Warner gives up on copy protection, agrees to release music as MP3s through Amazon

Linda · **Posted:** Mon Dec 31, 2007 3:51 pm

(This article was written by someone who clearly doesn't understand the technology, but the gist of it is correct ~ Warner Bros has capitulated on the DRM issue.)

Warners to abandon copy protecting MP3s

Dec 28, 2007

The Warner Music Group is to introduce Digital Rights Management (DRM) free downloads in America.

The label, whose acts include the likes of Led Zeppelin, Green Day and Aretha Franklin, will allow the MP3s which do not feature copy protection to be downloaded from Amazon’s online store.

This will allow consumers to use and share the tracks more easily, in contrast to some formats which limit the number of times a song can be burnt onto CD or shared with other fans.

The decision follows similar moves by other major labels, leaving only Sony BMG the only recording group not signed up with Amazon’s US download service, a major competitor to iTunes.

Explaining the decision to Warners staff in an email chief executive Edgar Bronfman said the DRM-free downloads would "bring an energy-sapping debate to a close".

Amazon's MP3 Download store is here:

http://www.amazon.com/b/?node=163856011&tag=imwan-20

Geff R. · 27 Sep 2006

Sure wish they'd start offering lossless (Flac, ape, shn). I might even buy a few. Actually, I'm going to be beyond broke if Wolfgang's vault ever goes lossless as they promised over a year ago.

James C. Taylor · 16 Aug 2004

A definite move in the right direction.

Jeff · 05 Oct 2006

Linda wrote:

... leaving only Sony BMG the only recording group not signed up...

Why is this not surprising.

Linda · **Posted:** Fri Jan 04, 2008 9:57 pm

Jeff wrote:

Linda wrote:

... leaving only Sony BMG the only recording group not signed up...

Why is this not surprising.

Believe it or not, even Sony has seen the writing on the wall ...

Sony BMG Plans to Drop DRM

Posted by Bezhou Feng on 04 January 2008 - 21:11

In a move that would mark the end of a digital music era, Sony BMG Music Entertainment is finalizing plans to sell songs without the copyright protection software that has long restricted the use of music downloaded from the Internet. Sony BMG, a joint venture of Sony and Bertelsmann, will make at least part of its collection available without so-called digital rights management, or DRM, software some time in the first quarter, according to people familiar with the matter. Sony BMG would become the last of the top four music labels to drop DRM, following Warner Music Group, which in late December said it would sell DRM-free songs through Amazon.com's digital music store. EMI and Vivendi's Universal Music Group announced their plans for DRM-free downloads earlier in 2007.

Jeff · 05 Oct 2006

Good news there too! Why did I read that twice as "Sony BMG would become the last of the evil top four..."? :lol:

Geff R. · 27 Sep 2006

Now if they'd just switch from a lossy to a lossless model....................

Dr. Chris Evil · 26 Jul 2006

The copy protection issue seems to have died on CDs as well...at least in America, anyway. After Sony's fiasco with the "rootkit" software from a couple years back, they haven't attempted any kind of copy protection on their releases, though curiously, Santana's All That I Am still has the copy protection on it.

Jeff · 05 Oct 2006

Sony has decided upon an interesting twist in their offering of DRM free music downloads. You still have to go to a music store. Read on...
http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/01/ ... res_1.html

Quote:

[bigred]Sony BMG to sell DRM-free music downloads through stores[/bigred]
Users will be able to download just 37 albums DRM-free from Sony BMG starting Jan. 15 -- but first they must go to a retail store and buy the $12.99 Platinum MusicPass

By Peter Sayer, IDG News Service
January 07, 2008

Sony BMG Music Entertainment will crack open the door to its music vaults on Jan. 15, taking the DRM copy-prevention wrapper off a limited selection of downloadable tracks.

The tracks will be offered in MP3 format, without DRM (digital rights management), from Jan. 15 in the U.S. and from late January in Canada.

The move is far from the all-digital service offered by its rivals, though. To obtain the Sony-BMG tracks, would-be listeners will first have to go to a retail store to buy a Platinum MusicPass, a card containing a secret code, for a suggested retail price of $12.99. Once they have scratched off the card's covering to expose the code, they will be able to download one of just 37 albums available through the service, including Britney Spears' "Blackout" and Barry Manilow's "The Greatest Songs of the Seventies."

In contrast, online retailer Amazon.com offers 2.9 million DRM-free tracks in MP3 format from the catalogs of EMI Group, Warner Music Group, Universal Music and a host of independent record labels. Apple's iTunes Store has around 2 million DRM-free tracks in the AAC format supported by its iPod and many mobile phones. No store visit is necessary to download those tracks, and an album typically sells for $9.99 or less.

About 4,500 retail outlets in the U.S. will sell the Platinum MusicPass cards by the end of the month, including Best Buy, Target, Trans World, Fred's, and Winn-Dixie, according to Sony-BMG. In Canada, the cards will sell through Best Buy, CD Plus, and Wal-Mart, and later through record store HMV.

Online sales will "ultimately be part of the game plan" for at least one of those retail outlets, said a source familiar with the offering.

With Valentine's Day approaching, Sony-BMG is counting on demand for gift cards to boost sales of the downloads, as well as the collectible nature of the cards themselves, which feature images of the artists and information about the albums.

Sony-BMG will offer "expanded" versions of two of the initial offerings -- Celine Dion's "Taking Chances" and Kenny Chesney's "Just Who I Am: Poets & Pirates." These will retail for around $19.99 and in addition to the Platinum version will also include an additional album from the artist's back catalog.

When they first considered online music sales, major record labels initially insisted that download services such as Apple's iTunes Store encrypt their tracks with DRM technology to prevent copying.

Smaller labels sold unprotected MP3 files through sites like eMusic.com, gambling that the increased sales and notoriety that would come with easier access to their music would outweigh sales lost through unauthorized copying.

That argument eventually won favor with Apple, which last May began offering tracks from EMI without DRM for a small premium, later bringing the price down to the same $0.99 it charges for other tracks with DRM.

Amazon followed suit in September, selling unprotected MP3 files from EMI and Universal. Warner joined them on Dec. 28.

The record companies all say they hope the move will lead to greater online music sales.

Sony-BMG said it hopes its combined model, selling a download pass through a physical store, will lead to greater sales of physical and digital music.

Albums need a boost, as the number sold in the U.S. dropped again last year, even as the number of music purchases rose, market watcher Nielsen SoundScan reported last week.

U.S. music buyers made 1.4 billion music purchases in 2007, up from 1.2 billion a year earlier, Nielsen said.

Nielsen counts a purchase as an album, single, CD or online download. Within that figure, digital track sales rose from 582 million to 844 million as buyers cherry-picked the tracks they liked from albums available online, while physical album sales (whether sold in-store or over the Internet, but excluding downloads) fell to 451 million in 2007, from 556 million in 2006, it said.

But if U.S. consumers are making more music purchases, they may be spending less: Nielsen also counts something it calls track-equivalent album sales, in which it counts 10 track downloads as the equivalent of an album. By that measure, track-equivalent album sales fell 9.5 percent to 585 million in 2007, from 646 million in 2007.

Jeff · 05 Oct 2006

A new turn of events sees Sony enter agreement with Amazon.com to release DRM-free music for download. Guess someone realized how silly it was to make you go to a physical store to buy a card...so you could go home and download music!
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid= ... 5&from=rss

Linda · **Posted:** Thu Mar 06, 2008 3:27 pm

Jeff wrote:

A new turn of events sees Sony enter agreement with Amazon.com to release DRM-free music for download. Guess someone realized how silly it was to make you go to a physical store to buy a card...so you could go home and download music!
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/01/11/0630245&from=rss

More on this topic ...

Sony announces Amazon deal

Jan 11, 2008

Sony has announced a deal that will allow Amazon MP3 to sell its catalogue online by the end of January.

Each song on the Amazon website will be free of Digital Rights Management (DRM) controls, which means that the tracks will lack copy protection.

The news follows Sony's previous announcement this month (January) to sell gift cards that let customers download albums free of DRM controls.

The deal means Amazon is now the only company offering tracks from all four big music companies free of DRM, making it a more significant rival for Apple's iTunes.

Linda · **Posted:** Thu Mar 06, 2008 3:29 pm

Amazon MP3 to expand DRM-Free Music Store, Thanks to Sony

Posted by Emil Protalinski on 11 January 2008 - 01:40

Amazon.com plans to make DRM-free MP3 music downloads from Sony BMG Music Entertainment available to customers on Amazon MP3 later this month, making Amazon MP3 the only retailer to offer customers DRM-free MP3s from all four major music labels (in addition to over 33,000 independent labels). I've said it before, and I'll say it again: "Finally, a real iTunes competitor". Amazon's DRM-free MP3 digital music store, where every song is playable on virtually any digital music-capable device, prices songs from 89 cents to 99 cents.

Launched in September 2007, Amazon MP3 offers Earth's Biggest Selection of à la carte DRM-free MP3 music downloads, which now includes over 270,000 artists. Every song and album (usually priced between $5.99 and $9.99) in the Amazon MP3 music download store is available exclusively in the MP3 format without DRM software and is encoded at 256 Kbps. Anyone want to take bets on how long it will take Microsoft to offer the Amazon MP3 store directly from the Zune software?

"We are excited to offer Amazon MP3 customers DRM-free MP3s from SONY BMG, which represents many of the most popular musicians from the past and present. Our Amazon MP3 customers will be able to choose from a full selection of DRM-free music downloads from all four major labels and over 33,000 independents that they can play on virtually any music-capable device," said Bill Carr, Amazon.com Vice President for Digital Music.

Steve · 21 Oct 2004

I've become addicted to the Amazon MP3 store. I hadn't know till now that MP3s from there worked with AmazWAN.

Don't forget to collect your Pepsi codes. Three 20 oz bottles get you enough points for an MP3. Not sure how many fridge packs. One, probably.

Steve · 21 Oct 2004

Oh, and very happy that Sony is joining. I've found several irritating omissions that I hope will be filled soon.

Glenn S. · 30 Oct 2006

Steve wrote:

I've become addicted to the Amazon MP3 store. I hadn't know till now that MP3s from there worked with AmazWAN.

Don't forget to collect your Pepsi codes. Three 20 oz bottles get you enough points for an MP3. Not sure how many fridge packs. One, probably.

The fridge pack I got the other day had two points, and my 20 oz bottle had one point. That gives me 3 points so far, but the track I wanted to download was 5 points. Are some less than that?

Geff R. · 27 Sep 2006

Pepsi & MP3 - 2 truly quality products........

Steve · 21 Oct 2004

Glenn S. wrote:

Steve wrote:

I've become addicted to the Amazon MP3 store. I hadn't know till now that MP3s from there worked with AmazWAN.

Don't forget to collect your Pepsi codes. Three 20 oz bottles get you enough points for an MP3. Not sure how many fridge packs. One, probably.

The fridge pack I got the other day had two points, and my 20 oz bottle had one point. That gives me 3 points so far, but the track I wanted to download was 5 points. Are some less than that?

You're right - I was thinking of something else. You need five points. I can't believe a whole fridge pack is only 2 points. Buying by the 20 oz is way more economical in this case.

Warner gives up on copy protection, agrees to release music as MP3s through Amazon

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