Sony Announces DRM-Free Music at Amazon

sehlat brings us a New York Times report that Sony has agreed to start selling DRM-free music from Amazon's MP3 store. This comes days after Sony revealed plans for physical MusicPass cards that would allow DRM-free access to a small portion of Sony's library. Now that all four major record labels are on board with Amazon, some are expecting Apple to make moves away from DRM as well. From the NYTimes: "Sony's partnership with Amazon.com also underscores the music industry's gathering effort to nurture an online rival to Apple, which has sold more than three billion songs through its iTunes store. Most music purchased on iTunes can be played only on Apple devices, and Apple insists on selling all single tracks for 99 cents. Amazon, which sells tracks for anywhere from 89 cents to over a dollar, offers the pricing variability the labels want."

Comments

Re:Go fuck yourselves

[stoolpigeon]

i think we might be the only ones here right now. why don't we talk this over? i really think we still have a chance.

Free market

[SpectreBlofeld]

Those of you who feel that the free market has no recourse against the large corporation and cartel, take note - this is the voting power of your dollar at work. Or, the lack of the dollar thereof, specifically.

It didn't take dismantling of the RIAA, court-ordered cessation of their ridiculous lawsuits, or legislative intervention to protect the consumer - it took your disillusionment with the industry and unwillingness to part with hard-earned cash to pay for crippled formats and less freedom with the content you purchased.

The next step will be the determining factor in the future of media sales. Will you buy MP3s, unrestricted, for a reasonable price? Or will you continue to download it for free via Limewire?

Option A will reinforce a reasonable business model that will benefit the industry, the artist, and you.

Option B will reverse the progress that has been made.

Choose wisely, Indiana Jones...

Re:Free market

[Moonpie Madness]

Such a great point.

But some will believe that music isn't worth their money, but is worth the effort to torrent. they will claim that they are just not willing to reward the awful quality of music with their money, rather than complaining about money.

Or, of ocurse, they will claim that the formats you can buy just aren't good enough. They will want lossless.

But, like you say, if sales of music don't pick up, and piracy doesn't decline, some in the industry will exclaim that DRM must return. Not sure that this affects the pirates very much.

Pirates: at least remove all the tags, etc, so it's not too obvious that files you share came from DRM-free stores.

Re:Free market

[tkrotchko]

I've already purchased from Amazon, but I won't buy from iTMS for a few reasons:

1) Amazon has more attractive prices (generally $8 for a CD)

2) It's in MP3. I think non-DRM's AAC files are fine, but MP3's are more desirable.

3) Amazon just downloads the stuff to your hard drive. It feels just like a purchase.

All that said, CD's are more desirable, and if purchased used are a better value (they can be legally resold). But the Amazon model is the first electronic system to be interesting enough for me to pay money for it.

Re:Free market

[Cadallin]

Your interpretation is extremely slanted. As others have noted, this is a precautionary measure by an enormously powerful Cartel to shut an up and comer out of the market. Whether it works or not is still very much up in the air, but in either way it demonstrates nothing about the power of the free market. This market (music owned by mainstream publishers and more generally music still under copyright) is not a free market to begin with.

As for choosing wisely lest we lose progress, What Progress? Copyright still lasts for an Unconstitutionally long time (which is effectively unlimited), and artists are still be badly exploited by massive corporations. There is no progress to be lost, except the continued erosion of sales of music owned by the big cartel. The decline of their revenue is the REAL progress. Once the power of big media is eroded to the point of making re-regulating media and telecommunications in a reasonable way, then we will have made a grand achievement.

Re:Free market

[Steve001]

Bob[Bob] wrote and included with a post:

2) It's in MP3. I think non-DRM's AAC files are fine, but MP3's are more desirable.

Whuh? Why would you prefer MP3 over AAC? Are you still using a Diamond Rio or something? :-)

The main reason I can think of for preferring MP3 over AAC: Just about every compressed audio player will play MP3 files. Although the number of players that will play AAC file is increasing, it will be a long time before it will approach the number that can play MP3.

I have many devices that will play compressed audio files (including my computer). All will play MP3, five will play WMA, two will play AAC, and two will play ATRAC.

One of the main advantages AAC has over MP3 is better sound quality at a lower bitrate. For me, encoding my MP3 files at a 192 bitrate gives me good sound quality, and I don't mind the extra space it take to store the files. I might save space using AAC but the files will only play on a limited number of devices.

Re:Free market

[curiosity]

They are at 256kbps from Amazon.

Re:Apple already did with EMI - They were first!

[stoolpigeon]

correct me if I'm wrong- but amazon only sells drm free tracks - and itunes sells a few drm free tracks. i don't think anyone is arguing over who did it first.

It also took Apple

[Per Abrahamsen]

Apple had become too powerful and arrogant, so basically the labels had become more scared of Apple than of the consumers.

Re:It also took Apple

[intheshelter]

Are you kidding me? Apple was the only thing between you and the RIAA's desire to force you to subscription pricing or $3.99 digital singles, or forcing you to buy the WHOLE digital album!! The only reason there is a viable digital market right now is that Apple "gets it". They created a store that was very easy to use, and they were the only vendor who stood up to the RIAA and other media companies. Apple worked hard to create a viable digital market, store, and portable devices, and they knew the media companies demands would result in disaster so they resisted.

Apple is not a saint by any stretch, but I think your analysis is way off. Rather than arrogant they were smart enough to create a market the way consumers wanted it to be and they tried hard to protect that market from disastrous media company meddling. Now the media companies are once again trying to screw up the digital market by excluding the one partner who made the market viable. I don't think Jobs is perfect, but he's a hell of a lot smarter than the media rubes and he'll have an answer for them. I for one howpe the rumor of Apple creating its own record label is true. They need to shake up big media's control and corrupt business practices.

As for the Amazon thing. I welcome any DRM free tracks. That's a positive step. But beware of the media companies motives. If they manage to break Apple I have no doubt that DRM will be back in a big way because the RIAA does not care about consumer needs one bit.

Re:Apple already did with EMI - They were first!

[rucs_hack]

No-ones doubting that Apple was first, but for Sony to do this is a big thing indeed. They're a dinosour, and one of the worst DRM offenders (just having DRM isn't as bad as those darn silly rootkits), so if they have finally got the message, that's a sign of good things to come.

Personally I'm of the mind that iTunes tracks have always been DRM free though, since you are allowed to burn them to CD. If you just want to use the iPod alone, there's no need. This in built burn to cd option hasn't been the case for other DRM schemes that I know of.

Try as I might, I can't hear any difference to a track I've burned to CD and encoded as mp3. Aac has its advantages (aside from the drm everyone mutters about), I do like the bookmark feature.

US only

[A1kmm]

Unfortunately, they didn't think to also drop their geographic restrictions, so this is only available to their US users. I can only presume that they got pressure from the music industry to do this, because they think they can get more out of people in their own countries. Of course, it really just means that overseas Linux users will either download the files illegally or they just won't listen to big 4 music at all.

Re:Apple already did with EMI - They were first!

[kamapuaa]

Apple already moved away from DRM with EMI and "iTunes Plus" tracks. They were the first online music reseller to do so.

That's not true. emusic.com was doing this years before iTunes.

DRM killed itself.

[wvmarle]

I argued it before here that DRM is a dead end, killing itself by limiting it's own market. And apparently this is really happening, and happening so much that it's starting to cut in profits.
Apple has more or less a stranglehold now on the market, and the labels demanding DRM on their music help Apple maintaining this stranglehold, and block e.g. Amazon from selling music that plays on the iPod. After all, when they must use DRM, they can not use Apple's DRM, and thus the market for Amazon and the rest is limited to the non-iPod market. And that market of course is small, and no serious competition for Apple.
The only way out for the labels, the only way to break Apple's hold including the demands of one price for all songs, is to drop the DRM requirement. And finally they do so - it started of course with some iTunes-plus songs, and then one after another the labels realised that they themselves are locked in by DRM as much, if not more so, than the consumers. Even "rootkit" Sony BMG apparently finally realised that.
Now the only thing I can hope for is some real competition. US$ 0.99 (HK$ 7.7) for a single song is imho way too expensive. For that price I can buy complete movies (legal, mind you - old ones, but still, a complete movie, on VCD, sometimes go for HK$10 for two). A new movie on VCD costs here HK$ 40-50, a DVD costs about HK$ 90-120, a music CD costs HK$ 70-100 for local artists and HK$ 110-150 for overseas artists. This for legal copies, not the cheap illegal import from China.
So now finally the labels have cut the DRM from the songs, allowing Amazon and presumably soon other vendors, maybe Microsoft or Yahoo, to sell songs without DRM. Amazon is now selling a lot at prices lower than iTunes, this will likely attract customers away from iTunes. iTunes is getting competition, and may be forced to lower their prices. iTunes may also decide to give up on their DRM, the lock-in is broken up by the supply side and there is no need for them to put on the DRM. After all adding DRM costs money: it takes computer cycles, requiring more computer power; it requires extra logic on their chips or software in the iPods, etc. DRM less media is cheaper, even if only marginally so.
So will Apple give up on their DRM? Sure. I'm really sure they will. Maybe not anytime soon, but as soon as Amazon et. al. get some traction, they will. As soon as there comes a real competitor to the iPod, they will do as well just to keep there store going.

Re:There's Already DRM-Free Music At Amazon....

[Khyber]

Umm, you apparently don't know much about "Compact discs" as many such discs HAVE DRM (Sony rootkit, anyone?) Look really closely at that album you're about to buy. Does the case have the SANCTIONED Compact Disc logo on the packaging? No? That's because any CD with any sort of DRM or modification (bonus data tracks) violates the Compact Disc Format, and is not allowed to carry that branding.

In other words, if you don't see the sanctioned logo on front or back of the case on the actual paper inserts, odds are you have a DRM-laden disc.

Economist Article

[CaptainZapp]

This weeks Economist has a really great story about the music industries future. Hint: It's glum.

Quote:

IN 2006 EMI, the world's fourth-biggest recorded-music company, invited some teenagers into its headquarters in London to talk to its top managers about their listening habits. At the end of the session the EMI bosses thanked them for their comments and told them to help themselves to a big pile of CDs sitting on a table. But none of the teens took any of the CDs, even though they were free. "That was the moment we realised the game was completely up," says a person who was there.