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Microsoft Set to Unlock EMI Songs, Too

Posted by Zonk on from the very-brave-new-world dept.

linumax writes "Microsoft has stated that it may be close to reaching a deal with EMI to sell songs without anti-piracy protection via the Zune platform. This, from comments made by head of marketing for Zune Jason Reindorp. They come hard on the heels of EMI's announcement that a deal with Apple to sell songs without DRM protection through the iTunes Music Store has been struck. Mr Reindorp said: 'We've been saying for a while that we are aware that consumers want to have unprotected content. This does open things up a little bit. It potentially makes the competition more of a device-to-device or service-to-service basis, and will force the various services to really innovate.'"

3 of 171 comments (clear)

  1. Here's what I see... by foodnugget · · Score: 5, Interesting

    So there are a few directions this could take, here's the ones i can think of:
    1) They unlock certain songs, and shortly thereafter, claim these songs are now more-heavily pirated, and use it for justification to sell more DRM to recording agencies
    2) Same as #1, except they claim the songs are not selling better, and declare that DRM isn't an obstruction
    3) they still include some kind of DRM but call it something else
    4) They've actually seen the light, and are now going to try to innovate instead of regulate.
    Did I miss any?
    P.S. I don't have a lot of confidence in 4).

  2. Cool! Next step: price by straponego · · Score: 4, Interesting
    I went from buying about 10 CDs/month a few years ago to about 0 CDs/month because of RIAA tactics, the fact that buying spinning metal media discs is silly these days, and that the price was ridiculous. So I've got about 650 of those things in a closet, about the same bumber I had five years ago.

    If I can buy uncrippled, high quality media files, I will. ~256K VBR mp3 is about the lowest I'll consider. Yes, I can hear the difference, consistently. Apple's 256K AAC should meet this spec, though I haven't listened to much AAC.

    Now, it's time to optimize the price. I'm aware that the actual costs of distribution over the net is very low, and I don't care about marketing costs, because virtually nothing I listen to is marketed at all. I don't like being ripped off. $1/song is still a ripoff, but for uncrippled content I'll probably buy a few albums I've been wanting, just to encourage them.

    But. At $.50/song and $5.00/album, I'd buy 100 albums today. I've got a five year backlog to catch up on. Probably be good for another 10/month, too.

    Come on, music labels. Talk to your artists, see who's willing to experiment with the prices. Healthy industries with real competition experiment with prices to find the most profitable price points. You're pricing like a monopoly, but you're forgetting that we do have alternatives: Free legal music, free illegal music, boycott, video, games, books, etc. I suspect you'd make a lot more money if you weren't so greedy, scared, contemptuous and contemptible. Why not find out?

  3. Re:no thanks to MS by SilentChris · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Actually, it's not even Apple's initiative. It's EMI's.

    In interviews after the announcement EMI said it was them, not Apple, that initiated the push for DRM-free music. They had already experimented with smaller versions of the program in the past. Internal tests said their own employees preferred the option to buy DRM-free tunes.

    I wouldn't be surprised if the timeline was: discussed it with Steve Jobs sometime in 2006, they were close to inking a deal, Jobs publishes his "Thoughts on Music", EMI and Apple push the new initiative. Jobs looks like a visionary, EMI looks like a marketplace innovator.

    In other words, how Jobs usually plans things: to make it look most appealing marketwise.