Sony BMG to drop Custer stance on DRM
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And then there were none Sony BMG, the last major record label that won't sell you music without DRM kneecapping will reverse its stance in February, according to a report today.â¦
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Executives from Nokia and Philips published an open letter today calling for the European Commission to consider scaling back, if not eliminating, imposing levies on digital recording media and playback devices, including DVRs and MP3 players. But the alternative may be a hard sell: increased DRM.
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(InfoWorld) - Yahoo put another music track without DRM (digital rights management) on sale through its Yahoo Music service Tuesday. The Norah Jones single "Thinking About You" sells for $0.99, in MP3 format on Yahoo's music store, and in DRM-encumbered AAC format on Apple Computer's iTunes Store. Both formats will play on PCs, Macs, and the market-leading iPod portable music player, but only the MP3 version will play on other portable music players. DRM technology is used to set limits on how, when, how many times, and on what devices a file may be played. While DRM can be applied to music in AAC, ATRAC, or WMA format, it cannot be introduced into MP3 files. Yahoo first experimented withÂ selling MP3 files without DRMÂ in July, when it offered Jessica Simpson's "A Public Affair" as an MP3 file for $1.99. While that track was not tied to a particular PC or music player with DRM, the audio track was personalized to contain a first name of the purchaser's choice, picked from a list of hundreds of prerecorded names, limiting its interest to other listeners. Since then, Yahoo has sold an entire album by the artist Jesse McCartney in both MP3 and the DRM-encumbered WMA (Windows Media Audio) format, but has not published sales figures for the two formats. Some see the release of tracks in MP3 format, without DRM, as a big gamble for record labels, as nothing prevents buyers from uploading them to file-sharing networks. In reality, DRM does little to stop such behavior, but makes life harder for legitimate music users, said analyst Mark Mulligan, a vice president at Jupiter Research in the U.K. "Most of the DRM in place is not going to stop piracy. You've got limits on CD-burning, but all of that is cracked immediately if you burn it onto CD and rip it back in again. Anyone with an ounce of tech-savvy is going to know how to get around that," he said. But the fact that there's nothing to stop listeners copying and sharing MP3 files could work to record labels' advantage, said Mulligan. "It's going to be implemented more as marketing than anything else," he said. Blue Note Records, the record label promoting the Jones track, is only releasing the single, not an entire album, in MP3 format for now. If Mulligan is right, it could be just a marketing gimmick to build awareness of the album, which will go on sale in January. Major record labels are starting toÂ look more seriously at MP3 distributionÂ because of the success of eMusic.com, which Mulligan says is the second-largest online music download store in the U.S., after that of Apple. EMusic sells music from independent record labels in MP3 format.
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BusinessWeek.com reports that Sony BMG will offer some of its collection free of copy-protection software in coming weeks.
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WASHINGTON -- U.S. regulators said Tuesday that Sony BMG Music Entertainment agreed to reimburse consumers up to $150 for damage to their computers from CDs with hidden anti-piracy software.
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Steven P. Jobs says that dropping digital anti-piracy protection would benefit record labels and customers.
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The legal action is the latest bid by the music industry to wrest back control over content.
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Online retailer Amazon.com Inc said on  Thursday its digital music store will now offer songs from Sony  BMG Music Entertainment without copy-protection technology, or  digital rights management.
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Online retailer Amazon.com Inc   said on Thursday its digital music store will now  offer songs from Sony BMG Music Entertainment without  copy-protection technology, or digital rights management.
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Electronics giant Sony has reversed its position on the formats playable by its range of digital music players. The company has announced its new devices will now be able to play music tracks in the MP3 format
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Tacit admission of defeat IFA 07 Sony will next year kill off its Connect digital music download service, Register Hardware has learned. Its Walkman products will instead Windows Media technology, the consumer electronics giant told its customers today.â¦
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Sony BMG will pay $750,000 in penalties and costs and reimburse California consumers whose computers were harmed by anti-piracy software on some CDs sold by the record company, California officials said on Tuesday.
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Tacit admission of defeat IFA 07 Sony will next year kill off its Connect digital music download service, Register Hardware has learned. Its Walkman products will instead use Windows Media technology, the consumer electronics giant told its customers today.â¦
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Seeks $12m damages Record label Sony BMG is suing the maker of digital rights management (DRM) software which was accused of harming computers in 2005. The company is seeking $12m in damages to compensate for the effects of the software.â¦
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p2pnet.net News:- Here&#39;s an interesting twist on the Big Music and Microsoft All Pals Together (maybe) story. We reported that the Big Four record labels have given Microsoft a Wish List of the kind of DRM
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Sony Corp.'s music unit is abandoning its CDs that use built-in technology that limits copying them, after pushing the program for two years.
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Sony's decision to drop its ATRAC file format and shutter the Connect music store signals a radical departure for the electronics giant, which has tried for 15 years to market its proprietary file format as a viable competitor to MP3 and other digital music formats.