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Does DRM Enable Online Music Innovation?
chia_monkey writes "An article at the Tech Law Forum asks the question 'Does DRM Enable Online Music Innovation?'. The piece looks 'at the range of legitimate online music distributors to see just how much the presence or lack of DRM affected business models.' It's a rather interesting read as the author breaks down seven online music stores (iTunes, Napster, Yahoo! Music, Zune, eMusic, Amie Street, and Magnatune...four of which use DRM and three that don't). The article mainly focuses on the ownership and 'renting' of the music (which can be seen with the 'buy the condo downtown' and 'rent a mansion in the slums' analogies) and how it applies to innovation and perceived business models. The numbers don't lie ... price-per-download is the clean winner while DRM-based models also take the lead. Will the market shift toward subscription based models in the future? Or, will DRM go the way of the dodo bird (as Steve Jobs has already proclaimed his preference for)?"
There is a huge difference between the various services that the article does not take into account: mass marketing of the underlying music.
The companies that want DRM on their music are the ones that they spend a lot of money making popular. Their business model is to get a lot of people aware of certain songs, and then sell the song to each of them individually. That's the RIAA's model.
The independent labels don't have a huge marketing budget, and so they care a lot less about whether they get paid for each individual download. For them, passing songs between people really is free advertising.
So the success of any individual music store has more to do with how effective they are at getting you to find the music you want than with the DRM. iTMS sells a lot of the RIAA's music, which the labels spend megabucks marketing (an investment they want to protect). eMusic sells songs that aren't heavily marketed.
There are a few performers who straddle the line, who got famous on the RIAA's dime and then managed to extricate themselves. They get the best of both worlds: a huge audience without the need to make each individual download pay. But these are the exceptions, not the rule; don't forget how they got famous in the first place.
That's the key here: promotion. It's way more important to most people's music choices than nearly anything else.
It needs to compare the artists marketed in each model and ask what it means.
I think that 10% for eMusic is remarkable, considering these are primarily either artists have not yet achieved major commercial success; or achieved it some time ago.
For my money and they get it. eMusic is doing a fine job of widening the range of available artists, and in the new business model, the costs of doing so are marginal and the potential profits high.
My only complaint and the reason I will one day move away from them is there continued overcharging of non-US based customers. Electrons and bits don't cost more on the other side of the pond!
if "Faith" could be proved with facts - would it still be faith? So why does "Faith" try to present beliefs as fact? -
Please stop repeating that canard that Steve Jobs has a "preference for getting rid of DRM." That is absolutely false. Almost all independent music labels (the labels not owned nor controlled by the four majors) have been licensing their content for resale in the mp3 format for several years. If Jobs wanted to sell such mp3s, he could do so today.
Apple has absolutely no reason to get of DRM -- the iTunes DRM locks consumers into iPods.
I am an IP lawyer working on music licensing. The industry consensus is that Steve Jobs is a publicity hog and pro-mp3 his editorial was an attempt to take credit for upcoming rumored announcement from the major labels regarding selling in non-DRM format. Rumor has it that such shift will occur within a few months.
The fact that they decided not to include allofmp3.com in the "study" should give you a hint regarding how objective this "study" is.
Personally, I think allofmp3.com is the best of them all.
DRM doesn't enable anything...All it does is restrict. So how can it possibly enable innovation? What would happen if there was no drm? Would music stagnate? Doesn't seem to have in the past.
I believe in limited copyrights to protect an artists ability to profit from his works. I don't believe those copyright should be transferable to corporations. I don't believe those copyrights should have anywhere near the duration that they currently enjoy, and I don't believe I'll pay a damn dime for drm encumbered crap that does nothing more than deprive me of rights that I should have by virtue of paying for the damn content...At least if I stole it, someone would have taken off the damn drm!
Innovate that.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
It helps build smarter code crackers, but thats probably not what TF meant by 'innovation'.
_Vishal www.squad9.com
Ack. You have fallen for the conglomerates' campaign. You are now officially brainwashed into thinking that DRM is "good".
DRM exists for the benefit of the distributors and not the artists as they so readily claim. Why do the various distribution schemes out there have to have DRM in order to be viable? For some reason allofmp3.com worked just fucking fine for everyone (streaming and/or downloading) without the DRM. For me, it worked even better because I could get them in various bitrates and/or FLAC/WAV if I saw fit (and I did at times).
We need to REJECT at every turn the conglomerates' suggestions that we should bow to their demands. They are businessmen and they will respond favorably when the populace stops giving the fuckers money. It's people like you (and nearly everyone else) that makes DRM laden music viable.
Me? I'll stick to what is best... Music that is freely distributable by bands that don't make their money by sitting in a studio for one album but instead are out there working their asses off touring. I'm planning on going to see 5 shows in the next few weeks (it's what I can afford right now) and they are all bands that I would support.
That's what everyone should be doing to "give the artists the money they deserve", not paying the RIAA thieves so that the artists can gain a few pennies after a lower quality DRMd download.
As far as I am concerned it is all about the difference between purchase and a service. If I buy something, then I should have every right to use it however I want, as long as I do not distribute or publically perform the work. In my opinion, not only is DRM unacceptable, but I think the law should be changed so that a purchace comes with an implied license to copy for any reason. That would cover almost all of the consumer rights issues that are currently up in the air with regard to fair use. (Producer rights, like parody, criticism, education would still have to be dealt with seperately.)
On the otherhand, broadcast and rental are very nice business models for some types of media. As far as music goes, I prefer buying, but I almost never buy movies or anime - the replay value just isn't high enough for me to justify paying 5x the rental price and have more junk cluttering up my apartment. Without some sort of DRM, rental is impossible in the digital relm, and I really don't care if my devices make it difficult to copy something that I rented because I never had the right to do so to begin with. As long as the implementation is convienient I don't have any fundamental problems with DRM on rentals, and other services.
DRM is a complete failure when it comes to preventing piracy, and always will be for basic fundamental reasons. However, when it comes to rental/broadcast the purpose of DRM isn't to prevent piracy but theft of service. For that purposes DRM actually works fairly well. Because you control the stream, it is easy to change keys whenever one is cracked, as opposed to static media and players which cannot be changed after they are sold. This is why AACS was effectively broken within weeks, while the DRM for digital satallite is still secure after years. This is a situation where "Open" DRM (licened under RAND terms) can be valid and useful, much along the lines of the CableCard standard.
That said I would hate to see the situation where media is locked up and only provided as a service, and never made available for purchase. But as long as we don't get to that extreme have think both non-DRM sales and DRM'd services can coexist peacefully.