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

Re:DRM is a stopgap against obsalesence

[Anonymous Coward]

OK, let's be clear here. I want music for free. I will put up with filtering through P2P stuff to weed out the crap and take 24 hours before I get what I want. Because when I do, it is free. If I ever had a music emergency I might consider the idea of purchasing something - and the put it somewhere where the rest of the world could then download it for free.

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.

People are going to do this. Anyone that believes there is money of any sort to be made in selling access to music is wrong. There can be no money because there is zero respect for copyright and other distribution restrictions. It is going to be redistributed for free. Once purchased, it is then freely passed around. Not just to my friends, but to the entire planet.

There are no deterrents to this. Nobody is going to come and fine me or put me in jail. There are no social consequences to this any more.

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.