Let's toast the death of DRM
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While you were listening to that new MP3 player you got for Christmas, a revolution played out in the digital music industry.
Sony BMG Music Entertainment, the music arm of electronics giant Sony Corp., announced this month that it was becoming the fourth and last of the major music companies to offer digital downloads of its music without copy protection, or DRM.
Thus, the end of DRM for music. DRM, or Digital Rights Management, is software that music companies had included in downloaded music files that prevented the consumer from copying a song or album that he had bought. TechMan and many other consumers have long loathed DRM.
If you downloaded a "DRM-ed" song to your computer and wanted to burn it to CD to play in your car, you could not. However, if you ripped most current CDs to your computer, there was no restriction.
Music companies felt DRM kept music from being stolen and encouraged the sale of CDs. Many consumers, however, felt it kept them from fairly using music they had purchased.
The crack in the dam came about a year go when Apple's Steve Jobs wrote an open letter to the music industry saying iTunes would prefer to sell DRM-free music but the record companies were preventing it.
Then music label BMI announced it would begin selling DRM-free music on iTunes. Amazon.com announced it was opening an online music store to compete with iTunes and sell DRM-free MP3s.
Soon after, Universal Music and Warner Music announced they would sell DRM-free music on Amazon and other services. Sony's announcement brought down the last bricks in the wall.
It seems music companies are finally realizing that the future of their industry is in downloaded digital music, not CDs, and that is a boon for them. They have virtually zero cost for distributing music and with the advent of Wi-Fi, you can buy music anywhere, anytime.
And there is a struggle going on to wrest control of the digital music marketplace from Apple.
Apple's iTunes store sells about 70 percent of all digital music and Sony's announcement puts it in an odd spot.
As of this moment, music from labels other than EMI-owned still have DRM on iTunes.
Digital music files bought on iTunes contain Apple's proprietary DRM called Fairplay. Fairplay limits the number of devices a file can be played on and ensures that iTunes music can be played only on an iPod.
Amazon's MP3s can be played on an iPod or any other type of player. Although Steve Jobs says he wants to sell DRM-free music, he apparently doesn't want to sell music you can play on a player you didn't buy from Apple.
Some speculate that the major music labels have lined up DRM-free on Amazon as a way to cut iTunes' share of the market, and loosen Apple's control of the business.
Depending how fast Amazon's market share grows, iTunes sooner or later will probably go DRM-free. But TechMan doesn't see them removing the iPod-only restriction.
But for now, join TechMan in lifting a glass to the death of DRM.
First Published January 26, 2008 12:00 am
