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Paul McCartney Releases Album As DRM-Free Download
Medieval Cow writes "Sir Paul McCartney has a side project called The Fireman and he's just released their new album, Electric Arguments, as a digital download. Why this is of interest to this community is that he released it 100% DRM-free. You can purchase just the digital files, or if you purchase a physical CD or vinyl copy, you are also given access to the digital download. Not only that, but the download is available in 320-kbps MP3, Apple Lossless, or even FLAC format. If you're interested in trying before you buy, you can listen to the entire album in a Flash player on the main page of the site. It's so nice to see a big musician who gets it. Bravo, Sir Paul!"
Paul McCartney was one of the biggest proponents of that attempt to get retroactive copyright extension of sound recordings a few years back. Maybe he's changed his attitude towards copyright since then.. or maybe he's just interested in making a buck (or a bob) any way he can.
How we know is more important than what we know.
One point to make though is that Paul McCartney is the sort of guy who can afford to go DRM free, if this album is ripped, lobbed on bit-torrent and limewire then Macca is unlikely to be out on the streets through lost revenue. Its great that he has done it but the _fear_ of being ripped off is going to be less for one of the biggest selling artists of all time than it would be for the average band.
Kudos indeed, but this isn't just a random artist choosing DRM this is the bloke from the Beatles who co-wrote the first hit for the Rolling Stones and the Frog Chorus.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
Let's count the number of posts that occur before the first complaint about "no ogg vorbis".
#DeleteChrome
Come on man. Feel free to buy the FLAC and convert it to your preferred format. It's lossless compression, you can't ask for more.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Napster Bad!!!!
You can't take the sky from me.
Anyone know good sources of legal free downloadable music? There's a lot of it out there, but sometimes hard to find. Here's what I've stumbled upon recently.
Don't whistle while you're pissing.
Paul McCartney was one of the biggest proponents of that attempt to get retroactive copyright extension of sound recordings a few years back. Maybe he's changed his attitude towards copyright since then.. or maybe he's just interested in making a buck (or a bob) any way he can.
Yeah, I don't think he's doing it because he's suddenly anti-copyright.
This is a particularly good time in the history of the recording industry to be one of the "good guys" who drops the DRM and gets press for doing it.
Notice the huge free ad he just got on Slashdot?
And think about it -- if you're choosing between paying for a Metallica vs. paying for this one, what goes through your head?
* I hate that @#$%in' DRM...
* Metallica! Those DRM-loving pricks. @#$% 'em, I'm just getting this one off the internets.
* McCartney! He removed the DRM... Maybe I shouldn't rip him off.
It's a marketing experiment. There'll probably be more freeloaders, since the people who *wanted* to get their music for free but couldn't figure it out will have an easier time of it. But if sales are boosted enough by the good press and goodwill, the experiment will have succeeded.
Actually Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor played with the idea quite a lot.
He released Saul Williams' album, which he produced, under a "pay what you think is fair" scheme.
His conceptual album 'Ghost' was released 100% digitally & DRM free with the first (out of 4) CD freely distributed.
His last album "The Slip" is freely available for full download as a gift to the fan.
Most of his track material is released under the Creative Common scheme for the fans to remix, and he built a comunity site to support these. For all I know, he created the sourceforge of Music.
Nine Inch Nails is definetely a major band/artist too, and the first one of such importance to explore new way of distributing music.
The only reason I didn't download other drm free ones in the past was the lack of flac or ogg. Flac is best of course, as it's just like buying the album for real. Using one price for the globe is also cool. I never expected it to come from Paul McCartney though considering comments from him in the past. I've never downloaded an album illegally in my life, but then I've never bought an album via a download either till now when finally someone makes flac available. To be honest though, I'm mainly doing it out of principle to support good sense finally. I'd like to see Madonna's albums like this, I wouldn't have to all the way to the shops :-)
When they released Death Magnetic, they put a flash player on their website so you can listen to the whole album to see if it's worth buying. You can still listen to it now : http://www.metallica.com/index.asp?item=601231
I was very surprised at the time that nobody seemed to give a flying fuck, I thought it was a very interesting move, especially coming from Metallica... It was not even mentioned in online reviews ffs! I hardly saw any mention of that anywhere, and had to add it myself to the Wikipedia page (it was deleted instead of being expanded, natch).
Really, I've no idea why, but nobody cared. At all. (Not even fans, before you say noone cares about Metallica period)
This album sells extremely well, btw.
Just purchased the MP3 version. It is, as claimed, mpga 320K, DRM-free. In addition to the tracks, you get cover artwork and liner notes as jpgs.
The range of purchase options is very interesting. $8.99 for MP3 files and artwork, $12.99 for a CD, $29.99 for a direct metal mastered double vinyl record, and $79.99 for a DVD containing 24bit 96Khz tracks, and a second DVD containing multi-track session files for a selection of the album tracks.
The purchasing experience was flawless: create an account, give a credit card (with optional choice of saving the number or not; I chose not), get a zipfile of the downloads. Not a wasted keystroke or mouse click.
This really is the way I want to purchase my music. Two big thumbs up from the consumer angle. Lots of choices, low prices, immediate downloads, supports the artists.
The perfect shopping experience.
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday