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Yahoo Seriously Considering Unrestricted MP3 Downloads?
from the that-would-be-nice... dept
Back in February, a Yahoo exec spoke up at a music conference saying that the recording industry should start selling unrestricted MP3s, rather than continuing down the path of the DRM-encumbered music files. This makes sense for a variety of reasons. First, the industry already sells DRM-free versions of most songs when they sell CDs. Second, adding DRM is basically assuming that your customers are criminals. Most importantly, though, copy protection doesn't even solve the problem the industry claims it's solving. All it takes is one file to be available for the song to be available everywhere, and any copy protection will be broken pretty quickly. So, DRM only acts as an inconvenience for legitimate customers (and, in some cases, only encourages them to go out and get unauthorized files). Also, despite the claims that unencumbered MP3 files would kill the industry, there's plenty of evidence that's not true. eMusic and Allofmp3.com have both shown that people are willing to pay for unencumbered MP3 files, even if they're available for free elsewhere. People will pay for convenience.
So, with the Yahoo exec saying those things back in February, the obvious followup question was why isn't Yahoo doing this? It appears they might be trying. Hans Mast writes in to let us know that Yahoo is surveying some of its Yahoo Music subscribers to see how they would feel about unrestricted MP3s. Hans interprets this to mean that Yahoo is about to do so -- though, that's not entirely clear. Yahoo runs surveys of this nature all the time, but it doesn't mean they have anything planned. If anything, perhaps they're just going to use the data to go to the recording industry and plead their case that this is a good idea. Of course, the questions also indicate that they want to charge $1.09 for the unencrypted MP3s, so perhaps they're trying variable pricing with DRM-free music costing a bit more.
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Where?
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@DittoBox
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Re: @DittoBox
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yeah just join n' enjoy.
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Wow, seriously?!
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Re: Wow, seriously?!
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Willing to pay.
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Willing to pay.
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I would pay
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Being a Canadian :o...
That's my two cents.
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I would more than happily pay for my music on a site here if it wasn't so freaking expensive and if I knew there weren't about 20 middlemen skimming a bit off the top each time with next to nothing making it to the artists.
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AAC?
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Unencumbered yet still trackable
There's no need to treat ALL customers as criminals if there's a way to identify WHICH customer truly isa criminal (that would be the one that shares the files).
Of course, I don't like the music industry in general, and its been years since bought a "new" cd or obtained any other music that has recently been made. So maybe I'm not all that qualified to speak on this topic.
BUT, I do purchase movies, and these methods could just as valid in that segment of the entertainment industry.
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Still encumbered, Duh!
AC doesn't understand that just as DRM can be removed, so can the invasive spying code he suggests.
The music industry is basing their business model on making the public (i.e. the legislature and judiciary) believe that when we buy music, we are only buying permission to listen to it whenever we want, and we are not actually purchasing a product.
Of course, this leads into a discussion of the whole copyright culture and patent problems, etc. etc., but lets not go there.
What it comes down to is that the music industry is making the same arguments against un-DRMed MP3s that were made against sheet music, video cassette recorders, records, cassette tapes... the list goes on and on.
And in every case they were wrong.
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Tracing tunes
That's no good either.
I stopped buying all CDs when they started DRMing some of them. I've already had WMP refuse to play legitimate DVDs I own, I don't need trouble with my music too.
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Re: Still encumbered, Duh!
Which is exactly why Sony is being sued and their agruements of "protecting the artist" are nothing but talk. If it is a licence then they need to pay the artist the proper licence royalty rates and not sales rates. If it's a sale then we own it and should be afforded those rights of ownership. The industry can't have it both ways.
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Selling DMR-Free music would help stop piracy. Selling only locked-down and useless content encourages piracy.
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Being a Canadian
That's my two cents.
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Yahoo's venture
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AAC?
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DRM Constraints
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