Sony BMG, the company that championed DRM music through rootkits is about to drop DRM, according to a report by Businessweek.
Sony BMG will become the last of the big four record companies to offer music without the handicap of digital rights management, effectively putting the final nail into the music DRM coffin.
Justin Timberlake’s latest song is expected to be the first release by Sony BMG via Amazon of DRM free music.
Nearly twelve months ago Michael wrote that DRM would face an inevitable death, and today he has been proven right. The next target is the movie studios; we’ve conquered music but surely the ability to play legally purchased video where and when we like it is the next logical goal. Viva La Revolucion.
Good Sony. Who’s next..
Well Done Mr. Job’s….Now finish them off with movies…..
Technicle,
maybe you missed the line; of the big 4, Sony BMG is the last one. Ding Dong, the DRM Witch is dead…at least with music anyway
Didn’t read/write it wrong.. meant of the larger scope
[ie., as you pointed out, movies in particular...]
Technicle
no probs and apologies. Still, it’s a nice milestone.
Duncan: They deserve it….all of them….they had the whole game…arrogance in not embracing technology….they lost it all…The Three Tier system is dead…let artist rule on iTunes…if you can’t give it away, iTunes is there to sell if for you!!!!
apologies not applicable
.. yes nice milestone!!!
Great news. Customers want freedom, convience and choice. It’s been said a million times but DRM is just like a padlock, keeps honest customers honest and does nothing to stop the real pirates.
Hollywood may be slower to adopt. We’ll see if there is any news at MacWorld, with the rumored iTunes rentals and possibly FairPlay DRM’ed H.264 movies shipping on DVDs in the near future.
Indie producers get it, we have been selling DRM-free short films for years at http://www.hungryflix.com.
ps–Does the RIAA still think that ripping personal CDs is a copyright violation?
This years Featured Speaker at Midem in Cannes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRPtNo8vHrk
Apple has been offering DRM-free tracks since May.
http://www.apple.com/pr/librar.....tunes.html
- Mike / http://www.HackingNetflix.com
Although unconfirmed, it’s expected that Apple and Fox will announce at the Macworld conference a deal where Fox DVDs will contain versions playable on the AppleTV, iPod and in QuickTime. While not DRM-free, it’s certain a step in the right direction. Because as of now, ripping a DVD to MP4 is illegal under the DMCA.
Andrew
presuming I finally get a press pass (working on it) I’ll be there to report on that.
This is great news for the FrostWire community which will now be able to purchase pretty much any main stream song they set out to find, via the FrostWire BUY button.
http://www.frostwire.com/blog/?p=46
The headline should read:
Ding Dong the DRM witch is dead…. for now.
Once the big 5 and Amazon take market shares away from Apple, come up with an ipod killer, and dominate the market, DRM will be back, but with a revised misnomer.
The movie studio will not likely remove their DRM, since Apple doesn’t dominate this market yet. Thus they aren’t threatened by any major competitors in their digital monopoly. However, if broadband in America gets to the speed found in Europe and Asia, and college kids can download a dvd movie in 10 minutes, it will be a huge technological disruption to the movie studio’s business models.
case study: the proliferation of mp3s prior and post broadband.
We ALL celebrate the death of DRM. Notice, however, that pirates steal no less in response, and Michael is still trumpeting the lame theory that all music will soon “be free”.
We should absolutely have the right to use purchased music however we want for our INDIVIDUAL listening purposes, no matter the format. That’s what we paid for. We should have access to high-quality copies for digital download.
However, the fact that piracy exists, and that some may prefer it so…is no justification for robbing artists of the right to charge for sale of their creations. You can argue all you want for the creation of “a new business model”…but who are you to make such demands? And what do non-live-performing artists do? What about artists who don’t create and perform in genres where swag is EVER sold?
The simple fact is…you get what you pay for. Or you steal it. Yes, the labels have been stupid. And I don’t care if they curl up and die for all the good they are doing anyone anymore. But, the excuses for pirates to steal are slowly boiling down to just one…because they CAN…a morally indefensible and reprehensible position.
The responsible position is to pay for what you value, and live without that which you do not.
DRM sucked. I’m glad it’s gone. Now, it would be nice if everyone would grow up and start acting like adults.
Very true, in that U.S. need to ramp up the broadband offerings.. in Hong Kong for example, broadband (to home) offerings of 100Mbps are already quite common.
@ Chuck
You right about that in some ways. I hope the music industry doesn’t end up like the Television industry now.
I’ll continue to use the Zune subscription service though, because I need my fix of 30-40 new albums per month and I don’t have cash to buy all of those albums.
The chronology:
*February 6, 2007: Steve Jobs writes his Thoughts on Music letter.
*April 2007: EMI offers to sell higher-quality, DRM-free tracks for a premium.
Continue reading ยป
In a lot of ways it makes sense for music to be free, but I don’t know that you can make the same argument for movies. With music the recorded music can be secondary to the experience of a live show, but with movies the movie itself is the experience.
There is little merchandising opportunity with movies. It seems unlikely that the movie with a $200 million budget could stuff in enough product placement and run enough pre-roll commercials to pay for itself. IF the theatre business continues to struggle and people were able to get copies of movies to watch at home for free, the movie business as it functions now probably wouldn’t be viable.
The music industry has collapsed because the demo that buys CDs is 12-24 and that’s the demo that has grown up with broadband and rampant piracy. The movie business hasn’t been hit quite so hard yet because faster broadband has only just started to become available and the demo that buys DVDs is older.
But that’s about to end…
“that DRM would face an inevitable death”
Of course it was. It was always part of the industry marketing plan. What’s funny is you think you had a victory when you’ve actually been fooled - again.
Marketers are masters at squeezing profit and manipulating emotion. They’ve been making profits, and now you feel good. You feel like you won. And now they’ll be make’n more profit as music consumers repurchase the same music this time without DRM.
it suprises me people still purchase music.
stick with the radio .
———-
http://www.xenbet.com
ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
I used to work for Hoodiny Entertainment Group and I kept on advocating DRM free music with server side streaming protection. Not exactly the same thing, but I did say that not only DRM was brain dead, but was dead on start. However, since I was working at such an organization and claiming the DRM was dead was unpopular, I would not voice it…. DRM gone … good riddance.
Yes, we do have nice broadband connections in Europe (if we forget about upstream for a while) and especially in Sweden where I reside. But we’re still greeted with “Please note that Amazon MP3 is currently only available to US customers.” if we try to get ours from Amazon.com. The final nail? Not quite yet…
HURRAH!!!
@ xenbet: yeah if you have no brain and want to be told by clear
channel what music to listen instead of looking for it yourself.
loser.
On the juicy subject of DRM, I have just published a short video with a bottom-line explanation of why the record labels’ quest for control is (was?) utterly ridiculous; and why we will very likely see some quick impeachments of the key players this year - the proponents of DRM will eat it in 2008, imho.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OClWvLFMUfs
Gerd Leonhard, Media Futurist