…but will people buy it? It appears we have yet another “DRM-Free” offering from a major technology company with a bad track record in monetizing media.
You have to wonder what is going on in boardrooms around the world when company after company launches a music store with no clear advantage over their competition or obvious compelling story for the consumer. Sony Ericcson is clearly trying to beat Nokia and Microsoft to the marketplace with their soon to be relased “Comes With Music” offering using Microsoft’s unreleased PlayReady DRM.
The only real question is how will thePlayNow Arena actually make money selling music that anyone can copy all the time and send to anyone they please?
The lure of DRM-Free is a false promise that by selling unencrypted music, fans will come in droves to purchase it and only use it according to the guidelines provided by the distributor. Meanwhile Apple continues to sell a Billion+ music tracks a year using DRM and is the world leader in music retailing. Once Comes With Music launches we will provide more head-to head coverage of both offerings.
So just when I thought I had heard every bad word someone could possibly use to describe DRM, along comes the EFF with some shocking new creative descriptions.
Apparently the EFF has taken issue with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation launching a monetized digital media offering online using DRM. So much that they posted a plea with random people on the Internet to contact ABC and the Minister of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy and complain about this “secret software from foreign corporations.”
I have to say, this plea, while really entertaining and conspiracy-theory like, seems to ignore the fact that ABC is just using publicly available software from a well-known company in the US [Mine] and it’s based on the FREE Windows Media Player technology.
EFF guys maybe you should break out your credit card and just buy some content and get over it. The least you could do is accept the fact that DRM is the model in play that allows companies to sell their content and monetize their assets. That’s their right.
Go throw some Shrimp on the Barbie and get to downloading: The ABC Download Store
