All of the major media players support mp3. None of the major music players support the proprietary drm of any of the other players.

Today drm is not about protecting the rights of the artist; it is about selling hardware and software, as well preventing the disintermediation of old world distribution channels .

If any of the major software and hardware makers decided to release their drm formats to one another there would be no drm issues. If this scenario were played out it would not matter what format you choose or which player you purchased.

A unified drm solution puts the artist and the consumer in control of the distribution channel. If an artist has to go to a major media company to have there content distributed in the predominant drm format for the most popular player; who is in control of distribution. Certainly not the artist, and certainly not the consumer.

At this point choosing a drm format that cannot be played with the player with the highest market penetration rate would be a choice that would render your content un playable by most of the current market for music downloads.

One thing to understand is that even if an artist chooses to use any of the current drm standards, this will not prevent anyone from recording the music or from finding a way to crack the drm. Any protection that the artist perceives that they have is an illusion.

It is only a matter of time before there is an open, unified and real digital rights management system that allows all music to be played regardless of player (And this may mean that a new one need to be created) or software. Once this point is reached artist and consumers will become the distribution channel.

Artists will continue to be enchanted by the BIG PAYDAY offered by labels. Most folks just don’t have the sack to slog out their music career on their own. Talented musicians are not necessarily great business people and who wouldn’t want to be a star, baby!??

I’m not a fan of DRM, btw - and I do not work for any music label. I believe in consumer choice and freedom to consume music in any f*&^%ing way I want. Thank you.

What needs to change is the currency of the realm and the incentives. If bands can have the temerity to say NO to the BIG PAYDAY and slog it out on their own, they will change the system. But they may make less - and there you have the paradox.

I propose a system that does the following:
1) compensates artists for their effort - say $.25 per track
2) allows you to preview/listen all tracks in a secure manner, multiple times
3) has drm that permits use on any device - apple/msft can go to hell.
4) has drm that does not allow free copying and distribution

I think people are basically good and realize the fairness of compensating an artist for their labor of love.

And I think over cocktails, most label folks would agree with the vision outlined above. But the institutional inertia is too great. No one at the top wants to make the decision to cut prices and devise a solution that is much more consumer friendly. I mean, what would the shareholders say???

It’s a vicious cycle - similar to what the newspaper industry is experiencing right now. Everyone knows they have to embrace the web and settle for lower profits, but no one has the sack to make the move. After all, retirement is just two more years, and that pension looks so tasty…

Big music blows… because it tends to ruin the spirit and goodness of the product it promotes. How ironic.

The real value in our service is helping musicians with their digital marketing (Uri L. #2). Protected music files that allow 3 free plays are really a marketing tool that artists can distribute freely and creatively. DRM enables artists to give away samples, embrace file-sharing and still get paid for their work.

I’m all for open-source, multi-platform (telecom rep #3) or whatever else but DRM is what’s available to help fight illegal file-sharing. The strengths of Microsoft’s DRM can be used to benefit the artist! Feel free to share your thoughts with me at info at securesong.com. (sorry for the shameless plug.)

If the powers that be can solve the problem of competing DRMs and interoperability with one common, non intrusive DRM, the industry will be better off.

Sure, $150 isn’t much for some people. A solo artist playing 3-4 nights a week and making $50-$150 per gig obviously has less overhead and could afford it, but consider a band who needs to split that 5 ways with enough left over to drive 300 miles to the next gig.

I’m not saying a service like this is a bad idea, but most up and coming bands usually don’t have money unless mommy and daddy are loaded. I wonder if the people responsible for this “service” were fortunate enough to have ever made money as a musician? I honestly doubt it, because if they did I’m sure they wouldn’t charge $150 for some fly-by-night service nobody has never heard of. But what do I know. I’m just a ex-drummer wannabe-geek.

check out tamago.us

ummm…its the $45 upfront fee, plus another $9 a month. For a band that only exist in someone’s mind located in their bedroom…this is steep. But a better question would be, why?

“The model that emerges will enable artists to distribute their music as if they are running their own businesses.” — This is true. And it is what we do; except we com.

we turn the whole intellectual property thing into one vast market.

tamago.us

http://www.ezecho.com

How do you justify the statement that DRM is coming to an end? The biggest success story, and really the only big success story, in the world of digital music is iTunes/iPods.

Typical users don’t care about DRM - most don’t even know what DRM is. Power users don’t worry about DRM - they know how to get around it. The people that do care about DRM have not demonstrated that they are a demographic with much financial impact to the music industry.

Typical iPod owners have about $20 invested in DRM’d tracks. Who’s worrying about $20?

If you’re going to say that the age of DRM is coming to an end, at least put some meat on your statement. When will it come to an end - will it be next year, in five years - or will it be when Linux finally takes over the desktop, enterprises switch to Web office suites and we get our flying cars?

I know a few struggling artists who will find this very useful…before now they have had problems distributing what they of course considered to have been the next big hit!

http://www.revafinancial.squarespace.com

http://www.tekno-world.blogspot.com