Yahoo’s DRM-Free Offering
On Yahoo! Music’s weblog, Ian Rogers talks about a new DRM-free offering at Yahoo! Music. Consumers can download an mp3 version of Jessica Simpson’s song A Public Affair for $1.99.
Rogers spends a lot of time talking about the significance of a major label allowing a DRM-free download. He then goes on to say that people should spend the $1.99 to download this song even if they don’t like Jessica Simpson. They should do it just to protest DRM.
This sounds like nothing more than a sales gimmick to me.
Obviously I have nothing against making sales. I just don’t like the way Sony and Yahoo! have tried to promote this as important to the future of music downloads when in reality it is just another promotion.
Oh, and did I tell you that A Public Affair is customizable? There is a long list of names on the Yahoo! Music site that can be plugged into the song so you can hear your very own name over and over again! This is why it cost twice as much as most other music downloads.
In other words, Sony agrees to keep this song DRM-free because it isn’t worried about wholesale pirating. Once you’ve customized it, others are probably not going to be all that interested in it.
Rogers makes an interesting point in the weblog about the true cost of DRM. He claims that DRM has costs built into it because it’s expensive to implement. In other words, DRM-free music should cost the customer less.
He then goes on to say that there is likely a discount built into the 99 cent iTMS downloads because of the inability to easily make endless copies (a result of DRM). He figures a regular DRM-free download should cost somewhere between $0.99 and $1.99.
I’m trying to understand this, but it still doesn’t make sense. In other words, DRM has a cost to the consumer, but it still costs less than DRM-free music.
Don’t get me wrong, I’d love a DRM-free world. As I’ve said before, I tend to purchase CDs. I have read that the labels require DRM on downloads because of the threat of piracy, but CDs can also be pirated pretty easily and come without the DRM.
What I don’t like about Yahoo’s announcement is that I don’t think this has anything to do with convincing labels to allow DRM-free downloads. I’ll be very surprised if they start partnering with more labels or even offer more mp3s from Sony unless there is a gimmick (such as customization) that makes piracy less desirable.
If this was really a move toward DRM-free downloads, I’d be the first to applaud them. (Then again, if you can convince me that DRM is good for the artists, I’d completely support it.) I just don’t think the intent of Yahoo! Music and Sony is to promote what Yahoo! says they are promoting.
When major labels decide that DRM is no longer needed, I hope that iTMS will lead the way. In the meantime, some internet readers are leaving comments suggesting that they agree with downloading A Public Affair just to support DRM-free music. It sounds like this promotion might just work well for Sony and Yahoo! Music, but don’t count on a DRM-free revolution.
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Jessica Simpson’s song A Public Affair. Possibly the worse song ever written, recorded and released. And I’m serious.
DRM + Jessica Simpson = Really Bad Sales? Hmmm…Maybe. This can be taken both ways - a promo for Jess or a start of something new.
I’ll try to lean more on the latter for now. Let’s say this trend of DRM-free music offerings do take off like a Titan 4 rocket on a calm August morning, then iTunes will have to forego FP and M$‘s Zune system to abandon WM.
How will this unlikely scenario really improve the way I listen to my music? Does it really improve the bass and sharpens the trebles? Will my music become cheaper? or more expensive? Will I be forced to pull the whole album? Or just a track-at-a-time for much more than $0.99? How does it really improve the way I handle my music the way I do now?
I can sense cynics’ complaints whereby their Zen or iRiver or SanDisk players are unable to play iTunes FP-protected content. They ask why Apple will not allow them to transfer their FP content to their “other” media players.
I ask those same people why they chose to diss Apple when they made those purchases. The prices are very much the same. Oh, yeah, they have “more buttons” than the nano. Big deal. Like more buttons will improve the music.
Those people have the freedom and privilege to choose their media players, for sure, but don’t open your mouth and complain to Apple about your troubles. I know you realized the situation in the first place when you plunked a couple of $$ for that “cheap” Zen. Go to Creative’s offerings and get your music there.
People complaining about the inability to move their DRM-encoded tracks from iTunes to another player are idiots or liars. The process is easy: burn said songs to a CD, then rip them back as MP3s.
As for this being a start of something new, bull. The song is DRM-free because it is customizable, and thus the whole incentive to pirate a song is reduced. You won’t be thinking—“Yeah, I heard that new song on the radio or MTV the other day; let me check Acquisition to see if it’s out there yet.”
People complaining about the inability to move their DRM-encoded tracks from iTunes to another player are idiots or liars. The process is easy: burn said songs to a CD, then rip them back as MP3s.
People who defend DRM’s restrictions by citing this hack to get around it are morons and soul-less corporate shills.
When major labels decide that DRM is no longer needed, I hope that iTMS will lead the way.
Me too, unlikely though it is.
I want to reiterate that I think the iTMS selling music only playable on iPods is deeply unfair and should be illegal. And breaks with the good traditions of how music is normally sold for a particular medium.
But I’m not sure how we can take this debate any further, we’ve had it so many times already and nobody’s willing even to consider their views objectively.
Don’t expect iTunes to lead the way in DRM-free music. Apple may not have been a fan of DRM in the beginning, but you better believe they love it now. Why? Vendor lock-in. With FairPlay, you are locked into playing your music only on an iPod.
I really think within 5 years the labels will give up on DRM and you’ll be able to purchase your music from any online store and play it on any player. It will be interesting to see if Apple resists this or embraces this. If they resist, I think they lose a lot of market share. If they embrace it, they lose a little market share.
I want to reiterate that I think the iTMS selling music only playable on iPods is deeply unfair and should be illegal.
This is worth posting twice.