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Culture

by Mike Masnick

Tue, Mar 23rd 2004 9:14am





Just What We Need: More DRM, More Music Standards, More Music Stores

from the consumer-confusion-at-last dept

Because consumers apparently just aren't confused or bullied enough, it looks like things are going to get even worse for those who want to do something simple like listen to music on their computer. Even though we've already got plenty of different formats, the folks at the Fraunhofer Institute, the developers of the MP3 format, have released more details about their copy protection scheme. I'm sure someone else out there knows whether or not this is related to the copy protection scheme for MP3s that Thomson is working on. Either way, it's simply yet another way to limit what consumers can do with their music - which, of course, is not (at all) what consumers want. It seems the entire purpose of the music industry these days is to deliver products that are less useful to consumers than what they already have. That's quite a business strategy. Meanwhile, Wal-Mart has "officially" launched their music store, which isn't really news, because the store's been running for months. Part of the announcement, though, is that some record label will be exclusively providing tracks to the Wal-Mart download store. In other words, fans who really want to hear that music will need to set up another account at another store with its own restrictive policies, and the music won't play with songs that they purchased at certain other stores. Again, a situation where the consumer is worse off.

4 Comments | Leave a Comment

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  1.  
    identicon
    Joe Baderderm, Mar 23rd, 2004 @ 10:11am

    Edited music from Wal-Mart?

    I would assume that Wal-Mart is only offering the clean versions of songs on their download site? I won't buy a single cd from them because of their "family friendly" policy. If they have dropped this policy, let me know, but I'm still not shopping at Sprawl-Mart for a million other reasons.

    My new idea is to take the top two hot businesses right now and open up a low-carb music download site. Actually, I will just patent that idea and make money on people trying to start their own iAtkunes site...

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  2.  
    identicon
    Paul M Johnson, Mar 23rd, 2004 @ 10:27am

    the answer to DRM format 'wars'


    is either download all your music from a p2p network oor suck it up and purchase CDs.

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  3.  
    identicon
    LittleW0lf, Mar 24th, 2004 @ 6:38am

    Re: the answer to DRM format 'wars'

    Or a third way, which will potentially keep you off the radar of the RIAA, borrow CDs from a friend to see if you really like them, and then buy only those CDs. Or better yet, go to cdbaby or other indie record labels and buy from them!!!

    If enough people wheen themselves off of the RIAA's tit, then the RIAA will have very little to complain about (though they still will.)

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  4.  
    identicon
    Music Shop, Mar 17th, 2009 @ 1:08pm

    Wal-Mart music store is great. I tried it and it's perfect. Although I would like to see more online music stores.

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]


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