Holger’s weblog

EMI and DRM-free downloads

December 1st, 2006

A friend just pointed out a post to me that suggests that EMI may be starting to experiment with DRM-free downloadable music. This is the first time I know of that a major label is trying something like this and I certainly wish them a lot of success with it. They seem to be going about it in a rather smart way, giving customers not only (pre-release) access to the MP3 file, but also to some exclusive extra features like video footage and artwork from the release. In my opinion, that’s the way to go – do away with restrictions and create an incentive to buy by providing extra features. At least that would work for me – I’m often willing to pay quite a bit extra for a nice DVD set with special features (which you usually don’t find on an illegal download), so I can see this working in music as well.

I’ve written a few times about the pitfalls of DRM in general and especially the dangers to our cultural heritage. If the major labels do see the kind of success they are hoping for with this and we will see more DRM-free releases in the future, there is still some hope. After all, MP3 is a pretty well documented standard and we’ll always be able to write players for that, even on hardware that hasn’t even been invented yet. So let’s hope and give every encouragement we can to trials like this.

Technorati : DRM, EMI, MP3, dowload, music

Entry Filed under: Technology