Chronicling the Failures of DRM

Barence takes us to PCPro for a look at the failures of DRM and a discussion of its impending death. Quoting: "Luckily, DRM is dying, at least in the download sphere. Napster's Dan Nash believes that DRM-free is 'the general way things are going.' In his opinion, record companies 'have no choice but to adapt;' those that 'stick to DRM on a pay-per-download basis will not remain competitive.' In the US, Napster has joined Amazon in selling DRM-free content in MP3 format from all the major labels. ... Going DRM-free makes sense not just for consumers, but for the industry. Deutche Telekom says three out of four technical support calls its Musicload service had to deal with were the result of DRM. And when it offered a DRM-free option to artists they saw a 40% increase in sales."

Comments

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[Overly Critical Guy]

I know you don't think artists should ever get paid for anything, but DRM is going to stay to make sure that, on some level, you freeloaders are forced to actually pay for somebody's work. Crazy concept, I know.

The only reason Napster and those other services were allowed to sell DRM-free was because the industry was trying to shake up iTune's dominance a little. Didn't work, of course. Nobody uses Napster, and it's amusing seeing pirates trumpet it as some kind of anti-DRM victory.