Sony drops DRM

Posted on January 4, 2008 by Thomas Purves

Like the Pope himself deciding, after all this time, to try on a rubber, and not days since I suggested it wouldn’t happen until the last blue ray was prised out of their cold dead hands, Sony (Sony!) BGM has announce plans to drop DRM* on their music.

OMG. hallelujah.

And just in time as Canadian policy makers take a breather on considering Canadian copyright policy after we just narrowly avoided enshrining DRM into law. That would be redundant wouldn’t it. Thank you Mr Geist.

*Glossary: Dreaded rights management is a collection of expensive, complicated and ill-conceived technologies originally conceived for the sole purpose of actually preventing users from using the very same media and gadgets and operating systems** that vendors and studios were trying to sell them. NOT-dreaded-rights-management represents the newly emerging industry standard that heralding a return to common sense, and business-model intelligence, and maybe -just maybe- the belated salvation of Big Media

**read as: MS Vista, the OS that DRM built. oops.

Previously on DRM on this blog

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Technologies to look forward to in 2008

Posted on January 2, 2008 by Thomas Purves
  1. A truly portable subnotebook from apple.
  2. SSD flash storage in laptops, for portables with lighter weight, longer battery and fewer fragile moving parts (see also #1)
  3. 9000 series blackberries (because the 8000 series were already really nice
  4. 3G iphones
  5. A service pack for Vista (short of something involving and axe and a woodshed, SP1 will have to do for now)
  6. Intel’s silverthorn, montevina and menlow platforms and all the powerful and connected goodness of devices that might bring. These could be as big as Centrino was for the laptop market 4 years ago
  7. GPS in everything
  8. Google’s Android phones
  9. Affordable mobile broadband in Canada (one can always dream)

Which gadgets and technologies are you looking forward to?

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And then there was one, Warner Music drops DRM

Posted on December 28, 2007 by Thomas Purves

home taping is killing the music industryFollowing EMI, and Universal, Warner is the next and now second-to-last major label to drop digital protections and offer it’s whole catalog of digital music DRM-free though the Amazon media store. This is a big win for Amazon and one wonders if Itunes will follow.

The lone holdout? Of course, the company that practically invented the term incompatibility, good old Sony. No doubt Sony will smartly abandon DRM sometime just after the last Blueray is prised from their cold dead fingers.

The other elephant in the room: Is this just a desperation play by Warner? While independent music is flourishing in the market like never before, the majors are all getting killed by the internet. So who cares about major labels business models anymore? Well those back catalogs are certainly worth something, and somebody’s got to do the hard work of marketing and promoting top40 “artists” to the slower, possibly bulging, end of the bell curve.

Meanwhile Kudos to Warner Music’s execs on this call. You can clearly tell a hawk from a handsaw. You might just make it yet. [and please slap some sense be talking to your friends across the hall in Warner’s television and film divisions kthx.]

Link: 3 down, 1 to go: Warner Music Group drops DRM

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