Friday, December 28, 2007

DRM on Music Now DOA

Alas poor digital copy protection, we hardly knew ye. Warner Music Group has ended its use of digital rights management software on music CDs and will sell DRM free music on Amazon.com.

The shift here isn't about music companies and iTunes. The underlying story is about parity between Internet distribution and real world marketing. Music makers have been selling DRM-less digital content for years in the form of CDs, so Warner joining with Universal and EMI is just leveling the playing field.

Going forward we'll see more equality in the fees associated with selling online to the brick and mortar world. We have a writer's strike right now because of this same lack of equality in compensating creative people, as well as a lawsuit from online radio stations because they are treated differently than their FM brethren.

In the next year we'll see both of those situations change as the TV companies and music publishers have no choice but to treat the web fairly.

Posted By John Gartner at 09:25 AM
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