Text 17933, 56 rader
Skriven 2007-05-17 14:40:00 av Rich Gauszka (1:379/45)
Ärende: DRM's Demise Accelerates
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From: "Rich Gauszka" <gauszka@dontspamhotmail.com>

except for Microsoft "We don't have any specific announcements on our DRM-free
business strategy at this time"

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fasterforward/2007/05/drms_demise_accelerates.ht
ml

This morning's column tries to get at the significance of all these moves. I
think this is huge: One of the recording industry's core beliefs is
disintegrating almost overnight.

Not everybody in the business believed this idea in the first place, though.
People at many independent labels and smaller music-download sites have long
thought otherwise--as I was reminded in some interviews yesterday, most of
which didn't make the column.

"The fewer restrictions, the merrier," said Kim Coletta, founder of D.C.-based
DeSoto Records. DeSoto's catalogue is available on iTunes--Coletta said it will
soon be offered in DRM-free form--but has also long been sold as regular MP3
files at the Download Punk site.

Unlike most major labels, DeSoto has already made the transition from physical
sales to downloads. "The amount of revenue I receive from my digital sales far
surpasses what I receive from CDs," Coletta said. She's seen this in her own
daily life, too: "I teach at a boys middle school three days a week. These
kids, they don't buy CDs at all--they either steal music or buy it digitally."

Alec Bourgeois, publicist for D.C.'s Dischord Records, voiced similar thoughts.
"We don't have a problem at all with making it more accessible to people," he
said of Dischord's music. But he wasn't necessarily a fan of Apple's
initiative, simply because it would involve raising the per-song price: "We'd
rather keep music a little cheaper."

..

My guess is that Yahoo will be the next big store to make this move. A
spokeswoman forwarded this comment from Yahoo Music general manager Ian Rogers
after my deadline last night:

  We have long advocated for the end of DRM-encrypted music and predicted
earlier this year that half of our catalogue would be DRM-free by the end of
the year. We're talking to all of the major labels about the possibilities but
can't comment on the specifics of the discussions. And what about Microsoft,
which has put more effort into copy-control software than almost anybody else?
The company didn't sound quite so enthusiastic in a statement from Zune general
manager Chris Stephenson sent by a publicist yesterday evening:

  DRM will continue to play an important role in the music business,
especially with the growth of subscription services and other types of
discovery mechanisms. We don't have any specific announcements on our DRM-free
business strategy at this time, but testing new business models is a key to
unlocking the future of digital entertainment.

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