DRM-Free Music Spells Trouble?

digitaldame2 writes "Many opponents of DRM have been overjoyed at recent efforts to free media from its grip. But PC Mag Editor-in-Chief Lance Ulanoff believes the whole world has gone mad. His view is that our digital economy will collapse this way, and it could be followed by countless others. 'The music industry's moves have been terrified reactions to staunch the bleeding of millions of dollars in revenue down the drain. For maybe a year, music companies thought they had the situation under control, but then album sales tumbled. Retailers, musicians, and some music-industry execs thought DRM was the culprit, and they soon joined the chorus of consumers calling for its head. Now consumers are getting their wish, and the music industry will continue to crumble. Giving up control of content and giving it away free are not rational ideas in a market economy, yet everyone's cheering.'" Is the removal of restrictions from our media really that big a deal?

Comments

A better article

[Randle_Revar]

A brave new world: the music biz at the dawn of 2008
http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/state-of-digital-music-2007.ars

Re:DRM is pointless

[Angostura]

Well Beethoven was able to write music only because people like Rudolf Johannes Joseph Rainier Cardinal von Habsburg-Lothringen, Archduke and Prince Imperial of Austria, Prince Royal of Hungry and Bohemia paid him large amounts of money to do so.

Bach, by contrast was paid to write by (among others) Duke Wilhelm Ernst of Saxe-Weimar.

Where is all this free music?

[GeekZilla]

From TFA: "Giving up control of content and giving it away free "

Uh...who is giving away free music? Ok, iTunes has some free tracks every week and I am sure there are others but here is the point:
Removing DRM != Giving Away Music For Free.

More from TFA: "So now it's a good idea to give away music in the hope that people will think you're so cool that they'll pay anyway."
Sometimes that works. Again, not many people are doing that. The argument is against DRM.

From TFA: " Sure, we could copy some pages out of a book at the library's photocopy machine, and some people created mix tapes from their favorite albums, and others got in the habit of recording movies from TV to VHS. These were not rampant problems, and no one panicked."

Uh...actually, there was panic. From Wikipedia:

"In the early 1980s, the film companies in the USA fought to suppress the device in the consumer market, citing concerns about copyright violations. In the case Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc., the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the device was allowable for private use, thereby guaranteeing market acceptance. In the years following, the film companies found that videorecordings of their products had become a major income source. However, television networks found the widespread use of this device was threatening their advertising business model because viewers then have the ability to either fast forward through television commercials, or pause recording when they are broadcast." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VCR

Again, TFA: "The music industry's moves have been terrified reactions to staunch the bleeding of millions of dollars in revenue down the drain." So? What caused the drop in revenue? Crappy product maybe? I dunno. Sounds to me like the industry is already crumbling and it has NOTHING to do with them "giving it away for free".

TFA: "For maybe a year, music companies thought they had the situation under control, but then album sales tumbled. Retailers, musicians, and some music-industry execs thought DRM was the culprit, and they soon joined the chorus of consumers calling for its head. " And what has been the result? We don't know yet. I think it is a good thing. I would rather pay a reasonable price for a single song than be forced to pay an outrageous price for an entire album. "Everyone" likes that. Why does he think iTunes has been such a hit?

Get a clue, Lance.

He projects the end of the music industry and blames it on DRM-free tracks. Sorry, the end of the music industry started well before DRM-Free music.