EMI and iTunes Scrape Off some DRM
This is so worth breaking the silence for.
If you haven't already heard, EMI have agreed to allow iTunes to begin selling "much of it's catalogue" as DRM-free tracks, just as Mr Jobs promised.
Nice, huh? Nice like Ernst Stavro Blofeld stroking a cat.
Interestingly, the high quality DRM-free AAC tracks are to cost 30c more than the 99c one normally pays for individual tracks, which has raised the odd eyebrow, mine included. Are they suggesting, perhaps, that doing less to the tracks before they are released actually costs more? Or are they thinking they'll use this to recoup their faked losses to piracy? Still, it's just thirty cents, right?
It appears that the new scheme involves marketing the higher cost, higher quality track to the more discerning customer:
"Weirdly, Apple seems to have sold this move to EMI by saying that the DRM-free version will be a "premium" offering for audiophiles who want higher-quality music. I think that audiophiles are probably the people who have the least trouble keeping up with the latest tips for efficiently ripping the DRM off of their music -- the people who really need DRM-free music are the punters who can't even spell DRM." - BoingBoing.net
I think they mean "burning the DRM off", nudge-nudge, wink-wink.
Just a word of warning before you start download pooling with all your buddies: this may yet turn out to be a poisoned chalice. While the DRM will be history I've not heard anyone mention digital watermarking. Might we start seeing litigation in the next few years based solely on the discovery of an iTunes customer ID hash embedded in a track downloaded from P2P?
One thing to note, this has, as Ars Technica points out, broken the universal pricing scheme that has reigned in iTunes since its inception. Does this mean that other labels will start looking to hike prices on new or special releases citing EMI DRMF tracks as precedent?
Okay, we can celebrate a win for the Good Guys. iTunes has become a little more open, some of us will get to buy some music from them that won't result in vendor lock-in. This change in policy may, at the very least, be a shuffle in the right direction.
But somewhere in that collective corporate medulla oblongata EMI must be aware that they have taken a step toward the yawning precipice of a world without record labels. We don't need them to make LPs, or cassettes, or CDs. They no longer control the primary means of reproducing music, nor do they hold the keys to the distribution of that music. The artists don't need them to make music, the customers don't need them to hear it. These days is seems their primary contributions (if one can call them that) is applying sneaky and harmful DRM schemes and chasing kids and corpses through the courts. So what exactly are we paying them for, other than to avoid being sued for not paying them, that is?
Together, iTunes and EMI et al form the largest and most complex dumbwaiter the world has ever seen.
If you haven't already heard, EMI have agreed to allow iTunes to begin selling "much of it's catalogue" as DRM-free tracks, just as Mr Jobs promised.
Nice, huh? Nice like Ernst Stavro Blofeld stroking a cat.
Interestingly, the high quality DRM-free AAC tracks are to cost 30c more than the 99c one normally pays for individual tracks, which has raised the odd eyebrow, mine included. Are they suggesting, perhaps, that doing less to the tracks before they are released actually costs more? Or are they thinking they'll use this to recoup their faked losses to piracy? Still, it's just thirty cents, right?
It appears that the new scheme involves marketing the higher cost, higher quality track to the more discerning customer:
"Weirdly, Apple seems to have sold this move to EMI by saying that the DRM-free version will be a "premium" offering for audiophiles who want higher-quality music. I think that audiophiles are probably the people who have the least trouble keeping up with the latest tips for efficiently ripping the DRM off of their music -- the people who really need DRM-free music are the punters who can't even spell DRM." - BoingBoing.net
I think they mean "burning the DRM off", nudge-nudge, wink-wink.
Just a word of warning before you start download pooling with all your buddies: this may yet turn out to be a poisoned chalice. While the DRM will be history I've not heard anyone mention digital watermarking. Might we start seeing litigation in the next few years based solely on the discovery of an iTunes customer ID hash embedded in a track downloaded from P2P?
One thing to note, this has, as Ars Technica points out, broken the universal pricing scheme that has reigned in iTunes since its inception. Does this mean that other labels will start looking to hike prices on new or special releases citing EMI DRMF tracks as precedent?
Okay, we can celebrate a win for the Good Guys. iTunes has become a little more open, some of us will get to buy some music from them that won't result in vendor lock-in. This change in policy may, at the very least, be a shuffle in the right direction.
But somewhere in that collective corporate medulla oblongata EMI must be aware that they have taken a step toward the yawning precipice of a world without record labels. We don't need them to make LPs, or cassettes, or CDs. They no longer control the primary means of reproducing music, nor do they hold the keys to the distribution of that music. The artists don't need them to make music, the customers don't need them to hear it. These days is seems their primary contributions (if one can call them that) is applying sneaky and harmful DRM schemes and chasing kids and corpses through the courts. So what exactly are we paying them for, other than to avoid being sued for not paying them, that is?
Together, iTunes and EMI et al form the largest and most complex dumbwaiter the world has ever seen.