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Sony BMG, one of the top four recording companies, is releasing more DRM-free songs through a partnership with Dada USA, a mobile-entertainment company based in Italy.

Songs from Sony BMG artists such as the Foo Fighters, Kelly Clarkson, and The Strokes, will be offered through a new music service, Dada Entertainment, where users can pay $9.99 to obtain 15 tokens. Each token can be redeemed for a music download or ringtone or other content such as games or wallpaper.

The unprotected MP3 files can be transferred to an iPod, mobile phone, or any other digital music-playing device, the companies said Tuesday. Over-the-air downloads aren't ready yet, but Dada said in a statement that it expects to launch that in coming months.

The problems are obvious with this one. Music subscription services such as Napster offer unlimited music for about $13 a month. And the subscription services don't restrict users to a song library exclusively of Sony BMG songs (a Dada representative said the company is trying to cut licensing deals with other labels).

The good news is the music found at Napster is laden with DRM. The songs from this jointly operated service aren't. They are also cheaper than the downloads at iTunes and most other online music stores.

Perhaps most importantly, this is another example of a major label experimenting with songs stripped of copy-protection software.

It looks like EA has made a turn-around in response to fan outrage at its plans for a complicated DRM scheme in two high-profile PC games due out later this year.

Word came out yesterday that Spore (from Sims-meister Will Wright) and the PC version of Xbox 360 hit Mass Effect would implement a new version of the Securom DRM middleware, which not only requires you to keep a game's DVD in the drive to play it, but would need to perform an authenticity check every 10 days, which would have required your computer to be online during that time.

Electronic Arts has high expectations for its forthcoming, PC-only Spore from Sims creator Will Wright. Irritating DRM won't help.

(Credit: CNET)

Amid much fan outrage and negative publicity, it appears EA and each game's respective developer has relented and will instead implement a more benign DRM strategy. Gamer's Hell reported that Mass Effect will now require a one-time online authentication, and it will reauthenticate each time you connect to the game's download servers, but that it will no longer require constant reauthentication. Kotaku reported the same decision has been made for Spore.

On the Mass Effect user forum, the community manager from developer BioWare cited its its "many friends in the armed services and internationally who expressed concerns that they would not be able reauthenticate as often as required," as one of the reasons for the change. Considering that the forum topic in which Bioware announced its original plan generated 115 pages of comments, it's probably fair to say that fan opinion had something to do with it as well.

Copy protection remains a huge issue for PC game developers and publishers. Just a few weeks ago, Cevat Yerli, the president of Crysis developer CryTek told Hungary's PC Play that his company was abandoning PC exclusives because of rampant piracy. We certainly understand that issue, but clunky DRM is not the answer if publishers want to encourage PC gamers to buy their products.

The RIAA's David Hughes sits next to former IFPI CEO Nic Garnett. To Garnett's right is the MPAA's Fritz Attaway

(Credit: Greg Sandoval/CNET News.com)

LOS ANGELES--News of DRM's death has been greatly exaggerated, according to an executive with the Recording Industry Association of America.

At a time when the top recording companies appear to be phasing out digital rights management (DRM), the RIAA is predicting that the highly controversial software will make a comeback.

"(Recently) I made a list of the 22 ways to sell music, and 20 of them still require DRM," said David Hughes, who heads up the RIAA's technology unit, during a panel discussion at the Digital Hollywood conference. "Any form of subscription service or limited play-per-view or advertising offer still requires DRM. So DRM is not dead."

Hughes just stated the obvious. DRM still exists; one can find it at iTunes, RealNetworks' Rhapsody, and at free-music service SpiralFrog just to name a few. But his statement was startling because the top four music labels have seemingly been warming up to unprotected music files.

Last January, when Sony BMG became the last major recording company to sell DRM-free tracks at Amazon, plenty of observers considered the technology buried. Since then, a growing number of online stores have begun offering at least some open MP3s, including Walmart.com, Zune's Marketplace, Amazon, as well as iTunes.

Not so fast, said Hughes, who predicted that DRM would reemerge in a big way. "I think there is going to be a shift," he told the audience. "I think there will be a movement towards subscription services, and (that) will eventually mean the return of DRM."

Hughes also said that DRM must change so that the public sees it less as a sort of policeman that locks music a way. He would prefer a mode where consumers don't notice DRM at all. "People just want music when they want it," he said. "It's about access. If they get that then they don't care about DRM."

Not everybody on the panel agreed. Rajan Samtani, director of business development at Digimarc Corp., a company that provides watermarking technology, said he worked for ContentGuard, a company that tries to help find less obtrusive ways to implement DRM.

"I think it's time to throw in the towel," Samtani said. "These kids have too many ways to get around DRM."

Fritz Attaway, executive vice president at the Motion Picture Association of America said: "We need DRM to show our customers the limits of the license they have entered into with us."

The Electronic Frontier Foundation says that Microsoft has "betrayed" MSN Music customers and wants the company to make things right by issuing an apology, refunds, and eliminate digital rights management technology from the Zune music player.

Microsoft stirred some controversy last week by announcing that it would no longer issue DRM keys for defunct MSN Music after August 31. This effectively will prevent former customers from transferring their songs to new devices after the deadline. Customers could potentially lose their music if they get a new computer or if the hard drive crashes on their current one.

EFF, an advocacy group for Internet users, said in a statement that it sent a letter to Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer on Tuesday outlining steps the company should take, such as issuing refunds and launching a publicity campaign to educate former MSN Music customers about their options.

"MSN Music customers trusted Microsoft when it said that this was a safe way to buy music, and that trust has been betrayed," Corynne McSherry, an EFF attorney, said in a statement. "If Microsoft is prepared to treat MSN Music customers like this, is there any reason to suppose that future customers won't get the same treatment?"

In an interview last week with CNET News.com, Microsoft's Rob Bennett said that continuing to support the DRM keys was impractical, that the issue only affects a small number of people, and focusing exclusively on Zune was the best way to go. He also noted that it wasn't Microsoft's decision to wrap music into digital rights management.

A Microsoft spokeswoman declined to comment.

Microsoft has suggested that customers should back up their music libraries by burning them to CDs; this way, they can always transfer them to a new computer.

"Microsoft is asking its customers to spend more time, labor, and money to make degraded copies of music that was purchased in good faith," said EFF Executive Director Shari Steele.

Like many in the blogosphere, EFF said the situation proves that DRM doesn't work.

"With MSN Music, Microsoft has admitted just how expensive, clumsy, and unfair DRM is," McSherry said in the statement. "It's time for Microsoft to reject this sloppy technology, and for customers to demand something better."

Rob Bennett knew people were going to be angry.

Bennett is the Microsoft executive who notified former customers of the now defunct MSN Music service on Tuesday that the company would no longer issue DRM keys for their songs after August 31. This means that, while former customers can listen to their music on authorized computers for as long as the hardware lasts, they won't be able to transfer songs to a new PC after that deadline.

In an interview with CNET News.com, Bennett said that continuing to support the DRM keys was impractical, that the issue only affects a "small number" of people and that focusing exclusively on Zune was the best way to go. He also noted that it wasn't Microsoft's decision to wrap music into digital rights management.

The reason for shutting down the DRM-licensing servers was "every time there is an OS upgrade, the DRM equation gets complex very quickly," said Bennett, general manager of entertainment, video, and sports for MSN. "Every time, you saw support issues. People would call in because they couldn't download licenses. We had to write new code, new configurations each time...We really believe that, going forward, the best thing to do is focus exclusively on Zune."

Microsoft shut down MSN Music in November 2006, following a failed effort to turn the site into a legitimate iTunes challenger. Redmond threw its resources behind the Zune digital music player and its music store, Marketplace.

For the past 18 months, Microsoft has continued to enable former customers of MSN Music to move their song libraries to new computers. Discontinuing that service has been widely criticized. Critics have long said that DRM was a means to control legally purchased music at the expense of consumers. To them, the current situation with MSN proves it.

Bennett defended Microsoft. He said the company never wanted DRM on its songs.

"Had we had the ability to deliver DRM-free tracks at the time, we absolutely would have done that," Bennett said. "We talked to the labels at the time about that. As a company, we have continued to push for this. Zune has a subset in their catalog of DRM-free MP3s. Now, the industry is making progress. The labels are understanding the downside of DRM when its used the way they wanted to use it, they end up punishing the users who bought music legally more than those who want to circumvent the system."

Bennett added that Microsoft believes in protecting intellectual property, but the company also wants people to enjoy their media without unreasonable restrictions.

"No one ever foresaw being in this situation," Bennett said. "It's not something we like to do. We want to make it easy and as painless for our customers as possible. We really feel, in the long term, what's best for people who want to buy music from Microsoft is to move to Zune."

Bennett said that former MSN Music customers can back up their songs by burning them to CDs. But what about the loss of sound quality should they decide to rerip the music?

"We (delivered) music at 160 kbps," Bennett said. "In my personal (experience), you're not going to lose that much fidelity."

Microsoft handed plenty of ammunition to the anti-DRM crowd on Tuesday by announcing it will no longer furnish authorization keys for songs purchased from the defunct MSN Music service.

For former customers of MSN Music--the service Microsoft operated before closing it in late 2006 and opening Zune Marketplace--August 31 will be the last day that they can move music to different computers. After that, Microsoft will no longer "support the retrieval of license keys for the songs you purchased on MSN Music or the authorization of additional computers," the company said in an e-mail to former MSN Music customers.

It's important to note that the music won't disappear after the deadline. Songs will continue to play on authorized computers. What the announcement means is that former MSN Music customers will risk losing their music libraries if they try to transfer songs to unauthorized computers or swap operating systems after Aug. 31.

There are a couple of ways to safeguard the music but they aren't pretty. Before the deadline, those affected can move songs to computers they plan to own for a while (the songs can be authorized to play on five different PCs). Another alternative is to burn songs to CDs and rerip. This means the loss of sound quality but offers more peace of mind.

Bloggers pounced on the news, writing that the situation illustrated just how anti-consumer that digital rights management is. The point most of them made: whatever hardware the songs are stored on will malfunction eventually, and the owner's music (in a high quality form at least) will be gone forever.

"Ultimately, this serves as a reminder of what DRM really is," wrote Justin Mann at TechSpot.com. It's a "way for companies to control your use of their content. Rather than purchasing, you are renting."

Microsoft said in the e-mail that it is shutting down the servers that operated the music's DRM but didn't specify why. A call to a Microsoft representative was not returned Tuesday night.

This is only the latest sign that DRM is apparently on its way out. The music industry appears to be drifting away from copy-protection schemes and has enabled several retailers, including Amazon.com, to sell DRM-free music files.

MSN Music was a failed effort by Microsoft to compete against Apple's iTunes. In November 2006, two years after opening it's doors, the service stopped selling downloads. Microsoft began redirecting customers to Zune's Marketplace music store or RealNetworks' Rhapsody subscription service.

Update at 10:10 a.m. PDT: The titles for Tessa Sproule and Guinevere Orvis have been tweaked.

Following closely on the heels of Norway, Canada's public broadcasting service is adopting DRM-free BitTorrent distribution for a major prime-time show.

On March 24, CBC will use BitTorrent to distribute this year's broadcast of Canada's Next Great Prime Minister. This will make Canada the first country in North America to release high-quality, DRM-free copies of a prime-time show using the popular P2P file-sharing technology.

(Credit: CBC)

Canada's Next Great Prime Minister, an annual competition in which young adults propose ways to improve the country in hopes of winning 50,000 Canadian dollars, attracted more than 1 million viewers in 2007. While broadcast shows in the United States regularly reach more than 8 million viewers, for a Canadian broadcast program, 1 million is a huge success.

Tessa Sproule, the CBC manager in charge of the show's digital outreach, is a regular reader of the BoingBoing blog, which earlier this month highlighted the use of BitTorrent by Norway's public broadcaster for one of its most popular shows. Sproule was inspired by the Norweigan experiment and pushed for something similar at CBC.

While plenty of TV networks have experimented with offering shows online for free, it is CBC's use of DRM-free BitTorrent downloads that is the most interesting. Guinevere Orvis, one of the interactive producers on the show, told me that the motivation for this choice was their desire for the "show to be as accessible as possible, to as many Canadians as possible, in the format that they want it in." As for DRM, she said: "I think DRM is dead, even if a lot of broadcasters don't realize it." She added that "if it's bad for the consumers, it's bad for the company."

Michael Geist, a copyright guru and law professor at the University of Ottawa, hailed CBC's move, writing on his blog that "this development is important not only because it shows that Canada's public broadcaster is increasingly willing to experiment with alternative forms of distribution, but also because it may help crystallize the net neutrality issue in Canada."

Rogers Cable, one of Canada's largest Internet providers, has adopted Comcast-style BitTorrent filtering, so CBC's use of the technology is sure to heat up the debate.

CBC is conducting the entire BitTorrent effort in-house. The show will be encoded into multiple formats (including an iPod-friendly version), Orvis said, and the BitTorrent server will be running on a CBC server.

The BitTorrent version will be available for download to anyone in the world, which is a significant change from previous online TV efforts. The iPlayer platform made by England's BBC is only available to consumers with U.K. network addresses. Similarly, Hulu, the joint effort between Fox and NBC, blocks Net users who are outside the United States. Orvis told me that BitTorrent made the global distribution possible, as it meant that Canadian taxpayers were not subsidizing the cost of delivery to foreign viewers.

Sadly, here in the U.S., TV networks are nowhere nearly as enlightened. NBC and Fox have some of their shows available for free via low-quality streams online. Comedy Central, seemingly tired of sending take-down letters to YouTube, made its entire archive of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report available online, via low-quality, free streams. Even PBS provides streams for some of its content.

The only way for U.S. consumers to download high-quality shows is, unfortunately, via iTunes, which charges $1.99 for a DRM-locked copy of the show. Linux users need not apply.

Of course, Net users can always turn to BitTorrent for DRM-free, high-quality downloads. It's is easy to use--easier than iTunes in many cases--and offers a wider selection. However, it remains, for now, illegal.

When will U.S. broadcasters get a clue, ditch DRM, ditch iTunes, and adopt BitTorrent?

It's a full hand of cards for Amazon: the Web's mega-retailer announced Thursday that it will be selling music from Sony BMG Music Entertainment in its Amazon MP3 store. This means that Amazon MP3, which only sells "naked" tracks without any digital rights management (DRM) protection, now has deals with all four major music labels. Because of the lack of copy protection, any song from Amazon MP3 can play on virtually any media-playing device, from PCs to music players to cell phones and PDAs.

The DRM-free songs from Sony BMG will be available for purchase on Amazon MP3 later this month.

Sony BMG announced earlier this week its intent to drop DRM from its music, making it the last major label to do so. Amazon MP3, which launched in September, already sells music from the other three major labels--EMI, the Vivendi-owned Universal Music Group, and Warner Music Group--as well as over 33,000 independent labels. Currently, there are 3.1 million songs for purchase.

A full catalog of DRM-free music files means that Amazon is legitimately poised to take on Apple's iTunes Store, the industry leader by far in digital music sales. Most of Amazon's songs, which range largely from 89 to 99 cents, outprice Apple's 99-cent standard. And as the result of disagreements with Apple, Universal Music Group has not licensed its DRM-free catalog to the iTunes Store.

In the meantime, Apple dropped the prices of its DRM-free songs from a premium $1.29 to the regular 99 cents, a sign that it was starting to feel the pressure from Amazon.

Amazon doesn't yet have the market share to start boasting, but it finally has the upper hand in a culture that has increasingly turned against digital rights management. User experience reviews of Amazon MP3 have been mixed, but there's little doubt that this poses the most formidable threat to the iTunes monopoly yet.

To everyone who has ever griped about music locked up in copy-protection software, it appears that the technology is on its way out.

Sony BMG Music Entertainment, one of the top four music labels, is preparing to offer part of its catalogue without Digital Rights Management software, according to a story in BusinessWeek.com, the online publication of BusinessWeek magazine.

According to BusinessWeek, Sony BMG plans to reveal its plans sometime in the first quarter. Citing an unnamed source, the magazine reported that Sony BMG, a joint venture between Sony and Bertelsmann, will participate in a song giveaway as part of a promotion for the Super Bowl on Feb. 3. The DRM-free music will be distributed via Amazon's download service.

Representatives from Sony BMG and Amazon declined to comment.

The move by Sony BMG is significant because it means that all four of the largest record companies are at moving towards digital music unencumbered by copy-protection schemes.

DRM was supposed to safeguard music but has done little to prevent widespread file sharing. But too often only the people who purchased songs legally were affected by DRM.

People who bought music at legitimate online music stores, such as Apple's iTunes, couldn't listen to their music on just any device. There was often confusion about which songs played on which devices.

Last year, Apple CEO Steve Jobs called on the music industry to do away with DRM.

Many of the top music-subscription services, such as Yahoo Music and RealNetworks' Rhapsody service continue to use copy-protection software.