Warner Offers Music on Amazon Without Copy Protection
DRM was created as an attempt to prevent people from sharing their digitally downloaded music with friends. However, it quickly became apparent that those who wanted to share music would find a way. It also became clear that DRM was only hurting those who tried to move their music to a new PC and found that it would no longer play. Much of this anti-DRM momentum can be attributed to Amazon itself, who launched its music store earlier this year and pledged from the beginning to only sell tracks that are not copy protected. While Amazon's success thus far pales in comparison to that of Apple's iTunes, that the site shuns DRM and also offers its tracks in the industry-standard MP3 format has made it quite popular among those who have non-Apple branded players.
Warner joins Universal Music Group and EMI at Amazon's store. This leaves Sony BMG as the odd man out, the only major label that has not signed up since the store launched in September. Sony has taken lots of heat for the extreme -- and possibly illegal -- tactics used to protect its music, so it's unsurprising that the company is late to the party on this one. But, the writing is on the wall, and if Sony doesn't come around soon it may find itself looking a little dated?
From BBC News
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Les @ Dec 28th 2007 3:42PM
As long as the songwriters get paid, whatever is fine.