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German Music Site Explains The High Cost Of DRM
from the DRM-good-for-the-call-center-business dept
While the record labels continue making the specious claim that DRM opens up new business models, it's been clear for some time that DRM does nothing of the sort and only lessens the value of what's being "protected". Now, a German music download service is offering a very clear example of how DRM is hurting it and its consumers. The company says that three out of four customer support calls stem from confusion over copy-protection schemes, which ends up costing the company quite a bit of money. This isn't too surprising. One can only imagine how many times someone has called up to ask why a song won't play on their iPod. Meanwhile, the company has also started selling unprotected tracks from independent artists, and it notes that sales of those songs are up sharply. Considering the success of eMusic, which also sells DRM-free tracks, there seems to be a pretty clear business case for dropping DRM altogether. While it's probably going to take awhile for the record labels to get this message, we're wondering why Steve Jobs, who supposedly dislikes DRM, hasn't offered to sell DRM-free tracks over iTunes for artists and labels that opt for it. So if DRM costs a lot more in both licensing the technology and support, it doesn't provide any user benefit, it doesn't stop songs from getting on file sharing networks, and it actually holds back sales, what's the benefit of it?
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As such, they're free to mandate that the "stores" use DRM systems on their content while they sit back and collect the royalties. Doesn't matter how many support calls the store gets, since the labels don't have to dig down into their pockets to pay for them.
Now, you could make the case that they're losing customers due to these problems, but from their viewpoint they'd lose customers without those systems in place.
Problem is, you can't prove either side is wrong.
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Re: Tired of hearing about this
Well, I just did a Google search for drm-free music download and it appears that many people are making a stand against it. In particular, see Magnatune.com.
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Re:
Do you have a suggestion? Other than not buying stuff from iTunes and other DRM-enabled stores.
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1. Too hard to build that into the iTunes store. Putting in exceptions for non-FairPlay content (that still plays along with iTunes) might just be too hard, or something. Not impossible, just not worth it.
2. He wants to keep people locked into the iTunes/iPod ecosystem, and his open letter to the music industry was just a ploy to get the EU legislators off of his back and on to the RIAA's.
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Re: Re:@Tired of hearing about this
Move to Canada and pirate all your music legally to your hearts content? If you are paying a 'music levy' on harddisks, flashstorage and disc media you might as well get your monies worth. :)
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Hmmm
Maybe then DRM ship might shift and sink into the sea of non NRM.......
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Or you can sue your customers.
There's more than one thing wrong with IP in the first place, but I'll start with outdated business model.
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Re: Why Jobs doesn't push non-DRM tunes in ITMS
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/RDM.Tech.Q1.07/2A351C60-A4E5-4764-A083-FF8610E66A46.html
ht tp://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/RDM.Tech.Q1.07/CCE4009B-F2E9-4913-BD39-CF8BD8B56FF0.html
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Stop buying DRM music?
a) There's no alternative for mainstream. If you're not into indie music it's DRM or nothing. Even CD's are becoming less of an option, most of the new ones have 'copy protection' crap on them now.
b) When sales drop, they will just conclude that it's due to rampant piracy and the labels will respond by adding stronger DRM.
The 'music industry' is killing itself anyhow. Just sit back, watch the show, and hope they don't to too much collateral damage (DMCA, XCP, hardware DRM, and similar shit) on the way down.
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give me an example
Explain this concept to me...
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When..
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DRM-free iTunes song
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Re: give me an example
Many people spend their time and money to create non-DRMed material and then sell those items - look at labels signed to eMusic, Beatport and Magnatune for example, or independent labels like Warp who sell their own mp3s.
DRM does not protect profits (as discussed many times here), but does restrict consumers. As more consumers run into problems, more decide to either pirate the material or buy from grey-area sites such as allofmp3, meaning less profit for the labels involved. Other people, like myself, only buy unencumbered music, so the major labels also lose my money.
Remember that lack of DRM != piracy. Lose the DRM, gain happy customers and therefore . People get paid and both sides are happy in the long run
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The benefits of DRM
Oh wait, thats not a valid reason to have DRM in the first place. Ummm, no no reason to have DRM at all, unless pushing customers away is the goal? Well, it seems to be working. Slowly. Too slow.
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The benefits of DRM
Oh wait, thats not a valid reason to have DRM in the first place. Ummm, no no reason to have DRM at all, unless pushing customers away is the goal? Well, it seems to be working. Slowly. Too slow.
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