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).

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!"

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?