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Chronicling the Failures of DRM

Posted by Soulskill on from the customers-don't-like-annoying-products dept.

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."

3 of 206 comments (clear)

  1. Deutche Telekom by neuromanc3r · · Score: 5, Informative

    It's spelled Deutsche Telekom, not Deutche.

  2. One Down, Two to Go by fyoder · · Score: 5, Informative

    There are three things I want from an online music store.

    1. Reasonable prices (a buck a song isn't even reasonable when you're getting physical media and packaging as with a CD).
    2. Choice of format/quality (oggs at quality 9, please).
    3. NO DRM

    So far the only store to do that was allofmp3.com, now mp3sparks.com. Sadly even when mp3sparks.com is up you have to travel some strange paths to fund your account. Magnatune.com has the right idea as well, but their catalogue is much more limited.

    --
    Loose lips lose spit.
  3. Recently... by Naurgrim · · Score: 5, Informative

    ...as a matter of fact, this week.

    Had a customer come in with a problem. His old computer was dying (hardware, bad capacitors on the MB), we copied his data to a new PC he purchased, set him up and out the door...

    Boomeranged. seems he had audio files, some purchased, some of his own creation, in ATRAC format. Of course, he could not play them on his new PC. Seems that Sony recently dropped ATRAC and shut down their licensing servers, too.

    Fortunately, we were able to resurrect his old PC, which was still in our boneyard, and run it long enough to export his DRM'ed files to WAV. Lost his meta-data, cost him a couple hundred $ in labor, but we got his stuff. He left happy, and we talked with him about DRM and how it hosed him.

    --
    .......You Are,
    ...What You Do,
    When It Counts.