Store Says DRM Causes 3 of 4 Support Calls

Carter writes "Ars Technica is reporting that Musicload, one of Europe's largest movie stores, has found that 75% of its customer support problems are caused by DRM. Users have frequent problems using the music that they have purchased, which has led Musicload to try selling independent label music without DRM. Artists choosing to abandon DRM in favor of good old-fashioned MP3 have seen 40% growth in sales since December. Good to see someone in the business both 'gets it' and is willing to do something about it."

Comments

Could be a way to protest DRM

[thewils]

Phone for support, act dumb. Drive that 75% up to 95%. If the cost of providing support exceeds revenue, maybe DRM will be dropped.

Apple iTunes

[interiot]

So why doesn't Apple do this? They talk the talk, saying they think DRM is harmful, yet all of their music is DRM'd, even from artists who don't want their music to be. And the article also says Musicload did this specifically because it's in heavy competition with iTunes, and thought it would give them an advantage (which it has). So when will Apple step up and allow specific artists to go DRM-free too?

Re:Apple iTunes

[interiot]

Setting up the technical and support structures for interoperability is a huge deal though, and it's not the sort of thing you can try on a limited basis, or back out of shortly after, without pissing off a lot of people and organizations who have put a lot of effort into setting up new code and new organizational structures.

On the other hand, allowing selected tracks to go DRM-free is less of a big deal. It probably requires some code changes to iTunes, and requires some legal discussions with the specific artists and their labels, but it's easy to do for a small set of tracks, and they can always back out if they want to.

So, if Apple does steadfastly refuses to take even the smallest steps towards removing DRM for a few select tracks, then that means Apple's exhortations on the downsides of DRM was either hot air, or just another chess move as part of the back-room negotiations with the music companies (along the lines of Viacom suing YouTube).

Re:Apple iTunes

[Builder]

Steve Jobs LIED in that article. He sells music today WITH DRM that the artists are quite happy to have sold without DRM (as evidenced by sales elsewhere).

Steve Jobs has a very good reason to say that he wants to get rid of DRM... multiple european countries considering sanctioning his products here.

The guy is a major part of Disney now, and Pixar before that. He's been massively into DRM for a lot longer than just the iTunes store lifetime.

Re:These Are Desired Problems

[Anonymous Coward]

DRM and it's monopolizing ability will be gone by the end of this decade.

Deutsche Telekom interest in DRM?

[Red Flayer]

Musicload is owned by Deutsche Telekom, who also own T-Mobile USA.

T-Mobile USA won't support non-DRM'd media out of the box (for ringtones!). I think a couple executives (and a few board members) are going to have to have a conference call and try to figure out DT's position on DRM.

Re:These Are Desired Problems

[Seumas]

I don't buy CDs anymore, unless they are to support a band I'm interested in and it is the only way I can purchase them. First thing I'll do is run home and rip them so I can add them to my digital collection, which is how I listen to 100% of my music.

I don't buy anything with DRM. If there is DRM, I'm more likely to just get it from bit torrent or a Russian site. It will have much higher quality, too.

However, if you have good music and the money is going to you and I can get it simply via digital download, I'm all over that. I won't pay a dollar a song on iTunes and have never used that. For a buck a song, I might as well just go buy the CD and rip them myself so I don't have any DRM restrictions in the first place! But if you have unrestricted, quality MP3s available for a simple download (like Anders Manga, The Low, etc) I will gladly pay $10 or $12 an album and - quite recently - have a number of times.

I think this goes to support the growing swell of "I'm willing to pay if you're willing to give me what I want".

Re:I don't believe their data

[croddy]

As Dick Dale said:

Don't sign with a label; don't sign with a record company, because the minute you sign your name, you will lose all the rights to your music, and you will never see a dime. So what you should do is build up your following by continuously playing. Save up your money and record your own stuff and your own CDs, and then learn to market yourself. Sell your own CD's right out of your vehicle, right out of your show, just like Johnny Cash sold his records right out of the trunk of his car. ... If you sign with a label, the label will take it all, and you won't see one nickel. And that's the reason why labels will give you a million dollars up front... they'll invest four million into you and they'll take about fourteen million making that kind of money off of you and you'll end up owning them two million. So you'll never see a dime of anything that you do. And when you start to make money for the company they make you record another song, so that you will go back in the hole again, the company does. So that's the reason why you'll never see a dime in royalties. You'll be lucky if they even give you thirty-five cents a record. Whereas if you make and sell your own CD, whatever it costs you to make the CD, above and beyond that you'll put in your own pocket.

This is a guy that's survived a shark bite, beaten cancer, and has been supporting himself playing music since the early 60's. Anyone who tells you that you need a major label to promote your work is either ignorant or actively trying to defraud you.

Re:I don't believe their data

[toadlife]

If they go independant

* Their music will *never* be played on mainstream radio ("payola", though in more subtle forms, is very much alive today)
* Their videos will never be played on Music Channels like mTV
* Their CDs will never be sold in major music stores, or sold on major online retailers.
* As a result of the aforementioned, they will never be able to to gain much exposure, and thus never be able to sell many concert tickets, which is the biggest revenue stream for most musicians.

In short, going independent is a sure way to not make much money.

The entire music industry is a cartel, much like the DeBeers diamond cartel. Like DeBeers has with diamonds, they have near complete control over the production and distribution of their product. This allows them to manipulate both supply and demand, which in turn, allows them to sell their product for more than it would be worth in a truly open market. Because of the control they have over every aspect of music production and distribution, third parties are not able to make much money selling music unless they join the cartel.

Currently the music industry is trying to further limit distribution of their product via DRM. This further increases the profit margins because consumers cannot resell their DRM locked music, like they can used tapes or CDs. DeBeers has done a similar thing - though by different means (obviously you can't put DRM on a diamond), and been very successful at it over the last century.

I know the DeBeers/Music Industry analogy isn't perfect, by DeBeers is the most successful cartel ever so I imagine every cartel looks to it for "inspiration".

Ah, but who decides an album is done?

[Anonymous Coward]

The record label.

IIRC this is what happened to George Michael.

If you're in for 4 albums and the first/two is/are good but you don't fit the coming demographic they don't want to let you go but they can make more money for less with someone else. So they have you record tracks for an album. The tracks won't "work" as an album, so more have to be done. But there's problems with getting your time booked. We'll sort it out. More tracks. More criticism and "please go and do better" and more blocks on booking time.

You're still waiting for your third and fourth album so you can move on. You may even get your third one out, but you'll never get to release your 4th. You're more valuable being kept away from the competition than you cost to keep hanging on.

Re:used CDs work

[neomunk]

No, see, the whole point of modern DRM is that a signal can't GET to a regular old audio-out jack without being downgraded significantly. It's the whole "Trusted Computing" thing. You'll have digital bits screaming out of that jack, and you can't make any sense of it (without cracking it, which is illegal, in the U.S. at least). Only after it's actually INSIDE the speaker itself can it be trusted to be turned back into a real audio waveform, and only if the speaker (and every other piece of hardware in between it and the source) checks itself out regularly to make sure there aren't any unexpected voltage drops or other signs that could be indicative of a tapped line somewhere.

It's completely obnoxious in both scale and obtrusiveness, technologically speaking.

And WE get to pay for it! Don't we all feel warm and fuzzy now, knowing we're paying for people to protect themselves from us. God knows -I- can't be trusted with something as powerful as a nsync album, and I should have to pay to make sure that very complicated steps are being taken to make absolutely SURE I don't do anything dangerous with that music-like-abomination.