunes Stores have been selling songs at 99 pennies for quite some time now. ;-)

Re:DRM or mp3 makes no difference

[vic-traill]

I consider 128kbs MP3's to have unacceptably bad sound quality and this seems to be the standard rate.

Well, no FLAC's on Puretracks (hey, that rhymes!), but their mp3's are encoded at 192kbps, according to the FAQ on the MP3 section of the Canadian site at:

http://www.puretracks.com/content/viewer.aspx?cid= GlobalNav_MP3

Re:DRM or mp3 makes no difference

[Anonymous Coward]

yah, that's the same price as a physical CD

first world consumers are such stupid suckers

Re:DRM or mp3 makes no difference

[Yvan256]

yah, that's the same price as a physical CD

first world consumers are such stupid suckers

Oh yeah sure. Pay 20-30$CAD for a CD with one track I want and 14 filler tunes, or pay 0.99$CAD for the track I want.

We're sooooooo dumb. :rolleyes:

Canadians only, the story is NOT bogus

[Magorak]

After reading a lot of people from the USA claiming this was bullshit and making a big fuss about it (something you do a lot of) I went to the site myself, and sure enough, there's PLENTY of albums available in MP3 format.

I live in Canada and we're seeing the links. I suspect that since the RIAA rules your dominion, you guys are stuck living in a DRM world for Puretracks but for Canadians, we're finally seeing some MP3's on this site.

You guys gotta stop flaming other people and claiming the story is bullshit until you do a little research. Just because you live in the US doesn't mean that you can get to it. It's the same thing that pisses me off about American websites that advertise the ability to stream TV shows but the moment I try it, no luck because I live in Canada.

BTW, since I have bought stuff from Puretracks in the past, I received an email from them just prior to reading the post on Slashdot. Here's a copy of the letter.

----
Thank you for being a Puretracks customer. We are very excited to announce that as of today Puretracks will be offering MP3 files for sale on our site at Puretracks.com: http://www.puretracks.com/content/viewer.aspx?cid= GlobalNav_MP3.
And as the first North American digital service provider to launch 'a la carte' MP3 music downloads, we're happy to offer you a free MP3 track from the popular Canadian band The Barenaked Ladies.
The track, called 'The Sound of Your Voice,' will be delivered along with the February 27th Puretracks newsletter. You will need to be a registered newsletter subscriber to be eligible to download this track.
If you don't currently receive our newsletter (filled with weekly free tracks and exclusive content), click here to register.
MP3s at Puretracks
MP3 tracks are easy to download (no licenses required) and can be played on all digital audio devices. Puretracks currently offers over 50,000 tracks in French and English from popular artists such as: Sarah McLachlan, Broken Social Scene, Feist, The Barenaked Ladies, Jean Leloup and Richard Seguin. Track prices starting at $ 0.79 each.
Be sure to register now for the Puretracks newsletter to get your free MP3 track from The Barenaked Ladies! Click here to register. If you are already registered, watch for your February 27th Puretracks newsletter to get your free track.
Regards,

Alistair Mitchell,
CEO

Re:Canadians only, the story is NOT bogus

[Anonymous Coward]

So what are the mp3s encoded at?

Re:Canadians only, the story is NOT bogus

[Kalgash]

192kbps according to the faq at http://www.puretracks.com/content/viewer.aspx?cid= GlobalNav_MP3

so what happens to vista

[Skridge]

once drm is dead? will there be a ms patch to remove the 30 checks per second, etc and make it not suck? personally, i hope ms fights it till the end, and keeps vista the piece of crap it is. just the thought that drm might be dead before vista really start shipping gives me great joy.

Re:Time to put your brain where your keyboard is

[Wolfger]

Okay... Apparently somebody hasn't figured out the "I want it" portion of the equation. Yes, I would rather buy music than pirate it, if DRM didn't stop me from using it after I buy it, AND if the music available is something that's actually desirable. You seem to think every anti-DRM person in the world should now go buy this music even if they don't like it, just because it has no DRM. That is stupid to the extreme, and I have no idea how in the world you actually got modded up for saying such a stupid thing. I put my money where my mouth was with emusic.com and was a memeber there for several month before I decided their scheme (monthly rate, rather than per track), selection (very, very little that wasn't dirt old and/or obscure), and shady billing practices (cleared up quickly when I complained, but still...) just weren't right for me. Now I will check out this new place, and if I can find some BNL (or other worthwhile music) that I don't already own, and if the price is reasonable, I will become a customer. But simple lack of DRM does not instantly make an MP3 desirable. There's lots of stuff out there that isn't even worth free.

Dave Schroeder - The Apple fanboi

[Anonymous Coward]

How could anyone believe anything this guy says? Every single post of his defends Apple, no matter what the subject. If Daves Schroeder lived in the real world he'd realize this. Unfortunately, he's too busy staring at his giant poster of Steve Jobs to notice. Apple fanbois - mod this troll, as you mod everything Schroder says insightful. It just furthers my point.

Re:Dave Schroeder - The Apple fanboi

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you point out anything incorrect or unreasonable in the post?

Then fuck off, faggot.

Can't go there with a Mac.

[customizedmischief]

Interestingly, I still can't even go to their site with my Mac. When I go to puretracks.com in Safari on my Mac, I get the following unfriendly message:

We apologize, but www.puretracks.com is not available for Mac OS. I am thinking that they might want to rethink their strategy for breaking into the iPod market...

Re:Can't go there with a Mac.

[Anonymous Coward]

Nonsense. The intersection of Mac owners and iPod owners is quite small. That is, in most cases owner(mac) => owner(ipod) but owner(ipod) !=> owner(mac).

Given the success of the Zune, if the kind of computer you owned dictated what kind of music player you bought, there would be about 5 copies of Windows worldwide.

...And From The F'in FAQ

[clgoh]

Q: Does this mean I can buy songs from Puretracks on a Mac?
A: Not yet. But we are definitely working on it.

Re:...And From The F'in FAQ

[Yvan256]

They were "working on it" a year ago. This FAQ was written when there was only DRM'ed WMA files available.

MS PlayUnsure still there

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll buy when the mention MP3 on the front page and not MS PlayUnsure.

Ding, dong..

[s31523]

the witch is dead, the wicked witch is dead...

Not the Only One

[phyjcowl]

Though puretracks may have just dropped DRM, they're not the only company in Canada to offer that. Another company called Zunior (zunior.com) is doing the same but they take it a step further and offer downloads in FLAC format. They also include album images and such in the download. That's the way to do it. I wish every company would treat their music downloads this way. People have high-speed connections now, why not offer high-quality audio? I don't want to pay $8-10 for MP3s when I can get the CD for nearly the same price but I'll pay it for a guarantee of high audio quality and liner notes, with the ease of an immediate download.

Re:There are two online shops, parent is not a tro

[Fancia]

I'm in Canada, and I get the Mac error page.

This is NOT new!

[leoc]

Zunior.com has been selling music from these exact artists in DRM-free MP3 format for a while now. And unlike Puretracks, they do not block Mac users.

whither ogg?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd like to see vorbis and flac offered by online stores. Flac would make a good de-facto standard and allow the user to transcode to lossy formats for portables. I still purchase all my music on CD for exactly this reason.

Sold out

[tepples]

I still only buy used CDs, they are cheaper If you can find them. Last time I checked, the local used CD store in my area had a lot of Christmas music but not much else.

In how many countries is puretracks available?

[tepples]

Okay all you folks who said, "I'd pay for music rather than steal it" if they would just remove the DRM now's the time to go visit puretracks. Is puretracks available in all 50 of the world's highest developed countries?

In the future I want to see every post complaining about Apple DRM or MS DRM state an oath at the bottom that they have actually bought music from puretrack. Should this be required of

1. people who want works other than music, such as movies or handheld video games, to become free of digital restrictions management, or
2. people who live outside puretracks' service area?

re: DRM free MP3s - Verified

[rnmartinez]

Hi guys, I am in Canada and gave this a try, works fine for me at this URL (which I'm sure needs a Canadian IP)
http://www.puretracks.com/content/viewer.aspx?cid= GlobalNav_MP3

Theres actually a decent selection - Jimi Hendrix, Bare naked ladies, anthrax, prodigy etc...

Although I still like ripping my cds. I would sue one of these sites if I could get MP3s in true stereo, 112-320 VBR. I could care less if my iPod can hold 1000 songs that I wont even listen to in ok quality, because I would rather have 100-200 songs in near CD quality. Just my opinion

PureTracks MP3 FAQ

[Kalgash]

From: http://www.puretracks.com/content/viewer.aspx?cid= GlobalNav_MP3 (only from Canadian IP addresses. Seems to work with Firefox)

Q: What are MP3s?
A: MP3 files are the most common type of digital audio file found today. Flexibility is a key part of music these days, and MP3 files offer the most compatibility of any format. If you have a computer or a digital music device, odds are it plays MP3 files, no matter who makes it.
Q: So does that mean I can use these songs on my Apple iPod? Phone? PDA? Sony PSP? SANDisk Sansa? Microsoft Zune? Etc.?
A: Yes
Q: Are there any restrictions on MP3 files? Do they cost more?
A: No. MP3 files have no Digital Rights Management (DRM) restrictions and cost the same as the Windows Media Audio (WMA) files that we sell.
Q: Why do you have both WMA and MP3 files?
A: Puretracks' music catalog contains content from all major labels and numerous independent labels. Currently, most of our catalog is available in the WMA format. This is due to the fact that each music label has its own policies regarding the availability of their digital tracks and the format they are allowed to be sold in. As time goes on, we hope to significantly expand our MP3 offering.
Q: What's the difference between WMA and MP3 files, and which is better?
A: This really comes down to personal preference. Both file formats offered on Puretracks are delivered in top (192kb) sound quality and are completely virus free. How you intend to use the file should dictate which format you choose to purchase.
Q: I heard that MP3 files can contain viruses, are they safe?
A: Every file sold on Puretracks, regardless of the format, is guaranteed to be 100% virus free. While MP3 viruses are uncommon, it is possible to get an infected MP3 file from a source such as a peer to peer (P2P) network. All Puretracks MP3 files are delivered to our customers free of viruses and abnormalities.
Q: Does this mean I can buy songs from Puretracks on a Mac?
A: Not yet. But we are definitely working on it.
Q: What are the terms of use for MP3 files?
A: Content sold by Puretracks, whether in WMA or MP3 format, is protected by copyrights, trademarks,and/or other proprietary rights under the laws of Canada and other countries. In purchasing MP3's, you agree to use the content only for personal, non-commercial, lawful purposes and not for resale to, or other transfer to, or use by or for the benefit of, any other person or entity.

Re:PureTracks MP3 FAQ

[doom]

Q: I heard that MP3 files can contain viruses, are they safe?
A: Every file sold on Puretracks, regardless of the format, is guaranteed to be 100% virus free. While MP3 viruses are uncommon, it is possible to get an infected MP3 file from a source such as a peer to peer (P2P) network. All Puretracks MP3 files are delivered to our customers free of viruses and abnormalities.

FUD, yes?

Hoax virus alert targets MP3

Re:PureTracks MP3 FAQ

[The Cisco Kid]

Yeah, but apparently they attempt (with some success) to check if your are in Canada, and dont sell MP3 if they think you are in the US. The labels arent going to pay much attention, really, until its available at least in the US and/or Worldwide.

"We apologize, but www.puretracks.com is only available to Canadian residents"

Email thread with Puretracks helpdesk

[ThrasherTT]

Puretracks Help Desk
        to Rob
        date Feb 22, 2007 1:27 PM
        subject RE: USA buyer...
Thank you for contacting Puretracks

No we do not have a time frame as to when this will done. However, keep checking the website for any updates.

Thank You
Puretracks Help Desk
-----Original Message-----
From: Rob
- Hide quoted text -
Sent: Thursday, February 22, 2007 1:49 PM
To: Puretracks Help Desk
Subject: Re: USA buyer...

Thanks. Do you have a timeline for when MP3s will be available on the US store?

-Rob

Re:There are two online shops, parent is not a tro

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm using an Error, and I get the Canada Mac page just fine.

Yea!

[eno2001]

Hitting the site I see a Polyphonic Spree album. Instead of the previously hippie-ish look, they now have this fascist thing going. Why do I expect to hear that the whole band offs themselves by drinking koolaide someday?

Use DRM where its useful...

[malfunct]

I am glad to see DRM go away on purchased music as I agree that its bad for numerous and already explained reasons but I absolutely do not want DRM to die. DRM is necessary to enable music subscription, movie rentals, game rentals and subscriptions and various other related ideas. In that case you don't "own" the file so its ok that they are enforcing some restrictions. Lock-in isn't even a huge problem as you can just resubscribe elsewhere if you get an incompatible device. Anyways, DRM has some beneficial uses in enabling valuable and interesting business models that otherwise would be difficult to make work.

Re:There are two online shops, parent is not a tro

[Poingggg]

The Canadian one, available only to people in Canada, sells WMAs and the new MP3s. The US one (which everyone else outside Canada gets, because I'm in Spain) sells only WMAs.

Well then, why don't you get out of there and let us outside Canada get some mp3s too?

Here is our chance!

[Lethyos]

Go vote with your dollars, people. If a decent percentage of the Slashdot population buys DRM-free music from Puretracks, it will bolster the message that we do not want encumbered music in a big way.

EU puretracks? Please?

[Kopretinka]

Any plans for this company to set up shop in the old Europe?

Confirmed

[Anonymous Coward]

I've just bought and downloaded some. There are two download methods (both require Windows). The first time I downloaded, I was using Firefox, so I had to run and EXE downloader. This provided me with WMA files. $&@#@. I switched to IE and ran their crappy Activex downloader. That time I got MP3s.

So, you can get MP3s. Seems they have some bugs to work out though.

Re:Don't ignore the facts

[RomulusNR]

If Cory at BB would read my email, maybe they'd update that.

Puretracks.com presents a different storefront depending on whether you come from a US network or a Canadian network. The MP3s are only available in the Canadian front.

If you view puretracks.com through a Canadian proxy, you will see this.

So the question to ask Puretracks now is: why are their MP3s only good enough for Canadians?

oh Canada

[rakerman]

1. At this moment (17:45 EST Thursday Feb 22 2007) in Canada, PureTracks.com still gives the "so sorry, you're on a Mac, go away" notice page 2. If you go to PureTracks in Canada on a PC, there is MP3 music you can buy 3. But you might as well buy most of it from Nettwerk Music, which works on a Mac and has most of the big names you may be looking for, and which has been selling MP3s for years

http://www.werkshop.com/. I just wrote about this today: DRM and legal music in Canada

From the Conspiracy Dept.

[vic-traill]

... with Warner Music CEO Edgar Bronfman saying the argument for removing DRM was "completely without logic or merit." London-based EMI Group, however, is reportedly exploring the lifting of DRM restrictions on its music. Warner this week annouced a new bid to acquire EMI.Emphasis mine

So, is Warner making the move to buy EMI to head off the gang at the DRM pass? From Warner's perspective, DRM is a we-all-stick-together proposition; the only way it can fly is if all the major labels, and hence all the major artists, close ranks and enforce DRM. Does Warner think that if EMI breaks rank, it's over? Are they willing to spend $USD 4.4 Billion to try to ensure the future of DRM?

EMWTK!

Yeah except

[torstenvl]

That doesn't do any good when they won't even let you access the FAQ!

Also see http://www.michaelgeist.ca/index.php?option=com_co ntent&task=view&id=1719&Itemid=125

The move also raises two questions. First - why is Puretracks still blocking Mac users? I tried this morning to access the site and was completely blocked using Firefox and partially blocked with Safari. Presumably offering clean MP3 should allow the service to sell to anyone. Second, the move to clean MP3s brings to mind my colleague Jeremy deBeer's posting last November in which he noted that the online music tariff before the Copyright Board appears to include a mandatory DRM provision. Such a provision is obviously incompatible with the Puretracks DRM-free service.

Re:Don't ignore the facts

[iCEBaLM]

Same reason why I can't buy LOST episodes through iTunes in Canada.

Companies don't want our money so they throw up all these bullshit geo-political legal roadblocks to prevent us from giving it to them. It's the only thing that makes any sense.

Still worthless!

[Anonymous Coward]

And I quote, "We apologize, but www.puretracks.com is not available for Mac OS."

WTF, over? I believe there are some exclusive Cowboy Junkies tracks I'd love (and am willing) to buy on Puretracks, but I can't. Fortunately, the band is pretty open about sharing their music, including allowing free distribution of soundboard recordings and actually inviting fans to download tracks that were included in a Best Of release without the band's involvement. I haven't downloaded any of their songs from P2P but I guess I have to ::sigh::

Yeah...the captcha is "enrage"...right on

Too little, too late.

[pontifier]

The nail is already in the coffin for all existing online music stores. I will put them all out of business.

Re:Time to put your brain where your keyboard is

[Wolfger]

Well, I went to Puretracks. Guess what? I can't find any BNL songs in mp3 format. Only WMA. Their FAQ lists system requirements as being one of several different Windows distros. No Mac support, and they completely ignore the existence of Linux. Sorry, but they flunk the test, and will not get my money. I couldn't even give it to them if I wanted, because they don't accept non-Windows systems.