DRM

Total Music: 'Free' can't compete with free

Universal Music first floated the idea of Total Music in 2007 as a way to give customers an alternative to free MP3s available on file-trading networks and anonymous Internet sites.

At that time, the business model called for hardware manufacturers to pay some extra amount--perhaps $5 per month--and optionally pass this cost along to consumers. In return, consumers would get the right to download as much music as they wanted, for free, during a certain time period.

Nokia eventually launched a similar plan, Comes With Music, but Total Music (which became a joint venture between Universal and Sony Music) ran … Read more

DRM deathwatch: iTunes, the final chapter

CNET News' Greg Sandoval is already covering the story, so I won't belabor it, but kudos to Apple and the three holdout record labels--Sony, Universal, and Warner--for reaching an agreement that will result in more than 8 million songs being available on iTunes with no digital rights management (DRM) restrictions. (EMI has made DRM-free songs available on iTunes since last spring, but only 10 percent of the music sold in the U.S. comes from EMI.) As Greg reports, Apple will also let users with existing DRM-encrusted downloads upgrade to a DRM-free version at a higher bitrate--256kbps--for an extra … Read more

How'd I do on 2008 predictions?

Update, 1/6/09: Today during the MacWorld keynote, Apple announced that it would offer the vast majority of songs for sale on iTunes without DRM restrictions, and would begin making iTunes downloads available over 3G cellular networks as well as Wi-Fi connections. Six days--I'll take a mulligan, raising my batting average to .350.

Not so great.

Predictions columns are always risky because it's easy to look back a year later and see how wrong you were. For the most part, I was on the right track, but too bold--as a wise prognosticator once said, we tend to … Read more

Job posting reveals Zune-Xbox integration

Zune speculation is an armchair sport here in the tech sector of the Pacific Northwest (especially when we're all housebound because of a few inches of snow), and today Todd Bishop at TechFlash posted some interesting excerpts from the Zune team's job listings.

Based on his post, it looks as if the Zune Marketplace will begin to use the back end from Musiwave, the European provider of music for mobile phones that Microsoft acquired a little more than a year ago--and if that doesn't point to a Zune service for mobile phones, nothing does--and will continue … Read more

Wal-Mart MP3 store relaunches

Correction: AC/DC's 1981 album For Those About to Rock We Salute You peaked at #1 on the U.S. charts, which means Wal-Mart's press release is wrong.

American retail giant Wal-Mart relaunched its online MP3 store Tuesday, and it's a worthy competitor to Amazon in the DRM-free MP3 sweepstakes. (To remind you: unlike many songs from Apple's iTunes, or Microsoft's Zune Marketplace, or Nokia's music store, every song sold on Amazon and Wal-Mart can be played an unlimited number of times on just about any portable device and in any software application out … Read more

First reviewers like Nokia music service

I've written about Nokia's Comes With Music service several times, but the service officially kicked off Wednesday in the U.K. And the first hands-on reviews--from Music Ally and IDG News--are mostly positive.

In particular, reviewers are praising the PC software's intuitive interface and the relatively painless registration process. Access to the free music comes courtesy of a code printed on the inside of the phone's box. Downloads are almost unlimited, although Nokia has a clause that warns it might temper downloads if a certain undisclosed average number of downloads per user is reached.

The … Read more

Logitech Squeezebox Boom looks like a winner

I was a big fan of Logitech's Squeezebox Duet, which I saw demonstrated at the 2008 Consumer Electronics Show, and today Logitech announced a follow-up that looks even better: a boombox for your digital music collection. And unlike the Duet, which had to be plugged into a stereo, the Boom has speakers.

Once again, CNET's John Falcone has beaten me to the punch with a full review, but even without his validation, at first glance this looks like a great product for users with large collections of digital music trapped on their computers. Beginning in September, $300 will … Read more

Game pirates' response could have lessons for music biz

A couple weeks ago, game developer Cliff Harris asked a simple question on his blog: why do you pirate my games? Then, he broke the responses down into several categories. Subtracting out the folks who view all intellectual property as theft or who admitted they're too broke or cheap to buy games--two groups which will never be convinced to pay--he found that most respondents thought his games are too expensive and not good enough, and that the demos were too short for them to feel confident they were going to get a reasonable value for the buck. Adding DRM … Read more

Rhapsody MP3 store opens

Update: there is a lightweight browser plug-in that lets you play song samples without having to download and install the full Rhapsody client. When I tried the MP3 download service yesterday, I was unable to play the 25 free songs in that browser window--it only let me play 30-second samples. Today, using the same username and password, it started my 25-song count. So my major complaint with the service has been solved. Kudos to Rhapsody.

Amazon was first out of the gate with a comprehensive MP3 download store last September, and they've steadily upgraded the site since then. I'… Read more

MSN Music extends DRM deadline

Earlier this year, I gave Microsoft some flak for its decision to stop issuing DRM licenses for MSN Music downloads in Aug. 31 2008. That would have meant that consumers who'd purchased downloads from MSN Music before it became defunct--Microsoft is putting its focus on Zune--would no longer be able to transfer their songs to new computers after that date.

Now the company has reconsidered, and will extend the deadline until at least the end of 2011, according to this IDG story. I still think DRM is a poor way to address the very real problem of music piracy … Read more