Warner DRM move doesn’t ‘liberate music’
p2pnet news | Music:- “In this digital age when consumers continually add to and update existing formats for playing music, record companies that sell DRM-free music will prosper. Those that don’t will turn off consumers who will tune-out their music. Warner has recognized this. Now it’s Sony BMG’s turn.”
So forecasts the National Post in an OpEd which says in the writer’s humble opinion, “The entire music industry is steadily marching toward an online delivery model, whether the record companies like it or not.”
And it cites the decision by the Warner Music Group, headed by Canadian Edgar Bronfman dump DRM, in a manner of speaking.
It’ll sell on Amazon. com’s online music store “without copy protection” and, “For the sake of consumers and the music industry, we applaud this trend,” says the article.
So does this mean the end of DRM, and will Warner now start treating its customers like responsible people instead of potential criminals? – p2pnet wondered in December.
“Not a chance,” we said, pointing out that in an email to staff, “we will continue to aggressively enforce our own and our artists’ copyrights in the digital space,” he stated, continuing:
It would be wrong for anyone to think that the elimination of encryption on audio downloads is, in any way, a permission to steal. And DRM will still be used in subscription services, music videos downloads and mobile products, among others, to insure payment to recording artists, songwriters, music publishers and affiliated and non-affiliated labels as well as to enable the growth of current and next-generation digital products and services.
“Like EMI and Universal – record labels that already make their content available on Amazon without DRM – Warner realized that by stubbornly clinging to an outmoded insistence on copy protection, it was alienating customers and losing out on future opportunities to sell its products online,” continues the National Post.
However, Warner, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG alienated their customers many moons ago when they started trying to sue them into becoming compliant consumers, and it’s unlikely this gesture will bring them back.
The Big 4 missed the boat. Period.
Meanwhile, “Consumers would be in an even better position if Warner and its counterparts decided to spread the love around and sell their DRM-free music at several online outlets at once,” says the story, adding:
“For example, right now, Warner has opted to offer its MP3s at Amazon, but not at iTunes.”
The entire piece is, of course, based on the empty supposition that a corporate music business exists.
It doesn’t.
The action, all of it, is on the free P2P networks and independent sites, and that’s where it’ll stay until Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG acknowledge and accept they’re no longer the only games in town, start treating their customers as honest people instead of hard-core criminals, fully open their catalogues, and start licensing the contents to all comers at reasonable prices, instead of at rip-off wholesale rates to a tiny handful of corporate sites.
‘DRM on content is otherwise a distraction and not the relevant issue’
But Bronfman’s move isn’t surprising, believes Digital Copyright Canada’s Russell McOrmond.
“Sony BMG, being tied to a hardware manufacturer, is of course going to continue to promote DRM given it is their hardware manufacturing side that was always the only beneficiary of this scheme,” he says, going on:
It is important to realize that even if not a single piece of content was encoded with DRM, DRM on devices would have the identical effect as if every piece of content was encoded with DRM.
While DRM on content is an anti-competitive encouragement to purchase DRM-infected hardware and software, DRM on content is otherwise a distraction and not the relevant issue.
I tried to clarify that in my article in the December issue of OSBR by talking about scenarios where the hardware is locked down and the content is DRM-free, and yet all the restrictions and harm of DRM remain.
The only way to protect Canadians from the harm of DRM is to ensure that the practices of locking down hardware is not legalize or legally protected. Them releasing DRM-free music is a political manipulative distraction.
It doesn’t matter if the 4 major labels are releasing DRM-free music: it only matters if they stop lobbying governments to legalize and legally protect DRM applied to hardware.
In this I see absolutely no movement from the recording industry, with the CRIA still pushing Canada to ratify the 1996 WIPO anti-Internet treaties with strong anti-circumvention legislation.
Stay tuned, and meanwhile, don’t make the mistake of thinking the Big 4 are in any way near to becoming responsible corporate citizens.
Our picture shows Bronfman trying to explain how while it’s OK for his outfit and the other three cartels members to sue their own customers, including very young children, for sharing music online, it’s different for his own kids.
Also see:
National Post – Liberating music, December 29, 2007
dump DRM – Warner Music dumps DRM, kind of, December 28, 2007
Digital Copyright Canada – Warner Music Group Loses DRM? Doesn’t matter to me until the lobbying stops!, December 29, 2007
different for his own kids – Edgar Bronfman’s kids: online file sharers, October 11, 2007
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January 1st, 2008 at 1:50 pm
Mp3 to be free! DRM – suxxx
January 1st, 2008 at 2:11 pm
“we will continue to aggressively enforce our own and our artists’ copyrights in the digital space,”
And we will continue to boycott them and to promote and expend the boycott until these parasites are all out of business! This time is near.
January 1st, 2008 at 2:14 pm
And they can keep their DRMed subscription services, music videos downloads and mobile products britneyslutt and madonaCrap to themselves.
January 1st, 2008 at 2:17 pm
They dont’ give a shit about the recording artists, songwriters, composers. . .
When they sell one of theyr recording they give them zip anyway so why bother.
Download theser stuff from internet and send a check directly to the artist.
NO MONEY TO THE PARASITES!