Death to DRM
It looks like DRM is on its last legs. Yay!
The music industry is looking ahead to life without copy protection.
Major label EMI — home of Coldplay and Norah Jones — is in discussions with online music stores about selling its music without copy protection, or digital rights management (DRM), according to two sources with direct knowledge of the talks who would not speak for attribution because discussions are ongoing.
Last week, Apple CEO Steve Jobs created a huge stir when he called on the music industry to dump DRM, saying it hinders sales. Yahoo Music general manager Dave Goldberg predicts that by Christmas, most of Yahoo’s catalog will be DRM-free.
“The labels understand that DRM has to go,” he says. “It’s nothing but a tax on digital consumers. There’s good momentum behind DRM going away.”
He says sales would increase by 15% to 20% without DRM. Consumers have bitterly complained about DRM, which puts rules on how a song can be used. For instance, songs bought at Apple’s iTunes Store can be easily played only on an iPod, and not on digital devices from Microsoft and SanDisk.
Once the music business dumps these stupid things, they will see unprecedented growth. Watch.
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