Viacom-Owned TV Station Using P2P To Offer Up DRM-Free Downloads Of New Show

from the so,-wait...-do-you-like-or-dislike-file-sharing? dept

Viacom seems to have a bit of a multiple personality when it comes to online video. It's famously suing YouTube for $1 billion because some clips of TV shows have shown up on the site, but at the same time, it's been aggressively putting its own shows on a variety of sites. Yet, for the most part, it's focused on having full control -- that is, making them streaming versions only, on specific sites, often complete with advertising. However, it looks like the company is finally realizing that a little uncontrolled distribution isn't such a bad thing. Viacom-owned Spike TV is trying to promote a new TV show by distributing a commercial-free, DRM-free download of the show through a variety of sources including P2P system Limewire. The company admits that it's just trying to entice viewers to watch the series on TV when it debuts later this summer, but it makes you wonder how the company can stand up in court complaining about YouTube, when its out there telling people to do whatever they want to help promote this other show. In fact, the folks behind this offering admit that DRM would have defeated the purpose, which is to get the show seen by as many people as possible: "We're trying for a bit of a ubiquity here, to go where the people are." Wonder if this story will make its way into the Viacom-YouTube lawsuit.

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CBC Plans To BitTorrent Its Own TV Program

from the about-time... dept

Four years ago, we were among a group of folks talking about how the combination of BitTorrent and RSS could create a really fantastic online TiVo type solution. Rather than having to wait for your TV to broadcast a show, broadcasters could put the shows online, via BitTorrent, and you could subscribe with RSS, getting every TV show you wanted. Of course, since that time, online hosted video has become more popular, with the likes of YouTube getting much of the attention. However, it looks like the idea of using BitTorrent to distribute TV programs in an authorized manner hasn't disappeared. Joe writes in to alert us that CBC Television up in Canada is planning to distribute copies of their program Canada’s Next Great Prime Minister via BitTorrent right after it airs. And, yes, they'll be doing it DRM-free. As the folks behind the show have said: "The show will [be] completely free (and legal) for you to download, share & burn to your heart's desire." Nice to see some are starting to get it. Rather than locking stuff down, you want to share it as widely as possible.

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News Flash: Consumers Prefer DRM-Free Music

from the no-brainer dept

The evidence that consumers like DRM-free music just keeps pouring in. The latest is a story from 7 Digital, a small online music store in the UK, which is reporting that DRM-free formats are outselling DRM-encumbered formats by a 4-to-1 margin. This isn't too surprising, given that DRM-encumbered music sold by anyone other than Apple won't play on the iPod, the world's most popular portable music player. Obviously, when given a side-by-side choice, the vast majority of consumers are going to choose the format that works everywhere. I suspect that name recognition is also a factor in MP3's favor: almost everyone has heard of MP3s, so someone who doesn't know anything else about digital formats or DRM is going to go with MP3 as a trusted "brand." One other interesting point in the article is that 7 Digital now has 60 percent of its music available in DRM-free formats, and expects to get that figure close to 100 percent by next summer. They appear to carry a wide variety of music from both major and independent labels. Until this year, iTunes was the only legal way to get your major-label music on your iPod. That was great for Apple, but not so good for the major labels. Now that the labels have come to their senses and started allowing DRM-free music sales, we're going to see, for the first time, a genuinely competitive market for online music with a lot of different music stores, all carrying both major-label and independent fare, and all selling music that will work with any device. Apple's music store will finally have to compete on its merits, rather than being propped up by its DRM monopoly. It's an exciting time to be a music fan.

Timothy Lee is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Timothy Lee and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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Amazon Finally Launches MP3 Download Store; Pricing Still Wrong

from the about-time dept

It's been rumored for ages, but Amazon has finally launched its MP3 download store, hyping up the fact that it's DRM-free. Amazon had gone back and forth on this idea for a while, at one point apparently considering teaming up with Apple on iTunes, only to later plan to go it alone. At one point, the rumor making the rounds was that Amazon felt it would be too difficult to compete with iTunes and had temporarily scratched plans for an offering. That was until folks at the company realized that the achilles heel for iTunes might be its DRM.

And that brings us today, with Amazon launching a DRM-free mp3 download store. It's definitely a step in the right direction, but it's still got some problems. First, the selection is definitely lacking. While the company has brought together an awful lot of content, there are still many record labels (and bands) that fear DRM free music (ignoring, of course, that most CDs are DRM-free). The second problem is that it missed the chance to shoot at the real achilles heel of iTunes: the pricing model. The songs all cost either $0.99 or $0.89, which is way too expensive in an age where people can carry around iPods with 160 gigs of content. Now that labels are finally coming to terms with the fact that DRM is a dead-end concept, the next big revolution will be in the price of music. So while Amazon got the first part right, the second part is still open for those who now want to attack the achilles heel of both Amazon and Apple.

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Next Time You Announce An Agreement To Sell DRM-Free Downloads, Perhaps You Should Actually Have That Agreement

from the just-a-suggestion dept

Michael Robertson, the founder of MP3.com, Linspire, SIPphone and a number of other companies has a pretty direct formula for getting publicity for his new startups: do something outrageous that pretty much guarantees a lawsuit. Then just assume that the resulting lawsuit will drive the publicity of the startup. Of course, sometimes such a strategy can backfire. Earlier this year, Robertson launched AnywhereCD with the claim that he would be selling DRM-free downloads from Warner Music -- perhaps the most stringent holdout in ditching DRM. Except... apparently Warner Music thought it had agreed to something entirely different and quickly sued AnywhereCD. It was actually somewhat difficult to understand Warner Music's claim. AnywhereCD was selling the physical CD, it was just that they would then also offer the digital tracks from the same exact CD. Basically, all the company was doing was saving people the step of having to rip the CDs they had legally purchased. Either way, eventually Warner and Robertson settled, allowing Robertson to continue to sell the DRM free tracks... but only through the end of September. If you look at your calendar, you'll realize that this is the end of September and Warner Music certainly had no interest in renewing any kind of deal with Robertson -- so it should come as no surprise that AnywhereCD is shutting down. It certainly looks like the controversial marketing strategy failed in this case. Previously, the lawsuits tended to be from competitors. When the lawsuits are from your suppliers, it gets really difficult to build an actual business.

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