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

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

[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

[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

[MightyYar]

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

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

[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

[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.

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: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: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: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:No DRM iPods? etc.

[CodeShark]

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

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.