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EMI Says ITMS DRM-Free Music Selling Well

Posted by Zonk on from the people-like-choice dept.

An anonymous reader writes "'The initial results of DRM-free music are good' says Lauren Berkowitz, a senior vice president of EMI, at a music industry conference in New York. Berkowitz went on to say that the early results from iTunes indicate that DRM-free offerings may boost revenue from digital albums as well as individual songs."

3 of 239 comments (clear)

  1. Isn't it ironic ... by for_usenet · · Score: 5, Interesting

    that with 2 earlier articles - making DVD copying even more illegal (if that were at all possible), and a "desire" for a Canadian DMCA, that we "now just find out" people are willing to pay for DRM-free content. I did my part and paid for a couple of tracks that I bought with DRM and "upgraded" to the DRM-free version, and will continue to do so as more become available, and as content I want becomes available DRM-free. Let's really show them where we willing to spend our $. Seems to be the only thing they listen to ...

  2. Sad by thesupermikey · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I had bought about 200 songs off iTMS in the 2 years i have been using it. Not a single song was from EMI.
    I don't know what that is important to this discussion, but if felt like sharing.

    --
    Mikey
    I've always been the kinda guy to fall for the girl dressed like an eskimo.
  3. DMCA is only reason DRM-Free is not music suicide by tjstork · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I have a soft spot for artists getting screwed by technology. Every technological advance seems to fall on artists particularly hard, so, while I really do hate the RIAA and the music industry and movie industry, I still think there might be a place so someone could show pictures of their work on the internet without having them stolen.

    My wife used to use Napster (pre-lawsuit), and Kazaa, but she switched to iTunes because iTunes was more convenient and not choked full of ads, and paying a $1 a song is not so bad. If you add the threat of RIAA letters, then, iTunes seems like a pretty good deal indeed. She also feels a need to support the artists.

    But really, the value of iTunes is the convenience and cleanliness, and there's no reason someone could not make a similar, ad-free thing but for file sharing writ large. Really, DRM free on iTunes is predicated on the fact that the recording industry must feel like it is getting some sort of handle on musical file sharing - that is, RIAA lawsuits to music downloaders must actually be working. Were there REALLY no DMCA or copyright controls on music, though, someone would eventually make something with a really cool user interface, like iTunes, but where music would be genuinely free.

    Then, musicians would starve.

    --
    This is my sig.