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.
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good job sony (y) maybe this might restore some reputation after those rootkits
Finally glad it is happening
This is great news. I think the music industry is finally opening their eyes and seeing that DRM is not thwarting piracy, but instead inconveniencing paying customers. I have no issue with paying a fair price for downloadable music online DRM'd or non-DRM'd. But I'll be much more incline to purchase non-DRM music over DRM music.
but the thing is reguardless if the music is drm free or not... i would not bother buying it in MP3 format unless the quality is TOP NOTCH... not this 128kbps crap.... 192kbps is MIN i would even consider "paying" for myself... although it would most likely have to be 320bit rate or like the scene does (bit rate varies wildly, aka EAC + LAME encoder) with the avg bit rate of 192 but can go as high as 320 if it's needed but the average file size is around 192kbps.
and the price will have to be "fair" ... cause if the music you pay for in mp3 format is almost the price of the cd i would rather just buy the cd itself and rip the mp3's myself from the original cd.
so say a cd sells for about 15 dollars ... i would not want to pay more than about 7-8dollars TOPS for the same full album in mp3 format.... otherwise your better off just getting the real cd.
so in other words... i dont see this happening myself, so ill continue to do what i been "doing"
Last edited by ThaCrip on 05 Jan 2008 - 01:32
I don't see thedoing this without a catch, a big catch. that or BMG has been pushing hard on Sony for this one.
Great news!
A two edged sword you say??
Possibly...
Turn the industry on it's ear too fast, some might think that there could be a hidden trap. And there just might be.. however, turn the industry slow at first, then gain momentum, could be to make the consumer believe that they are getting what they asked for... and since mp3 files can have a ton of metadata within them, it's more than possible.
I still don't know why people depend on the industry to rip the material, or have it done in mp3 format to purchase. I do realize that some artists only have a couple of decent tracks on an album .. hence not wanting to purchase the entire CD, but taking the time to rip your own music after purchasing the CD ensures that you have a clean mp3, and it was done the way you wanted it.
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