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EMI Says ITMS DRM-Free Music Selling Well
Posted by
Zonk
on Thu Jun 21, 2007 12:44 PM
from the people-like-choice dept.
from the people-like-choice dept.
An anonymous reader writes "'The initial results of DRM-free music are good' says Lauren Berkowitz, a senior vice president of EMI, at a music industry conference in New York. Berkowitz went on to say that the early results from iTunes indicate that DRM-free offerings may boost revenue from digital albums as well as individual songs."
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Shock! (Score:5, Funny)
Amazing!
Re:Shock! (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Shock! (Score:5, Insightful)
Whatever encoding e-mail addresses should be called, DRM it is not. It doesn't limit you in any way.
Let's not confuse the meaning of terms like this, that's not helpful.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Shock! (Score:5, Informative)
You may not like it, but please don't confuse the issue by calling it DRM. It's metadata, even potentially useful metadata, that discourages copyright infringement while not in any way restricting fair use. You can copy those files to any device, or even transcode them into any other format, easily stripping all metadata in the process. Totally different than DRM, where you have to actually break encryption or suffer quality loss in order to do that.
If we're gonna love someone for providing DRM free tracks, remember Amazon is providing actual unencoded MP3s.
Except that they haven't opened their store yet. So don't go lauding them when you don't even know that they're not going to include the user id of the person who downloaded the song in the metadata.
Re:Shock! (Score:5, Informative)
Watermarking is not DRM. It's watermarking. DRM controls when and how you are allowed to use the content, and watermarking does not. It only provides a [potential] trail of culpability. If you are modded down, it will be at least half because you are simply wrong - although I have been hit hard by fanboys as well, Apple and otherwise. Right now it's the OSI fanboys modding me down for pointing out that Perens' claim to invent the idea of "open" source is false and that "open" meant something before he opened his mouth on the subject. I suspect you suffer for the same reason I do; some people mod me down any chance they get to make a plausible-looking negative moderation, simply because they recognize me and disapprove of that for which I stand.
Er, anyway, back on topic: Watermarking is, by definition, not DRM.
Re:Shock! (Score:5, Informative)
And this isn't watermarking. Digital watermarking changes content to encode some kind of message. When you buy DRM-free tunes from iTunes, the actual content, the AAC stream, contains no watermark. If you buy the same DRM-free song from five different accounts, all the AAC streams will be bit-for-bit identical. All that's included is a tag, in plaintext, which contains your info. You can read it, you can edit it, you can remove it. Not DRM, not a watermark.
Re:No, no splitting hairs (Score:5, Insightful)
The defining feature of a digital watermark is that it cannot be removed given only the watermarked data. That is its point. A digital photograph emblazoned with a watermark cannot readily be transformed into the original. A digital video file with an invisible-to-the-human-eye-digiatl-watermark inserted to allow the owners of the video's copyright to see who has leaked a copy if it to p2p is useful only because the altered bits cannot be reset to their original state.
So you see, the idea of calling this a watermark isn't just fudging the concept slightly. It's nonsense. It is completely trivial to remove the identifying information, so it is innapropriate to call it a watermark because it neither performs the function nor attempts to perform the function of a watermark.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree with the grandparent that tag info is
If it is, is including your email in the filename a watermark too? Is placing a (separate) file with your email on a CD with aac files a water
Re:Spiltting hairs (Score:4, Informative)
Watermarking means no such thing.
Watermarks were used in drafts, demos, and other such things, partly to identify them as such and partly to prevent someone from stealing it. e.g. if you hired a design firm to create a poster for you they might send you a watermarked draft so that you could see the finished result, but if you decided not to pay for it, the poster was still useless because it had a giant watermark through the middle that said 'draft copy - property of design company'. Once you'd approved and paid, they'd send you an un-watermarked version for you to reproduce.
Watermwarks were also used in coporate letterhead, cheques, and other docuements to help prevent forgery and authenticate that they were genuine. For the most part this was just used to help foil attacks. The same way most banks.
Never to uniquely identify individual documents.
but I would still argue in the shift to the digital domain the meaning is more of uniqueness than ability to remove
Again not true. With the digital transition, the primary motivation for watermarks was, as before, to 'damage' files so that people could see images but not steal them due to the watermark. (or more precisely, they could steal the watermarked image, but because the mark was hard to remove it wasn't worth it, and you couldn't leave the mark on for obvious reasons.)
Watermarks have been used for a long time on sites hosting high res photos or other digital art to prevent people from just downloading the image and using it. In order to get an image with the WATERMARK removed, you had to pay for the picture. Because the watermarks were translucent and applied over of the picture they are relatively difficult to simply remove.
Only very recently has watermarking technology been applied like a serial number, to uniquely identifying documents or files.
** Quite Simply there is no 'automatic' association with unique identifiers and watermarks. **
Aha, but that is external to the device, visible and alterable (potentially) by the user. The iTunes mark is not.
The itunes meta tag is not part of the song data, although it is in the same file.
It is visible in the sense that *any* program that can view the meta tags can see it -- and iTunes software itself will show you this information if you tell it to show info about the song. And the itunes tag is EASILY removed and or altered which is the antithesis of a watermark.
The iTunes tag is as much a 'watermark', as putting your email address in the filename.
And a watermark is just as identifiable if a record of which marks were sent to who is kept.
This whole 'invisible digital watermark serial number thats hard to remove' thing is pretty new, and really isn't entirely in keeping with the historical meaning or use of watermarks. Moreover, the apple meta tag is really none of those things. Its not invisible, not hard to remove.
If you didn't like the analagy of the laptop serial number because it was visible and alterable. Consider that at least half a dozen parts inside the laptop are also serialized. And that even if you scratch off the laptop serial number, if someone found the laptop they could not only infer what that number was, but potentially also who bought it.
Point is: laptops aren't 'watermarked' despite having serial numbers. And neither are iTunes files.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
And it's a good thing we don't come to you to give the final say on such matters. DRM stands for Digital Rights Management. Your rights are not being managed--at all. You can do what you wish with the file. Anoth
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Hate to play the part of Captain Obvious, but if you'd read my post, I'd made it pretty clear that I have NO intention of redistributing music. Let me rephrase my issue with the tagging, and I'll use your example:
Why would I need a metatag to tell m
Re:Shock! (Score:4, Informative)
The tags added by the iTunes store make it easy for you to prove that you purchased the tracks, should you need to. If you don't need to, and you think having your name stored on your hard drive is somehow an infringement of your civil liberties, then just remove them. They're stored in standard MPEG-4 atoms, and there are a number of tools for editing them.
Re:Shock! (Score:5, Insightful)
No! They allow you to prove precisely one thing, and that is the tracks contain a completable editable and non-authoratative item of metadata that describes certain data about you. They don't prove who owns the tracks, who bought the tracks, where the tracks have been, who's done what with them - they're a post-it note on a car saying "Dave bought this car". Anyone can put on a new post-it note saying something different, or remove the post-it note altogether.
The amount of FUD on this topic has been unbelievable.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I *RARELY* buy individual tracks unless I am evaluating a single and want to see if I want to buy the next one. In which case, I have like 6 months to buy the rest of the album
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Isn't it ironic ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That's because everything else is bullshit. If you don't care enough to alter your spending habits, then you don't care.
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how about 'nix (Score:2, Insightful)
to buy their 'tunes if you are NOT running M$.
We need an itunes for Linux.
Re: (Score:2)
No, all we need is an iTMS web store that doesn't require iTunes, which would be platform-agnostic and probably require very little work on Apple's part. It would only allow you to download unprotected music (if you don't have
Re: (Score:2)
I respect the fact that you're sticking to your guns and avoiding a commercial operating system. That said, I don't think anyone is going to look down on you for, at th
Of Course It Is..... (Score:2, Interesting)
Hmmm....this sounds a whole lot like Napster back in the day. Sheesh, it's only taken them six
Sad (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't know what that is important to this discussion, but if felt like sharing.
DMCA is only reason DRM-Free is not music suicide (Score:4, Interesting)
My wife used to use Napster (pre-lawsuit), and Kazaa, but she switched to iTunes because iTunes was more convenient and not choked full of ads, and paying a $1 a song is not so bad. If you add the threat of RIAA letters, then, iTunes seems like a pretty good deal indeed. She also feels a need to support the artists.
But really, the value of iTunes is the convenience and cleanliness, and there's no reason someone could not make a similar, ad-free thing but for file sharing writ large. Really, DRM free on iTunes is predicated on the fact that the recording industry must feel like it is getting some sort of handle on musical file sharing - that is, RIAA lawsuits to music downloaders must actually be working. Were there REALLY no DMCA or copyright controls on music, though, someone would eventually make something with a really cool user interface, like iTunes, but where music would be genuinely free.
Then, musicians would starve.
Re:DMCA is only reason DRM-Free is not music suici (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:DMCA is only reason DRM-Free is not music suici (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:DMCA is only reason DRM-Free is not music suici (Score:3, Insightful)
Copying CDs has been pretty easy for a long time now... but musicians haven't starved.
Copying copyrighted music has always been illegal... the DMCA didn't make it "more illegal" or whatever.
Some (I would argue most) people really do like to follow
This is a mistake (Score:3, Funny)
I know, I know, I'm a bit of an audiophiliac. I don't want to sound too pretentious. But give it a try! You'll see. Music just sounds better with DRM.
yours truly,
David Massey
More Interesting Numbers Would Be... (Score:4, Insightful)
Hmmmm... (Score:4, Insightful)
1. Release DRM-laden, horrific quality tracks
2. Watch consumers buy tracks
3. Wait for consumers to grow angry and realize the restrictions placed on their media
4. Release DRM-free, slightly better tracks
5. Wait for the consumers to REBUY or 'upgrade' all their tracks
6. ???
7. Profit!!
THEN the second round
8. Release slightly better quality tracks...
9. Wait for the consumers to REBUY or 'upgrade' all their tracks...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Or for Films where you have the DVD, the Unrated Edition DVD, the Directors Cut DVD, The "the microphone guy didn't like the way this scene looked so he
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It costs them nothing more to produce.
They can charge extra because it is different. Who ever said that retail price was based on the cost to produce? A $20 widget doesn't cost $10 mor
I wish (Score:4, Insightful)
(strictly speaking they'd have to offer it to the the aggregators like tunecore that people like me use)
They will (Score:3, Informative)
I didn't have any songs that were DRM free at launch of iTunes+, but just recently two came up as upgradeable.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
But the problem I have with giving it away is that I never find out if anyone actually likes it! Sure, they can say it's great, but then if they don't think it's worth paying 10 bucks for I've got
Slashdotters, please go buy something (Score:4, Insightful)
So please, find a Mac or Windows box if you have to, but go buy something from the iTunes music store. Even if it's just one album and you then shunt the AAC files back to Linux to listen to.
Personally, I recommend something from the Mute back-catalog.
(And yes, I've bought 2 albums so far, I plan to keep buying preferentially from iTMS at least until the other labels get the message.)
Re:With sales tax it's a buck-fifty !! (Score:5, Insightful)
Sell the songs in CD (or better) lossless format, with no DRM, and then I'll be a customer!!!
This first step, is a baby step...a good one but, a small one. Sell me online what I can buy in a store (quality) without DRM, and then, you've got it right. I'll be buying pretty much all my music online.
Re: (Score:2)
in addition, i'd like them to ship me the liner notes, along with a physical copy of the music on some sort of portable media that's compatibile with my car stereo. and some kind of case to put the media in.
yeah, that'll never happen.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
My main
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
FLAC takes less CPU to decode than MP3, AAC, WavePak, or Vorbis.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Have you actually given yourself a blind listening test? 256 kbps AAC is very, very good. I have never seen a study where anyone could tell the difference betwee
Re:With sales tax it's a buck-fifty !! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:With sales tax it's a buck-fifty !! (Score:5, Insightful)
Sell the songs in CD (or better) lossless format, with no DRM, and then I'll be a customer!!!
You really think you can tell the difference between CD-quality and 256kbps AAC? Doubtful. I call BS. And even if you can tell the difference, and the difference is obvious enough to you that you care, you're one in a billion. For pretty much everyone, 256kbps is near enough to lossless that you could treat it as lossless (even transcode it to another format) and never be able to tell the difference.
And for that miniscule nearly-undetectable drop in quality, you're cutting your download time, increasing the amount of songs you can hold on your mp3 player, and maybe even increasing battery time.